Buddhist Practice and Visual Culture: The visual rhetoric of Borobudur

Buddhist Practice and Visual Culture The visual rhetoric of Borobudur
Copyright
Contents
List of figures
Acknowledgments
Note on transliteration
Introduction
	The Gandavyūha and the religious world of the Śailendras
	Rhetoric, ritual, and commemoration in monumental architecture
	Memory and vision in the upper galleries of Borobudur
	Chapter outlines
1 Borobudur: monumental mandala and bodhisattva path
	Borobudur as a representation of the path
	Theories of Borobudur as a mandala
	The mandala principle and the prologue of the Gandavyūha
	Mandala and path: meeting the embodied teaching
2 Carving out time: the narrative relief panels
	Narrative art and temporality
	Narrative art and the life of the Buddha on Borobudur
	Narrative art and the previous lives of the Buddha on Borobudur
	The problem with time
	Picturing the Nirmānakāya
	Narrative art, ritual, and commemoration
3 Piecing together space The panorama of the purified field
	The word-by-word method of picturing the Gandavyūha
	The purified field and the body of communal enjoyment
	Images of the purified field on Borobudur
	Panoramic art, ritual space, and buddhānusmrti as meditative craft
4 Pervading space Bodhisattva activity in the cosmic panorama
	Compassionate multilocation: the manifestations of Maitreya
	Devotional multilocation: the offerings of Samantabhadra
	Serlingpa, Atiśa, and the cosmic sequence for giving
and taking meditation
	The cosmic sequence and the upper galleries
	Ritual circumambulation and the transition from giving to offering
5 To emptiness and back: the transformative work of the terraces
	The cosmic Buddhas of the terraces
	“Seeing” emptiness: the dharmakāya and the limits of vision
	Wisdom and generosity: ritual practice on the terraces
	The descent of the bodhisattva: the stairs
	The Borobudur mandala reconsidered
	Conclusion: visual rhetoric and ceremonial diplomacy at Borobudur
Notes
Bibliography
Index