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Austria: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft, 1993.HEINZBECHERTBUDDHA, LIFE OF THE, IN ARTBecause no single account of the Buddha’s life survives,
many Indian texts, most notably the LALITAVISTARA
and the BUDDHACARITA, have been used to inspire
artists seeking to represent important events from the
Buddha’s biography. Narrations were also composed
in China and ancient Tibet. The number of events that
are codified as important varies from four to 108.
Events that could be associated with particular sites in
northeast India usually formed the core of the lists; for
example, the Buddha’s birth in Lumbin, his enlight-
enment in BODHGAYA, his first sermon in Sarnath,
and his death in Kus ́inagara. The Buddha’s previous
lives are extensively presented as instructive examples
or parables, so the JATAKAs (birth stories) also inspired
countless artworks portraying the “life” of the Buddha.
Different Buddhist traditions and different countries
chose from among these stories the ones that spoke to
their particular needs. The life of the Buddha as nar-
rated in art also became a model for characterizing the
lives of other Buddhist teachers and deities. The tran-
scendent buddhas of the MAHAYANAand VAJRAYANA
traditions, for example, are characterized as concrete
manifestations of S ́akyamuni by depicting them with
attributes and gestures linked to particular events in
the Buddha’s life.
It can be argued that since texts refer to the Bud-
dha’s life to teach particular doctrines, they put their
own spin on the events. The same could be said about
the visual arts because choices must be made aboutBUDDHA, LIFE OF THE, INART