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Buddhist Art
of Sri Lanka
Sri
Lanka, only forty-five miles from the southern tip of India, has had a
thriving Buddhist culture for more than 2,000 years. According to
tradition, the religion was introduced in the mid-third century B.C.E. by
missionaries sent by Ashoka (reigned ca. 272 – 231 B.C.E.), India's
first great Buddhist king. The missionaries were led by Mahinda, who was
possibly the son or brother of Ashoka. Sri Lanka's king, Devanampiyatissa,
converted to Buddhism and the country's earliest monastic complex, the
Mahavihara at Anuradhapura, was founded circa 236 B.C.E.. Around this
time, a cutting from the bodhi tree under which Shakyamuni Buddha achieved
enlightenment was brought from India to Sri Lanka by a nun named
Sanghamitta and planted at the Mahavihara; the tree (or its descendent)
still flourishes and is the most popular pilgrimage objective in Sri
Lanka. Worship of the bodhi tree subsequently became an important part of
Sri Lankan
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worship, and
a bodhi tree shrine was established in every monastery. Each
consists of seated images of the Buddha placed around the tree
facing the four cardinal directions. Unlike Indian representations
of the Buddha seated under the bodhi tree, in Sri Lankan images,
the Buddha holds his hands in the gesture of meditation (dhyana
mudra) instead of in the earth-touching gesture (bhumisparsha
mudra) that Shakyamuni used to call the earth to witness his right
to achieve enlightenment.
Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka's capital
from circa 500 B.C.E. to 993 C.E., became the center of the
country's Buddhist culture and home to the three main monastic
complexes: the Mahavihara, the Abhayagiri, and the Jetavana.
Virtually all other Sri Lankan monasteries owed ecclesiastical
allegiance to one of these three institutions, whose relative
importance in any given period was determined by patronage from
members of the ruling dynasty. Both Theravada Buddhism and
Mahayana Buddhism were practiced in Sri Lanka. |
Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
Sri Lanka 8th - 9th century
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Like
southern India, the island was long a port-of-call for those who traveled
along the international shipping lanes that crisscrossed the Bay of
Bengal. The complex interrelationship between Sri Lankan and Southeast
Asian sculpture produced by the transmission of Buddhist thought and
imagery along the trade routes is illustrated by the provenance of a small
standing Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion (Fig. 1). This
delicate sculpture, reportedly found in southern Thailand, has been
assigned a Sri Lankan origin, although some scholars have proposed
Thailand, Vietnam, or Cambodia as its place of creation. The stylistic
links that have caused so many scholars to disagree over the provenance of
this piece suggest the important, yet under-researched, role Sri Lanka
played in the diffusion of Buddhist art styles in Southeast Asia. The
practice of Mahayana Buddhism in Sri Lanka is also evidenced by a
four-armed image of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future
(Fig.2).
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Although
Mahayana Buddhism was quite popular in Sri Lanka, especially from
300 C.E. to 993 C.E., it was the conservative Theravada Buddhist
tradition that made the country so influential in Buddhist
Southeast Asia. Theravada ("School of the Elders") can
be thought of as a type that, as Buddhism grew and expanded,
continually inclined toward the conservative. Sri Lankan monks
rejected change and sought to preserve the so-called original
doctrine of the Buddha. As a result, Sri Lankan Theravada was
completely codified by the fifth century C.E. Theravada Buddhism
offered an alternative to the Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism
practiced in northern India and the Himalayas, and some Southeast
Asian kings, particularly those in Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand,
saw it as more "pure" than other types of Buddhism. Sri
Lankan Buddhism ultimately became highly influential in those two
countries, affecting not only religious practice but statecraft
and artistic expression. |
[Source:
Asia Society]
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