In Buddhist traditions that arose in subsequent centuries, nirvana (or “the great quenching”) became one of Buddhism’s central tenets, an escape from cycles of death and rebirth, achieved through deep concentration, helping others, and a state of peaceful, desireless living.ĭespite its political and aesthetic touchstones, the Star Wars series’ philosophy has historically been a hodgepodge of eastern ideas, mixing Taoism, Buddhism and Zen. The latter, now the world’s fourth-largest religion, is believed to have been founded in the 5th century BCE by Siddhārtha Gautama, who most historians agree renounced the material world before embarking upon a journey of learning and teaching until his eventual death more specific details are harder to verify, though most biographies cite his birthplace as Lumbini - modern-day Nepal.
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For me, the image recalled an enormous statue of the Buddha in the Ajanta Caves, a series of rock-cut Buddhist monasteries built as far back as the 2nd century BCE.Ĭross-legged depictions of the meditating Buddha are most often depictions of the revered monk achieving nirvana, a form of deep spiritual understanding in South Asian religions like Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. But in The Last Jedi, as the camera pushes in on Luke, the shorthand of the climax is an image more familiar to viewers in South and Southeast Asia. It’s a precursor to heroic action scenes a familiar visual shorthand that tickles the senses, as all genre tropes do. Instinctively, most audiences in the west know what this image means whenever it appears, especially if it’s accompanied by the camera pushing closer for emphasis (as it does on Rey when she first wields her weapon in The Force Awakens). The climactic reveal of Luke, lost in deep meditation on Ahch-To (the site of his self-imposed exile, where he lives a similarly material-free life), takes the place of the typical “ cowboy shot,” where a subject is framed from the thigh-up as they grab their weapon from its holster - a technique Star Wars has used in the past. This wasn’t just a clever twist for fans of Force magic for many eastern audiences, the image of the Jedi levitating cross-legged above a mound evokes depictions of Siddhārtha Gautama, the first Buddha, in sculptures and paintings across the centuries. Both times I saw the film theatrically, once in Mumbai, and then in New Delhi a thousand miles away, the image of Luke floating cross-legged, deep in meditation, was met with thunderous applause. Two hours and eighteen minutes into The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) projects his avatar from across the galaxy to confront Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and save the Resistance.