Kana Murakami's Rubin Museum Project

Kana Murakami

Professor Trusso

HUP105. 7351

April 19, 2017

Stories of Previous Lives of the Buddha (Jataka)

Rubin Museum of Art Project: Samsara and Tibetan Society

1. What attracted you to this work of art? Explain.

While a number of art works related to Buddhism are displayed in the museum, most of them which take up much space, especially pieces of tantric Buddhist art are much different from those I have been used to see in temples, museums, and a painting of Buddha that my parents have at home in Japan. However, strangely I felt familiarity to the one piece of those art works, Stories of Previous Lives of the Buddha (Jataka), painted in Tibet in the 17th century. Its composition, includes detailed depictions of many figures, buildings and other things, delineation of floating cloud in order to put many stories into one painting, separate two scenes and let them flow from one to another, or to add some depth and a sense of perspective, reminds me of Japanese paintings. Is there any relations between Tibetan and Japanese paintings through Buddhism? What is the difference of Buddhist doctrines penetrated into society between Tibet and other Buddhist countries? Moreover, the central figure of this painting, the Buddha Shakyamuni, putting a tranquil expression on his face, has a common appearance, in contrast to wrathful deities and female deities in tantric Buddhist art.

1. Give a detailed account of the artwork with background research.

In Tibetan society, samsara is inculcated to the extent that it became deeply rooted in life of a commoner as morality. However, at that point in time when Buddhism came down to Tibet, samsara was not taught as actual phenomena, or the system of a tulku was not existed, but the idea of samsara has merged with indigenous thoughts and reinforced in history. The origin of the Tibetan Buddhism is traceable back to the eighth century. In 770s, Trisong Detsen invited Shantarakshita, thought to be the greatest philosopher in a history of Buddhism in India, from Nalanda University, and built the first Buddhist monastery in Samye, Tibet. After that, a Chan monk named Moheyan threw Tibetan Buddhism into confusion with Buddhist doctrines. He taught Zen, sitting meditation, leads to enlightenment and the other things such as virtuous acts is unnecessary(Yamaguchi, 45). Indian Buddhist monks asserted that his teaching is self-centeredness and it constitutes a contradiction with the teaching of Mahayana Buddhism which aims at salvation, and provoked a controversy. In consequence of the disputation, Trisong Detsen admitted Indian Buddhism, Madhyamaka, as orthodoxy, and dismissed the Zen sect. While Madhyamaka has became dominant in Tibetan society since this religious debate, Buddhism was still under administration’s control. In the 17th century, when the artwork was painted, is the time the idea of samsara prevailed among Tibetan people. In 1642, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, the Fifth Dalai Lama, reunified Tibet after a protracted era of civil wars, which means that the tulku system has begun to elect religious and temporal leader of Tibet.

1. Explain how this artwork illuminates one major philosophical doctrine within Buddhism. What does the doctrine mean, and how is the artwork you chose a representation of it?

The artwork is an illustration of Jataka tales, which are the Buddhist literature native to India, which tells mainly about the previous lives of Buddha, Gautama Siddhartha in various life forms, such as human, deity, hell being and animal. The central figure of this artwork is also Buddha Shakyamuni, and the careful delineation of a deity, king, bodhisattva, monk, merchant, white elephant and a hungry ghost, surrounding him depicts his previous incarnations and their stories. Reincarnation is the central notion of Buddhism, which teaches what happens after we die. In Buddhism, there is no changeless, eternal soul that enters into new body from dead one. This idea of no-soul and no-self is called anatman or anatta which distinguishes its doctrine of transmigration from that in Hinduism. Although the account of the mechanism of it varies within Buddhist schools, the Pali scholar, Buddhaghosa explained transmigration as a flame of one candle being transferred to another candle. Karma—Our action, speech and mind, and its consequence, affects next life. The new body includes various other life forms, such as deity and animal, not only human being, and one repeats the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth innumerable times. This repetition of reincarnation is one of the most important Buddhist doctrines, called samsara. It is written 輪廻 in Japanese, 輪 represents a wheel, 廻 means turn around, thus it literally describes life endlessly repeating reincarnation as a wheel forming a circle. In Buddhism, samsara is taught to be the deepest suffering and liberation from it, nirvana, is the goal of its practice and a desirable state of mind, as in Hinduism. Therefore, by the depiction of Gautama Buddha’s previous lives and its stories, the artwork explains what samsara is, and teaches that it is possible for you to attain nirvana and to be a Buddha by practice, and may encourage you to do so, since he used to be a human being as you are.

1. Compare and contrast the above Buddhist doctrine to a Hindu doctrine (Brahman, Atman, Moksha, etc.). How are they similar? Different?

Originally, Buddhism has developed from the Indian religion, Hinduism, as Jainism and Sikhism have. The founder of Buddhism, Gautama Buddha, taught an alternative to Brahmanism being bounded by ritual in sixth century B.C.E. Therefore, a considerable number of its doctrines are derived from Sanatana Dharma, such as reincarnation, karma, samsara, moksha or nirvana. On the other hand, some of them has taken a complete different path from them, such as sunyata, anatman or anatta, upaya, Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path. While Brahman, the transcendent and absolute reality, and the eternal self or soul, atman which is linked with Brahman, as the most important symbol in Hinduism, Om represents Brahman, are the core conceptions of Hinduism, Buddhism denies the existence of an eternal soul. It preaches that all things including suffering, frustration and pleasure exist, however impermanently and evanescently, without intrinsic nature and essence, like a bubble or drops of dew that you can see and touch, but those are empty of nature, which is called emptiness, sunyata. The classic Buddhist text, Milinda Panha, dates from approximately 100 BCE, describing a dialogue between the king Menander I of Bactria and the sage Nagasena, tells us about the philosophical discussion about sunyata. Nagasena asked the king what a chariot is, and if components themselves disassembled from a chariot, such as wheels, axles and chassis, are still a chariot. The king answered a “chariot” is a notion or name that we give to components dependent on others, which means that there is no inherent nature or substance corresponds to a chariot. This idea of sunyata creates a huge differences as for reincarnation between Buddhism and Hinduism. Hinduism teaches us about afterlife, that the soul relinquishes the dead body and transmigrates a new one, being affected by accumulated karma in previous life. In contrast, since in Buddhism there is no belief about eternal soul, although karma is involved with rebirth in samsara and escape from this endless cycle, nirvana, is the desirable state of mind as the absolute goal of Hinduism is, as aforementioned, Buddhism insists that nirvana will be achieved only if there is no permanent, unchanging self, which means anatta. That is one of fundamental difference between those two religions.

1. Is Buddhism a religion? Is Buddha a God or something else? Cite ideas from the textbook and video The Buddha (PBS) to answer these questions.

While there is some debate as to whether Buddhism is a religion or philosophy, Buddhism is often considered as a non-theistic religion, which holds religious beliefs and performs ritual without involvement with or dependence on the existence or presence of deity. There is a creator, Brahma, which was adopted from Indian religions and is represented as a god in Buddhist tradition, but even this deity is caught in the cycle of death, birth and rebirth, samsara, as the three marks of existence explains three characteristics of all beings and existence are impermanence (anicca), suffering or frustration (dukkha) and non-self (anatta). Dharma is the key concept of Buddhist teachings as in Hinduism, they regard it as an ultimate truth. To quote His Holiness The Dalai Lama, “you are your own master. Future, everything depends on your own shoulder. Buddha’s responsibility is just to show the path,” (PBS) and Buddha encouraged his followers to examine his teaching for themselves and not to believe anything until they found it out to be true. According to the Oxford Dictionary, while one of the definition of philosophy is “a theory or attitude that acts as a guiding principle for behaviour,” religion is defined as “the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.” In comparison to Abrahamic religions, Buddhism focuses more on pursuit of truths than religious faith, and is less dogmatic. Buddhist teaching places emphasis on observing to moral principles and personal practice over any religious dogma, such as the Noble Eightfold Path, which is a practical guideline to living to set forth a systematic approach to gain freedom from suffering and frustration, and achieve the absolute goal, liberation. According to Living Religions, the Noble Eightfold Path was developed “to offer ways to avoid non-virtuous actions and create merit for a happy life and a favorable rebirth. Perfecting this path means final escape from the cycle of death and rebirth, and obtaining the peace of nirvana” (Fisher, 75). However, on the other hand, Buddhism certainly has religious aspects. As the art work titled Wheel of Life represents six kinds of realms of existence in afterlife, this metaphysical idea is a part of Buddhist teaching. Also, the final goal of Buddhist practice is achieving liberation, nirvana, which is the core concept of Buddhism and all personal practice is ultimately to accomplish this. Therefore, Buddhism is simultaneously a religion and philosophy. The founder of Buddhism is Siddhartha Gautama, who renounced his wealth and family, to be an ascetic, and later achieved full enlightenment. This turned out that Buddha means the Awakened One, a person who attained full enlightenment. Although Buddha is often mistaken for a god, since they are objects of worship, however he is not a god, but the teacher. “The Buddha spoke of his teachings as a raft to take us to the shore rather than a description of the shore or something to be carried around once we get there” (74). As aforementioned, Buddha does not give his teaching as the truth but instead guides us to the path to the truths with compassion.

1. What did you learn from this experience? How did it help you understand the nature of religion in a different way?

I grew up in Buddhist culture and believed I am familiar to it, however as I learned and researched about this project, rather I was shocked how ignorant I have been about it. I had no idea about the relevance between Hinduism and Buddhism and thought that the Buddha is a god in Buddhism. I was also deeply impressed with how much Asian cultures are shaped by Buddhist culture and doctrines, such as samsara, karma and the notion of impermanence. When I pay attention to conversation and words that we use everyday, there must be some influence of Buddhism. When I came to the United States I was surprised how religious country it is, that I can find reference to Christianity in everywhere, now it is the other way around, I am astonished at my country. For instance, there is a poem, Iroha, which is a perfect pangram and isogram, containing all character of the Japanese syllabary exactly once, thus used for learning alphabet. To translate,

Even colors are fragrant,

Will eventually scatter,

Who in the world,

Is unchanging?

The deep mountains of karma

Today we cross them

And we shall not have superficial dreams

Nor be intoxicated.

Although I did not fully understand what it means, as I learned the Buddhist central doctrine, emptiness, finally grasped the concept. Also, this project and a comparison with other religions, Hinduism and Abrahamic Tradition, gave me a new perspective of religion. Although my understanding of religion was having a belief system and performing religious practice and ritual depending on the presence of deity, to attain peace of mind, I realized it was only a small fraction of the nature of religion and in fact it is broader than that. While some religion teaches us the origin of the universe and gives meaning of life, Buddhism focuses more on encouraging people to pursue the truths rather than holding dogged belief.

2500 years ago, when science was not developed, religions might be used not only to ease people’s mind or alleviate grief, but to arouse a feeling of curiosity about where we came from, what would happen after we die, what the meaning of life is, and to answer those questions by depicting afterlife and other metaphysical and supernatural aspects.

Works Cited

"The Buddha." PBS. Public Broadcasting Service, n.d. Web. 7 April 2010.

Fisher, Mary Pat. Living Religions. Boston: Pearson, 2007. Print.

Yamaguchi, Zuihou. Tibet. Touyou, 1988. Print.