Towards the beauty of Buddhism : the development and validation of a Buddhist aesthetics scale

Abstract

Buddhist aesthetics, as a profound intrinsic value of pleasure, has continually attracted scholars to shed light on its influential effects. Its aesthetic nature, however, has drawn on the laws of profound Buddhist thoughts, which is challenging for empiricists to generate evidence for. Though some individual components or factors deriving from Buddhist aesthetics have been developed and exploited in previous studies, a holistic construct of Buddhist aesthetics remains ambiguous and lacks a pragmatically useable measure. This study fills this gap by creating a Buddhist aesthetics scale. A total of fifteen items have been found valid and reliable to measure three determinants, namely, value, acumen, and response. This scale can be used in further empirical studies in designing objects aiming to elicit the unique Buddhist aesthetic experience. Moreover, it can be utilized in measuring Buddhist aesthetics as a determinant in relevant practices, such as religious psychotherapy, cognitive engineering, and business.