[Buddha-l] Taoism and Lotus Sutra

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Eric,

The only thing this makes me think of is the portrayal of the sixteen
arhats (in Tibetan representations),  the eighteen arhats (lohan) in
Chinese and the sixteen arhats (rakan) in Japanese representations. I
have always loved those representations of unworldly arhats, but
thought them to be more Taoistish than Buddhist.I have once seen a
Tibetan painting of one them eating a rock, suggesting some sort of
rasayana.

But this would rather make a case of Buddhists making their saints
look like Taoists .... ?

Joy

On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 8:39 PM, Erik Hoogcarspel <jehms at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> / I visited the exhibition on Taoism in the Grand Palais in Paris today.
> It was very nice. I overheard a tourleader say that only when the Lotus
> Sūtra was introduced in China the Taoists realised their iconography
> couldn't compete with the Buddhist one and started to make up for it.
> This would explain the strong resemblance of many Taoist pictures of
> Saints with Buddhist pictures of bodhisattvas.
> Comments anyone?
>
> erik
> /
>
>
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