The Great Stupa at Sanchi

• Built from rubble and dirt

• Faced with dressed stone and covered with a white plaster → shining quality

• Stupa → Buddhis tombs or repositories

  • Hold buddha’s remains

    • Divided among 8 different stupas throughout Ancient India

  • Small interior area for the Buddha’s partial remains at the base

    • Sealed within an urn that is burried in the very bottom AND center

• Large, mound-shaped Buddhist shrine

  • Before, great teachers were either cremated or buried in a seated, meditative position.

    • Mound of earth covered them up

    • Dome shape represents a person seated in meditation

• Sanchi → site of multiple monuments for Buddhist faith

  • Built at locations associated with important events in the Buddha’s life

  • Ashoka built stupas in regions where the people might have difficulty reaching the stupas that contained the actual remains of Buddha

• Torona → gateway in the stone fence around a stupa; cardinal points

  • Buddha depicted in an aniconic form → “non-human” form

    • Never appears human

      • Depicted in human form after 200 CE

    • Represented through things like the wheel, tree, and footprints

      • Symbolic to his attainment of enlightenment (Bodhi tree) or presence to his followers (footprints) or teachings (the wheel of the law)

  • Carvings of images that depicts events from Buddha’s past lives and final rebirth (Jatakas)

    • No images inside → not to interfere with meditations in the sacred space

    • Continuous narrative = sequential events grouped together within the same composition

    • Canon of proportions

    • Deep relief carving

    • Carved in the round

    • Apotropaic

• Building stupas → karmiic benefits

• Perform rituals that help them to understand the Buddha’s teachings

  • Do not enter the stupa

  • Walk around (circumambulate)

    • Endless cycle of rebirth

• Small stupas function as votives → karma

Priest-King Bust (Mohenjo Daro, Pakistan)

• Carved from steatite

• Beared male figure with a calm composed expression

  • Eyes are elongated and half-closed → meditative or introspective pose

  • Interpretation of the figure as a religious or royal leader

• Headband and patterned robe

  • Draped over left shoulder

Fasting Buddha Shakyamuni

• Head is missing

• Seated meditative pose

• Emaciated figure with ribs, veins, and sunken eyes

  • Gaunt expression

  • Robe clings to his skeletal body

• Fasting period → Buddha’s journey towards enlightenment

  • Experimented with severe ascetic practices to try to overcome suffering and desire

  • Realized that either extreme indulgence or self-mortification was the path to enlightenment

  • Blending Greco-Roman stylistic influences with Buddhist iconography

  • Attention to anatomical detail and emotional depth

    • Symbolizing both the Buddha’s human struggles

The Buddha (Mathura, India)

• Cross-legged and rests a closed fist on his left knee

• Layers of cloth gathered on his left arm and shouler fall gravevfully down his back

  • Curved indentation across chest and across calves → lightness of robe

• Holds right hand up in abhaya mudra → gesture of protection and reassurance

• Wheels and lotuses on his feet - Buddha’s divinity

• Ushnisha → covered by a tightly twisted hair-bun and centered above the Buddha’s head

• Urna → auspicious mark on forehead

  • Once a small rock crystal

• Elongated ears → heavy jewelry he once wore as a prince

• Softly modeled stomach

• Chin lift as he smiles

• Two attendants

  • Same stances and adornent

  • Carrying a chauri (fly-whisk) in right hand

    • Gesture that indicates their service to Buddha

  • Subtle differences in their facial features and in their headdresses suggest individual personalities

• Hierarchy of scale

• Large halo → referencing rays of light

• Flying celestial beings → divine radiance and the attendance of a heavenly retinue

• Carved raised platform (dais)

  • Leogryphs (composite mythological creatures)

  • Framed by two lines of Sanskrit

  • Record donors’ gifts for posterity and date of donation

• Looks directly at us

The Bodhisattva Maitreya (Gandhara, Pakistan)

• Jewelry on his arms, around his neck, hanging from his ears, and above his head.

  • Royally dressed

• Water flask → one day, when he is reborn, he will lead the life of an ascetic

  • Someone who denies bodily needs in order to achieve nirvana and be free from the cycle of life and death

  • Right hand would have been in a special gesture

    • Easily read and recognized and would have helped to explain what Maitreya was doing at this moment

    • Urna → dot between eyebrows

    • Whorl of har → symbol of knowledge

    • Almond-shaped eyes → look down

Vocabulary

• Circumambulation

  • Act of walking around a sacred object or place

  • Often as a ritual or formal procession

  • Show devotion, pay tribute, and accumulate merit.

• Jatakas

  • Collection of stories that describe the previous lives of Buddha

• Aniconic

  • Symbolic or suggestive

  • Not literal representations

  • Without idols or images

• Samsara

  • Cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

• Yakshi

  • Female nature spirits associated with fertility, prosperity, love, and beauty

  • Curvy, beautiful, and nude

  • Anklets, bangles, and necklaces

  • Shown near or clinging to trees → closely related to the ashoka tree

  • Worshiped as local goddesses

  • Gatekeepers

  • Adorning railing posts

• Mahayana Buddhism

  • Branch of Buddhism

  • Accepts main teachings of early Buddhism but also adds new sutras and doctrines

• Theravada

  • One of the first Buddhist schools

  • Oldest surviving Buddhis school

• Bodhisattva

  • Early Indian Buddhism: Buddha in his previous lives

  • Mahayana Buddhism: Anyone who aspires to become a Buddha

  • A person who can reach nirvana but delays doing so out of compassion to save suffering beings

• The Vedas

  • Collection of ancient Sanskrit texts that are the oldest surviving literature of India

  • Foundation of Hinduism

  • “Knowledge”

  • Hymns, poems, prayers, and religious instructions.

  • Passed down orally for over 2000 years before being written down between 1500 and 500 BCE

• Dharma

  • Code of righteous behavior that is considered to be by the order of the universe

  • Preventative measure that aims to establish a code of behavior that will lead to individual and societal peace and pleasure

  • Religious and moral law that governs individual conduct

  • General dharma that applies to everyone

  • Specific dharma based on your class, status, and station in life.

  • Core foundation from which all other goals are achieved

• Ushnisha

  • 3D oval-shaped cranial bump on top of the head that represented Buddha’s enlightenment, omniscience, and divine knowledge.

  • One of the 32 lakshanas or auspicious marks of Buddhahood

  • Depicted as a rounded or conical shape on the Buddha’s head

    • Sometimes transformed into a hair knot

• Urna

  • Circular dot or cul of hair on the forehead of Buddha

  • One of 32 physical characteristics of Buddha

  • Symbolizes his wisdom and divine vision

• Vishnu

  • Minor deity but became the most important god over time

  • One of the three gods in Hindu triumvirate

  • Preserver and protector of the universe while Brahma creates and Shiva destroys

• Shiva

  • Destroys to create

  • Source of good and evil

  • Seen as contradictory elements

  • Master of fertility, poison, and medicine, and Lord of Cattle

• Brahma

  • God of creation, knowledge, and the Vedas

  • Created the world and all living things from a golden egg

  • Four heads and four arms

    • Importance of 4 in Hinduism

    • Holds the Vedas, water pot, lotus, prayer beads, and a scepter.

  • Least worshipped god

    • Few temples dedicated to him

    • Work of creation is complete or punished for some wrongdoing