Malinda Words: The naked truth

Whenever I visit the Aukana Buddha Statue, look at a photograph of what an exceptional sculptor extracted from a rock face or even think about it I remember Mr Ilyas.

Mr Ilyas was my scout master. Years later he agreed to teach me Tamil. We also discussed things of common interest. I remember discussing with him the issue of religious icons. We talked about the Hindu and Islamic views on the subject. Later, reviewing Gunadasa Amarasekera’s ‘Pilima lovai, piyavi lovai (‘The world of images and the real world’ or ‘Reality and its representation’), I referred to Mr Illyas.

I argued for the Islamic position because I felt that images detract from comprehension. "But it can be argued this way too," he said, "If you see the image, you do not see God, but if you see God, you do not see the image". The Buddhist elaboration on impermanence and illusion would then resolve the issue. Still the fact that images are consciously employed to deceive is something that one needs to be vigilant about.

Today there’s a discussion on the Aukana Buddha Statue or, to be more precise, the ‘dressing’ of the statue with a robe. Much of the discussion in social media on this can be captured in a single word. Preposterous!

Anuruddha Pradeep Karnasuriya explains it well: ‘ශිෂ්ටාචාරයක් තිබුණ යුගයක නෙලපු පූර්ණ පිලිමයක්, මෙච්චර කල් නිරුවතින් තිබුණේ කියලා හිතෙනවා කියන්නේ ශිෂ්ටාචාර අර්බුදයක් (To think that a statue perfectly crafted at a time when there was a civilization is naked, is itself a civilizational crisis).’ Liyanage Amarakeerthi’s comment on the above Facebook post probably resonates with many, myself included: ‘මමත් අවුකන ප්‍රතිමාව දෙස නොයෙක් වර පැය ගණන් බලා සිට තියෙනවා. විශේෂයෙන් බලල තියෙන්නේ සිවුරේ රැළි නෙලා ඇති සැටි (I too have gazed upon the Aukana statue for hours, especially the way the folds of the robe have been sculpted).’

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Those with authority can and often do impose their notions of beauty on others. A crude example would be the king who commissioned the unknown sculptor to wrest image from rock. Someone could argue that it was beautiful as it was in the natural state and that the carving of an image disrupted aesthetics.

Then again, art is typically followed by critic. The artist and the artist’s intent be it buddhalambana preethiya (the joy of ‘beholding the Buddha’) or something else can and does get obliterated by the gazer and the gazer’s predilections.

It does get complicated with ‘art’ that has taken on the kind of cultural significance that is associated with the Aukana. There were objections raised when a canopy of constructed ‘to protect the Aukana from the vagaries of the weather’ several decades ago. No one disputed the intention; the criticism stemmed from notions of propriety. People argued on the basis of ‘as is’ or the natural state which, as pointed out was essentially a reordering of a previous ‘natural state.’ Others lamented that the majesty diminished because of this canopy. It was removed.

Part of it has to be about familiarity. Part of it has to do with something that has nothing to do with the doctrine, namely archaeology. The Aukana is an archaeological artifact even as it is a cultural icon, in particular one that is clearly valued by Buddhists. It is living heritage, though, since the devout do engage in a religious manner at Aukana, offering flowers, chanting gathas etc.

The first thing that came to mind is ‘why a second robe?’ I concur with Anurudda and Amarakeerthi. However I do acknowledge that the aesthetic element lends itself to any number of opinions on what exactly is beautiful. What exactly makes for buddhalambana preethiya I do not know. It’s subjective. It is, to me, unfamiliar. I am drawn to vote in favour of aesthetic valuation closer to what I find more familiar. Therefore I, being a prthagjana, am rather disturbed by the Aukana being draped with a robe.

There is nothing to indicate that either sculpture or king planned to re-robe the Aukana or in fact did so. For me, therefore, the act is not one of robing, but disrobing. It is an insult to that unknown sculpture who made Amarakeerthi, Anuruddha, myself and countless others stop in wonderment and perhaps nudged us to reflect on some element of the doctrine.

The Aukana is sculpted from rock. Robes have far shorter life spans. The Aukana stands not because of the robe. The robe has value because of the Aukana. Whether re-robed or not, I will always see the Aukana, replete with the sculpted robe. The cloth won’t hide it. Perhaps those who see the robe will not see the Aukana. Perhaps those who see and have seen the Aukana have not and will not see the rock. Perhaps in these transformations, interventions and debates over what Aukana is and how it should be, we could comprehend the eternal verities of jati (birth), jaraa (decay) and marana (death).

My reflections on the Aukana (before re-robing) were as follows:

I have imagined the rock without the statue. I have imagined images trapped in rocks and therefore releasable. And reflecting on the reflection, I have obtained a sense of what upadanas (fixations) are, how they are created and how, perhaps, they could be avoided. All this from an image released from a rock. All this from working back from release to entrapment and all the traps that distract and stop the exercise of grasping the eternal verities.

The Aukana can direct people to the doctrine. It doesn’t mean that everyone who gazes upon it will necessarily peruse the philosophical canon. The Aukana, robed, mis-robed or disrobed, does not necessarily impede such exploration either.

This re-robing or rather disrobing puzzles me. In another time I might have been appalled. I am not. I have to thank Mr Illyas for it.

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is the 277th article in the new series that began in December 2022. Links to previous articles are given below]

27 November 2023

The naked truth

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