Page 14 - Christie's, materpieces of Buddhist Art December 2, 2015 HK

Buddhism:
The Light of Asia
This sale features fourteen masterworks of Buddhist
art that reveal both the diversity and the continuity of sheltered existence filled with luxury and pleasure, Siddhartha
the Buddhist tradition through various media, cultures,
and chronological periods. From China, Nepal, Tibet, and
Japan, the works range in date from the fifth-sixth century to
the eighteenth century and embrace diverse media, including
sculptures, painting, and textiles.
Harvard professor Kenneth K.S. Chen once termed Buddhism
“the light of Asia”, partly as a play on the word “enlightenment” inheritance and to his father’s throne, and to espouse the
but, more importantly, as a means of underscoring the role
the religion played as a constant in the various Asian cultures
to which Buddhism spread.1 Indeed, though Buddhism
evolved over time, its basic tenets remained the same as it
spread from culture to culture, just as its iconographic types
remained recognizable from one culture to the next. Focusing
on Buddhism itself and the subjects of Buddhist art, this
short essay will explore continuities while also touching on
differences.
THE BUDDHA AND THE ORIGINS OF BUDDHISM
Siddhartha Gautama (traditionally, c. 563–c. 483 BC), who
would become the Buddha, was born in the Lumbini Grove
in the small state of Kapilavastu, in present-day Nepal.2 Born
into the Shakya clan as a crown prince, he was a member of
the Kshatriya, or Warrior, caste; according to the religious and
societal rules of the day, he should have become a warrior and
eventually to have succeeded his father as king. At the time
of his birth sages predicted that he would become either a
great ruler or a great religious teacher. Fearing that Siddhartha
might indeed take up the religious life, which would violate the
rules of his caste — the performance of religious and priestly
duties being the domain of members of the Brahmin caste —
his father, King Suddhodana, kept his son within the confines
of the palace, training him in the martial arts and providing
him with everything he could want, so that he would not be
12 Masterpieces of Buddhist Art 大俱足 — 經典亞洲佛教藝術
distracted from the warrior-statesman path. After leading a
at age 29 ventured outside the palace on four excursions
that have become known as the Four Encounters. In those
excursions, he happened first upon an old man, then a sick
man, then a corpse, and finally an ascetic. Upon reflection,
he realized that the only individual who seemed to be at
peace with himself and with the world was the ascetic, which
prompted him to leave the palace, rejecting all claims to his
religious life.
After six years of questioning many wise teachers and holy
men and after experimenting with the different paths to
enlightenment that they taught, from extreme asceticism
to over-indulgence, Siddhartha came to understand that
the proper mode of existence was the Middle Path, which
advocated consuming only that which one truly needs and
scrupulously avoiding extremes. He further came to understand
that the main obstacle to enlightenment and thus to release
from the samsara cycle of birth and rebirth is desire, which led
him to propose and promulgate the Four Noble Truths—known
in Sanskrit as the Catvari aryasatyani and in Chinese as the
Sishengdi —which constitute the basic, foundational teachings
of Buddhism:
1 — All life is suffering
2 — Suffering arises from desire
3 — To eliminate suffering, one must eliminate desire
4 — To eliminate desire, one must follow the Eight-fold Path
With understanding of the Middle Path and of the Four Noble
Truths in place, Siddhartha at age 35 achieved enlightenment
(Sanskrit, bodhi; Chinese, puti) while meditating under the
Bodhi Tree. From that time onward Siddhartha has been
known as the Buddha, meaning “the Enlightened One”, or,
more specifically, as the Buddha Shakyamuni, “Shakyamuni”