Creating the Universe

Depictions of the Cosmos in Himalayan Buddhism

Eric Huntington, K. Sivaramakrishnan, Anand A. Yang, Padma Kaimal, K. Sivaramakrishnan, Anand A. Yang, Padma Kaimal

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780295744063
• eBook ISBN: 9780295744070
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Asian Art

Winner, 2018 Edward Cameron Dimock, Jr. Prize in the Indian Humanities Buddhist representations of the cosmos across nearly two thousand years of history in Tibet, Nepal, and India show that cosmology is a rich language for the expression of diverse religious ideas, with cosmological thinking at the center of Buddhist thought, art, and practice. In Creating the Universe, Eric Huntington presents examples of visual art and architecture, primary texts, ritual ideologies, and material practices—accompanied by extensive explanatory diagrams—to reveal the immense complexity of cosmological thinking in Himalayan Buddhism. Employing comparisons across function, medium, culture, and history, he exposes cosmology as a fundamental mode of engagement with numerous aspects of religion, from preliminary lessons to the highest rituals for enlightenment. This wide-ranging work will interest scholars and students of many fields, including Buddhist studies, religious studies, art history, and area studies. Art History Publication Initiative. For more information, visit http://arthistorypi.org/books/creating-the-universe

1

Cosmos in Texts

EXPLAINING THE BLUENESS OF THE SKY

CLASSICAL TEXTS ARE THE SOURCES MOST OFTEN CITED BY BUDDHISTS and other scholars regarding cosmological thinking, so they must be addressed in any argument about the role of cosmology in religion or art. Even in so-called authoritative texts, however, cosmological models are individuated to perform specific ideological and ritual functions beyond any objective presentation in the abstract. The use of cosmology as a framework for various kinds of religious activities is not a process of adapting a primary textual source to different functions. Rather, the textual sources themselves are simply additional instances of cosmological thinking tailored to particular agendas.

The alteration of cosmology to achieve specific goals can be illustrated by one simple example that is both literally and figuratively at the center of the world. In most Indic cosmologies, an enormous mountain known as Meru or Sumeru¹ rises from the very center of the circular earth, providing a home to major worldly deities. Meru has four faces, each turned toward one of the cardinal directions (east, south, west, and north). At the same time, Purāṇic, early Buddhist, and later Buddhist textual sources give radically different explanations of the composition of these four faces and their related symbolism for the religious tradition (fig. 1.1). The oft-cited Vāyu Purāṇa lists the colors as white, yellow, black, and red,² corresponding to the four social classes³ of Brahmanism: priest, merchant/farmer, servant, and warrior/ruler.⁴ In this way, the social order of human society is built into the structure of the world itself. The Buddhist Treasury of Abhidharma⁵ alters this scheme to consider the nature of causality and empirical proof in the world. The text describes the faces not simply in terms of their colors but as being composed of specific minerals that provide a reason for the colors: gold, silver, blue beryl,⁶ and quartz.⁷ The same natural force that instigates the physical creation of the universe (namely, the intentional actions⁸ of sentient beings) produces heaps of these four types of jewels that grow to form the faces of the mountain.⁹ Their composition is ostensibly verified by observation — our sky is blue because the blue beryl facet of Meru reflects its color into the sky of the southern quadrant where we live. In the other quadrants of the world, the sky has different colors that match the other precious substances. A third major textual source, the later Buddhist Wheel of Time¹⁰ literature, provides a different scheme for the directional colors that identifies the basis of ritual practice in the world. It describes the facets of Meru as blue sapphire¹¹ in the east, ruby red in the south, yellow topaz in the west, white crystal in the north, and green emerald in the center.¹² This five-directional system corresponds to the five fundamental elements in the Wheel of Time, which also find expression in the major continents that surround Meru. Four continents in the cardinal directions are identified with elemental maṇḍalas, each of which has an associated shape and color. East is a blue-black semicircle (connoting the wind element), south is a red triangle (connoting fire), west is a golden-yellow square (earth), and north is a white circle (water).¹³ Central Meru has the nature of the fifth element (void or space), the shape of a bindu (dot), and the color green. As a set, these five geographic bodies symbolize not only the five elements but also other important groups of five, including the five buddha-families. Such overlapping symbolism establishes the universe itself as a complete ritual system, rather than emphasizing human social order or scientific explanation.

The idea that numerous other traditions of literature, ritual, and visual art simply repeat the cosmological ideas of these texts is thus inherently problematic. The cosmologies of these texts are not general-purpose descriptions that can be applied to other contexts. The texts do not even provide the necessary details for accurately depicting the world in other circumstances. The Treasury, for example, does not specify which direction each of the four colored sides of Meru faces (only the blue beryl side is said to face in our direction, because our sky is blue). Many of the most well-known details of these cosmologies cannot be traced directly to the texts typically understood as their sources, which are themselves individual expressions of cosmological thinking.

Varieties of Indic Thinking about the Physical World

The overview of cosmological thought in the texts of ancient India presented here comprises examples from Hinduism, Jainism, and several traditions of Buddhism. With the exception of the Ṛg Veda being first, they are not presented in chronological order or with the goal of tracing cosmological ideas to their earliest textual descriptions. Rather, these accounts reveal the scope of cosmological thinking in the Indic textual/religious sphere. The Ṛg Veda uses cosmology to glorify its central deities, the Purāṇas match cosmology to human history and social structure, and Buddhaghosa’s Path of Purification¹⁴ portrays cosmological knowledge as one of many factors of enlightenment. As the most influential cosmological texts of Himalayan Buddhism, Vasubandhu’s Treasury of Abhidharma and the Wheel of Time corpus are granted significantly more attention. The former emphasizes a cosmology of causation in relation to karma, while the latter interconnects physics, astronomy, cosmology, biology, meditation, and enlightenment in a single logical structure, the explicit purpose of which is to serve as a frame for soteriological ritual. Both are commonly cited as sources for numerous kinds of cosmological artwork and ritual, but both also lack the specificity and clarity needed to make their models generally applicable to these other purposes. Indeed, non-cosmological textual sources, such as the narrative of the Buddha’s life known as Extensive Play,¹⁵ have at least as much influence on Buddhist artistic representations of the world.

1.1.Three color schemes of Meru’s quadrants according to the Vāyu Purāṇa, Treasury of Abhidharma, and Wheel of Time

THE ṚG VEDA

Cosmological thinking has been a theme in numerous religious texts in India, starting with the earliest source available, the Ṛg Veda, a collection of hymns for sacrificial ritual.¹⁶ While scholars look to these early texts for cosmological models, the cosmologies they describe are not given in the abstract but are applied through literary devices toward rhetorical and ritual goals. The Ṛg Veda mentions cosmology most clearly in metaphors of praise to its deities. Although we can learn from these passages something of the basic geometric and spatial principles through which the authors viewed the universe, we cannot take them at face value as stated cosmological models.

1.2.Two descriptions of the cosmos in the Ṛg Veda, the earth and sky as two bowls and the earth and sky as wheels on an axle

In the abstract, the physical world of the Ṛg Veda comprises three vertical layers of space: the earth, the sky or heaven, and the intermediate space or atmosphere that separates earth and sky.¹⁷ Theologically and cosmogonically, this can be considered a dualistic system of father Heaven and mother Earth, the separation of which by the god Indra creates an intermediate space in which life occurs.¹⁸ Two metaphors give some sense of this arrangement in the text, although they are not entirely consistent (fig. 1.2). The first describes the earth and sky as “two great bowls turned towards each other,”¹⁹ with the sun understood to travel in the space between the layers of earth and sky.²⁰ Another characterizes the earth and heaven as two wheels on a chariot axle.²¹ Both metaphors suggest further structural principles in the cosmic model, such as a circular boundary and an implied center, in the latter case, at the axle. Horizontally, the Ṛg Veda divides space into the familiar four cardinal directions of east, west, north, and south.²² These basic structural principles create a sense of the universe as an organized space and remain influential in later Indic traditions.

At the same time, the cosmology of the Ṛg Veda is not given as a list of spatial principles. Rather, these descriptions of the world occur as metaphors related to the worship of particular deities, stories of creation, or specific ritual practices. The example of the world as two wheels occurs thus:

For Indra I have raised my songs, (like) waters in restless surges from the depths of the sea,

for him who propped asunder earth and heaven with his powers, like wheels with an axle.²³

The primary function of this verse is to praise the deity Indra. His manipulation of the earth and sky like chariot wheels is a metaphor for his power and his creative activity, not a literal description of geometry. Later Vedic traditions continue this layering of meaning into space, developing correspondences between tripartite space, the cardinal directions, specific deities, natural elements, parts of the body, metaphysical powers, poetic meters, seasons, animals, and social classes.²⁴ Cosmological structures described in these texts provide more of a framework for expression and analysis than they do an abstract, independent model.

While cosmological thought remains a major factor in religious texts from the Ṛg Veda onward,²⁵ cosmological models became a major subject of scholastic attention more than two millennia later. In the fourth to fifth centuries, a cultural shift seems to have prompted commentators in all traditions to or...

Table of contents

• Creating the Universe
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• A Note on Translations, Transliterations, and Titles
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction: Orienting Space and Self
• 1. Cosmos in texts: Explaining the Blueness of the Sky
• 2. Cosmos in the Maṇḍala: Salvation through Geography
• 3. Cosmos in offering: Piling a Mountain of Treasures
• 4. Cosmos in architecture: Sacred Space and Murals
• Conclusion: Portraits of Landscapes
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index