Reinventing the Wheel: Paintings of Rebirth in Medieval Buddhist Temples by Stephen F.TeiserReview by: Annette L. JulianoThe Art Bulletin, Vol. 91, No. 1 (Mar., 2009), pp. 111-113Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20619660 .

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REVIEWS: JULIANO ON TEISER III

Loeb Classical Library (London: W. Heine

mann; New York: Macmillan, 1914-26), vol. 6.

14. On the complexities of this over time, see Charles Brian Rose, "Bilingual Trojan Dress," in Mauerschau: Festschrift f?r Manfred Korfmann, ed. R?stern Asian, Stephan Blum, Gabriele Kastl et al. (Remshalden-Grunbach: B. A.

Greiner, 2002), 329-50.

15. Erwin R. Goodenough, "The Greek Garments on Jewish Heroes in the Dura Synagogue," in Biblical Motifs: Origins and Transformations, ed. Alexander Altmann (Cambridge, Mass.: Har vard University Press, 1966), 221-37. Eisner mentions and illustrates the roof tiles in "Ar

chaeologies and Agendas: Reflections on Late Ancient Jewish Art and Early Christian Art,"

Journal of Roman Studies 93 (2003): 119, pis. 9, 10.

16. For example, see Roger Beck, "The Mysteries of Mithras: A New Account of Their Genesis,"

Journal of Roman Studies 88 (1998): 115-28, who places the origins with the Commagenian entourage of the deposed but honored king Antiochus IV, resident in Rome and with close ties to Tiberius Claudius Balbillus, the

leading astrologer of the era.

17. Laura Troubridge, Memories and Reflections (London: William Heinemann, 1925), 44-45.

As noted in Valentine Cunningham, The Victo rians: An Anthology of Poetry and Poetics (Ox ford: Blackwell, 2000), 378, the poem's first

publication was in the 1925 Troubridge mem oir. Cunningham's "1872 or thereabouts" for the poem's composition, however, needs to be reconsidered, as the Grosvenor Gallery did not open until 1877, the same year when Laura (Gurney) Troubridge, who was born in

1865, would have been twelve years old.

18. Ruth Webb, "Ekphrasis Ancient and Modern: The Invention of a Genre," Word & Image 15, no. 1 (January-March 1999): 10. See also Leo

Spitzer, "The 'Ode on a Grecian Urn,' or Content vs. Metagrammar," Comparative Litera ture 7 (1955): 203-25.

19. Webb, ''Ekphrasis Ancient and Modern," 8, 11-15.

STEPHEN F. TEISER

Reinventing the Wheel: Paintings of Rebirth in Medieval Buddhist Temples Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006. 336 pp.; 14 color ills., 74 b/w.

$60.00

Among the most arresting images in the

Buddhist lexicon of symbols is the Bha

vachakra, or Wheel of Rebirth, also variously known as the Wheel of Existence, the

Wheel of Life, or the Wheel of Becoming.

Typically depicted in the clawed grasp of Yama, the all-seeing, three-eyed, fanged Lord of Death, who sports five skulls in his

hair, the wheel vividly portrays the six

realms or paths that sentient beings must

transmigrate until liberated by enlighten ment. The choice of a wheel or circle, a fig ure without beginning or end, captures visu

ally the interconnected and unending

processes of death and reincarnation. The

iconographic configuration of the Wheel of

Rebirth, with its Three Poisons, Six Paths, Twelve Conditions, and the Demon of Im

permanence, along with symbols of Nirvana

outside the circumference, presents a so

phisticated and succinct summation of the

fundamental and complex Buddhist beliefs

defining the nature of life and death.

Most commonly associated with Tibetan

Buddhist art, representations of the Wheel

of Rebirth, painted on the entrance walls of

temples or found on portable hanging scrolls, have survived across Asia in India, Central Asia, China, and Southeast Asia.

This extensive body of visual evidence be

gins with the earliest known image of the

wheel, a partially preserved wall painting from the second half of the fifth century in

the vestibule of Cave 17, one magnificent cave temple among many carved into the

cliffs at Ajanta in western India. Even today, the visual tradition of the wheel not only

persists but also retains considerable vitality in Asia and even in the West.

Stephen Teiser, professor of Buddhist

studies at Princeton University, reveals in

the preface of his book Reinventing the Wheel

that his own passion for this fascinating sub

ject probably lay in the mists of adoles

cence, when he first read Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim. The image of the Wheel of Re

birth recurs throughout the novel as a meta

phor for the meaning of life (p. ix). Over

the past decade, Teiser's widening and

deepening inquiry through his lectures,

seminars, and other writings evolved into

this extraordinary book-length study. Al

though most of the book is arranged chro

nologically, Teiser does not strive for a com

prehensive historical narrative of the

development of the Wheel of Rebirth within

the Buddhist religion. Rather, he employs a

strategy of the exemplary by assembling a

small group of select images, mainly wall

paintings in Buddhist temple sites in India,

Tibet, Central Asia, and China. Through the multidimensional analysis of each exam

ple, he unfolds seminal issues relevant to

our understanding of the Buddhist concept of death and rebirth and the pictorial mani

festations of that concept as it crosses Asia.

His probing narrative strives "to contribute

a new picture of Buddhism as well as to a

new picture of the meaning of pictures in

Buddhism" (p. xii).

Reinventing the Wheel has a preface and ten

chapters, well illustrated with black-and

white figures, color plates, maps, and tables.

The first two chapters provide a context for

the following seven chapters. Chapter 1,

"Picturing Life and Death as a Wheel," ex

plores the Buddhist concept of death and

rebirth, which stands in sharp contrast to

the scientific view that death is a unique event, marking a permanent ending. As

noted earlier, in the Buddhist religion, death is not a terminus and is followed by a

rebirth; death and rebirth are conceived as

an inseparable, endless continuum, a result

of the unenlightened life, or sams?ra. Teiser

then focuses on the "picturing" process, or

the visualization of this concept as a wheel

(sams?racakra). A systematic descriptive anal

ysis of several nineteenth- and twentieth

century Tibetan hanging painted scrolls

(thanghas) of the Wheel of Rebirth affords

insight into the parameters of the structure,

composition, and iconography of this pow erful visual metaphor. Fundamentally, all

display a large wheel held by the Lord of

Death; the outer rim is divided into twelve

sections (twelve causations) and the inner

space into five or six segments, each filled

with the Six Paths of rebirth based on

karma; the hub of the circle holds the

Three Poisons that keep humans tied to suf

fering. Outside the wheel are symbols such

as the Buddha offering release from the re

petitive cycle of suffering. At times, refer

ences to the promise or path of salvation

are incorporated within the wheel as well.

Although these Tibetan paintings of the

Wheel of Rebirth as well as images on tem

ple walls across Asia share the same basic

iconographic elements, different emphases and cultural sensibilities can and do yield considerable variations.1

Chapter 2, "The Canonical Version of the

Wheel of Rebirth," examines the standard

textual sources of the instructions for creat

ing the form and content of the wheel of

life and death, as they occur in the volumi

nous canon of the monastic discipline, or

vinaya, of one school of Indian Buddhism, M?lasarv?stiv?da. The Buddha's directive to

paint the Wheel of Rebirth is found only in

this vinaya, one of many in use across Asia

(p. 51). Originally written in Sanskrit, the

numerous texts of the M?lasarv?stiv?da were

translated into Chinese in the first quarter of the eighth century by the pilgrim and

monkYijing (635-713 CE), and the entire

vinaya was rendered into Tibetan in the

early ninth century. Teiser has translated

from the Chinese version the part of the

vinaya that includes the Buddha's explicit instructions detailing how to paint the

Wheel of Rebirth. The pertinent section

begins by describing the charismatic preach

ing of Maudgaly?yana, the greatest of the

Buddha's ten disciples, who traveled all the

paths to rebirth, visiting the realms of the

gods, the humans, the hungry ghosts, the

animals, and hells. The text emphasizes that

only by hearing the Buddha's teachings would followers be inspired to cultivate

good deeds and avoid evil paths, ultimately

gaining release. As the account continues,

Ananda, the Buddha's youngest disciple, relates that of all the Buddha's disciples, the

Great Maudgaly?yana was the best suited to

engage audiences about what happens to

people after death; however, the Buddha

observed that Maudgaly?yana could not al

ways be everywhere. Since at this time the

monks had not yet learned to paint a wheel

of death and rebirth, the Buddha not only

proceeded to command the monks to do so

"beneath the room or the gate of the tem

ple" (p. 55), but also offered detailed in

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H2 ART BULLETIN MARCH 2009 VOLUME XCI NUMBER 1

struction about the proportions and draw

ing of the wheel and the appropriate

iconographic content.

Issues and assumptions seminal to the

evolving field of Buddhist studies have been

woven throughout chapters 1 and 2. Per

haps one of the most influential shifts in

inquiry is the necessity of understanding the

relation between image and text (sutra). In

his recent book, Shaping the Lotus Sutra: Bud

dhist Visual Culture in Medieval China, Eu

gene Y. Wang demonstrates that images de

rived from the Lotus Sutra often differed

significantly.2 Logically, although Buddhist

imagery seemingly results from the transfer

of the textual world into pictorial media, art

is rarely, if ever, a direct translation of the

sutra. This perspective is broadened and

validated in Teiser's discussion of the imag

ery of the Wheel of Rebirth; he observes

that Buddhist ideas are "not essentially bound to textual embodiment" (p. 40). Ex

cept for the few monks learning the basics

of writing as part of their religious training, most people in premodern Asia found that

images or visual representations, very likely linked with oral teachings, were far more

crucial than the written word for transmit

ting Buddhist ideas.

From an art historical perspective, a meta

phoric or symbolic space exists between text

and image; the maker of the image, the art

ist, functions as the mediator translating from beliefs written or transmitted verbally to the visual. Teiser further probes the im

plications and complexities of this notion by

exploring how the metaphor of the wheel

was interpreted in different cultures and

shaped by cultural values and local social

and political issues as well as by hermeneuti

cal challenges. The transmission of Buddhist

precepts from India across Central Asia to

China was accomplished not by prepack

aged ideas contained in sutras but through a discursive practice, meaning that the

wheel was adapted, modified, or even rein

vented every time it was represented (p.

41). The creative process was itself part of

this dynamic of shaping the wheel as it trav

eled across Asia; as noted above, the Bud

dha instructed the monks in the form and

content of the wheel and the relevant text

was translated into Chinese and Tibetan.

The question still remains: Who actually

painted the images on temple walls or on

silk scrolls? Was this done by monk-artisans,

local artisans, or itinerant artisans super vised by local or itinerant monks and pa trons? The answer matters, as the individual

responsible could affect the outcome, con

tributing to the modifications or variants

that appear in each image of the wheel.

While chapter 4, "King Rudrayana's Paint

ing of the Twelve Conditions," underscores

that the wheel of sams?ra was one among

many vehicles to depict the teachings of re

incarnation and salvation, chapter 3 and

chapters 5 through 9 focus on cave temple

sites with images of the wheel. Teiser me

thodically hones in on each example, teas

ing out the shared similarities and, more

important, the differences and variants?

examining how the wheel has been shaped

by choices of inclusion or exclusion and by the ritual context. The six temple sites cho

sen, ranging in date from the fifth to the

thirteenth century, have stationary images that exist within the framework of the tem

ple plan; the placement of the wheel and

the subjects of the surviving contiguous

paintings suggest possible clues as to how

the wheel was used and how the viewers un

derstood the images. In contrast, the nu

merous and more portable hanging scroll

paintings of the wheel, especially those sur

viving from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and

twentieth centuries in Tibet and China, have virtually no context, leaving their in

tent and use open to speculation.

Chapter 3, "Temples and Legends," is de

voted to the earliest painting of the Wheel

of Rebirth in Cave 17 at Ajanta. The Ajanta caves follow one of two architectural mod

els, functioning as either a hall for worship

(chaitya) or, like Cave 17, a residence for

monks (vihara). The main pillared hall con

tains a shrine room located at the rear cen

ter and filled by a stone Buddha?the ritual

focus of the cave. The actual residences of

the monks, seventeen small square rooms,

have been carved out; fifteen of them line

three walls (the two side walls and the back

wall) of the main pillared hall, and one is

on each wall of the entrance porch. Located

outside the main hall, this badly deterio

rated painting of the wheel survives on the

left wall of the porch above the doorway to

one monk's cave.

Although generally consistent with the

basic structure of the Wheel of Rebirth de

scribed earlier, this painted configuration is

somewhat unusual: the space is divided into

eight segments rather than the canonical

number of five or often six. These eight seg ments, or paths, probably emanated from a

small central circle or hub; the outer border

is divided into seventeen rather than the

canonical twelve or eighteen. While review

ing the proposed interpretations of this

atypical configuration, Teiser systematically

synthesizes the existing contextualizing evi

dence and research, both literary and artis

tic, for the wheel and for Cave 17, including the surviving dedicatory inscription near the

entrance of Cave 17, the state of Indian

Buddhist religion from the mid-fourth to

the mid-sixth century, and his own as well as

other scholarly perspectives. This approach allows the reader to gain a deeper under

standing of the role of the wheel in the to

tality of the experience of Cave 17 and in

the larger world of early Buddhism in

northwestern India. At the same time, this

analysis again reinforces the importance and power of visual imagery and architec

ture in transmitting fundamental teachings

of the Buddhist religion. Cave temples like

Cave 17 in Ajanta re-create a spiritual jour ney, the position of the Wheel of Rebirth in

the veranda at the very front of the cave

reminding visitors of the perils and plea sures of life within the wheel of sams?ra.

The image of the wheel is prefatory, initiat

ing the journey, which then moves toward

release from this cycle, offered in the form

of the seated Buddha sculpture in the rear

shrine room at the back of the main hall.

Commissioned by a wealthy ruling family, Cave 17 was a vihara; both the resident

monks and the patron's family would have

had access to the painting and the cave.

Since there are so very few unequivocal clues about the religious practices of lay

people at this time, it is difficult to establish

what other viewers may have visited this

cave and the Ajanta site.

Chapters 6 through 9 repeat the same

systematic process, evaluating images of the

wheel in cave temple sites in China, Central

Asia, and Tibet. Each image of the wheel is

fully contextualized, like the proverbial peb ble thrown into water with ever enlarging circles rippling outward. This process allows

the distinctive character of each Wheel of

Rebirth to emerge while maintaining its

connection to the larger phenomenon of

the Buddhist religion captured at the height of its vitality in Asia. Teiser's analytical ap

proach is incisive and effective, bringing

together the cultural, historical, political, and textual environments for each site and

for the wheel, providing insight into the

possible origins of the iconographic variants

and their relation to the traditional canon.

Similar to those in Ajanta's Cave 75, the

paintings of the Wheel of Rebirth in Cave

19 at Yulin, Gansu Province, China (chapter

7), and in the main temple of Tabo, west

ern Tibet (chapter 8), share to some degree a prefatory function, placed as they are in

an antechamber to the main hall (p. 187).3 Both reflect the same goal of release from

sams?racakra; for the visitor, the antecham

ber serves as a transition, a "profane pre lude to the sacred realm of the main cham

ber" (p. 187), movement from the realm of

impurity (birth, life, and death) to the pure realm of the Buddha, paradise and tran

scendence. In the Esoteric Tibetan temple of Tabo, the wheel is anticipatory to the

square chamber of the main assembly hall

containing the deities of the three-dimen

sional mandala of the Diamond Realm; the

goal for the worshiper is to merge with the

primary deity of Vairocana at its center. The

Wheel of Rebirth prepares the believer for

the performance of this Tan trie ritual.

The two small Wheels of Rebirth in Cave

75 at Kumtura, a site near the oasis of

Kucha in Central Asia (chapter 6), were

painted on the side wall of a small one

room meditation cave with a relatively low

rounded ceiling near the entrance. The

main wall of this cave is dominated by a

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REVIEWS: KUMLER ON STAHL II3

larger-than-life-size painting of a monk,

wearing a Chinese-style robe, seated in med

itation; his hands hold a bowl from which

the Six Paths of Rebirth emanate. The re

maining side walls and ceiling are filled with

row upon row of meditating Buddhas,

bodhisattvas, as well as monks and donor

portraits, with their gaze intent on the cen

tral monk image. Unlike the previous caves

mentioned above, this one connects the

Wheel of Rebirth with monastic education

by emphasizing the centrality of meditation

and the importance for monks of practicing the six visualizations. Further, this cave en

shrines a once distinguished monk; as a

meditation cave, it would have remained

private, accessible only to the donors and

monks.

The last site discussed (in chapter 9) is the thirteenth-century pilgrimage destina

tion of Baodingshan in Sichuan, China. In

contrast to all the other sites included in

the book, this site and its twenty-five-foot

high stone relief carving of the Wheel of

Rebirth at the Dafowan Niche 3 stands in

the open in full view and completely accessi

ble to anyone. At the same time, this wheel

is situated close to the entrance of the com

plex, and it performs the role common to

the other locales by introducing the funda

mentals of Buddhist teachings. This striking

configuration shows a seated figure meditat

ing in the center hub of the wheel; from

the center of his chest emanate six ribbons

or rays that stretch beyond the wheel and

the Demon of Impermanence to the outer

edges of the niche; the six rays contain ten

bodhisattvas and twenty-seven Buddhas.

Conceptually, this configuration collapses the distinction between the cause and the

cessation of suffering, with the ribbons or

rays filled with Buddhas and bodhisattvas

offering the path to release.

In the final chapter, Teiser extracts as

well as amplifies several of the major the

matic threads that were explored through out the text, deepening our insight into the use and meaning of the Wheel of Rebirth in

the Buddhist religion. At the same time, this

last chapter proves both intellectually pro vocative and problematic. The brief pream ble organizes this concluding discussion

around his "bivalent" or broadened view of

discursive practice?a conventional view of

conceptualizing, involving talking or writing or picturing, and a social dimension involv

ing dialogue or negotiations between the

individual and the cultural context. Here, we find two perplexing generalizations. The

first: "Although all people eventually die, it

would be misleading to treat death as a uni

versal experience, a singular precultural touchstone that is then viewed differently in

a variety of pictures and words" (p. 239). There appears to be no distinction made

between the physical process of dying, the

cessation of breathing and the end of life, and the interpretation or understanding of

what is believed to happen after death. The

second: "Rather than reading images as sim

ple reflections of preexisting meaning, I ask

how images engender values" (p. 239). The

reverse is equally true?the proverbial chicken and egg conundrum. From an art

historical perspective, the relation between

values and images not only can be con

ceived as a linear process but also can be

considered simultaneous and inseparable. It

is neither possible nor accurate to say which

comes first. The images are the result of a

creative process that can be described as a

discursive dialogue between the artist and

the existing cultural context.

Teiser's subsequent analysis of the distinc

tive characteristics that the configuration and iconography of the circle or wheel

bring to the notion of life and death dem

onstrates the simultaneity of the process

merging the image and the values. Without

beginning or end, the wheel, with hub,

spokes, and inner and outer rims, manifests

the unending nature of sams?ra, structures

the hierarchical and iconographic relation

ships, and indicates paths to liberation

within or without.

A few comments about the organization of this generously illustrated book of color

plates, black-and-white illustrations, and

maps are merited. Nearly all the elements

or tools that make a book invaluable to re

searchers are here, including a Chinese

character glossary, bibliography, and index.

Lacking, however, is a complete list of

maps, tables, and illustrations. Although the

captions for each plate, figure, map, or ta

ble provide all the required information

about the source of the image that is repro

duced, without a complete list of illustra

tions, it is frustrating to try to relocate visual

materials in the book while reading through the text or afterward for later research or

reference. Otherwise, this is a beautifully

designed, produced, and printed book with

appropriately heavy coated stock that allows

complex images to be reproduced with ex

ceptional clarity. Without question, Teiser has an extraordi

nary command of the material; he offers a

rich, multilayered, multifaceted analysis that

benefits from careful reading and reread

ing. At times, though, the wealth of mate

rial, insights, and digressions threatens to

overwhelm the reader. It might have been

even more helpful had the conclusion not

only further amplified the analysis but also

reiterated his goals and more clearly articu

lated what in the end is meant by "a new

picture of Buddhism" (p. xii). His scrutiny of the changing visual and iconographic

configuration of the Wheel of Rebirth in

India, China, and Tibet effectively commu

nicates that the Buddhist religion was re

sponsive to and reshaped by discourse with

each culture's pictorial, literary, and social

context?a perspective not easily accessed

when text and image are evaluated sepa

rately. Overall, his methodological synthesis of visual and literary sources has signifi

cantly advanced the field of Buddhist stud

ies, bridging the divide between Buddhist

images and texts with a more productive collaborative and contextual analysis. This is

a very important book that will long remain

an enormously valuable resource to scholars

and students.

annette l. julian o is professor of Asian

art history, Rutgers University Newark

[Department of Visual and Performing Arts,

Rutgers University Newark, 110 Warren Street,

Bradley Hall, Newark, N.J. 07102].

Notes

1. For a description and discussion of Tibetan features incorporated into a standard scroll

painting (thangha) on cotton cloth of the Wheel of Existence, dating from the eigh teenth to the early nineteenth century, in the

Newark Museum, see Valrae Reynolds, Amy Heller, and Janet Gyatso, Catalogue of the New ark Museum, Tibetan Collection, vol. 3: Sculpture and Painting (Newark, N.J.: Newark Museum, 1986), 40, 195-96.

2. Eugene Y. Wang, Shaping the Lotus Sutra: Bud dhist Visual Culture in Medieval China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005).

3. As Teiser points out, there is an architectural

hypothesis that may explain why so few images of the wheel survive from the medieval period in China; it is likely that some of the stone caves at temple sites had wooden structures, now lost to decay, that served as antechambers where the images of the wheel may have been

painted (p. 187). Evidence of such lost wooden antechambers has been found in front of the

paired Caves 9 and 10 atYungang, Datong, Shanxi Province. See Annette L. Juliano, "New Discoveries at the Yungang Caves," in Chinese Traditional Architecture, ed. Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt (New York: China House Gallery, 1984), 84-89.

HARVEY STAHL

Picturing Kingship: History and Painting in the Psalter of Saint Louis

University Park: Pennsylvania State

University Press, 2008. 387 pp.; 99 color

ills., 79 b/w. $85.00

The Saint Louis Psalter (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, MS lat. 10525) is one

of the great monuments of Gothic art. A

book of Psalms provided with a calendar

and canticles, the manuscript is most fa

mous for its prefatory sequence of seventy

eight full-page miniatures. Arranged in dip

tychs of facing verso and recto, these

present a series of Old Testament episodes beneath an elaborate Gothic arcade and

elevation. Beginning with the sacrifices of

Cain and Abel and terminating in Saul's

election as king of Israel, the Psalter's Old

Testament scenes have attracted consider

able attention, but significantly less sus

tained interpretation. The posthumous publication of Harvey

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