The Buddha's Hair

Okay! Hears one for you. Why is the Buddha’s hair usually depicted as a collection of tightly twisted spiraling curls? A search through the internet came up with two particularly cockeyed explanations. (1) The Buddha sat in meditation for so long that snails slid up his body and rested on his head. This theory would seem to be based on the similarity between the spiriling curls and snail shells (yawn, yawn!). (2) On a black pride website claiming that most of the civilization’s great innovations actually originated in Africa or were made by black people, it is maintains that the Buddha was actually an African. The proof of that is that he had crinkly African-type hair (groan!). Okay, after that interesting sojourn in cloud-cuckoo land, let’s return to earth and have a look at the evidence. Firstly, let us be clear that this is more a question related to iconography and art history than to Buddhist thought and practice. Secondly, I know of no serious attempts by Buddhist commentators or art historians to explain the spiraling curls on Buddha images. And thirdly, the Tipitaka offers no authentic information about the Buddha’s hair other than to say that it was black (kalakesa) and that he cut it off when he renounced the world to become a monk (M.I,163). Although it is not mentioned anywhere in the Tipitaka, we can safely assume that the Buddha shaved his head like all other monks. Depictions of him with hair, is an iconographical convention without historical basis.

So where did the spiraling curls come from? The Lakkhana Sutta and several other suttas are devoted to the concept of the 32 Signs of a Great Man (mahapurisalakkhana), a rather strange idea introduced into Buddhism at a later period. One of these signs pertain to the hair. The relevant passage reads ‘Uddhaggani lomani jatani nilani anjanavannani kundalavattani padakkhinavattaka jatan’ (D.II,17). Word for word this means – uddhaggani = turns around or upwards, lomani = hair, nilanianjanavannani = black in color similar to collyrium, kundalavattani = curled, and padakkhinavatta = turning to the right. So according to the sutta, the Great Man’s hair was black and curled upwards and to the right. It was probably thought to curl the right because the right has been, in nearly all cultures, considered more auspicious. Being the color of collyrium is interesting. The Pali and Sanskrit word nila means black, blue or dark. Now collyrium as it is used in India, is made from the ash of fleabane, ghee and a few other ingredients and is a black greasy substance. In Mahayana sutras the nila gradually came to be understood as being blue. In the Gandhavyuha Sutra’s discussion on the signs of a Great Man it glosses nila as ‘the color of the vairocana jewel’ which is blue in color. This is why Tibetan Buddha statues have blue hair.
Anyway, when the first sculptors made Buddha statues they tried to depict at least some of the 32 signs. It is thought that the first Buddha statues were made in Gandhara under Greek influence, and in Mathura, in around the 1st/2nd centuries CE. Greek or Greek-influenced sculptors in Gandhara, perhaps more rooted in reality, depicted the Buddha’s hair naturalistically as, not exactly curling to the right, but waving to the right. The first Mathura-manafactured Buddhas show him with a single bun spiraling to the right, something like a Mr. Whippy ice cream. The Gandhara style never penetrated into India proper and eventually died out. The spiraling Mathura style eventually evolved into many spiraled curls and the Buddha’s hair has been depicted in that manner ever since.