Captions needed for the Pictorial Biography of Buddha

[vinodh]

Hi,

I am across these in the web. They consist of 33 images which depict the life of the Buddha.

For some pictures, I couldn't find a related incident in the life of the Buddha. Can any provide the correc event/caption denoted by these pictures ?

I will start only with the first one.


The Gods requesting the Bodhisattva Shvetaketu in Tushita heaven, for descending to the earth.

[Fede]

some of them are pretty obvious. They were posted on another website as a thinly-disguised link to another commercial site selling watches, leather goods and jewellery.
I'm afraid I deleted the lot.

[Admiral]

Waow. These pictures are soooo beautiful
I definitly need to print one or two of them for my altar haha...

[Ben]

Yes, I've seen these before when they were sent to me as an email by a friend.
Not really to my taste. However, happy if others find them inspirational.
kind regards

Ben

[alan]

Gawd awful junk.
Yuk!

[bodom]

Awesome! *Bookmarked*

Thanks for posting!

[pilgrim]

Vinodh,
These are beautiful which site is it from? I'd like to know more about the artist.

[Almaril]

I really enjoyed this set of pictures, so far I think it's one of the closest visual portrayal of the Buddha's life for my "style". Great work, looking forward for similar stuff. And haha, the way these ladies are drawn certainly plants other ideas and desires as well in a man's head than attaining nibbana..
But I'm a man of delusions and fine with that atm. Does anyone know similar - or not so similar, but illustration of his life? Sounds as an interesting project to do, probably it has been done a couple of hundred times already, so if anyone know a good collection maybe for these please share it here.

[Almaril]

Two fast comments about the pictures.

This one imo is quite misleading at some level - tell me if thats not so - I have no idea what it's supposed to say but it appears saying something like strict practice and lord buddha will eventually lead you to the company of these ladies or maybe what would make sense is that enlightenment is even better than a hot bath with the gurlz below -- probably the monkey has got also a central symbolical role in the image, I cant decrypt that tho - all together I have the definite impression they want to get people hooked in buddhism by sexuality.... which simply goes against all there is. Are they devas by the way?


This one just cracks me up all the time I remember it, I showed these images to a friend and his first association was about this picture "And look, it's like that book by Orwell... yeah, the 1984!" Haha, cant argue with that.
[img]http://www.virtualvinodh.com/pictures/image032.jpg[/img

[Viscid]

Wow, gaudy religious art.

The Buddha must've been pretty handy; his head also functions as a flashlight.

[David N. Snyder]

Wow, gaudy religious art.

The Buddha must've been pretty handy; his head also functions as a flashlight.

He also must have been about 10 to 15 feet tall, according to some of those pictures (even though the Suttas indicate about 6 feet tall). A more "human-like" appearance would have been better, imo, but still pretty nice looking art.

[pilgrim]

Almaril,
The story behind the beautiful ladies and the monkey on the stump can be found here.
http://www.buddhism.org/Sutras/BuddhaTe ... ge_09.html

[mikenz66]

Greetings Pilgrim,

Thank you for reminding us that these pictures have their origins in the Suttas.
In this case the Sutta references is: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

A good challenge to match the rest to Suttas...

Mike

[Hanzze]

Mine, mine...

Nice pictures, I guess there is some influence of Khmer or Thai in it.

Thanks for sharing the ORIGINAL

[pilgrim]

Captions
1. The Gods requesting the Bodhisattva Shvetaketu in Tushita heaven, for descending to the earth.
2. Queen Maya's dream as the bodhisatta chooses rebirth in her womb
3. Prince Siddhatta is brought back to the palace and brahmins predict his future
4. Asita predicts he will be a Buddha to the consternation of King Suddhodana who prefers him to be a world monarch
5. Siddhatta attains the Jhanas sitting under a rose-apple tree during the ploughing festival
6 Siddhatta wins the sports competition for the hand of his cousin Princess Yasodhara
7.He marries Princess Yasodhara
8. Marriage celebration? (uncertain)
9. Siddhatta sees the four sights ( according to commentaries, not sutta)
10. He finds the dancing girls in sleep to be disgusting and turns away from sense pleasure.
11.He takes a last look at his wife and son Rahula before leaving the palace secretly ( according to commentaries, not sutta)
12. He flees the palace on his horse Kanthaka and with his servant Channa.
13. He renounces the world and leaves his clothes to Channa to take back to the palace. A deva offers him robes
14. Upon hearing the lute player, he stops practice of the austerities. As a result, his 5 companions leave him.
15. Near Bodh Gaya, Sujata offers him milk rice.
16. Mara attempts to stop his quest for enlightenment? (uncertain)
17. On the night before the Great Enlightenment, he recalls his past lives.
18. The daughters of Mara tempt him
19. The Great Enlightenment
20. Devas come to worship and celebrate his achievement? (uncertain)
21. Mucalinda the serpent shelters the Buddha during a storm.
22. He descends from Tavatimsa heaven after teaching the Abhidhamma to his departed mother.( not sure in commentaries or suttas)
23. Sakyan princes renounces en masse ( uncertain)
24. He who attends on the sick attends on me ~ Mahavagga
25. The Buddha visits Kapilavastu. Yasodhara waits for him.
26. Cunda offers thee last meal. Buddha suffers from stomach pains.
Pictures out of sequence from here onwards.
27 Buddha ordains his son Rahula in Kapilavastu
28. Buddha teaches the first sermon , Dhammacakkapavathanna sutta to the ascetics.
29 . ??no idea??
30. The Buddha visits Kapilavastu.
31.Nanda sutta
32. Magha Puja day-when 1,250 arahants spontaneously assembled on full moon day in February http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dham ... satha.html
33. Maha Parinibbana

[Hanzze]

29 . ??no idea??

Thanks Pilgrim!

This picture is often seen here in local Temples... any self refexions in the suttas?

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

29. May be the Rāhula Sutta — not the better known Ambalatthika Rāhulovāda Sutta — or one would expect to see an overturned almsbowl in the picture.

[mikenz66]

9. Siddhatta sees the four sights ( according to commentaries, not sutta)

Though much of it comes from these Suttas:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

"I had three palaces: one for the cold season, one for the hot season, one for the rainy season. During the four months of the rainy season I was entertained in the rainy-season palace by minstrels without a single man among them, and I did not once come down from the palace. Whereas the servants, workers, & retainers in other people's homes are fed meals of lentil soup & broken rice, in my father's home the servants, workers, & retainers were fed wheat, rice, and meat.

"Even though I was endowed with such fortune, such total refinement, the thought occurred to me: 'When an untaught, run-of-the-mill person, himself subject to aging, not beyond aging, sees another who is aged, he is horrified, humiliated, & disgusted, oblivious to himself that he too is subject to aging, not beyond aging. If I — who am subject to aging, not beyond aging — were to be horrified, humiliated, & disgusted on seeing another person who is aged, that would not be fitting for me.' As I noticed this, the [typical] young person's intoxication with youth entirely dropped away.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

"I, too, monks, before my Awakening, when I was an unawakened bodhisatta, being subject myself to birth, sought what was likewise subject to birth. Being subject myself to aging... illness... death... sorrow... defilement, I sought [happiness in] what was likewise subject to illness... death... sorrow... defilement. The thought occurred to me, 'Why do I, being subject myself to birth, seek what is likewise subject to birth? Being subject myself to aging... illness... death... sorrow... defilement, why do I seek what is likewise subject to illness... death... sorrow... defilement? What if I, being subject myself to birth, seeing the drawbacks of birth, were to seek the unborn, unexcelled rest from the yoke: Unbinding? What if I, being subject myself to aging... illness... death... sorrow... defilement, seeing the drawbacks of aging... illness... death... sorrow... defilement, were to seek the aging-less, illness-less, deathless, sorrow-less,, unexcelled rest from the yoke: Unbinding?'

11.He takes a last look at his wife and son Rahula before leaving the palace secretly ( according to commentaries, not sutta)

Yes, the next portion of the Sutta doesn't mention wife, son, or secrecy:

"So, at a later time, while still young, a black-haired young man endowed with the blessings of youth in the first stage of life — and while my parents, unwilling, were crying with tears streaming down their faces — I shaved off my hair & beard, put on the ochre robe and went forth from the home life into homelessness.

Mike

[Sylvester]

The deva in pix #13 is the Ghatikara Brahma offering him the Requisites.

Odd that Sakka is not depicted in this standard depiction of the Great Renunciation from the Commentaries.

For #14, would that be Mara strumming on Beluvapanduvina?

For #16, that would be the Bodhisatta setting his bowl upstream before it was deposited on Mahakala's head and then resting on the bowls of the 3 previous Buddhas.

#20 would be Brahma Sahampati's Invitation to Teach.

[pilgrim]

That leaves numbers 8, 23 and 29 unresolved. What an interesting puzzle.