AgarikaJ wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2019 1:58 pm
markandeya wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2019 7:26 amIn ancient India there was no outward dress code
If you could qualify this statement a little bit, because looking at contemporary archaeological sources your are simply wrong.
The whole rest of your post, equating specific people as 'states' seems similarly uninformed, not just according to modern views, but already to those expressed by people contemporary or close in time to the Buddha.
I understand that one can look at Buddhism as a purely philosophical vehicle, but why deny it any connection to mundane reality?
i dont see any philosophy in Buddhist states, it can be applied to some degree if we want to discuss and ponder, but its more about direct states, which effect being.
Means that there was no uniform, a begger could be in rags and be a begger and also a person in rags an ascetic yogi, an mahasiddha or a rishi could be a king, stately ruler, siddharta was from a king or kshatriya lineage, mahavira was from Ikshvaku dynasty, forms of the buddha became more personalised from Greek influence. It doesnt matter about outer appearance, the divinities were in the subtle, it doesn't take anything away from being human, nothing in dharma traditions is outside of human potential.
If you fix buddha as an historical figure then, it brings in all sorts of problems. Same as the other characters in the texts. Did they exists as human figures sure, but mogallana was moon or lucid side left side of our brain hemisphere which can become more profound and subtle, Sariuptra the right side of brain hemisphere, the sun lineages which again can be more and more bright and enlightened and Buddha exists as a potential in all us.
Sanskrit and pali names and other names in India describe states, that include but also transcend the individual giving deeper meaning, expanding, connecting, unifying. Many Gotras or family lines have deep ancestry and names were given by Joytish what we would astrology inline with Gotra, which unifying in the macrocosm, the inner universe, a type of spiritual non physical genetics.
The suttas are within the cosmology, a play of cosmic forces, more subtle than the subconscious. They may also be historical person but cosmology is not fixed in normal linear time and space, we can access those same cosmological states at anytime if we practice correctly or develop citta bhavana.
Old architectural carvings, such as ajanta, ujjain, siddha natha and many others all over India, people would would wear all sorts of different dress, mostly light clothes in variety of dress, Garuda in the most ancient arts in Ujjain was very human, they were divine human beings, but the cosmology descriptions transcended the human. Most of the art is to beautify the state of Being. An actual enlightened person maybe over weight, and not care about his outer dress. The arts are not portraits always, its above the person but is still human. Closer inspection the forms also have divine symbols, they may not appear on the actual human. Cosmology states or states within madhyamika middle, or midway are in the subtle and are defined in the arts. It doesnt make them ideological they are within the human.
Its human but not mundane, the mundane states have been transcended, they abide in higher cosmological states, where for example, ananda, Sariputra, Mogallana , mahavira and Buddha could all exists in one persons citta. Maybe in the west the closest thing would be the archetypes of consciousness of jung, but its far more prfound and connects one directly to samyaksambhodi.
Its not easy to talk about these things in English, thats why the monstaics should be studying these and bringing it out in the pali, i can only make feeble attempts because its so underdeveloped at the moment, and Budhist practice doesnt seem to be heading in the direction at the moment to make these things any clearer, its getting closer to psychology.