432
The comparison of the Sakyamuni’s revelatory prelude to his engagement with
the world with that of the roles in Judeo-Christian traditions of paradise, the Christ
passion, and the many compassion myths expressed in the arts, enriches the universal language that is the Shussan Shaka.
By way of another comparison, Amanda K. Herrin describes how “The arrival of
the Sadeler family in Munich in 1587 transformed the Bavarian court into a center
of printmaking in Europe.” An odd juxtaposition, one assumes, at first. But those
prints, the first etchings and engravings for mass distribution, would incessantly
point to the iconography of ascetic retreat, and subsequent engagement with other
species in replicas of paradise throughout Europe and, by implication, the invocation of a real geography of such paradises. Herrin refers to Jan and his brother
Raphael I Sadeler, and their nephews, the prodigious Aegidius II and Raphaell
II. As for one of their long-time collaborators, the Antwerp artist/print designer
Maarten de Vos (1532–1603), the famed Friedrich Wilhelm Hollstein (1888–1957)
attributes at least “1598 engravings” to him. Between the Sadelers and de Vos, well
over 100 monks, saints, and ascetics in their respective landscapes of retreat (including trees and caves) would be disseminated throughout Europe, as the Sakyamuni in
his wilderness would become the lingua franca of Asiatic enlightenment tales,
9
and
preconfigured centuries before by Marco Polo’s widely disseminated adventures
along the Silk Routes (Fig. 47.2).
47.3 Interpretations of the Enlightened Self
As interpretations of that enlightenment were enriched, a host of nuances enshrining philosophical deliberation, ritual and practice, matters of faith, were at stake.
Certainly, in Western literary tradition, the distinctive shift in certainty can be discerned in different translations of the Old and New Testament; differing attributions,
naming of species, life in paradise once lost; and life on the other side. Yes, paradise
may be regained, but the vast majority of those portraitures and allusions pertain to
a life after “sin.” In populist Ch’an thinking and expression, there were equally
troubling contradictions. For example, there is the seemingly antithetical motif of
an enlightened monk catching (and presumably killing) a shrimp. Writes Ann
9 See Hollstein’s Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700, vols. 44–46
(Rotterdam: 1996) as described in Amanda K. Herrin’s “Pioneers of the Printed Paradise: Maarten
de Vos, Jan Sadeler I and Emblematic Natural History in the Late Sixteenth Century,” in Zoology
in Early Modern Culture: Instersections of Science, Theology, Philology, and Political and
Religious Education, Chapter 9, pp. 329–400, Brill, Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2014, DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004279179_011, https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004279179/
B9789004279179_011.xml, Accessed May 1, 2020. Series: Intersections, Volume: 32, Editors:
Karl A. E. Enenkel and Paul J. Smith. See also Hollstein’s Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings
and Woodcuts 1450–1700, vols. 21–22, Aegidius Sadeler To Raphael Sadeler II, Text Compiled by
Dieuwke De Hoop Scheffer, Edited by K. G. Boon, Van Gendt & Co., Amsterdam, 1980. See also,
https://www.hollstein.com/dutch-en-flemish.html, Accessed June 15, 2020.
47 Sakya Coming Out of His Mountain Retreat
The comparison of the Sakyamuni’s revelatory prelude to his engagement with
the world with that of the roles in Judeo-Christian traditions of paradise, the Christ
passion, and the many compassion myths expressed in the arts, enriches the universal language that is the Shussan Shaka.
By way of another comparison, Amanda K. Herrin describes how “The arrival of
the Sadeler family in Munich in 1587 transformed the Bavarian court into a center
of printmaking in Europe.” An odd juxtaposition, one assumes, at first. But those
prints, the first etchings and engravings for mass distribution, would incessantly
point to the iconography of ascetic retreat, and subsequent engagement with other
species in replicas of paradise throughout Europe and, by implication, the invocation of a real geography of such paradises. Herrin refers to Jan and his brother
Raphael I Sadeler, and their nephews, the prodigious Aegidius II and Raphaell
II. As for one of their long-time collaborators, the Antwerp artist/print designer
Maarten de Vos (1532–1603), the famed Friedrich Wilhelm Hollstein (1888–1957)
attributes at least “1598 engravings” to him. Between the Sadelers and de Vos, well
over 100 monks, saints, and ascetics in their respective landscapes of retreat (including trees and caves) would be disseminated throughout Europe, as the Sakyamuni in
his wilderness would become the lingua franca of Asiatic enlightenment tales,
9
and
preconfigured centuries before by Marco Polo’s widely disseminated adventures
along the Silk Routes (Fig. 47.2).
47.3 Interpretations of the Enlightened Self
As interpretations of that enlightenment were enriched, a host of nuances enshrining philosophical deliberation, ritual and practice, matters of faith, were at stake.
Certainly, in Western literary tradition, the distinctive shift in certainty can be discerned in different translations of the Old and New Testament; differing attributions,
naming of species, life in paradise once lost; and life on the other side. Yes, paradise
may be regained, but the vast majority of those portraitures and allusions pertain to
a life after “sin.” In populist Ch’an thinking and expression, there were equally
troubling contradictions. For example, there is the seemingly antithetical motif of
an enlightened monk catching (and presumably killing) a shrimp. Writes Ann
9 See Hollstein’s Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700, vols. 44–46
(Rotterdam: 1996) as described in Amanda K. Herrin’s “Pioneers of the Printed Paradise: Maarten
de Vos, Jan Sadeler I and Emblematic Natural History in the Late Sixteenth Century,” in Zoology
in Early Modern Culture: Instersections of Science, Theology, Philology, and Political and
Religious Education, Chapter 9, pp. 329–400, Brill, Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2014, DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004279179_011, https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004279179/
B9789004279179_011.xml, Accessed May 1, 2020. Series: Intersections, Volume: 32, Editors:
Karl A. E. Enenkel and Paul J. Smith. See also Hollstein’s Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings
and Woodcuts 1450–1700, vols. 21–22, Aegidius Sadeler To Raphael Sadeler II, Text Compiled by
Dieuwke De Hoop Scheffer, Edited by K. G. Boon, Van Gendt & Co., Amsterdam, 1980. See also,
https://www.hollstein.com/dutch-en-flemish.html, Accessed June 15, 2020.
47 Sakya Coming Out of His Mountain Retreat