Essay name: Buddhist iconography in and outside India (Study)
Author:
Purabi Gangopadhyay
Affiliation: University of Calcutta / Department of Ancient Indian History and Culture
This work aims to systematically present the development and expansion of Mahayana-Vajrayana Buddhist iconography from India to other countries, such as China, Korea, and Japan. This study includes a historical account of Indian Buddhist iconography and the integration of Brahmanical gods into the Mahayana-Vajrayana phase.
Chapter 1: Introduction (History of Indian Culture)
3 (of 18)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
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this we can trace that a split occured in the views of
Buddha's teachings, or precisely the method of practices
to be observed by the monks..
Soon after the Mah膩parinirv膩峁嘺 of Gautama Buddha
the dissensions became more visible than before. The.
main reasons for this was that different celebrated monk-
scholars held divergent views regarding the teachings of
Buddha and they interpreted the Buddha's teachings accord-
ing to their respective concepts.
After the death of the Buddha, there was no
central figure who could be considered to be the head of
the Buddhist fraternity and who could command respect or
enforce discipline in the Order (Sancha) of the Buddhist
monks. Buddha did not appoint any person as the head of
Buddhist Order and on the contrary said that his dharma
itself could be instructor of the Order after his death
("So Dhammo 膷a Vinaya ca Vomma accayena Sattha", see
Digha Nikaya P.T.S. ed. II. p.154). Naturally then
different considrations induced the people of the Buddhist
faith to form different groups based on either common
interest that developed due to living in the particular
region, common discipleship of a teacher or because of an
inclination towards particular branch of study etc. During
the century that followed the death of the Buddha these
tendencies of going apart from the central forces of
