beauty in stone

Usuki Stone Buddha. One of many others... 

Usuki, Kyushu, Japan, March 2016.

Buddha in construction

Datong, Shanxi, June 2013.

Buddha with driver

George Town, Penang, Malaysia, December 2009.

Stoned Buddha

Hope Buddha is having a good trip.

Photo from Angkor Wat, Cambodia, March 2006.

Buddha doesn't care

Does Buddha care when being used for such profane activities as a restaurant? It does not look like he does... I'm not quite sure about Moses, Jesus and Mohammad...

Photo from Singapore, March 2008.

Don't feed the animal

'Don't feed the animal' were Alex famous first words after he woke up from my camera’s flashlight.

The picture was taken two days ago in the guesthouse ‘Roof of Bamiyan’ after an exhausting but spectacular trip from Kabul to Bamiyan. Bamiyan is famous for its caves and its two giant Buddhas. As we all know the two Buddhas were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

However, it is said that a third Buddha, the sleeping Buddha, is not yet excavated. As the picture shows we seem to follow the right trail. Only the relation or is it an incarnation to the 'animal' is not quite clear.

Fat Buddha in Singapore

After the fasting Buddha from the Lahore Museum in Pakistan it is worthwhile to show the complete opposite in terms of weight and perception of life. This picture was taken yesterday in Singapore and shows the Maitreya Buddha (or Milefo (彌勒佛). Buddhists believe that a Buddha appears from time to time to maintain knowledge of the true path and the Maitreya Bodhisattva is the future Buddha and is understood to be the ‘kindly one’ or here ‘the laughing one’. The pictured Milefo probably found its origin due to a Chinese monk named Hotei who is regarded as an incarnation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya. Hotei or Budai Luohan (布袋羅漢) walked on earth around 900AD and already resembled the future.

Now we know that there is a bright future in sight. Touch the big one as these Chinese fellows do and you will become lucky, laughing and fat.

Fasting Buddha in Lahore

Just back from Lahore, Pakistan.

If you happen to visit Lahore make sure that have enough time for the Lahore Museum. To me the most fascinating part of the Museum is about the Gandhara Civilization. The Kingdom of Gandhara lasted from the 6th century BC to the 11th century AD. It attained its height from the 1st century to the 5th century AD under Buddhist Kushan Kings. The main sites of the Gandhara culture can be found in Taxila (around Islamabad), in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan (Swat Valley) and in Afghanistan along the northern side of Kabul river.

By seeing so many Buddhas in these days when you travel in South and South-East Asia it is remarkable that this major piece is not that well-known. The photo shows the fasting Buddha (Sakyamuni Buddha). Siddharta Gautama practiced extreme self-denial for six years to learn the truth about human condition and a method of release from its endless round of suffering. As we know, also this fasting period came to an end before Siddharta moved on to the “Middle Way’, a life between extreme luxury and extreme austerity…

The sculptures from the Gandhara culture are more realistic compared to the ones we see in India, Sri Lanka and South East Asia. In the Lahore Museum you will see a number of beards on the face of the Buddha-to-be. Such realism is inherited from the Hellenic worlds in which there was a preoccupation with detailed depictions of physical reality. Alexander the Great left his big foot prints in this region.