Landscape Aesthetics and Environmentalism: Some Observations on the Representation of Nature in Buddhist and Western Art1

1. This is the revised version of a paper originally presented to the Ecology and Buddhism in the Knowledge-based Society Conference, Dongguk University, Seoul, Korea, 25–27 May 2006.

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Notes

1. This is the revised version of a paper originally presented to the Ecology and Buddhism in the Knowledge-based Society Conference, Dongguk University, Seoul, Korea, 25–27 May 2006.

2. For a refutation see Harris (1997), for a more positive evaluation, based on Theravada ritual materials, see Harris (2000b).

3. This need not imply that the Indic tradition had an entirely anthropocentric concept of the world. It has been observed that in Buddhist cosmographical mapping ‘neither the cosmos nor the terrestrial plane is anthropocentric, since the southern continent, Jambūdvīpa, is the only one where humans live’ (Schwartzberg 1994, 619).

4. Expression of emotion appears highly acceptable in Indic aesthetics yet this was regarded as uncouth in Japan (Saito 1998, 548).

5. In 1160 the Japanese Emperor had a temple (Ima Kumano = now/present Kumano) built in Kyoto to replicate the sacred and mountainous Kumano region. The idea of replicating sacred spaces appears to be a recurring theme in Japanese history (Ian Reader, personal communication, 18 April 2006).

6. For a detailed study of Japanese mandalas, both Buddhist and Shintō, see ten Grotenhuis (1999).

7. Sino-Japanese mandalas, however, have continued to reflect aesthetic norms associated with Indic tantrism.

8. Attaching poetry to East Asian landscape painting was an extremely common practice and may be regarded as ‘extending the frame’ of the picture.