On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 16:13:33 -0800, kalanamak >
wrote:

>Peter Aitken wrote:
> It is not
>> meant to represent how he actually looked - no one knows that.
>>
>I'm betting he looked more Indian than Chinese. The big B. at ?sp
>Kamakura was not obese. Many of the old Indian ones have the waspy waist
>common in male Indian statues, with chest and shoulders flairing out
>like the hood of a cobra, a more realistic version of which my ex-hub
>sported.
>blacksalt

Kamakara, maybe? Is that the reclining Buddha in parinirvana?

It's my understanding that representations of the Buddha were
forbidden for the first 500 years or so of the religion'ss history.
You get very early stand ins like a lotus blossom (purity blooming in
the muck) and those big stone bell shaped structures called stupas.

One story I heard about his supposed fatness indicated the idea came
from the ascetics of the time who fasted fanatically to purify
themselves. Before his enlightenment, Gautama Siddhartha also fasted
till he was skin and bones, but his teachings later advised a middle
path in all things. So he gained back the weight that fasting had
taken. He didn't get fat, but compared to what he was, he looked
corpulent.

OBBuddha: Anybody read "The Accidental Buddhist?" The author is
Dinty Moore (OBFood???) I'm not making this up. I loved the book.

modom