Making the Buddhacarita visible: visual translation, sacred temporality, and Buddhist visual vulture in contemporary Bali

In the quiet villages of Bali, Indonesia, artists have long practiced a unique way of telling stories through paint. They do not simply draw a picture of a single moment, like a photograph. Instead, they create long, horizontal scrolls where a story unfolds across the entire surface. In this tradition, known as Kamasan painting, a single image can show a character at the beginning of a journey, in the middle of a battle, and at the end of a day, all at once. This method allows viewers to see the whole story at a glance, rather than reading it word by word. For centuries, these scrolls have depicted ancient Hindu epics, but in 2024, a new commission brought a different kind of story to this ancient style: the life of the Buddha.

This recent project offers a rare glimpse into how religious stories are transformed from words into images. Scholars have long studied how Buddhist texts are illustrated, often assuming that painters simply copy the text onto canvas. However, a new study by Siaw Hung Ng suggests that the process is far more creative. The researcher followed a traditional Balinese painter as he created a massive scroll, measuring about 1.5 meters high and 8 meters long, based on the Buddhacarita, an ancient Sanskrit poem about the Buddha's life. By watching the artist work, interviewing him, and comparing his sketches to the final painting, the study reveals that the artist did not just illustrate the story. He actively reshaped it, turning a linear timeline of events into a single, sacred space where the past, present, and future exist together.

The story the artist set out to tell is the life of Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha. The original text, written over two thousand years ago, describes his life in a straight line: he is born, he grows up, he leaves his palace, he finds enlightenment, he teaches, and finally, he passes away. This is how most people understand a biography. But when the Balinese painter began his work, he made a series of deliberate choices that changed how the story is experienced. He did not treat the text as a script to be followed exactly. Instead, he treated it as a source of meaning that needed to be translated into a visual language that local people could understand and feel.

One of the most striking changes the artist made was to the way the Buddha is shown as a baby. In the text, the Buddha is born as an infant. In the painting, however, the newborn is depicted with the body of an adult. He stands tall, with the proportions of a grown man, and makes a gesture of supreme confidence. The artist explained that he did this because he believed the Buddha was not just a baby who would later become enlightened; he believed the Buddha was already fully enlightened the moment he was born. By painting the baby as an adult, the artist collapsed the timeline. He made the beginning of the life and the end of the spiritual journey happen at the same time. This is not a mistake or a lack of skill; it is a visual way of saying that the Buddha's wisdom was present from the very start.

The artist also changed how the story moves across the scroll. In a book, you read one page, then the next. In the scroll, the artist used a technique called "continuous narrative." This means that the same character can appear many times in the same picture, doing different things at different times. The scroll is laid out horizontally, so you can walk along it and see the story unfold from left to right. But the artist also used the vertical space to show something deeper. He placed the Buddha higher up on the canvas than the other people. The gods and celestial beings are at the top, while kings and ordinary people are at the bottom. This arrangement does not just show who is important; it shows a spiritual hierarchy. The higher you look, the closer you are to the sacred. This creates a sense that the story is not just happening in history, but is happening in a timeless, spiritual realm.

Another key change involves the white parasols that appear in the painting. In the text, these are just details of the scene. In the painting, the artist made them much larger and placed them directly over the Buddha's head. As the artist worked, he kept making these parasols bigger and more central. They became a visual signal that told the viewer, "Look here. This is the sacred center." By enlarging these objects, the artist guided the viewer's eye and created a sense of authority around the Buddha that the text alone did not provide. The crowd of people around the Buddha was also rearranged. Instead of a messy, crowded scene, the artist grouped the people into distinct clusters, all facing toward the Buddha. This turned the crowd into a visual expression of devotion, showing how everyone is connected to the central figure.

The study found that these changes were not random. They were the result of a deep conversation between the artist and the text. The artist read the story many times, in both Old Javanese and Indonesian translations, and decided which parts were most important to show. He left out long descriptions of court life or complex philosophical debates because they were hard to paint and less important to the spiritual message. He focused instead on the big moments: birth, enlightenment, teaching, and death. But even in these moments, he changed the rules of time. In the scene of the Buddha's death, known as nirvana, the artist repositioned the reclining Buddha towards the upper section of the pictorial field. While the text describes the Buddha lying on his right side with his head facing north, the artist elevated this figure to disrupt conventional spatial expectations and strengthen the visual expression of transcendence. This visual choice suggests that death is not an end, but a transition to something higher. The Buddha is still present, even though he has passed away. The painting makes the idea of transcendence visible.

This process of changing the story is what the researcher calls "visual translation." It is not just about turning words into pictures. It is about turning a story into a form of knowledge that can be felt and seen. The artist used the tools of his tradition—the flat style, the use of mineral pigments, and conventionalised motifs—to create a new way of understanding the Buddha's life. The result is a scroll that does not just tell you what happened; it lets you experience the sacredness of the story. When you look at the scroll, you do not see a sequence of events that happened long ago. You see a world where the beginning and the end are connected, where the sacred is always present, and where the story is alive right now.

The scroll was then displayed in a museum, which added another layer to its meaning. In a temple, such a painting might be used for prayer. In a museum, it becomes a piece of cultural heritage that people can learn from. The study suggests that this shift is important. It shows that religious stories are not fixed in the past. They are constantly being rebuilt and reimagined by artists and communities. The Balinese painter did not just preserve an old story; he created a new one that speaks to people today. By combining the ancient text with the local art style, he made the Buddha's life accessible to a modern audience.

The research concludes that this kind of art is a powerful way of creating knowledge. It shows that images can do things that words cannot. A book can tell you that the Buddha was born and then died. A painting can show you that his birth and his death are part of the same sacred cycle. It can show you that the past and the present are connected. The artist's work proves that visual art is not just a decoration for religious texts. It is a way of thinking, a way of understanding, and a way of keeping the story alive. Through this scroll, the ancient life of the Buddha is not just remembered; it is seen, felt, and experienced as a living presence.