Buddha's Hair?

MindGate

Shakyamuni Buddha has strange hair. In some pictures he has it in a bun, or its just coming in after being shaved. Though, in many pictures and statues, he has like little dots on his head. What are these?



Thanks.

Cloud

Moved this to General Banter; not really Buddhism for Beginners material MG.

Newstatesman

Yeah I've always wondered why he had such a funky hair do!

MindGate

Moved this to General Banter; not really Buddhism for Beginners material MG.

Ah, sorry.

taiyaki

it's supposed to be his opened crown chakra. "Sahasrara, which means 1000 petalled lotus, is generally considered to be the chakra of pure consciousness."

MindGate

So... he probably did not look like that then? Its more metaphoric? Or... what?

taiyaki

Yes just like Jesus wasn't a white man. He was realistically brown. No one knows exactly what the Buddha looked like. It's all idealization!

SherabDorje

This is just off the top of my head, so to speak, but I was reading last week about the cultural and artistic aspects of the interaction between Buddhists and Bactrian Greeks left over from the conquests of Alexander the Great. Apparently (Wikipedia, I think) it wasn't until this mix of cultures happened that images of the Buddha began to be made.

So I'm guessing that it's just a stylistic thing based on the artistic preferences of the Buddhists that interacted with the Greeks, and a demonstration of the Greek influence on Buddhist art. A Google search for "Greco-Buddhism" or looking that up in Wikipedia might clarify it for you.

Newstatesman

so its probably safe to assume he looked a bit like this:
http://www.pushpinderbagga.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/The-Old-Indian-Punjabi-Man-Portrait.jpg

Anupassī

He was described as extremely good looking in the Pali Canon, actually, which is part of the reason seeing old age, sickness and death were such a shock to him. He thought everyone was beautiful like he, and the ladies that Suddhodana surrounded him with, were.

He would have had a shaven head, most likely.

For the first few centuries of Buddhism, he was NEVER portrayed with a statue. Only as an empty throne, a Bodhi leaf, a footprint with the thousand-spoked wheel, and I think a lamp.

Newstatesman

Sort of ironic now seeing as (if I'm not mistaken) Buddha was so against idol worship and cults of personality.

Anupassī

Whether or not statues exist isn't that important. It's what you do with the heart that matters. You know the drill. Use the statue if it promotes skillful qualities within yourself.

As for idol worship, the Buddha was much more critical of Brahmanic -ritualism- than the statues themselves. The bhikkhuni Punnika said it best: "Who taught you this — the ignorant to the ignorant — 'One, through water ablution, is from evil kamma set free?' In that case, they'd all go to heaven: all the frogs, turtles, serpents, crocodiles, & anything else that lives in the water."

DhammaDhatu

Yeah I've always wondered why he had such a funky hair do!

Me too!

Vincenzi

maybe because he was a prince/nobel?
the crown chakra explanation also makes sense.

Theswingisyellow

Could I walk into the local Barber and ask for a "Buddha-do"

Vajraheart

Could I walk into the local Barber and ask for a "Buddha-do"

They're called "dookie braids" in the hood.

buddhajunkie

perhaps a sculptor's representation of curly hair, which many Indians have.

Mr_Serenity

Coming from a rich prince upbringing an attractive and masculine sex symbol in India at the time would be flowing hair, either long and groomed (look at the gods like Shiva for example of the current culture), or medium length and slicked back with a bit of oil. I could imagine his hair pretty long this way when he was rich.

Then after he started his voyage most likely he looked like one of those very skinny yogi's with long hair and beard. He was indian and had a few Yoga teachers after all. When he finally started teaching Buddhism I could imagine maybe he shaved his head, or his facial hair or both, but in my gut I would say he wasn't bald.

A lot of wise men such as sages, prophets, yogis, etc mostly aren't bald. Long hair is a sign of wisdom in many old cultures. Bald men are usually warriors. Cutting off the hair, keeping it short can be a sign of being practical and ready to be a savage warrior. They also shaved the heads of prisoners and monks for poverty reasons. But with a majority of the Eastern spiritual teachers of the old times, I do feel the more likely possibility is that he had medium to long hair.

Anupassī

Ultimately, I imagine that we just can't be quite sure of when the practice of the shaven head began. Certainly, it was entrenched by the time that the Pali Canon was codified and written down five centuries after the Buddha's death, as the line is often used: "So at a later time, when I was still young, black-haired, endowed with the blessings of youth in the first stage of life, having shaved off my hair & beard — though my parents wished otherwise and were grieving with tears on their faces — I put on the ochre robe and went forth from the home life into homelessness."

I personally think the Buddha WOULD have been bald. He sometimes lived in the forest for long stretches of time, and a shaven head greatly reduces the chances of little creepy-crawlies getting in there and gnawing up your scalp. The Buddha had compassion for living beings, but seeing as fleas transmit -plague-, I'm not sure he would have wanted them roaming around his head. XD

EDIT: Although, of course, back then I don't think the Indian doctors knew that fleas transmit disease. /shrug I shave my head too, and I find that it is just far simpler to deal with this way. Maybe I'm imposing my biases on the Buddha. :O

Cinorjer

The answer to your question is actually simple. The first people who tried to carve statues of Buddha, about first century AD, had only a peculiar sutra to go by, the very strange "32 signs of a Great Man" that was introduced late into the Buddhist world and proves not even Buddhism is immune to the "Stupid ideas that seemed reasonable at the time" period of formation.

So the statues ended up with huge earlobes, because the sutra said all great men have huge earlobes. And great men have curly hair, tightly curled and to the right according to the sutra. Tightly curled to the left? Obviously not a great man, then. Better luck next incarnation.

So the dots actually stand for tight curls (lazy sculptors). The statues were copied over and over and it became just a custom. Like depicting Jesus as having straight hair and a nicely trimmed European style beard of the upper class.

Anupassī

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_characteristics_of_the_Buddha#The_32_Signs_of_the_Great_Man

lololololol

hermitwin

Yeap, its just the artist's imagination.

zombiegirl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_characteristics_of_the_Buddha#The_32_Signs_of_the_Great_Man

lololololol

the first time i read this, i lol'd as well.

never knew that genitals emitting a fragrant odor was the sign of a great man...

Glow

I've always wondered this, too. I found this blog post a little while back on the subject, which seems to be in concert with SherabDorje's theory: http://sdhammika.blogspot.com/2009/07/buddhas-hail.html

Vangelis

Glow, yes you beat me to it! In all likelihood the Buddha's head was shaved as described in his leaving the home life for the life of an ascetic. In fact, the Buddha's monks were taunted as being "bald-pated" recluses. So there are certainly mentions in the Pali suttas that the Buddha and his monks/nuns did in fact have shaved heads and they do to this day.

laurajean

I read somewhere that he was said to have "extremely curly hair", so my guess is that this is an interpretation of short, tight curls. Just a guess, who knows.