Why Buddha Hair Was Curly ?
It is known as the Snail Martyrs tale, and it goes as follows:
While thinking, Buddha started to reflect in great depth. He arrived at a tree and sat in its cover to continue his contemplation. The Buddha lost himself in thought for hours, failing to notice the sun moving across the sky. Still, he sat there thinking as the sun blasted his naked head.
The Buddha was sitting there, contemplating significant ideas, when a snail moved over the ground. Although snails are strong, they are comprised of moisture and must be careful not to dry out. Therefore, the snail immediately realized that the Buddha’s head would quickly become a painful distraction from his lofty thoughts.
Snail Story
The snail crawled as quickly as it could up the Buddha’s robe to his head, where it sat, his mucous-covered body chilling the Buddha’s smooth, exposed skin. Buddha’s head was neatly capped with spiral shells and cool, damp bodies after other snails observed and followed the lead of the first one.
The snails dried out and grew parched after a while. Buddha discovered he was wearing 108 snails, all of whom had given their lives to aid in Buddha’s journey toward enlightenment, as it got dark, he rose to take in his surroundings again.
These snails are now revered as martyrs and can be seen on many Buddha sculptures as a reminder of their selfless acts.
According to Shimbun, the Nara Buddha is thought to have 966 spiral curls that resemble balls and weigh more than 2.6 pounds each. The figure was derived from a scroll written between 794 and 1185.
Conclusion
The temple workers attempted to count the curls but were unable to reach the rear of the statue’s head. Therefore, authorities asked Takeshi Oishi, a professor of information studies at the University of Tokyo, to investigate the actual figure.
Using technology that gauges how long it takes a surface to reflect laser light, Oishi produced a 3D map of the curls, according to Ishiyama. This ground-breaking approach demonstrated that the Buddha only had 492 curls.