Parallels drawn between ancient Indian arts and the Buddha

My son described in superlatives an exhibition at the Metropolitan

Museum in New York. Then followed an article in the New York Times which gave me a western writer’s perspective of the Buddha and some of the Indian arts that followed for around ten centuries thereafter, until Hinduism completely eclipsed Buddhism in its country of birth. I was also sent the catalog of the Museum exhibition.

The article in the NYT is by Holland Cottora dated July 21 and titled Buddhist Art from India: where the Natural meets the Supernatural. The Met exhibition carries the title: Tree and Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE – 400 CE. Cottora starts his article with the press opening of the Metropolitan Museum’s ‘beyond beautiful’ exhibition where a “stunning display of ancient Buddhist art – rare loans including dozens of objects that have never been exhibited out of India” was collected over a decade by the Met’s curator of South and South Eastern art, John Guy, and then organized for display in different rooms. Over 50 objects were on loan from India, others from the UK, Europe, and the US, totally 125. “Given the monumental glow of the sculptures, each lighted to look deep-carved from darkness, you probably wouldn’t think to guess at the difficult, always tentative processes – logistical and diplomatic that went into gathering them together …”

Pictures of the opening showed five Buddhist monks seated and chanting; the note below the picture saying they were from Queen’s. A group of visiting Indian museum directors were also photographed, thanked by John Guy in his opening address.

The Crux of the article and also exhibition

The crucial point made was the development or change in the manner in which the Buddha was represented in art after his death and much later. I quote here from the Met’s catalog: “This is the story of the origins of Buddhist art. The religious landscape of ancient India was transformed by the teachings of the Buddha, which in turn inspired art devoted to expressing his message.

Sublime imagery adorned the most ancient monumental religious structures in ancient India, known as stupas. The stupa not only housed the relics of the Buddha but also honored him through symbolic representations and visual story telling. Original relics and reliquaries are at the heart of this exhibition, which culminates with the Buddha image itself. It transports visitors into the world of early Buddhist imagery that gave expression to this new religion as it grew from a core set of ethical teachings into one of the world’s great religions.” Objects associated with Indo-Roman exchange reveal India’s place in early global trade.

Installation views of Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE– 400 CE, on view July 21–November 13, 2023 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photos by Anna-Marie Kellen, courtesy of The Met.

Cottora writes about the Buddha’s progress from “a man of many senses, a worldly one with a depressive streak that had him ponder the fact of mortality and its woes. Once out there, he soon became aware that he was in a spiritually charged terrain, one perceived and revered by grass roots nature cults. Trees had souls, birds spoke and serpents wielded protective powers. Thus first monuments were stupas based on the tradition of South Asian funerary markers – domes of fired brick and packed earth.

” The first exhibits at the Met are stupas – first century AD. He says that the origin of most of the exhibits was Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh, a place the Buddha had not visited. Trees, serpents, nature spirits, an empty throne, a wheel, a flaming column, a footprint or pair of footprints was how the Buddha was depicted, even in scenes of his life. “It’s as if his release from the anxiety of mortality, which he had worked hard to achieve, to return him to bodily form seemed to be sacrilegious and a shame. Unafffectability was his great reward, a badge of Buddhahood; one he urged us all to try to earn.”

With Western influence coming in due to trade with Greece, Rome and other Mediterranean countries, the figure of the Buddha appeared in human form together with relics, Thus serpent deities and tree spirits faded away. Only the Dharma Wheel remained. Proof is available in plenty to show that Indian trade widened. A carved figure of an Indian goddess yakshini was found buried in Pompeii.

Various explanations are given for the hair and top knot in Buddha statues. One retrieved is that when Prince Siddhartha cut his hair with his sword, uncut portions snapped into curls and he never had to cut it again. The knot at the top is from the Gandara area (now parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan) where the style was for men to have their hair in a knot on top of their heads. The article and museum catalog I quote above make no mention of these details.

Retrieved also and remembered from classes on Greek and Roman civilization is the following: “Drapery of the classical and Hellenistic periods of Greek art sometimes appears purely as a foil for nudity, clinging and spiraling around the body. Often the effect occurs in response to the compositional requirements rather than to any natural phenomenon of dressing practice”. (Recalled is the exquisite tracing of the robe on the Buddha statue at Aukana). Relevance to this article is that the classical period in Greece was 480-323 BCE and Hellenistic 323-146 BCE. This was about the time that in India symbols to depict the Buddha were replaced by the human form. The drapery of the robe is obviously influenced by Greek styles.

Depiction of the Buddha in early Lanka

I refreshed my memory on dates of ancient Buddhist sites in Sri Lanka and found ancient sites and monuments were consistent with the main message of the exhibition at the Met. Mihintale’s prominence was in the second century BC. Mahinda Thera arrived in the island and preached to Devanampiya Tissa circa 247 BC. And what were built then for veneration to the Buddha? Stupas. We who climbed those 1840 wide steps between white blossoming araliya trees was to pay homage at the three great stupas at the top – Ambastala, Kantaka and Maha Dagoba; to marvel at the top of the rock that was the spot where Thera Mahinda stood with his group of five. We then moved to view Thera Mahinda’s bed of a stone slab to revere him and fill our hearts and minds with gratitude to him. It was President Ranasinghe Premadasa who stuck a stark white Buddha Statue up there among the ancient stupas, during his Mihintale Gam Udawa. To me, frankly, a sacrilege, like the new dagoba constructed by the Rajapaksa regime in the heart of the Anuradhapura sacred area of ancient stupas.

Then just as in India, statues of the Buddha appeared in ancient Lanka – just one of prominence in Anuradhapura (377 BC -1017 AD) – the Samadhi Buddha. It is during the Polonnaruwa Period: 1017 – 1233 AD that the Buddha statue came into full glory. Words are inadequate to describe the serenity, beauty, carving skill and wonder of the statues in the Gal Vihara.

Of course I speak here of colossal dagobas and statues; while the Metropolitan Museum exhibition had much smaller relics, stupas and figures. My point is to show that periods and dates tally with the progression of the depiction of the Buddha from stupas to symbols to the human form.