The hair and the Usnisa

·期刊原文
The hair and the Usnisa on the head of the Buddha and the jinars

Chanda, Ramaprasad
Indian Historical Quarterly
1934.09
pp.669-673

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p.669

The hair and the Usnisa on the head of the Buddha
and the jinars

The disposition of hair and the representation of
the so-called Usnisa, 'turban', on the head of the
image of the Buddhas and the Jinas (Tirthankaras) are
the most puzzling questions of Indian iconography. In
an article entitled "The Buddha's cuda, hair, usnisa,
and Crown" Dr. Coomarswamy has dealt with the
questions in detail (J. R. A. S., 1928, pp. 815-840).
Without going over the whole ground covered by that
essay I shall venture to suggest other solutions of
the puzzles.

The literary evidence for the hair on the
Buddha's head relied on by modern scholars is a
passage in the introduction to the commentary on the
Pail Jatakas known as the Nidanakatha which is thus
translated by Rhys Davids:--
"Then he thought, These locks of mine are not
suited for a mendicant. Now it is right for any one
else to cut the hair of a future Buddha, so I will
cut them off myself with sword.' Then, taking his
sword in his right hand, and holding the plaited
tresses, together with the diadem on them, with his
left, he cut them off. So his heir was thus reduced
to two inches in length, and curling from the right,
it lay close to his head. It remained that length as
long as he lived, and the beard the same. There was
no need at all to shave either hair or beard any
more."(1)

The Bodhisattva (future Budha) Guatama then threw
the hair and diadem together towards the sky. Sakka
received them into a jewel worship in a caitya
(temple) in the heaven of the Thirty-three gods.

This narrative reads like an expansion of the
legend briefly told in the Lalitavistara and the
Mahavastu, and illustrated in a basrelief on one of
the pillars of the southern gateway (c. 50 B. C.) of
the great stupa of Sanci,(2) and in a panel on a
corner pillar of the great rail of the stupa of
Bharhut(3) (c. 125 B. C.) . The term cudamaha,
"worship of hair", not only occurs in the inscription
on the Bharhut

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1 Buddhist Birth Srories translated by T. W. Rhys
Davids,. London, 1880, p 86.
2 Sir John Marshall, A Guide to Sanci, Caicutta,
1918, p. 51, pi. vi b.
3 Coomaraswamy, History of Indian and lndonesian
Art, London, 1927, pl. xii, fig. 44; Bachhofer,
Early (Indian Sculpture, Paris, 1929, pl. 24.
indian Historicae Quaterly, September, 1931

p.670

rail pillar, but also in the Lalitavistara and
the Mahavastu. But this legend is unknown to the
Pali Nikayas and must have originated after their
compilation. In the life of Vipassi in the
Mahpadana-sutta of the Digha-Nikaya, the framework
of which is the common factor of the biographies of
all the Buddhas including Gautama, it is narrated
that when the future Buddha (Bodhisattva) was driving
in a chariot towards the park he saw a shaven-headed
(bhandu) man, a prravrajita (wanderer) wearing yellow
robe. When the Bodhisattva was told by the charioteer
who the shaven-headed man was and had a talk with the
latter, he said:--
"Come then, good charioteer, do you take the
carriage and drive it hence back to my rooms. But I
will here cut off my hair and beard (kesamassum
otaretva, and don the yellow robe, and go forth from
home to homelessness."(1)

A somewhat different story is told of the
renunciation of the Bodhisattva Gautama in four of
the Suttas of the Majjhima Nikaya (Nos. 16, 36, 85
and 100). The charioteer and the shaven-headed monk
in yellow robe have no place in the narrative. We are
simply told:--
"There came a time when I, being quite young,
with a wealth of coal-black hair untouched by grey
and in all the beauty of my early prime--despite the
wishes of my parents, who wept and lamented-cut off
my hair and beard, donned the yellow robes and went
forth from home to homelessness."(2)

In the Subha-sutta (99) of the Majjhima Nikaya a
Brahman Sangarava calls Gautama Buddha a mundaka
samana, ''shaven-headed monk."(3) So by the time when
? the sculptors of Mathura began to carve images of
Gautama Buddha there were two rival traditions
relating to hair on the Buddha's head: an older one
now preserved in the Pali Nikayas represented Gautama
as mundaka or shaven-headed monk; and another
tradition preserved in the Mahavastu, the
Lalitavistava and the Nidanakatha represented him as
having cut his hair with his sword leaving part of it
intact on the head. The

-----------------------
1 Dgha Nikha (P. T. S.), vol. II, p. 28; Dialogues
of the Buddha translated by T. W. and C. A. F. Rhys
Davids, pt. ii, London, 1910, p. 22.
2 Majjima-Nikaya (Pali Text Society), Vol. 1, pp.
163, 240; Vol. II, pp. 93, 212; Further Dialogues
of the Buddha translated by Lord Chalmers, Vol.
II, London, 1926, p. 115.
3 Majjhima-Nikaya, Vol. II, P. 210.

p.671

shaven-headedd images of the Buddha found at
Mathura, Mankuar and Sarnath ? represent the older
tradition, and the images of the Buddha with hair on
the head arranged in ringlets represent the other and
more popular tradition, because it is found both in
Sanskrit and Pali texts.

Gautama Buddha was not an ordinary monk. He was
born with the thirty-two marks of a Mahapurusa
(superman). These marks distinguished the Bodhisattva
Gautama from the ordinary Arhats, These marks are
fully described in two of the Suttas of the Digha
Nikayn (Mahapadana-suttanta and Lakkharna-suttanta)
and the Lalitavistara. Two of these marks that relate
to the head are usnisa- sirsa, "having a head like a
royal turban," and pradakasinavarta-kesah, "having
hair (arranged) in ringlets turning to the right."
The commentator Buddhaghosa in his Sumangala-vilasini
(Mahapadina-sutta-vannana) says that the term
unhisasisa (usnisasirsa) may be
explained in two different ways either denoting the
fullness of the forehead or the fullness of the head.
The fullness of the forehead may be caused by a
strip of muscle (mamsapatala) rising from the root of
the right ear, covering the entire forehead, and
terminating in the root of the left ear. As a head
with such a strip of muscle on the forehead looks
like a head wearing a turban, it is therefore called
a turban-like head or turban-head. The other
explanation defines the turban-head as a fully round
head symmetrical in shape like a water bubble.(1)

The smooth head without any mark of hair like the
head of the well-known colossal Bodhisattva dedicated
by the Friar Bala in the third year of Kaniska at
Sarnath, the head of the Bodhisattva image from Katra
in the Mathura Museum,(2) the head on the fragment of
the Buddba-Bodhisattva image from Mathura in the
Museum of Ethnology at Munich,(3) and of other images
of the same type, shows slight elevation above the
forehead. This elevated part reaching from the root
of the right ear to that of the left appears to me to
be the plastic representation of the mamsapatala, the
strip of muscle on the, forehead of the turban-head,
spoken of by Buddhaghosa.

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1 Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol. V, no. 4,
Supplement, p, 77.
2 Vogel, Catalogue, plate VII; Coornarswamy, History
of Indian and Indonesian Art, Fig. 84; Bachhofer,
Early Indian Sculpture, plate 81.
3 Bachhofer, Early Indian Scurlpture, plate 82.

p.672

The thick lock of curled hair on the top of the
head of the Katra and the Munich images is curled
like the snail shell (Kaparda). Coomarswamy observes,
"That the remainder of the head is smooth does not
mean that it is shaved, but simply that all the long
hair was drawn up close and tight over scalp into the
single tress."(1) This single curled tress is marked
by parallel lines indicating individual hairs of
which it consists. If the sculptor had intended to
represent hair on the rest of the head, he would
certainly have adopted the same convention instead of
leaving the area smooth. Smoothness therefore
indicates that the rest of the head is clean-shaven.
One standing image of the Buddha with smooth head in
the Mathura Museum has a smooth bump.(2) The tress of
hair curling like a snail shell on the top of the
head of the images of the Buddha referred to above
evidently represents sikha or top-knot. Gautama
prescribes in his Dharmasutra (iii, 1422) that an
ascetic may either shave or wear a lock on the crown
of the head."(3)

The artists of Mathura in the Kushan period
produced another type of the Buddha head with short
hair arranged in ringlets turning to the right and a
bump or fleshy protuberance on the top covered by
hair arranged in the same way. All the Buddha images
of the post-Kushan period with the exception of the
Mankuar image have a head of this type. The term
usnisa is usually applied to this bump. Is it
correct? As we have stated above, usnisa-sirsa,
turban-head, is a heal which is either round in form
like a turban, or has the appearance of a head
wearing a turban even when bare on account of a strip
of muscle;covering the upper part of the forehead.
Head of either type is turban-like in outline only. A
very important part of the royal turban is the crest.
A head, turban-like in outline, but without crest,
cannot be recognised as a turban-head in the strict
sense, Therefore the addition of a bump or fleshy
protuberance on the top was evidently thought
necessary to turn the head of a Mahapurusa to a
perfect turban-head. The so-called usnisa on the
Buddha's head is the crest of the usnisa and not the
usnisa itself. So it should be termed crest instead
of usnisa to avoid misunderstanding.

The early Jaina literature, so far avail able,
does not render us much help in solving the puzzles
relating to the head of the images of the

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1 J.R.A.S., 1928, P. 827.
2 Vogel, Catalogue, plate XV(a).
3 Sacved Books of the East, Vol. II, p. 194.

p.673

Jinas. In the Acaranga-sutra it is said that when
the Jina Mahavira turned an ascetic--
"Mahavira then plucked out with his right and
left (hands) on the right and left (sides of his
head) his hair in five handfuls. But Sakra, the
leader and king of the gods, falling down before the
feet of the Venerable ascetic Mahavira, caught up the
hair in a cup of diamond, and requesting his
permission, brought them to the milk ocean."(1)

In the Kalpasutra it is said that Mahavira as
well as his twentythree predecessors did the
same-plucked hair in five handfuls and turned
shaven-headed monks. Only the image of one of the
Jinas, Rsabha, the first in the series, is shown as
wearing matted locks like the Brahman Jatila monks
carved on the Sunga monuments. The images of the
other twenty-three Jinas mostly show heads with bump
covered by hair arranged in ringlts becoming the
Mahapurusa. But images of the Jinas with shaven head
are not unknown. Coomarswamy has published a seated
image of the Jina Parsva with smooth head from
Mathura(2) where the different types of the images of
the Jinas were carved for the first time.
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1.Sacred Books of the East. ol. XXII, p.199.
2.Coomarsudamy, The Origin of The Buddha Lamage, fig,
43.
RAMAPRASAD CHANDA