The Buddha's Earlobes

[camerata]

I looked all over the Net to find the original source of the "long list" of the Buddha's characteristics cited by the Dhammakaya sect, but no luck so far. There are at least a dozen explanations for the Buddha's long earlobes out there but I came across this interesting one from our old friend Ven. Shravasti Dhammika, scholar-monk and author of The Broken Buddha:

"..the elongated ear lobes on statues are the survival of a distant memory of what the Buddha actually looked like. In ancient India men and women commonly wore ear plugs. Children’s ear lobes were pierced and a small clay cylinder was put in the holes. As the child grew, increasingly large cylinders were put in the lobes until they had stretched enough to accommodate plugs with diameters of up to 6 centimetres. Hundreds of these objects have been found by archaeologists and are displayed in some museums in India. Prince Siddhattha would have worn such ear plugs when he was a lay man and would have taken them off when he renounced the world, leaving his ear lobes elongated."

So, according to this version, the long earlobes were not caused by the gold earrings of the wealthy. The 6-centimetre plugs sound a bit grotesque to me.

[sabaijai]

This theory is speculative since it relies on a knowledge of customs at that time that does not necessarily find artistic validation from that period. The long earlobes/royalty connection is equally speculative but is a common theory found in texts on Buddhist art.

The positive aspect of the more common royalty interpretation is the teaching function it has. Like the apocryphal tale of the fortuneteller who told Gautama's parents that their son would grow up to be either a great world conqueror or a great world renouncer.

[Sarathi]

The list is not specific to Dhammakaya (I liked the comments at the end of that particular list) The secondary list is called the Anubyanjana

Here it is on Wiki - and if Wiki has it , well, it must be true

[camerata]

Here it is on Wiki - and if Wiki has it , well, it must be true

Right. Wiki refers us to the Brahmayu Sutta for the 80 secondary characteristics and yet they aren't even mentioned there, let alone listed.

[visible]

The substantial of The Buddha's earlobes is unflappability and insensitiveness.

[phetaroi]

The substantial of The Buddha's earlobes is unflappability and insensitiveness.

I think something was lost in translation here. Are you saying Buddha was insensitive?

[camerata]

Two days ago I heard a Thai tour guide telling a group of farang tourists at Chiang Mai's Wat Phra Singh that the Buddha's long earlobes meant "Don't believe everything you hear."