Asian Art and Architecture: Art & Design 382/582

Plato’s Cave Jina Buddhas Sanchi Stupa 1 Gupta c 501

Plato’s Cave Vishvakarma Chaityagriha Ellora, Cave 10 Early Chalukya c 625

Plato’s Cave Buddha and Bodhisattva Ellora, Cave 8a Early Chalukya c 625-50

[Plato’s Cave Hall Ellora, Cave 5 Early Chalukya c 625-50

Plato’s Cave Third Floor, Tin Tal Ellora, Cave 12 Early Chalukya c 600

Vajrayana and Later Buddhism (Based on Robinson & Johnson and annotated italically when the comments ore more mine or from other sources.)

Buddhism always interacted with India’s other religions. Another, though often neglected way of saying this is that Buddhism’s development in India was an integral element in development of Indian religious thought as a whole. So that a good deal of what has been called the influence of Hinduism on Buddhism can more profitably be seen as the ongoing development of Indian religious thought in its Buddhist expression. As Mahayana Buddhism is Buddhist expression of the bhakti movement that recognized in the Brahmanical theistic religions of Vaishnavism and Saivism, so Vajrayana is the Buddhist response to the Tantric vision articulated in a parallel manner in Vaishnavism and Saivism and Shakti cults.

The major issue to those looking at Buddhism from the point of view of the contemporaneous, orthodox, Brahmanical cults is how much can be absorbed by a host without becoming absorbed itself—or at what point does the ideology being absorbed become the dominant element in the mix. The issues in this case were worked out on two fronts: theory and practice. As the theologian-philosophers of the Sangha focused ever more sophisticatedly on their philosophical speculation and defense against the rising competition of orthodox Brahmanical theory, they seem to have attended less and less to the therapeutic practice of providing for a wide spread lay Buddhism.

As the orthodox theistic cults flourished and grew, attending to the life-cycle interests of common people, Buddhism became more and more focused on the interests of a sophisticated Sangha, its scholastic institutions and the wealthy patrons who could support them. While the philosophical and theological thought flourished and the arts were maintained, the popular base was allowed to wither and when the cataclysmic invasion of Turkish warlords swept through north India at the end of the twelfth century, conquering the great Brahmanical kingdoms who were their great patrons, the Sangha collapsed and the faith, lacking popular institutions to sustain it, faded from the Indian scene.

Four sets of Tantras The Nikaya schools kept away, but from the 6th century on four classes of Buddhist Tantras (exoteric ritual texts) grew up within Mahayana.

The Yoga and Anuttara Tantras began among the laity, but Yoga Tantras were taken up into monasteries in the 8th century or so, and Anuttara Yoga Tantras in the 10th. Together these texts and their users composed the Adamantine vehicle, also called Mantrayana (for its focus on mantra, or magical phrases) or Vajrayana for its focus on the Vajradhatu (the Adamantine realm it sought). In the Vajradhatu realm all dualities are overcome. The Vajra symbolized 2 aspects of supreme power: total invincibility and unfettered spontaneity.

In the great concentrations Sangarama there grew up centers of learning that lumped together we have come to call Universities. Though we shouldn’t confuse them with modern institutions of the same name, they were organizations that attracted textual experts and students and produced the sorts of intellectual developments and debates we associate with scholarship. In the Indian Buddhist world the most important of these institutions were at Nagarjunakonda in the South, Valabhi in Gujarat on the west, and at Nalanda in the eastern Ganga heartland. Nalanda was already known as a center of learning in the 2nd century. It was receiving royal patronage by the 6th. In its later years the Pala dynasty and even foreign rulers from as far away as Indonesia were known to have supported institutions at Nalanda.

Though these were centers of Buddhist learning many of their students were not Buddhist or not exclusively Buddhists. It was quite common for Brahmans to study Buddhist logic in these places, for instance. Students and pilgrims came from as far away as Indonesia and China to these universities.

The growth of Vajrayana was in part due to the distance between the monks in these concentrated settings and the lay people that the local monks had previously maintained. This is more of the Buddhists infected by Saiva ideas vision that I see better considered as Indians sharing current beliefs. Most Buddhists remained in the Nikaya view according to Taranatha the later, Kashmiri Buddhist historian.

India’s caste system, their particular mix of occupation, family, and class based social stratification, grew ever more rigid and powerful from the Gupta period on, as Brahmanical ideas became progressively more dominant within South Asia. Buddhism had long affronted orthodox Brahmanical thought by rejecting those distinctions. The Mahayana Buddhists used the term Brahman for a respectable person, based on how they acted rather than the family into which they were born. Among their many violations of normative Indian behavior, Tantrics admitted and encouraged the mixing of all castes. This was, of course as true of Vaishnava, Saiva and Shakta Tantrics as of Buddhist Tantrics.

The Action & Performance Tantras are typical of Mahayana, not Vajrayana texts, in their settings and the concepts they used. Though they are distinguishable from Mahayana texts in their language and other aspects. It is the Yoga and Unexcelled Tantras, originally intended as secret, that stand out as significantly different enough to be recognized as an entirely distinct vehicle or path. Some Theravada texts may offer spells, but in their case "good karma produced by thoughts of good will is what protects the reciter from danger." (122) Or when Vaisravana promises to protect if called upon, it is the power of his offer that protects, not the words themselves. This is standard Nikaya moral intention as the source of power. Mahayana texts and rituals contain similar promises and uses of incantations, though it is deities response to devotion that is the source of benefits in bhakti.

With the Tantras, however, it is the words themselves that have the power. This is an old concept in India (and of course many other cultures) that is prominent in orthodox thinking from the Vedas on. It is a contrast to the earlier Buddhist linguistic [theory] where words are seen a social conventions.

Secrets texts are referred to as early as the 2nd century BCE or so, in the Pali canon, but none are known until much later. Mahayana texts include incantations for protection.

The Tibetan canon contains the greatest development of Vajrayana, Tantric, texts.

Action (Kriya) are used before initiation and Performance (Carya) Tantras after. An initiating Guru is primary. Rituals take place in a mandala. The initiate memorizes the form and can subsequently visualize it. They can then use the associated mudras and dharanis with the visualization to reproduce it and its benefits. The ritual involves mind, speech and body movement of the personal microcosm to influence the macrocosm. These rituals yield three sorts of successes (siddhi): (1) pacifying dangers or illness, (2) fostering prosperity or merit associated with worshiping and constructing stupas , (3) destroying enemies and dangers.

Tantras are different from preceding texts in two important ways. (1) The belief that their power derives from knowing the correct verbal formula rather than from the quality of intention motivating the act. (2) Harmful rituals are included with beneficial ones. Like previous rituals, however, these don’t promise Awakening.

In these Awakening is achieved. But it is not through the Noble 8 Fold Path or the Bodhisattva path of Paramitas. It is achieved through rituals performed in the Great Mandala of the Vajradhatu (Vajra realm). Gautama’s life is retold here in a variation in which he reaches Awakening through rituals and becomes Mahavairocana, and only later acts out the battle with Mara only as a teaching device. Thus the Awakening event central to earlier forms is considered only a performance (which R&J see as a particularly Shaivite vision). The Wisdom of the Awakening here is seen as realizing one’s identity with all the Buddhas of the Vajradhatu.

Each Yoga Tantra is different in detail, but all follow the parallel coercion and supplication of deities leading to assuming identity with Buddhas which gains their wisdom and identity. (This is called virtually the same as Shaivite Deva Yoga.)

Amhghasiddhi

Amitabha Mahavairocana Aksobhya

Ratnaketu

All these Buddhas are emanations of Vajrasattva. Each may be used in different rituals. Ratnaketu, for instance, in rituals of prosperity and wealth. Four Goddesses, 16 Bodhisattvas, 8 vajra offering goddesses, and 4 Vajra door guardians make up the mandala. 5+4+16+8+4 = 37 beings

The previous Tantras represent a familiar Mahayana vision; these are distinctly different. They all begin with the statement "Thus have I heard. At one time the Blessed one was reposing in the Vagina of the Lady of the Vajra realm." In these Deva Yoga as a means to Awakening is used, but in these the focus is on a ritualized sexual union in which the bliss of controlled orgasm is equated with the Vajra realm.

A central means of the Unexcelled is to reverse major concepts of all orthodox forms. Dietary, sanitary, associational and sexual taboos are reversed in order to overcome dualistic thinking.

In the Guhasamaja Tantra sexual imagery is significantly developed. Heretofore it was avoided with all reference other than to fear of sexuality as a distraction. The male generative organ is equated with the vajra and compassion, while the female organ is seen as the lotus and equated with wisdom. Bliss then becomes explicit as the uniting of the two. The Cakrasamvara Tantra reverses even this symbolism.

The "bad Sanskrit" that is cited by the orthodox as the very definition of the "Tantras" is never cleaned up, though enough orthodox writers are available within the tradition to do so. What the orthodox consider deviation from orthodoxy the adepts consider magically secret perfection. R&J call this a language to perform [magic] as contrasted to a language to inform [rationality].

Thus we have a rebellion against orthodox power. And i n this way it isn’t so different from the Upanisadic revolt of a millennium earlier. Two major realms were off limits to reversals. (1) Personal gurus [long an Indian standard] were held always to be of the highest standing, and equal to the primordial Buddhas. (2) Yogini goddesses were the highest of refuges, and their every bidding was seen as commanding total acceptance.

Mindless mix Saiva with Buddhist iconography. [Or as I keep reiterating: mix Indian deities, more or less without reference to their sectarian usages.]

Unusually, women were considered important founders and innovators of Tantra. The 8th century Princess Laxmankara of Uddayana was the most famous was credited with the first Tantric group. The group contained both sexes and all castes. They advocated an elaborate erotic yoga as a means toward achieving a pleasure so intense one could be mindful of nothing else. [Again as in the earliest Buddhism, personality dissolution.] This physical bliss they considered equivalent to religious bliss. Siddhas (successful ones) were accomplished, fulfilled with the highest success.

They wondered the landscape seeking students outside the monasteries and the Sangha. By the late 11th century this vision was centered in the Pala empire in northeast India. Legends of the 84 Mahasiddhis , by Abhyadatta, places most of them there. They include all castes and even Brahmans, wealthy and poor, high and low. One step toward success was to take the roles of lowest castes, in order to curb pride. Each was the story of someone who became dissatisfied with samsara and them meets a yogin or Dakini (female deity) from whom they take training. Sadhana is the name for the Vajrayana practice of rituals and initiations.

Some parallels

Nikaya Mahayana Vajrayana

nirvana nirvana mahamudra

Arhat ideal Bodhisattva ideal Siddha ideal

deities unimportant Buddha a deity Female deities

gender avoided or transcended gender central

goal: nirvana goal: paradise until goal: a Dakini paradise

everyone reaches

nirvana

9th to 10th century emerge Shahajayana (the natural or spontaneous path) of Saraha, Kanha and Tilopa. Saraha is a Brahman priest who becomes a Buddhist monk who likes to drink. A Bodhisattva vision in a stupor leads him to unite permanently with a female arrow maker of the lowest class to find nonduality. "Here there is no beginning, no middle, no end, no samsara, no nirvana. In this state of supreme bliss, there is not self and no other"

The vast majority of Indian Buddhists rejected these antinomian practices and beliefs. But some saw justification for them in Madhyamaka and Yogacara philosophies.

Nikaya Buddhism reflected them totally on the basis of their abandoning of the 8 Fold Path and the Buddha’s original insights about karma. They saw Vajrayana as self deception. [Today, in India and around the world the great paths all accept each other’s insights as being Buddhist, and see each other as akin]

Mahayana accepted Tantra as a lower level of truth as compared to the absolute truth they sought. But, "If everything is Sunya (empty) as Madhyamaka says, and distinctions exist only on the imaginary level, as Yogacara claims, nothing should be disallowed as a means of realization for properly motivated and trained practitioners of Unexcelled Yoga." (133) Vices could overcome vices according to this view.

From the 10th century on some variations [pejoratively called "sanitization" by R&J] allowed some forms to come into the monasteries. Voluminous commentaries on the Unexcelled begin to appear, interpreting the most radical passages in terms of traditional doctrine. There develops the concept that sexual yoga can be "recreated" safely in the imagination, so even celibate monks may use it. Ritual implements like vajras for male organs and bells for female were substituted for more literal actions.

Like everything else about Tantra there was always controversy about how much and what was to be symbolic and what literal and which was most powerful.

The 8th century already saw the spread of Tantric ideas to China. In the 9th century Chen-yen was at the imperial Tang court. Kukai introduced Chen-yen into Japan as Shingon. In the 11th century Atisa took it from Nalanda to Tibet where it became the orthodox school.

Pala dynastic art spread the styles associated with Vajrayana throughout the Buddhist world. It is harsher and less graceful than the Gupta style.

Tantric religion continues to this day among the traditional Indian sects we call Hindu. Though there is great controversy about what this means and what qualifies as tantric. Some say most all Indian religion that is not in the classic Sanskrit texts is tantric, though there no major left hand (or sexual ) element in this expression. Sexual sorts of Tantra still exist in "Hinduism" today as well.

Very close to the year 500 four typically Gupta styled Buddhas were added to the imagery of the Great Stupa at Sanchi. Inscriptions indicate that it was c 501/2 CE that protection was raised over the four Jina Buddhas. One sits inside each of the four torana. That is one facing each of the four directions. Each is a bit different and each has a pair of Bodhisattva attendants.

Thus the Nikaya, early Buddhist, stupa was transformed, at the end of the Gupta period, into a Mahayana mandala. What had been a monument to the passing Nikaya nirvana of total passing away, so total that not a trace was left even of the representation of the Buddha Shakyamuni, was now turned, but the dominant school of the site into a cosmic diagram of with the stupa as the center of a mandala with Buddhas of the four directions—the projections of the great Vairochana.

The Vishvakarma chaitya at Ellora is the last rock-cut, vaulted, apsidal chaitya in India. That is the last of a series that goes back over half a millennium, to the chaitya griha at Bhaja in the Shunga period. And the evolution witnessed earlier is continued here. The chandrasala arch is now a fairly small, if doubled and more complex element of the structure. It is flanked by separate chapels. each with a Bodhisattva and a pair of tara (star) female consorts. And the space that on Ajanta 26 was occupied by a flat, crowned-niche, here is a deep crowned-niche, actually a small room.

Inside Cave 10 has a gigantic seated Buddha flanked on either side by over life sized Bodhisattva, towering over the worshipper and almost blocking the view of the stupa that is its backdrop. The stupa here is nearly forgotten, replaced or at least thoroughly masked by the figurative imagery.

The bhakti shift From this time on Buddhist worship halls that have survived do not contain apsidal vaulted halls or stupas.

It is one of the more interesting aspects of Indian design history that the vaulted apsidal hall has been interpreted as the characteristic Indian Buddhist structure and form, as you will see in our up-coming consideration of the Durga temple at Aihole. This has been a result, to some extent, of the fact that this literature has been largely a Western one and that the most spectacular temples among the ancient remains of the region around the Western city of Bombay—whose name was changed only in 1995 from the British confusion of Bombay to the actual name of the Goddess for whom it was previously called Mumbai—were rock-cut apsidal worship halls of the Buddhists. One of these, at Kanheri is only a day’s walk from the center of Mumbai. Bhaja, Karli and two others lie along the main road linking Mumbai and the main trading and British military center of Pune at the head of the Deccan.

But the fact is, as we have already seen at the Barabar hills, that this was an Indian design, not a Buddhist one. It not only occurs on non-Buddhist designs before and at the same time as it does on Buddhist designs, but it goes on as a relatively rare but regularly used design long after the d