Virtue and Vice

20-21 September, Borobudur, Indonesia 

It is, roughly, seven and a half thousand miles from the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua in Italy to the Temple of Borobudur in Java: two treasures of world heritage, seven and a half thousand miles and five and a half centuries apart. Both are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The former  I visited in June; the latter this morning. The UNESCO imprimatur is not all they have in common. 

The Scrovegni Chapel is named after Enrico Scrovegni, a Paduan banker of the early 14th century, and his reasons for creating the chapel that bears his name are interesting. The Judeo-Christian tradition has always taken a poor view of money-lending. ‘Usury’ is the technical term for taking interest on a loan, and it was forbidden between Jews and was disapproved of within Christianity, lest the poor be exploited. Lending ought, it was said – in an ideal world – to be an act of charity, not a means of turning a profit. This is not good news for bankers! Scrovegni had the chapel built and decorated between 1303 and 1305, as an act of reparation for his sins, and – some say – especially to atone for his sin of usury. Giotto’s frescoes in the chapel are breath-taking, and their creation often taken to be the spark that ignited the Renaissance. Worth a visit. In fact, a must-see-before-you-die place! The upper friezes in the chapel tell wonderful stories, biblical and legendary, from the Christian tradition, but beneath them – in a series of frescoes, painted in ‘grisaille’ and meant to look like marble  relief carvings – he presented his viewers (and Scrovegni) with a series of depictions of vices and virtues – the Seven Deadly Sins on one side, and opposite them the seven compensatory Virtues. Ethical reflections at the bottom, metaphysical stories above. 

We don’t know the name of the individual who devised the scheme for the creation of the Temple at Borobudur, but we do know that it was built during the reign of the Javanese Sailendra dynasty during the 8th and 9th centuries. It remains the largest Buddhist temple in the world and is a place of active devotion for the Buddhist population of Indonesia (less than 1% of the population in this overwhelmingly Islamic country, but, given the vast population still a sizeable group). They are allowed, still, to walk slowly clockwise round the upper levels of the temple daily, and to meditate, as they have been doing for well over a thousand years, before visitors like me are allowed access. 

The pyramidic temple is built as a series of terraces – three in total – symbolising, for the faithful, the spiritual journey from the earthly realm of desire (kamadhatu), through the realm of form (rupadhatu), and finally to the formless realm (arupadhatu). At the very top, a huge ‘stupa’ (a dome imagined to contain the Buddha’s remains) represents nirvana, and here at Borobudur, that vast central stupa is surrounded by seventy two smaller stupas (though smaller is a relative term!), each containing a statue of the Buddha. (Peta, my guide, told me that until the 1990s people used to reach through the lattice of the smaller stupas to touch the statue inside, in the belief that it would bring good fortune – but sometime in that decade a baby, pushed through the lattice by its mother in search of blessing and good fortune, got its head stuck, and so since then you can look but not touch!).

On the upper three levels, breathtaking carvings tell the story of the Buddha’s path – from his noble birth as Prince Siddhartha, through his renunciation of wealth and privilege to a life of simplicity and service – and each level explores the metaphysical story of spiritual ascent as Buddhists understand it, through the ancient Buddhist legends (though transposed into Javanese life, from Nepal, including the depiction of a 9th century Javanese ship). What is fascinating though – and yes, here finally is the point of connection with Padua! – is that beneath all the narrative and metaphysical stuff above, the bottom level of relief carvings do precisely what Giotto did in the Scrovegni chapel, namely to present a series of images of virtue and vice. Before you begin any ascent you can survey images of happy people living well – and you can gaze upon the sad and tortured faces of those who aren’t. Perhaps it is because this is such a ‘smiley’ country, that the tortured faces with  downturned mouths and sad eyes on the depictions of vice (the ‘gossip’ scene which vice us is eternal, is particularly powerful!) seem so arresting. 

The schemes, many thousands of miles and many centuries apart, follow the same pattern: metaphysical speculation in the form of legendary stories above, ethics below. Foundations. 

Many years ago now I did some work with an organisation called the Institute for Global Ethics. Their approach was based on the thinking of an American writer, Rushworth Kidder and on his book ‘How Good People Make Hard Choices.’ Foundational to his thinking was the distinction between ‘right versus wrong’ and ‘right versus right’ situations. It was refreshing to engage, beyond the world of Christian moral theology, with some fresh and well-articulated thinking about what the good life might be, and theirs was an approach that enabled a useful conversation between and among people of different religious, philosophical and non-religious traditions. 

I was reminded here this morning of Ruchsworth Kidder, and of Padua, and of Giotto, and of Enrico Scrovegni, and of nameless Javanese royalty of old, and of so many generations of devout and of godless ordinary people of all traditions and of none, who share one thing in common: that they are all caught up in the merry dance of vice and virtue and are striving for a good life and to live well. This common longing and struggle makes the world feel a smaller place – and, strangely perhaps, a more united one.