Elements of Buddhist Iconography c3: Foreword

Elements of Buddhist Iconography c3

Language: English

Foreword

c3.1

Coomaraswamy’s *A New Approach to the Vedas*, Luzac and Company, 1933, *The Transformation of Nature in Art*, Harvard University Press, 1934, and the present volume, which is published under the auspices of the Harvard-Yenching Institute, are based on the following convictions, which have gradually been developing in his mind.

c3.2

In the first place, Buddhist art in India — and that is practically equivalent to saying art in India — begins about the second century before Christ with a well-developed set of symbols in its iconography. It does not seem possible to completely separate Buddhism as religion and as art from the main current of Indian religion and art, or to think that these symbols suddenly developed as a new creation. Therefore Coomaraswamy proceeded to study from a new point of view the symbolism which pervades the whole early Vedic literature of India, trying to discover whether concepts expressed symbolically in the literature of the aniconic Vedic period may not have found their first iconographic expression in early Buddhist art.

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In the second place, he noted many surprising similarities between passages in the mediaeval Christian theologians and mystics, such as St Thomas, Meister Eckhart, Ruysbroeck, and Böhme, and passages in the Vedic literature — similarities so striking that many sentences from the Christian writers might be taken as almost literal translations of Sanskrit sentences, or vice versa. The conviction developed in him that mystical theology the world over is the same, and that mediaeval Christian theology might be used as a tool to the better understanding of ancient Indian theology. This theory he proceeded to apply even to the Rig Veda, assuming, contrary to the general opinion, no complete break in thought between the Rig Veda and the Brahmanas and Upanishads. In many obscure and so-called “mystical” stanzas of the Rig Veda and Atharva Veda he finds the same concepts vaguely hinted at which are employed in a more developed form in Brahmanism and Buddhism.

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The present study of the Tree of Life, the Earth-Lotus the Word-Wheel, the Lotus-Throne, and the Fiery Pillar tries to show that these symbols can be traced back beyond their first representation in Buddhist

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iconography through the aniconic period of the Brahmanical Vedas, even into the Rig Vedic period itself, and that they represent a universal Indian symbolism and set of theological concepts.

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Objective linguistics is apparently near the end of its resources in dealing with the many remaining obscurities of Rig Vedic phraseology. This new metaphysical approach is welcome even though the matter-of-fact linguist it may seem that ideas are not being built up on the basis of words but that words are being made to fit ideas.

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WALTER EUGENE CLARK

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY June 27, 1934 “Symbols cannot be studied apart from the references which they symbolise.” Ogden and Richards, *The Meaning of Meaning*, p. 20

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“To determine the import of names is the same as to determine the fundamental character of concepts.” Stcherbatsky, *Buddhist Logic*, I, p. 459

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“I speak thus (in images) because of the frailty of the intelligence of the tender children of men.” “But since thou takest thy stand upon the principles (*dharmesu*), how is it that thou dost not enunciate the First Principle (*tattvam*) explicitly?” “Because, although I refer to the First Principle, there is not any ‘thing’ in Intellect corresponding to the reference ‘First Principle.’” *Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra*, II, 112 and 114

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“The picture is not in the colors . . . the Principle (*tattvam*) transcends the letter.” *Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra*, II, 118–119

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*Mirate la dottrina, che s’asconde, sotto il velame degli versi strani.* Dante, *Inferno*, IX, 61

Cites (1)

Laṅkāvatārasūtra — Sanskrit