Toshiya Unebe
Department of Indian Studies, Graduate School of Letters, Nagoya University, Japan
Narratives and their visual representations are most basic tools for spreading Buddhist teaching. In this paper, two images well-known in Thai Buddhist context are examined: Sakka playing three string lute to Boddhisatta and Sinners climbing Sword-leaves tree in Hell. In spite of their broad popularity in Thailand, the direct source for them does not seem to be found in Pali Tipitaka literature.
The former is a scene from the life of the Buddha and it is usually included in temple murals. Sakka demonstrates the middle way with the three string lute for reclining Boddhisatta exhausted with his austerities. The scene is not known to Japanese Buddhists since the episode has not been found in any Buddhist scriptures in Northern recension. Although simile of lute for teaching middle way is well-known in different context, the episode of Sakka is not known to Japanese. It is based on the Pathamasambodhi, a biography of the Buddha known only in Southeast Asia.
The latter is usually depicted in Samut Khoi manuscript of the Phra Malai, a popular telling of a monk who can traverse heaven and hell. It is told in many versions and many languages including Pali and Thai. The Pali version refers to hell very briefly and it seems that no Pali description of Sword-leaves tree Hell directly corresponds to the image. However, almost the same scene has been depicted in Japanese Buddhist paintings of Hell since about 11th century and for this image we can find the exact source in the Chinese Agama.
Although we cannot tell exact relation between Thai and Japanese representations, through the examination we see how freely narratives and imaginations spread over Asia.
(Presented in the International Conference – Buddhist Narrative in Asia and Beyond, 9-11 August 2010, Imperial Queen's Park Hotel, Bangkok, organized by Institute of Thai Studies, Chulalongkorn University with support from The Thailand Research Fund (TRF), in co-operation with Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Institute of Asian Studies, The Confucius Institute, Chulalongkorn University and l’École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO))