"காதல் வந்து நுழைந்தால்
போதி மரக்கிளையில் ஊஞ்சல் கட்டி புத்தன் ஆடுவான்"
Buddha will swing under the Bodhi tree if
he falls in love
- Na. Muthukumar, 'Pudichirukku' Song from
Saamy Movie
"But it was not something Buddha
did"
I know, you all are wondering that I'm
writing after some three years and beginning with some quirky lyrics from a
cinema song. Apparently, the idea to write this post struck my mind while
listening to the song while driving back home after a lecture of Dr. Anand
Burdhan on 'early historical sculptural art' at my workplace.
Although laziness was a primary reason,
wandering from city to city and other useless things I was doing kept me away
from writing detailed blogs. With the advent of attention and audience in
Instagram was also a reason of me staying away from BlogSpot. In these three
years, many good things have happened, I have learned and unlearned many
lessons in my life.
My job and the acquaintances are few among the good things that has happened. I have this privilege of attending the classes of the art appreciation course that's being coordinated by our division. There was this lecture on 'Early Historical Sculptural Art' by Dr. Anand Burdhan on 16th May, 2024. Dr. Burdhan is the deputy dean and assistant professor at the School of Heritage Research and Management at the Ambedkar University, Delhi. His expertise areas are museology, heritage studies and management, temple architecture and cosmology.I am yet to process the impact of Dr. Burdhan's lecture.
I was mostly confined to only topics related to South Indian history and temple architecture. My brain complicated the process of grasping the historical information beyond the geographical area that I come from. But Dr. Burdhan’s lectures are one such enlightening experiences which leaves an imprint and the content of his subject stays in your mind.
Dr. Burdhan began with sculptural art of
Mauryan age, then on to Sunga art and its important centres. Then came the
Gandhara sculptural art. Dr. Anand Burdhan's impact is mainly because of two
factors. One is his deep-rooted knowledge and the next is his style of
delivering. His remarkable memory of citing the exact verses from various texts
and of inscriptions are impeccable and leaves me speechless.
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| Buddha being worshipped by Indra & Brahma - Wikimedia Commons |
Coming to the subject, Dr. Anand Burdhan
was explaining about how only two gods from the Hindu pantheon is depicted in
Buddhist sculptural art. Indra and Brahma were the two gods accompanied Buddha
to this world when he was descending from the heavens of Indra after preaching.
In few sculptures one can see Indra and Brahma depicted along Buddha, sometimes
worshipping Buddha as well.
In the Buddhist text of Lalit Vistara,
this incident from the life of Buddha has been described. Immediately after
enlightenment, Buddha remembers none but his wife, Yashodhara. The very
fraction of moment he starts to go and visit yashodhara. Lord Brahma then says
to Indra to stop Buddha and remind him of his duties to preach the ignorant
people. But Buddha persists to visit her. Yashodhara unlike Gauthama, couldn't
throw away her responsibilities and also she was not yearning for a
justification from Gauthama. Buddha, later conveys that he was wrong thinking
that he was ignorant that Yashodhara might not leave him if he wanted to
renunciate and abandon everything for enlightenment. Buddha goes to
Yashodhara and she throws him a question 'Oh enlightened one! do you remember
me?' To which Buddha responds saying, 'Yes, Indeed. I remember you. After
enlightenment the first thought came to my mind was about you and here I am.'
A lot of thing happen beyond this
conversation which leads to Yashodhara admiring Buddha's enlightenment.
Yashodhara also expresses her wish to join the Sangraha after listening to the
words of Buddha. She realizes that Gauthama have become enlightened and he was
no more the same person who abandoned his wife, newborn child and the whole
kingdom sneaked out in the night.
While I browsed some other sources, came
across the description of the same incident in different manner. But here I
just wanted to share an excerpt from the lecture of Dr. Anand Burdhan. This
post is a result of the impact of his lecture. Otherwise I don't have
substantial knowledge about Buddhism and Buddha to an extent to comment about
it. Thus, mistakes are possible and pardon me for the same.
Yours Eastgaterr