Cultures and Religions of the Himalayan Region

Summer 2004
Delmar Arnold
St. Anne's Day School
The Lives of the Buddha
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Overview
Jatakamala
Siddhartha Gautama
Mandala
Buddhist Temple
Siddhartha Gautama

In this unit we will read a biography of the Buddha and look at a variety of artistic retellings of his life so that we can write and illustrate our own life of the Buddha. In addition, we will continue to answer questions we posed when we read Jataka tales: What makes a hero heroic? Are religious heroes different from other heroes? What qualities do religious heroes demonstrate? As we begin to write and illustrate our own biography of the Buddha, we will need to answer new questions: What are the different elements that constitute a biography? What information should you include and how should you collect it? How should you organize and present what you learn? How has the story been told before? Should you retell it differently?
What makes a life
worth remembering?
Journal
Think about biographies you've read before. If you haven't read one lately, think about biographies you read last year: Langston Hughes, Red Scarf Girl, or The Diary of Ben Uchida. What information did the author include in the biography? Make a list of the elements that seem to make up a biography. Consult a dictionary, and write definitions for the following genres related to biography: autobiography, memoir, diary, and journal.
As you already know, there are many stories about different lives of the Buddha. "Jataka Tales" tell stories from the Buddha's previous lives. Several Buddhist sutras tell stories of the Buddha's future actions and lives. Needless to say, that makes a biographer's task rather difficult. Which lives should a biographer narrate? For our purposes, we will read and retell the story of the Buddha's lifetime as a human. That makes our task less difficult, but not easy. We will still need to decide what events are memorable and momentous during the Buddha's life--what events make his life a compelling story.

The information we have about the Buddha's life comes from several major sources: 1) the Tipitaka or "Three Baskets," records of the Buddha's sermons and teachings which were written down about a hundred years after the Buddha's death; 2) works that were composed by using the Tipitaka and legends surrounding the Buddha's life and teachings, and 3) archaeological findings. Early texts were in various North Indian languages: Pali, Sanskrit, or one of the Prakrits. As Buddhism spread throughout Asia, texts were translated, older texts were lost, and new translations and images appeared in Chinese and Tibetan to replace them. Often, as Buddhism moved from place to place and language to language, the story of the Buddha's life changed to match new cultures and customs.
So, what do we know? It has long been thought that the Buddha lived in the Indo-Gangetic Plain of Northern India from 563 BCE to 483 BCE. His enlightenment has been dated as 528 BCE. However, recent archaeologically research suggests that his birth and death may have been later, in 440 BCE and 360 BCE. All accounts mention his birth, his leaving home, his enlightenment, and his first sermon. Many include more episodes. Some divide his life into eight parts, some twelve, some thirty-two. As you read the story of the Buddha's life, you will need to decide what you can accept as fact, what you can accept as tradition, and how you should look at the expanding version of his life.

Will the Real Buddha please stand up?
Journal

In your journal, write all that you know about the Buddha. Afterwards, do a Microsoft Encarta search on the Buddha. Record the important new dates and events that you learn in your journal.
Some sources have little information; some have much. Some are very reliable; some are less reliable. Over the next few days, we will search for as much accurate information about the Buddha as we can find. We'll consult reference resources such as the World Book Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica. We will look at histories of Buddhism and trade books about the Buddha. As we research the Buddha's life, you will need to gather information and to assess the information and resources we find.
Buddha Research
Journal
Summarize the articles you read. Be sure to include all the important new information you find. Write a sentence or two evaluating the source. Record the proper citation for each source you consult.

Many of the sources that are available are visual representations of the Buddha: murals, paintings, thangkas, statues. Before we start studying them, we will spend several days learning to look at art, describe art, and ask questions about art to deepen our understanding of it. We will practice what we learn with a gallery walk in class and by viewing exhibits from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.org. For instance, when we visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art web site, you will need to choose one work of Asian art, observe it closely, and carefully describe it so that someone who has never seen it can find it in the gallery.

Looking at Asian Art
Homework
Journal

For homework, visit Himalayan Art . View "Buddha's Challenge." Take notes, draw pictures, and write your observations in your journal. Then visit the Nova exhibit on Tibet. View "Deciphering Buddha Imagery." Take notes on the important features of the Buddha's figure and his different mudras. Then read "Creating a Wall Painting." As you read, answer the following four questions: 1) What four of the Buddha's traits does the portrait show? 2) what mudra is he using? 3) How did artists obtain pigments for blue, red, yellow, and white? and
4) What does each color symbolize?

Now that we have more historical background and strategies to understand artistic depictions of the Buddha and his life, we can start reading Prince Siddhartha: The Story of the Buddha.

Prince Siddhartha
Reading Assignments
Each day, we will read and discuss the story together. You are responsible for knowing what happens in each episode we read. In addition, you will also be working in groups to take notes using four different reading strategies. Each of the groups will regularly report its analysis of the story to the class: 1) Plot the Buddha's life on a map and create an illustrated timeline, 2) Create an illustrated storyboard that focuses on major life stages--birth, youth, adolescence, young manhood, maturity, old age, death, 3) Create a plotline, from the exposition through the resolution of the conflicts the Buddha encounters, and 4) Chart the story of the Buddha's life using Joseph Campbell's cycle of heroic actions: a) call to adventure, b) crossing the threshold--entering the unknown, c) trials and tribulations on the journey, d) attainment of enlightenment, and e) return of the hero.
Before we finalize our story, I'd like you to read a second traditional version of the Buddha's life. The Avatamsaka Sutra, Flower Adornment Sutra, divides the Buddha's life into eight stages. Another traditional source expands it into thirty-two episodes. This version divides his life into twelve crucial episodes. Read the version at http://www.exoticindiaart.com/article/lifeofbuddha.

Now that we know the story our task is to retell and illustrate the the Buddha's life so that it is appropriate for second through eighth grade audiences. We need to discuss the information we have and our understanding of the story and then assess what is crucial to include in a biography. We will need to think as writers and illustrators. We must decide what elements of the story of the Buddha's life make it dramatic and religiously compelling. We will need to outline a vision of his life we believe is faithful, dramatic, and spiritually meaningful. And we will need to plan illustrations for each episode of his life. In short, we need to make a story board.
Illustrated Life of the Buddha
Project

Your final project is to create an illustration and textual narration of one episode from the Buddha's life. The aim of the project is to create an illustrated mural of the Buddha's life that can be viewed, read, and understood by students from the fourth through eighth grades.
Use the thumbnail pictures on this page and works on in Resources section as examples of illustrations.

The episodes we depict will depend on our final reading of the story and the decisions we make about organizing and dramatizing events in the Buddha's life. The illustration style will depend on a class decision.

Your project should satisfy the following requirements:
1) Your illustration should be 36" x 48", 2) the illustration of each episode should represent the main characters and events in that episode, 3) it should contain important traditional symbols, 4) the illustration should be thoughtfully composed, 5) it should be hand-drawn, stenciled, electronically composed in a graphic arts program, or composed as a collage, 6) the illustration should be appropriately sized, carefully drawn, and neatly colored, 7) it should contain a narrative passage of 100 to 200 words retelling the episode in your own words, and 8) your retelling should be dramatic, concisely written, and carefully edited.
Resources

Prince Siddhartha: The Story of Buddha. Second Edition. Jonathan Landaw. Sommerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2003.
Prince Siddhartha Coloring Book. Jonathan Landaw. Sommerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 1996
The Art of Tibet. Robert Fisher. London: Thames and Hudson, 1997.
Tibetan Thangka Painting. David and Janice Jackson. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1984.
http://www.askasia.org/AsianArt
http://www.exoticindiaart.com/article/lifeofbuddha
www.metmuseum.org
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tibet

This site was created by Delmar Arnold at the NEH Summer Institute "Cultures and Religions of the Himalayan Region," held at the College of the Holy Cross, Summer 2004