14Story

15 January 2009

Buddhist Architecture

The Smile of Buddha

Contents - Introduction - The Buddha and his time       * The Life of the Buddha and his personality - The Development of Buddhism after the Buddha - Buddhist Art - Buddhist Architecture

 

 

 

 

Buddhist Architecture

 

In India, a number of architectural types developed that were directly connected with Buddhism, in particular the stupa, the hall of worship, (caitya) and the residence hall (vihara). Impressive stupas were built especially to commemorate the Buddha. Based on the ancient Indian burial mound this was originally no more than a simple hemispherical structure, inside which the remains, the ashes and the relics of the deceased were preserved. The stupa – the word derives from the Sanskrit root stu, ‘pile up’ – became the pre-eminent commemorative symbol of the Buddha’s nirvana. Rising vertically from the heart of the stupa is a shaft, or axis, the axis mundi, crowned with three circular disks, or parasols, which represent the three ‘jewels’ of Buddhism, the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Like the snake canopy and the flywhisk, the parasol is an emblem of reverence and respect for the individual beneath it. The most famous, still intact stupa in India is that of Sanchi, near Bhopal. This was originally built by Emperor Ashoka in the third century BCE and was enlarged and embellished two centuries later under the Shunga dynasty. The round, dome-shaped basic form, the anda, is sober and undecorated. It is surmounted by a small square balustrade from the centre of which rises the shaft with its triple parasol. The four gateways (torana) in the circular balustrade that surrounds the stupa are particularly striking. Hundreds of reliefs illustrate the historical and previous lives of the Buddha. The reliefs are arranged in orderly rows on the crossbeams, which resemble long palm leaves with voluted ends. The Buddha himself is always represented symbolically, as is also the case on the stupas of Bharhut, in central India, and Amaravati, in eastern India. These, too, date from the first century BCE but have since disappeared. Fortunately, a number of fine reliefs remain. In the Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda stupas in eastern India the figures are depicted in a much looser configuration, seeming to writhe and twist around each other. Practically every available space on the bell-shaped anda is also filled with ornament. From representations of the Amaravati stupa that appear on various loose reliefs, it would seem that the original stupa must have been of enormous size and of far greater decorative richness than the stupa of Sanchi.   During its eastwards journey the form of the stupa would evolve. Models of stupas in Gandhara show that the basic shape had apparently already changed by the start of the common era. The stupa had acquired far more architectural elements, such as circular and square terraces supported on arches with rows of classical Greco-Roman pilasters with corinthian capitals. Often there were more than three parasols on the central shaft. By the time it reached China and Japan the stupa would have taken on the appearance of a many-storied tower, the roof of each storey having upturned corners – a structure better known in the West as a pagoda. The term ‘pagoda’ came into being through the metathesis of the consonants in the word dagoba, which is, in turn, an abbreviation in Pali, of dhatu garbha. Which means, in Sanskrit, ‘with an element (dhatu) in the womb (garbha)’. In other words, a structure containing a special material in its innermost recesses, namely, the remains of the deceased.

 

Hanging Scrolls of Heavenly King of the South, Joseon, 19th century, color on silk During the Joseon period, the Gate of Heavenly Kings was built at the entrance of every temple, and on its left and right walls were juxtaposed two sculptures or paintings of the Four Heavenly Kings each to protect the temple at four cardinal points symbolically. Each of the Four Heavenly Kings holds a specific attribute representing its identity and direction; pagoda, dragon and cintamani, sword, and lute.

 

While the stupa is rather a sculptural work, the caitya, or prayer hall, has a more architecturally spatial purpose. In India, the area around Mumbai in the Western Ghats provided an ideal location. Here, steep rock walls of a relatively easily worked stone are situated in an idyllic surrounding. These were ideal places for monks to come together, especially during the rainy season, and to spend time in prayer and meditation. The spaces for prayer and accommodation were hewn from the rock and ornamented with Buddhist images. The oldest cave temples date from the first century BCE. In Bhaja, Karle, Kanheri, Ajanta and other places, huge cathedral-like prayer halls were built, or rather cut, into the rock face – in fact this, too, can be regarded as sculpture in a literal sense. With remarkable fidelity to wooden prototypes, all the supporting architectural elements that are normally found in wooden constructions, such as columns with capitals, crossbeams and vaulting are reproduced in stone. In principle, the cutting of all these constructional elements was unnecessary unless the rock vault itself required support. They were clearly references to wooden structures which probably once existed but which have vanished with the course of time. Be that as it may, the rock wall gave enormous possibilities as far as size was concerned. Such a caitya generally comprised a vestibule, and a long space resembling the upturned hull of a boat, with a circular apse and two side aisles separated from the central aisle by a row of columns. The apse was cut away to leave a stupa in the middle, around which one could walk in a clockwise direction to make the pradakshina, the ‘sacred circumambulation’, in reverence to the Buddha. Thus, the caitya was a combination of stupa and prayer hall, and it was also embellished with sculpture. In Ajanta, the oldest temples date from around 100 BCE to 100 CE. Between the fifth and sixth century there was a second period of building under the Vakataka dynasty, during which an extraordinary number of extremely accomplished wall paintings were executed in the cave temples – the life of the Buddha, his previous lives, scenes of the ruling court, all painted with an equal virtuosity. This is the oldest known painting in India and it was imitated in the Buddhist sites of Central Asia and the Far East. The third Buddhist building is the vihara, the monastic residence hall. This architectural form is also found in the abovementioned rock-cut sanctuaries. It usually comprises a central space surrounded by separate cells for the monks in which a couch is carved from the rock itself. The north-eastern Indian province of Bihar takes its name from the many vihara that once existed there. All these elements of Buddhist art – the images of Buddhas and bodhisattvas, the stupa, the caitya, the vihara, the wall painting – can be found beyond India, along the Silk Route. Both the colossal Buddhas of Bamiyan (destroyed in 2001) in Afghanistan, and the many Gandharan images show how the Indian models were imitated and further transformed. The stone of Central Asia was often too soft and too porous, so that much use was made of stucco techniques applied over an armature of wood or stone. The clearest comparisons with the cave complexes of India can be found in a number of Chinese sites: Mogao, near Dunhuang, in the west of Gansu Province on the edge of the Gobi Desert; the caves of Maijishan, which rises like a citadel from the surrounding forest, further southwards in that same province; the cave-temple complex of Yungang near Datong in Shanxi Province and the caves of Longmen near the ancient Chinese capital of Luoyang, in Henan Province. But even further to the East, in Korea, there are traces of this ancient Buddhist tradition. Close to the south-eastern city of Gyeongju, the capital of the ancient Silla kingdom (first to tenth century), rises Namsan, also known as the ‘mountain of the ten thousand Buddhas’. Between the sixth and tenth centuries numerous sculptures, mainly in relief, were carved from its granite. The site was classified as exceptional world heritage by UNESCO in 2001. Near to Gyeongju, beyond the Bulguk-sa temple, an impressive cave complex was rediscovered on Mount Toham in 1909. The manmade cave, known as Seokguram, which consists of a domed rotunda containing impressive monumental sculptures of the Buddha and bodhisattvas, was carved from the rock in 751 CE. The cave was first restored by the Japanese in 1913 and later, in the early nineteen-sixties, by UNESCO. As the objects found in the royal tombs of Gyeongju provide abundant evidence of Korea’s links with the rest of Asia at that time, Namsan and the cave of Seokguram can be considered as the ultimate Buddhist cave complexes on the Silk Road.

 

Reliquary, Unified Silla, late 7th century This cube-shaped reliquary was discovered from above the roof stone of the third floor of the 9.76-meter stone pagoda in Nawon-ri, Gyeongju (an ancient capital of Silla) during its disassembly and restoration from late 1995 to the summer of 1996. Inside were one gilt-bronze standing Buddha statue, one gilt-bronze three-story miniature pagoda, three gilt-bronze nine-story miniature pagodas, and shards of miniature wooden pagodas, four beads, and some twenty granules of sarira. Copies of the Great Dharani Sutra of Immaculate and Pure Light were attached to inner sides of the reliquary. The consecration of a pagoda, placing a number of miniature pagodas sealed with copies of dharani into the pagoda, has been practiced in Korea since the first half of the eighth century.

 

<< PREVIOUS SECTION <<

< Top of Page >

>> NEXT SECTION >>

 

Share