Iconology of the Sacred
Deities or Buddhas
(Enlightened Beings) who are considered to be the sacred are, at least
in some aspects, superior to ordinary human beings, who, by contrast,
are the profane. The former must be different from human beings, finite
both in time and space. True, Sakyamuni Buddha was born and died as
a human being; however, older Buddhist art shows that there had been
a time when Sakyamuni was described as being different from ordinary
human beings. It might sound self-contradictory to say that a Buddha
or a deity who is superior to a human being is represented, in many
cases, in an image which closely resembles a human being, but such a
contradiction is an unavoidable problem whenever people try to make
iconological representations of the sacred
* By MUSASHI TACHIKAWA
If deities or Buddhas are represented in
anthropomorphic form, does such a representation injure their dignity?
If a god is depicted as a being with a visible body, does this not undermine
the solemnity of the god? For this very reason, Jewish and Muslim people
have refused in the past and even now refuse to make icons of their
god. Then, why is it that Hindus or Mahayana Buddhists have been so
enthusiastic about expressing their devotion to deities in the form
of icons?
What has driven human beings to try to depict the form
of the sacred? The answer, no doubt, is a religious enthusiasm to establish
a certain kind of field in which the public can ascertain and express
the meaning of the sacred. Icons of the sacred can fulfil their desire.
Religion can be considered a series of acts performed
to achieve a certain objective, and the agents of these acts are aware
of the distinction between the sacred and the profane. The core series
of acts are carried out by the profane, i.e. human beings, in their
attempts to make close contact with the sacred. The sacred and the profane
are essentially the two extremes of an integrated complex, just like
the positive and negative poles of an electric current. As it is impossible
for a single pole, either positive or negative, to function by itself,
the same principle applies in religion in that the sacred and the profane
always function in combination with one another.
Awed by the power of the sacred, the profane becomes aware
of the great distance between oneself and the sacred, and in some cases
the profane often takes practical steps to endeavour to narrow the distance
between the two religious poles. Yet, this is by no means always the
case. In some cases it may be thought that the power originating in
the sacred is dangerous to the profane and it is better for the profane,
i.e. human beings, to maintain a respectful difference from the sacred.
A typical example of this attitude is a religious taboo in mass religion.
Just as there can be various kinds of transactions with
the sacred, the ways of representing the sacred diverges markedly according
to each religion or school. Once we know the iconological system applied
to the images of deities in a certain religion, it will help us understand
how the people and the deities of that religion interact.
Icons of the sacred function as tools or mediums through
which the real nature of the practitioners is revealed. In religions
such as Hinduism or Tantric Buddhism, a yogin
(or a devotee) and a deity (or a Buddha) are identical in the final
analysis. Such an icon of a deity or Buddha furnishes an important means
by which one tries to establish a religious practice called visualization
(or realization) of a deity in Tantric Buddhism or Hinduism.
The sacred
and the profane
The person who developed the concept of the sacred into
one of the most important operative concepts in religious studies was
R. Otto, the author of Das Heilige(The
Holy). What he meant by 'the sacred' was, namely, something
that enthralled us, something enormous and mysterious, in a word: ineffable.
The sacred, in this sense, was an irrational force that may be found
in God of the Old Testament
and was different in nature from what could be seen in Visnu,
who is worshiped with devotion (bhakti).
Otto himself remarked on this in his book entitled Die
Gnadenreligion Indiens und das Christentum (India's Religion of Grace
and Christianity, 1930). As religious studies were to demonstrate
later on, however, the concept of the sacred Otto had proposed was applicable
not only to the Judeao-Christian tradition, but it had potential applicability
to other religious traditions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism.
M. Eliade used the concept of the sacred more widely in
his books, such as Das Heilige
und das Profane, (The Sacred and the Profane, 1965), than
Otto ever did. He defined the sacred as 'that which is contrary to the
profane,' and argued that the manifestation of the sacred in the profane
is the essence of religion. He claimed that, if given a meaning in rituals
or mythology, almost everything that matters in the natural world, temples,
and monks may become the sacred.
R. Caillois also described his views about the sacred,
which were similar to those of Eliade, in his book, The
Human Beings and the Sacred (L'Homme et le sacre, 1950).
Caillois argues that the experience of the sacred is manifested in the
totality of various relations between human beings and the sacred. He
says that the sacred, functioning just like an attribute, belongs to
certain matters (e.g. ritual utensils), certain people (monks, kings,
etc.), certain spaces (temples, palaces, etc.), or to a certain time
(e.g. festivals). Caillois' concept of the sacred is closer to that
of Eliade than to that of Otto.
Sacredness
and the sacred
While using expressions like 'sacred space' or 'a sacred
stone,' Eliade also applies the term 'the sacred' to the force that
is causing the space or the stone to be sacred. I prefer to designate
such force 'sacredness', and matters or events that are made sacred
by the force as 'the sacred,' when such a distinction is necessary.
Otherwise, I use the term 'the sacred' to denote both the sacred force
and matters or events in which sacredness resides.
A short excursion into ancient Indian philosophical polemics
will clarify my position. When, for example, Indian philosophers stated
'a flower is red,' they had the tendency to argue that the attribute
of the colour red resided in its substratum, i.e. the flower. In the
terminology of Indian philosophy, an attribute (or property) and a substance
in the above sense are called dharma
and dharmin respectively.
Here 'dharma' refers
to an attribute, and 'dharmin,'
to that which possesses a dharma,
namely, a locus of the dharma.
The relationship between an attribute (or quality) and its locus (or
substance) is called 'the
dhama-dharmin relation.' Whether a dharma
and its dharmin
are clearly separated from each other or whether they can not be distinguished
from one another has been a very important problem over which Indian
philosophical history was divided. Generally speaking, Indian nominalists,
like Buddhists and Vedantins, did not admit a clear distinction between
an attribute and its substance, as the locus, whereas Indian realists,
such as Naiyayikas and Vaisesikas, did impose an undeniable discrimination
on the two.
The relationship between sacredness and the sacred has
a problem similar to that of the dharma-dharmin
relation. When an attribute (dharma)
of sacredness exists in a matter (dharmin)
which is a substratum, the substratum may become the sacred. For instance,
the force of sacredness is given to, or manifests itself in, a matter
such as a flower, the flower is qualified as the sacred (or sacred matter).
In this case, the relationship between sacredness and the flower as
a locus may be considered in various ways. It may be thought that, since
the sacred force (sacredness) dwells in a matter, i.e. the flower, it
is merely a container for such a force residing in its locus, and the
sacred force itself exists apart from or behind the form of the flower.
This type of thinking is parallel to the realistic idea of the Nyaya
(Logic) School or the Vaisesika School.
On the other hand, some may hold that sacred force (sacredness)
is the flower itself, and that it is not hidden behind the flower in
bloom. Such a way of thinking may be said to be close to Buddhism and
to Vedanta philosophy. Of course, I do not argue that the philosophical
dispute of the dharma-dharmin
relationship is exactly parallel to the discussion on sacredness and
a matter (a locus) to which sacredness is given.
In Indian Buddhism and other religions as well, the relationship
between sacredness (sacred power) and a sacred matter (the sacred) has
been considered in various ways. People sometimes admit a clear distinction
between the two, others sometimes try to blur the border between them,
and there are those who try to compromise between the two opposite standpoints.
Generally speaking, the distance between sacredness and
the sacred in Indian Hinduism and Buddhism seems to have been smaller
than that in Judeao-Christian tradition. As such, Hindus could state
'This world is the form of dancing Siva' or 'This world is the form
Krsna playing with the shepherd girls,' and Buddhists were able to say,
'The entire world is nothing but the form of Vairocana Buddha.' Buddhists,
especially Chinese and Japanese Buddhists, hold that, beside this world
extending before our eyes, there is no other place in which sacredness
can function, and this entire world itself is nothing but the form of
the sacred.
Such an Indo-Buddhist way of thinking about sacredness
or the sacred has encouraged actions of representing the sacred as icons
or images in Indian and Buddhist worlds. Without the premise that sacred
Buddhas transcending human beings and time can manifest themselves in
images made by men which often resemble humans, very small and simple,
artists or sculptors would never have depicted Buddhist images or Bodhisattvas
with such great zeal. Of course, they were fully aware that an image
made of stone or wood itself was merely a lump of stone or wood after
all. They did not think it necessary for any supernatural force to dwell
in the image. Nonetheless, they inherited the traditional way of thinking
that the form and figures which develop before us are nothing but the
sacred, and that sacredness does not exist separately from such forms
or figures. Such an idea encouraged the artists or priests who made
efforts to establish the iconology of the sacred, especially in Tantric
Buddhism and Hinduism. *
References
Caillois, R., L'Homme
et le sacre. Edition augmentée de trois appendices sur le sexe,
le jeu, la guerre dans leur rapports avec le sacre , Paris:
Gallimard (1950).
Eliade, M., Das
Heilige und das Profane, Hamburg: Rowohlt (1957).
Otto,R., Das
Heilige, Breslau: Trewendt & Granier (1917).
Otto, R., Die
Gnadenreligion Indiens und das Christentum, Gotha: Leopold
Klotz Verlag (1930).
Prof. Musashi Tachikawa
was an Affiliated Fellow at the IIAS and held the Numata Chair at
Leiden University from 1 February until 1 April 2001. Presently he is
professor at the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan.
E-mail:
musashi@idc.minpaku.ac.jp