LECTURE> Angela Howard at Waseda

H-Buddhism LECTURE> Angela Howard at Waseda

Discussion published by Noboyoshi Yamabe on Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Dear Colleagues:

On behalf of my colleague, Professor HIDA Romi, who is not on this list, I am posting the following announcement of a public lecture. The lecture will be given in English and translated into Japanese. No preregistration is required. Anybody interested will be welcome.

Speaker: Angela Howard, Professor Emerita, Rutgers University

Title: A Question of Identity: Who is the Cosmological Buddha?

Date: Monday, July 4, 2016, 5pm-6:30pm.

Venue: Waseda University, Toyama Campus, Bldg 31, Rm 208. https://www.waseda.jp/top/en/access/toyama-campus

About the Speakier: Angela F. Howard was professor of Asian art in the Department of Art History, Rutgers University, from 1990-2015. She served as special consultant in the Department of Asian Art of the Metropolitan Museum, New York from 1999-2004 and participated in organizing the 2004 exhibition From Han to Tang. In addition to numerous articles, Dr. Howard authored The Imagery of the Cosmological Buddha, E. J. Brill 1986;Summit of Treasures, Buddhist Cave Art of Dazu, Sichuan, Weatherhill Publishers 2001; Chinese Sculpture, in collaboration with Wu Hung, Yang Hong, Li Song, Yale University Press 2006; Archaeological and Visual Sources of Meditation in the ancient Monasteries of Kuča, in collaboration with Giuseppe Vignato, E. J. Brill 2014. Her research has been supported by the NEH National Endowment for the Humanities 1985, 1993; the Henry Luce Foundation 2002; the ACLS American Council of Learned Societies 2008.

Abstract:

ORIGIN OF THE COSMOLOGICAL BUDDHA In 1986 I publishedThe Imagery of the Cosmological Buddha, discussing a very special Buddha image, which I named ‘Cosmological Buddha’ on account of carrying on its body a vision of the Buddhist world inclusive of the destinies or gatis in which sentient beings are reborn according to the karmic process. I suggested that the Cosmological Buddha is Shakyamuni not Vairocana. I also considered the rise of a possible Vairocana cult in Khotan, the country of origin of the 4th century Avatamsaka sutra (Chinese Huayan jing), a Mahayana text. More recently, in Archaeological and Visual Sources of Meditation in the ancient Monasteries ofKuča, a collaboration with Giuseppe Vignato (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2014), I reconsidered this topic and concluded that the Avatamsaka sutra and its related images are not the source of the Cosmological Buddha images executed in Kucha. The study of Kucha rock-cut monastery–their layout and monastic practices–pointed to Kucha as the place of origin of the Cosmological Buddha in the 5th-century. This iconography stemmed from the pre-Mahayana,Dirghagama text, embraced by the Sarvastivadin School, which prevailed in Kucha. Their teachings and support for meditation originated the

Citation: Noboyoshi Yamabe. LECTURE> Angela Howard at Waseda. H-Buddhism. 06-07-2016. https://networks.h-net.org/node/6060/discussions/128721/lecture-angela-howard-waseda Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Buddhism

Cosmological as Buddha Shakyamuni in his role of ‘Lord of the Universe’, to use Professor Akira Miyaji terminology, the Buddha who carries the world in his body.

CHINESE APPROPRIATION AND ADAPTATION In 6th-century China, as a result of the transmission of this iconography, paintings and sculpture of the Cosmological Buddha formed a conspicuous group of sculpture. All these images have been identified by Chinese and a few Western scholars as Vairocana. This identification as Vairocana is not a clear-cut issue, as I discuss in this presentation. To start with, Cosmological Buddha images identified as Vairocana retain, surprisingly, the pre- Mahayana cosmology on their bodies. How can we justify this appropriation and adaptation of an original Shakyamuni imagery to that of Vairocana? The answer may lie in the rise of a Vairocana cult in China in the 5th century based on the introduction of its corresponding sutra,Huayan jing, translated by Budhabhadra in 421, the 60 rolls recension. The growing cult of Vairocana Buddha determined the appropriation of the original Central Asian cosmic iconography, which lends itself better to representation than the iconography derived from the Huayan jing.

DURING TANG THE COSMIC ICONOGRAPHY WAS SIMULTANEOUSLY APPLIED TO SHAKYAMUNI AND VAIROCANA During the Tang Dynasty, undoubtedly the cult of Vairocana Buddha and its related iconography came to full bloom, based on the availability of the complete translation by Sikshananda of the Avatamsaka text, the 80 rolls recension. However, the earlier cosmic iconography rooted in the Dirghagama was still adopted in Dunhuang painted images of Vairocana. In these paintings, the Cosmological Buddha is Shakyamuni, although the allusions to the cosmos painted on his body are the same as those used for a Cosmological Vairocana. Thus, during Tang, the question of identity became puzzlingly interwoven as both Buddha manifestations claimed the same cosmic identity.

Nobuyoshi Yamabe

Waseda University