Buddha Shakyamuni’s passage into parinirvana
The three main events in the life of the founder of Buddhism, Buddha Shakyamuni – his birth, enlightenment, and death – are very important to Buddhists.
The events in Buddha’s life that took place about 2500 years ago in northern India were orally retold after his death, and then embellished with legendary details, and eventually written down. Sculptors and painters have also depicted these events in religious art, providing a visual and exemplary depiction of the Buddha’s life and works for his followers. Religious (art)works with depictions of the “main events” continue to play a role on Buddhist holidays in temples, cloisters, and Buddhist centres (see Image of the week CW 14/2022).
One particularly large painting from the Museum for East-Asian Art’s collection depicts this very topic. It was painted with valuable mineral pigments and gold on silk.
It's the middle of the night, and a silvery-white full moon hanging above a dull gold mist illuminates the scene. At the centre of the scroll painting is a disproportionately large, 80-year-old Buddha lying on his right side, wearing a strikingly red monk's cloak. He passed away peacefully, and is lying on a pedestal surrounded by trees. Buddha's skin is unnaturally golden and brilliant. A total of 52 figures are gathered around him. These are Buddha's most important students, worldly rulers, supramundane deities, demons, and around 60 different animals. From the smallest worm to the white elephant, all the way to the deities, these beings have convened from every corner of existence to pay their respects and grieve. They each show their unique pain in their own way. Nature itself responds to this occasion with the budding and wilting of trees. Who is the aristocratic woman standing on a golden cloud in the top right, floating down from the heavens with her retainers? It is Queen Maya, the birth mother of the Buddha Shakyamuni, who died shortly after he was born 80 years prior.
This impressive and precious scroll painting is one of the Butsu nehan-zu, or “paintings of Buddha’s passage into nirvana”. It dates to Japan in the late 14th century. Parinirvana (“nirvana without remainder”) refers to the earthly death of the 80-year-old founder of Buddhism. Buddha had already reached a state of complete liberation 45 years previously by achieving “nirvana”. Buddhists understand this event as an important transformation and the final liberation of the Buddha from the cycle of reincarnation and suffering (samsara).
Parinirvana Day is celebrated in mid-February by many Buddhist communities. The celebrations are accompanied by various rituals and practices, such as the recitation of certain scriptures (sutras), special meditations, and the presenting of similar (scroll) paintings.