The locus of beauty in Theravada Buddhism
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Abstract
The purposes of this research are; 1) to study the classification and the relational models’ concept of “beauty” in Theravada Buddhism and 2) to study the perspectives of Theravada Buddhism on the aesthetic problem with “The locus of beauty.” The initial findings revealed that that “beauty” in Theravada Buddhism can be divided into 2 categories; “worldly beauty” and “Dhammic beauty.” Moreover, the two categories also have complicated relationship in both positive and negative ways. In the next stage of the analysis, the conceptual framework has been formulated by adopting the two concepts of beauty. The result illustrated as follows: the interpretation of the concept, “the locus of beauty”, by adopting duality perspectives as, “worldly beauty is subjective” and “Dhammic beauty is objective”, involves some problematic issues, which cannot explain through the relationship of both categories of beauty properly. For this reason, then, the researcher proposes another way of interpretation, “Emergent Theory”, which can be used to explain the complicated relationship of both categories of beauty interpreted more appropriately as followed. In the Theravada Buddhism’s views, the locus of beauty is not valued by individuals (Subjectivism), not the absolute property of the material (Objectivism), or not the relationship between material and observer (Relativism). In contrast, it views beauty as the emergence that arises from the construction of variable factors, once the variable factors have changed, the emergent “beauty” and its details are then revised accordingly. As a result, this concept of interpretation can suitably be applied in order to explain the complex relationship of both categories of beauty.
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