Becoming the Buddha: The Ritual of Image Consecration in Thailand.

AuthorBrown, Robert L.
PositionBook review

Becoming the Buddha: The Ritual of Image Consecration in Thailand. By DONALD K. SWEARER. Princeton: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2004. Pp. xvi + 332, figs. $35.

This book is about how Buddha images are made, how they are used, how they are considered, and how they are theorized. The title "Becoming the Buddha" refers to how the physical object that is a Buddha image becomes the Buddha in order to be worshiped. The focus is on the ritual that produces this transformation, a ritual called the buddhabhiseka that "hypostasizes the Buddha in an image." While the consecration rituals in Thailand are emphasized, Swearer demonstrates broad knowledge of Buddhist traditions throughout Asia, bringing them up throughout the discussions. Indeed, the author shows a masterful comprehension of the rich and ever increasing scholarly literature on how we are to understand Buddhism itself, an understanding that is in the process of sometimes radical reinterpretations. It is to Swearer's benefit that he negotiates the scholarly literature with grace, using it consistently to build his own arguments but without any sign of rancor toward alternate positions.

There is a central problem in Buddhism around which the book revolves, and of which the image consecration is a key part. The Buddha died. What do worshipers do about the absent Buddha? Where do Buddha images, relics, stupas, and other physical manifestations of the absent Buddha fit into Buddhist practice, literature, and theory? Swearer uses the ritual of the image consecration as a key to investigate these questions. The division of the absent Buddha into kaya or "bodies," as into the body of his teachings (dhammakaya) and a body of his person (rupakaya), one formless and one with form, is an essential if often debated aspect of Buddhist doctrine. Swearer traces the constant intertwining of these two dichotomies--reflected as aniconic vs. iconic, textual vs. visual, learned vs. popular, monastic vs. lay, and so on--polarities that encompass much of Buddhist practice.

Swearer demonstrates that the buddhabhiseka as performed in northern Thailand combines both the teachings and the personhood of the Buddha into a single image. The ritual takes place during the night and is divided into three periods, thus mimicking the Buddha's process of reaching enlightenment during the three watches of the night. The consecration ritual of the Buddha image has, in fact, the intent to instruct and to imbue the image with...

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