FROGGIE BOTTOMS
Coda
1000s of frogs
hop up from the stream
They’re filling the halls!
They’re taking over the temple!
Gray monks cry
Green ones croak
The Emerald Buddha
smiles upon us
from a lotus throne
on a lily pad floor
We bow to our Buddy,
and shout, “Freddie the Frog!”
We join the Frog Chorus
and chant the frog Sutras
In the public bath,
giant frogs open mouths
& pour hot, green tea
on the people
They squirm and
stroke about in glee
We soak human bodies
in frog love
& steam them
with frog joy
We leave them
in frog peace
Afterward,
our humans
hop home
Happy for once,
they catch flies
and croak
--Ed Baker
The Emerald Buddha (Phra Kaeo Morakot) is a jade statue clothed in gold. It measures about 26 inches (66 cm) and is housed in the Wat Phra Kaew on the grounds of the Grand Palace in Bangkok. In 43 BCE Indra and Vishnu visited Nagasena, a monk in Asoka’s capital Padalibutra (near modern Patna, Bihar) to aid his preaching. He was a Sarvastivadan sage born in Kashmir who had become enlightened under the guidance of Dharmarakshita, a “Yona” (Greek) missionary sent by the Mauryan emperor to proselytize in northwestern India; Sarvastivada was an early Buddhist school that held to the existence of all dharmas (cosmic laws of existence) in the “three times” (past, present and future). Nagasena requested an image of the Buddha that would last forever. The two gods then traveled to Mt. Velu, which demons guarded on behalf of Ishvara (whose name meant, variously, supreme soul, ruler, husband, king, or queen). The demons allowed them to take a luminous piece of jade. After delivering the stone to Nagasena, Vishnu sculpted it into the likeness of Buddha which became known as the Emerald Buddha. During a later civil war the ruler of Padalibutra sent the Emerald Buddha to Lankadivpa for safekeeping, where it remained for two centuries, causing the religion to flourish there. (Since the statue employs the virasana position common among Sri Lankan images, it may actually have originated there.) Anuruddha sent monks from Pagan (in modern Myanmar) under Silakhanda (possibly the Mon monk Shin Arakan who helped king Anawratha establish Theravada Buddhism among the Burmese, though the chronology is off by some 600 years) to Lanka to obtain the “pure” Tripitaka texts (the Buddhist scriptures) and the statue in order to promote the spread of Buddhism, but their ships were blown off course and went to Angkor instead. When king Indrapatha refused to return the Buddhist treasures to Pagan, Anuruddha flew to Angkor to recover them, but, though he retrieved the (the Buddhist scriptures), he left the Emerald Buddha behind. During the reign of Angkor’s last king, Senaraja, a great naga (snake) caused a storm and flood that destroyed the city, but a monk took the image north to keep it safe. (Senaraja may have been another name for the Khmer king Dharmasoka who died during the 1431 Thai siege of Angkor while the city was ravaged by bubonic plague although again the chronology makes no sense.) Boran (or Atitaraj) of Ayutthaya then took possession of the statue and presented it to the king of Kamphaeng Phet, who then gave it to Phromma That, the king of Chieng Rai in Lanna; later king Sen Muang Ma hid it behind stucco in a temple in his city, where it was rediscovered in 1434 or 1436 when a bolt of lightning struck the temple. (Due to its similarity to the 15th-century Chiang Saen artistic style, some scholars assume it was of Lanna origin.) It was moved to Lampang but king Tiloka returned it to Chiang Mai in 1468. In the 16th century the king of Lanna died without a son, and the throne passed to Setthathirath, the son of the late king’s daughter, but when his father Photisarath died Setthathirath succeeded him as the king of Lan Xang (Laos) and took the statue with him to Luang Prabang and then, in 1564, to his new capital at Vientiane. In 1779 the Mon general Thongduang (Chao Phraya Chakri) sacked Vientiane and took the statue to Thonburi, the new Thai capital. When king Taksin was deposed by rebels the general seized power in 1782 as Rama I and moved his capital to Rattanakosin (Bangkok). In 1784 he completed his new palace and moved the Emerald Buddha to its present location.
ReplyDelete