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Pratapaditya Pal, ed., Buddhist Art: readers of this journal. Society members Form and Meaning. Mumbai, Marg are also urged to consult another favo- Publications, 2007, 132 pp., Rps. 2,500 rable review of Buddhist Art: Form and ($66). ISBN. 10: 81-85026-78-5 Meaning, by Peter Skilling (Orienta- tions, vol. 38/8, 2007, 102–103). Most members of the Siam Society The three opening essays explore have come to know Marg Publications issues in early Indian art. Gautam only recently, principally through the Vajracharya has tackled no less a splendid collection of essays on Thai art problem than the identification of now commonplace in libraries and book- the Buddha’s ushnisha, translated shops in Bangkok (Robert L. Brown, variously as topknot, turban or cranial ed., Art from Thailand, 1999). Begun protuberance. While Buddhist litera- by the late Mulk Raj Anand in Mumbai ture describes the Buddha as a simple in 1946, Marg quickly rose as a leading tonsured monk, the Buddha is of course voice in shaping the direction of Indian at the same time endowed with special art history. The art of remains the physical markings, the well-known focus for Marg , but over the last decade lakshanas, which include the ushnisha. or so the press has broadened its scope The author concludes that the ushnisha well outside the nation’s borders. The represents a modified royal coiffeur, but long-time editorship of Dr Pratapaditya this still does not completely explain the Pal , together with an outstanding design clear rise, or bump, in the rear part of the team in Mumbai, has assured the vol- cranium, a hallmark of the Buddha. The umes a warm reception among academ- author argues that the Buddha was also ics, connoisseurs and collectors. This never represented with a completely volume on Buddhist art was prompted shaven head (as a monk), because in by Pal’s discovery of an unpublished early Buddhist literature the “sight of a essay by the great Indologist, the late shaven person is inauspicious”, based Johanna Van Lohuizen-de Leeuw, partially on the “enduring theory that tucked away in the files of the Norton that hair is vegetation and symbolizes Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena, Cali- fertility” (pp .32–33). The association of fornia, where Pal served for many years fertility and the vegetal world (and do as curator of Asian art. not forget sexuality) with Indian art has This volume casts a wide net over been a cliché since the study of Indian the entire Buddhist world, ranging from art began, and its cavalier application to three essays devoted to the early Bud- anything to do with the sub-continent dhist art of India to later wall painting has often muddled our thinking, espe- traditions in . A number of the es- cially with respect to early Buddhist art. says touch in one way or the other on Nature indeed appears routinely as a issues relating to the art of Thailand, significant backdrop in episodes of the so this volume is of added interest to Buddha’s life, but its central purpose is

Journal of the Siam Society 2009 Vol. 97 264 Reviews to demonstrate the miraculous rupture (see the Pali Nidankatha). The ascetic in nature’s laws rather than to highlight Sumedha who unfurled his long matted fecundity and fertility. One example is hair to Dipankara Buddha to bridge a the tree that Queen Maya holds when muddy patch on the road is perhaps the giving birth. The tree itself is not the most dramatic example of how early focus but the fact that a branch delib- Buddhism highlighted the hairstyle of erately and miraculously bent itself to ascetics. The long, unkempt hair of as- reach her grasp at the moment Maya was cetics was one of many contrasts with to deliver, as the ancient texts inform members of the sangha. us. The same notion is illustrated by the Van Lohuizen’s essay explores two story of the twin trees of identical size unusual iconographic features repre- that appear at the time of the Buddha’s sented on a spectacular Kushan pillar death. Another example describes how from Mathura, now in the the Buddha caused a mango seed to Museum, and how this iconography, by grow instantly into a mighty tree, there- its rarity, bolsters the pillar’s authentici- by impressing a king; such a miracle ty. One involves the monk Upavana who does not point to the fecundity of nature fans the Buddha at Kushinagara and (or the sweetness of a mango) but to the the other, snakes, or nagas, entwined Buddha’s power. Such episodes number about a stupa drum, perhaps indicating among hundreds, if not thousands, the famous Ramagama stupa. Sonya inside and outside canonical sources. Rhie Quintanilla focuses on the same It is therefore not nature per se that is pillar and convincingly demonstrates elevated and venerated but rather that the that it once belonged to a stupa found empirical rules governing the universe at Govindnagar, Mathura, and should are suspended in order to underscore date to the first century C.E. Her essay, the divine nature of the Buddha. Such which effortlessly moves between his- intervention in the natural world extends tory, iconography and stylistic analysis, even to the timing of earthquakes. is a model. The symbolic role of hair is illustrated Two of the essays focus on a snake- when the Buddha removed his splendid hooded stone Buddha in the Norton turban and severed his hair, signaling the Simon Museum that has been attributed break with his royal heritage. Buddhist to northeastern Thailand and to the monks, emulating the Buddha’s tonsure, ninth century. The theme is the snake- provided a stark contrast in ancient king Muchalinda who winds his coils India to the Hindu ascetics with their about the Buddha seven times in order disheveled locks. Indeed, the belittling to protect the Buddha from various in- of ascetics, their attire and deportment clemencies. Only rarely in Buddhist art is a leitmotif in Buddhist literature, is the Buddha’s body shown wrapped such as the Kashyapa brothers who within the coils, and Pal illustrates a are described as matted-hair ascetics rare example from Gandhara (another

Journal of the Siam Society 2009 Vol. 97 Reviews 265 example may be the nineteenth century a debt to Tibet, especially the Kagyu bronze image at Wat Suthat, Bangkok). tradition in the sixteenth century. He has The Norton Simon example follows the also identified the names of no less than norm, with the snake heads represented six artists, based on painted inscriptions. above the Buddha. This same example The last essay is a personal reflection by is unusual, however, since it is depicted Jaroslav Poncar, a photographer who with only three heads rather than seven has specialized on the . He which is customary in mainland South- speaks of his experiences growing up east Asia (another example with three in his native Czechoslovakia which con- heads is among the eighteenth century tributed to his unique perspective from painting at Dambulla, Sri Lanka, where, behind the camera. Panoramic views incidentally, the coils conceal the lower are his forte, a number of which appear half of the Buddha’s body). Pal provides here for the first time. He is at present a a perceptive review of the vast number professor of physics in Cologne. of snake-hooded Buddhas in order The superb layout of Buddhist Art to place the Norton Simon work into encourages one to keep thumbing the context. Joyanto Sen’s article treats the pages to ever new delights. The scores same Muchalinda stone sculpture but of color and black-and-white photo- more from a stylistic angle. graphs are crisp, with few exceptions. Hiram Woodward reminds of us of The rich deep red backgrounds in some the complex and fluid religious setting of the thankas are even so luscious that of the Khmer world. His starting point the garlands of severed heads are scarce- is an inscribed standing Avalokiteshvara ly noticed. There are approximately ten in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, full-page color illustrations. One of the which is compared to other examples, most dramatic is a wall painting from notably a tenth century stele in the Bang- Miran, in the National Museum, Delhi, kok Museum. These works are related extending over two pages and boldly to two sutras, the Karandavyuha and silhouetted against a stark white back- Mahavairochana. ground. These nine essays provide an The last three essays range over up-to-date look at many of the most pro- issues in Himalayan art. Steven Kossak vocative issues in the study of Buddhist looks at the depiction of jewelleries, art. The volume’s wide scope offers a both in stone and painted examples, to little of something for everyone. determine their use as chronological guideposts. He delineates four stages, Donald Stadtner beginning in the eleventh century. Erberto Lo Bue explores two phases of Ladakhi painting. The earliest is marked by Kashmiri influence, while the second, following the fouteenth century, shows

Journal of the Siam Society 2009 Vol. 97