Word: pagoda
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...suggest the many-faceted nature of the story, Artist Bernard Safran painted representations of Buddha based on actual figures from four different countries, placing them on a background of the traditional Buddhist robe. At the top is the reclining Buddha in the Shwe Dagon pagoda in Rangoon, Burma, a 28-ft.-long, 19th century figure representing the attainment of nirvana. (For a look at the other side of this Buddha, see the photograph above.) The dominating figure in the center of the cover is copied from the Great Buddha of Kamakura, which is perhaps the best-known representation...
...into the quiet streets in single file, eyes to the ground, fingers clasped beneath their silver begging bowls. In Laos, the bonzes form a silent silhouette against the ornate temple roofs of the royal capital of Luangprabang. In Burma, they enter Rangoon framed against the great Shwe Dagon pagoda, its massive gilded spire shimmering in the early dawn. Though the robes may be grey in Formosa or black in Japan, in much of Asia the day begins with this same silent march of the mendicants. Passing laymen place gifts of food in the bowls, humbly thanking the monks for thus...
Though it asserts the insignificance and futility of the world, Buddhism has been powerfully active in the world before. It has known warriors and politicians, god-kings and bonzes who whispered the advice of the pagoda into the obedient ears of the palace. Its variety is attested by the countless images of Buddha?smiling or somber, frail or vigorous, regally enthroned or easefully reclining. Yet nowhere, so far, has there been enshrined an image of Buddha on the barricades, of the Enlightened One with a hand grenade...
When the great recessional of the Western colonial powers finally began, the Buddhists awoke to find themselves in new positions of leverage. Their power stemmed from one source more than any other: the village pagoda, which today remains what it has been for centuries?the center of rural life, a place where laymen can go to sleep off a hangover, hide out from the police, or spend an undisturbed hour with their girl friends. The bonzes are schoolmasters and doctors, as well as priests...
...local councils, withdrew from Saigon to Hué, the true spiritual center of Vietnamese Buddhism, where a thousand ceremonies go on in a hundred temples and the sun is obscured by the smoke of millions of burning joss sticks. Here Tri lives in a spare cell in the Tu Dam pagoda, receives crowds of awed visitors, plays chess, and plots his moves against the government...