Talk:Hetoimasia

Left-over links
Johnbod (talk) 16:29, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Lowrie
 * Zeus
 * Grabar
 * thesis p9
 * critical of term
 * Parani shift
 * stuff
 * theoxenia
 * Dioscuri coins
 * more on the ark
 * mani

Skeptical of universality
Certainly Buddhists did not refer to their empty throne image as "hetoimasia". In Early Buddhist art, the Buddha was never depicted, let alone on a throne. To connect the Christian hetoimasia to Indian imagery seems to me to be a pre-Evans-Pritchard sort of children's anthropology on par with The Golden Bough and so forth. The reference given is Schiller, a scholar of Christian art, and I doubt she knows what she's talking about here. Shii (tock) 22:47, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The article did not say they did - read the lead again. The whole point of all these thrones is that they are empty of people, as opposed to symbols. The ref given there is not to Schiller but the V&A kindergarten, but plenty of others could have been used. Johnbod (talk) 02:42, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I removed the statement because it does not use the word "hetoimasia" which is the subject of the article. Shii (tock) 02:52, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Now who's being childish? Did you actually read the lead. Johnbod (talk) 02:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * "the empty throne [is a symbol] found in the art of the ancient world". The entire ancient world, has a single symbol, that means one thing. This massively dubious claim is uncited. Shii (tock) 04:29, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it says that it means different things, but these boil down to a symbol of either a divine (put crudely for Buddhism) or monarchical individual, plus sometimes a spirit of a dead person. Nor does it say "the entire ancient world" although the symbol is in fact found in several ancient cultures in the Middle East I've not mentioned.  Johnbod (talk) 15:06, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * "it means different things, but these boil down to a [single] symbol"... citation needed Shii (tock) 16:09, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No, this is a talk page. Johnbod (talk) 19:10, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I have reverted your disruptive edits; both statements are referenced (current notes 6 & 7) & do not need to be referenced in the lead. If you have issues with what the article actually says, please state clearly what they are. Johnbod (talk) 01:42, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Leave me a message on my talk page when you find someone who uses the word hetoimasia to refer to Buddhist art, or refers to an empty throne as the same symbol seen in Mediterranean art. Until then I will return to this page three times a day and make sure every statement is reliably sourced. Shii (tock) 05:32, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * This page is redirected to from empty throne, the section describing Buddhist uses is titled "The empty throne in pre-Christian art" and does not use the term hetoimasia at all. Buddhist art uses the empty throne motif, in fact in almost identical fashion to other cultures, extending to the iconographic details, but the article does not assert specific influence or connections, nor does it need to.  You have twice removed a reference to text by the V&A Museum departmental specialists backing up the text. In fact it is impossible to find any account of early Buddhist art that does not mention the empty throne. See .  Hall for one mentions India and the other cultures together; he implies the symbol had a pre-Buddhist & secular history in India, but I don't have detailed sources on that. They may be only available in German, or this book, which I can't access:Absence of the Buddha image in early Buddhist art: towards its significance in comparative religion, "Dr. Tanaka, For The First Time Ever, Explores The Absence Of The Buddha-Image In Early Buddhist Art. Applying The Motif Of The Empty Throne, She Undertakes A Comparative Study Of Buddhism And Other Religions". Reichel, Uber die vorhellenischen Gotterkulte (Vienna, 1897) is evidently a pioneering text, which covers empty thrones in India & Persia, as well as further West.  I note your threat to continue disruptive editing. Johnbod (talk) 12:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think you understand my complaint. Should we change the cross article to call it a Christian symbol which has been found around the world? Shii (tock) 18:16, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No, I certainly don't understand your complaint. What exactly is it? Johnbod (talk) 18:17, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, since you're online I guess I can take some time to explain this in full and answer any questions.

First, the original theory of symbols in The Golden Bough was that there was a universal "primitive culture" which shared the same symbols across the entire world. This 1897 book you quoted is from the same genre of literature, but since Evans-Pritchard this theory has not been taken seriously. Different people will develop different symbols for different reasons; even if they appear similar on the surface, this does not imply that the meaning or origin of the symbol is the same. This means that the burden of proof lies on the individual who wants to show that the "empty throne" in Buddhism is the same symbol used for the "fire-god Nulku".

You could argue that you are writing an article about a generic term, but actually this article is not generic. It is about a Christian symbol, and the "other cultures" section is much shorter; the obvious implication is that this is a symbol which has achieved its fulfillment and complete purpose in Christianity, as the Hetoimasia. Now, if you were willing to move this article to empty throne and shorten the Christianity section to a single section, I would be satisfied with that, although I would still think it a rather useless jumble of images from an encyclopedic standpoint. But I think you have done good work on this article and it deserves to be kept as it is, as long as you acknowledge that the Christian symbol is not a development on top of a "pre-Christian", primitive proto-symbol.

Now, speaking specifically of the Buddhist section, which I removed because it's what I know the most about, you have a number of points to be made: aniconism in Buddhism, the empty throne as a pervasive symbol and not the single flight of fancy of a particular artist, and a connection to the Christian symbol. Your citation for the first of these is a link to an unsigned blurb at the V&A museum. I don't think it's surprising that a museum blurb is a little out of date in its scholarship. The current consensus is as follows: "a fresh analysis based on archaeological, literary, and inscriptional evidence casts doubt on the practice of deliberate avoidance of Buddha images." (Susan L. Huntington, Early Buddhist Art and the Theory of Aniconism)

Ah, I guess I'll stop here. (edit: Sorry to edit conflict, but I'm reading through this article and it presents the interesting theory that the "empty throne" is actually a contemporary depiction of the bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, so there is no one meant to be sitting on it, as the Buddha has already departed) Shii (tock) 18:33, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * You should have come out with this before, not that I find it at all persuasive. I considered various titles, but Hetoimasia is the most common, and the main thrust of the article is indeed on the 1700-odd years of Christian imagery. The connection between the Christian image and Greek & Roman pagan traditions is clear, direct and unarguable.  No assertions as to connections beyond that are made, although many scholars would do so.  There is nothing about universal primitive culture etc, all that is just in your head.  You have still given no explanation for removing referenced material.  As far as I can see Huntington's view is very far indeed from achieving consensus, though she certainly started a debate, and in any case she does not deny there was an avoidance of iconic portrait images for a long time, which would be hard to do. She talks about the images in narrative scenes, which were already perfectly well-known (in fact paralleling very closely the development of the depiction of Jesus, which shows the same pattern), and makes other points. If you've read her article you'll be aware that one element of it is to assert that many empty throne images actually depict pilgrims in front of an actual empty throne set up for devotions at a major Buddhist site.  Anyway I'm glad to finally find a decent Buddhist empty throne image on WP at Aniconism in Buddhism, which I'll add here.  Johnbod (talk) 18:59, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * "You have still given no explanation for removing referenced material." The reference is unsigned, not peer reviewed, does not discuss or refute Huntington. There is no reason to build an "empty throne" for the Buddha because he is gone and not coming back. And so forth. Shii (tock) 19:33, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I have added Huntinton, whose opening pages give extensive peer-reviewed coverage of the conventional view. Johnbod (talk) 20:30, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Um, this is almost okay, but I don't understand your insistence on removing three separate peer-reviewed articles and replacing them with a single link to a blurb in a museum. The Google Books links you've placed in this and other articles are similarly awful-- they're okay for an initial draft but wouldn't survive GA and shouldn't survive this discussion. You can find the entire debate between Huntington and Vidya Dehejia on JSTOR. Shii (tock) 05:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It was the text that was the problem. The google links are fine, & would be so at FAC. (Ok - those links) Not everybody is a student in the US with access to JSTOR. I don't pretend to be a specialist (but then clearly neither do you) but it seems clear from the recently dated links I have added to the Aniconism article that though Huntington has made some impact, she has by no means overturned the "aniconic phase", and the consensus now lies somewhere in the middle, as is indeed usually the case with these grand art history controversies.  Johnbod (talk) 05:49, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm happy to leave it there. Shii (tock) 06:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Me too - we have expanded coverage round the issue considerably anyway. Johnbod (talk) 15:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Tolkien
Moved here as not really the same thing - a normal throne that happened to be vacant, admittedly for a very long time: "The etimasia as a secular symbol (of the absent emperor) is used in The Return of the King (1955), the third volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings. In the hall of the citadel of Minas Tirith stands 'a high throne under a canopy of marble shaped like a crowned helm . . . But the throne was empty.' It awaits the return of the kings of Gondor, the last of whom died in battle nearly a thousand years ago, the realm having ever since been ruled by hereditary Stewards. At the end of the trilogy Aragorn, a descendant of the first king Isildur, takes the throne after defeating the dark lord Sauron." Johnbod (talk) 03:01, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I think this is an excellent example of Christian symbolism, especially medieval Christian symbolism, in The Lord of the Rings, and it is a good point to help establish Tolkien's work as suffused by Christianity. --dab (𒁳) 15:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Grammar
In Line 6 it says "like early Christians with the deity they avoided depicting the Buddha in human form" which doesn't parse well. I think I understand what is meant but it should be written better. I tried to edit it to read better but Johnbod reverted my edit. Thebiggnome (talk) 11:15, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Clarified, I hope. Actually you just removed the point altogether. Johnbod (talk) 11:21, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, now I understand. But if this was happening before the time of Christ, then the Buddhist artists were not "like the early Christians", but rather the reverse would be true. Thebiggnome (talk) 11:52, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
 * " they avoided depicting the Buddha in human form, like early Christians with God the Father." - how does this suggest an incorrect sequence? Johnbod (talk) 12:18, 1 April 2014 (UTC)