Shakyamuni Buddha
If the Trivial Pursuit fact checkers are correct, Shakyamuni (the historical Buddha) has been pictured more often than any other human being. All Buddhists pay him respect as an enlightened teacher, but the emphasis differs between different Buddhist groups.
Here we see him dressed in the characteristic robes of a Buddhist monk, with his hand extended pointing toward the full moon in the picture (a symbol of enlightenment). The long earlobes and ushnishna ("extra-cranial protrusion") are both bodily marks indicating his spiritual excellence (there are many more on the standard list), as is the halo around his head
He stands on a lotus, which is a common artistic motif for a pedestal, and at the same time also alludes to his enlightened state. Just as the lotus germinates in the mud at the bottom of a pond, and then grows to flower above the water level, in the same way the Buddha transcended the world of birth and death into which he was born.
For some important scenes from the traditional account of his early life, see below. These are drawn from Ashvaghosha’s Buddacarita, a traditional account of the Buddha’s life and depict his birth and some of the events prompting his renunciation. The originals were block printed on rice paper in India, and were given to me by Prof. Allen Hauk, who taught at Carthage for many years.
This picture depicts the Buddha's birth. According to tradition, he was born in Lumbini, a forested grove, as his mother was traveling between palaces. She supported herself by holding onto the branch of a tree, and after the future Buddha was born, he immediately took seven paces to the East, and proclaimed in loud voice that this was his last birth, and that during this life he would attain full enlightenment. Other signs such as his horoscope (and the halo present here) marked him out from the beginning as a Great Being, and all of these are fairly common narrative devices to foreshadow a person's future greatness.
As a king's son, the Future Buddha lived a comfortable and carefree life. According to tradition, his father took great care to ensure that his life was a continual round of pleasure, and that he discovered nothing of life's harsh realities. His father was successful for many years, but one day the young prince went out for a drive, and saw for the first time an old man. His father's minions had carefully removed all the old and sick people from the streets, but according to the traditional story this old man was one of the gods, who had taken this form to awaken the young prince (Note: In Buddhist cosmology the "gods" are not the Supreme Being, but simply beings who live in the heavens as a result of their past good karma. They have superhuman powers of cognition and action, but their divine state is not permanent, and at some time in the future they will be reborn somewhere else). When the prince asked his charioteer what was wrong with the man, he was stunned to hear that everyone was subject to old age (which saps one's vitality and one's faculties) and that someday he too would have to contend with it. This vision of old age is the first of the so-called "Four Signs" that induced the Buddha to renounce his home to seek enlightenment
The young prince went out for a drive on another occasion, and this time encountered a sick man (according to tradition, this was also one of the gods in disguise). The young prince was stunned to encounter illness, and to learn that this was an inescapable part of the human condition. This is the second of the "Four Signs" that induced the Buddha to renounce his home to seek enlightenment.
On the third occasion, the young prince saw a body being carried away to the cremation ground, and thus learned about death. As with the first two signs, he was shocked that this was part of the human condition, that he would die someday, and that worst of all, even though everybody knew that this was going to happen, everyone seemed to live in denial. As a story, one can compare the young prince's reaction to that of any person sheltered from life's harsher realities (although according to tradition he was in his mid-20s at the time, and thus much older than most). People tend to try to shelter children from these things, but sooner or later they learn about them, as they must.
In the early Buddhist writings, "old age, illness and death" stand as a shorthand for all of the life problems for which the Future Buddha was seeking a solution. These prints do not show the story's "Fourth Sign," a wandering "monk" who had left home to seek a solution to the problems of birth-and-death (as with the others, this was one of the gods in disguise). The monk's appearance not only foreshadows the Buddha's own imminent renunciation, but also his eventual success in transcending old age, illness, and death, through his eventual enlightenment and nirvana.
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Copyright James G. Lochtefeld, 2005