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Start Over Creator Mecsi, Beatrix

2. The power of images on texts re-examined: The case of Bodhidharma´s crossing and the mass-consumption of Bodhidharma images in Japan and contemporary South Korea

Creator:
Mecsi, Beatrix
Format:
bez média and svazek
Type:
model:article and TEXT
Language:
English
Description:
The founder of meditational Buddhism, according to tradition, is Bodhidharma, who originated from India. He is called Putidamo or Damo in Chinese, Boridalma or Dalma in Korean and Bodai Daruma or Daruma in Japanese. His legendary representation can often be seen in the visual art and popular culture of East Asian countries. The paper focuses on the visual representations of Bodhidharma, as they became popular in Japan and Korea. The paper is based on a previous piece of research, undertaken when the author summarized existing information about Bodhidharma, as revealed in primary and secondary textual sources. As part of this research, the author analyzed this information, together with visual sources, in order to trace the formation of the legend and iconography of Bodhidharma from the very beginning. The aim was also to describe their dynamics. Studying the text image relationships, the author here shows, through an analysis of a famous episode of Bodhidharma’s legend, the “Crossing the Yangzi River on a reed”, that images other than Bodhidharma’s had a considerable impact in relation to influencing and altering later texts, as well as the consequent images, thus changing and enriching religious traditions. The power of images can be seen through the commercialization of Bodhidharma’s representations in contemporary Korea as well as in Japan, where commercialization started much earlier and in significantly different forms when compared to Korea. Since most of the publications dealing with Bodhidharma focus on Chinese and Japanese developments, this paper introduces Korean Bodhidharma imagery into the discussion for the first time in a Western language, indicating the importance of studying the differences and similarities in relation to the formation of images of the same legendary figure in context. The focus is on the sources of their models and the degree of change, as well as on how these cultures differ from each other or in relation to their incorporation of images.
Rights:
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ and policy:public