Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Elements of Buddhist Iconography c5: Part II: The Place of the Lotus-Throne

Elements of Buddhist Iconography c5

Language
English

Part II: The Place of the Lotus-Throne

c5.1

PART II

c5.3

“Where is the navel of the world?” — *Rg Veda*, I, 164, 34.
“Quivi è la Rosa, in che il Verbo divino carne se fece; quivi son li Gigli,
al cui odor si prese il buon Cammino.” — Dante, *Paradiso*, XXIII.⁸⁴

c5.4

In early Buddhist art, as is well known, the Buddha is constantly represented by a simple seat or throne (*pallaṅka*) situated at the foot of a Mahābodhi-tree, the Prince of Trees, *duminda*. After the second century A.D., in the case of *māra-dharṣaṇa* images (recognizable by the *bhūmi-sparśa-mudrā*), the manifested form of the Buddha himself, seated on a lotus-throne, or combined lotus- and lion-throne, has become the most prominent feature of the whole, the Wisdom-tree being now reduced from its original supremacy to a function merely indicative of place and event; or if some other of the *aṣṭasthāna* is in question, or indeed any scene from the Life, the Buddha is seated on a lotus-throne, or stands on a lotus-pedestal, the representation including at the same time the necessary indications of place and event. In just the same way the anthropomorphic figure displaces the Wheel, which is relegated to the pedestal as an indication of the event of the First Preaching; though it appears also as *lakṣaṇa* on the soles of the feet and palms of the hands, for the Buddha even in human form is essentially the Wheel, his Existence is its revolution.

c5.5

In other words, anthropomorphic elements have now been combined with the earlier and more abstract symbolism; that was an inevitable result of the emergence of Buddhism as a popular religion, its extension as an emotional (*bhakti-vāda*) persuasion. That may have been just what the Buddha is said to have prophesied with regret on the occasion of the admission of women to the monastic order; and as we have seen a use of anthropomorphic images had been condemned as “groundless and fanciful.” Even if this is not original, as it may well be, at least it represents an iconoclastic tendency, subsequent to the development of the anthropomorphic imagery. Not that monastic orthodoxy could really have feared “idolatry” in the fetishistic sense, but that he who had denied that he was either Gandhabba, Yakkha, or Man, asserting thereby his Principial essence, might have sensed, or been thought of as sensing, a psychological danger in the use of a cult image in the form of a man, danger in fact in any sort of cult susceptible of an "animistic" interpretation. Nothing, however, is really changed in principle; the "anthropomorphic" image in India remains "abstract," 85 and rightly understood is merely a means to the realization of a given station of consciousness. Actually, in the theological development, the Principial Essence of the Tathāgata is more and more strongly emphasized, the content of the iconography, anthropomorphic or otherwise, becomes more and more ontological, less and less historical. It is just this emancipation from the historical point of view which determines the character and permits the expansion of Mahāyāna art, preoccupied as it is with the concept of the Buddha’s transcendental Perfection: when it is realized that the Buddha’s Comprehension (Sambodhi) dates from the beginning of time, and was merely "displayed" at Bodhgayā, and that he "has never left his seat on Mt Gṛdhrakūṭa," a mistaken attachment to his human personality is precluded. The mediaeval development of Christianity and of Christian art after the decline of Iconoclasm presents an exact analogy; here likewise it was realized that "Christ’s birth is eternal," and so there came into being an art that emphasizes the Perfection of his being in Glory, far more than the course of his earthly ministry.86

c5.6

Beneath the Bodhi-tree, within the Bodhimaṇḍa, Gautama is said to have accomplished the Great Awakening, Mahāsambodhi, becoming Buddha, "Comprehensor"; that was an attainment of Nirvāṇa, though other terms for this condition attainable by a still existent being, particularly the term Arahatta, "Perfection," are more frequently employed in the canonical Pali texts. What was then this "Full Attainment" (samāpatti)? Nirvāṇa is literally "despiration," but in Buddhist usage more specifically "Extinction," viz. extinction of the flame of Will. Most significant for us is the distinction of Nibbāṇa as sa-upādi-sesa, "having a residual existential ground," from Parinibbāṇa as an- or nir-upādi-sesa, "without any residual ground of existence"; 87 for these interpretations coincide with the doctrine of the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka that the Buddha, though omniscient, though "extinguished," is not yet "absolutely extinguished" (aparinirvāyamāṇa, see p. 47). The Mahāsambodhi, Great Awakening, displayed at Bodhgayā was not then a "Drowning" in the utterly Unknowing and Unknown,88 but the realization of a paradisiac, super-individual state of pure Being, realization of sovereign personality as Cakravartin and Dharmarājā. A transformation (Pali *vikubbana*, Skr. *parāvṛtti*, *abhisambhava*) is necessarily involved, which can only be described in terms of Paradise and Vision, Buddha-saukhya-vihāra (*Mahāyāna Sūtrālaṃkāra*, IX, 46). So according to the *Nidānakathā*, J., I, 75–76, “. . . throughout the universe flowering trees put forth their blossoms, and fruit-bearing trees were loaded with clusters of fruit . . . hells, whose gloom the rays of the seven suns had never dispelled, were filled with light ⁸⁹ . . . the blind from birth received their sight. . . .” But this experience was not an effected miracle (*pāṭihāriya*, *inda-jāla*) made visible to any spectator: “the Great Person (*mahāpurisa*) sat there alone,” J., I, 72, and if he beheld the ten thousand world-systems, the “World-picture” (*jagac-citra*, *Svātmanirūpaṇa*, 96),⁹⁰ none therein beheld him, unless it were in a likeness, *pratibimbavat*. Paradise is ever present to the transcendental Buddha, but naturally it was not supposed that the vision remained or could have remained present to the empirical Buddha in subsequent daily life, and indeed it is made to say that were he to repeat elsewhere the Full Attainment reached in the Bodhimaṇḍa, “Wisdom-circle,” earth could not sustain him (J., IV, 229).⁹¹

c5.7

Now to consider the position of the Bodhimaṇḍa, and continuing with the *Kāliṅga-bodhi Jātaka*: with the Buddha’s approval, as already explained above, p. 4, Mogallāna fares through the sky ⁹² to the Bodhimaṇḍa, and there procures a seed of the Wisdom-tree, and brings it back. Ānathapiṇḍika plants it in the place prepared for it at the gateway of the Jetavana, and there it springs up immediately, a full-grown “Forest-Lord,” *Vanaspati*.⁹³ A Wisdom-festival (*bodhi-maha*) is held, and a railing (*vedikā*) and enclosing walls (*pākāra*) are built, clearly in imitation of those on the original site. Ānanda then prays the Buddha to repeat “at the foot of this Bodhi (-tree) that Full Attainment (*samāpatti*) to which you attained at the root of the Mahābodhi (-tree).” The Buddha replies that this is impossible, “for should I accomplish here what I accomplished in the Mahābodhimaṇḍa, the earth will not be able to sustain it”; he consents, however, to achieve during one night such a measure of Attainment as the site can support.

c5.8

It is thus apparent that a particular significance attached to the (Mahā-) Bodhimaṇḍa with respect to its position in the Universe. We have already understood that the Wisdom-circle is an extent ideally equivalent to that of the whole Universe, and in gnosis realized as such. Now the meaning of a circle is with respect to its centre, which is a mathematical, and undimensioned, point, not with respect to its actual extension in physical space. It is in fact precisely at the centre of the Bodhimaṇḍa that the Bodhisattva took his seat. As related in the *Nidānakathā*, he first essays to find a seat on the north, south, and west of the Tree, but in each case the Great Earth (*mahā-pathavī*) fails to maintain its level, it seems to move up and down, like a great cartwheel lying on its hub (*nābhi*, "navel," "nave") when the circumference is trodden on; only when he takes his stand to the east of the Tree, that is evidently *on* the hub of the "wheel," is the level maintained.⁹⁴ Here there rises up a seat (*pallaṅka*) called "Unconquerable" (*aparājita*), and "of impartite, or adamantine, form" (*abhejja-rūpa*), and the Bodhisattva takes his seat with his back to the Tree. Māra, embodying the Will to Life, *libido*, *lubet*, claims the throne;⁹⁵ he assaults the Bodhisattva with every weapon known to him, but every weapon is transformed and reaches the Great Person in the form of a flower. Māra's daughters present seduction in all its most attractive forms; thè Bodhisattva is equally unmoved, he does not "look," for he has passed beyond "affection" to "perfection."⁹⁶

c5.9

The location of the Buddha-seat at the navel of the World-wheel is emphasized again in the *Buddhacarita*, XIII, 68: "This is the navel of the earth-plain (*nābhir vasudhā-tala*); it is possessed of transcendent entirety (*parama-kṛtsna*⁹⁷); no other place on earth but this is the realm of At-one-ment or Consummation (*samādhi*), the situation of the Goal (*hita*)." By the same token, this "unmoving site" (*acalaṭṭhāna*) has been occupied by all previous Buddhas (J., I, 71), by every Bodhisattva "on the day of his Great Awakening" (*abhisambujjhana*, J., I, 74, cf. *Buddhacarita*, XIII, 67).

c5.10

The seat itself (*pallaṅka*, *patta-pallaṅka*) is spoken of as unconquerable (*aparājita*), impartite or adamantine (*abhejja*), and as a Waking-seat (*bodhi-*) and Victory-seat (*jaya-*), J., I, 73-77. It is fourteen cubits in length, and makes its appearance, "is" (*ahosi*), spontaneously; but its form is not emphasized, *pallaṅka* and *patta-pallaṅka* simply denoting a slab of stone, and as such, supported by a plain rectangular base, the seat is represented in the early art. In *Theragāthā*, 1095, however, we find it spoken of as a "lion-throne," *sīhāsana* (glossed *thirāsane aparājita-pallaṅke, “unconquerable seat of firm séance”); this lion-throne is the form actually favored in the case of the oldest representations of the Buddha in human form at Mathurā, and it long survives in literature and art, often in combination with the lotus. Other royal types of seat or throne are met with at Amarāvatī. It is here also, as well as in the art of Gandhāra, mostly of the second century A.D., that the characteristic lotus seat (*padmâsana*) or lotus pedestal (*padma-pīṭha*) first appears.

c5.11

We also find the term *vajrâsana*, “adamantine throne,” applied to the Buddha’s seat. This term does not occur in the Pali texts, but is common in

c5.12

FIG. G. Vajra-dhātu form of the Dhyāni-Buddha. After Ōmura Seigai, Sanbon Ryōbu Mandara.

c5.13

the Mahāyāna sūtras. The word and notion led no doubt to the occasional representation of actual *vajras* on the pedestal of the Buddha throne, as at the Gal-vihāre, Poḷonnāruva, in the twelfth century; such representations are rare. In certain Shingon Buddhist representations (Fig. G) the *vajra* is combined rather with the body of the Buddha than with the throne, and this is probably to be connected with the late Tantrik form of Buddhism known as Vajrayāna, the designation of the Principial plane as Vajra-dhātu, Dharmakāya as Vajrakāya, and the personification of Vajrasattva = Vairocana, Ādi-Buddha. It will be remembered also that long before this (*Dīgha Nikāya*, I, 95, *Majjhima Nikāya*, I, 231, and in the *Lalita Vistara*) a Yakṣa Vajrapāṇi, a guardian angel and not to be confused with Indra, is closely associated with the Buddha during his ministry; and that this Vajrapāṇi, “who bears a *vajra* in his hand,” soon becomes the Bodhisattva of the same name.⁹⁸ From the standpoint of Vedic angelology such a figure must be regarded simply as an externalization of the Buddha's own adamantine power, personified as an angel attendant upon him.⁹⁹

c5.14

Although the term *vajrāsana* is not directly represented in Pali texts, the idea is clearly present by implication. The throne is in fact spoken of as *abhejja-rūpa*, i. e. as of impartite or adamantine form, *abhejja* being equivalent to Skr. *abhedya*, "indivisible," and also a kenning for *vajra*, "diamond," "adamant." We have also already seen that the Buddha's seat is at the centre, on the navel of the World-wheel, i. e. also centred on the axle-tree (*akṣa*), which is also the World-axis; and it may be noted that *akṣa-ja*, "axle-born" or "axis-born," is again a kenning for "*vajra*," while Kṛṣṇa's *cakra* is said to be *vajra-nābha*.¹⁰⁰

c5.15

The *vajra* (Jap. *kongō*) plays a large part in Shingon symbolism and ritual (Figs. G, H). A detailed study of the symbolism of Shingon ritual and implements is much to be desired.¹⁰¹ However, it is evident from the representations and objects themselves, in the light of what has been shown above with respect to *akṣa*, *vajra*, and *cakra*, that the point or end of the *vajra* corresponds to *aṇi*, the "point" of the axle-tree that penetrates the nave of the Wheel, Dante's *punto dello stelo a cui la prima rota va dintorno*. In the ordinary double *vajra*, *kongō-sho* (Figs. 26, 27), then, the stem or handle corresponds to the vertical axis of the Universe, extending between Heaven and Earth, which are represented by the two ends, one- or three-pointed as the case may be, each in the image of (*anurūpam*) the other. That is as pure Being, *Ding an sich*, *in principio*, and motionless, *pūrṇa* *apravartin*, *acala*, *abhedya*. On the other hand the fourfold (crossed) *karma-vajra*, *katsuma-kongō* (Fig. 28), corresponding to Dharmacakra, *rimbō*, represents the movement or operation of this exemplary Principle either universally or on any given plane of being, as already explained in connection with the symbolism of the Wheel. Hence we find the spokes of the World-wheel not infrequently and quite naturally represented as *vajras*, extending from centre to felly; in the *rimbō* (Fig. 25), for example, the "earth-points" of the eight *vajra*-spokes are seen in contact with the felly, but it must be understood that the unseen "heaven-points" meet at the common centre, within the lotus-nave. From the point of view of anyone "on earth" the corresponding *vajra*-spoke extends as before from Earth (the felly) to Heaven (centre). From this point of view it will also be apparent why in Shingon symbolism the *vajra*, *kongō*, is always represented as “supported” by a lotus, that is, by a universal “ground,” the relation of *vajra* to lotus being that of “impartible essence” to “universal substance”; and it is in the “middle region,” i. e. “round about” the axis of the *vajra*, between the centre and the felly of any Wheel, that all existence is extended. It should not be overlooked that *kongō-sho* and *katsuma-kongō*, the former vertical, the latter in a horizontal plane, considered together represent the poles of the Universe in the form of a three-armed cross: and as we have seen, the Buddha’s throne is situated in the centre, at the intersection of the arms.

c5.16

[Figure: FIG. H. Vajra-Dhātu symbol of the Five Dhyāni Buddhas. After Ōmura Seigai, Sanbon Ryōbu Mandara.]

c5.17

Furthermore, the origin of the term *vajrāsana* can also be explained psychologically, with reference to the mentality of him who sits thereon: ¹⁰² in the *Anguttara Nikāya*, I, 124, the highest type of consciousness is termed *vajirūpama citta*, “heart like adamant,” ¹⁰³ he having such a heart or mind “who by the destruction of the foul-issues ¹⁰⁴ and the vision of Dhamma (Principle) has verified the gnosis of issue-free heart-and-mind-release (*vimutti = nibbāna*), and having won it abides therein. Just as, Brethren, there is nothing, whether gem or rock, which a diamond cannot cut (*vaji-rassa . . . abhejjam*) . . . such is one of the three types of man (*puggala*) to be found in the world.” In Hinduism such a one is styled Jīvan-mukta, Freed in Life, or Vidvān, Gnostic, in Buddhism Jina, Conqueror, or Nirvāna, Extinguished, in Christianity Comprehensor. Such undoubtedly was the Mahāpurisa, Tathāgata, Buddha, Devātideva; appropriate to him whose heart is like a diamond, adamantine, or as we should now perhaps express it, “of steel,” is an adamantine throne, immovable as himself.

c5.18

In the *Saddharma Puṇḍarīka*,¹⁰⁵ not later than A.D. 250, the Buddha doctrine is completely emancipated from its historical setting, which is preserved only with respect to the “traces” (*dhātu*) of Gautama on earth, and in the iconography in so far as the monastic type is still adhered to. The Buddha himself becomes a transcendental principle, Dharma, Logos, awakened (*abhisambuddha*) from the beginning of time (SP., XV, 1). Not merely is his throne (*āsana*), upon which he is never weary of sitting (SP., V, 23),¹⁰⁶ the same as that which all former Munis have occupied (SP., XIII, 67), as was also taught in the Pali texts, but he is from the beginning one and the same who has occupied throne after throne in time and time again: “again and again I take my stand on the ground of the living world” (SP., XV, 7), “showing myself as such and such forasmuch as men have fallen into sin and sorrow” (SP., XV, 22, 23, cf. *Bhagavad Gītā*, IV, 7 and 8); being thus not merely the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the past, but those yet to come (SP., XIV, 38, XVI, 59–62, etc.).¹⁰⁷ As Dharmarāja, “King of the Word” (SP., V, 1), Puruṣōttama, “Most High Person” (SP., II, 41), *Svayambhū*, “Self-subsistent” (SP., II, 48, XV, 21), Lokapitā, “Father of the World” (SP., XV, 21), and Sarvaprajāna Nātha, “Lord of begotten existences” (SP., XV, 21, cf. “Prajāpati”), “I display return (*nirvṛta*) who am not myself returned (*anirvṛtaḥ*)” (SP., XV, 21).¹⁰⁸ “I reveal the Ground of Extinction (*nirvāṇa-bhūmi*), speaking by accommodation for the edification of living beings, though I was not Extinguished (*na . . . nirvāmy ahu*) at that time, but am ever revealing the Dharma here. . . . Believing that my Self-nature (*ātma-bhāva*) was Wholly Returned (*parinirvṛta*), they worship variously the traces (*dhātu*), but see not Me. . . . I have not left this Gṛdhrakūṭa . . . the duration of my life is an interminable aeon” (SP., XV, 3, 5, 10, and 17). Again, “The Threefold World is seen by the Tathāgata,¹⁰⁹ not as childish worldlings see it, but immediately as Principles (*dharma*); verily the Principles are not remote from the Tathāgata in the station where he is. . . . The Tathāgata who was Awakened (*abhisambuddha*) so long ago, and the measure of whose life is incalculable, is continuously (*sadā*) existent (*sthita*). . . . My ancient Bodhisattva course is not yet run, the measure of my life is not fulfilled. . . . I announce an Absolute-Extinction (*parinirvāṇa*) who-am-not-by-way-of-being-Totally-Extin-

c5.19

guished (*aparinirvāyamāṇa*) . . . lest those whose virtuosity (*kuśala*) is insecurely rooted, thinking ‘the Tathāgata is alive’ (*tiṣṭhati*), should fail to exert their manhood (*vīrya*) towards a Negation-of-the-flux (*niḥsaraṇa*) of the Threefold World” (SPt., pp. 318, 319).¹¹⁰ And as for those Comprehensors who may in future take their place at the foot of the Wisdom-tree, “there have I taken my seat, where that Son of Buddha is, there am I” (SP., XVI, 59-62); “moved by compassion, like a father’s for his dear and only son, he appears (*avatīrya*, i. e. as *avatāra*) in the Threefold World, seeing with the eye of wisdom that living beings are revolving (*paribhramataḥ*, cf. *paribhramati* in *Maitri Up.*, III, 2) there in the Wheel of the World-flux (*saṃsāracakre*) and laboring without discovering a Negation of the Flux (*niḥsaraṇam*) . . . the Tathāgata who thus beholds the deep principles (*gambhīrān dharmān*) sees without seeing (*paśyaty apaśyanayā*)¹¹¹ the Threefold World that is the crowded home of multifarious living beings” (SPt., pp. 135-137).

c5.20

The Buddha as Supreme Person (Puruṣôttama, etc.) of incalculable but not infinite age, whose enlightenment dates from the beginning of the world, is thus from the standpoints of ontology and psychology, as well as by verbal correspondences (Lokapitā, Svayambhū, Prajānanātha, etc.), virtually identified with Brahmā-Prajāpati, who is the Father of the World.¹¹² This virtual identification of Buddha and Brahmā appears already in certain passages of the Pali books, for example in the equation of Dhammakāya and Brahmakāya (*Dīgha Nikāya*, III, 84), or again in the Tevijja Sutta,¹¹³ where it is affirmed that the enlightened Bhikkhu may well attain to union with Brahmā, “who is the same.” As we shall presently see, this virtual identification of Buddha with Brahmā has also its equivalents in iconographic representation.

c5.21

It will be understood, of course, that in the *Saddharma Puṇḍarīka* the Buddha is speaking (Fig. 30) throughout not as the Word, for the Word (Dharma) is without origin (*anutpattika*), and non-existent, not like the Sambhogakāya Buddha manifested as it is in itself, which would be impossible. The Word does not speak, it is moved or taught (*pravartita, deśita*);¹¹⁴ Buddha as Cakravartin is not the permissive, but the immediate, cause of the Turning of the Word-wheel. As Crowned King of the Word, *dharma-rāja paṭṭabaddha* (SPt., p. 417),¹¹⁵ and Universal Sovereign, *cakravartin* (Maitreya-Asaṅga, *Uttaratantra*, I, 150), he displays to the assembled congregation of his spiritual sons the likeness of a Nature (svabhāva), Suchness (tathatā), Quiddity (tattva), Void (śūnyatā), Sameness (samatā), and Logosity (dharmatā) that are ineffable. That is, his manifestation in the station (sthāna) where he is, on Mt Gṛdhrakūṭa where he is always, is not of the Dharmakāya as such, but of the Dharma in a likeness, in the likeness of a Wheel, or the likeness of Gautama. What he reveals to his children, the Bodhisattvas, who alone are competent to the vision, is his Person in Majesty, the Sambhogakāya. That reflection (pratibimba) is in fact all that can be revealed to the angelic eye, for the attachment of -kāya to dharma is purely analogical, and must not be understood to mean that the Dharma has a form. At the same time his appearance in a designated body, Nirmāṇakāya, displaying the drama of Awakening eventfully, is for the sake of those living in the flesh in that day, or who may after the "Parinirvāṇa" (here the temporal and analogical equivalent of a Return at the End of Time) find their way to Awakening by means of the "traces" of the apparition.¹¹⁶ Such temporal manifestations by way of avataraṇa are rare and precious, but he will "come again" as Maitreya.

c5.22

¹¹⁶ [Text of the note is not present on this page]

c5.23

The foregoing evidences of the virtual identification of the Buddha in Majesty with Brahmā-Prajāpati enthroned in the supra-mundane Empyrean heavens are paralleled by the iconographic prescription of the Bṛhat Saṃhitā, LVIII, 44, "The Buddha is to be shown seated on a lotus, like the Father of the World" (padmāsanopaviṣṭaḥ piteva jagato bhaved buddhaḥ).¹¹⁷ The Buddha is in fact represented padmāsana, kamalāsana, from late Āndhra times onwards, that is almost from the beginning of the anthropomorphic iconography. In the common representations of a Buddha triad, the Buddha being seated or standing between a pair of Bodhisattvas, the latter are supported by paired lotuses springing from the same stem, and such triads may be compared from more than one point of view with the Several Angels (viśve devāḥ) of the Upaniṣads and Vedas, where the Unity of the primordial Agni is represented in a trinity of aspects; the Buddha triads, for example, corresponding iconographically to such representations of the Trinity as appear in the Burmese relief, Fig. 16. The ontology is the same, whether the stem of the Buddha-lotus be prolonged downwards and there supported by paired Nāgas representative of the Waters (as at Kārli), or the stem of the Brahmā-lotus rises from the navel of Nārāyaṇa, originally Varuṇa, recumbent on the Waters.

c5.24

¹¹⁷ [Text of the note is not present on this page]

c5.25

An equivalence can be demonstrated also from many points of view between the Buddha paradises (Sukhāvatī, etc.) and the Brahmalokas,¹¹⁸ and more specifically between the thrones of Buddha and of Brahmā when the throne is thought of as pallaṅka, Skr. paryaṅka, rather than as pad-māsana. Thus, access to the Brahmaloka is by a crossing of the river Vijarā, “casting off of change-and-decay,” which crossing must be effected “only by the Intellect” and involves a shaking off of all the pairs of opposites, including good and evil; the city of Brahmā is called Sālajya, his abode (saṃsthāna) Aparājita (“Unconquerable”), the throne-room (pramita) Vibhu (“Space”). The Kauṣītaki Up., I, 3, and 5, further describes the footstool (āsandī)¹¹⁹ and the throne (paryaṅka) of Brahmā: the former is called Vicakṣaṇā, “Discernment” and is explained as Prajñā, “Omniscience” or “Perfect Wisdom,” the latter is called Amitaujas, “Limitless Splendor” or “Limitless Power” (the designation applies to Indra in Ṛg Veda, I, 11, 4), and explained as Prāṇa, “Spirit” or “Life,” and it is “only by Prajñā that one ascends the throne.”¹²⁰ Here the last assertion corresponds to SP., V, 75, “no Extinction without Omniscience,” as cited below; and the name of the throne is equivalent to Amitābha, a Buddha name denoting “Limitless Light,” and its nature, Prāṇa, to Amitāyus, “Limitless Life,” which is another epithet of the same Buddha, who represents the Sambhogakāya aspect of Gautama.

c5.26

The Buddha throne, however, is usually a lotus, or lotus- and lion-throne combined; the Bodhisattvas, and all who are born again in Buddha paradises, are similarly lotus-supported, but on smaller flowers. So the predications of future enlightenment generally include such promises as “shall appear seated in the cup of a lotus on a lion-throne in Paradise” (SPt., p. 419); “there the Leader Amitābha is seated in the lovely glistening cup of a lotus (padmagarbhe),¹²¹ on a lion-throne (siṃhāsane) . . . there the Sons of the Conqueror come into existence (upapāduka) seated in the pure cups of lotuses” (SP., XXIV, 31, 32, cf. Mahā-Sukhāvatī-vyūha, 16, 40 and 41).¹²² In these passages, upapāduka has generally been rendered “miraculously born,” but the direct sense of upapad is simply “to enter into any state,” “to appear,” “come into a given mode of existence”; it is not miraculously but inevitably that a certain degree of enlightenment results in a future birth in a Buddha paradise. On the other hand, upapāduka contrasts with anutpattika, “unoriginated,” applicable to the Dharma as being precisely that which does not come into existence, the Buddha being merely an image, *ākṛti*, of the Dharma, existent in the world, like the *mūrta* Brahman, viz. Brahmā. The primary ontological significance of the lotus is precisely with respect to this existence, *astitva*, *sthāyitā*, *sthiti*, a being “firmly grounded in the possibilities of existence,” commonly called the Waters. *Padmāsana* and *vajrāsana* are equally symbols of that *sthāyitā*: both express visually *sadā sthita*, and *tiṣṭhati*, with respect to the Buddha or any Angel; both differentiate the station of Sambhogakāya from that of the Dharmakāya, which is inaccessible even to the angelic eye.

c5.27

*Sthāyitā* in any Buddha paradise, whether with respect to the Buddha there manifested, or to his sons and disciples the Bodhisattvas and Pratyeka Buddhas, is an immortality until the end of time, viz. until the lifetime of the Buddha lord of that field or cosmos is fulfilled, not the absolute eternity of the Dharmatā, Parinirvāṇa, which never having come into existence can never pass away. The Bodhisattva in whom the Wisdom-heart (*bodhi-citta*) has opened (*utpanna*), and who is thereby born (*upapāduka*, *upapattika*) in the pure cup of a paradisiac lotus, whence he beholds the Buddha face to face, is indeed no longer involved in the world-flux (*saṃsāra*), but neither has he reached *nirvāṇa*, much less *parinirvāṇa*, however he may imagine: “that is a resting-place (*viśrāma*), not a Return (*nivṛti*); it is by accommodation (*upāya*) that the Buddhas teach this doctrine (*naya*, viz. of a Paradise), actually there is no Extinction (*nirvāṇa*) without omniscience (*sarvajñatva*), strive for That” (SP., V, 74, 75).¹²³ Only when that Omniscience has been attained can the disciple be said to have become a Buddha, *the* Buddha; then like Prabhūtaratna he sits with the Buddha on one and the same throne, being in fact the Buddha, Tathāgata, though intelligibly and apparently to the angelic eye still “himself.” As a Buddha, *the* Buddha, he is still existent, *sa-upādi-sesa*, until the end of time, *kalpānta*, in saecula saeculorum. But his appearance as a Crowned King of the Word is but the presented aspect of his being; he is *nirvāta*, and realizes the Sameness of All Principles. Not Absolutely Extinguished (*parinirvāta*), nor beyond the ken of the angelic eye, he “sees without seeing” (*paśyaty apaśyanayā*), or sees, ideally, the Threefold World “as is” (*yathābhūta*); he is not merely Mover of the Wheel (*dharmakravartin*), but also “has the Word as his intrinsic nature,” *svabhāva-dharma-samanvāgata* (SPt., p. 481). He sees that Nirvāṇa and Saṃsāra are the same, he knows, he is the Sameness of all Principles (*dharma*);¹²⁴ he is omniscient of the identity of the world and the abyss, actuality and possibility, active and passive aspects of the infinite, though he has still a "residual existential element." He has become the Universal *jīvanmukta*, super-individually existent as the One Great Person.¹²⁵

c5.28

From the one point of view he sees only the "patient-stillness of the unoriginated Word" (*anutpattika-dharma-kṣānti*), from the other and same point of view he sees the same Word in rotation (*pravartana*) or procession (*prasaraṇa*) as the causal world of birth and death, the wandering-place of living beings ignorant of a reversion (*nivṛtti*) or recession (*niḥsaraṇa*).¹²⁶ So feeling a great tenderness (*karuṇā*) towards his world, his "Buddha-field," he reveals the Word by means of various alternative-formulations (*dharma-paryāya*), either directly, or by means of other teachers; for he is infinitely skilful (*kuśala*) in the use of convenient means (*upāya*) adapted to the capacity (*bala*) of every auditor.¹²⁷

c5.29

The *Saddharma Puṇḍarīka*, summarized above, may be described as the most important of the Mahāyāna *dharma-paryāyas*, equally from ontological and iconographic points of view. But that is not all. An understanding of the ontology is essential also for the student of "art," who must realize that a work of art cannot be "understood" or rightly "valued" or "criticized" apart from the form which is its *raison d'être*. Content is not *post factum*, but *causa faciendi*; the significance of things well and truly made is with respect to the end for which they are made.¹²⁸ As religious art is never an end in itself, but always a means of communication, it can only be called "good" or "bad" in so far as it actually expresses and conveys a given "idea"; rational judgment of a given work can only be based on a comparison of the substance with its determining form. How then can one who ignores the idea or form embodied in a work of art be qualified to "criticize" it? All that such an one can do is to say that he knows nothing of art, but knows what he likes.

c5.30

Let us admit the possibility of "aesthetic experience," and that this possibility is independent of the theme, whatever it may have been. This experience will be realized in an assimilation of the perceiving consciousness to the form of the thing considered. Inasmuch as "Buddhism" is the "form" of Buddhist art, it follows that an understanding of Buddhism is indispensable, not only for a rational interpretation of the iconography, in which the logic of the work is expressed, but also as prerequisite to “aesthetic experience.” To assert that “aesthetic experience” of Buddhist art is possible without an *a priori* knowledge of Buddhism embodies this element of truth, that the content of Buddhism is not merely specific, but also universal, and that in so far as our experience is not, for example, merely specifically Christian, but Christian universally, we do already possess an *a priori* knowledge of Buddhism; one does not know who, however, can lay claim to so profound an understanding of any religious art as to enable him to say that he knows so much of the form of religious art that he need know no more.

c5.31

Returning now to the iconography or symbolism of our art: we read in Hsüan-tsang, *Life*, Ch. III (Beal, p. 103), that the adamantine throne (*vajrāsana*) which is in the centre of the Bodhimaṇḍa was perfected at the beginning of the Bhadra Kalpa, the present aeon, and rose up when the world was brought into existence. It is at the very centre of the Universe, and extends downwards to the “golden wheel”; it is about a hundred paces round. That it is called adamant means that it is pure and indestructible. Without its support the Earth could not endure; were the seat not adamantine, there would be no place in the world that could support the Adamantine At-one-ment (*vajra-samādhi*). Here whoever desires to conquer Māra and to attain to perfect wisdom must take his seat; were it essayed elsewhere, the Earth would be overturned. The thousand Buddhas of the present aeon have all attained their emancipation here. If the world were shaken to its foundations, the Bodhimaṇḍa would not be moved.129

c5.32

Here the only important point added to what we already knew from texts previously cited is the explanation that the Bodhimaṇḍa represents a section on the terrestrial plane of the axis of the universe, which axis extends downwards to the “golden wheel,” and on which the stability of the Earth depends. What is meant by that “golden wheel” may be learnt from Vasubandhu’s *Abhidharmakośa*, III, 45 ff., Poussin, II, 138 ff., where the “world-receptacle” (*bhājanaloka*) is described.130 The Universe is conceived of as consisting of so many superimposed “circles” (*maṇḍala*): nethermost is the circle of Space (*ākāśa-maṇḍala*), “solid” and of “immeasurable” circumference, and 1,600,000 *yojanas* in thickness; over and on this rests the circle of the Waters, 1,120,000 *yojanas* in thickness and 1,203,450 in circumference.131 The surface of these Waters, just as in the Brahmanical cosmology and in Genesis, is stirred by the dawn wind of creation, which is impelled by the latent causality of past events. The foam of the Waters solidifies to form the golden circle (*kañcana-maṇḍala*) or “Land of Gold” (*kañcana-bhūmi*),¹³² the same as Hsüan-tsang’s “golden wheel” and representing the “foundations of the earth” firmly established amidst the possibilities of existence. The Land of Gold has a diameter equal to that of the Waters, and displaces 120,000 *yojanas* of their depth. The surface of the Land of Gold is the Round of the World, with its mountains (Meru, etc.), continents (the four *dvīpas*), seas, and outwall (*cakra-vāḍa*). Of these continents, or rather “islands,” our terrestrial world Jambudvīpa lies to the south of Meru, which rises in the centre of the whole Universe, and extends from the Waters below to Heaven above, as world-pillar and world-axis. “Midmost in Jambudvīpa, and resting on the Land of Gold, is the *vajrāsana* on which the Bodhisattva takes his seat to realize the *vajrôpama samādhi*¹³³ and so become an Arhat or Buddha: no other place, no other person, could support the Bodhisattva’s *samādhi*.”

c5.33

It is clear that Hsüan-tsang merely repeats the ancient tradition of the Buddha-throne as it had been told him, or as he might have read it in the texts from which we have quoted above. It is true that the centre of Jambudvīpa cannot be regarded, unless analogically, as the actual (local) centre of the entire Universe, for that centre is on the axis of Mt Meru. In the same way with respect to this world, which is the particular Buddha-field of the Tathāgata *qua* Śākyamuni, it will be remarked that the Bodhimaṇḍa at Bodhgayā, and the summit of Mt Gṛdhrakūṭa where the Sambhogakāya is “always” revealed, are not locally on one and the same axis or meridian. That should serve to remind us that the “centre of the Universe” is not a spot fixed in space, but (as will be further shown below) a psychological centre, the focal point of consciousness, not *bahir-* but *antar-bhūtasya*.¹³⁴

c5.34

In actual iconography, the axial extension of the Buddha’s throne or footstool may be clearly shown. In the case of a *padmāsana* or *padmapīṭha* the supporting axis, viz. the stem, extends downwards through the Earth into the depths of the Waters, where it is upheld by paired Nāgas, as representative genii of the nether Waters.¹³⁵ Of this we have an excellent example in the Sambhogakāya relief of Gupta age at Kārli (Fig. 29, also Bachhofer, *Early Indian Sculpture*, Pl. 68, central panel). Here, within a pillared structure which may be compared to Brahmā’s throne-room Vibhu, the Buddha is seated on a lion-throne, with his feet supported by a lotus. To left and right are the Bodhisattvas Avalokiteśvara and Maitreya, representative of the congregation assembled on Mt Gṛdhrakūṭa; they are standing upon lotus supports. Immediately below the Buddha’s lotus is a Dharmacakra, flanked by paired deer, indicative of place and event, viz. the Deer Park at Sārnāth and the First Sermon, *prathamadeśanā*. At this level is represented the earth-plane (*vasudhā-tala*), extending horizontally to left and right, but interrupted centrally where the descending axis penetrates it. The “lotus-capital” of the descending axis has now a more bulbous form, but taking wheel and pillar together, we recognize without difficulty an original formula constantly met with in the earliest Buddhist art. The rounded masses under the earth-plane correspond in position to the “foundations of the earth,” the Land of Gold. All below this represents the Waters, the support given by the paired Nāgas indicating the firm establishment of the cosmic pillar in the nether sea of possibility. Above the Buddha’s head, supported by angels commonly spoken of as Vidyādharas (Cherubim), is a *stūpa*,¹³⁶ symbol of the Parinirvāṇa, and that it is thus above and removed from him corresponds to the fact that he is not yet transcendently *parinirvāta*, for as we have seen, the temporal decease represented not the realization, but only the analogy, of the final Parinirvāṇa. There is a similar relief at Kondivle.

c5.35

When the throne is alternatively a *paryaṅka* and thought of as the *vajrāsana*, a condition corresponding to Hsüan-tsang’s conception, the supporting axis is shown as extended downwards into the Land of Gold, and there supported by a Guhyaka Yakṣa.¹³⁷ An admirable illustration of this can be cited in the case of the pedestal (Fig. 40) of the Yakushi Buddha of the Kondo, a Japanese work of the eighth century (*Japanese Temples and Their Treasures*, Pl. 206: *Yakushiji Okagami*, II, Tokyo, 1922). Here the flat surface of the rectangular throne is an earth-plane (*vasudhā-tala*), the solid body of the pedestal corresponding to the Land of Gold. On the front side of the pedestal is represented a vertical axis extending downwards to the lower margin of the block, where it is supported by a crouching Yakṣa Atlant.¹³⁸ This representation is exactly analogous to that of the Guḍimallam liṅgam (Fig. 42 and my *History*, Fig. 66), nor need the point be labored here that the Śiva liṅgam, established in the Land of Gold (Hāṭaka) and extending thence to Heaven above, represents another aspect of the one axis of the Universe. The ornamental form of the Yakushi axis recalls that of the Dharmacakra pillars represented at Amarāvatī (e. g. my *History*, Fig. 136, right and left), and shows clearly the jointed structure of the axis. On the side of the Yakushi pedestal (Fig. 41), right and left of the axis, and as though to emphasize the character of the central support-ing Atlant Yakṣa, are other figures of the same type, crouching within and peering out of caverns, which are their chambers in the bowels of the earth; similar representations are to be seen on the other faces of the pedestal. Below the level representing the base of the Land of Gold are four strata representing the Waters; on the uppermost of these, centrally on each side, are theriomorphic emblems of the Four Quarters, those on the front side being a tortoise and a snake, representing the North (the Buddha therefore "is" in the North and faces South); the lowest stratum consists of a lotus-petal moulding, which may here be understood to mean the nethermost Waters as the ultimate "ground" of all that is above them and established in them.

c5.36

A part of what has been independently deduced and demonstrated above has also been stated by M. Mus in his admirable monograph, *Le Buddha paré*, etc., previously cited. For example, "The throne of the Law is the symbol par excellence of the teaching, and even of the state of Bud-dahood" (p. 243); "It cannot be conceived that the Body of Beatitude (Sambhogakāya) could have been seated anywhere else than on the angelic lotus, far above the throne to be seen in the holy place (Bodhgayā)" (p. 204); "The holy throne combines in itself three appearances, corresponding to those of the Three Bodies" (p. 272); "The prolongation of the stem, which is the axis of the sensible world, bears at the summit of the universe the spiritual lotus-throne of the Sambhogakāya" (p. 243).¹³⁹ M. Mus points out further that the lotus-throne which supports the Word as it is in itself can be imagined only analogically; that transcendental throne could no more than the Word itself be conceived of as visible even to the angelic eye, for the being of the Word is strictly noumenal, *un être verbal* (*nāmavat*), not contained by, only indicated by, the thought and spoken words.

c5.37

We have thus discovered in the texts a sufficient explanation of the most characteristic formulae of the iconography. We now return to and conclude with the problem of the place of the Buddha's throne; i. e., of course, a special case of the general problem of the meaning of "immanence." We have already surmised that by the centre of the Universe, the navel of immortality, and similar expressions there is to be understood not a determinable spot, but a psychological centre and point of consciousness “where every where and every when is focussed”; that the traditional cosmology is in fact far more a psychology than a cosmic geography. That is explicitly enunciated in the pre-Buddhist doctrine of the Lotus of the Heart, as ground whereon and space wherein all existence is unfolded. It seems that no use of this significant image was actually made in Buddhist texts, but it can easily be shown, and has indeed already been shown in other ways, that Buddhahood, Nirvāṇa, is not in any place, but represents a state of being, viz. being universally; the Buddha-throne can only be established “within you,” *antarbhūtasya*. The adamantine throne is the stability of the adamantine intellect. Knowledge of the Buddha is not the knowledge of any “thing,” but a consummation of the process of de-mentation of discriminative perception, *viññāṇassa nirodha* = *ceto-vimutti*, *Dīgha Nikāya*, I, 223, and *Aṅguttara Nikāya*, I, 124, cf. *mano niroddhavyam hṛdi*, *Maitri Up.*, VI, 34. So in his “Song of Victory” (*Nidānakathā*, I, 76 = *Dhammapada*, 154) the Buddha exclaims, “The key-plate of the roof has been shattered, intellect has reached the dissolution of its composite formulations.” 140 That is to say that the Comprehensor, emancipated from all dialectic understanding, knows and is the Only Principle; in the Act-of-Identity (*samādhi*) he is the Sameness of All Principles.141 He is *nibbuta*, *nirvāta*, the Supreme Identity has been touched, the Buddha essence is liberated from duration; yet speaking *qua* the Great Person, he cannot say that he is Absolutely Extinguished, he must say that he is not “yet” Absolutely Extinguished, *quâ parinirvāta*, he would not be a Person. The unity of Being and Non-being can speak only as Being, only as Being can he be spoken of or represented in a likeness.

c5.38

One further word on Buddhahood and the concepts of Nirvāṇa and Parinirvāṇa. Negative expressions are inevitable, merely because all affirmation is the enunciation of a limiting condition; denial is a double negative, affirming absence of conditions, whereof the In-finite, *qua* in-finite, is necessarily indigent. That has been recognized again and again also in Europe; cf. Maimonides, *Guide for the Perplexed*, I, Ch. 59, “Superficial thinkers . . . ask ‘Is that thing existing in the Creator, or not?’ . . . by each additional negative attribute you advance toward the knowledge of God”; Eckhart, I, 87, “Nothing true can be spoken of God”; Dante, Convivio, III, 15, “. . . certain things which our intellect cannot behold . . . we cannot understand what they are except by denying things of them.” There is nothing here that the adamantine mind can fear; in the words of the Taittirīya Upaniṣad, II, 7, “Truly, when one finds a fearless foundation (pratiṣṭhā) in that which is invisible (adṛśya), not-selfed (anātmya, = Buddhist anatta), ineffable (anirukta), homeless (anilayana), then has he attained to fearlessness (abhayaṃ gata).”

c5.39

Eckhart and Blake alone should have suffered to demonstrate the naïveté of the view that Buddhism is proven “atheistic” by its negative phraseology. According to Eckhart, “It is more necessary to perfection that the soul lose God than that she lose creatures . . . the soul honors God most in being quit of God (I, 274) . . . the fastidious soul (cf. Buddhist ariya) can rest her understanding on nothing that has name. She escapes from every name into the nameless nothingness (I, 373) . . . this is the death of the spirit . . . the spirit puts its own self to death . . . and remains in the unity of the divine nature. . . . These are the blessed dead. . . . No one can be buried and beatified in the Godhead who has not died to God (I, 411) . . . the Godhead is as void as though it were not. . . . In this state we are as free as when we were not: free as the Godhead in its non-existence (I, 381–382). . . . She (the soul) sinks for evermore in the depths of this naught. She sinks and drowns: she drowns to her own aught. But the naught that sinks can never comprehend the naught it sinks in (I, 373).” So also Blake, “I would go down unto Annihilation and Eternal Death, lest the Last Judgment come and find me Unannihilate, and I be seiz’d and giv’n into the hands of my own Selfhood.” Those who cannot bear with such thought as this can never bear with Buddhism, nor understand the ultimate significance of Buddhist art.

c5.40

Any change of state is a death. Christian tradition alludes to “three deaths of the soul,” namely (1) the death to self-will, which death implies the attainment of angelic being, a state of grace, (2) the death of the soul to its own separate form, implying a conscious conformity to the Principial Being, and (3) a death, called a Drowning, in Waters where God is unknown to himself, unknown as oneself; there as Eckhart expresses it the soul is “free as the Godhead in its non-existence.” In corresponding Buddhist formulation we have a lower mortification, (1) that of the man who adopts the homeless life, and attains to so much Awakening as to ensure his birth in a Buddha paradise, (2) the attainment of Buddhahood, Nirvāṇa, extinction of self, but with residual existential elements, and (3) Extinction Absolute, Parinirvāṇa without residual factors of existence. To any of these deaths can be applied the thought of Chuang Tzŭ, “How do I know that he who dreads to die is not as a child who has lost the way and cannot find his home?” He who shrinks from the Drowning, from Death, Privation, Extinction, Night, may reflect, *Mors janua vitae*. Unitary Being, that is only One, both His and ours, even a stone has being, is at the same time fontal and inflowing, *saṃsaraṇa, niḥsaraṇa*;¹⁴² “He who is Death is likewise the Year, the Father of his children,” ¹⁴³ “Pillar of Life, at the parting of the Ways . . . there, where Life was erst, insists our Agni, First-born of the Law,” ¹⁴⁴ “born ever and again.” ¹⁴⁵ If then we lay aside all thought of temporal succession, all considerations of mortality, viz. of eventful birth and death, we shall understand that Life and Death, Being and Non-being, Nirvāṇa and Parinirvāṇa, are incessant aspects of That which is emancipated from all possible contingency, even from such accidents of Being as the phrase “not yet Absolutely Extinguished” implies. “That” is neither “here” nor “there,” but “within you,” *antarbhūtasya khe*, in the Calyx of the Heart.

c5.41

All this the Buddha refused to discuss. His business was to proclaim a Way (*mārga, pantha*), he would not speak of That, the Goal (*artha*) whereof nothing can be spoken truly or intelligibly. How indeed, as Confucius expresses it, should those who have not yet understood Life, aspire to comprehend Death? whilst we are on the way, we are not there. We can then only take the Buddha as *he is*, as manifested operative presence, and strive to realize ourself as Same, by following his or any alternatively formulated Way, taught by himself or any “other” Comprehensor. That Way is mapped, not only in spoken words, but equally in painted or sculptured iconographies. These “works of art” ¹⁴⁶ are “footprints of the Law,” “traces of the Buddha,” which we cannot say that we have really heard or seen, otherwise than by merely animal perception, unless we have seen through them at least a shadow of the form by which they are what they are. Let us not forget that the Brahmanical or Buddhist craftsman was required to *be* that which he was commissioned to *represent*, and that only in so far as we can be again the Same, can we begin to understand his operation.

c5.42

To resume: it has been shown by reference to chapter and verse of canonical texts, both Buddhist and pre-Buddhist, that the Buddha, humanly presented, is in fact connatural with the Vedic Agni, and that 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 not 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 Tathāgata, Buddha, seated on such a throne, standing on such a pedestal, affirms an infinite negation, a sable stillness against which his golden Person shines resplendent, unconfined by any form, but omniform. As crowned King of the Word he utters to angelic ears as much as can be spoken of the silence, that is our existence.¹⁴⁷ As an individual teacher with a given name, he plays a part and proclaims a Way. From any point of view his intellect is adamantine, regal, and intangible. The foundations of his manifestation are established in the depths of the upper and the nether seas: he is the Axis of the Universe, in whom it comes to be and goes to be not. By whatever name, personal or essential, the Spoken Word, the Wheel in Revolution, the Tree of Life, or Fiery Pillar, he may be called, in whatever form he may be imagined, who surely takes the forms imagined by his worshippers, for all convenient means are at his command, he, Tathāgata, Agni Vaiśvānara, Brahmā-Prajāpati, Christ, or Idea of Muḥammad, is one and the same, his throne is single. As Kabīr expresses it, echoing classic formulae in what is still the lingua franca of a hundred million speakers:

First 41 of 45 passages. Read on

Linked texts (21)