/jp/ - Otaku Culture

what's the difference?

>>3775109
To simplify a GREAT deal, Theravada emphasizes personal effort and learning through personal experience to attain Nirvana, while Mahayana emphasizes praying for deities' aid in attaining Nirvana.

Gay.

>>3775127
Is the Mahayana one that's prevelant in the East Asian countries? I always thought it was kind of strange how it came to be, since I was under the impression that Buddha denied the existence of any sort of deity.

>>3775127
That's a no-brainer.

To make this /jp/ related, which type is Byakuren?

[X] Hinayana
[ ] Mahayana

>>3775145
Mahayana is certainly the more popular one.

But it's really not surprising, given how much misunderstanding arose around the Buddha even just shortly after he lived.
Case in point: peoples a century or so after the Buddha lived looked on sculptures made while he was alive and saw his princely topknot. Not believing there was any way the sacred Buddha could have been anything but a monk (despite the fact that he was a prince that had given up the world), they made up this idea about it being a cranial extension indicative of his supreme wisdom.

You can normally tell whether a sculpture of the Buddha comes from a Theravada or Mahayana sect, since Theravada works will emphasize the humanity of the Buddha, how he was just a normal man, and Mahayana works will depict him as a deity.

>>3775173
I don't know enough to ask questions but make more posts about this

>>3775173
I remember reading somewhere that a region named Taxila(maybe in Afghanistan) had statues which represented the Buddha with the semblance of Dionysius. I never saw an image of it, but I wouldn't doubt about it, since it was a region under the heavy influence of hellenistic culture. Have you ever heard of that?

Zen Buddhism.

All I have to do is chant namu amida butsu.

Bishamon-ten is so tsundere.

O.G Buddism 4 life.

>>3775199
I am not that knowledgeable about that far West, so I don't know much about that. It wouldn't surprise me, though, since I have seen early Buddhist sculptures from the Gandhara region (the area where the modern-day border dispute between India and Pakistan is) with Hellenistic influence, but that is mostly in the style: realistic clothing folds (almost looking like togas at times, even), carefully accurate anatomy, etc.

Here's the quickest example I could find.

>>3775185
About which? Early misunderstandings about the Buddha or differences in depictions?

Well, here's something relating to both.

Southeast Asian countries (this example is specifically from modern-day Thailand) had no actual visual basis for depictions of the Buddha, so when they made sculptures, they based the image entirely on descriptions from Buddhist texts, often leading to some interesting results.

The kind of descriptions this particular sculpture was probably built from include things like the Buddha having arms long enough to scratch his knees without bending over, arms "like an elephant's trunk," very broad shoulders, and extremely delicate hands.

Which ends up looking funny when put all together at once.

Buddhist-Swastika / Manji! Fuck yeah!

>>3775274
Something that always surprised me in the depictions of the Buddha is his androgyny. There's a HUGE contrast between him and, say, Muhammad(with what little visual representations we have of him, iconophily/iconophoby is another point of divergence between Buddhism and Islam). It's also interesting to note how the stances of Buddhism and the Islam regarding women are so strikingly different.

>>3775304
There was actually a period of time in which the Buddha was not personally represented in art.

So you'd have a scene of, say, the Buddha preaching, sculpted on a wall, and it would have all of these followers listening, but at the center would just be a couple symbols to represent the Buddha; a pair of footprints, a wheel, a tree, a throne, some combination thereof, but never actually the Buddha himself.

Historians still have no idea why this happened.

I know that's kind of a tangent, but it's an interesting fact that came to mind when you mentioned the Islamic stance on depictions of Muhammad. Although technically the Islamic stance extends to depictions of ANY person or creature. Plants are OK, so most of the carving decorating Islamic buildings is either generic pattern or floral design.

>>3775329
>so most of the carving decorating Islamic buildings is either generic pattern or floral design.
Funny how such an ascetic religion would end up producing something as fanciful and sensual as an arabesque. Despite the fact that they don't represent anything, their sinuosity is quite suggestive. Or maybe it's just my western eyes that are seeing things...

>>3775274
About anything interesting related to Buddhism. Wikipedia makes trying to read about it incredibly dull.

Neither have any merit whatsoever.

>>3775345
When they did depict animals or humans though, usually for private decoration, it was pretty fanciful and suggestive too.

Not the anon talking about this, but I only have my shit textbook with me and it doesn't have examples that I can quickly look up.

>>3775347
One of the most popular Bhodhisattvas (basically a Buddhist deity; they tend to be attendants of Buddhas. They are people who attain enlightenment but do not pass into Nirvana, instead remaining behind to help others reach enlightenment) in all the Buddhist world is Avalokitesvara.

Much like all Indian deities, he has been depicted as having several different forms. Including a female form, which if I remember correctly, is known as "Tara."

India: genderswapping famous icons before it was cool.

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>>3775421
So Buddha is the one to blame for all the grinding that we have in eastern RPGs nowadays?

>>3775421
I have no idea what I just read but I want to play it.

This thread needs more Buddhist-Swastika/Manji!

>>3775215
Fuck yeah zen

Getcha K-ON and ya zazen on

BUMP

>>3775329
Sometimes Muslims do depict humans and animals (although usually in a stylized way), they're not too strict. Moors especially were cool with it.

Friendly reminder for 22 November 2009 that Buddha was unofficially considered a saint of the greek and roman churches in the middle ages.

>>3776111
Really it depends on the faction. Some Muslims interpret some parts of the scripture more strictly than others.