The State Museum

Next time you go  on pilgrimage to the Buddhist holy places in north India make an effort to visit the State Museum in Lucknow. Most pilgrims don’t despite many of them passing through Lucknow to get to the holy places. And it is worth a visit. The museum is in the grounds of the zoo, known  to the animals incarcerated there  as  Belsen. It’s on Mahatma Gandhi Marg in Deep Manak Nagar. According  to the  tourist brochure the museum “boasts a mummy” from 1000 BC although  the tattered old thing is not really much to “boast” about. The  galleries of Indian sculpture on the other hand are definitely worth seeing. Two of the Buddhist pieces, one of Padmapani and another of Avalokitesvara Sihanada on his lion are little masterpieces. Of particular interest is a monks begging bowl with its stand from about 200 CE. It is almost exactly the same size and shape of the bowls still used by Burmese monks.  

About Brahma

Numerous Vedic gods are mentioned in the Tipitaka, some of them being Inda also called Sakka, Aggi, Suriya, Canda, Varuna, Pajapati, Sri, Venhu (Sanskrit Visnu) Soma and Yama. By the 5^th century BCE the god who had emerged as preeminent in Brahmanism was Brahma. He is described as  “All-Seeing, All-Powerful, the Lord, Maker, Creator and Ruler, Appointer and Controller, Father of All that Are and All that Shall Be” (M.I,327). He  “outshines all other gods in radiance”  and  “when he appears he assumes a grosser form because his natural appearance is not perceptible to the eye” (D.II,210). He was also believed to be a benign deity, loving and without anger or   ill-will (D.I,247) Devotees praised Brahma, called upon him for help and worshipped him with offerings and sacrifices. The hope was to be guided and protected by him in this life and be in fellowship with him (Brahmasahavyata, D.I,235) after death. Thus in most respects Brahma  is equivalent to the supreme deity of the major theistic religions.

While the Buddha acknowledged the reality of Brahma  he cast doubts on nearly every one of the claims made about him, thus indirectly rendering worship of and devotion to him meaningless. Far from being immutable Brahma  is subject to change and reverses (annathattam atthi viparinamo, A.V,60) like everything else. Brahma  thinks he created everything but he has misinterpreted the facts (D.I,18 ff), and when the Buddha asked those who believe in his creation to explain exactly how it happened  “they could not give a convincing answer” (te maya puttha  na sampayanti, D.III,28). Brahma  was believed to be omniscient but in his better moments he admitted being ignorant about many things (D.I,222). This supposed divine omniscience was further undermined by the Buddha’s  claim that Brahma  would often would come to praise him or to ask him questions about things he did not know, especially concerning spiritual matters (M.I,168; 326; S.I,139; 153).

The Jataka asked why, if Brahma  is all-powerful and all-loving, he did not do something about all the suffering and evil in the world. “Why does Brahma  not straighten out the world? If he really is the Controller, the Highest, Lord of All Beings, why is the whole world in such a mess? Why did he not make the world happy? If he really is the Controller, the Highest, Lord of All Beings, why is there so much deceit, lies, pride and unrighteousness? If he really is the Controller, the Highest, Lord of All Beings, then he must be unrighteous and cruel because it was he who made everything” (Ja.VI,208).

            The word brahma comes from the root brh meaning highest, powerful, most excellent, and the Buddha used it as a name for some of his doctrinal categories. Thus the life of celibacy is brahmacariya, the four highest emotions are the Brahma Viharas, the Noble Eightfold Path is also called the  brahmayana, and the Dhamma is brahmacakka (M.I,69; 147; S.I,5). When the Buddha said he had  “become Brahma”  (brahmabhuto, D.III,84) he did not mean that he has attained union with God in the Vedic sense, but rather that he had realized the highest state, i.e. Nirvana.

The idea that “there are three gods in Hinduism; Brahma the creator, Visnu the  preserver and Siva the  destroyer” is, curiously enough, more well-known and widely accepted in the West than it ever has been in India. In perhaps the early Gupta period an attempt was made by a few theologians to reconcile different deities, the trimurti being the best example of this. Prof.  A. L. Basham correctly says that the divine trinity was an “artificial growth” which  had  “little  real  influence” and “never really caught on”. It is well-known in the West almost certainly because it is reminiscent of the Christian idea of the Trinity. In later iconography Brahma was depicted with four faces, four hands and riding on a goose (hamsa). Worship of Brahma has almost completely disappeared in India, but ironically he is still widely worshiped by Buddhists in Thailand where he is known as Phra Prom.  

The Wheel Of The Dhamma

The wheel (cakka) is a flat circular object that turns as it moves. The ancient Indians used the wheel as a symbol for political sovereignty and dominion.  The first Buddhists used it as a symbol for sovereignty too, but for spiritual rather than for political sovereignty. The Buddha’s first discourse is called  ‘Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dhamma’ (S.V,420 ff).  Generosity, kindly speech, doing good for others and treating them with impartiality are to the world, the Buddha said, what the linchpin (ani) is to the wheel (A.II,32), i.e. they keep it turning smoothly. A wheel flanked on either side by a deer has long been used to symbolize the Buddha’s teaching of this first discourse in the Deer Park at Sarnath.

Today the wheel as a symbol for Buddhism is often depicted with eight spokes representing the Noble Eightfold Path although this is a relatively recent innovation. In the scriptures the Dhamma wheel, called either the Supreme Wheel (brahmacakka) or Highest Dhamma Wheel (anuttaram dhammacakkam, A.III,9; 148), is described as being  ‘a thousand-spoked’ (sahassaram, D.III,60). Until about the 3^rd century CE the Dhamma wheel was almost always depicted with multiple spokes suggesting the thousand spokes. The oldest depiction of the Dhamma wheel, on King Asoka’s lion capital, has 24 spokes. The most spokes on a Dhamma wheel from ancient India that I have been able to find is 32.

Before the advent of statues, the Buddha was often represented by a wheel. What the cross is to Christians, the menorah to Jews the ying yang symbol to Taoists and the Om sign to Hindus, the wheel is to Buddhists.