how disappointed he was not to see the Buddha and
requests that an image in the likeness of the tathagata
be made for the benefit of the whole world. The Blessed
One acquiesces, adding that whoever builds an image
of whatever size and material accrues an immeasur-
able, incalculable benefit. Returning to his residence,
King Pasenadi (Sanskrit, Prasenajit) orders a Buddha
image made of sandalwood displaying the thirty-two
marks of a Great Person (Sanskrit, mahapurusa; Pali,
mahapurisa) inlaid with gold and clothed in yellow
robes. After its completion he invites the Buddha to
see the image housed in a bejeweled shrine. As the Bud-
dha enters the shrine, the statue behaves as if it were
animated, rising to greet the Fully Enlightened One
who states that after his parinirvanathe image will per-
petuate his teaching (dharma) for five thousand years.
The story stipulates that presencing the Buddha
through material relics, in this case an image, provides
the locus for the expression of religious sentiment and
the opportunity to make merit through ritual offer-
ings. Furthermore, in materializing the Buddha and
the dharma—a key feature of consecration ritual—
such representations ensure the perpetuation of the re-
ligion (sasana).
Consecration as transformation
Phenomenologically, consecration rituals transform im-
ages, caitya, and other material signs of the Buddha into
Buddha surrogates. As recounted in the MAHAPARINIR-
VANA-SUTRA, at the Buddha’s cremation his body is
transmuted into corporeal relics, not by water as in an
abhiseka rite, but via fire. The parinirvanedbody as-
sumes a new, dispersed form in bodily relics, objecti-
fied artifacts of the Buddha’s charisma. Regarding
Buddha images, the Kosalabimbavannana and other
textual accounts ascribe qualities of the living Buddha
to the icon, including animation. “Opening the eyes of
the Buddha,” the pan-Buddhist term for image conse-
cration rituals, conveys a similar meaning. A mere ob-
ject, in this case an anthropomorphic representation
rather than a crystalline relic, becomes a buddha. In
East Asia eye-opening rituals were also believed to en-
liven portraits of charismatic monks as well as em-
power ancestral tablets (Japanese, ihai) enshrined in
monasteries and home altars.
In Southeast Asia such transformation involves a
mimetic ritual process informed, as Bernard Faure sug-
gests in his study of the flesh icons of mummified Chan
monks, by the “logic of metonymy and synecdoche in
which the shadow or trace becomes as real as the body”
(p. 170). The northern Thai consecration ritual begins
at sunset and concludes at sunrise, mirroring the three
watches of the night of the bodhisattva’s achievement
of buddhahood. During the course of the evening,
monks recite the story of the future Buddha’s renun-
ciation of worldly goals, his years as a wandering as-
cetic, MARA’s temptations, and his final awakening. In
Cambodia and northern Thailand reenactments of
episodes from the Buddha’s biography, in particular
Sujata’s offering of milk and honey rice gruel, high-
light the performative nature of the ritual. At sunrise
monks chant the auspicious verses attributed to the
Buddha upon his awakening: “Through many a birth
I wandered in samsara, seeing, but not finding the
builder of the house. Sorrowful is birth again and
again. O house-builder! You are seen. You shall build
no house again. All your rafters are broken; your ridge-
pole is shattered. My mind has attained the uncondi-
tioned; the end of craving is achieved.”
The physical space in which the consecration rit-
ual is conducted also mimetically replicates the Bud-
dha’s biography. Throughout the ceremony the main
image being consecrated is placed on a bed of grass
under a bodhi tree sapling in a monastery’s image
hall. The area is designated as the bodhimanda,the
throne of enlightenment that miraculously grew from
a grass mat, the danagift provided the future Bud-
dha by Sottiya, the forester. An auspicious cord ex-
tends from the previously consecrated temple image
around the bodhimanda,thereby forging a conduit to
the first Buddha image authenticated by the Buddha
himself. Other ritual paraphernalia symbolize specific
episodes in the story of the bodhisattva’s enlighten-
ment quest, as well as the tathagata Buddhas of the
current age.
During the ceremony the heads of the images placed
within the bodhimandaare shrouded by a white cloth
and their eyes covered with beeswax. They have been
sequestered, much as the future Buddha left his palace
and sought the solitude of the forest. At sunrise, monks
chant the gatha(verse) of awakening and the head and
eye coverings of the images are removed, symbolizing
that with the opening of the eyes, the images have been
infused with the qualities of Buddhahood: “The Bud-
dha filled with boundless compassion practiced the
thirty perfections for many eons, finally reaching en-
lightenment. I pay homage to that Buddha. May all
these qualities be invested in this image. May the Bud-
dha’s boundless omniscience be invested in this image
until the s ́asanaceases to exist.” In different Buddhist
cultures the act of opening the eyes of the image takes
different forms. Eyes may be symbolically or literallyCONSECRATION