By SHIRIN MAZDEYASNA, 4/22/2016. My ticket to New Delhi and Ladakh is booked, and I’m super excited. I will be in New Delhi for two weeks, and then will be going to Ladakh for two weeks, at the far north of India next to Tibet.
What I have been lately pondering about is the importance of actions for depicting particular ideas. It’s hard to think about ideas that are not manifested in the outer world and just live in someone’s mind. In terms of religion, is one’s beliefs manifested through prayer, performing rituals, and their actions revolving around the religious theme? If that so, what is then the role of the material dimension of religions such as relics, functional or nonfunctional objects, and sacred art?
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have a monolithic god and in the basis development of their religion is their holy text. Buddhism lacks personal or the creator God, and hence the relationship is not with the divine but with the self and the environment/others. My main question is how Buddhism’s religious groups and branches were sustained after the death of Buddha? What has been the role of sacred art in the process of spreading Buddhism? In the book “The Art of Buddhism: An Introduction to Its History and Meaning” by Denise Patry Leidy, I have been learning about tracking the architecture style, sculptures, and paintings back to when Buddhism was spread in the neighbor regions of northeastern India, from East Asia to Afghanistan and Persia.
What I do want to explore in this research, through reading books and going to the location, is to examine the role and importance of sacred art and rituals in the development and spread of Buddhism. If such things (sacred art) did not exist and came to being, would there still be such strong influence for Buddhism? Reading about the Buddhist ideas and how they actualize their ideas through performing rituals is the first step, and then by going to numerous different temples in New Delhi and Ladakh, I can feel the scale of this importance and necessity in sustaining their religious beliefs.