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I went to the Lahore museum the other day; the place has an amazing surfeit of artifacts and exhibits on Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism, as the city occurs on a sort of geographical nexus of the regions where these traditions were respectively synthesized during the Axial Age.
Housed there is this statue dating from the 2nd century AD, known as The Starving Buddha.
And this is the inscription set alongside it:
---
The Bodhisattva thought A liberated soul, as explained to him by Brahman Alara Kalama, is still a soul, and whatever the condition it attains, must be subject to rebirth and since each successive renunciation is held to be still accompanied by qualities, I maintain that the absolute attainment of our end is only to be found in abandonment of everything. Seeking, therefore, something beyond, the Bodhisattva repaired to a forest near the village of Urtivela and there abode on pure bank of the Nairanjana and then thinking: this may be the means to conquer birth and death. He for six years practiced there an austere rule of fasting and of mortification, so that this glorious body wasted away to skin and bone. He brought himself to feed on a single sesame seed or a grain of rice. Until one day as he paced to and fro he was overcome by a severe pain, and fainted and fell. Some of the gods spake thus: Alas! Prince Siddhartha, is surely dead. They betook themselves to the Tusita and informed queen Mahamaya. The queen immediately came down and seeing that he is like dead, she began to weep. Then spoke the Bodhisattva to her: Fear not for Love of thy Son. Thou shalt pick the fruits of the labour.
Not in vain doth a Buddha renounce the world. I shall fulfill the prophecy of Asita and make plain the prediction of Dipankra. Though the earth should fall into a hundred fragments and Meru droop with his radiant brow into the Waters, though Sun, Moon and Stars should be smitted to the ground, yet I, the only human being should not die. Therefore, be not sorrowful, for soon will thou behold the wisdom of a Buddha. But he perceived that mortification was not the road to enlightenment and to liberation That was the true way that I found beneath the Jumbo tree, and it cannot be attained by one who has lost his strength. And so again the great being resolved to beg, his foods in towns and villages, so that his health and strength might be restored. This was in the thirtieth year of the life of the Bodhisattva.
---
The statue is very striking in person; most images of the Buddha portray him as a fat, cute, rather zaftig man, so it's jarring to see him so gaunt, angular and wasting away. And how his calm facial expression is belied by the acute, agonized distress of his body.
I also see in it much of the symbolism of the crucified Jesus [here, the Buddha is self-crucified in a way, through his deliberate starvation]. I'm also reminded of how the medieval philosopher Abelard didn't agree with the dogma that Christ died to pay the debt of Adam's original sin; he said, instead, that we should look at the crucifix, at that historical personage in the painful throes of his fated end, as a symbolic representation of all suffering the flesh is heir to, and that it's the flood of sorrow and compassion at the sight of his suffering that moves and ultimately saves us.
Also, the moon is rising over the Buddha-figure as a sort of halo, though Christianity as a religion had yet to be syncretized at the time of the statue's creation; I like that too, since I share Jung's position that the circle is the universal symbol of wholeness, completion.
I have to go back to the museum at some point before my return trip not only to see it again, but also because the vendor outside sells bags of masala-flavored potato chips and they are the greatest things ever.
Housed there is this statue dating from the 2nd century AD, known as The Starving Buddha.
And this is the inscription set alongside it:
---
The Bodhisattva thought A liberated soul, as explained to him by Brahman Alara Kalama, is still a soul, and whatever the condition it attains, must be subject to rebirth and since each successive renunciation is held to be still accompanied by qualities, I maintain that the absolute attainment of our end is only to be found in abandonment of everything. Seeking, therefore, something beyond, the Bodhisattva repaired to a forest near the village of Urtivela and there abode on pure bank of the Nairanjana and then thinking: this may be the means to conquer birth and death. He for six years practiced there an austere rule of fasting and of mortification, so that this glorious body wasted away to skin and bone. He brought himself to feed on a single sesame seed or a grain of rice. Until one day as he paced to and fro he was overcome by a severe pain, and fainted and fell. Some of the gods spake thus: Alas! Prince Siddhartha, is surely dead. They betook themselves to the Tusita and informed queen Mahamaya. The queen immediately came down and seeing that he is like dead, she began to weep. Then spoke the Bodhisattva to her: Fear not for Love of thy Son. Thou shalt pick the fruits of the labour.
Not in vain doth a Buddha renounce the world. I shall fulfill the prophecy of Asita and make plain the prediction of Dipankra. Though the earth should fall into a hundred fragments and Meru droop with his radiant brow into the Waters, though Sun, Moon and Stars should be smitted to the ground, yet I, the only human being should not die. Therefore, be not sorrowful, for soon will thou behold the wisdom of a Buddha. But he perceived that mortification was not the road to enlightenment and to liberation That was the true way that I found beneath the Jumbo tree, and it cannot be attained by one who has lost his strength. And so again the great being resolved to beg, his foods in towns and villages, so that his health and strength might be restored. This was in the thirtieth year of the life of the Bodhisattva.
---
The statue is very striking in person; most images of the Buddha portray him as a fat, cute, rather zaftig man, so it's jarring to see him so gaunt, angular and wasting away. And how his calm facial expression is belied by the acute, agonized distress of his body.
I also see in it much of the symbolism of the crucified Jesus [here, the Buddha is self-crucified in a way, through his deliberate starvation]. I'm also reminded of how the medieval philosopher Abelard didn't agree with the dogma that Christ died to pay the debt of Adam's original sin; he said, instead, that we should look at the crucifix, at that historical personage in the painful throes of his fated end, as a symbolic representation of all suffering the flesh is heir to, and that it's the flood of sorrow and compassion at the sight of his suffering that moves and ultimately saves us.
Also, the moon is rising over the Buddha-figure as a sort of halo, though Christianity as a religion had yet to be syncretized at the time of the statue's creation; I like that too, since I share Jung's position that the circle is the universal symbol of wholeness, completion.
I have to go back to the museum at some point before my return trip not only to see it again, but also because the vendor outside sells bags of masala-flavored potato chips and they are the greatest things ever.