A Study Of The Myth Of Shakyamuni Buddha

Buddhism,originated from India,is the product of the combination and the communication of various kinds of civilization in Asia and Europe in the classical period.The myth formed around the Shakyamuni,the founder of Buddhism,is the core of Buddhist myth.Based on the clue of the process of "Eight aspects of Buddha's life",Shakya Buddha fairy tales can be diviied into four main parts including the birth myth,the enlightenment myth,the doctrine preaching myth,and the nirvana myth,involving core plots with many symbolic meanings.Shakya Buddha myth generally consists of biographical texts and pictures,it is influenced by Greek culture.It formed during the late period of Sectarian Buddhism and the early period of Mahayana Buddhism and fully developed and completed in the process of introduction of Buddhism into the east and sinicization.The Shakya Buddha biographical text is a kind of classic,which is influnced by Greek myth and Greek biography.It is good at narration with thick mythic color,tending to express belief and concept by the means of figures' life.In the early period,it could be seen only in The sutras.With the development of Buddhism,it has become a system.Chinese-translated Shakya Buddha biography of thousands of history,comparing with the Ancient Indian and Middle Asian classic with lack of texts,is very precious research resource.The Chinese-compiled Shakya Buddha biography agrees with Chinese-translated Buddhism in thoughts and contents and has a more complete system.The Shakya Buddha biographical text not only synchronically embodies the diversified characteristics in the Shakya Buddha mythic same contents,but also chronically shows the systematic and mature developing clue of Shakya Buddha biography.Shakya Buddha mythical pictures break through the imagination distress of text interpretations in visual narration.It is a more important channel to have a full comprehension of Shakya Buddha myth.In the lost mythic world,the pictures as an ideal tool of preaching,spreading and collecting culture was worth more than today.The Middle Indian model of Shakya Buddha mythical pictures in the beginning period lasts the ancient Indian thought that regards carved Buddha as offences against the tradition of divine things,with such symbolic signs as only The Bodhi-tree,Dharmachakra,Footprint,Padma,Stupa wave to express the existence of Shakya Buddha.The mode of Gandhara of Shakyai Buddha mythical pictures in mature period is the product of touching and combination of humanist elements and Greek spirit.It mainly benefits from the history concept of Greek myth and influence of representing history.It absorbs the way of narrative picture composition in Greak art,forms the highly realistic single figure of Shakya Buddha and Shakya Buddh biography pictures of the linear continuous narrative,and decides the basic direction in the process of Buddhism development and spread of the Shakya Buddha mythical pictures.With the active promotion of King Canaan of Kushan Empire,Mathura,Amaravati and Gandhara forms three different centers and have mutual integration and common development,communicating the domestic and foreign traditional factors,making Shakya Buddha mythical pictures get further development.The Xinjiang-Dunhuang mode in the process of spread of Shakya Buddha mythical pictures embodies the sinicization of Buddhism and buddhist myths.Shakya Buddha mythical text and pictures confirm each other,complement each other and form the full Shakya Buddha mythology system with symbolic meaning and cultural implification.It is not only the most vivid interpretation of Buddhism doctrines,but also an important media to connect buddhist principles and buddhists' thoughts,and it has the significance of paradigm of the religion mythology.First of all,the myth texts and pictures give the Shakya Buddha the divinity,making the Shakyamuni transit gradually from the level of the consciousness of "human nature" to the level of the "divine" aspect of Shakya Buddha.It has played a decisive role in turning historical figures into mythic figures.Second,the Mahayana Buddhism rising during the late period of Sectarian Buddhism tends to the development of the secularization and popularization and the myth with the core of Shakya Buddha began to extend to the myth of Buddhas of the three times and the threefold embodiment of Buddha.At the same time,the Bodhisattva and the Eminent monks were gradually deified,finally making the buddhist pantheon extend to "the countless" like the sands of Ganga.In this sense,Buddhism since the beginning of its creation by Shakyamuni,only based on the theoretical school with "The Four Truths" and "The Three Seals of Buddha Truth" as a core,develops into a world religion as a true sense of "faith".Based on the above various reasons,this dissertation,in a way of the combination of biographical texts and pictures,attempts to make an in-depth exploration of religious and cultural symbolic meanings of "Shakya Buddha birth myth","Shakya Buddha enlightenment myth","Shakya Buddha doctrine preaching myth",and "Shakya Buddha nirvana myth".It aims to have an efficient integration of scattered data,vertically combing out its development history,horizontallly comparing the differences and connections between each other,expecting to form the detailed and complete data system on Shakya Buddha myth,and providing the fundamental research materials on the relevant topics.This dissertation makes a macroscopic study of the mythic contents based on signalized scared events.It combines with the subtleties of meibutsu image to probe the religious and cultural symbolic implications under the surface,not only embodying the essential significance of Shakya Buddha mythology research,providing a broad ideaand horizon for knowing Shakyamuni's the special status and value in Buddhism and world civilization system,but also playing a paradigm role for other religious myth research.It can explore the common factors of human culture and civilization from the root,expand the new field of vision in the research of religious mythology,inject new contents,and to some extent promote the development of the religious mythology.