Instructor: Doctor Thomson

Student: Mugeeth Mousawi

Date: Saturday, June 11th, 2016
Assignment: M11: Nano History Topic Buddhism and Indian Art

Buddhism and Indian Art

Buddhist artwork is much like ancient Egyptian artwork, in that it tells a story; a story of
the life of the Buddha is how it originated. Artists would take events from the Buddha's
life and also events from his previous lives, as they believed in reincarnation (they
believed that the Buddha had lived a total of 550 lives), and would turn these events into
art. Some of the artwork they would use on the stupas (mounds for burial), which were
the latter tales of the Buddha's life called jatakas and they were legends which came from
Buddhist teachings. When the artists began their artwork, they were convinced that the
Buddha was not human, but rather from divine origins, thus they never made his image
that of a human's image, but rather an empty seat, or footprints, or something, anything
showing he was more than human.
The original Buddha was a man named Siddhartha who was born a prince in the
royal family of Kapilavastu the city they ruled in the Himalayan foothills. His families
advisers told the family that they should keep Siddhartha shut away in the palace,
otherwise they would lose their kingdom, and so the family took their advice. Siddhartha
became curious about life outside the palace walls; although he had everything he needed
within the palace, he still yearned for more. Siddhartha would sneak out of the palace on

different occasions to seek the true purpose of life. Upon his quest, Siddhartha found a
few things that disturbed him greatly; when he saw the suffering that was all around him,
he decided that there had to be something more of value, something beyond what he was
seeing around him. This led him down several different paths, which eventually led to his
enlightenment. After this occurrence, Siddhartha was known as the Buddha, meaning,
Enlightened One. You can read more of Siddhartha's journey at Met Museum or
Patheos Library to get the full story of the Buddha. But when he died, he was cremated
and then divided into several caskets and then buried in several stupas. The Buddha's
burial site became a tourist attraction for all those who wanted to experience Buddha's
presence. Because the site attracted so many people, artists in the first century B.C.
covered the stone railings and stupas in sculptures with events from the Buddha's life.
This is where Buddhist artwork started. India's artwork was not only on stupas, but it was
also found in and on their temples as sculptures and other artwork. There is more on this
information found on the PBS website under Explore the Topic and under Gandharan
Art.
Much later in history, in the first century A.D., artists would finally depict the
Buddha as a human. These images were somewhat influenced by the Hellenistic age, as
images of the Buddha resembled Roman statues of Apollo with long, curly hair, and a
robe that looked like a Roman toga. After Alexander the Great conquered much of the
world, he set up Greek-affiliated states in northwest India, which brought about Roman
and Greek influence on India's artwork. Much of the Indian art, during this time frame,
was influenced by other nations, religions, and even other cultures. One such influence
was from the Muslim invasion into India. When the Muslims invaded India, they brought

in floral motifs and spatial dimensions and narratives into the Indian's artwork; something
they did not have before the invasion. This invasion also brought about major schools of
art, such as the Mughal, Pahari, and Rajasthani art. It also brought about Mughal
miniature paintings; these paintings have unmistakable characteristics, such as rich
colors, gold paint (which was not used much during this time era), and the use of fine
paint brushes rather than larger ones. These Mughal miniature paintings are not only
rooted in the Buddhist religion, but there are also miniature paintings of the virgin Mary
and other such Christian themes. They also incorporate Persian and central Asian cultures
and illustrations of Hindu, Krishna, Rama, and Mughal stories. More on these Mughal
miniature paintings and how they originated on the PBS website under Mughal
Miniature Painting. And yet another outside influence was during the British era; during
this time Indian artists started developing their own styles of art, rather than everyone
following one set style of art. Artists would now venture out and create their own artwork
and they would receive recognition for their achievements. More can be read on this and
the time era at 21st Century Indian Art, which delves more into Mauryan art as well as
Gupta art and others.
Another depiction of the Buddha was of his early life as a prince. A replica of the
young Siddhartha with jewels and all of his princely array called a bodhisattva. These
images of Siddhartha were engraved in stone and placed as shrines around the stupa of
the Buddha. Yet another image of Buddha arose in southern India. The images that artists
used in this area of India were very serious looking images, never smiling. These types of
images were also found in parts of Asia. Then around the fourth century A.D. they were
able to make the perfect image for Buddha; they made this image by combining different

traits from the Gandharan region and from Mathura artists. Images of Gupta Buddhas
would always have the Buddha's hair in individual curls and his robe would be a bunch of
strings, trying to illustrate folds in the robe. The images would always be looking
downward, trying to capture the spirituality of the Buddha.
Finally, there was a new image of the Buddha, which included a goddess or
goddesses with him, usually the goddess Tara. There were images of god and goddess
embracing, which showed their concept of salvation the union of wisdom (the
female, or goddess) and compassion (the male, or god). But we can see that not all of
their paintings or artwork is grounded in their religion, most is, but they also incorporate
other religions, and not only depictions from the religious aspect, but also the culture and
the telling of historical events throughout their empire's history. Although all of these
depictions and images have changed much throughout history, they are still there to tell a
story the story of the Buddha.