Nara is a lovely place. We arrived there on May 27th by the morning, as a day trip from Kyoto. First, we visited the Kofukuji National Treasure Museum, and on the afternoon we went to Todai-ji temple - the biggest wooden structure in the world, home to the biggest buddha statue we saw on the trip.
On our way to the temple, we cruised through Nara Park, where the most polite deers I have ever seen (they are also the only deers I have ever seen) greeted us as we walked by. On the video gallery of this blog, I included a video of my encounter with one of them. I realized that the caption is not visible within the page layout, so as the description includes a religious context, I will include it here as well:
"Deers are everywhere in Nara, especially in "Nara park", outside of Todaiji temple. They are considered to sacred. Legend says that Takemikazuchi no Mikoto (kami of thunder) rode to Nara on a deer. For this reason, deers were thought to be the helpers of gods, and have been protected for many years. This one bit my finger."
Deers in Nara are very japanese. They bow to visitors (provided they happen to have deer biscuits with them) and cross the street using the sidewalk.
Sometimes they bump their heads against tourists or bite their back pockets, but compared to their cousins in Peru, that is almost a sign of friendship. Japanese deers are still japanese. They may put their teeth around your t-shirt but I'm sure they would never have the audacity (even if they could) to go as far as to spit on someone... as it was, sadly, the case with my last encounter with a wild animal outside of Japan. I had to make the comparison, as this was the first thing on my mind as I walked through Nara.
Bowing deers of Nara vs. Maurice, the spitting llama of Cuzco, Peru
I took all the photos above... (unfortunately).
There are two main topics I want to write about, following this introduction (none of which having to do with deers). The first is regarding the figure of Ashura, whose famous statue we saw on the Kofukuji National Treasure Museum, in the first half of the day. The second, regards the giant buddha we saw in Todai-Ji temple, on the afternoon.
In this post, I will focus on the latter.
The buddha of Todai-Ji is gigantic. 15 meters of height makes him one of the biggest buddhas in Japan. In fact, it is the world's largest bronze statue of the Buddha Vairocana, known in Japan as Daibutsu.
The building in which it resides is also impressive:
"Todaiji's main hall, the Daibutsuden (Big Buddha Hall) is the world's largest wooden building, despite the fact that the present reconstruction of 1692 is only two thirds of the original temple hall's size.”
Dimensions: Width 57.012m ; Length 50.480m; Height 48.742m
In Kamakura, we had the chance to visit another statue of Daibutsu. Although smaller than the one in Todaiji , it is also huge, and iconic.
Doing research to write this blog post, I came across many lists of different buddha statues around the world. These are some that I found the most impressive:
(you can scroll the list below without leaving this page)
Besides the Daibutsu from Kamakura and Todai-ji (seen on this trip), I have also seen two other buddha statues featured on this list, when I traveled to Thailand, a few years ago. They are (#11) Bodhi Tree Buddha Head - Ayutthaya; and (#3) Wat Pho Reclining Buddha - Bangkok.
They are all very impressive. What most called my attention was that these statues are quite different from the ones we have seen during this field trip to Japan, although they all follow the same religion and (to a certain extent) all depict the same character.
Having left the temple in Nara I had a big question in my mind. Why is this Buddha so big? Is there a reason for it? Why are some buddhas bigger than others?
And, more generally, why are images of the buddha differ from one another?
These are the questions I will explore in the following section in this post.
I would like to begin by saying that I recognize that there are entire fields dedicated to the study of buddhism. So although I have read books and taken a course on the topic, in no way do I consider myself to be an authority in buddhism, whatsoever. This will be my attempt to research and write about this topic being as concise as I can, with the amount of knowledge and time that is available to me.
Why are some buddhas bigger than others?
Was a question I asked my instructor as we walked out the temple. If all buddhas are enlightened and sacred, why are their size so different from one another? Even inside the same temple, Todaiji, we could see that, surrounding the main statue of the buddha (whose photo I included in this post) there are other, smaller buddha statues around it. Is that merely an esthetic attribute?
Perhaps, in part. But there is surely more context to it.
The first thing to be mentioned is that there is not just one buddha. Many buddhas have existed throughout history.
Some sects recognize 26-29 individual named buddhas to have existed. I emphasized the term named buddhas because this number does not consider the possible individuals who attained buddhahood without being associated with traditional buddhism. (Was Jesus a buddha?)
The early Pali buddhist texts recognizes only the "7 buddhas of antiquity" or Saptatathagata:
As for the others... here follows a list of the 29 named buddhas:
Another factor to be considered when regarding the other question raised on this post: why are images of the buddha differ from one another?
Is that statues don't always represent buddhas. Sometimes, they represent particular bodhisattvas.
Wikipedia defines a bodhisattva as "any person who is on the path towards Buddhahood but has not yet attained it."
Or "anyone who has made a resolution to become a Buddha and has also received a confirmation or prediction from a living Buddha that this will be so". (iii)
In the field trip, the description I got when enquiring what a bodhisattva is was usually something in the line of a highly enlightened individual, who abdicated of their individual experience of nirvana and buddhahood in order to help others to attain enlightenment.
There are many named bodhisattva, as well, and sometimes statues that we believe to be of the buddha, are actually depicting a bodhisattva.
Usually, the individual most people associate with when thinking of the buddha is Siddhartha Gautama.
Originally, I intended to add a brief section here to contextualize Gautama and the origin of Buddhism. As the section became too long, I decided to delete it all together, as there is so much context to be considered and I believe it was making the post go a bit too far off topic
For more context, I recommend this short video:
Siddhartha Gautama was the founder of buddhism and, to most sects, the original buddha.
To some sects, like the buddhism practiced in Tibet, the first one to attain buddhahood, or "adi-buddha" are thought of as other figures: Samantabhadra, Vajradhara or Kalachakra.
It is in East Asian Mahayana buddhism that the adi-buddha is usually thought of as Gautama [or more precisely, the dharmakaya (*) of Gautama, known as Vairocana].
(*) Dharmakaya: "unmanifested, "inconceivable" aspect of a buddha out of which buddhas arise and to which they return after their dissolution (ii).
Some sects believe that any sufficiently enlightened individual may attain buddhahood. Other sects believe that only buddhist monks can get there, after many cycles of reincarnation.
The point is that, although Gautama is an extremely important figure to buddhism, he is not the only buddha.
As I understood from what my professor told me, as we chewed on hydration candy and conversated outside of Todaiji (and I hope I am not misinterpreting anything here) the biggest buddha statue will be of the senior deity of that particular temple.
A buddha's size (as a statue) is thought of as the size of his virtue; height of his spiritual value.
... (sometimes the height of the temple's financial condition to afford it too, I think, at least to a certain extent).
But what determines which buddha will be the biggest (or the senior deity) for each temple?
He told me it goes back to the scriptures. Each buddhist school has a favorite buddhist scripture, and each scripture gives greater recognition to a particular buddha.
The senior monk from a temple chooses his "favorite" scripture. That scripture will determine what buddha is the most valued. And the most valued buddha, according to that scripture, will be the one with the biggest size within that temple.
I see… so what determines, then, which scripture will the monk chose to be his "favorite", anyway?
Like many things in Japan, this can be traced back to China. The monk would travel there to learn from another spiritual teacher (senior monk).
The main scripture he will study will depend on his teacher. And the text that the teacher will have the most knowledge about will probably depend on the region in China he lives in, and what the tradition is like, there.
To summarize...
There are many buddhas, many schools of buddhism and many different buddhist scriptures.
Each buddhist temple belongs to a certain school of buddhism, which has a "favorite" buddhist scripture, - the one they rely more heavily upon. They recognize other scriptures, but there is one which is the main scripture.
Each scripture has a "favorite" buddha. Other buddhas are recognized as well. All of them are enlightened and sacred. BUT there is one, particular buddha which they give the most emphasis, recognition or value. This can be referred to as their central deity.
The biggest buddha statue from a particular temple will be, logically, the one adopted as central deity from the particular main scripture of their school of buddhism.
Finally, what determines which school of buddhism is adopted by a particular temple is simply the tradition held by the temple's senior monk, which will depend on where in China he studied buddhism, what the tradition is like in that region, and who his teacher is.
To me, it seemed like there are many factors that determine what is the senior deity of a temple, and as a consequence, which buddha will be physically depicted as the biggest.
So what if only one or two of these variables were to be different? For example, if the japanese monk just so happened to study in a different region in China, or with a different teacher... the scripture he would study would, very possibly, be different. So the senior deity would too. If that's the case, is that all that it takes for this massive statue in front of me right now to be of a different individual (or entity) altogether? a different statue of a different buddha?
The answer I got was well… possibly, yes.
June 18, 2019
Galicia, Spain
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