Here's a question

fest64

Hello and I wish you all peace.
I sit on the computer, I meditate and the mind wonders to look at one or more of my Buddha statue's. And i ask myself WHY is there a bump on top of buddha's head?.
I know its not all of them, like you get large buddha's and skinnie buddhas.
Is it a metaphor for something as with the large Buddha depicting Buddha's gathered energy's. Or is it just hair put up on top in a bun!

Any ideas?

Simonthepilgrim

One explanation which I have read about this suggests that it stems from the first statues of the Buddha which were produced in Ganhara

Gandhāra (Sanskrit: गन्धार, Urdu: گندھارا Gandḥārā; also known as Waihind in Persian)[1]Mahajanapada), located in Ancient India in what is now northern Pakistan, Kashmir and eastern Afghanistan. Gandhara was located mainly in the vale of Peshawar, the Potohar plateau (see Taxila) and on the Kabul River. Its main cities were Purushapura (modern Peshawar), literally meaning City of Man[2] and Takshashila (modern Taxila).[3] is the name of an ancient kingdom (
The Kingdom of Gandhara lasted from c. the 6th century BC to the 11th century AD. It attained its height from the 1st century to the 5th century under the Buddhist KushanMahmud of Ghazni in AD 1021, the name Gandhara disappeared. During the Muslim period the area was administered from Lahore or from Kabul. During Mughal times the area was part of Kabul province.
from Wikipedia

It has been suggested that the impulse to create figures of the Buddha first arose there under Hellenic influence. Earliest times saw no images: 'footprints' sometimes bur no 'graven image'.


The Hellenic style was based on statues of Phoebus Apollo whose hair is sometimes gathered in a knot on the top of his head.

Excavations of archeological sites in Asia, from Syria all the way to Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and India, bring recently to light the post-Alexander world.
As reported by ancient historians and proved now by the archeologists, the Hellenistic era is characterized by "the spread of the Greek civilization to the Orient", as Tarn said, achieved by the Macedonian successors of Alexander and resulting from two main factors: the many Greek cities built by Alexander and his successors and the ecumenism of the Greek language. What was the force that propelled it??
The excavations also demonstrate the influence of the Greek culture on the arts and civilizations of Asia and vice versa.
The findings reveal also that the elements of the Greek civilization were voluntarily adopted by the local people for many centuries after the Greeks left Asia, as for example the Kushan art and especially the Gandhara art, named by the French specialists, Graeco-Buddhist.
from: http://www.elinepa.org/indika2007/papers_hellenismintheorient.htm

federica

This is an interesting article with various sources of information....

Simonthepilgrim

And let us not forget the snails.

fest64

I had a feeling it may just be the greek influence, I know my mind can rest better now!
hope all you guy & girls are well, i've not been on for while & not sure when i'll be back.
Thank you.
Grates.
Merci.
Shukriya.
Xie xie.
Domo arigato.
Muito Obrigado.
Toda.
Dank!

Palzang

I think I have determined the cause of your problem, fest. It's not good to meditate on your computer. It isn't a very comfortable seat, and it's not good for the computer! Just kidding!

Actually I don't think we can blame the Greeks (those poor Greeks!) for this one. The usnisa, or cranial protuberance, is one of the 32 major marks of a Buddha. It is said that he had such a cranial protuberance due to many lifetimes of building temples and stupas and such. Usnisa means "turban" which relates to the shape of the protuberance, not an actual turban that he wore.

You may think it odd that he would have such a protuberance, but if you read a list of the 32 major marks, they're pretty much all unusual. For example, the Buddha was said to have 40 teeth and that they lasted his entire lifetime from infancy (no baby teeth). He is also said to have had a coil of hair in the center of his forehead that gave off light. He also had webbed fingers and toes. Put them all together and it comes out pretty strange! However, I would opine that these are symbolic rather than literal. Or perhaps he was an alien...

Palzang

Simonthepilgrim

As with so much iconography arising from legend and myth, it is sometimes hard to know 'real' origins.

In Western iconography/myth, we have lots of examples: the centaur, for example, now presumed to be a result of early sightings of horse riders.

And, in Christian art, we so often see non-Semitic Jesus, crucified with nails through his palms - both arrant nonsense but sanctified by long usage.

It is hard to argue against a Hellenic (not necessarily Greek) influence on Gandharan representations of a Phoebus-like Buddha, even if the top-knot/usnisa may have preceded the statues. I am certainly having trouble finding good, scholarly analysis of the period during which the supposed physical marks of a buddha arose.

fest64

Palzang your mistic trainning is worthy of more credit when you say" fest. It's not good to meditate on your computer. It isn't a very comfortable seat, and it's not good for the computer!" No kidding!

I no nothing of the 32 major marks, but I would think these are symbolic as well.
for instance the lock of hair, would that be where the tikka(dot sorry about selling)
is for some hindus spiritual & wedded thingies would be. like i see the light!
# alien...? Lol.
beholden Palzang. rich.


"As with so much iconography arising from legend and myth, it is sometimes hard to know 'real' origins."
um history is a bit like chinese wispers!..

"In Western iconography/myth, we have lots of examples: the centaur, for example, now presumed to be a result of early sightings of horse riders."
lack of wisdom tends to do that simon.
beholden.

Ps ooch me back...Lol

Palzang

I don't know much about the 32 marks either. I would suspect that the tikka (or however you spell it) worn by Hindus is related somehow to the lock of hair between the Buddha's eyes. That's where the third eye (the eye of wisdom) is usually placed as well, so probably they are related. But like you said, trying to recreate where these things came from is a bit like Chinese whispers! It's kind of like doing an archeological dig at a site and trying to recreate a whole culture based on some pot shards and building foundations. It ends up being mostly guesswork (informed guesswork, but guesswork all the same).

Palzang

Jason

Concerning the 32 marks, I have always found MN 140 interesting in that the wanderer Pukkusati did not immediately recognize the Buddha when he saw him, but only realized who he was after hearing him teach a profound discourse on four determinations and the six properties of experience. That is hard to imagine if the Buddha literally possessed all 32 marks.

ajani_mgo

It is... Hair in a bun. Or at least, that should be it from a very Chinese perspective. By that I mean Mahayana depictions of the Buddha (i.e. fat) compared to the Theravada (i.e. thin). Ancient Chinese did their hair up in a bun, men or women alike, anyway. Thought that that would have been passed onto the Mahayana depictions of the Buddha.

I acknowledge the Hellenistic features of the Buddharupa also. It was mentioned in some history book in my secondary school. (But bah, history textbooks can be... untrue. ) But yea, the Greek in him is unmistakeable.