The Esthetics Of Buddhism

In Buddhist and Hindu traditions, esthetics illuminates and complicates the category of religion by showing how people have shaped and expressed their different influences on things such as artwork in the Buddhist tradition and the deities in the Hindu tradition. Esthetics gives a clearer representation of a specific religion by showing exactly what something looks like to multitudes of people. Consequently, this makes it harder to establish a singular religion because so many people have changed it to mean something different to them personally. Buddhism and Hinduism are both religions who have experienced drastic expansions across cultures causing changes in both religions. As they were passed down from generation to generation they lost …show more content…
For example, the Kyoto Gardens show that we are one with nature. They expand on the Buddha’s teaching that humanity is made up of all types of people and everything plays an important role in the meditation process leading to nirvana. Buddhism focuses on being involved with something bigger than the individual. The esthetics indicate that the religion is focused on looking away from oneself and that every element is involved in achieving the common goal. This clarifies the category of religion by explaining the goal for practicing Buddhism and what Buddhists want to achieve. On a similar note the Sand Mandala’s creation and destruction also represents some of the basic concepts of Buddhism suffering and impertinence. This displays what most Buddhists are trying to escape, which is the constant cycle of suffering caused by desire. The esthetics of Buddhism also complicate the religion because different groups of people use the esthetics to mean different things. To elaborate, Buddhism is known to be a non-materialistic religion so one of the esthetics is simplicity. But the way that Beat poets show this esthetic is different from the Ch’an/Zen school of thought. The Beat poets believed that Americans had become too obsessed with a picture perfect idea of what the traditional American family should look like. They wanted to get away …show more content…
The esthetics focus on a range of emotional “tastings” in their art and epics to show all of the different elements of the Hindu religion and to spark multiple reactions. They turn the everyday events of life into something extraordinary, portraying how they feel about their own religion through artwork. The epics are passed down orally portraying how old the traditions are and that the Vedas are a huge part of the Hindu religion. The Vedas are thousands of hymns of praise and supplication addressed to the gods which again highlights the focus on their many deities. The deities are what the religion is based around and who Hindus look to for guidance. Because the Vedas are the oldest scripture in the world it complicates the category of religion. It is hard to discern between what is secular and what is Hindu. The people and the Hindu traditions were always just there together and it is hard to find artwork that doesn’t express Rasa (flavor or tasting). The British were the first to officially call Hindu a religion making it difficult to distinguish whether or not Hinduism existed as a religion prior to British intervention. Since the Vedas were passed down orally many different variations of the stories exist. This also complicates Hinduism because many people believe different things about the religion. People who practice the Hindu traditions believe there are anywhere from 1 to