Hindu, Buddhist & Asian Art: Architecture and Figures

The Human Figure in Hindu Architecture

Hindu art has often been characterized as fundamentally religious in nature. Rather than depicting real human beings or representations of people as they are, Indian art focuses on the ideal. Gods and goddesses predominate, and human images are stylized rather than individuated. Differences between figures reflect historical or regional distinctions rather than the personal visions of individual artists.

Some of the most typical images of the Indian world are found at the religious sites of Bharhut and Sanchi, carved in sandstone on the temples in those areas. They depict "yaksa and yaksini — male and female nature spirits associated with trees and fertility. The male figures are usually in a rigid standing position with a round face and spherical eyes. Female figures reveal characteristic features of Indian grace and beauty: the supple body bent in the tribhanga posture with the weight on one leg, the sensual shape of the hips and breasts, and the expressive details in the face" ("History of Art: Indian Region and the Far East," History of Civilization and Culture, 2010).

Despite this stylization, the human figure was given centrality within holy structures: "In the Gupta period, the format of many Indian temples followed a standardized plan that was to remain the blueprint for later temples. The heart of the building was the cubical cella where the divine image was placed. Raised slightly on a low platform, it was situated inside a square room with an antechamber. A passage surrounded the shrine for the ritual walk around the sacred image" ("History of Art: Indian Region and the Far East," History of Civilization and Culture, 2010).

Meera Mukherjee's Ashoka at Kalinga: Past and Present

In contrast to ancient, traditional Indian art, Meera Mukherjee's works usually focus on images of common, ordinary people: fishermen, weavers, women sewing, commuters on a crowded bus, and manual urban or agricultural laborers. Yet she adopted stylized motifs and traditional techniques to render her artistic vision. "She evolved an iconography that was unique. Opposing pulls of mass and movement, strength and vulnerability give an intense character to her figures, enhanced by the textural play created by the use of decorative elements on the surface. Many of Mukherjee's works show the use of Bengali calligraphy on the surface. Manifestations of playfulness and whimsy often add another dimension to her work" ("Meera Mukherjee," Contemporary Indian Artists, 2010).

Mukherjee's work lacks the reverence and explicitly religious purpose of traditional Indian art. Her work is also explicitly the vision of an individual artist, not that of an anonymous sculptor rendering a stylized work for a community's religious purposes. Her sculptures are intensely kinesthetic, like many traditional works, but her figures' movements are more spontaneous in appearance. Mukherjee has noted that she was often inspired by dance or music to create a sculpture, which makes her figures physically expressive in a manner that unites past and present, traditional style and modern physicality.

Her 1972 work Ashoka at Kalinga is harsh, symmetrical, and vulnerable: the misshapen figure leans upon a staff, yet bears the placid face of an Indian deity. The texture of the work is rough and naturalistic, rather than smooth and perfect. Ashoka's limbs look awkward and cobbled together, yet the shape of his face and limbs recall those of more traditional Indian art figures, effectively embodying the tension between ancient iconography and contemporary artistic sensibility.

The Vairocana Buddha at the Longmen Caves

The Vairocana Buddha is sometimes called the primordial, supreme, or "original" Buddha. He is understood to represent the wisdom of Buddhism and to manifest its fundamental objective of shunyata, or the emptiness of Enlightenment. "He is considered a personification of the dharmakaya — everything, unmanifested, free of characteristics and distinctions. When the Dhyani Buddhas are pictured together in a mandala, Vairocana is at the center. Vairocana is white, representing all colors, and his symbol is the Dharma wheel. His hand mudra represents the turning of the wheel. He is associated with the first skandha, form. Meditation on Vairocana vanquishes ignorance" (O'Brien, 2010).

In the historic Longmen Caves of China, the Vairocana Buddha is located in the Ancestor Worshipping Cave, the largest and most elaborate of all the caves. The Vairocana Buddha on the back wall has a Bodhisattva to his left wearing a crown and pearls. Bodhisattvas, in Mahayana Buddhism, are beings who have temporarily chosen not to seek Enlightenment for themselves in order to bring Enlightenment to others still in the world. On the other side of the Buddha, a "divine general treads an evil spirit underfoot" ("Longmen Caves," Sacred Destinations, 2010).

The combined imagery of the most spiritual and enlightened of all manifestations of the Buddha, a spiritual being still striving to enlighten the world, and explicit national symbolism illustrates how Buddhism was not seen as innately contradictory with the aims of the nation-state.