Varendra Research Museum: Dhyana Buddhas

It is the five Dhyana Buddhas above the head of this buddha, the umbrella at the top, and the heavenly angels, musicians, and dancers of the five Pure Land heavens awaiting those who have achieved enlightenment, that identify this sculpture as one from a set of five or more sculptures that once welcomed devotees at the four entrances and the central hall of a great Buddhist maha vihara like the one at Paharpur.

Each offers a different path to enlightenment, each presides over a different paradise, and each is identified with a different color and associated with a different animal, natural element, and direction. When painted together, they preside over Buddhist altars and the doorways of the homes of devout Buddhists.

The Dhyana Buddhas are also painted individually in sets of five paintings. Akshobya is blue. Each is identified with a different element and he is water, a different direction, and he is the East. As with other Hindu and Buddhist deities, each Dhyana Buddha is identified with an animal on which he rides. In all representations of Akshobya, he is identified by the elephants under his throne.

Look to see which animal is under the lotus of the central figure of this Varendra Museum sculpture. The elephant identifies this sculpture as depicting the Eastern Paradise of Akshobya.

Akshobya presides over the Eastern Paradise in mandala paintings for meditation, and at the eastern entrance of maha viharas and stupas for devotees to meditate upon his teaching before entering.

This ground plan of Somapura should also be placed against a blue background. A slow cross-dissolve should be used to superimpose the ground plan of the Somapura Mahavihara over the mandala and for the mandala to then slowly fade away while the narrator is speaking.

In this drawing by archaeologists of the floor plan of the Somapura Mahavihara at Paharpur, four entrances at the four sides of the compass lead to four chapels with the fifth chapel at the center. Devotees circumambulated the Mahavihara clockwise to pray to the Dhyana Buddha at each entrance before entering the central chapel.

A second crossfade of the floor plan out as the photograph of the Somapura Mahavihara fades in will make clear that we are now approaching the vihara from the ground perspective.

With the arrival of Islam, the monks at Paharpur and many Buddhist sculptors and other artists migrated to Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet in search of patronage. Their knowledge and skills created a renaissance in the arts in the Himalayas.

Without royal patronage, the Buddhist viharas in Bangladesh were abandoned. They were stripped of their valuable ornamentation. Monsoon rains washed away their elaborate stucco decorations and earthquakes toppled their towers. Over the following centuries, millions of bricks from Buddhist viharas were carted away for new construction.

It is now difficult for visitors to visualize that the Somapura Mahavihara at Paharpur, like other viharas in Vajrayana Buddhism, was a three-dimensional mandala created for both personal and group meditation.

Unless they have visited viharas based on similar architectural plans in countries where Buddhism is still practiced, it is difficult for today’s visitor to imagine how magnificent the Buddhist viharas of Bangladesh were during the Pala dynasty.

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