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Early Buddhist Art in India and Southeast Asia | Art History Basix | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Early Buddhist Art in India and Southeast Asia
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This content provides an overview of the historical development of Buddhism in India, tracing its origins from the Vedic period, the life and teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, and the evolution of Buddhist art and architecture through various historical periods and regions.
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OK -- our next video moves us into the period of Buddhism in India, so we are
returning to India. A few videos back, we were looking at the Indus Valley
Civilisation in Pakistan and into areas of India. However, at this point the
population is changing. The population is migrating, and we move into what's called
the VEDIC period. The Vedic period runs from about 1500 to 500 BCE. This is when
a number of texts are being produced, and there are some rituals of worshipping
gods that are being formalized around this time. These rituals are conducted by
priests -- or individuals of the highest orders or of the highest caste -- and this is
when the caste system is also being established. And these books of prayers
do survive. These four books called the Vedas were composed around 800, but
known orally before this. This caste system which is discussed in much
greater length in a number of other videos that you can find online. I just
wanted to introduce the caste system very briefly. The caste system in India
is very well known. It has been outlawed, but continues to have a great effect
throughout society in India today. It's quite complex, but
a very basic introduction to the caste system would be: the Brahmins (the
priestly caste -- the highest caste), then the warrior caste, then the farmers and
merchants, the peasants, and then those who are outside of the caste system -- the
outcasts or the untouchables. And this was all established within the Vedic
period. One of the goals was to escape a cycle of rebirth. This idea that you
would be reborn and depending on what you had done in your previous life.
Perhaps if you had earned good merits and you done good things,
you would move up into a higher caste. You would become something better than
you'd been in the life before. So this concept of SAMSARA was very pervasive in
India and will become important in both Buddhism and in Hinduism. And so this
ultimate objective is to break out of this endless cycle of rebirth because
life is painful and difficult. If you think about life thousands of years ago
it would have been especially challenging --especially if you
were a member of one of those lower castes. So to a reach point of
extinction or inaction -- to escape the cycle of rebirth is known as NIRVANA for
Buddhist and MOKSHA for Hindus so a very basic introduction to the Buddha
Shakyamuni or the historical Buddha: he was born Siddhartha
Gautama in the sixth century near the border of India and Nepal. So there's
always this debate of where exactly he was born, so I'll just say it was near
the border. He was born into a noble family of the warrior caste, so towards
the higher level of the caste system. He used meditation to reach
enlightenment and became known as the Buddha -- "the enlightened one" -- someone who
could enter nirvana, but he decided to remain on earth to teach others how to
reach enlightenment. And this took a long time for him to realize the way to
nirvana so he tried different techniques of really restricting himself, not eating.
There are images of the Buddha where his body is completely emaciated, so he was
trying all these different ways to reach this this path, to reach nirvana, to reach
enlightenment. And he has to try out a number of different ways to to finally
figure out the correct way. And his moment of enlightenment happened under a
Bodhi tree, so I have just a Bodhi tree leaf in the in the image here. You can
see the leaf here, and so you often do see Bodhi trees and leaves as one of the
markers of the Buddha in Buddhist art. So I wanted to include that there. He spent
the next 40 years teaching his doctrine or his DHARMA or law in northern India.
So he sets this dharma in motion. He starts spreading his his way of reaching
enlightenment, of reaching nirvana. So when we look at Buddhist art it is very
important to think about how do we recognize the Buddha? And the first part
of Buddhist art is what we call an aniconic -- we don't see images of the Buddha.
But I wanted to just introduce -- once we get to that iconic period -- how to
recognize the Buddha. And we're looking at an example of a Buddha from the
Gandhara period -- this larger Buddha here. So look for the
halo, the ushisha or or cranial bump, the third eye -- these were markers of his
knowledge, of his place as a special being or special individual.
He had these long pendulous earlobes, which were a marker that he did come
from an upper-class family and that he had left behind that life of luxury that
his ears had held very heavy jewelry, and so there's that marker of the
earrings, the heavy jewels, that had pulled on his ears. He
often holds a MUDRA or hand gesture. In this particular case, he holds his have
no fear gesture. So I always like to point out that in certain cultures, this
means stop, but when we see it in South Asian art, it means have no fear. So it's
important to make that kind of shift in your assumption. He generally wears very
simple garment. It's very simple clothes: a monk's robe. So if you see a being that
has a lot of jewelry on or very fancy garment that is generally not going to
be a Buddha. He is also generally barefoot -- another marker of leaving a
very simple existence. And here's just a close-up of Buddha's face so you can see
again that cranial bump, the third eye, and those pendulous earlobes. So the main
teachings of Buddhism are the Four Noble Truths and so he comes to this
realization that life is suffering and the reason for this suffering is our
desire. This is often translated in different ways and again there are a
number of videos on Buddhism that talk about this, but I always like to ask my
students what are the things that you desire that cause you great suffering?
And so they'll say things like a car or a new video game, or, you know, some people
want more time or love or again money. But these are things that, according to
Buddhism, these are impermanent these are not things that last. These
are things that are going to cause you this suffering. So this idea is to free
yourself from this desire and to follow what's called the Eightfold Path. And the
Eightfold Path is just right, view, resolve, speech, action, livelihood, effort,
mindfulness, and concentration, and really the best way to follow the fold path is
to become a Buddhist monk. This is really the goal of these monks to follow this
Eightfold Path quite precisely. But, of course, there are also a number of
practicing Buddhists who are not monks who attempt to follow this
Eightfold Path. So as I mentioned when Buddhism was first established and art
started being produced in India, it was an ANICONIC meaning we do not see the
Buddha represented. So in this particular example, we're seeing the Lion capital
from the Ashoka column. So Ashoka was the first ruler in northern India to become
Buddhist, to start following Buddhism. And this is what we call the MAURYAN
period, so a strong empire around this time known as the Mauryan period. It
dates to the third century BCE. This was on top of a column that marked the site
of the Buddha's first sermon at Sarnath. So with his first speech, the Buddha set
the wheel of dharma in motion, the wheel of this law. So you can see the wheel
right here. You can also see four animals represented: a bull, a lion, a horse, and an
elephant. And then four lions on the top that go out into the cardinal directions --
this idea of spreading Buddhism throughout the land. The Buddha was also
known, or the Buddha Sakyamuni, was known as the "Lion of his clan" so
this historical Buddha was known as having a prominent role in his family
and also having a loud, booming voice, like the roar of a lion. So that's an
interesting connection to the animals here. The Mauryan period was known for art
of high polish. So we see this stone, this polished sandstone that has been worked to
create an amazing amount of texture. So the difference between the fur of the a
of the lion, the legs, which are highly polished, and then the texture along the
base here [known as the abacus] and then you can see this element curving down along the column
capital -- the top of the column. You can see that it is a very large column
capital. So this is just to give you a sense of scale. You can also see that
this was part of a system of edicts of the ruler Ashoka that he moved around or
that he distributed around his territory, as a way of
spreading his ideas and spreading information about his rule.
So Ashoka did decide to convert to Buddhism after a long period of
spreading his empire and going through a lot of warfare where thousands of people
had died and had been injured and so he comes to this realization about life and
about living in a Buddhist way. This column capital is very important in
India, so we see it actually in a lot of historical seals and the flag -- you see
the wheel incorporated into it. You can see an old postage stamp. So it's very,
very well known. This is the base of the lion capital pillar in its
original site in the Deer Park at Sarnath. So this is the location where
the Buddha's first sermon took place. Another example of that wonderful
Mauryan polish is a figure we called a Chauri Bearer or the YAKSHI. So a yakshi
is a fertility figure. So again, there's a debate about exactly who she is but
there's a kind of nice connection back to those fertility figures from the
Indus Valley. We also see that wonderful Mauryan polish again and that interest
in texture, so we can see that her breasts, her stomach, her face all have
this high polish, this high level of finish. And then around her hips, around
her ankles, around her wrists, we see bangles and jewelry. We can see how along
her legs. There's this very thin fabric covering up her legs and then you can
see along the back the same fabric here, very ornate hairstyle. The CHAURI is just
the fly whisk that she's holding, so you can see that in her
hand. It dates to around the same century as the lion column capital. And the debate
is: is she a fertility figure? Or is she more of a courtesan from the Mauryan
court? So we're not a hundred percent sure, but those are two possibilities
that have been suggested. But I wanted to show her to you as an example of again
and the wonderful example of this Mauryan polish, this interest in texture, the
wonderful sculpture that we see from this very early period, and also that
idea of fertility continuing on into this later period. So one of the earliest
Buddhist monuments is the stupa, and so to commemorate the Buddha's death or
what is PARINIRVANA, where he's moving into
this point of extinction, is the stupa. And so his remains were distributed
amongst a group of stupas and then this number of stupas became much larger,
thousands of stupas were created as a way again to commemorate the Buddha and
as places of meditation for followers of Buddhism. So the way the stupa works is
you enter through a torana through one of the gates, which are placed at the
cardinal points, so north, south, east, and west and then you circumambulate the
structure and this is to encourage your meditative practice. This is a very
significant stupa. There are actually smaller
stupas around it, as well as VIHARAS, which are the monks cells and places for
monks to live, Buddhist monks to live. And it was enlarged over many periods, so
it was enlarged and renovated over many periods. So it did become this very
important site. The site overall has a very, kind of, celestial quality to it. You
can see it almost looks like it's echoing the heavens. And if we get into
some details, just to go back quickly -- this is just an aerial view and then a
view from the side to see the elevation. If we see this other view, you can see
the components of the stupa, so you have the chattra -- the umbrellas at the mast
this crowns the entire stupa and refers to the three jewels of Buddhism: the
Buddha, the law, and the community of monks. The TORANA are the gateways, which
in this case are heavily adorned with sculpture. You have the railings or fence
which demarcates the secular space for more sacred space when you enter in to
begin more of a meditative practice. You circumambulate, so you move in circles
and then also there are stairs that lead to this upper level. There are relics
located inside the dome, so this is this idea of commemorating the the death of
the Buddha or his transition to nirvana. Sometimes it can also be Buddhist texts,
and so you have this idea that it could be a variety of objects, but early on it
was remnants of the Buddha's body. And then there's a pillar that runs through
the middle. In art history, we often call this the idea of the AXIS MUND, this
idea of connecting the heavens and earth, the terrestrial and the celestial. And so
the pillar runs through the length of the
dome, symbolizing the universal cosmic pillar that divides the heaven and earth.
We see another idea of fertility on this structure, so on one of the
TORANA, one of the gates -- this is the east TORANA -- we see a very famous figure
that's often called a YAKSHI. She could also be called a bracketing figure
because she's featured on [end of] the torana. She's in this "three bends pose" so her
body is moving in different directions. It's emphasizing a
dynamic pose. And so what we see here is a figure who clearly does have some
links to fertility. With the touch of her toe, this tree seems to spring to life
and bear fruit. She obviously looks very curvy similar to the Chauri bearer we
just saw, so there's an emphasis on her breasts and her soft belly. In this case,
however, we can see her genitalia and that's a reason people believe that -- if
we go back to the Chauri bearer that this figure might not be a yakshi because
her bottom portion is still covered up. She still had does have obviously very
large breasts and a soft belly, but in this case this figure is much more
revealed. Both women however are heavily adorned with bracelets and all these
bangles on their wrists and on their ankles giving in a sense of sound and
this idea that if the figure was moving the jewelry would be kind of moving
around and making wonderful sounds. It's fairly large about 60 inches and so
people often say that this decoration refers back to older traditions of
Indian art, that it doesn't necessarily link to Buddhist iconography, that it's
more the traditions of Indian art that are then being carried into the
decoration of Sanchi stupa. We also see a number of Jatakas that are represented
on the Sanchi stupa including the monkey jataka or that also known as the
great ape jataka. So there were over 500 stories of the Buddha's past lives
So the idea that the Buddha had to work through so many
different challenges in order to make it, to becoming the Buddha, the enlightened
one, the individual who could make it to nirvana. And so the story goes
that there was a Monkey King and this was the this is the Buddha, and he's
obviously a very good king and a very worthy king. There's a mango tree
that he and the monkeys that he leads have access to and there's also an
earthly king a human king who tries the mangoes and realizes that they're
wonderful and wants to have full access to this
tree. And so one day they catch the monkeys eating the mangoes and so the
Buddha in the form of the Monkey King helps all of his monkeys escape across
the river and so they create this bridge so the monkeys can escape and to be safe
so that this human King doesn't attack them. And so all the monkeys escape and
the Buddha is risking his life to do this in the form of a monkey, however,
there's always a bad guy in these jatakas stories and so eventually this
bad monkey [Devadatta] breaks the back of the Buddha -- of the monkey king -- and and, of course, then the monkey dies however not before the [human] king realizes that the
monkey was a great figure. And the monkey king is then given a
wonderful funeral. You can see that there's kind of this connection between
the two, but just the idea that these stories have a reoccurrence of the
Buddha offering himself, giving himself, and really making this kind of ultimate
sacrifice -- willing to give his own body to help others, and we see this in other
Jataka stories as well. We also see in aniconic form, the departure of the Buddha
from his palace, leaving behind his very fancy life where he was part of this
warrior caste, part of the this noble family. So we can see the palace that
he's leaving behind and then we can see these umbrellas that mark his movement
away from the palace life and eventually moving towards a more enlightened
existence. And so you can just see his footprints here so, again, there's no
representation of the Buddha's body or in this an iconic phase. So it's more
about the umbrella marking his presence, his footprints,
the horse is supposed to mark his presence however we're not seeing his
body yet. The wheel of course - there you can see the wheel and the columns is
connecting back to the idea of the columns of Ashoka. Alright, we're going
to move into that ICONIC period with the Kushan Empire. And so in the Kushan
Empire, we have two capitals the Gandhara so you have the capital in Gandhara and
then Mathura capital. And we see two different styles of the Buddha
developing around this time. So I'm just showing you a map of the Silk Road to
orient you, to give you a sense of where the Kushan Empire was. And then again the
empire here, and it bridges between Pakistan and India. So again this is an
iconic period. For the Mathura style, we mostly see a red sandstone we see a very
full fleshy Buddha. We see very broad shoulders and a very thin waist, however,
there's a certain softness to the belly, which we've seen before. This is often
interpreted as implying control of the breath. In this case, we see to
supporting figures -- attendants -- on either side the Buddha is holding up his hand
in a "have no fear" gesture. He's in a cross-legged pose. You can see the wheel
down below indicating the wheel of his law or the dharma. You can see the Lions
again. So similar symbols are being used over and over again. The third eye is
indicated, the ushnisha, or cranial bump is missing. It seems to have been knocked
off, so perhaps it was added separately. You can see that the garments are again
quite simple, and the Buddha is barefoot. If we zoom in, you can see that
expression. It tends to often have a kind of a soft smile, but this is the very
traditional style that we see with the Mathura period, so we are seeing the
Buddha starting to be very established. The Gandhara style, however, is very
different. And I want to think a little bit about the fact that Alexander the
Great around this time was moving all the way over to the area of Pakistan and
India. So if we move over to the capital Gandhara -- right
here -- we see a very different style of the Buddha. The Buddha looks very
Greco-Roman, so there's a heavy emphasis on drapery, the body is revealed beneath,
the body is a little substantial, a little more muscular
muscular. So I just have a quick comparison between a Gandhara Buddha and
a Roman Emperor here. And then two key works to show you -- just comparing a
a Buddha (WOOPS -- I finally got it!) with a bodhisattva. You can see the Buddha -- again very simple
garment. He would be barefoot you can see the ushnisha and the halo, compared to
what's called a bodhisattva maitreya. So in this tradition known as Mahayana
Buddhism -- or Buddhism of the greater vehicle -- you see this emphasis on
Bodhisattvas and multiple Buddhas, the possibility of more Buddhas beyond the
historical Buddha. So the Bodhisattva is an
individual who has attained enlightenment who knows the way to
nirvana but has chosen to stay behind to help others reach enlightenment. And
maitreya means "a Buddha of the future." And so you can see that this is clearly
not a Buddha. The figure is heavily adorned. He has a more elaborate
hairstyle. He looks more like a princely figure. So that's an easy way to identify
a bodhisattva versus a Buddha. A bodhisattva usually looks much more like
a princely figure versus a Buddha. Moving on to the Gupta period. The Gupta period
is a empire that will dominate again northern India. Most of what we've been
seeing so far is in the north. And we see, again, a very different type of style for
the Buddha. So, so far we've seen the Mathura; we've seen the Gandhara style --
that Greco-Roman style -- and then finally we have this Gupta style as we move
slightly later in time. With the Gupta style, we start to see much tighter
garments and a much thinner style Buddha. So here we see the Buddha preaching his
first sermon from sarnath from the 5th century. It's relatively large -- a little
over 5 feet. And here we see the Buddha holding a mudra where he's turning the
wheel of law, so it's a very appropriate mudra for Sarnath because this is
where his first sermon took place -- that the location where we were talking about
the column of Ashoka with the Lions on top. So it would make sense that
he's starting to turn his wheel of law. You can see the wheel and followers
looking towards it again in this bottom area here. And then you can see celestial
apsaras on either side on a very large halo. Let's go over these basics of the
Gupta style -- it's very serene, very smooth body. You can see there are some wrinkles
around the neck, but otherwise the body is incredibly smooth the drapery is
either imperceptible apart from some very light hem lines. You can just see a
hem line right here. The face is very full and fleshy. You see these snail
shell curls right here, and then this Gupta smile, so just this very gentle
smile with bee-stung lower lip and bow-like upper lip, so there are some very
distinct features to notice. So a little game here. I always like to play this:
which style is it as we're going through this early iconic period? You can pause
it if you want to guess. But looking at these figures you should recognize the
the gray stone with the Greco-Roman style. This is the
Gandhara. The very tight [garment], smooth bodied figure with the snail shell curls. That's
the Gupta style, so you can see that tight garment with again that kind of very
light hemline and that's the Gupta style very slender, too, we often see with the
Gupta style. And then this full fleshier figure, that's the Mathura style. Alright
also in the Gupta period, we have this wonderful example of cave painting. So
the caves at Ajanta are this large horseshoe-shaped system of caves.
Caves go all the way back to very ancient periods in India. This idea of
carving into the living rock was very significant. And we see this for early
Buddhist monk. We also see rock-cut caves in Hinduism, as well, so please keep
it in mind for both. We're going to be looking at two different caves
VIHARA -- so monk's cells. And then we're going to be looking at a
CHAITYA, so we look at that in cave 19. So looking at cave 1,
the vihara, you can see it's a large courtyard with
these individual cells along the outside. As we go in, you can see it has one large
sculpture of the Buddha. You could see those snail shell curls again typical of
the Gupta style, however, the body is a bit more substantial here. Obviously
going into these caves, it would be incredibly dark,
however, there may have been some kind of illumination. Obviously, people could
bring lamps with them so that they could see these wonderful paintings. So
sculpture tends to survive longer than painting. However, if a painting is inside of a
cave, it does have a better chance -- a good chance -- of surviving. However you can see it is
very, very detailed [and still somewhat damaged from age and exposure]. We have some exceptional representations of exceptional representations of
Bodhisattvas within these caves. So in this particular case, you can
see a close-up of a bodhisattva with an incredibly high crown, a necklace, holding
onto a lotus flower, which is a Buddhist symbol this idea of the Lotus springing
forth from the muck of the pond. And you can get a sense of the wonderful colors
that would have been used. There were also Jataka tales that were told within
these caves so that's important to know as well. So let's look at the CHAITYA
hall. You can see that it's heavily sculpted on the
exterior and then as we go in it's more of an axial entrance, so more of a
hallway that you're entering into with columns on either side. And these Chaityas go again back in history to the early Buddhist period. You can see that
there is the representation of a small stupa at the center and then again heavy
a sculpture decoration on either side, but the vihara and the chaitya are very important structures in this idea of carving into the living
rock and creating these types of spaces for worship. And there you could just
see it an example of the chaitya hall. Quickly moving into Southeast Asia. I
just wanted to show you how some of these Styles were incorporated
especially the stupa into the area of Indonesia and then also Myanmar. So let's go over to Borobudur in Indonesia. And if we look
at Borobudu, you can see that it's a very unusual take on a stupa. You
obviously can see that there's a stupa here at the top and then lots of smaller
stupas all along the way, all within the form of a tiered stupa -- more or less. The
whole structure is intended to encourage meditation -- the idea that
you're moving through these levels -- one level to the next -- essentially getting
closer and closer hopefully to enlightenment, to nirvana.
From an aerial perspective, it has a great similarity to a mandala,
which is a cosmic diagram to aid in meditation whether this was intended
it's not necessarily known, but it's a possibility. There's another aerial view
to give you a better sense of Borobudur. And then you can see there are snakes
along the base. I just want to take you up, kind of, level by level so you would
be moving through areas of light and dark as you go through Borobudur. You
would also be encountering these kind of hidden Buddhas early on. So there's kind
of these glimpses of the Buddha as you move from one level to the next.
You can see that it has over 1,400 small stupa, 72 perforated
stupas at the top, and one closed central stupa. The close central stupa is empty,
so there's this debate whether there was something inside of it originally, but, if
not, there's this idea of extinction, this idea of reaching enlightenment, of not
you're not having the need to have a physical presence by the time you've
reached enlightenment on this highest level. There are stories of good works so
for example there's a representation of a king, King Uposadha is distributing alms. So this idea of gaining merits in life to get you to that point of reaching
nirvana, of doing good things. So you can see the king in his pose of royal ease
while figures are passing out things to those in need. As we move to the higher
level, we reach those perforated stupas and if you gaze within the perforated
stupas you would actually encounter a Buddh -- so you can see these little
glimpses inside. And then in that in this one you see the Buddha starting to turn
the wheel of law, to set the wheel of law in motion, to teach his dharma. And then
we have buddha's facing different directions doing different mudras: so
there's the earth touching gesture -- calling the earth to witness [his enlightenment], it's the
idea of the earth touching. There's the South, where there's a giving gesture,
there's a meditative gesture, and then I have-no-fear gesture, so depending on the
direction that the Buddha's are facing. So a very comprehensive monument and a
monument that really is intended to assist those in meditation and
a real interesting design in terms of how it changes as you're moving from
this world of desire and attachment in the lower level to this area of nirvana
and greater enlightenment at the top. The last example I want to just show you
it's just -- very quickly -- from Myanmar in Southeast Asia. This wonderful this
wonderful construction program from the from the kingdom of PAGAN. And so this
dates to much later, about a thousand years ago or slightly less. You have this
great building period of thousands of temples and stupas. So many people show
this in, like, travel shows. They'll show this area where there are these endless
number of stupas and temples. About 2,000 of them survive, but I wanted to
quickly show it because obviously you can see how the stupa changes as it
enters into Southeast Asia. How the design is slightly modified. We saw that
in Borobudur in Indonesia. But also you can see the great variety that
existed with the Pugan temples in Myanmar. You can see also here
just another image. It's often showed with this mist going through it.
And also it's been in grave danger due to earthquakes there have been a number
of earthquakes that have damaged these structures they are predominantly made
of brick. But a wonderful overview of the kind of mass construction of these
Buddhist monuments by the 11th century. So I hope that was a good intro -- long
intro -- to Buddhism. We'll be moving on to examples from the Silk Road and China in
the next video.
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