Vietnamese Buddhist Art

by Nguyen Ngoc Vinh | 2009 | 60,338 words

This essay studies Vietnamese Buddhist Art in South and South East Asia Context.—In the early spread of Buddhism to Vietnam, three primary sources are investigated: Chinese histories, Sanskrit and Pali literature and local inscriptions and art: Initially Buddhist sculptures were carried from India to Vietnam by monks and traders. The research are o...

5. Sculptures in Indonesia

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[Full title: Style and the Dating of Sculpture (2): South East Asia (c): Indonesia]

Indonesia had:

“The great good fortune to nurture an art that was a flowering of the finest and fairest seeds from the Indian mainland. It was a colonial development, first of the Gupta and Pallava styles, and later of the Pala, from Bengal,”^[1]

Indonesian sculpture is sensitive-exquisitely soto the forms and nuances of the native life.

Before Indian influences reached Indonesia the culture here seems to have been shaped predominantly by ancestor worship. In the eighth century A.D. a large part of Indonesia came under the rule of the Javanese kingdom of the Sáilendras, which, according to legend, was the chief power at that time in Java, Sumatra, and Kalimantan. During the Sailendra dynasty many Buddhist temples were built: Borobudur, Mendut, Pawon, and Ngawen in the northern part and Kalasan, Banyunibo, Sewu, Plaosan in the Southern part.

Beside monuments bearing evidence of the repeated impact of strong Hindu and Buddhist influences from India, Indonesia has numerous works in a style that is completely its own. This has its roots in the ethnic traits of the Indonesian race and in the primitive ghost–and demon-ridden religion of the island’s deep past. It is a most sophisticated style, unsurpassed in its mastery of the grotesque, giving a profound sense of the weird, nightmarish element of the primitive soul; for through a prolonged contact with Sivaite art and the symbolism of Tantric Buddhism (both of which contain the same uncanny element) the native tendencies availed themselves of the technical achievements of a supremely advanced style.^[2]

In general, the style of Indonesian sculpture is extremely decorative. The deep carving is executed with the virtuosity of a fluent handwriting, producing bold effects through decisive hollows and dramatic profiles and ridges. For here, once again, sculpture has received its standardized means of expression from another art; an art peculiar to this part of the world, namely that of the characteristic cut-out figures of the Hindu-Buddhist.

It certainly is fortunate for the researcher of Buddhist art in Indonesia also as South East Asia that Borobudur has attracted so much attention. The fundamental formative idea of the Borobudur monument is that of a stupa with five procession-paths. These, however, have become square in plan instead of circular; and instead of one great domical building in the centre we have here seventy-two smaller ones, each containing the statue of a Buddha, visible through an open cage-like lattice-work; and one larger one in the centre, which was quite solid externally, but had a cell in its centre, which may have contained a relic or some precious object.

As will be observed from the plan and elevation, the monument may be described either as a seven or a nine-storeyed temple, according as we reckon the platform on which the seventy-two small stupas stand as one or three storeys. Its basement measures over 400 feet across, but the real temple is only 300 feet From angle to angle either way. It is not however, either for its dimensions or the beauty of its architectural design that Borobudur is so remarkable, as for the sculptures that line its galleries.

The outer face of the basement, though extremely rich in architectural ornaments and figure-sculptures, is of comparatively little historical importance. The first enclosed or as the Dutch call it, the second gallery is of all the five, the most interesting historically. On its inner wall the whole life of Sakyamuni is portrayed in 120 bas reliefs of the most elaborate character. The first twenty-four of these are occupied with scenes in the Tusita heavens, or events that took place before the birth. In the twenty-fifth we have Maya’s dream, depicted exactly as it is at Sanchi stupa, 800 or 900 years earlier. R. C. Majumdar also assumes resemble those of the Gupta period.^[3] In the following sculptures it is easy to recognize all the familiar scenes of his life, his marriage, and domestic happiness, till he meets the four predictive signs; his subsequent departure from home, and assumption of the ascetic garb; his life in the forest; his preaching in the deer garden. Below these bas-reliefs depicting the life of Buddha is an equally extensive series of 120 bas-reliefs of subjects taken from the Jataka, all of which be easily identified as that in Angkor temple or Cham stupa.

Groups of Buddhas–three, five, or nine are repeated over and over again, mixed with Bodhisattva and saints of all sorts. Among these, the five Dhyani, Buddhas are conspicuous in all, perhaps more than all, the variety of manifestations which are known in Nepal and Tibet.

The character of the sculptures, and the details of the ornamentation in Borobudur are so nearly identical with what is found in Angkor, Cham stupas, as already pointed out, there are many points of similarity between Borobudur and Angkor or Cham stupas.^[4] Being nearly a pyramid, situated on the summit of a hill, there were no constructive difficulties encountered in the erection of Borobudur, and it is consequently no wonder that it now remains so entires in spite of its being, like all Javanese buildings erected wholly without mortar. It is curious to observe, however, how faithfully its architects adhered to the Indian superstition regarding arches.^[5]

About two and a half miles from Borobudur is a small temple of that Chandi Mendut. It stands on a platform 11 feet high, measuring 71 feet wide and 83 feet deep. The porch projecting more than is usual. This temple preserves its stone roof. The cell is 23 feet square inside and at a height of 13 feet. From the pavement horizontal courses of stone, thirtyseven in number and 28 feet in height projecting one in front of the other, from an inverted pyramid of steps which is terminated by a hollow cone. Externally the roof still rises to a height of about 50 feet above the platform, and consisted probably of three storeys with a series of twenty-four miniature pagodas round the lower storey, sixteen around the second storey, eight round the third half sunk in an octagonal wall, being crowned with a larger stupa.^[6] The walls are decorated with bas-relief figures of Hindu deities^[7], groups of three or five in the larger central panels and single figures in the side panels all under canopies of slight projection. The sides of the platform are carved with figures and ornament in a series of panels. Inside the cell are three colossal figures about 11 feet high each. The central one is Buddha, curly-headed of course, and clad in a diaphanous robe. The two other colossi having only two arms each are almost certainly intended for bodhisattva.^[8] These three may have been placed in the cells at a later date. On one of the faces, externally is Lakshmi, eight armed, seated on a lotus with attendants. On another face is a figure, four armed seated cross-legged on a lotus, the stem of which is supported by two figures with seven headed snaked-hoods. It is in fact a slightly altered repetition of a group inserted among the older sculptures on the façade of the Cham Stupa. The curious part of the matter is that the Mendut example is so very much more refined and perfect. The one seems the feeble effort of an expiring art; the Javanese example is as refined and elegant as anything in the best ages of South East Asian sculpture. The same remarks apply to the sacred tree under which the figure is seated. Like all the similar conventional trees at Borobudur, they are complicated and refined beyond any examples known in India.

Beside that there are some Buddhist temples from the west towards the east of Java such as: Kalasan, Sari, Sewu, and Plaosan, these as Timbul Haryono had observated as:

“The architecture of central Javanese style and of East Javanese style was substantially quite similar. The differences between these two are in the form of the monument, lay-out of the courtyard, and some of the ornamental work. The temples of Central Javanese style seem to be huge in contrast to the East Javanese style. Most of the monuments of East Java give the impression of a small monument.”^[9]

The sculpture of Javanese that Timbul Haryono commented

: “The style of the Central Javanese reliefs is naturalistic as the figures are carved in three dimensions. The figure faces the viewers. The relief of East Javanese style is significantly different. The figures were carved in two dimensions. So they can be seen from the sides only.”^[10]

In gereral tendency of sculpture of Java, based on the reliefs there are several characteristic merits. In the first the artist always displays a fine sense of symmetery, harmony and rhythm in grouping his figures. They are skillfully arranged in small groups balancing each other, while the different poses, varying attitudes, and distinct appearances and dresses of figures in the same group serve to remove the aspect of monotony and dullness which would otherwise be inevitable in a scene depicting quite a large number of persons such as: the gods and apsaras or men, women, no two figures have the same attitude or exactly the same dress and appearance.

The artist has further freely made use of trees, plants, animals, and birds to break the dull monotony of his scene. They show a keen appreciation of the beauties of nature, and delights to depict human beings in surroundings of natural beauty, as far. The figures, the motifs and the skilful way in which they are added to a scene to enrich and enliven it, are worthy of the highest praise.