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TIBETAN
ART Page 6
Bodhisattvas
Except for the Buddhas in their multiple forms and appearances,
Tibetan art is dominated by its greatest deities, the Bodhisattvas.
If the Buddhas seem remote in the state of nirvana, the Bodhisattvas
represent a type of active Buddha-being, tireless, ceaseless and
watchful, who care about and exert themselves on behalf of mortal
beings. About Bodhisattvas, David Snellgrove wrote: "The origin
of this development, which is special to the Mahayana, is impossible
to trace with any precision...." (Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan
Buddhism, p. 58.) A Bodhisattva is one who has reached the threshold
of nirvana, meriting the final step into liberation, but who halts,
choosing instead to remain in the worldly cycle of samsara, of birth,
death, and suffering, in order to help all other beings achieve
enlightenment. This is a core Mahayana concept and ideal; the arhat
achieves liberation for himself, but the Bodhisattva defers eternal
bliss in order to save all other beings. The path of the Bodhisattva
is open to human beings, requiring a great vow of dedication, a
supremely difficult yet attainable goal.
Early in its development, Mahayana conceived of these celestial
Bodhisattvas. The immeasurable breadth and almost unimaginably ambitious
goal of the undertaking led the Mahayanists to call their movement
"the great vehicle," in contrast to what they termed "the
lesser vehicle," Hinayana (Theravada). Few in number at first,
the divine Bodhisattvas gradually became too many to enumerate.
Among these celestial heroes, three stand out as the great ones,
cult figures in their own right -- a triad of archangels. Avalokiteshvara
is the Bodhisattva of compassion; Manjushri is the Bodhisattva of
wisdom, and Vajrapani of power.
Bodhisattvas appear wearing the garments and ornaments of an Indian
prince, with earrings, bracelets, armlets, and anklets, and delicate
floating shawls and scarves, as well as a five-leaved crown. Each
is depicted with his proper symbol, and often with his proper mudra.
To make things more complicated, they have various manifestations,
according to which they may each take several different forms, but
in their most common forms they are easily recognizable.
Avalokiteshvara (Chen-rezig in Tibetan) holds a lotus and sometimes
a string of beads, a sort of Tibetan rosary. The best loved of the
Bodhisattvas, he is the symbol of mercy, the greatest of helpers,
and the successive Dalai Lamas are considered to be his incarnations.
His cult spread north and east, and, transmuted into a feminine
deity, he is worshiped as Kuan-yin in China and as Kwan-non in Japan.
In one form, Avalokiteshvara is shown with eleven heads, and sometimes
with a thousand hands, each with an eye on the palm. This represents
the legend attached to his name, "the lord who looks down":
in his sorrow at seeing the misery of our world, his head broke
into ten pieces; his spiritual father, the Dhyani-Buddha Amitabha,
reattached them, and with his thousand-eyed-hands, Avalokiteshvara
can see all sorrow and stretch out a hand to each sufferer. In his
great compassion and fearlessness, he descended into hell to convert
and save the damned, and carried them to the paradise of Sukhavati.
Manjushri (gentle glorious-one; Jampal in Tibetan) with his right
hand brandishes a flaming sword, which cuts through ignorance, and
with his left carries the book of wisdom, generally resting on a
lotus flower. The book is the Prajnaparamita, the fundamental Mahayana
treatise on transcendent wisdom. In its customary form, the manuscript
is held between flat pieces of wood and the book appears as a long,
narrow oblong. According to legend, Manjushri found a great lake
surrounded by mountains in what is now the Kathmandu valley. With
a great blow of his sword, he opened a gateway through the mountains,
through which the waters rushed, thus draining the lake and creating
what came to be Nepal. He is the first Bodhisattva to have been
mentioned in early Buddhist texts.
Vajrapani (thunderbolt-in-hand; Chana Dorje in Tibetan), as his
name indicates, holds the supreme magic symbol, the vajra (dorje
in Tibetan). As mentioned above, the device of the thunderbolt is
of ancient lineage, the symbol of Indra, the rain god, chief of
the Vedic deities, and of corresponding Indo-European divinities.
In the development of Mayahana, Vajarapani appears fairly early
as a minor deity, a guardian or protector of the Buddha, a being
of lesser rank than the exalted position he later attained with
the rise of the cult of Bodhisattvas as one of the three great ones.
As the supreme warrior of the faith, tireless, relentless, and with
inexhaustible determination, he combats demons and falsehood.
Each of these Bodhisattvas also takes several tantric forms.
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