Iconography of the Buddha

The Iconography of Gautama Buddha in Laos and Thailand is referred to as pang phraputtarup , and a given pose as pang Thai: ปาง episode. These recall specific episodes during his travels and teachings that are familiar to the Buddhists according to an iconography with specific rules; certain ones of these are considered particularly for those born on particular days of the week.

The Buddha is always represented with certain physical attributes, and in specified dress and specified poses. Each pose, and particularly the position and gestures of the Buddha's hands, has a defined meaning which is familiar to Buddhists. In other Buddhist countries, different but related iconography is used, for example the mudras in Indian art.

For Buddhists, the correct depiction of the Buddha is not an matter; Buddhists believe that a properly rendered Buddha image is a hypostasis: an actual spiritual emanation of the Buddha, which possesses supernatural qualities. Although the Buddha is not a god, Buddhists seek to communicate with the supernatural world through Buddha images, making offerings to them and praying before them.

Buddha images are not intended to be naturalistic representations of what Gautama Buddha looked like. There are no contemporary images of him, and the oldest Buddha images date from 500 to 600 years after his lifetime. But Buddhists believe that Buddha images represent an ideal reality of the Buddha, and that every Buddha image stands at the end of a succession of images reaching back to the Buddha himself.

When creating a Buddha image, the artist is expected to be in a spiritual and mental state (samādhi) that will enable him to visualise this ideal reality. There is no requirement that every Buddha image be identical, and in fact there is a wide variety of artistic styles and national traditions in representing the Buddha. There are, however, certain rules of representation that must be adhered to.

The current range of postures in which the Buddha may be shown, and the gestures which may be depicted, evolved over the first millennium of the Buddhist era (roughly 500 BCE to 500 CE), mainly in India, the original homeland of Buddhism. The tradition of images that reached South-East Asia had been changed in the later 5th century CE, apparently first at Sarnath in India. The new "Sarnath image type" or "Gupta period Buddhist image" differs from earlier Buddha images, such as those in Greco-Buddhist art, in a number of respects: the gaze is lowered, the clinging robes disclose no male genital bulge, the robe lacks folds, and there are different body proportions.

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