Dismantling the Nganjuk and Surocolo maṇḍalas: seeking Esoteric Buddhism through a Javanese bronze typology

This thesis investigates what bronze figural objects found in Java can tell us about Esoteric Buddhism, a form of transregional Buddhist thought and practice in which wrathful deities featured prominently, on the island. In particular, I ask whether two bronze hoards excavated in the 20th-century, t...

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Main Author: Lua, Nicholas Swee Yang
Other Authors: Goh Geok Yian
Format: Thesis-Master by Research
Language:English
Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/171860
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1718602023-12-01T01:52:37Z Dismantling the Nganjuk and Surocolo maṇḍalas: seeking Esoteric Buddhism through a Javanese bronze typology Lua, Nicholas Swee Yang Goh Geok Yian School of Humanities GYGOH@ntu.edu.sg Humanities::History::Asia::Indonesia Humanities::Religions::Buddhism Humanities::History::Asia::Southeastern Asia Humanities::Language::Philology This thesis investigates what bronze figural objects found in Java can tell us about Esoteric Buddhism, a form of transregional Buddhist thought and practice in which wrathful deities featured prominently, on the island. In particular, I ask whether two bronze hoards excavated in the 20th-century, the Nganjuk and Surocolo Bronzes, constitute Esoteric Buddhist maṇḍalas, which are arrangements of specific Buddhist deities in fixed patterns according to known Esoteric Buddhist texts. Given that scholars who have attempted to identify both hoards with maṇḍalas tend to force-fit the objects to known textual descriptions, overlooking the many non-correspondences between the bronzes and text, I am sceptical of these attempts. Aligned with the material turn, this thesis seeks a more rigorous approach to studying Java’s objects. Borrowing from archaeology, it uses the typological method to create a typology of a hundred bronze objects, including the Nganjuk and Surocolo hoards, that have been attributed to Ancient Southeast Asia’s Middle Classic Period (10-12th centuries). According to my typology, there are 17 artefact types, and six of these are connected with two forms of Esoteric Buddhism: one more ferocious form associated with macabre demonic imagery and aggressive weapons, and a more benign form associated with weapons. These findings about Java’s Esoteric Buddhist dynamics force us to reconsider the theory of Nganjuk and Surocolo being maṇḍalas, and this thesis also shows exactly how the iconographic and stylistic elements of both hoards fail to align with textual sources. Even as both hoards are not maṇḍalas, they do possess certain qualities associated with maṇḍalas. Nganjuk orders deities hierarchically, while Surocolo contains almost-complete sets of deities that form sub-sections of known textual maṇḍalas. These maṇḍalic principles suggest that, even as the texts describing maṇḍalas codified particular ways of organising deities and deity groups, these maṇḍalic principles continued to develop independent of the texts and manifested clearly in Java’s material culture. Master of Arts 2023-11-15T00:08:03Z 2023-11-15T00:08:03Z 2023 Thesis-Master by Research Lua, N. S. Y. (2023). Dismantling the Nganjuk and Surocolo maṇḍalas: seeking Esoteric Buddhism through a Javanese bronze typology. Master's thesis, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/171860 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/171860 10.32657/10356/171860 en This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). application/pdf Nanyang Technological University
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Humanities::History::Asia::Indonesia
Humanities::Religions::Buddhism
Humanities::History::Asia::Southeastern Asia
Humanities::Language::Philology
spellingShingle Humanities::History::Asia::Indonesia
Humanities::Religions::Buddhism
Humanities::History::Asia::Southeastern Asia
Humanities::Language::Philology
Lua, Nicholas Swee Yang
Dismantling the Nganjuk and Surocolo maṇḍalas: seeking Esoteric Buddhism through a Javanese bronze typology
description This thesis investigates what bronze figural objects found in Java can tell us about Esoteric Buddhism, a form of transregional Buddhist thought and practice in which wrathful deities featured prominently, on the island. In particular, I ask whether two bronze hoards excavated in the 20th-century, the Nganjuk and Surocolo Bronzes, constitute Esoteric Buddhist maṇḍalas, which are arrangements of specific Buddhist deities in fixed patterns according to known Esoteric Buddhist texts. Given that scholars who have attempted to identify both hoards with maṇḍalas tend to force-fit the objects to known textual descriptions, overlooking the many non-correspondences between the bronzes and text, I am sceptical of these attempts. Aligned with the material turn, this thesis seeks a more rigorous approach to studying Java’s objects. Borrowing from archaeology, it uses the typological method to create a typology of a hundred bronze objects, including the Nganjuk and Surocolo hoards, that have been attributed to Ancient Southeast Asia’s Middle Classic Period (10-12th centuries). According to my typology, there are 17 artefact types, and six of these are connected with two forms of Esoteric Buddhism: one more ferocious form associated with macabre demonic imagery and aggressive weapons, and a more benign form associated with weapons. These findings about Java’s Esoteric Buddhist dynamics force us to reconsider the theory of Nganjuk and Surocolo being maṇḍalas, and this thesis also shows exactly how the iconographic and stylistic elements of both hoards fail to align with textual sources. Even as both hoards are not maṇḍalas, they do possess certain qualities associated with maṇḍalas. Nganjuk orders deities hierarchically, while Surocolo contains almost-complete sets of deities that form sub-sections of known textual maṇḍalas. These maṇḍalic principles suggest that, even as the texts describing maṇḍalas codified particular ways of organising deities and deity groups, these maṇḍalic principles continued to develop independent of the texts and manifested clearly in Java’s material culture.
author2 Goh Geok Yian
author_facet Goh Geok Yian
Lua, Nicholas Swee Yang
format Thesis-Master by Research
author Lua, Nicholas Swee Yang
author_sort Lua, Nicholas Swee Yang
title Dismantling the Nganjuk and Surocolo maṇḍalas: seeking Esoteric Buddhism through a Javanese bronze typology
title_short Dismantling the Nganjuk and Surocolo maṇḍalas: seeking Esoteric Buddhism through a Javanese bronze typology
title_full Dismantling the Nganjuk and Surocolo maṇḍalas: seeking Esoteric Buddhism through a Javanese bronze typology
title_fullStr Dismantling the Nganjuk and Surocolo maṇḍalas: seeking Esoteric Buddhism through a Javanese bronze typology
title_full_unstemmed Dismantling the Nganjuk and Surocolo maṇḍalas: seeking Esoteric Buddhism through a Javanese bronze typology
title_sort dismantling the nganjuk and surocolo maṇḍalas: seeking esoteric buddhism through a javanese bronze typology
publisher Nanyang Technological University
publishDate 2023
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/171860
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