Organizer: Dorothy Wong, University of Virginia
The panel proposes to reexamine a variety of ways in which the relationship between Buddhist doctrine and visual objects/representation in East Asia can be approached and interpreted through specific case studies. Such interpretations take into consideration diachronic as well as synchronic analyses, incorporating sources that span from textual to contextual, archaeological evidence. Other kinds of relationships between doctrine and objects or artistic practices are also explored, ranging from the investment of doctrinal meaning in particular ritual objects to the notion of attainment of enlightenment through art.
Dorothy Wong examines the crucial period in Chinese Buddhism when the Mahayana concept of Buddhahood was introduced and interpreted in China. Her paper concentrates not so much on matching motifs with textual evidence; rather it explores the elusive moments when change in meanings occurred and how the visual methods of expressing shifts in religious ideas may be detected and interpreted. Maria del Rosario Pradel’s paper addresses the well-known fragments of the Tenjukoku Mandara (The Land of Heavenly Life), from early Buddhist Japan, that has long eluded interpretations. Using visual and archaeological evidence as well as records of funerary rituals, the paper argues that the content of the Tenjukoku Mandara pertains to the belief in the afterlife in the Asuka period (552–645) rather than the advanced notion of the Buddhist Pure Land. In Koichi Shinohara’s paper, it is the doctrinal significance attached to an object—the monastic robe—that is being investigated. Through a close study of texts written by the Chinese Tang monk Daoxuan, the paper chronicles the levels of symbolic meanings associated with the monastic robe and how such meanings varied from text to text, and developed over a period of time in Daoxuan’s career. Charles Lachman’s paper analyzes the concept of the "monk painter" and the idea that painting can express the enlightened mind as developed in Southern Song (1126–1279) Chan painting. The paper questions whether such notions, which fundamentally challenge traditional views about art and artist, relate to doctrinal discourse within the Chan school.
The Mahayana Notion of Buddhahood: Representation in Early Chinese Buddhist Art
Dorothy Wong, University of Virginia
The formative period of Buddhism in China coincided with the development and spread of the Mahayana doctrine. A central concern in this new doctrine addresses the nature of the Buddha. What defines the Buddha if he was a human being? What is Buddhahood in the abstract sense? What is the nature of Buddhahood if this is an attainable goal for everyone? What are the roles of Buddhas and bodhisattvas, if they mediate between the numerous suffering beings and their fulfillment of religious goals? How many Buddhas and bodhisattvas are there and where are they? Key Mahayana texts were translated into Chinese and were avidly studied between the 3rd and 6th centuries c.e. A large body of Buddhist artworks have also survived. This paper explores the ways in which the interpretation of these images may correlate with doctrinal developments. A general typological survey of motifs and iconography gives an indication of the general change in doctrinal emphases, such as the shift from the temporal lineage of Buddhas to spatial categories of Buddhas. This investigation, however, focuses on the crucial moments when a breakthrough occurred, or when circumstantial evidence allows for linking a particular change to individuals or specific texts. The paper also examines the artistic means of denoting nuances in change in interpretation. Several uniquely Chinese motifs not found in the Indian Buddhist art repertoire are also considered.
Is Tenjukoku a Buddhist Pure Land?
Maria del Rosario Pradel, University of Southern California
The fragments of the Tenjukoku Shucho Mandara are considered to be an important example of early Buddhist art in Japan. The documentary evidence associated with the fragments reveals that they were part of a pair of "embroidered curtains" (shukho) representing Tenjukoku (The Land of Heavenly Life), made in the Asuka period (552–645), after the death of Toyotomimi no mikoto (Shotoku Taishi) in 622 c.e., and of a replica named "Tenjukoku Mandara" made in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). Japanese scholars traditionally interpret the fragments as the remains of an early representation of a Buddhist Pure Land called Tenjukoku. Based on the inscription associated with the fragments, they also assert that Shotoku Taishi, "the father of Japanese Buddhism," had a very advanced knowledge of the Buddhist doctrine and believed in rebirth in a Pure Land. The problem, however, is that the term Tenjukoku apparently does not appear in the Buddhist sutras.
Using visual and archaeological evidence as well as records of funerary ritual practices, the paper maintains that the subject matter of the Tenjukoku Shucho is not a representation of a Buddhist Pure Land, but pertains to the notion of afterlife as conceived in the Asuka period. This investigation calls into question the synchronicity and validity in assigning advanced Buddhist concepts to objects affiliated with legendary figures.
Daoxuan (596–667) on the Monastic Robe
Koichi Shinohara, McMaster University
One may study the relationship between visual representation and doctrines, or more broadly objects and texts, in a variety of ways. One may begin with a specific visual representation and explore its doctrinal context—taking the visual representation as a "reflection" of changes in doctrines. A certain degree of parallelism between the developments in visual representation and doctrines is presupposed in such a study. Or, one may begin from the textual evidence and look for places where visual representations or objects are mentioned in texts and are given specific doctrinal significance. No parallelism between changes in visual representation and doctrinal development need be presupposed in such a study. In fact, we see that often very unexpected doctrinal meanings are attributed to specific objects in textual sources. In one source I examined recently, for example, a story about the Buddha’s begging bowl carries the message of the impending decline of the Buddhist teaching (mofa).
In this paper I will focus my attention on monastic robes and examine the relationship between physical objects and doctrines by reviewing Daoxuan’s essay, Shimen zhangfu yi, T. 1894, compiled in 657. Monastic robes often acquired an important doctrinal significance, for example, as a symbol of transmission in Chan Buddhism. In an earlier paper I suggested that Shenhui’s discourse on the robe of transmission, which refers to attacks on the Correct Teaching in the Age of Declining Teaching, may be related to a similar presentation of the robe in the visionary teaching Daoxuan claimed to have received from gods in 667, shortly before his death.
The monastic robe is an important topic in the vinaya and a special section is devoted to it in Daoxuan’s vinaya commentary (Sifenlu shanfan buqueh xingshi chao, T. 1804), completed in 630. The issues highlighted in Daoxuan’s treatment of the monastic robe in the Shimen zhangfu yi are different from those in Shenhui and Daoxuan’s very late visionary text. I hope to investigate the doctrinal dimensions of Daoxuan’s treatment of the monastic robe by placing it in a larger chronological framework and reconstructing its evolution.
The "Monk Painter" and the Representation of Enlightenment
Charles Lachman, University of Oregon
Most modern accounts of the history of Buddhist art in China associate two important concepts with Chan painting as it evolved over the course of the Southern Song period (1126–1279). The first of these is the emergence of the notion of the "monk painter" (a category to be distinguished from that of "monks who happen to paint"). The second is the related idea that painting can serve as an expression of the enlightened mind of the artist/monk, a stance that removes painting from the realm of iconography or institutional function—a stance, indeed, that essentially removes painting from the realm of "art." The present paper will examine these concepts, both historically and historiographically, in an attempt to determine the extent to which they can properly be related to doctrinal developments within the Chan school. In other words, do these ideas grow out of Chan religious discourse in the Southern Song, or should we be looking elsewhere for their source?