365betÓéÀÖ

DR. ANANDA COOMARASWAMI AS AN INTER­PRETER
OF BUDDHIST - ART AND AESTHETICS

1. RANGANATHAN

Far-down the corridor of the centuries we perceive the serene figure of the Buddha like an image in a shrine, encrusted with myths, leg­ends and traditions. But even these owe their aesthetic significance to the luminosity within; to the sublime per­sonality that, after twenty five centu­ries illumines our imagination with the brilliance of a supernova star. For a double perspective informs the aes­thetics of Buddhism. Indeed the na­ture of the personality of the Buddha is immanent and at the same time transcendent. And thereby are resolved both the Buddha and the Lotus, history and aesthetic consciousness, the serene life and the artistic form.

Carrying us to the aniconic period of the Vedas. Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy highlights many simi­larities between passages in the Mediaeval Christian mystics like St. Thomas, Meister Eckhart, Ruysbroeck and Boehme and passages in the lit­erature of the Vedas. Upanishads and the Gita in his profoundly illuminating works such as A New Approach to the Vedas. The Transformation of Nature in Art and Elements of Buddhist Iconography. And with his gift for unifying perception, Dr. Coom­araswamy moves expertly through the five references which symbolize Bud­dhist thought in his elements of Bud­dhist Iconography - the Tree of Life, the Earth-Lotus, the Word-Wheel, the Lotus-Throne and the Fiery Pillar - to offer us the quintessence of Buddhist aesthetics.¹ “Buddhist symbolism, far from being an isolated language, is proper to the one great tradition which has persisted from the Vedic or a Pre­-Vedic Period until now. The Lotus de­notes ontologically a firm establishment amongst the possibilities of exis­tence, denotes a birth and manifestation primarily in the intelligible, or also and consequently in the sensible world; while it denotes ethically, de­tachment as of one who is in the world but out of it. The throne of Deity is a Lotus-throne from the foregoing points of view; as impartite and immovable, it is adamantine; as Royal, it is a Lion throne. The Tathagata, Buddha, seated on such a throne, standing on such a. Pedastal, affirms an infinite negation, a sable stillness against which his golden person shines re­splendent, unconfined by any form but omniformâ€�.  

Coomaraswasmy’s interpretations of Indian art were based on the similies and metaphors of Kalidasa, Ashvagosha, Sir Edwin Arnold, the Tamil Saivite poets, Hindi poetry, the aesthetic philosophy of Anandavardhana, the aesthetic formulations and compilations of Dhananjaya and Viswanatha as well as the ‘Alamkara�, ‘Silpa� and ‘Saiva-Siddhanta� texts. Here it is necessary to refer to two celebrated verses in Kalidasa’s great work Kumarasambhavam. In his forty second verse of the first Canto, Kali­dasa says “Uma’s beautiful figure adorned her pearl necklace and the pearl necklace her beauty, mutually adorning their state of interaction�. In other words, Uma’s beauty is in itself an ornament to the ornament. This comparison led Anandavardhana to argue in his Dhvanyaloka that the power of poetic suggestion shines like the beauty of a woman in a poem. And in the forty fifth verse of the third Canto, kalidasa describes the Yogic posture of Shiva. Here is the descrip­tion: “Shiva, in a sitting posture - the upper part of his body stiffened, with the lower part of his legs crossed and with his shoulders a trifle bent - which is called Virasana or Paryanka in Yogic parlance; furthermore, the placement of the two uplifted palms in the lap­looks like a blossomed lotus�. This view of Shiva gave rise to the visual representation of the Buddha as a Yogi Indeed the posture of an authentic Yogi was considered to be an aesthetically satisfying figure of the Bud­dha. And through a stroke of genius, Coomaraswamy maintains that the figure of a Seated Yogi was derived from “the idea of mental discipline and of the attainment of the highest station of self-oblivion�. This reason­ing resulted in locating the figure at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka. Also ac­cording to Coomaraswamy, it is the most superb piece “in the whole range of Buddhist art�. Further more, the two standing Buddhas at Anuradhapura and Amaravati - ­termed “Buddhist Primitives� by coomaraswamy - reflect the same wave-length of Buddhist aesthetic perception. .

The intersection of the absolute and the relative, with its aesthetic commentary on the human situation can be perceived in the concept of associating the Lotus with the Buddha. Just as the Lotus symbolizes the creativity of the Cosmic Being in Hindu Mythology, so does it reflect the wisdom of Nirvana in Mahayanist Buddhist aesthetics; Here it is worth noting that just as Mahayanist Bud­dhist art borrowed its metaphysical symbolism from the Hindu tradition, so did Hindu art derive its Anthropo­-morphism from Buddhist art. Indeed, unlike the plain and repetitive art of the Hinayana, the Mahayana aesthetic perspective became inclusive enough to comprehend a variety of concepts and influences such as an ancient aniconic tradition described by Coomaraswamy as the aniconic Vedic style, the Gita ideal of the Seated Yogi, the philosophy of the universal com­passion of the Buddha, the Greek perspective of beauty, the Metaphysics of ‘the voidâ€�, the Tantrik Nature of Lamaistic Art and the delicacy ofTao­ist art. And in a passage that corroborates Coomaraswamy’s view of the Buddhist Lotus, Schuon writes as follows²â€� The Lotus, supporting the Buddha, is the nature of things, the calm and pure fatality of its illu­sion and finality ofits disappearance; but it is also the luminous centre ofMaya whence arises Nirvana-become manâ€�.

As the centuries rolled on, the Lotus-Throne became an important element of the Buddhist Iconography. In fact, the Lotus became increasingly significant in the wake of an almost alchemical transmutation of the simple design of the Hinayana into the complex aesthetics ofthe Mahayana. For example, according to the Mahay­anist aesthetics, the smallest particles of the Universe of Buddha’s compas­sion are present in the form of innumerable Bodhisattavas enthroned on Lotuses. To cite another example, the Prajnaparamila, signifying transcen­dental wisdom, can be identified with Queen Maya, the mother of the histori­cal Buddha who is surrounded by Lotuses. And as the Lotus of the Dhamma travelled over Tibet, Sri lanka, Java, China and Japan, India came to be cherished as the Land of the Lotus-Blossom.

In order to arrive at a balanced perspective of the aesthetics of Buddhism, the art historian must step out of the range ofthe details of Buddhist art history; he must also get beyond the pages of mere scholarship to grasp the full significance of the aesthetics of Buddhism. This is the process through which Coomaraswamy’s genius has expressed itself. His interpretation is, in the best sense of the term, modern, for it sees with the evolutionary eye the origin of the Buddha image along the surface of life; and it also sees with the inner eye the accumulation of leg­ends that lifts the mind towards an intuitive understanding of the deeper messages of Hindu-Buddhist aesthet­ics.

“It becomes impossibleâ€� wrote Coomaraswamy in his essay ³ on ‘The Origin of the Buddha Image ‘to treat the phaseâ€� Greek Origin of the Bud­dha Image ‘as representing anything more than a rhetorical misuse of lan­guage; if art of Gandharan School, as its students admit, is half Indian art of the Kusana and Gupta periods in the Ganges Valley is altogether Indian, for it deals with the same ideas, and uses a plastic language that is in direct continuity with that of the preceding centuriesâ€�. However, the problem of determining the origin of the Bud­dha image must be understood at dif­ferent levels of aesthetic perception. For a Buddha image, whether Gandharan-Greek, Mathura-Early Indian or Gupta-Classical Indian reflects the same tranquility of the Spirit awak­ened to Itself.

The creations of Buddhist art comprise two poles, the first being the Gandharan images while the second constitute of Japanese paintings. For the artistic process of using the secu­lar idiom of the Roman West in- an ­attempt to express the spirit of Bud­dhism began in the holy land of Gand­hara. Futhermore, the Gandharan perspective derived from the head of Apollo, had contributed a dimensien of Greek beauty to Buddhist art. Simi­larly the tenth century Japanese paintings of Amida (Anitabha) which were partly inspired by the techniques of Taoist art, had introduced an ele­ment of Japanese daintiness into Bud­dhist art. It is clear, therefore, that in the process of placing the discipline of Indian Art on the map of twentieth century scholarship, Coomaraswamy made important corrections to several works in the spheres of Indian Art History and Comparative Aesthetics. And Coomaraswamy’s refutation of Dr. A.C.L. Foucher’s interpretation of the Greek origin of the Buddha Image in the wider iconographic perspectives of the philosophy and aesthetics of the ‘Seated Yogi� had led on to the UNESCO-sponsored publication of the monumental volume entitled The ­Image of the Buddha.

Dante, Whom Coomaraswamy regarded as a great exponent of the Tradition observed: “He who would paint a figure, if he cannot be it, cannot paint it�. Indeed this traditional point of view is reflected in a similar observation made by Coom­araswamy: “The Buddha image came into being because a need had been felt for it, and not because a need had been felt for ‘art�. Again, whether or not one accepts Ananda Coom­araswamy’s understanding of the for­mality of traditional art in its entirety, can admire the imaginative breath of view that he brought to the interpre­tation of the nature of Buddhist art. For instance, Coomaraswamy’s interpretation of a mere reference to the emigration of Udayan’s Buddha image in Chavanne’s Archaeological Mission deepened the meaning of the Buddhist concept of a ‘flight through the air�;� The legend does not refer to the physi­cal transference of a material image, but to the universality of an immu­table form that can as well as by the Khotanese as by the Indian contem­plative; where the historian of art would see what is called the influ­ence of Indian or Central Asian art, the legend asserts an independent imagination of the same form.

It will be seen that there is no need to explain away the miracle; but to point out that the marvel is one of the interior disposition; and that the power of aerial flight is nothing like an aeroplane’s but has to do with the extension of consciousness to other than physical levels of references and in fact, to the ‘Summit of contingent being�. Thus, Coomaraswamy’s interpretation succeeds in perceiving the interrelations between traditional concepts and modem scholarship.

The real significance of Coom­araswamy’s interpretation lies in its appeal to men to go beyond. textual critical analysis to deeper meanings. Beyond the Icons of Buddhist art is ­the Buddhist concept of ‘Samvegaâ€� or the power of aesthetic shock, enabling man to understand the aesthetics of ­the Buddha-Lotus equation as well as gain an aesthetic insight into the nature of reality. And he sets forth this idea in the concluding paragraph of his perceptive essay on The Nature of Buddhist Art:⁴ “One must have learnt that an access to reality cannot be had by making a choice between matter and spirit as things unlike in all re­spects, but rather by seeing the things material and sensory a formal likeness to spiritual prototypes of which the senses can give no direct report. It is not a question of religion versus sci­ence but of a reality on different levels of reference, or better, perhaps, of dif­ferent orders of reality, not mutually exclusiveâ€�.

REFERENCES

¹ Elements of Buddhist Iconography By Ananda K. Coom­araswamy, Munshiram, Manoharlal, New Delhi, 1972, page 59.
² In the Tracks of Buddhism By Frithjof Schuon (translated from the French By Marco Pallis, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1968, page 20).
³ The Origin of the Buddha Image, Vol. IX, No.4, The Art Bulletin, New York University, June 1927, page 324.
⁴ The nature of Buddhist Art in­cluded in Figures of Speech or Figures of Thought By Ananda Coomaraswamy. Luzac & Co., London, 1946, page 193.