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| Author(s): |
Cibele Elisa Viegas Aldrovandi
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia (MAE) |
| Defense date: | 2006-11-06 |
| Examining board members: |
Elaine Farias Veloso Hirata;
Alvaro Hashizume Allegrette;
Mario Ferreira;
Maria Beatriz Borba Florenzano;
Marta Heloisa Leuba Salum
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| Advisor: | Elaine Farias Veloso Hirata |
| Abstract | |
The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate if the iconographic scheme of the funeral lament found in the Mahãparinirvã of Buddha Sãkyamuni scenes had a foreign origin, that is the depiction of the Greek próthesis - laying in state. This theme was developed during the 1st and 3rd centuries AD in Gandhãra, the norwest frontier of South Asian subcontinent. The Documental Corpus of this research is composed of an Indo-Buddhist and a Greco-Roman portion, systematized in a Data and Image Base. Archaelogical and textual evidence is assembled. The formal depiction of the funeral lament is a visual expression of the funeral ritual, understood as a rite of passage. Two diferent theoretical structures are combined to establish the basis for an analysis of the funerary images investigated in the research: the Archaeology of Image and the Archaeology of Death. Archaeological analysis with a long duration perspective is undertaken, permitting the inference of fundamental changes in the iconographical genesis. The funeral praxis of the societies who contributed to the development of the Gandhãran repertoire is reconstructed. Both Greek and Vedic-Brahmanic sources reveal parallel mourning rites of their dead. Schematic and thematic analysis made it possible to verify the extent of assimilation of the Greek próthesis scheme in the development of the Mahãparinirvã depiction; the adaptation of this scheme to the indo-buddhist theme; and the development of this depiction in other Indian and Asian regions. Through this theoretical approach we are able to analyse changes in the textual and iconographical discourses about Buddha Sãkyamuni obsequies and to reveal which aspects of the social persona of the founder of Buddhism were favoured after the Mahãparinirvãna. Buddhist discourse, which had a proselytizing character associated with the necessity of creating a buddhist identity, developed an idealized narrative of its founder\'s obsequies. Sramana Gautama\'s social persona was modified through the centuries and reelaborated on the basis of the heroicized figure of the Vedic-Brahmanic cakravartin. This was used to legitimize the discourse engendered by monastic communities while they became more hierarchical. Gandhãran iconography is part of this stage of development of Buddhism, in which some of these doctrinal changes were already incorporated in the discourse about the Mahãparinirvã of Buddha Sãkyamuni. From this period on high expenditure in the symbolic apparatus was observed as well as a decrease in the iconographical emphasis in death and lament in favour of transcendence (AU) | |