The Origin of the Buddha Image
Author : Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 32,19 MB
Release : 2001
Category : Buddhist art
ISBN : 9788121502221
The Origin and Meaning of the Image of the Buddha
Author : Piya Tan
Publisher :
Page : 74 pages
File Size : 41,44 MB
Release : 1988
Category :
ISBN :
Book Description
Emanated Buddhas in the Aureole of Buddhist Images from India, Central Asia, and China
Author : Tianshu Zhu
Publisher :
Page : 524 pages
File Size : 23,61 MB
Release : 2019
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781604979480
Book Description
This study examines the small figures, mostly Buddhas, depicted in the aureole of Buddha images. This motif has appeared in various places in Central Asia and East Asia throughout the centuries. By contextualizing these images in local history and local Buddhism, this book sheds light on issues in Buddhist history and cultural transmission.
The Art of Buddhism
Author : Denise Patry Leidy
Publisher : Shambhala Publications
Page : 149 pages
File Size : 32,32 MB
Release : 2008
Category : Art
ISBN : 1590305949
Book Description
More than two hundred photographs-most in stunning full color-provide the visual context for this tour of the world of Buddhist art. From the earliest second-century b.c.e. archaeological evidence to the nineteenth century this book showcases the marvelous variety of Buddhist art through the ages, from every country and region where Buddhism has influenced the culture in a significant way, including India, Afghanistan, Central Asia, China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and all the regions of Southeast Asia. Included in the rich variety of forms are architecture and monumental art, statuary, paintings, calligraphy, fresco, brushwork, and textile arts.
Behold the Buddha
Author : James C. Dobbins
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 25,97 MB
Release : 2020-03-31
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0824879996
Book Description
Images of the Buddha are everywhere—not just in temples but also in museums and homes and online—but what these images mean largely depends on the background and circumstance of those viewing them. In Behold the Buddha, James Dobbins invites readers to imagine how premodern Japanese Buddhists understood and experienced icons in temple settings long before the advent of museums and the internet. Although widely portrayed in the last century as visual emblems of great religious truths or as exquisite works of Asian art, Buddhist images were traditionally treated as the very embodiment of the Buddha, his palpable presence among people. Hence, Buddhists approached them as living entities in their own right—that is, as awakened icons with whom they could interact religiously. Dobbins begins by reflecting on art museums, where many non-Buddhists first encounter images of the Buddha, before outlining the complex Western response to them in previous centuries. He next elucidates images as visual representations of the story of the Buddha’s life followed by an overview of the physical attributes and symbolic gestures found in Buddhist iconography. A variety of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and other divinities commonly depicted in Japanese Buddhism is introduced, and their “living” quality discussed in the context of traditional temples and Buddhist rituals. Finally, other religious objects in Japanese Buddhism—relics, scriptures, inscriptions, portraits of masters, and sacred sites—are explained using the Buddhist icon as a model. Dobbins concludes by contemplating art museums further as potential sites for discerning the religious character of Buddhist images. Those interested in Buddhism generally who would like to learn more about its rich iconography—whether encountered in temples or museums—will find much in this concise, well-illustrated volume to help them “behold the Buddha.”
Setting Out on the Great Way
Author : Paul Maxwell Harrison
Publisher : Equinox Publishing (UK)
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 31,14 MB
Release : 2018
Category : Mahayana Buddhism
ISBN : 9781781790960
Book Description
Setting Out on the Great Way brings together different perspectives on the origins and early history of Mahāyāna Buddhism and delves into selected aspects of its formative period. As the variety of the religion which conquered East Asia and also provided the matrix for the later development of Buddhist Tantra or Vajrayāna, Mahāyāna is regarded as one of the most significant forms of Buddhism, and its beginnings have long been the focus of intense scholarly attention and debate. The essays in this volume address the latest findings in the field, including contributions by younger researchers vigorously critiquing the reappraisal of the Mahāyāna carried out by scholars in the last decades of the 20th century and the different understanding of the movement which they produced. As the study of Buddhism as a whole reorients itself to embrace new methods and paradigms, while at the same time coming to terms with exciting new manuscript discoveries, our picture of the Mahāyāna continues to change. This volume presents the latest developments in this ongoing re-evaluation of one of Buddhism's most important historical expressions.
The Buddha Image
Author : Yuvraj Krishan
Publisher : Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 36,82 MB
Release : 1996
Category : Art
ISBN : 9788121505659
Book Description
Illustrations: 247 b/w illustrations Description: This book deals with crucial though controversial questions in Buddhist art: the origin of the Buddha image and the iconography of the Buddha images. The earliest Buddhist art of Sanchi and Bharhut is aniconic : The Buddha is represented in symbols only. In the later Buddhist art of Gandhara and Mathura, the Buddha is represented in human form: he is the principal subject of sculptural art. The book seeks to explore the geographical area in which the image of the Buddha first emerged and whether the Buddhist doctrines-Hinayana or Mahayana-had anything to do with this transformation. The Buddha image, as developed eventually at Sarnath, became the model for the Buddha images in whole of Asia, south-east, central and eastern Asia. The iconographic features of the Buddha image are superficially an aberration, being in apparent conflict with the doctrine. The Buddha had cut off his hair at the time of his renunciation; the rules of the order enjoin that a monk must be tonsured and must discard and eschew all riches. However, in his images, the Buddha has hair on his head; later he is also endowed with a crown and jewels. After an exhaustive examination of the views of various scholars, the book answers these questions and resolves the controversies on the basis of literary, numismatic and epigraphic sources. More importantly it makes use of the valuable evidence from the contemporaneous Jaina art : Aniconism of early Jaina art and the iconographic features of Jaina images. The implications of this study are also important : Does India owe idolatry to Buddhism? Was this of foreign inspiration? Was the Buddha image fashioned after the Vedic Brahma and whether the Buddha's usnisa and Buddhist art motifs are rooted in the Vedic tradition? The book is profusely illustrated and provides rich and stimulating fare to students of Indian art in general and of Buddhist art in particular.
The Noble Eightfold Path
Author : Bhikkhu Bodhi
Publisher : Buddhist Publication Society
Page : 151 pages
File Size : 40,94 MB
Release : 2010-12-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 955240116X
Book Description
The Buddha's teachings center around two basic principles. One is the Four Noble Truths, in which the Buddha diagnoses the problem of suffering and indicates the treatment necessary to remedy this problem. The other is the Noble Eightfold Path, the practical discipline he prescribes to uproot and eliminate the deep underlying causes of suffering. The present book offers, in simple and clear language, a concise yet thorough explanation of the Eightfold Path. Basing himself solidly upon the Buddha's own words, the author examines each factor of the path to determine exactly what it implies in the way of practical training. Finally, in the concluding chapter, he shows how all eight factors of the path function in unison to bring about the realization of the Buddhist goal: enlightenment and liberation.
Surviving Nirvana
Author : Sonya S. Lee
Publisher : Hong Kong University Press
Page : 374 pages
File Size : 12,45 MB
Release : 2010-03-01
Category : Art
ISBN : 9622091253
Book Description
The Buddha's nirvana marks the end of the life of a great spiritual figure and the beginning of Buddhism as a world religion. Surviving Nirvana is the first book in the English language to examine how this historic moment was represented and received in the visual culture of China, of which the nirvana image has been a part for over 1,500 years. --Mining a selection of well-documented and well-preserved examples from the sixth to twelfth centuries, Sonya Lee offers a reassessment of medieval Chinese Buddhism by focusing on practices of devotion and image-making that were inspired by the Buddha's "complete extinction." The nirvana image, comprised of a reclining Buddha and a mourning audience, was central to defining the local meanings of the nirvana moment in different times and places. The motif's many guises, whether on a stone-carved stele, inside a pagoda crypt, or as a painted mural in a cave temple, were the product of social interactions, religious institutions, and artistic practices prevalent in a given historical context. They were also cogent responses to the fundamental anxiety about the absence of the Buddha and the prospect of one's salvation. By reinventing the nirvana image to address its own needs, each community of patrons, makers, and viewers sought to recast the Buddha's "death" into an allegory of survival that was charged with local pride and contemporary relevance.- -Thoroughly researched, this study engages methods and debates from the fields of art history, religion, archaeology, architecture, and East Asian history that are relevant to scholars and students alike. The many examples analyzed in the book offer well-defined local contexts to discuss broader historical and theoretical issues concerning representation, patronage, religion and politics, family values, and vision.--Sonya S. Lee is assistant professor of art history and East Asian languages and cultures at University of Southern California.-- -
Becoming the Buddha
Author : Donald K. Swearer
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 351 pages
File Size : 47,23 MB
Release : 2020-07-21
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0691216029
Book Description
Becoming the Buddha is the first book-length study of a key ritual of Buddhist practice in Asia: the consecration of a Buddha image or "new Buddha," a ceremony by which the Buddha becomes present or alive. Through a richly detailed, accessible exploration of this ritual in northern Thailand, an exploration that stands apart from standard text-based or anthropological approaches, Donald Swearer makes a major contribution to our understanding of the Buddha image, its role in Buddhist devotional life, and its relationship to the veneration of Buddha relics. Blending ethnography, analysis, and Buddhist texts related to this mimetic reenactment of the night of the Buddha's enlightenment, he demonstrates that the image becomes the Buddha's surrogate by being invested with the Buddha's story and charged with the extraordinary power of Buddhahood. The process by which this transformation occurs through chant, sermon, meditation, and the presence of charismatic monks is at the heart of this book. Known as "opening the eyes of the Buddha," image consecration traditions throughout Buddhist Asia share much in common. Within the cultural context of northern Thailand, Becoming the Buddha illuminates scriptural accounts of the making of the first Buddha image; looks at debates over the ritual's historical origin, at Buddhological insights achieved, and at the hermeneutics of absence and presence; and provides a thematic comparison of several Buddhist traditions.
