Precious Treasures from the Diamond Throne

Precious Treasures from the Diamond Throne: the Diamond Throne: from Treasures Precious The Mahābodhi temple at Bodhgayā in eastern India has long been recognised as the Enlightenment the Site of Buddha’s Finds from place where the Buddha sat in meditation and attained enlightenment. The site, soon identified as the ‘Diamond Throne’ orvajrāsana , became a destination for pilgrims and has been a focus of religious attention for more than 2,000 years. This volume presents new research on Bodhgayā and assesses the important archaeological, artistic and literary evidence that bears witness to the Buddha’s enlightenment and to the enduring significance of Bodhgayā in the history of Buddhism. The book brings together a team of international scholars to look at the history and perception of the site across the Buddhist world and its position in the networks of patronage and complex religious landscape of northern India. The volume assesses the site’s decline in the 13th century, as well as its subsequent revival as a result of archaeological excavations in the 19th century. Using the British Museum’s collections as a base, the authors discuss the rich material culture excavated from the site that highlights Bodhgayā’s importance in the field of Buddhist studies. Sam van Schaik is Head of the Endangered Archives at the British Library. He previously worked at the International Dunhuang Project, and was a Principal Investigator on the ERC-funded project Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State. He has published on Tibetan tantric Buddhism, the paleography of Dunhuang manuscripts, Zen Buddhism and Buddhist magical practices. Daniela De Simone is Assistant Professor at Ghent University. She studied Indian languages and cultures at L’Orientale, University of Naples and was a researcher on the ERC-funded project Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State. She also curated the British Museum’s permanent display of South Asian archaeological materials. Gergely Hidas and Michael Gergely Hidas and Michael Willis Daniela De Simone, Edited by Sam van Schaik, John Clarke (1954–2020) was the curator of Himalayan and southeast Asian art at the V&A where he had worked from 1979. Receiving his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1995, he was the author of a number of articles and books including Tibet: Caught in Time (1997) and Jewellery of the Tibet and Himalayas (2004). Michael Willis is a research fellow at the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. From 2014 to 2020 he led Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State, a project funded by the European Research Council. He served earlier as the curator of the South Asian and the Himalayan collections at the British Museum. Precious Treasures from the Diamond Throne: Other recently published Research Publications Finds from the Site of the Research Publication 218 Relics and Relic Worship in Early Buddhism: India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Burma Buddha’s Enlightenment Edited by Janice Stargardt and Michael Willis Research Publication 215 Charles Masson and the Buddhist Sites of Afghanistan Elizabeth Errington Edited by Sam van Schaik, Research Publication 207 Amaravati: The Art of an Early Buddhist Monument Daniela De Simone, Gergely Hidas in Context Edited by Akira Shimada and Michael Willis and Michael Willis Research Publication £40 228 Precious Treasures from the Diamond Throne: Finds from the Site of the Buddha’s Enlightenment Edited by Sam van Schaik, Daniela De Simone, Gergely Hidas and Michael Willis This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) (grant no. 609823) Publishers The British Museum Great Russell Street London wc1b 3dg Series editor Sarah Faulks Precious Treasures from the Diamond Throne: Finds from the Site of the Buddha’s Enlightenment Edited by Sam van Schaik, Daniela De Simone, Gergely Hidas and Michael Willis isbn 9780861592289 issn 1747 3640 © 2021 The Trustees of the British Museum Text by British Museum contributors © 2021 The Trustees of the British Museum. All other text © 2021 individual contributors as listed on p. iii Front cover: Plaque with the goddess Mārīcī from Bodhgayā, Bihar, terracotta, c. 9th century ce, h. 29cm x w. 22.5cm x d. 7.4cm (maximum). British Museum, 1887,0717.68, given by Alexander Cunningham Printed and bound in the UK by 4edge Ltd, Hockley Papers used by the British Museum are recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests and other controlled sources. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. All British Museum images illustrated in this book are © 2021 The Trustees of the British Museum All British Library images illustrated in this book are © The British Library Board Further information about the Museum and its collection can be found at britishmuseum.org Contents Introduction 1 Michael Willis, John Clarke and Sam van Schaik 1. The Mahābodhi Temple Before its Restoration 8 J.P. Losty 2. The Āsana: Where the Buddha Sat 29 Daniela De Simone, Dániel Balogh and Sven Bretfeld 3. Pīṭhīpati Puzzles: Custodians of the Diamond 40 Throne Dániel Balogh 4. Early Burmese Inscriptions from Bodhgayā 59 Tilman Frasch 5. The Internalisation of the Vajrāsana 65 Sam van Schaik 6. Tibetan Inscriptions in the British Museum 71 Archive Tsering Gonkatsang and Michael Willis 7. Buddhist Sealings and the ye dharmā Stanza 76 Peter Skilling 8. Dhāranị̄ Seals in the Cunningham Collection 87 Gergely Hidas 9. A Terracotta Plaque with an Old Mon Inscription 95 Marc Miyake, Tilman Frasch and Michael Willis 10. Five Terracotta Plaques with Figurative Imagery 99 Serena Biondo 11. The Mahābodhi Plaque of the Goddess Mārīcī 112 Jinah Kim, Kashinath Tamot and Sushma Jansari 12. From Bodhgayā to Berlin 120 Claudine Bautze-Picron 13. Numismatic Finds at Bodhgayā 128 Robert Bracey 14. Deposits at Bodhgayā: Objects, Materials 136 and Analysis Michael Willis, Joanna Whalley, Beatriz Cifuentes and Robert Bracey 15. Chinese Inscriptions from Bodhgayā 148 Michael Willis and Serena Biondo 16. Materials of British Museum Plaques 153 1887,0717.146-147 Marei Hacke Bibliography 156 Contributors 166 Index 168 Figure 0.1 Bodhgayā, Bihar. Standing Buddha, crowned and displaying varadamudrā, surrounded by scenes from his life and a devotee at the bottom left. Inscribed with the Pratītyasamutpādagāthā, 11th century CE. According to Rājendralāla Mitra (1878, 135) found by Francis Buchanan-Hamilton in the cemetery near the temple; the sculpture subsequently passed to Charles Stuart and came to the British Museum in 1872, h. 1.95m. British Museum, 1872,0701.30 Bodhgayā – the site of the Mahābodhi temple in eastern Introduction India – has long been recognised as the place where the Buddha sat in meditation and attained enlightenment. It is this place – for many Buddhists the most potent of all Michael Willis, John Clarke and Buddhist places – that is the focus of the present book. Sam van Schaik Important archaeological, artistic and literary remains bear witness to the Buddha’s awakening, and to the enduring significance of Bodhgayā over the last two millennia. The first monumental remains at Bodhgayā can be assigned to the time of King Aśoka in the 3rd century bce and many additions were made thereafter, notably in the early centuries bce, the 4th to 7th centuries ce, and the 11th to 12th centuries ce. The site’s religious pre-eminence as the ‘diamond throne’, or vajrāsana, attracted the attention of Buddhists across Asia, with epigraphic and literary materials documenting missions from Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma (Myanmar), Tibet and China. Concurrently, the Mahābodhi stood at the centre of a network of local patronage in the complex religious landscape of northern India. After the 13th century, Bodhgayā declined and eventually the temple was appropriated by followers of the Śaiva faith. British archaeological intervention helped reactivate the site and by the end of the 20th century Bodhgayā had regained its position as a key centre of Buddhism and international pilgrimage. State of the art: the site, its remains and its setting The scholarly literature on Bodhgayā is extensive. This necessitates a summary of key trends and problems rather than an encyclopaedic account. Early visitors, to begin, included William Jones (1746–1794), Charles Stuart (1758–1828), and Francis Buchanan-Hamilton (1762–1829). All three were interested in sculpture and Stuart and Buchannan-Hamilton collected pieces now in the British Museum (Jones 1788, vol. 1, 240; Cannon 1970, vol. 2, 659; Willis 1997). One of the most impressive is a crowned Buddha of the 11th century (Fig. 0.1). The general trajectory of colonial engagement with Bodhgayā is explored in studies led by Alan Trevithick and David Geary (Trevithick 2006; Geary, Sayers and Amar 2012; Geary 2014). Detailed study of the site began with Rājendralāla Mitra. His book Buddha Gayá (1878) was the first compilation and aimed to provide a comprehensive history of the complex. Mitra’s publication was followed by Alexander Cunningham’s Mahâbodhi (1892). This was based on excavations undertaken primarily in the 1870s, but the text was prepared in London after 1885 and written from memory after Cunningham’s original manuscript was lost. While the report was at least written by the nominal lead of the excavation, Cunningham was seldom present (the day-to-day work being supervised by Joseph David Beglar), and the book’s recomposition came a decade after the excavation and restoration of the temple. This accounts for the book’s inconsistencies. Regardless of the methodological and theoretical problems posed by Mitra and Cunningham, and the fraught relationship between Mitra and the British authorities, their publications remain central to the subject. The legal controversy that surrounded the ownership of the temple after the restoration, while not archaeological as such, preserves information about the work at Bodhgayā not recorded by Mitra and Cunningham (Dharmapala and Gir 1895).

Load more