China & Inner Asia: Table of Contents
Organizer and Chair: Patricia Karetzky, Bard College
Discussant: Paul Katz, National Central University, Taiwan
This panel is concerned with viewing sacred images of Chinese art in the increasingly sophisticated milieu of literary, historical, and textual studies. Using primary resources, religious images can be the subject of a more complex and multivalent interpretation. Traditional analysis of aesthetics and iconography is now expanded to include consideration of the role of ritual practices in determining iconography and the evolution of manner of worship; historical circumstances underlying the creating of icons; the role of the donor in choice of icon and its particular characteristics. Thus integrating textual and historical research material provides a new context within which to appreciate religious images and their sacred functions.
Karetzky explores the development of esoteric Buddhist images of Guanyin in Tang China and their prototypes in India. With a variety of new archaeological evidence, icons of the multi-headed and/or multi-armed goddess are presented. Ning Qiang provides a new understanding of later, less well known murals of Cave 220 by examining the historical background of the tenth-century-donors of the cave. Katz views the fourteenth-century-murals at Yongle, Shanxi depicting the hagiography of the Taoist immortal Lü Dongbin. Using historical sources, Katz provides insight into both the patron who commissioned the murals and their changing ritual use.
Patricia Karetzky, Bard College
Esoteric Buddhism is well known in Japan, Tibet, and Nepal, but until recently not much has remained of esoteric art in Tang China. Historical records attest to the introduction of the doctrine and its widespread popularity in the Tang. The emperor Xuan Zong (r.712–756) provided western monks like Subhakarasimha and Vajrabodhi with imperial support to translate the scriptures of the new school. Japanese monks like Kukai and Ennin living in Tang China have left diaries recording the activities they encountered during their studies abroad. The temples of Zishengsi, Dianfushi, and Ximing flourished, as did the centers of esoteric Buddhism at Wutaishan and Mount Tiantai. In the later eighth century the monks Amoghavajra and Pranja, like their predecessors, continued to enjoy imperial patronage and translation activities. Yet little material evidence of the teaching has survived. Recent archaeological evidence provides a variety of examples of the new teaching in a number of formats and materials. There are several examples of silk mandalas, clay plaques, and cave carvings—especially those in Sichuan. Esoteric images appear in the cave paintings at Dunhuang as well. In these sources the image of Guanyin appears in a new guise—multi-armed and/or multi-headed. This paper proposes to try and trace the evolution of this esoteric icon of Guanyin from its origin in India, remains of which are also scant, and its evolution in early China.
Ning Qiang, San Diego State University
Cave 220 at Dunhuang, originally built by the Zhai family in 642 a.d., has been redecorated and expanded at least four times since its completion. Although carried out by the same clan, the reconstructions of different periods imply different meanings.
The four walls of the cave were completely covered by a new layer of clay and painted with "contemporary images" in 925 a.d. Most of the new paintings cannot be seen now. Fortunately, Paul Pelliot took a picture of the south wall in 1908, which has become the major reference for our understanding of the historical appearance of the Zhai family cave during the Five Dynasties. In addition, a painting made in 925 a.d. has been discovered on the north wall of the passageway of the cave in 1972, when the Western Xia gate was removed.
Two themes were depicted on the south wall: "Auspicious Icons" and Buddhist/historical legends. Significantly, most of the icons were "divine guardians" of the Khotan Kingdom, a close ally of the local government at Dunhuang. The founding history of the Khotan Kingdom occupied the largest space in the painting. In addition, the king of Khotan was represented on the north wall of the passageway. These motifs must have pleased the official envoys from Khotan who visited the cave-site in the spring of 925 a.d. Zhai Fengda, cultural representative of the Dunhuang government and sponsor of the paintings, obviously used these motifs as a tool of diplomatic propaganda for his government.
Paul R. Katz, National Central University
This paper examines the role temple murals played in the growth of the cult of the immortal Lü Dongbin in the Palace of Eternal Joy, until recently located in Yongle, Shanxi. Originally a small shrine to Lü, the Palace was rebuilt and greatly enlarged by members of the Perfect Realization (Quanzen) Taoist movement during the thirteenth century. Its murals include a pictorial hagiography of Lü in the Hall of Purified Yang (Chunyang Dian) completed in the mid- fourteenth century. Works of art like this have yet to be fully utilized in the study of local cults.
To determine the impact of the murals on Lü’s cult, I focus on two key problems: the role of patronage in their production and the ways in which they were received and reinterpreted. The patrons were almost exclusively Quanzen priests and the murals represent Lü as a master of Taoist self-cultivation who initiates and instructs worthy disciples. Although created for and viewed by a mass audience, the murals may not necessarily have been "popular" in reflecting the beliefs of the local people. Gazetteers and stele inscriptions depict Lü as a well-educated literatus, like members of the elite who composed these. In addition, regional folk tales emphasize Lü’s miraculous powers, occasionally presenting humorous and sometimes ribald stories about him as one of the Eight Immortals. This indicates that texts, like works of art, need to be understood in terms of their textuality—the ways in which they were produced, transmitted, and received.