Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume One A -L Robert E. Buswell

E SOTERIC A RT, SOUTH AND S OUTHEAST A SIA
1. Aksobhya: “Imperturbable” (vajra family), sapphire
blue, earth-touching gesture (bhu misparśamudra),
east (some sects place Aksobhya in the
center); the Buddha’s enlightenment.
2. Ratnasambhava: “Jewel-Born” (jewel family),
golden yellow, giving gesture (varada-mudra),
south; the Buddha’s generosity as shown in his
choice to teach and as demonstrated in his previous
lives.
3. Amitabha: “Infinite Light” (lotus family), ruby
red, meditation gesture (dhyana-mudra), west;
the Buddha’s path of meditation.
4. Amoghasiddhi: “Infallible Success” (karma family),
emerald green, protection gesture (abhayamudra),
north; the Buddha’s miraculous powers
to protect and save.
5. Vairocana: “Illuminator” (buddha family), diamond
white, turning the wheel of the dharma
gesture (dharmacakra-mudra), center (some
sects place Vairocana in the east); the Buddha’s
first sermon and all of his teachings.
The colors of yi dams are determined by their place
within the five families. The talents and weapons they
bring to the particular meditation ritual they guide are
shown by other attributes. For example, the yi dam
Vajravarah is red because she is related to AMITABHA.
She carries a ritual chopper with which she cuts through
ignorance, because her function is to confer transcendent
wisdom. Her consort Cakrasam vara is blue because
he is related to AKSOBHYA, and he carries many
weapons because he is charged with providing whatever
skillful means, all rooted in compassion, are needed to
enable the practitioner to become enlightened.
Regional variations
Indian practitioners and artists of esoteric Buddhism
came to the fore after about 500 C.E. They began to
make images of many new deities, often displaying ritualized
sexual postures (Sanskrit, yuganaddha or mahamudra).
They also increased the depiction and
variety of ritual gestures and devices, extended the use
of mandalas, and recognized that artistic activity itself
could be a form of spiritual practice. The earliest image
of a deity holding a vajra occurs in the northwestern
region of ancient Gandhara.
The advent of Buddhism in Tibet occurred in the
seventh century C.E. Tibetan esoteric arts grew around
a seeding of Indian tantric forms among the indigenous
shamanic religion called BON. Particular to Tibet
and later Nepal is the extensive use of the posture called
yab-yum, literally “father-mother” in Tibetan, as a potent
visual metaphor for the absolute necessity of joining
the goddess’s transcendent wisdom with the god’s
skillful means: They are physically joined in a sexual
embrace. The whirling dance posture of mostly nude
figures is also characteristic of the Himalayas.
Another Tibetan iconographic form is the lineage
painting used to legitimize sects, tulkus (sprul sku; living
incarnations of particular bodhisattvas, such as the
DALAI LAMA as an incarnation of Avalokiteśvara), and
teachers within a genealogy of previous teachers and
the transcendent buddha families. Parallel to this development
is the wide proliferation of small mchod
rtens (elongated stupas) to commemorate, as well as
to invoke, the protective powers of teachers, saints,
tulkus, and sacred scriptures. Huge three-dimensional
mandalas, some with interior shrines, are also thought
of as mchod rtens. Unique to Nepal are the eye-mchod
rtens, which have an enormous pair of eyes painted
on each side of the square base beneath the top spire;
these eyes belong either to Vairocana, the Illuminator,
or to the primordial buddha principle named
Adibuddha.
RITUAL OBJECTS such as the prayer wheel, the vajra
(Tibetan, rdo rje), the bell, and the phur pa (Tibetan,
used to “nail” down demons) were extensively developed
in the Himalayan regions. The highly sophisticated
techniques of making and consecrating these necessary
implements spread to Southeast and East Asia.
Esoteric Buddhism in Southeast Asia thrived mainly
in Bhutan, Myanmar (Burma), Kampuchea (Cambodia),
Malaya, and Indonesian Java. The most important
esoteric art forms that remain are the complexes
of Angkor Thom in Cambodia and BOROBUDUR in
Java, as well as many fine examples of ritual implements
and sculptures. Borobudur (about 850 C.E.)
elaborates the life of the Buddha Śakyamuni as the ideal
path to enlightenment. Each stage is represented on a
different level of this enormous three-dimensional
mandala, with seventy-two pierced stupas on the top
level, each housing Vairocana as he illuminates the
world. This site is both a straightforward and an esoteric
commemoration of the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment,
and death.
See also: Buddha(s); Esoteric Art, East Asia; Himalayas,
Buddhist Art in; Huayan Art; Southeast Asia,
Buddhist Art in; Tibet
260 E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM