Well, as many of you would've known already, procrastination is bad. Really bad. It usually happens when you're on hiatus, and it can makes your writer's block worsen.
But that's not what I'm going to discuss about. More like, I'm trying to rant about mangaka and their tendency to make their characters background to be a confusing one. Our main subject today is Virgo Shaka, a character from ye olde anime Saint Seiya.
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| For this same reason Shaka refuses to go clubbing with the rest of the Gold Saints. |
Virgo Shaka is a Gold Saint, known to be a prodigy since early age because he received the status when he was 7 years old. Some also called him "Man Closest to God", acknowledging his supreme strength. It was assumed that he was the reincarnation of Gautama Buddha due to that power and his birthplace (India). He was introduced to be a faithful Buddhist (but strangely works for a Greek Goddess...) and loves to preach people with his immense knowledge about the religion's teachings. Many assumed that he's a good friend of Mu, due to their image as "good, untainted with negativity of modern world" boys.
There, your quick summary about Shaka. Now let me tell you the main question:
"What school/tradition does Shaka follows?"
Well, many fans might not care so much about it, but I do. Mainly because I'm trying to make Shaka a proper Buddhist, much more than depicted in the series, and in order to do that I need to know what school he's in.
As you would've known (or probably you don't), Buddhist has many branches or schools/traditions. To name a few, there are Mahayana, Vajrayana, Theravada, Pali, Hinayana, Tibetan, and Chinese. Then you'll probably wonder if I'm going to read articles on each schools from Wikipedia, one by one, then later decide which school to put him in. But, nay, I won't. It was too much work. There are easier ways to decide.
First, let's find something that'll make people, who never watched Saint Seiya or know who Shaka is, think that he is a faithful Buddhist. There are: 1) his meditating pose, and 2) his rosary beads. His meditating pose can't be used to identify what school he's in because it's a very typical pose of a Buddhist monk / priest / whatever. That leaves the rosary beads.
Now, if you search for rosary beads in Google Search, you'll eventually stumble upon an article about Buddhist prayer beads. Yes, that's what it's supposed to be called. Now, opening that article, your eyes will or will not immediately caught sight of '108 beads' written in said article. Remember, Shaka's rosary beads also have 108 beads.
Moving on. You'll read that there are two schools who used 108 beads when chanting mantra. One is Tibetan Buddhism and the other is Theravada Buddhism. How to decide which one is Shaka's school, then? Simple. The article said that the 108 beads, seik badi (or badi for short) is used in Theravada Buddhism in Burma. We've learned that Shaka hails from India, so he can't possible learn about seik badi. Then the result is obvious: he follows Tibetan Buddhism.
You might be thinking that Tibetan Buddhism is a school only for those Buddhist followers in Tibet. But you're wrong. People from a few regions close to Himalayas, such as Nepal, Buthan, and India also followed Tibetan teachings.
This revelation allows more headcanons to be made. Like, the reason Mu is on good terms with Shaka maybe because they, when intending to go back to their homelands, often travel together. Tibet is, after all, located north-east of Himalayas, and Himalayas itself is bordering with northern India. (Also, the reason Shion and Dohko are close? Not only because they're about the same age, become apprentice at around the same time, and lived through 18th century Holy War, but it can be assumed that they visit each other's hometown often. China and Tibet are practically next to each other, after all.)
You'll say, why did he train close to the Ganges river, which is technically located at the west part of India, if he came from norther India? The answer is headcanon: perhaps his power is recognized at young age, and thus he was sent to that place to polish his skill. Who knows? I certainly don't.
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Conclusion? It takes thorough researches a lot of your procrastinating time to explain the background of a character. Especially if the mangaka doesn't put a lot of effort to do so themselves.
I mean... LOOK AT HOW MANY PARAGRAPHS I WROTE UP THERE JUST TO REACH A PLAUSIBLE CONCLUSION THAT HE FOLLOWS TIBETAN BUDDHISM. And it took some hours to gather the info and not to mention connecting them to each other so normal logic can accept it.
Seriously, sometimes it irritates me if the background of a character isn't explained clearly and clash with reality. Sure, fictional stuffs doesn't have to match real life facts because that's why they're called fictional. But, hey. Don't they think that it'll be far more interesting if there are cultural reasons or something that influences their characters to behave like so and so? Instead they tend to make their characters immerses with the cultures from their homelands.
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I told you this is a rant. And if you do read all my previous rants, you would've know that my rants tend not to make any sense.
