STORIES OF THE LIVES BEFORE BUDDHA (JATAKAS)

JATAKAS OF BUDDHA. In Sanskrit the word jataka literally means “history of births”, and with them we refer in the Buddhist tradition to the set of 547 texts that narrate the previous lives of Sakyamuni collected in the Tripitaka canon. Each one of them is divided into three parts: the first one relates an incident that happened to Sakyamuni in India; the second one an event that occurred in one of his previous lives, being this the main part. Finally, it narrates the casual relationship between the incident that occurred and the present one, identifying the characters of the past with the present one. Its objective is to teach through fables the good deeds that allowed Sakyamuni to be reborn as Buddha in India. For the history of Buddhist art throughout East Asia, the jatakas have been an inexhaustible source of inspiration, with artists using them to introduce elements of everyday life from each time and place. In this thanka, the central and largest figure corresponds to the seated image of the historical Buddha, showing the strength of his spiritual light through the subtle combination of gestures and iconographic elements that identify him. Thus he is represented with a monk’s robe that covers both shoulders, showing only the chest and the right arm uncovered. With his hands he performs the gesture called dharaçakra-mudra or preaching gesture, in allusion to the episodes narrated in the jatakas. His legs folded on themselves, leaving the soles of the feet uncovered, in an attitude of vajraparyanka or lotus and diamond. The face, full of serenity, alludes to his condition of Buddha by means of the signs of beauty such as the elongated lobes, the narrowed eyes, the insinuated smile, the urn or point of spiritual concentration between the eyebrows and the usnisha gathering the hair on the nape of the neck. His head is framed in a halo of light, which is completed with two larger ones that frame the whole figure of Sakyamuni. Around him are stories narrated by the jatakas, whose reading is facilitated by the introduction of anecdotal elements that bring him closer to the narration. From the artistic point of view, the jatakas allow the introduction of elements such as the natural landscape, architecture, uses and daily customs, which help the scholar to identify them stylistically and chronologically. In this case and precisely because of the accidental elements of the jatakas, as well as the style of the Buddha image, we can conclude that it is a thanka with a strong Chinese influence, which could even have been made outside of Tibet within communities protected by the Beijing court. It is framed with damask silks / Extracted from: Isabel CERVERA FERNÁNDEZ: Fundación Rodríguez-Acosta. Asian Art Collection. Granada, 2002. Bibliography: RHIE, M.; THURMANN, R.: Wisdom and Compassion. The Sacred Art of Tibet. New York, 1992, p. 90, 97 / PRATAPADIYA, P.: Tibetan Paintings. New Delhi, 1984, p. 101.