Ah, well, it’s certain that he was born within what is now Nepal’s territory anyway. Let’s just say I had no idea Buddha’s birthplace was in Nepal. I honestly thought it was somewhere deep inside the Indian mainland.
From that small misunderstanding, if I started expanding an entire world from it, I realized that the world I created itself could end up looking foolish.
Just imagine: if I had simply gone ahead and, based on my own mistaken thoughts, drawn Nepalese temples as if they were East Asian Buddhist temples, when in fact they are Hindu temples. And then depicted the Buddha as if he were a fully inland Indian person.
I’d often heard people say that when dealing with the cultures of different countries, one should be careful — but I also thought of that as just an idealistic saying.
I never really felt it that deeply myself.
Anyway, maybe because I’ve been learning some shocking things lately — ah, really.
He was born in Nepal. Of course, in ancient times, Nepal didn’t exist as a unified “country” the way we think of it now — there were many tribes and kingdoms, so it’s hard to define it strictly as “Nepal.”
Ah, I got carried away talking about the things that shocked me. Anyway— imagine that, without looking anything up, without proper knowledge, I just went on assuming that Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, was a completely Indian person, and even depicted him that way in my setting.
Anyway, I was really shocked recently. While I was learning more about Nepal, there was a period when large-scale political revolution and protests broke out there. And I happened to witness how unbelievably things unfolded, right at that timing. It was truly impressive.
But do you know what was really shocking? All this time, I thought the person who founded Buddhism — the origin of Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama — was Indian. Isn’t he Indian? Huh? Was I the only one who thought that? Really? Be honest.
Oh no — the one I thought, “Ah, this must be a structure built to honor a Hindu god,” turns out to actually be a monument for Buddhism. I couldn’t believe it.
I thought of Tibetan and Bhutanese architectural styles, so I assumed it was Buddhism, but in fact, many of Nepal’s buildings are temples that enshrine Hindu gods.
I was completely wrong. Their main religion is Hinduism.
There’s Tibet above Nepal, Bhutan next to it, and India below. Although different ethnic groups live mixed together, the Aryan ethnicity is dominant. And religion-wise too, Hinduism is the main one.
So I thought that Nepal’s main religion— of course, there’s the goddess Kumari tradition, and some buildings look like they follow Indian styles, so there must be other religions too— but because of my strong preconception, I very naturally thought, “Oh, Nepal’s main religion must be Buddhism.”
Of course, the people themselves obviously look different, but if you look only at the architecture, it seems that way, doesn’t it?
Honestly, I thought Nepalese temples were buildings for Buddhism. I’m sorry, people of Nepal — I just didn’t know, and that’s what I thought when I first saw them.
I mean, just at a glance, Nepal kind of looks a bit East Asian, doesn’t it? Am I the only one who feels that way? With those dark, tile-like roofs, square buildings, lots of wooden pillars, and even the color tones — they all look a little East Asian.
While exploring which architectural style I could newly challenge myself with, a Nepalese-style temple felt refreshing to me. I also hadn’t really seen many background artists deal with it. So I decided to give it a try — a reckless choice of a beginner.
I knew that Nepal had the Himalayas and no ocean, but I didn’t even know exactly where it was located on the Earth. I didn’t know what language they spoke, what kind of culture they had, or what kind of race or ethnicity they were.
Actually, I didn’t know much about Nepal. Really, I knew almost nothing. Hmm… the only things I knew were the customs about the goddess Kumari that I’d seen in a TV documentary, or that when we climb the Himalayas, we absolutely need the help of Nepali people.
