Master of Arts Thesis
Euroculture
Uppsala Universitet, Sweden (Home)
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, the Netherlands (Host)
August 2017
Cultural Heritage in Transit: From Materiality to Spirituality Contemporary Uses of Buddha Images in European Advertisings
MA Programme Euroculture
Declaration
I, Yujia Wang, hereby declare that this thesis, entitled “Cultural Heritage in Transit: From Materiality to Spirituality, Contemporary Uses of Buddha Images in European Advertisings”, submitted as partial requirement for the MA Programme Euroculture, is my own original work and expressed in my own words. Any use made within this text of works of other authors in any form (e.g. ideas, figures, texts, tables, etc.) are properly acknowledged in the text as well as in the bibliography.
I declare that the written (printed and bound) and the electronic copy of the submitted MA thesis are identical.
Preface
As a master student in Erasmus Mundus Euroculture programme, I had many opportunities to keep in touch with different courses, research and small projects to understand European culture from religious, social, legal, and political perspectives. During the second semester when I was studying in Groningen University, I participated a research seminar “Visual Representations of Europe” lectured by Dr. Margriet Van der Waal, and the seminar focused on different interpretations of Europe through visual methods, such as pictures, video, advertisements, media and etc. I felt so passionate with the seminar, because it offered me a new and contemporary perspective to understand European culture through visual symbols.
My idea for the thesis was shaped both by my personal passion of visual representations and my experience from the research fieldwork in Southeast Asia. The topic initially drew inspirations from my discussion with Dr. Anna Karlström during our visit to National Museum of Thailand, Bangkok. I remember we were standing in front of Buddha statues, and discussing about the difference between Asian Buddha and Western Buddha. The topic is intriguing and exciting to me, because there seems to be a very different way to represent Buddha in the cross-cultural context. In my eyes, I see westerners appreciating Buddha and Buddhist culture more as a fashion trend. This seemly blind Buddha appreciation can be also related to the emerging popular trend among western young generations, such as practicing yoga, vegetarian diet, etc. However, I have a general picture that Asians mainly see Buddha as a religious icon. In this way, the westerners’ Buddha appreciation seems to diverge from the Asian one, and this contradiction makes me wonder, how come westerners or Europeans are so fascinated by Asian Buddhism, even though many of them know little of Buddhism?
The thesis writing is a learning process for me. I am fairly new in heritage studies, and I only became familiar with heritage studies after I started to work as a research assistant. Even though the writing process was full of challenges, I still enjoyed the whole process because the topic was what I genuinely felt passionate for. In addition, the topic can be an ingenious piece of work combining my personal interest of visual representations with the practical experiences I have gained from my research internship in the field of heritage studies.
Abstract
Uses of Buddha images increasingly become a new fashion in European commercial market for branding wellness, inner peace and spirituality. However, in many cases Buddha-inspired advertisements are barely about Buddhism as a religion, instead Buddha is used as a non-religious symbol to represent a wellness and mindfulness lifestyle, and to create a fantasy for the exotic oriental. By analyzing visual representations of Buddha in the sampled European advertisings, the thesis seeks to argue how cultural heritage is transformed into a cultural symbol signifying life values and identities. It aims at developing a contemporary perspective to decode visual representations of cultural heritage in advertisings, and further explore the concept of “authenticity” in modern and cross-cultural settings.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction ... 8
1.1 Starting point of Research ... 8
1.2 Statement of Problem and Research Question ... 11
1.2.1 Buddha Fever in Europe ... 12
1.2.2 Buddhism and Western Construction of Buddhism ... 15
1.2.3 Contemporary Pop Buddhism ... 19
1.2.4 Controversial Social Debates on Uses of Buddha and Buddha Images ... 21
1.2.5 Research Question ... 23
1.2.6 Research Structure ... 25
Chapter 2 Contextualization of Research ... 27
2.1 Cultural Heritage and Uses of Heritage ... 27
2.1.1Definition of Cultural Heritage ... 27
2.1.2Western Authorized Heritage ... 29
2.1.3 Non-western Heritage Discourse ... 31
2.1.4 Cultural Heritage Research Problems ... 34
2.2 Buddhism as Cultural Heritage ... 36
2.3 Diffusion of Buddhism in Europe ... 37
2.3.1 A Historical Lens ... 37
2.3.2 Buddha Images: European perception vs. Buddhist perception ... 39
2.3.3 Commodification of Buddhism in Europe ... 40
2.4. Literature Review ... 41
2.4.1Authenticity in Transit ... 41
2.4.2 Research on Pop Buddhism ... 44
2.5 Research Significance/ Limitations ... 45
Chapter 3 Methods and Theories ... 47
3.1 Research Data Selection ... 47
3.2 Research Methods ... 48
3.2.1 A General Perspective: Cultural Studies ... 49
3.2.2 Key Analytical Tool: Visual Rhetoric Analysis ... 51
3.2.3 Other Supporting Methods ... 52
3.2.3.2 Semiotics ... 53
3.2.3.3Discourse Analysis ... 54
3.2.3.4 Spirituality in Advertising ... 55
Chapter 4 Nature of Image: Buddha as a Non-religious Symbol ... 57
4.1 Sample Analysis ... 57
4.1.1 Rituals “Laughing Buddha” Campaign ... 57
4.1.2 Sunsilk “Serenity for Your Scalp” Campaign ... 62
4.1.3 Modus Vivendi “Buddha Line” Campaign ... 64
4.1.4 Humanized Buddha: Zendesk Service Buddha &UHU “Hands Up” Campaign ... 66
4.1.5 Buddha Bar 20th Anniversary Campaign ... 71
4.1.6 Buddha as a Non-religious Symbol ... 73
Chapter 5 Rhetorical Function: Branding Exoticism and Lifestyle ... 76
Chapter 6 Evaluation: European Construction of the Otherness ... 85
Chapter 7 Conclusion: Meaning Matters for Modern Use of Cultural Heritage ... 93
Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Starting Point of Research
The concept of cultural heritage has gone through profound changes throughout decades. According to United Nations Education Science and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], instead of referring exclusively to “the monumental remains of cultures, heritage as a concept has gradually come to include new categories such as the intangible, ethnographic or industrial heritage.”1 Nowadays, more and more research in heritage studies tend to view cultural remains not only as objects, but also as a living culture. Thus in the contemporary settings, cultural heritage is not only displayed in forms of artifacts and documents, but also embedded in our daily life.
From September to October 2016, during a two months fieldwork in Southeast Asia with Dr. Anna Karlström from Uppsala University, we did research on contemporary use of ancient bronze drums, and encountered modern uses of cultural heritage in diversified forms. Significantly, it is interesting to notice that in the context of cosmopolitan and contemporary settings, the concept of cultural heritage is not only attached with materiality, the object, but also transformed into an abstract symbol to strengthen identity for groups and individuals.
For instance, in Vietnam, Dong son2 civilization is highlighted as the cradle for the origin of Vietnamese culture, because “the people from the Dong son era also
1 UNESCO, “Cultural Heritage,” accessed December 7, 2016,
http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=2185&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=20 1.html.
known as the Lac Viet, are regarded as the ancestors of modern Vietnamese,”3 and Dong son bronze drums “have come to symbolize Dong Son’s brilliance and for many, the origins of Vietnamese national identity.”4 Nevertheless, based on the preliminary outcomes of the fieldwork, contemporary use of Dong son bronze drums is most likely to detach from their physical existences: only the Lolo people from the northern mountain areas of Lung Cu5 still preserve traditional uses of bronze drums mainly in funerals6, yet in the areas where there are no current uses of bronze drums, there is still a wide range of applications of Dong son culture in art designs, city decorations, and advertisings. In areas where Muang people are living, such as Luong Son and Hoa Binh Province, although there is no production and no contemporary uses of bronze drums, they inherit Dong son culture in another way: using symbols and patterns from bronze drums to design artworks and logos (See Appendix Image 1). In this way, the whole country has highlighted Dong son culture as a national cultural symbol7.
Moreover, cultural heritage is deeply involved and rooted in personal or group identities, even, as a carrier it could bond and converge the group identities beyond borders and across different regions. As Johan Josefsson and Inga-Lill Aronsson state, cultural heritage could be understood as a cultural memory “in order to build or strengthen our identity.”8 In the case of Southeast Asia, different ethnic groups reflect
3 “DONG SON, FUNAN AND ANCIENT HISTORY OF VIETNAM | Facts and Details,” accessed June 15, 2017, http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Vietnam/sub5_9a/entry-3330.html.
4 Christopher Goscha, The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam: A History (London:Penguin, 2016), 26. 5 Lũng Cú in Vietnamese
6 Yujia Wang, Southeast Asia Fieldwork Notes, 2016. 7 Ibid.
8 Johan Josefsson et al., “Heritage as Life-Values:A Study of the Cultural Heritage Concept,” Current
their shared identities upon use of bronze drums, and share roots passed down from the ancient Baiyue people9. In Vietnam, we can see contemporary uses of cultural heritage somehow have been gradually transformed into a cultural symbol and a practice to represent identities and life-values, which further enhance Vietnamese national bonds.
While in Europe, cultural heritage is also vital for bonding a sustainable Europe and further developing European identity because “cultural heritage stresses the European-ness of European citizens, communities and regions”10 and “cultural heritage is an integral elements of a European set of values.”11 Yet beyond this nationalist perspective, we are witnessing a current drift towards contemporary uses of cultural heritage manifested in pop culture, which gives us a new vision to understand cultural heritage in contemporary settings, shifting emphasis from cultural heritage as a past legacy to cultural heritage as an ongoing cultural phenomenon. Cornelius Holtorf in
From Stonehenge to Las Vegas Archaeology as Popular Culture also agrees to put
heritage studies and archaeology into “a much broader cultural field than the narrowly defined specialization the academic world.”12 From his perspective, the definition of
9 Bai Yue in Chinese literally means “one hundred Yue”, suggesting the diversified branches of Yue people originally living in what today is China. Archaeological records show some groups of the Bai Yue people are believed to migrate cross-borders, and expanded Southwards, such as to the Northern region of Vietnam. In Vietnam, Bai Yue is called Viet Bac. Although there is a different name for Bai Yue in Vietnam, it is still evidential that ethnic groups such as Lolo in this area share a similar linguistic and historical link with the Bai Yue culture.
10 “Why Cultural Heritage Matters for Europe,” accessed December 27, 2016,
http://www.europanostra.org/UPLOADS/FILS/Why%20Cultural%20Heritage%20matters%20for%20Eur ope%20062009.pdf.
11 Ibid.
pop culture refers to “Alltagkultur (everyday culture)”13 which is the way people live their daily lives and problematizing what is usually taken for granted.”14
The widespread popularity of cultural heritage in everyday culture challenges the clichéd idea of cultural heritage as attachments to the past, and leads us to rethink the meaning of cultural heritage in the light of the present. This is the starting point of my argument. If we put on the contemporary glasses to look at modern uses of cultural heritage in the European context, it is significant to see that cultural heritage has been more and more used as a cultural symbol to highlight life values and lifestyles, to further enhance European identity, and to express European fascinations for the others. This may be due to European collective anxieties in the context of the large flows of refugees and migrants into the European continent. As Barbro Klein asserts, “cultural heritage as term and phenomenon linked to the ascendancy of intense multicultural co-existence”15, under the context of European integration, modern use of cultural heritage has been gradually detached from materiality, and pointed more emphasis to its cultural meaning.
1.2 Statement of Problem and Research Question
In Europe, uses of cultural heritage have become a popular phenomenon in recent decades. Heritage of Swedish indigenous Sami16 people has been extracted into fashion
13 Hermann Bausinger, Utz Jeggle, Gottfried Korff, and Martin Scharfe, Beardworth, Grundzüge der Volkskunde (Darmstadt:Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,1978).
14 Ibid.
15 Barbro Klein, “Cultural Heritage, the Swedish Folklife Sphere, and the Others,” accessed December 25, 2016. http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~caforum/volume5/pdf/klein.pdf.
designs and innovatively displayed on the fashion runways of Alta Sami Festival17 in 2015. Similarly with Dalarna horse, the traditional red-painted wooden horses originated from the Dalarna region have gained its fame being a global symbol of Sweden18. Its image has been widely applied in Swedish designs and decorations. Nonetheless, not only European cultural heritage has been applied in everyday life, but also those non-European cultural heritage: for instance, uses of Buddha statues and Buddha images are considered as an “in” trend in private homes, in commercial stores, and high fashion exhibitions such as Louis Vuitton Art Exhibition in France19. The wide spread commodification of Buddhism in Europe becomes the main concern of the thesis.
1.2.1 Buddha Fever in Europe
Regarding the European commercial market, there exists a wide coverage of Buddha-inspired advertisings in which wellness, inner strength and spirituality are the main themes. In many cases, those advertisings are barely about Buddhism as a religion, instead, Buddha is used as a non-religious symbol to brand a wellness and mindfulness life style, and to create a fantasy for the exotic oriental.
As Jørn Borup points out, “Buddha is cool and chic in the west, and as popular brand has moved from temple to market.”20 Use of Buddha and Buddha images has
17 “Hjem - Alta Sami Festival,” accessed December 30, 2017, http://www.altasamifestival.no/. 18 The Local, “The story of a Swedish symbol, ” accessed October 10. 2014,
https://www.thelocal.se/20141010/the-story-of-a-swedish-symbol-tlccu
19 Knowing Buddha Organization, “Louis Vuitton…Step back, ” accessed March 20, 2017. https://www.knowingbuddha.org/single-post/2016/07/06/Louis-Vuittonstep-back.
20 Jørn Borup, “Branding Buddha- Mediatized and Commodified Buddhism as Cultural Narrative,” Journal of Global Buddhism Vol. 17 (2016): 41, accessed March 20, 2017,
increasingly become a new hit on the European continent. The Asian originated “Happy Buddha” or “Laughing Buddha” has been constantly used in the commercials of the Dutch brand Rituals. Also, the Buddha Bar Paris since 1996 has continuously spread over Prague, Geneva, Amsterdam, Budapest and London21. With gigantic Buddha statues as interior design decorations highlighting Buddha Bar’s unique charisma, Buddha Bar has become “a must-see and be-seen in the French capital.”22 In Uppsala, Sweden, Buddha candleholders are in great demand in local home decoration shops, probably because it exquisitely combines Swedish tradition with exotic and mysterious Buddhist culture. Consequently, Europeans become familiar with commercial uses of Buddha images and they gradually get used to it. Especially for young generation, they are more and more likely to appreciate Buddhism and Buddhist culture. Some of them wear Buddha tattoo, some of them prefer to decorate their homes with Buddha heads and Buddha images, and some of them regard chasing after the trend as chic and fashionable.
In the latest Eurovision Song Context 2017, Italy’s representative Francesco Gabbani’s song “Occidentali’s Karma” (see Appendix Image 2) showed full references to European appreciation of the Buddha fever. The lyrics claim that modern westerners need to be purified by the spiritual power of Buddhism. Both in onstage settings and the music video there appeared many Buddha images.
21 Buddha Bar, “Buddha-Bar - GEORGE V EATERTAINMENT,” accessed March 25, 2017, http://www.buddhabar.com/en/buddha-bar-monde-worldwide.
The main theme of the song criticizes “the superficial lifestyle of westerners”23, as the song writer Fabio Illacqua explains: “It describes the situation of Westerners, their models and their way of seeking refuge in the Oriental rituals for comfort(…)Westerners are turning to oriental culture like tourists who go into a holiday village.”24 From this point of view, the song somehow nods to the ongoing Buddha fever in the western society and hints that the phenomenon matches with westerners’ needs to seek a mindfulness lifestyle and create an oriental dream.
In Northern Europe, public appreciation of Buddhism and Buddhist culture is on the rise. According to the data from Jørn Borup, in Denmark, though the number of Buddhists is relatively low, the majority find Buddhism appealing: “Among the providers of products and services at a Body Mind Spirit fair in Aarhus in 2014, Buddhism was the religion which most people felt attracted to, although only 14% defined themselves as Buddhists.”25 Similar positive comments are received from other Scandinavian countries as well. In Sweden, David Thurfjell conducted a survey on people’s attitude towards Buddhism, and he came to a conclusion that “Buddhism is a religion that few Swedes wholeheartedly belong to, but many sympathize or partly identify with.”26 As for Norway, a survey indicated that “Buddhist symbols, narratives, and artifacts were relatively well represented in films, commercial ads and interior
23 Wikipedia, “Occidentali’s Karma,” accessed August 7, 2017,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Occidentali%27s_Karma&oldid=794347832.
24 Cristian Scarpone, “‘Occidentali’s Karma’ Lyrics - Francesco Gabbani (Italy, Eurovision 2017),” Wiwibloggs, February 15, 2017, http://wiwibloggs.com/2017/02/15/occidentalis-karma-lyrics/174193/. 25 Jørn Borup, “Branding Buddha- Mediatized and Commodified Buddhism as Cultural Narrative,”
Journal of Global Buddhism Vol. 17 (2016), 45, accessed March 20, 2017,
http://www.globalbuddhism.org/jgb/index.php/jgb/article/view/178
decorating artifacts much more so than for instance Islamic ones.”27 Moreover, Buddhism is “regarded as ‘the familiar and wise other’ and a real alternative in other parts of the Norwegian public sphere.”28 From the data above, it is intriguing to see that European appreciation of Buddhism is becoming a cultural phenomenon beyond the religious realm. Especially in the commercial market, visual representations of Buddha images in advertisings are somehow shaping European perceptions of Buddhism. This is a crucial phase in my argument that I will develop further in the later chapter.
1.2.2 Buddhism and Western Construction of Buddhism
Buddhism nowadays is a world religion that can be traced back to India about 2500 years ago29. According to Robinson and Johnson, the history of Buddhism began with the Awakening of the Buddha “in the fifth or sixth century B.C.E. at Bodhgaya, in the Ganges River plain of northeastern India.”30 The Buddha originally was an Indian prince called Siddhartha Gautama and the word Buddha is a special title that means “awakened”, so to speak, the Buddha is someone who is very wise31. There are three Gems central to all forms of Buddhism: “Buddha the teacher; Dharma, the Buddha’s teaching or laws, and Sangha, the community of monks and nuns.”32 Buddhism is the
27 Liv Ingeborg Lied, “Religious Change and Popular Culture. With a Nod to the Mediatization of Religion Debate,” in Mediatization and Religion: Nordic Perspectives, ed. Stig Hjarvard and Mia Löwheim (Göteborg: Nordicom, 2012), 185.
28 Ibid.
29 Rita Faelli, Buddhism: History, Beliefs, Worship and Celebrations (Clayton: Blake, 2006), 5-6. 30 Richard H. Robinson, and Willard L. Johnson, The Buddhist Religion, 4th Edition (London: Wadsworth, 1997), 7.
world’s fourth-largest religion with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population33.
As a world religion, Buddhism has a set of strict religious rules, for Buddhists to follow and practice. Two major extant branches of Buddhism recognized by scholars are: “Theravada (‘The School of the Elders’) and Mahayana (‘The Great Vehicle’)34. The previous one focusing on “the cessation of the Kleshas35 and the attainment of sublime state of Nirvana” is widespread in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.36 The latter one includes “the tradition of Zen” and emphasizes the power of awakening37. The Buddhist four noble truths38 are well known as “ the basic orientation of Buddhism”39. According to Carol Anderson, “ four noble truths are truly set apart within the body of the Buddha's teachings, not because they are by definition sacred, but because they are both a symbol and a doctrine and transformative within the sphere of right view.”40 Therefore, four noble truths somehow symbolize “enlightenment and “insight”41. Meanwhile, modern Buddhist practices tend to highlight “merit transfer”42. For instance, according to Buddhist karma theory, “a person is able to gain merit from
33 Wikipedia, “Buddhism,” accessed March 15, 2017,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buddhism&oldid=795661865. 34 Ibid.
35 Klesha literally means the mental states that cloud the mind and manifest in unwholesome actions. In the contemporary Mahayana and Theravada Buddhist traditions, the three Kleshas of ignorance,
attachment, and aversion are identified as the root or source of all other kleshas. 36 Wikipedia, “Buddhism,” accessed March 15, 2017,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buddhism&oldid=795661865. 37 ibid.
38 dukkha, samudaya ("arising," "coming together"), nirodha ("cessation," "confinement"), and magga, the path leading to cessation.
39 Wikipedia, “Buddhism,” accessed March 15, 2017,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buddhism&oldid=795661865.
40 Carol Anderson, Pain and Its Ending: The Four Noble Truths in the Theravada Buddhist
Canon(London: Routledge,1999), 230.
41 Wikipedia, “Four Noble Truths,” accessed April 11, 2017,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Four_Noble_Truths&oldid=795020304. 42 Wikipedia, “Buddhism,” accessed March 15, 2017,
others by exchanging goods and services (…) Further, a person can transfer one's own good karma to living family members and ancestors.”43Even nowadays, in those conservative Buddhist countries such as Myanmar and Thailand, Buddhist religious life is regarded as a holy procedure, and nobody should take it for granted.
Nonetheless, western accounts of Buddhism turn out to be a different picture. Ever since Buddhism was introduced to western society in the middle of the nineteenth century, it has been consistently constructed and developed by European elites and scholars, in the aim of adapting to western culture or even serving for the western society. As David L. McMahan affirms, Buddhism is widely interpreted into “the rescue of the modern West,”44 which “lost its spiritual bearings through modernization.”45 In other words, Buddhism is believed as an antidote to cure the materialized western society, and thus certain knowledge of this religion has been ignored or rejected in the foreign context. To certain degrees, western perception of Buddhism lies in the increasing needs to rescue the modern west from “modern materialistic societies”46, which may explain popularization and high-recognition of Buddhism among westerners.
In order to fill in the gap of the so-called lost spirituality, western reception of Buddhism tends to shift away from a religious perspective to an intellectual, spiritual and metaphysical worldview. This crucial shift may lead to a misreading,
43 Wikipedia, “Buddhism,” accessed March 15, 2017,
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buddhism&oldid=795661865.
44 David L. McMahan, The Making of Buddhist Modernism (New York: Oxford, 2008), 5. 45 Ibid.
misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Buddhism in the West. On the one hand, western scholars largely ignore what they deem to be the mythical, superstitious and irrational sides of Buddhism in favor of the parts they deem to be more rational parts of eastern wisdom. In result, the new form of Buddhism in the West becomes secularized and humanized, which “deemphasizes the miracles and supernatural events depicted in Buddhist literature, disposes of or reinterprets image worship, and stresses compatibility with scientific, humanistic and democratic ideals.”47 On the other hand, there is another risk that Buddhism may be treated too roughly, as Olav Hammer identifies, “nearly a century of scholarship on the Buddhist tradition that focused overwhelmingly on classical texts and doctrinal subtleties,”48 and “were relegated to the status not being quite serious enough to merit scholarly investigation.”49This excessively broad knowledge of Buddhism results in an unbelievable fact, as Melford E. Spiro states, even few actual Buddhists were particularly aware of the finer points of Buddhist dogma, and that their religious goals were very different from those of the monastic elite50. As for western audiences, it is no wonder that they have gradually established a standard view of Buddhism as “a religion in which you don’t really have to believe anything in particular or follow any strict rules.”51 Rather, Asian originated Buddhism in the foreign context may deliver more messages on spirituality than a religion.
47 David L. McMahan, The Making of Buddhist Modernism (New York: Oxford, 2008), 5-6. 48 Olav Hammer, “Some Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of the Journal NVMEN,” in
NVMEN, the Academic Study of Religion, and the IAHR: Past, Present and Prospects, ed. Tim Jensen
and Armin Geertz (Boston: Brill, 2015), 385. 49 Ibid
50 Melford E. Spiro, Buddhism and Society A Great Tradition And Its Burmese Vicissitudes (London: University of California, 1982), xviii.
Still, it seems tricky when we discuss Buddhism in a foreign context. There exists an ongoing academic debate on western perception of Buddhism. Yet it is clear that modern picture of Buddhism is not restraint to a traditional one, especially in the cross-cultural context, Buddhism is more a way of living than a religion or a creed. Additionally, while the West encounters Buddhism, it is evitable that Buddhism is somehow perceived as a way to represent the orient, and the others. This general picture of “exotic” Buddhism becomes another attraction for western audiences.
1.2.3 Contemporary Pop Buddhism
“Pop Buddhism”, is the term Rudrani Dasgupta uses to describe the on-going Buddha fever in the West. She defines “pop Buddhism” as “a phenomenon born out of a reaction against contemporary so-called Western material reality.”52 In addition, she interprets modern Buddhism in pop culture as something that “has been dragged out from the realms of obscurity to be embraced as an alternative lifestyle.”53 Jørn Borup shares the similar point of view on the manifestations of “pop Buddhism” with Rudrani, emphasizing that modern uses of Buddhism and Buddha images are selling “spirituality”:
Buddhism has been transformed from an intellectual capital and practice path for the elite to an easily approachable mindset for the masses in which consumerism, commodification and mediatization are part of the neo-liberal market where spirituality is for sale.54
52 Rudrani Dasgupta, “POP BUDDHISM: THE NEW MYTH IN POPULAR CULTURE,” accessed April 6, 2017,
https://www.academia.edu/238560/POP_BUDDHISM_THE_NEW_MYTH_IN_POPULAR_CULTURE .
53 Ibid.
54 Jørn Borup, “Branding Buddha- Mediatized and Commodified Buddhism as Cultural Narrative,”
Journal of Global Buddhism Vol. 17 (2016), 45, accessed March 20, 2017,
In other words, obscure depictions of Buddha in advertisings fit into modern obsessions for mindfulness, which focuses on “spiritual life that doesn’t call for transformation or for any real commitment to a community. It allows you to keep living however you are living.”55 Victor Sógen Hori’s thesis also points out, “the western readings of Buddhism tend to toward the Romantic/existentialist/ New Age focus on self-realization and self-discovery.”56 Pop Buddhism advocates a living philosophy rather than a religion, and many people in the West feel attached to this living alternative in their daily life.
However, the critical matter with “Pop Buddhism” may lie in the ambiguity of Buddhist culture in the European context. Buddhism has long been viewed as an ethnic myth not only because it origins outside Europe but also it is depicted as “an element of the carefully engineered classic Western construct, namely the Orient.”57 In result, many Europeans have limited knowledge of Buddhism but hold a strong curiosity towards it, because “it was sensual, mystical and completely superstitious.”58 Still, this very ambiguity has been used to attract curious customers thriving on exoticism. Consequently, this ambiguity leads to intense social debates on whether it is appropriate to commodify Buddha in the commercial market.
55 James Atlas, “Buddhists’ Delight,” The New York Times, 16 June, 2012, accessed June 15, 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/opinion/sunday/buddhists-delight.html?pagewanted=all.
56 James Mark Shield, “Buddhism,” in The Routledge Companion to Religion and Popular Culture, ed. John C. Lyden and Eric Michael Mazur (Oxon: Routledge, 2015), 412.
57 Rudrani Dasgupta, “POP BUDDHISM: THE NEW MYTH IN POPULAR CULTURE,” accessed April 6, 2017,
https://www.academia.edu/238560/POP_BUDDHISM_THE_NEW_MYTH_IN_POPULAR_CULTURE .
1.2.4 Controversial Social Debates on Uses of Buddha and Buddha Images
With the rise of pop Buddhism in the commercial market, there emerge opponents, especially those conservative Buddhists criticizing that using Buddha as a pop icon in commercials shows no respect for the religion Buddhism and Buddhist culture. There are also some westerners who feel uncomfortable and critical about using Buddha images for commercial purposes.
In Thailand, an organization called Knowing Buddha intends to “speak out to protect Buddhism by giving correct knowledge on proper treatments to Buddha images and symbols.”59 It strongly criticizes the way “Buddha images and statues have been used as ‘Buddhist Art’ for decorations - such as furniture, rather than as a remembrance of his compassion with respect and gratitude.”60 The Knowing Buddha Organization which was founded by Vipassana Master Archaravadee Wongsakon in 201261 aims at spreading Buddha’s teachings all over the world, with an emphasize on educating people how to “treat Buddha’s images appropriately”62 by following the three dos and seven don’ts principal. Particularly, they initiate people do not use Buddha images for decorations”63 and “do not use Buddha as merchandise,”64 for Buddha statues or images are used only for religious functions. In this sense, any commercial uses of Buddha statues and images are not acceptable for Buddhists at all.
In particular, Knowing Buddha Organization concerns more about use of
59 Knowing Buddha Organization, “We Protect Buddhism,” accessed October 20, 2016, https://www.knowingbuddha.org/about-kbo.
60 Ibid 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid.
63 Knowing Buddha Organization, “Dos and Don’ts on Buddha,” accessed October 20, 2016, https://www.knowingbuddha.org/dos-and-donts.
Buddha and Buddha images in the western context. In June 2016, they circulated a large petition against use of Buddha head in Louis Vuitton Foundation art exhibition where “the Buddha head was placed on the floor without any platform, at ground level with visitors freely passing by.”65Aftermath they raised an outcry against any disrespectable placements of Buddha statues, because they claimed “all religious symbols and related things deserve to be placed or stored in a high place, particularly holy figures which are often put even above the head.”66 They further criticized that the Buddha head was presented as a piece of art to attract public attentions.67
There is similar criticism towards Buddha Bar’s use of Buddha for entertainment. In 2010, Buddhists protested against operating of Buddha Bar in Jakarta, Indonesia claiming “the use of their religious symbols in a venue serving alcohol was affront to their religion.”68 Similarly in Dubai, Buddha Bar opponents were offended by Buddha Bar’s use of Buddha images on their music CD, and they called for “black out the image of the Buddha”69. Addition to the public criticism above, using Buddha images in advertisements could lead to serious criminal charges in Myanmar. Two years ago, New Zealander Philip Blackwood was accused of insulting Buddhism after “he posted a psychedelic image of the Buddha wearing headphones (see Appendix Image 3) on Facebook to advertise the V Gastro Bar.”70 He was later sentenced to jail for
65 Knowing Buddha Organization, “Louis Vuitton…Step back, ” accessed March 20, 2017, https://www.knowingbuddha.org/single-post/2016/07/06/Louis-Vuittonstep-back.
66 Ibid. 67 Ibid.
68 Wikipedia, “Buddha Bar”, accessed June 20, 2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha_Bar. 69 Ibid.
70 “Buddha Wearing Headphones Image Triggers Controversy in Myanmar,” NBC News, 3 January, 2015, accessed June 10, 2017,
two-and-a half years71, even though he apologized to the public and explained to the police that it was not his intention to offend Buddhists but “using the Buddha in ads is in fashion internationally and thought it would attract more attention.”72
The case quickly stirred controversial opinions on use of Buddha images between the Asian locals and the westerners. On the one hand the locals felt angry because “the Buddha had been used to advertise a bar,”73 while on the other hand, the westerners were all shocked by the ridiculous fact that “a cultural blunder on a Facebook page might lead to tough prison sentences.”74 They even regarded this case as a human right crisis because the right “freedom to advertise” was violated. Yet we should be aware that commodification of Buddha images not only concerns “freedom to advertise”, but also raises questions for “freedom of religion”75. Are there any boundaries for using Buddha images in foreign commercials? Weighing of the two sets of rights can be a permanent human right dilemma for commodification of Buddha images in advertisings.
1.2.5 Research Question
The thesis argues: contradictory social debates on use of Buddha and Buddha images may result from different understandings of cultural heritage in different cultural
71 “Buddha Wearing Headphones Image Triggers Controversy in Myanmar,” NBC News, 3 January, 2015, accessed June 10, 2017,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/opinion/sunday/buddhists-delight.html?pagewanted=all.
72 Kyaw Phyo Tha, “Police Arrest New Zealander, 2 Burmese for Promotion Insulting Buddhism,” The
Irrawaddy, 11 December, 2014, accessed June 10, 2017,
https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/police-arrest-new-zealander-2-burmese-promotion-insulting-bu ddhism.html.
73 Angela Doland, “Because of a Facebook Ad, Three will Go to Jail in Myanmar,” Advertising Age, 17 March, 2015, accessed June 11, 2017,
http://adage.com/article/global-news/a-facebook-ad-jail-myanmar/297626/. 74 Ibid.
contexts. Conservative Buddhists use Buddha and Buddha images under the condition of preserving originality and authenticity of Buddhist culture; while in European advertisings, Buddha images are more likely to represent lifestyles and identity. The thesis focuses on the later perspective and seeks to understand European perceptions on uses of Buddha images. From this perspective, the thesis does not criticize those so called “wrong” uses of Buddha and Buddha images in multi-cultural contexts, neither does it seek to judge whether it is culturally appropriate to use Buddha and Buddha images in contemporary advertisings. Although there is definitely a religious and historical perspective going on with Buddhism, the thesis chooses a contemporary and cultural approach to understand uses of Buddha images in foreign contexts.
By taking the case of uses of Buddha images in European advertisings, the thesis aims at developing a contemporary perspective to decode visual representations of cultural heritage in European advertisings. In order to do that, the thesis mainly examines the research question “how are Buddha and Buddha images used in European advertisings?” and to further explore a possible interpretation for uses of cultural heritage in modern and cross-cultural settings.
answer the research question accordingly from three layers “nature of image, function of image, and evaluation of image.”77 Using the following six accessible and representative advertising examples, the thesis argues that Buddha images are represented as a non-religious symbol, a concept signifying lifestyles and cultural identities, and to further unfold new interpretations in regard to uses of cultural heritage in the context of European cultural diversity.
1.2.6 Research Structure
In order to answer the research question above, the thesis traces back to the academic debates on “authenticity” in heritage studies, and aims to identify that modern definition of “authenticity” has shifted away from the essence of materiality to a broader cultural concept.
Following the introduction chapter, chapter two will illustrate contextualization of the whole research, starting from a close-up investigation into different understandings of cultural heritage in different cultural contexts and discourses, and discussing how western perception of Buddhism and Buddha images diverge from the traditional Buddhist one. Chapter three will give a general introduction to research methods and theories applied to analyze visual representations of Buddha images in the selected samples of European advertisings. This chapter will also explain the criteria to select the samples as well as the multi-modality strategy to generalize patterns and features as well as interpret meanings of the sampled visual images. The following part
76 Sonja K. Foss, “Theory of Visual Rhetoric,” accessed April 20, 2016, http://ieas.unideb.hu/admin/file_5913.pdf.
Chapter 2. Contextualization of Research 2.1 Cultural Heritage and Uses of Heritage
Although cultural heritage has been simultaneously a hot issue for academic debates and policy-making in the cultural sphere, there is an interesting gap “between the academic and the everyday, i.e. the nonacademic understanding of the concept of heritage.”78 Indeed, when we think of cultural heritage, the very first image on our mind might be inheritance of the past legacy in relation with the site and artifact. But what does cultural heritage do with the contemporary pop culture? The answer may be much more vague to us.
2.1.1Definition of Cultural Heritage
According to the definition of “cultural heritage” by UNESCO, cultural heritage encompasses different categories including tangible cultural heritage and intangible cultural heritage:
o Tangible cultural heritage:
§ movable cultural heritage (paintings, sculptures, coins,
manuscripts)
§ immovable cultural heritage (monuments, archaeological sites, and
so on)
§ underwater cultural heritage (shipwrecks, underwater ruins and cities)
o Intangible cultural heritage: oral traditions, performing arts, rituals o Natural heritage: natural sites with cultural aspects such as cultural
landscapes, physical, biological or geological formations
78 Johan Josefsson et al., “Heritage as Life-Values: A Study of the Cultural Heritage Concept,” Current
o Heritage in the event of armed conflict79
Meanwhile, UNESCO illustrates that cultural heritage has a strong connection with the past legacy by defining “cultural heritage is the legacy of physical science artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations.” 80 Similar understandings of cultural heritage could be found in International Council on Monuments and Sites [ICOMOS] International Cultural
Tourism Charter, which states “cultural heritage is an expression of the ways of living
developed by a community and passed on from generation to generation, including customs, practices, places, objects, artistic expression and values.” 81
Since UNESCO and ICOMOS are regarded as the authorizing institutions of heritage in the West, these understandings above inevitably reflects a western definition of heritage: as Laurajane Smith in Uses of Heritage identifies, “a dominant form of discourse, and one that tends to privilege European, and more generally Western, assumptions about the meaning and nature of heritage.”82
Yet, in the age of globalization, people in the global village have been more and more eager to express their diversified identities, cultural heritage then becomes an agency for masses to trace back to their ancestors, traditions, and rituals, as well as to
79 UNESCO, “What is meant by ‘cultural heritage’?,” accessed January 10, 2017,
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/illicit-trafficking-of-cultural-property/unesco-database-of-national-cultural-heritage-laws/frequently-asked-questions/definition-of-the-cultural-heritage/.
80 UNESCO, “Tangible Cultural Heritage,” accessed January 10, 2017, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/cairo/culture/tangible-cultural-heritage/.
81 International Council on Monuments and Sites, ICOMOS International Cultural Tourism Charter (1999:21), accessed June 20, 2017, http://www.icomos.org/charters/tourism_e.pdf.
highlight their uniqueness and significances in this single “world-system” 83. Consequently, contemporary understandings of cultural heritage concern more about cultural identities. In this point of view, cultural heritage could be identified as “an expression of diversity and community identity.”84 Departing from a contemporary perspective, Smith confirms this point of view by further explaining that heritage “is most usefully perceived as a cultural process about meaning making,”85 and “a discourse”86:
The idea of heritage is used to construct, reconstruct and negotiate a range of identities and social and cultural values and meanings in the present. Heritage is about using the past, and collective or individual memories, to negotiate new ways of being and expressing identity. In this process heritage objects, sites, places or institutions like museums become cultural tools or props to facilitate this process.87
2.1.2Western Authorized Heritage
One of the crucial arguments Smith makes is the existence of the authorized heritage discourse [AHD] “in constituting and legitimizing what heritage is.”88 Generally, this discourse includes the national and international conventions and charters in the heritage field, including Venice Charter, World Heritage Convention, and Burra Charter89. However, even though UNESCO and ICOMOS are regarded as
83 Lewis Holloway and Phil Hubbard, People and Place the extraordinary geographies of everyday life (New York: Routledge, 2013), 16.
84 International Council on Monuments and Sites, ICOMOS International Cultural Tourism Charter (1999:21), accessed June 20, 2017, http://www.icomos.org/charters/tourism_e.pdf.
85 Laurajane Smith, Uses of Heritage (Oxon: Routledge, 2006), 87. 86 Ibid., 4.
87 Laurajane Smith, Uses of Heritage (Oxon: Routledge, 2006), 4. 88 Ibid., 29.
the dominant authorizing institutions of heritage90,one should be aware that the idea of heritage is somehow a western construct based on “a certain set of western elite cultural values as being universally applicable”91. The key argument within AHD that Smith raises is that the idea of heritage emphasizes “the material basis of heritage”92 and “bounded-ness”93. According to her, western authorized heritage discourse overstresses the nature of physicality, but ignores the fact that heritage is also a cultural and social process:
The traditional Western account of ‘heritage’ tends to emphasize the material basis of heritage, and attributes an inherent cultural value or significance to these things. Furthermore, the sense of gravitas given to these values is also often directly linked to the age, monumentality and/or aesthetics of a place. The physicality of the Western idea of heritage means that ‘heritage’ can be mapped, studied, managed, preserved and/or conserved, and its protection may be the subject of national legislation and international agreements, conventions and charters. However, heritage is heritage because it is subjected to the subjected to the management and preservation/conservation process, it is itself a constitutive cultural process that identifies those things and places that can be given meaning and values as ‘heritage’, reflecting contemporary cultural and social values, debates and aspirations.94
Importantly, western authorization of heritage also works to naturalize the “popular gaze”95 based on dominant western aesthetics, which means, heritage is traditionally valued by its “age, monumentality and/or aesthetics of a place.”96
90 Laurajane Smith, Uses of Heritage (Oxon: Routledge, 2006), 87. 91 Ibid.,11.
92 Ibid., 3. 93 Ibid., 31.
94 Laurajane Smith, Uses of Heritage (Oxon: Routledge, 2006), 3. 95 Ibid., 31.
However, this value system has its limitation, because it excludes those heritage sites and objects that do not meet the western sense of time and beauty.
One controversial example is the Japanese way of maintaining and rebuilding wooden temples periodically: Kasuga Taisha (grand shrine) renews and rebuilds the temple’s infrastructure every 20 years, calling it a religious purification ritual known as “Shikinen Zotai”97. Scholarship debating on this case has triggered an official acknowledge by UNESCO in the Nara Conference 1994, confirming that “authenticity has different connotations, and varies with (in) every country and every cultural contexts.”98 Another example could be found in contemporary uses of bronze drums in Southeast Asia: for many bronze drums users, value of bronze drums does not lie in how old they are, or how precious material they are made of, but valued by the history and meaning behind them99. Still, although the western value-based authorized heritage discourse is changing, broadening, and developing, the loophole within the discourse is evident: “there is nonetheless a particular focus and emphasis-primary the attention it gives to ‘things’.”100
2.1.3 Non-western Heritage Discourse
Importantly, another crucial point Smith identifies is “cultural differences between how indigenous peoples and adherents to the Western AHD view indigenous heritage.”101 In other words, there exists a non-western heritage discourse, or so to say,
97 “Nara’s Kasuga Taisha relays over 1,300 years of history,” accessed March 25, 2017, https://intojapanwaraku.com/EN/culture/20161012/4320/p2.
98 “The NARA Document on Authenticity(1994)”, accessed December 10, 2016, http://www.icomos.org/charters/nara-e.pdf.
99 Yujia Wang, Southeast Asia Fieldwork notes, 2016.
an indigenous point of view. It is tricky with the idea of cultural heritage, especially in the conservation field, western standard cannot “be premised upon seemingly universal, but must reflect in the first place the cultural values and religious beliefs of the community for whom heritage is preserved.”102 For the western-centric or authorized heritage discourse, the idea of heritage is “something that must be actively conserved,”103 and “the items left in the landscape and apparently ‘abandoned’ must come under the stewardship and care of heritage professionals.”104 But in real settings with cultural differences, it is not always considered as a necessity, because “the decay and eventual destruction of some heritage items serves a cultural purpose.”105 As Anna Karlström emphasizes, there is a baseline for understanding cultural heritage: “the different worldviews one encounters and accept that western frames of reference cannot and should not be used unswervingly for other realities, other worldviews.”106
When I was doing fieldwork with Dr. Anna Karlström in the area of Southeast Asia, we found that the western conservation ethics sometimes might not fit the local context: for instance in Vietnam, bronze drums are considered to be holy with spirits. It is said that people are afraid of bronze drums’ spirits. Therefore, after bronze drums were excavated, they would make small holes to release the spirits.107 Another similar example is that there are traditions in Laos that some bronze-drum users would bury the
102 Maurizio Peleggi, “The unbearable impermanence of things: reflections on Buddhism, cultural memory and heritage conservation,” in Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia,ed, T.Winter and P. Daly(London: Routledge, 2012), 55.
103 Laurajane Smith, Uses of Heritage (Oxon: Routledge, 2006), 286. 104 Ibid.
105 Laurajane Smith, Uses of Heritage (Oxon: Routledge, 2006), 286.
106 Anna Karlström, “Authenticity Rhetorics of Preservation and the Experience of the Original,” in
Heritage Keywords Rhetoric and Redescription in Cultural Heritage ,ed, Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels and
“cursed” drums underground, in the aim of spiritual rituals and worships. Moreover, in a Buddhist context, Anna Karlström gives an example of destruction of old sim (ordination hall) in Ou Mong of Vientiane108: “the ancient sim had to be destroyed so that a new temple, which was under construction, could be empowered and made ready to use.” 109
Drawn from these examples, we may have a glimpse of the existence of the indigenous discourse in the field of heritage studies. However, the indigenous point of view may only represent a single aspect of the non-western discourse to challenge the old concept of heritage dominated by the western values. Still, there is a wider perspective in regard to internationalization and multiculturalism in the contemporary world.
According to “2012 Manifesto” for Association of Critical Heritage Studies, this wider perspective calls for “taking seriously diverse non-Western cultural heritage traditions.”110 Vitally, the non-western heritage discourse urges a revolutionary shift from the elite narratives to “embracing the heritage insights of people, communities and cultures that have traditionally been marginalized in formulating heritage policy.”111 Anna Karlström in her PhD thesis implies a similar position, advocating contemporary heritage studies to expand towards a more multi-cultural, humanistic, and contemporary horizon:
108 Anna Karlström, “Authenticity Rhetorics of Preservation and the Experience of the Original,” in
Heritage Keywords Rhetoric and Redescription in Cultural Heritage ,ed, Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels and
Trinidad Rico (Colorado:Univerisity Press of Colorado, 2015), 32. 109 Ibid.
110 Association of Critical Heritage Studies, “2012 Manifesto,” accessed July 25, 2017, http://www.criticalheritagestudies.org/history/.
Contemporary concepts of heritage represent inverted notions of heritage where de-contextualisation and deconstruction lead to reconceptualisation and reconstruction of the same heritage owing to a demand for multiculturalism (Butler 2006:469). It is moving from the grand elite towards the vernacular and everyday, from the remote towards the recent, and from the material towards the intangible (Lowenthal 1998:14). There is now a multitude of approaches to heritage, of which some focus on memory and identity. The ideal, as urged by some scholars, would be a shift within heritage studies from a historical to a ‘humanistic’ perspective (Rowlands 2006:444).112
With the non-western discourse challenging the western authorized heritage discourse, more and more voices emerge to question the hegemonic dominance stressed on “ the idea of material authenticity”113. Consequently, there is a tendency in the field of heritage studies to re-define heritage as a cultural process, which engages with “a set of values and meanings, including such elements as emotions, memory and cultural knowledge and experiences.”114
2.1.4 Cultural Heritage Research Problems
From the discussions above, we can identify different heritage discourses in a certain context of cultural differences, thus rethink the new roles and definitions of heritage in the contemporary society. In accordance with rapid social changes and technical innovations, the current heritage research focus on issues at present, and also how it correlates with “contemporary phenomena as well as future challenges”115. According to “Node Research Cultural Heritage” from Uppsala University, the two recent areas of
112 Anna Karlström, “Preserving Impermanence the Creation of Heritage in Vientiane, Laos,”(PhD Dissertation, Uppsala Univeristy, 2009), 192.
113 Laurajane Smith, Uses of Heritage (Oxon: Routledge, 2006), 5. 114 Ibid., 54.
research include “production of cultural heritage, including uses of heritage, heritage politics, uses of history”116; and “management and development of cultural heritage values”117. The production of cultural heritage “deals with issues of how cultural heritage is negotiated by way of processes of selection, identification and use.”118 Consequently, use of cultural heritage has become a highlight in heritage studies. Malpas also confirms the necessity to reconsider use of cultural heritage: “the use of digital technology today raises questions that are situated at the convergence of the arts, technologies, and social-cultural institutions, challenging traditional notions of how cultural heritage can and should be represented, interpreted and disseminated.”119 Additionally, Smith points out the existence of another range of popular discourses for heritage studies. These discourses generate the idea of heritage through pop culture. In particular, these discourses drift away from the professional discourse, and some discourse “may also challenge, either actively or simply through their existence.”120 Therefore, modern practices of heritage have gone far beyond “conservation, tourism and museums and site visitation”121. In this way, we can foresee a new interdisciplinary subfield offering the opportunity to redefine the idea of heritage through contemporary representations in pop culture. How is cultural heritage used and represented in people’s daily lives? This is exactly what the thesis explores through analyzing visual
116 The Faculty of Arts of Uppsala University, “ Research Node Cultural Heritage,” accessed January 20, 2017, http://www.histfilfak.uu.se/culturalheritage/.
117 Ibid.
118 The Faculty of Arts of Uppsala University, “ Research Node Cultural Heritage,” accessed January 20, 2017, http://www.histfilfak.uu.se/culturalheritage/.
119 Jeff Malpas, “Cultural Heritage in the Age of New Media”, in New Heritage: New Media and
Cultural Heritage (London: Routledge, 2008), 15.
representations of Buddha and Buddha images in European commercials. Since the thesis departs from the perspective of heritage studies, it is essential to justify Buddhism and Buddhist culture as a part of cultural heritage, which I will discuss further in the next section.
2.2 Buddhism as Cultural Heritage
With the fame of 2500 years long history, it is no surprise that Buddhism has long been considered as a part of cultural heritage, both in tangible and intangible categories. The main venues for Buddhist teaching and Buddhist practices such as Buddhist temples and monasteries are seen as sacred places, not only because of their religious functions, but also because of their cultural roles in the community: “appearances of temples, and the cultural activities associated with temples, in different parts of the world have exhibited great diversity, reflecting different local and regional cultural styles, different historical development, and the tastes of different eras of history.”122 There are many Buddhist heritage sites listed as the World Heritage by UNESCO, for instance in Southeast Asia, there are famous Angkor in Cambodia, Borobudur Temple Compounds in Indonesia, Ayutthaya in Thailand, Luang Prabang in Laos etc123. Alongside with Buddhist temples, Buddhist works of arts and manuscripts are also valued as a precious part of cultural heritage.
As discussed earlier, cultural heritage can be seen a process of collective memory and remembering. Theoretically, Buddhism may be understood as a part of
122 UNESCO, “Promotion, Protection and Preservation of Buddhist Culture and Heritage,” accessed January 21, 2017, http://whc.unesco.org/en/events/1202/.
123 Rachael Rowe, “Buddhist Heritage Sites in Southeast Asia protected by UNESCO,” 3 August, 2014, accessed January 21, 2017,
cultural heritage, not only because “Asia’s religiosity and its attendant visual and material cultures”124, but also “the social memory of local, regional and transnational communities of faith”125. According to Peleggi, Buddhist physical sites such as temples, monasteries and shrines are seen as “the forci of customary practices or ‘traditions’ associated in turn with the memory of events (both real and mythical),”126 which “anchor a community’s identity in space and make possible its perpetuation across time.”127 In this sense, Buddhist sites, along with Buddhist rituals, objects and manuscripts may function as a carrier to represent cultural memory and cultural identity. 2.3 Diffusion of Buddhism in Europe
2.3.1 A Historical Lens
According to Martin Baumann, a professor in Buddhist studies and anthropology, the Buddhist encounter with Europe can be traced back to the mid-nineteenth century.128 Before, records about Buddhist concepts and culture transferred to Europe were relatively not systematic129.
Due to limited texts and descriptions about Buddhism, European earliest understanding of Buddhism was more or less fragmentary as “the beliefs of the
124 Maurizio Peleggi, “The unbearable impermanence of things: reflections on Buddhism, cultural memory and heritage conservation,” in Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia,ed, T.Winter and P. Daly(London: Routledge, 2012), 56.
125 Maurizio Peleggi, “The unbearable impermanence of things: reflections on Buddhism, cultural memory and heritage conservation,” in Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia,ed, T.Winter and P. Daly(London: Routledge, 2012), 56.
126 Ibid. 127 Ibid.
128 Martin Baumann, “Buddhism in Europe,” in Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia, ed, Charles S. Prebish and Martin Baumann(London: University of California Press, 2002), 86.
‘Hindoos’”130. Only after 1850s, European intellectuals started to gain an increasing interest towards Buddhism through “a boom of translations, studies, and portrayals”131. However, Buddhism in Europe had been mainly treated “as a textual object, being located in books, oriental libraries, and institutes of the West,”132 but not as “a lived tradition”133.
It was until the late 1990s under the context of “colonialism, Western ideas, and missionary Christianity”134, Buddhism started to spread as a global religion. Donald Lopez uses the term “Modern Buddhism” to describe European version of Buddhism with new developments. He claims that “Modern Buddhism” came into being “as a response to the colonization of Asia and the consequent encounters between Buddhism traditions and European discourses of the time.”135 Buddhism in a European context therefore is somehow reinvented, in the need to spread as a global religion “equal to Christianity, as well as philosophical system compatible with European ideas of science and rationalism.”136 Consequently, European interpretations of Buddhism were marked with the label of rationality and spirituality.
130 Martin Baumann, “Buddhism in Europe,” in Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia, ed, Charles S. Prebish and Martin Baumann(London: University of California Press, 2002), 87.
131 Ibid.,86.
132 Martin Baumann, “Buddhism in Europe,” in Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia, ed, Charles S. Prebish and Martin Baumann(London: University of California Press, 2002), 87.
133 Ibid., 86. 134 Ibid., 86.
135 Donald S. Lopez, Modern Buddhism: Readings for the Unenlightened (London: Penguin Books, 2002), xiii.
2.3.2 Buddha Images: European Perception vs. Buddhist Perception
Traditionally for Buddhists, Buddha images must be treated with high respect because they are “correlative signs of the Buddha’s presence”137. Most importantly, Buddha images serve as mediums138 for its followers to “gain merit and tangible benefits through constantly performing material acts that are part of public worship and ritual.”139 Thus, Buddhist uses of Buddha images are mainly for icon worships.
From Buddhist perspective, the Knowing Buddha Organization has given an introduction to explain the importance of Buddha images and why Buddha images should be treated appropriately. Generally, to many Buddhists, Buddha images are more than a portrait but a reminder of “his compassion, kindness and his teachings and feel the highest regard for him”140:
When Buddha was still alive he never asked his followers to make statues or worship him in images. Instead he taught us to not have any attachment to anything - not even himself. Buddha said that the best way to worship him was to follow his teachings.141
Evident in this explanation is that Buddha images as a reminder are attributed with spiritual values and spiritual power. According to Anna Karlström, Buddha images in the contemporary context are no longer simply for worshiping, but serving for
137 Maurizio Peleggi, “The unbearable impermanence of things: reflections on Buddhism, cultural memory and heritage conservation,” in Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia, ed, T.Winter and P. Daly(London: Routledge, 2012), 35.
138 Anna Karlström, “Authenticity Rhetorics of Preservation and the Experience of the Original,” in
Heritage Keywords Rhetoric and Redescription in Cultural Heritage ,ed, Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels and
Trinidad Rico (Colorado:Univerisity Press of Colorado, 2015), 34.
139 John Cli Holt, Spirits of the Place: Buddhism and Lao Religious Culture(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2009).
140 Knowing Buddha Organization, “Dos and Don’ts on Buddha,” accessed December 10, 2016, http://www.knowingbuddha.org/.
“concentration, aiming for inspiration to find the right way.”142 In this sense, modern accounts of Buddha images may highlight spirituality more than materiality. Thus, to some degree, Buddha images have become “storage places for the spiritual values”143 and the authenticity concerns more about “to what extent the object is empowered.”144
Comparatively, under the European gaze, Buddha images are viewed in a more casual way, and the phenomenon of branding Buddha for commercial use is a common place, even Buddha images are often reproduced and recreated to fit European sense of aesthetic appreciation. Consequently, there seems to be an increasing gap between Buddhist perception of Buddha images and European one. In result, the tension has been growing within these two different perspectives, leading to controversial voices on uses of Buddha images in pop culture.
2.3. 3 Commodification of Buddhism in Europe
In the commercial market, Buddha images and Buddha statues appear everywhere in films, books, art, magazines and advertisings. Yet, as Jørn Borup observes, in many cases Buddhism is depicted not as a religion145in this trend. Using Buddhism and Buddha images non-religiously are fairly common to Europeans. They buy Buddha necklaces without knowing religious meanings, and they decorate their homes with Buddha heads just for seek of good taste and design. Therefore, it should be noted that contemporary use of Buddha images in commercial world has gradually
142 Anna Karlström, “Preserving Impermanence the Creation of Heritage in Vientiane, Laos,”(PhD Dissertation, Uppsala Univeristy, 2009), 149-150.
143 Ibid., 150. 144 Ibid., 150.
145 Jørn Borup, “Branding Buddha- Mediatized and Commodified Buddhism as Cultural Narrative,”
Journal of Global Buddhism Vol. 17 (2016), accessed March 20, 2017,
moved away from the religious realm, and Buddha images are likely to be marketed like other commodities in the aim of selling and promoting products.
But the key question is, how come Europeans are so fond of consuming Buddhism in pop culture? In addition to Europeans’ fantasy for the exotic East, popular reception of Buddhism and Buddha images may result from the shift to the experience economy. As James H. Gilmore argues, the experience economy stresses on “what consumers want today are experiences-memorable events that engage them in an inherently personal way.”146 In accordance to experience economy, Gilmore gives five genres for modern rendering of authenticity: “Natural authenticity; original authenticity; exceptional authenticity, referential authenticity, and influential authenticity”147. In result, in order to understand uses of Buddha images in modern advertisings, the changing perceptions on authenticity should be further explored.
2.4. Literature Review 2.4.1Authenticity in Transit
Cultural heritage in the modern era has been in transit with the change of time. Classic understandings and uses of cultural heritage have a strong connection with the concept of originality and materiality, which is a Romanticist idea dated back to the 18th century. Walter Benjamin in the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction uses “aura”148 of the artwork to emphasize the physical presence, and
146 James H. Gilmore 1959 and B. Joseph Pine, Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007), 1.
147 Ibid., 49-50.
