Day 72 - Buddhist stele

July 18, 2018

Gallery 206 centers on Chinese Buddhist sculptures from the 5th through the 8th centuries  C.E., many monumental in size and originally adorning cave shrines. But the gallery also serves as a primer for me on Buddhism, reminding me how little I know about this religion. I was aware that there are multiple bodhisattvas. But I didn't know that there are also multiple Buddhas, not just the deified form of the man we know as Siddhartha Gautama. Rather, a Buddha is a celestial creature who has gained enlightenment, and there are many of them, whereas a bodhisattva is an enlightened person who has remained on earth to act as intercessor and model for others who are less enlightened. That's the "standing on one foot" version of it, at any rate. 

Today's image, a limestone stele perhaps 18 feet high and dated from 533-543, speaks to another kind of fluidity within Buddhism - gender fluidity - that seems particularly appropriate to think about given the attention now being given to transgender people.  In the middle register, on either side of two trees at the center, are the monk Shariputra and a female figure into which he has transformed himself. Subsequently he changes himself back into a man, thereby demonstrating the impermanence of gender, or of any other worldly condition. At the top of the stele, a seated Buddha and two  bodhisattvas witness the episode, which is a pictorial representation of a dialogue in a sutra. There's a lot else going on in the relief, including other bodhisattvas, monks, and guardian figures, but I've touched on what's most striking to me. I like the sinuous, curving lines of the trees, which are echoed by the female figure.

I think that for most of us, gender does feel like a permanent condition. People who opt for transgender surgery want a permanent transformation into the other sex. But the larger point is that nothing in life is really permanent, including, perhaps, the most fundamental ways in which we define ourselves.