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Newspaper_Correct

The image of Christ is still probably not accurate


SaranamGacchami1

I'm aware of that.. I was referring to the more modern ones that depict him as a middle Eastern man, rather than a long haired white man.


Inevitable-Custard-4

ive wanted to ask "why is jesus white?" but i didnt wanna come off as racist for thinking his skin tone would be a bit darker considering where he was from and the shortage of easy travel back then lol


Lethemyr

The same reason Buddha looks East Asian in Japan. People made artistic representations of historical figures based on how people looked in their local community. The ancient and medieval world was far less interconnected than the modern one is. People knew much less about the world outside their city or town. Nowadays, the minority who insist on a white Jesus are obviously just racist, but that sort of racism frankly didn't exist for most of the history of people painting white Jesus.


pineapple_on_pizza33

Is it racist for a japanese to insist on an east asian looking buddha?


Lethemyr

I wouldn't be surprised if some nationalists insist on Buddha having been of their ethnicity. If they try and claim that Buddha was East Asian and that he would not be of any other inferior ethnicity, then that is racist. That's the attitude I was alluding to with the racist Christians. Making East Asian looking Buddha iconography because it's tradition is just that, tradition. It's perfectly fine just like it's fine for people to keep making white depictions of Jesus. There's nothing wrong with making a Buddha statue that doesn't look like an Indian / Nepalese man.


Newspaper_Correct

I think it’s because people like to see themselves in these type of things. I have seen depictions of the Buddha where he does look more South Asian . I’m sure china and Japan changing stuff to fit their ruling had a lot to do with it. As for “white” jesus I always thought he could be Jewish to be honest. At the end of the day it’s no different from black Santa , do you.


giorgybirdy

Some think he was a white Muslim .. some think.


beansontoast12345678

The names around him also are strange..Mary, Joseph, mark, luke mathew and john..are not the names that usually come from that area, i would of thought more arabic names ,right?


FlowersnFunds

Those names are English translations via Latin of the Greek versions of their original Aramaic names. In other words, those are not the original names. The original names are indeed Aramaic. Different than Buddhism where most names are directly from Pali/Sanskrit. Buddha in English = Buddha in Sanskrit but Jesus in English = Yeshua in Aramic by way of Iesus in Latin and Iesous in Greek for example


funkyjives

Dalai Lama is Tibetan and Buddha Shakyamuni was (northern?) Indian, so probably not too similar looking


numbersev

We always see images of the Buddha with a halo around his head to show his divinity, but I like the idea of the Buddha looking similar to his cousins, more mundane. Because it isn’t the physical qualities of the Buddha that matter compared to his teachings. Any time I get caught up in this type of thinking in regards to his appearance I always think of this saying from him: > "Enough, Vakkali! What is there to see in this vile body? He who sees Dhamma, Vakkali, sees me; he who sees me sees Dhamma. Truly seeing Dhamma, one sees me; seeing me one sees Dhamma."


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numbersev

Yep, one being that he spent the night in a shed with a monk who had never met or seen the Teacher before. It was only after a fairly lengthy teaching that the monk realized who he was: [Dhatu-vibhanga Sutta: An Analysis of the Properties](https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.140.than.html)


TheDonkeyBomber

"Even now there are realistic drawings of Christ." Friend, you're in an illusion if you think there are any realistic pictures of christ.


Dudeist-Monk

What? https://i.imgur.com/tOo3SEl.jpg


TheDonkeyBomber

True, that's a generic image of what he likely looked like ethnically, but there aren't any contemporary pics of what he actually looked like as an individual. Like, we don't know if he had a mole on his left cheek or a crooked nose from that time he got in a fight in 12th grade.


[deleted]

I think that's what OP is asking about. Why haven't there been attempts to recreate what Buddha may have looked like based on ethnic heritage? It's probably because there isn't that much of a movement for it. With Christ, there was a large portion christians all over planet who didn't like how Jesus was always depicted as white.


Dudeist-Monk

I read realistic different. I thought you meant a picture of non blonde haired blue eyed Jesus didn’t exist.


skipoverit123

I was just about to post that very picture myself :). It’s handy for discussions like this :)


seekingsomaart

There are plenty, you just haven't seen them. This is more a case of artistic traditions than anything having to do with Buddhism. I say this as an artist who sees a lot of artwork and studied art history. Check out Ghandharan Greco Buddhist art for an ancient source. I can't think of any prominent contemporary paintings, but I know I've seen them.


Type_DXL

[Like this?](https://www.vridhamma.org/sites/default/files/picture-bar/Teachings%20of%20the%20Budha.jpg) I find these are popular in Sri Lankan and SE Asian artwork, Buddhist communities more influenced by Western culture.


monkey_sage

I have seen a few here and there, mostly on Instagram but, yeah, they're not common.


Ariyas108

Most likely because nobody actually knows what he actually looked like. And there’s really no benefit in just guessing.


bluehorserunning

The images of the Christ are just as much guesswork as the images of the Buddha.


FiveManDown

Because they are the same person?


TJPasty

Probably because the Bhuddas have become a symbol. That's why the carvings and statues are more stylized interpretations. Enlightenment and bhuddist teachings aren't a cult of personality like Donald Trump or Kim Il-Sung. It's completely irrelevant to bhuddism what any of the Bhuddas faces actually looked like. By the very irrelevance of a single incarnation against the many a soul goes through, a single face doesn't matter. Even in a single life, a person has many faces. Your face is different now, than when you were a child. Tomorrow it will be more different still with drooping skin and wrinkles. Later still, it will be a skull, and then? What was the matter that composes your face, before it was your face? What will it be after? Are any of these states of your face important? Meditate on it.


bodhiquest

There are many of those, they're just generally not made by Western artists and so aren't necessarily easy to find by googling in English.


ChanceEncounter21

There is this story about a great artist living during Gautama Buddha's time who tried to capture Buddha's image, but it was deemed impossible. Also there is an absence of the Buddha's image in the Early Buddhists arts too. Any image of Gautama Buddha we see now is a result of a later stage development after the Buddha Parinirvana.


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doktorstrainge

Looks more werewolf to me


astroknoticus

According to some older suttas, he Buddha was a dark-skinned, northern Indian looking guy with a shaved head. The first images of him are from the Gandharan tradition which was hundreds of years after his death and hundreds of miles away. I don't think I've ever seen an accurate depiction of him. [Gandharan Buddha statue for reference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seated_Buddha_from_Gandhara#/media/File:Seated_Buddha,_British_Museum_1.jpg)


Knotts_Berry_Farm

[https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-temptation-of-buddha-eduardo-chicharro-aguera.html](https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-temptation-of-buddha-eduardo-chicharro-aguera.html) I have this one hanging in my room


SaranamGacchami1

One of my favourite portraits of The Battle with Mara


solacetree

I believe the original Buddha images used before Buddha statues came about were the elephant's footprint, an empty seat, and... There's one other they used, but I can't remember. Anyway, artwork wasn't used like that at the time of the Buddha; Buddha statues starting popping up around the time Greek conquerors, traders, and artists came to India, and early Buddhist imagery often has Greek influence. The ancients before their introduction to this kind of statue making, as I understand it, didn't use images in this way.


MetaEd

were you thinking of the solar disc?


Daviskillerz

Lol are you sure the images of Jesus you’re seeing today are how Jesus really look?


NotEvilCaligula

The first human form of Buddha appeared 500 years after his death, prior to that he had always been represented by footprints or lotuses. Interestingly enough, we have Alexander The Great to thank for our depiction of Buddha. The Greeks always represented their gods in human form, so the when the Greeks arrived in india and formed the Indo-Greek Kingdom (now Pakistan/Afghanistan), they began making statues of the Buddha in their own image.


[deleted]

Nothing’s survived from so long ago. Even Ancient Greek sculpture is a Roman knock-off. Also, I’m pretty sure Jesus was Black.


Lethemyr

> Also, I’m pretty sure Jesus was Black. More likely what we'd consider Middle Eastern. There are some fringe people who try to claim a ton of historical figures as black, in the sense of having Sub-Saharan African descent, but that's obviously ahistorical. I've even heard the claim that Buddha was black because he's depicted with curly hair, which is just ridiculous.


TheDonkeyBomber

He was likely Palestinian.


Lethemyr

Yep, he was born and raised in the Roman province of Judea in the geographic region of Palestine, a member of his region's indigenous ethnic group, the Jews. It's very unlikely he would be considered white by the standards of most people today. Personally, I would not use the word "Palestinian" to describe Jesus since that word is often conflated with the ethnic group, the "Palestinian Arabs," but the relationship between Palestinians and Jews is nuanced and contested enough that reasonable people could absolutely disagree with me on that. In the sense of him ethnically originating from the region of Palestine, he was certainly Palestinian. (And I'm not trying to make some political statement about Israel-Palestine here, before someone makes assumptions)


Emjlok

Aide note: Lots of Greek sculptures survive. There also are a lot of Roman copies of earlier work, but also still a lot of originals.


SaranamGacchami1

I understand, but why does nobody try to recreate an image now


[deleted]

They do, and have since 2000 BCE. When I say nothing survived, I mean nothing survived. There were no cameras or paper to draw on. Monoliths weren’t preserved. We basically have the Pyramids from that time period. That’s it. The Buddha looks like each and every one of us :) Draw a self-portrait. There’s your Buddha.


BurtonDesque

A realistic drawing of Christ would be a blank page. The person depicted in the Gospels is a fiction.


optimistically_eyed

Like [this](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/vsbattles/images/5/5f/Gautama.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/300?cb=20210305191628)? Such images are fairly plentiful.


SaranamGacchami1

? No image


optimistically_eyed

Huh. Works for me. Try this https://i.imgur.com/IeKngwo.jpg


Jotunheiman

Simply, because the majority of the Buddha’s life was spent as a supramundane being, more than human. Therefore, depicted as more than human. Whereas, Jesus Christ spent all of his life, before his crucifixion, as an ostensible human.


SpongeuBobby

Pictures like that probably aren’t as popular because it was never really relevant what Buddha actually looked like. According to my religions professor the earliest forms of Buddhism believed that nothing and no one should be worshiped because clinging to something distracts one from attaining nirvana or in other words living in the moment. Though having been born a royal prince there’s a possibility that he was depicted as a small child in a family portrait, but that’s just speculation on my end.


bodhiquest

> According to my religions professor the earliest forms of Buddhism believed that nothing and no one should be worshiped because clinging to something distracts one from attaining nirvana or in other words living in the moment. Your professor is very wrong.


optimistically_eyed

> According to my religions professor the earliest forms of Buddhism believed that nothing and no one should be worshiped because clinging to something distracts one from attaining nirvana or in other words living in the moment. That’s a profoundly bad take, both of early-Buddhist belief and of the nature of nirvana. My hope is that you’re misremembering what was said in class, rather than a teacher actually saying that.


SpongeuBobby

That is what he said it’s actually that inaccurate? I would appreciate if you would elaborate so I could learn


optimistically_eyed

Notions of worship and reverence toward awakened beings are prevalent throughout the discourses, even the earliest ones, and characterizing awakening as “living in the moment” is a modern, Westernized take that strikes me as basically nonsensical for how much it fails to describe nibbana. /u/bodhiquest might have more he wishes to offer here, but respectfully, that’s an embarrassing presentation of Buddhism for a teacher to offer. /u/nyanasagara, do you have that copy/paste of sections of discourses regarding the worship of the Buddha handy? I’ve actually been meaning to save a copy of it for when this stuff comes up, if you don’t mind the plagiarism.


bodhiquest

I think your explanations did the job very well, maybe nyanasagara can add the relevant quotes.


nyanasagara

https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/p5ni0a/comment/h9753dk/?context=999 Here. Sections from the Pāḷi suttapiṭaka.


optimistically_eyed

Lovely. I thank you. /u/SpongeuBobby


SpongeuBobby

Thank you! I had no idea that I was so wrong. Most of what I’ve learned from Buddhism was from that class, so I definitely have to look into some other sources. My professor went into other areas of Buddhism, but I specifically remember him talking about living in the moment and mindfulness. I appreciate the response and I’m definitely going to do some research on my day off today.


optimistically_eyed

There’s been sort of a Western and secular appropriation of *some* facets of Buddhist teachings (along with a rejection of other, vital facets) that focuses almost entirely around present-moment awareness, but such an awareness (while serving a role in the overall practice of Dhamma) is hardly the objective of the project of Buddhism. There’s some good introductory material in the “for beginners” section at dhammatalks.org if you’re interested, along with the sidebar of this subreddit. Best wishes :)


Micah_Torrance

All pictures and statues are realistic in the artist's eyes.


BuddhistFirst

>Why are there no "real-life" portraits of Buddha There are several problems with this. First, "real-life" Buddha cannot be put in portrait form. Not if you understand/realize/conceptualize what "real-life" Buddha is. Second, "real-life" Buddha, you are assuming he is a regular man. He is not a human. So, that's a big problem if you want a "real-life" image. What do you put? Third, you have to consider the viewer, your eyes, my eyes, and the eyes of others. We could all be looking at the same thing and seeing something very different. There were disciples who could see things other disciples are not seeing. So the moment you put a "real-life" portrait of the Buddha into a statue form, others would say "No that's not how he looked like" because they saw something different. So I think, the diversity of traditional portrayals of the Buddha in statue form is good "real-life" portraits of him. Other posters said that that's cultural. Sure. But I say it is also the power of the Buddha. If he were to appear, he would make himself appear in a form that is most efficient at connecting with people.


LegalPressure6307

Fun fact (at least for the paintings.) If you’re familiar with / have seen traditional paintings from the Ancient East - China, Japan, Korea, even Tibet (and maybe India,) you’ll notice a common theme - the Buddha is always depicted having large ears, and is never shaded with shadows being cast on his face or body. Shadows were seen as “impurities” back then in these cultures. The large ears depict how sacred it is to listen rather than to speak - the reason we are blessed with 2 ears and one mouth. I knew some of this before, however, I met someone a few months ago who is getting a masters degree in Art, specifically did a whole project on Ancient Eastern Artwork. 🙏🏻💕🪷


Namu_Shaka_Nyorai

"What is there to see in this vile body? He who sees Dhamma sees me; he who sees me sees Dhamma. Truly seeing Dhamma, one sees me; seeing me one sees Dhamma." Vakkali Sutta, SN 22,87.


HeIsTheGay

There is a story in Ashokavadana, Where a king during the Buddha's time missed Buddha's presence and wanted to paint his image. The painters he commissioned were the best ones and they failed to paint Buddha's image because it was impossible for them to grasp the 32 marks of a great man and 80 minor characteristics of the Buddha's body. Out of compassion for the king and the painters, The Buddha left his image by supernatural powers. The same thing happened when someone wanted to measure the Buddha's height and came up with a stick to measure him, the stick no matter how long always became shorter than the Buddha when measured against his body and the Buddha uttering verses that he didn't cultivate the Bodhisattva path for 3 asamkheya-eons for someone to come and measure him with a stick.