Buddha

Yesterday night I was up till 1 until I closed the book'Buddha' by Deepak Chopra.

I have long been fascinated by the personality and the story of the Buddha-not that I agree totally with his thoughts and creed-but this is an instance where the propagator transcends the creed.

Perhaps the lovely paintings and sculptures that tangibalize him to an extent have contributed in this in no small measure.The sheer mesmerism of the Gandhara and Mathura school idols and the frescoes at Ajanta!However, I find it also amusing that the austere life of the Buddha should have spawned such an artistic revival.Of course, the reason was the popular Mahayana form of the religion,which deified him -and which he would have resented, no doubt!

A famous Marathi author called Durga Bhagwat has writted about the temptation of Buddha by Mara, the Buddhist devil,which is depicted in one of the paintings at Ajanta.She has also elaborated in detail about the painting of Boddhisattva 'Avalokiteshwara'.I, for one, find the concept of Boddhisattva heart warming, a near-divine being refusing Nirvana for the cycle of rebirth, only out of a feeling of compassion for his suffering brethren.

The expression on the face of Anvalokiteshwara is tantalizing.Lost in a feeling of infinite self-joy and fulfillment and yet suffused with compassion.The eyelids are half-shut to the world,yet half-open to and wary of sorrow and suffering.A lotus is held in the hand carelessly, almost obliviously.The whole demeanour is one of detachment with feeling only just discernable.

The life of Buddha lacks intense action.The divine conception and birth,marriage to Yashodhara,discovery of sorrow, the great renunciation, the greater enlightenment,conversion of Angulimala and Amrapali,winning over of Ajatashatru, creating the massive Sangha and the rather mundane culmination of death by indigestion -any of them merit an event space by themselves.yet, they speak of no Shakespearean tragedy.It is as if the ease and fluidity of events in his life symbolise the evenness of the 'Madhyama marga'espoused by him.


(To be continued....)