Sam Vara wrote: ↑Sat May 25, 2019 5:50 pm
I think the idea that he forbade images of himself is a bit of a myth. It might be in accordance with other teachings, but is not as far as I know in the suttas.
Are statues even mentioned in the canon? Was it even part of the culture so as to suggest itself to devotees?
That's a fair point. Something to investigate: were images or likenesses of either Deities, or great Masters, being cast or molded around the time of the Buddha, in India at all? If not, then as you say, the need for the Buddha to discourage it, would not even have arisen.
On that note, I don't know when the 'Ten Commandments' were actually compiled - and I don't mean according to 'the Book' itself, I mean in reality, according to unbiased, modern scholarship - because there is this, obviously from a different part of the world:
You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Not that any of that ever bothered me. I used to bow down to images of metal, stone or wood, back when I was trying to be a Theist (despite the lack of evidence and insoluble internal contradictions present in my previous religion), and I haven't been struck down by lightning as yet
I'm thinking of writing to Bhikkhu Bodhi, or some other scholar-monk who I trust would have probably read the entire Canon, sutta and otherwise, and posing this question to them. In any case, so long as practitioners of the Dhamma are able to see Buddha images are just that - images to help uplift the mind in these difficult times, to inspire faith which can in turn inspire us to make a greater effort in our practice, and not as 'the Buddha himself', then it would seem to be a 'skilful means' (I don't know the Pali term , but does that apply here?). If it was discouraged, perhaps it was out of concern for that issue, because at some stage and even up to this present day, many Indian faiths insist that images cast of a Deity are, indeed 'the Deity itself', in fact in my previous religion, that's just how they are conceived.