2b. The Shaping Cultural Expression of Buddhist Art

[Full title: The spread of Buddhist art in Vietnam and South East Asia (b): The Shaping Cultural Expression of Buddhist Art]

Buddhism was introduced into South East Asia by the second or third century until the sixth and seventh centuries it became flourishing all through areas, enjoying most success among the Mon peoples. Mahayana and Vajrayana systems were reported by Chinese pilgrims in the seventh century, but Theravada Buddhism ultimately came to dominate most of the region. The earliest Buddhist images were the sculptures carried from India by monks and traders, known today from several large bronzes discovered at widely differing sites, from the Celebes Island to Vietnam, Thailand and Java. The religion became so widely accepted among the diverse cultures that probably more Buddhist images have been produced in this area than in any other region of Asia, and surely no single country has produced more temples and stupas than Burma. According to Ananda K. Coomaraswamy an earliest Buddhist stupas, brick buildings were built in about fifth century onwards^[1] at Tagaung, Prome, Thaton and other places. These monuments, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy assumed it in or closely related to the Gupta tradition.

P.V. Bapat also assumed that the earliest Burmese stupas are simpler to Indian prototypes:

“The Ngakye Nadaun stupa of the 10^th century A.D. from Pagan is almost similar to the Dhamekh stupa at sarnath.”^[2]

Or in the Ananda temple at Pagan, which belongs to 11^th century represent scenes from the life of Buddha, it is nearer to old Indian Amaravati. Pagan was founded in 849 on the banks of a sheltered bend in the river Irrawaddy. Pagan was the capital city of Burma for over 230 years (11^th–13^th centuries). It as Theravada Buddhism the state religion–previously a combination of Mahayana Buddhism and Brahmanism had been practiced. During Pagan’s brief life this plain had created about 30.000 temples, pagodas, and stupas. The Buddha statues or sculpture are rather scanty. One of the earliest statue made in fifth century reflect Gupta tradition, and exhibiting in Boston museum. Mostly the reliefs and images were found in Pagan belong to 8^th–13^th centuries. In Thailand Buddhist art can be separated into two distinct periods: The dvaravati period by Mon peoples. Most Dvaravati structures, stupas and temples were made of laterite and brick, laid with vegetable glue mortar, with stucco and carved stone added for decoration.^[3]

A comparison between small votive stupas, which generally repeat Indian forms, and the ruins of Dvaravati stupas, frequently rebuilt over the years, indicates an early preference for towering spires and square, multi-storey bases faced with rows of niches containing terracotta figures. Comparable styles can also be found among the later Burmese stupas at Pagan. Dvaravati stone foundations also suggest similarity with Burmese temples. The first Dvaravati images may well be the earliest original Buddhist sculptures of South East Asian, as the French art historian Boisselier has note, and their facial features suggest a Mon ethnic type, despite their Gupta and south-east Indian antecedents.^[4] Represent for this type is the bronze Buddha of the Kangra brass in the museum at Lopbiri in sixth century. The end of the Dvaravati period is marked with the Cambodian invasions of the tenth century, and the art is modified by Khmer styles until the establishment of an independent kingdom at Sukhothai, beginning around 1240 and lasting until 1438. The most distinctive Khmer religious belief was the cult of the god-king, inherited from south India and Funan, but expanded beyond its original scope. The concept of the divine/human king as the focus of the universe influenced the layout of temple complexes, with the primary shrine being the temple mountain, the centre of the universe. The grandest examples were the Angkor Wat, a Hindu monument, and the nearby Buddhist structure, the Bayon, the focal point of the enormous Angkor Thom complex. Most Khmer Buddhist monuments belong to the thirteenth century reign of Cambodia’s greatest builder, Jayavarman VII. His greatest structure, the Bayon, closely follows earlier Khmer practice with its pyramidal towers, walls of relief carvings and cosmological orientation. The central pillar of the ‘world mountain’ had to be rooted in the earth to a depth equal to the height of its spire that rises into the sky. Before the rising of Angkor; Funan was be seen as a strong empire in South East Asia,^[5] it was in the first century AD. It is a kingdom was founded in the lower valley of the Mekong, and played an important role in the development of Buddhism in South East Asia. There is evidence that all the various Indian cults existed in Funan, a beautiful and well preserved standing figure of Avalokitesvara was found in Rach Gia province South Vietnam (Funan), now in private possession in museum at Saigon city. A standing female figure from Phnom Da, with some others, may date from the fourth century or standing Buddha figures from ta keo in the simplicity of the form they are very closely related to the rock-cut Buddhas of Ajanta and some Gupta types from Sarnath. The architecture of Funan not much has been seen only a few foundations of buildings found at Oc Eo, with roofs containing many minute storeys with decorated niches, reproduce the characteristic features of the architectural monuments of Funan. In the sixth century Funan lost its supremacy by Angkor empire and so that Indochina region there is still only ancient Champa on the east side of the peninsula and till its disappeared by Vietnamese.

To observe the Champa art, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy has been written as:

“The ancient art of Champa is closely related to that of Cambodia, but almost all the temples are isolated Sikhara shrines of brick, with stone doorways, or groups of such towers with their related structures.”^[6]

However; the celebrated Buddha discovered at Dong Duong in Quang Nam; a bronze statue in style of Gupta that some scholar assumed near that of Amaravati and Anuradhapura.^[7] Beside that a great Buddhist shrine at Dong Duong in honour of Lokesvara. Although that of some evidence for Buddhist period in Champa, but it does not tell us much about Buddhism in Champa, which was a country chiefly characterized by its deep attachment to Hinduism, apart from the period of Buddhist expansion at the end of the ninth century. Beside the development of Buddhist art on mainland South East Asia were the Malay Peninsula also an important part of Buddhist art in South East Asia on islands. From those in the Indonesian Buddhist art in particularly so with temple architecture, that the mythical mount Meru is the central concept of South East Asian. The temples are in effect models of mount Meru, which in Buddhist philosophy the seat of the guardian of the world. In other words South East Asian temples, like south eastern houses, are seen as reflecting a specific image of the universe; for those who built these temples, it is only when the relationship between the macrocosm and the microcosm is ordered can harmony rule in the world. Indian influences came to Indonesia through merchants who traveled to Indonesia and brought religious objects with them, these as Hindu deities or Buddha figures.^[8] Thus Indonesian slowly adopted these religions, as early as the 7^th century A.D. there had been a lively exchange between India, the Southeast Asia mainland and the Indonesian islands. There are evidences of this in the writings of the Chinese pilgrim, I-Tsing^[9], who around this time stayed on Sumatra in the kingdom of Srivijaya, to wait for favorable winds that were to take him to India. I-Tsing wrote that many monks from different countries met in Srivijaya, and that pupils from all over the world gathered at the Borobudur temple to receive instruction in Buddhism. However, although with the influence of Indian cultural but they did not take Indian culture wholesale; they adopted only individual elements and these they adapted to local conditions. The result is a harmonious integration of Indian culture.

These Indian influences met with local South East Asian culture in which ancestor worship and mythology had a profound impact on thought, and on social and political life. Until the coming of Indian ideas, life in the Southeast Asia had been determined by harvests, and people had lived alongside each other on an equal footing. With the arrival of Indian culture this form of social life was gradually replaced by one dominated by the godlike kings and peoples; palaces and temples were built to demonstrate and strengthen the power of the kings. Nevertheless, during this process the South East Asian never lost their independence, for though they adopted a new religion or art but they adopted only individual elements with their local characteristic to become ‘localization’. So South East Asian Buddhist art can be seen as independence school of art for themselves.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, History of Indian and Indonesian Art, Delhi: 1972, p. 169.

[2]:

P.V. Bapat, 2500 Years of Buddhism, Delhi: 1997, p. 265.

[3]:

Cultural Interface of India with Asia, edi by Anupa Pande & P. P. Dhar, Delhi: 2004, p. 204.

[4]:

Boisselier Jean, The Heritage of Thai Sculpture, New York and Tokyo: 1975, p. 123.

[5]:

Vo Si Khai, Art & Archaeology of Fu Nan, ed by James C.M. Khoo, Bangkok: 2003, p. 43.

[6]:

Ananda. K. Coomaraswamy, History of Indian and Indonesian Art, Delhi: 1972, p.195.

[7]:

Cultural Interface of India with Asia, edi by Anupa Pande & P. P. Dhar, Delhi 2004, p. 162.

[8]:

Cultural Interface of India winh Asia R,A&A, ed by A. Pande & P. P. Dhar, Delhi: 2004, p. 50.

[9]:

P. V. Bapat, 2500 Years of Buddhism, Delhi: 1997, p. 242.