Re: [akandabaratam] Re: [Pali] The Buddha's racial appearance

Dear Nisala

I agree with you when you say:

The truth is that every single culture which adopted Buddhism sculpted Siddhartha's image according to its members' own likeness. Hence the Greek appearance
of the Greco-Bactrian Gandhara, slant-eyed depiction in East Asia, and so forth. This can be contrasted to the rather uniform way how Jesus Christ has been depicted by different cultures. Whether in Korea, South America, or Africa, Christ has always been of the Nordic race.

>>>>

The Buddha images that came into being several centuries after his departure cannot be an accurate representation of his physical features. I have seen many Thai Buddha images in Penang itself and they resemble the faces of Thai males.

But the main point is that Buddhism as a movement that gave a psychological turn to Indian culture was a movement against racial thinking and hence such questions as the racial make-up of Buddha is not at all Buddhistic.

Now these images . in addition to projectiong into them the basic physical features of the men of the culture also has other projective elements and which distinguish them from the Greek Art. The mental states such as Dhyana and so forth is represented by the images and this is the reason for sculpturing the large number of dhyana Buddhas and so forth. The idea is NOT to present a naturalistic representation of Buddha, the person but rather the Dhyana and the body language of such a Dhyana

Loga

nuruodo <rodness@...> wrote:
Dear Dr. Loganathan

As far as I know, there are extremely few references to Siddhartha
Gautama's appearance in the Pali chronicles. One mentions that he
had a "golden" complexion (just like many people currently living in
that region). Another briefly states that he was a tall man at about
6 feet. That is all. This hardly constitutes a racial description.
It is possible that he looked like modern Nepalis, although we must
take into account that he lived 2500 years ago.

Racialism was not condoned in Buddhism either in theory OR practice.
In the Dunhuang cave paintings, the monks were all depicted as having
different skin complexions and appearances.

The belief that the Gandhara or Mathura sculptures (Siddhartha's
earliest humanistic depictions) preserved his original appearance is
quite wrong and misinformed. It would've been impossible to
reconstruct any human being's physical appearance *for the first
time* 500-600 years after his/her death!!!!! The truth is that every
single culture which adopted Buddhism sculpted Siddhartha's image
according to its members' own likeness. Hence the Greek appearance
of the Greco-Bactrian Gandhara, slant-eyed depiction in East Asia,
and so forth. This can be contrasted to the rather uniform way how
Jesus Christ has been depicted by different cultures. Whether in
Korea, South America, or Africa, Christ has always been of the Nordic
race.

Nisala

--- In akandabaratam@yahoogroups.com, "K. Loganathan" <ulagankmy@...>
wrote:

>
> Just wondering: Was Gautama Buddha a <representative of Ariya

higher varna> as claimed below? I am shocked for I thought Buddha
preached against VarNa Thinking. Am I wrong here? Is this an attempt
to introduce the typical European racialism into Buddhism which has
not seen any racialism at all and does not condone it right from the
beginning.

>
> Loga
>
>
> "Dmytro O. Ivakhnenko" <aavuso@...> wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
>
> > I wonder any one in this group knows the Buddha's racial

appearance

> > according to the Pali texts. He was born in the Nepal region. The
> > inhabitants in the region at that time may be closer to the

Himalayan

> > race.
>
> As a representative of Ariya higher varna, Buddha must have looked

> like Slav, Osset, or Persian (Iranian-Afghan).
>
> Genetic analysis shows that the higher varnas in India still are

much

> closer genetically to Europeans, than the lower varnas.
>
> http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/05_01/Indo-European.shtml
> https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html
>
> Probably the earliest Gandhara and Mathura images preserve his

features:

>
> http://www.answers.com/topic/buddhahead-jpg
> http://www.gandhara.com.au/gandhara_showcase5.html
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MathuraBodhisattvaSide.JPG
>
> Regards,
> Dmytro
>
>
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