This workshop is organised by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore; with funding support from the Foo Hai Ch’an Monastery Fellowship in Buddhist Studies.
CHAIRPERSON
Assoc Prof Jack Meng-Tat Chia, Department of History, National University of Singapore
ABSTRACT
Merit-making is one of the most important aspects of Theravada Buddhist practice in Southeast Asia. Practitioners believe that donations of money and necessities to temples and monks will help the donors accrue merit so they will be reborn at the time of the future Buddha Maitreya (Thai: Mettaya). Early representations of Maitreya from Dvaravati sites in the Central and Northeastern regions of present-day Thailand (7th–10th centuries CE) are easily identified by the stupa in his hair and the water pot held in his hand. However, after the migration of new waves of Thai-speaking people and Buddhist lineages from Sri Lanka into this region, Maitreya images seem to have become much less popular than those of Shakyamuni Buddha.
In the late Ayutthaya period of Siam (1350–1767), dedicatory inscriptions on Buddhist manuscripts and Buddha images commonly ended with “May I be reborn at the time of the future Buddha Maitreya”. Interestingly, Shakyamuni Buddha and stories of his life and past lives are the main contents of illuminated manuscripts and sculptures. Why don’t we find images of Maitreya until around the 19th century? Maitreya images do not follow the old iconographic symbols, they wear high crowns and lavish jewelry like the Crowned Buddha image. Did trading between China and Siam during the reign of King Rama III helped stimulate new iconographic representations of Maitreya? Only a handful of sculptures of Maitreya can be identified with certainty through inscriptions. This paper focuses on 19th century Maitreya images and textual sources.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
M.L. Pattaratorn Chirapravati is an art historian who specializes in Buddhist art and Southeast Asian visual cultures. She has published extensively on Buddhist art (e.g., Votive Tablets in Thailand: Origin, Styles, and Uses (1997) and Divination Au Royaume De Siam: Le corps, la guerre, le destine (2011)). She is currently Visiting Professor in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, and Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She is Emeritus Professor of Art History in the Art Department and former Director and Vice Director of the Asian Studies Program at California State University, Sacramento. She is also former Head of Studies, Division of Arts and Humanities at Yale-NUS College, Singapore.
