MacGregor uses the next five objects to explore five major religions. He starts here in Gandhara, northern Pakistan, with a Buddha—a familiar, iconic image, post-enlightenment (or ‘awakening,’ as they insist it should be translated), with his earlobes stretched out by the heavy jewels he used to wear when he was a prince, with a big halo behind his head, and with his fingers in a “dharma chakra” pose of passing along the wheel of law. This very familiar image was actually new at the time, about 500-600 years into the life of the religion; prior to this period, no one ever depicted the Buddha in anthropomorphic form, they imaged the tree under which he sat for 49 days when he achieved enlightenment, or they imaged his footsteps...which are apparently still a sacred object of veneration among Buddhists, I didn’t know that.
The irony, of course, is that the highest value in the religion is nothing—doing nothing, needing nothing, becoming no thing. Yet the religion spread, and achieved power and world-permanence (domination is really an inappropriate word to use here) by all the conventional means: images like this one, giving human form and flesh to what seeks to transcend human form and flesh, and of course the luxury trade routes along which the religion first spread. It started farther south, in India, and came up here to Pakistan (then part of India) where the artists were really big on making these icons. MacGregor doesn’t talk about the big Buddhas recently destroyed by the Taliban. But he does include a good 15 seconds of silence, in his podcast—any more and I’m sure the producer of his radio show would have a heart-attack, since silence is death on radio or TV—in honor of the nothingness, the stillness, the peace that’s at the heart of Buddhism.
I’m pleased to say that it’s a peace that I find more and more fulfilling, the older I get.
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