On the Origin of Buddha Heads: What Yoga Teachers Should Know
Can we talk about the iconography of the stand-alone Buddha head? In this global moment of awakening to decolonization (yay!) I am surprised I have not seen this subject widely (or even minimally) discussed. Perhaps I’m in the wrong spaces.
And yet, what I do see are Buddha heads being used as candle holders and planters. I see Buddha heads decorating meditation spaces, yoga studios, and even dental offices. Lord knows I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my own life, so I hope my tone here isn’t sounding too righteous.
As yoga teachers, however, let’s remember we have a responsibility to bring awareness to our use of ‘spiritual’ iconography. Keep reading to learn why it’s time to reunite the Buddha head with its body.
The Origins of the Buddha Head
In my this-life-past-life I studied the fine arts. In the process of getting my BFA degree, I spent countless hours sitting with the collection at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and had the good fortune to take a few Asian art history classes. Amidst the famed collection, I would have seen a few Buddha heads in the galleries there, their jagged necks indicative of having been violently separated from their bodies.
Buddha heads, absent of their bodies, are among the collections of art and history museums all over the world. It’s time we bring mindfulness to the provenance of such Buddha heads, all of which at one point had a body. These pieces are just that - pieces.
The unfortunate history of colonialists traveling to ‘the East’ and angrily attacking the sacred art they encountered doesn’t seem to be widely known in ‘the West.’ In a reaction to what colonists felt was inappropriate imagery, statues of goddesses had their breasts chopped off and entire devotional works were destroyed. Other pieces were stolen, assumed far more valuable to collectors than to the cultures to which they belonged.
One might think the literal size and weight of some Buddha statues could have protected them from this fate, but wait! The heads could be removed and transported with relative ease back to Western markets and museums. Imagine, for a moment, the audacity of such destruction. The headless body left behind is deemed meaningless, while the head that travels West is simultaneously given a new, assumed more meaningful, value.
And so, disembodied Buddha heads made their way to the Western world, their decapitated bodies left behind and - tellingly - their provenance often unmentioned or disguised. They were and continue to be displayed in museums, propped up alone on stands and pedestals, as if that’s what the artist intended. This type of display is a choice, reflective of the museum’s decision to make no effort to recontextualize the head onto the body from which it came.
My own photo of the many headless Buddhas at Borobudur Temple in Indonesia. See also this interesting, related article on where these heads are now.
Within an art museum’s white-walled gallery, we are to appreciate the Buddha head as art. We are to gaze upon it not as an item with religious or spiritual significance, but as indicative of the aesthetic of the time or the artisan’s ability to render. The interaction we have with the work becomes as far removed from its original intention as the object is, geographically, from its point of origin.
This type of display only exacerbates misunderstanding as the uneducated observer misreads the situation. They are led to believe the Buddha heads were intended to be displayed as such, that they were made this way. Their significance is reduced to their use as a decorative item.
As the Buddha heads became fashionable in the western world, like other museum-displayed artifacts, they began to be reproduced. The Buddha heads on display at Target are not replicas of any ancient artisan’s intent, they are replicas of the evidence of colonial violence.
Here is perhaps a great place to explain that in Buddhist iconography, there is no stand-alone Buddha head. As any practicing Buddhist understands, and as all yoga teachers should understand, the human body is of utmost importance to the Buddha.
The Buddha’s Body
There is no ancient art of sculpting, nor even painting, a Buddha head alone. Authentic images of Buddhas and bodhisattvas are not intended as mere decoration, but as support for one’s meditation practice. Specifically, as a form of support for the body. By gazing at a visual of the Buddha and Buddhist deities in meditation, we can better visualize them. What’s more, from thangkas to statues, every element in the depiction of a Buddha or bodhisattva has meaning.
Without a single word of description needed, someone familiar with the iconography can look at what the Buddha is wearing and holding, how they are sitting or standing, and how they are placing their hands, and immediately identify said Buddha (yes, there is more than one) and the intent of the depiction. For some, Buddha statues are more than devotional works and aids for meditation, they ARE the Buddha. After all, the visual carries the teachings.
A Buddha without a human body, its heart and hands in particular, is not something a Buddhist practitioner at any point in history would think to artistically honor.
The Buddha's body is as significant, if not more so, than the head alone. And so, why aren’t museums home to just as many decapitated Buddha bodies? Aside from the obvious practicality of clandestinely transporting a head versus an entire body, I’d venture to guess that what we’re seeing is even more evidence of our culture’s self-centered gaze. We see things not as they are, but as we are.
Our Western culture is obsessed with what happens from the neck up. We honor philosophers, writers and great thinkers with busts made of granite. We separate body and mind, think the mind lives in the head, and worship cognition, thinking and the brain. That we’ve mistakenly applied this perception or worldview to all things everywhere is perhaps easy to understand. That doesn’t make it right.
A bust of Mark Twain, for example, is meant to honor his head, his brain, his intellect, and therefore him. He thinks, therefore he is! But there is no honor in applying our worldview to all worlds without trying to understand the original context, intent, and differing points of view.
In the West, we tend to think meditation is something that happens only in the head. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. In the Great Discourse on Mindfulness, the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha reminds us that meditation begins with the body.
“Thus (a monk) lives contemplating the body in the body internally, or he lives contemplating the body in the body externally, or he lives contemplating the body in the body internally and externally. He lives contemplating origination factors in the body, or he lives contemplating dissolution factors in the body, or he lives contemplating origination-and-dissolution factors in the body. Or his mindfulness is established with the thought: "The body exists," to the extent necessary just for knowledge and mindfulness, and he lives detached, and clings to nothing in the world. Thus also, monks, a monk lives contemplating the body in the body.”
- Satipatthana Sutta
In the Buddhist worldview, no experience occurs in the brain alone, and hence no enlightenment occurs in the brain alone. It is the human body, in its entirety, that makes the direct experience of divine connection possible.
The path to realization necessarily incorporates close observation of the entirety of the body, the senses of sight, hearing, tasting, smelling and sensing, how the mind digests what the body contacts, and how the mind is not in the head, nor the heart, nor even this physical body alone. We don’t arrive at insight by thinking about it, the process takes place in the body itself. The body is the locus of our transformation from ordinary to extra-ordinary.
In light of this, it seems particularly egregious for yoga studios to place the disembodied Buddha head only on display. These same studios, after all, claim to be teaching that we arrive at well-being through the body and in particular, the practice of asana.
In a yoga studio, the Buddha head, or any Buddhist iconography, can be problematic for several reasons. I hope that yoga studio owners would ask themselves the following questions:
Why are you displaying a Buddha head (or any Buddhist imagery) in your yoga or meditation space?
Do the owners or principal teachers identify as Buddhist?
Are you part of a Buddhist lineage and intentionally sharing Buddhist practices?
What does the Buddha image represent for you and what do you hope it represents for the people who will see it?
Would this same Buddha image be meaningful for you in a private (versus public) practice space?
Does your operation of a wellness space include a responsibility to be inclusive and respectful of cultures other than your own?
If you don’t have clear answers to the above questions, it may be worth your while to learn more about cultural appropriation. (fascinating article here on the use of Buddha imagery to promote desire)
If your studio is generally teaching the dharma and practicing Buddhist yoga and/or yoga in a Buddhist context, consider then, the following:
What is it you understand about the value of the outer/asana practice and the relevance of the human body to the practice?
What is it you understand about the value of the inner/subtle body practices and the relevance of the human body to the practice?
It’s safe to say most contemporary yoga studios emphasize the role of the body in spiritual development. Why then, would one choose to display an iconography that’s not only of harmful origins but erases the significant role of the body in our practice?
Let’s give the Buddha his body back! In the process, perhaps this will aid in reconciling our own detachment from our bodies. May we no longer define our human-ness from the perspective and experience of just the head.
Ways To Do Better:
What Individuals Can Do Differently: If you are a yoga teacher or studio owner, review the bullet-pointed questions above, and bring awareness to how you are decorating your space. Educate yourself about cultural appropriation. Share this blog post. Yoga students and teachers can and should speak up if they find themselves in spaces where a Buddha head graces the back of the toilet, filled with an extra roll of paper. (I shit you not, this exists.)
What Museums Might Do Differently: Displaying Buddha heads not on pedestals or stands, but in the context of the overall body, would remind us the piece is a fragment and belongs to a particular visual and cultural context. Accompanying text could also speak of the work as a fragment, as this one does, reminding us that we are not viewing a complete work of art.
Try This Mindfulness Exercise: In her Master’s Thesis, Eva-Johanna Marie Lafuente Nilsson describes the ‘colonial mindset’ as presenting, studying, collecting, and admiring art and cultural heritage objects, “without regard for the people who produced them or the importance some items had for these people.” Explore your relationship to the colonial mindset and Susan Stewart and James Clifford’s postcolonial ‘collection theory.’
As you admire what you see in the world, take note of how you react. Bring mindfulness to instincts such as “I want one of those, I want to purchase it, I must get it, I must bring it home, I want to take it, I’d like it to be mine.”
In my personal experience, as someone who grew up in a colonialist, capitalist society, I often find myself doing this with things I deem likable. Resisting the urge to make a purchase has become easy. Joking about stealing a dog is something I still do. Bring non-judgmental awareness to thoughts of “I can take better care of this” or “this would be more valuable in my hands.” What reactions do you notice? What changes for you?
What To Do With Imperialist Guilt: The poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou famously said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” When we learn something new, do we double down on our previous mistake, unable to admit our ignorance, or do we let it go and confidently step forward into new behavior?
In her excellent blog on the topic, Bhumika Patel offers some advice for what to do if you find yourself with a Buddha head, or any Buddha you’ve purchased for merely aesthetic reasons.
Donate the item to a monastery
Elevate the item so it’s not on the floor or at your feet, but level to or higher than your head.
Place it somewhere private, so it can be part of your practice, versus used for social proof.
Finally, rejoice in your continued growth and awakening. Ignorance, in its true definition, is not a judgment of stupidity, it’s simply being mistaken about something we think we know. Mindfulness researcher Dr. Ellen Langer defines mindfulness as “actively noticing new things about what you think you already know.” And so, hurray! We have brought more mindfulness to our relationship with Buddhist iconography. Now that we know the disembodied Buddha head is not a symbol of meditative equipoise, but one of colonial violence, what will we do with this information?
