During his lifetime, the Buddha was never depicted in real life, in either paintings or graven images. In fact, for several centuries after his death, if he was depicted in a painting or sculpture, it was by a symbol such as a wheel (representing the doctrine of Buddhism), a tree (representing the Bodhi tree under which he attained enlightenment), a footprint or a stupa.
This reluctance to depict a true-to-life representation of the Buddha and the sophisticated utilisation of aniconic symbols even in scenes where there would be other human figures were probably influenced by some of the Buddha's sayings (for example in the Dighanikaya), which disapproved of the creation of pictures of the Buddha after he had passed away.
Gandhara and Mathura Art
It is difficult to ascertain when exactly the first human images of the Buddha were created - but scholars generally agree that it was not until about 500 years after his death that these appeared. These earliest images that have been identified are dated to a period just before the beginning of the Christian era, and were found to originate from two main centres: Gandhara in what is today’s Pakistan's North West Frontier Province and the region of Mathura, in what is now north-central India.
Just as in the case of Jesus Christ, none of the artists or sculptors who created these images had seen their subject in real life - so what they created was a stylised image of this great teacher.
Modern Buddha Images
In the present century, however, it is not unusual to find the Buddha represented in various forms – with features conforming to the physiognomy of the population in which the painting or image is created. It is not surprising therefore that the Buddha looks Chinese in statues found in Hong Kong - and contrastingly non-Chinese in images of made by devotees in Sri Lanka.
The most common type of Buddha image today depicts him meditating in the Lotus position - reminding Buddhists of the importance that meditation played in his life as well as the moment of his Enlightenment.
Examples of Buddha images
Among the better known Buddha images in the world are:
- The Walking Buddha in Sukhothai, the Archaeological Park in the ancient Thai capital city which is about half day’s drive northwest of Bangkok. This figure depicting the Buddha in walking meditation is an aspect that is not usually seen in other parts of the world.
- The gigantic Buddha in Po Lin monastery, Lantau Island, Hong Kong.
- The Samadhi image in Polonnaruwa, the capital of Sri Lanka during the 11th century. With a supremely serene expression on the face of the statue, this sculpture is a masterpiece of Sinhalese art.
- The massive Buddha statue (Daibutsu) cast in 1252 in Kamakura, Japan.
The various images of the Buddha created by sculptors and artists all over the world over the past two thousand years are intended to be not just the depiction of a historical person, but a representation of the human qualities that he perfected - namely compassion, wisdom, patience, generosity and kindness.
Sanjiva Wijesinha - Dr. Sanjiva Wijesinha, Associate Professor at Monash University medical school, writes on health, travel and medical topics.
