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Abstract
Two related historical trajectories surround the medieval Chinese reception of the Buddha statue at the Mahābodhi Temple in Bodhgayā, India: first, the shift in the perception of the ontological status of the image from “as if real” to the “real,” and second, the transmission and the subsequent replication of the foreign image in China as ruixiang, or an auspicious image. While the awareness of the Indian prototype as substituting the real presence of the Buddha grew stronger, the medieval Chinese produced ruixiang China as a material mediation of the divine presence.
Notes
1. Located just over six miles (ten kilometers) to the north of the center of Guangyuan, this cliff is 1,273 feet (388 meters) long and 275½ feet (84 meters) high. For a brief introduction to the history of the cliff and the significance of this location, see Lei Yuhua and Wang Jianping, Guangyuan shiku [Guangyuan Caves] (Chengdu: Bashu shushe, 2002), 1–9.
2. According to an inscription dated 1854 and carved at the site, there were originally 17,000 images on this cliff. At least one-third of the sculptures in the southern section of the cliff were destroyed in 1935 when the Shanxi-Sichuan road was built. Currently, small chambers and niches of various sizes, 848 in total, occupy the entire surface of the cliff. This cliff was visited by many travelers in the medieval period, and from the inscriptions that they left on the wall of the cliff, we know that this cliff has been called Qianfo ya since the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368). During the Tang (618–907) and the Song (960–1279) periods, it was called the Botang Temple. Ibid., 23.
3. The cave (Cave 366) measures 11 ft. 8 in. (3.55 m) wide, 10 ft. 10 in. (3.3 m) deep, and 10 ft. 8 in. (3.25 m) high. The entrance is from the west. For a detailed configuration of the cave, see ibid., 39–44.
4. For instance, we can find earlier depictions of the Buddha with the same hand gesture in the stone relief in Cave 10 of the Yungang Caves and the mural in Cave 428 of the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, dated to the late fifth and sixth centuries, respectively. For a detailed description of these narrative scenes, see Yungang shiku wenwu baoguan suo, ed., Zhongguo shiku Yungang shiku [Yungang Caves], 2 vols. (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe; Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1991), vol. 2, 248;
Dunhuang wenwu yanjiu suo, ed., Zhongguo shiku Dunhuang Mogao ku [Mogao Caves of Dunhuang], 5 vols. (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe; Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1982), vol. 1, 251–52. For the origin of the Buddha image in bhūmisparśa mudrā in India, see Janice Leoshko, “The Iconography of Buddhist Sculptures of the Pāla and Sena Periods from Bodhgayā” (PhD diss., Ohio State University, 1987), 56–70.5. For a comprehensive introduction to this body of materials, see Chuan-ying Yen, “The Sculpture from the Tower of Seven Jewels: The Style, Patronage, and Iconography of the Monument” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1986), 84–97;
Hida Romi, “Tōdai ni okeru Buddagaya Kongōza shin'yōzō no ryūkō ni tsuite” [On the image of the true visage on a diamond seat of Bodh Gaya during the Tang dynasty], in Ronsō Bukkyō bijutsushi [History of Buddhist art] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1986), 157–86; Kim Lena, “Indo pulsang ŭi chungguk chŏllae ko” [Transmission of the Indian Buddha image to China],” in Han'guk pulgyo misulsa ron [History of Korean Buddhist art], ed. Hwang Suyŏng (Seoul: Minjoksa, 1987), 73–110) , reprinted in Lena, Han'guk kodae pulgyo chokaksa yŏn'gu [Study of ancient Korean Buddhist sculptures] (Seoul: Ilchogak, 1989), 270–90; Lei Yuhua and Wang Jianping, “Shilun Sichuan de puti ruixiang” [Discussions on the “Auspicious images of the Bodhi tree” in Sichuan Province], Sichuan wenwu, no. 1 (2004): 85–91; and Lee Yu-min, “Shilun Tangdai xiangmo chengdao shi zhuangshi fo” [Preliminary discussion of the ornamented Buddha of the T'ang dynasty: Representing the defeat of Mara], National Palace Museum Research Quarterly 23, no. 3 (2006): 39–90. The earliest of these images was found in the Guanyin Peak of Guilin in Guangxi Province and dates to 679. For more information about this image, see Yamana Shinsei, “Keirin no chōro gan'nen mei magai butsu ni tsuite” [On the Buddha image carved onto the cliff dated to the diaolu era in Guilin],” Bukkyō Geijutsu 198 (1991): 85–108.6. Arthur Waley, A Catalogue of Paintings Recovered from Tun-huang by Sir Aurel Stein (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1931), 268–69;
Takada Osamu, “Hōkan butsu no zō ni tsuite” [On the crowned Buddha images], Bukkyō Geijutsu 21, no. 4 (1954): 42–58; and Ono Katsutoshi, “Hōkan butsu shiron” [Discussion on the crowned Buddha], Ryūkoku daigakku ronshu 389–90 (1969): 279–99.7. The Buddha's identification as Mahāvirocana has been proposed by a number of Chinese scholars, such as Xing Jun, Ding Mingyi, Li Wensheng, Wen Yucheng, and Chang Qing. For more on this group of scholars, see Lee Yu-min, “Shilun Tangdai xiangmo chengdao shi zhuangshi fo,” 41. Although usually depicted with a different hand gesture, Mahāvirocana is described in scriptures as being adorned lavishly with jewels and wearing a crown that distinguishes him from other Buddhas.
8. Chuan-ying Yen, “The Sculpture from the Tower of Seven Jewels,” 84–92,
and Kim Lena proposed that the image type is a representation of Vairocana, since the Avataṃsaka sūtra indicates that an apparition of a precious crown hovers above his head at the moment of his preaching. Kim Lena, “Chungguk ŭi hangma chokji'in pulchwasang” [Buddha images in bhūmisparśa mudrā in China], in Han'guk kodae pulgyo chogaksa yŏn'gu, 326–32.9. Lu Jianfu and Luo Zhao suggest that it might depict the Garbhadhatu Buddha, whose form as described in the Tuoluoni ji jing [Collective Sutra of Dharanis] is lavishly ornamented with jewelry and a seven-jeweled crown. For more information about this scholarship, see Lee Yu-min, “Shilun Tangdai xiangmo chengdao shi zhuangshi fo,” 41–42.
10. Lei Yuhua and Wang Jianping, “Shilun Sichuan de puti ruixiang,” 85–91.
11. Detailed information on the inscription will be introduced later.
12. For a comprehensive study on Bodhgayā, see Janice Leoshko, ed., Bodhgaya: The Site of Enlightenment (Bombay: Marg Publications, 1988).
13. Xuanzang with Bianji, Da Tang xiyu ji [The great Tang dynasty record of the western regions], in Taishō shinshū Daizōkyō [The Buddhist canon, comp. Taishō era, 1912–26], ed. Takakutsu Junjirō and Watanabe Kaigyoku, 100 vols. (Tokyo: Taishō issaikyō kankōkai, 1924–32), T. no. 2087, vol. 51. Hereafter, Buddhist texts in the Taishō canon are indicated by text number (T. no.), followed by the volume, page, and register (a, b, or c). Yijing, Da Tang xiyu qiufa gaoseung zhuan [Biographies of eminent monks who went to the western regions in search of the law during the great Tang dynasty], in T. no. 2066, vol. 51.
14. The image at the Mahābodhi Temple seems to have survived until the thirteenth century, but its fate afterward is unknown. For a brief sketch of the life of the image at the Mahābodhi Temple, see Janice Leoshko, “The Vajrasana Buddha,” in Leoshko, Bodhgaya: The Site of Enlightenment, 29–44.
15. Yijing, Biographies, in T. no. 2066, vol. 51: 1c, 10a, and so on.
16. For instance, the term appears in the following contexts: “Zhenrong fades away fast”; “Zhenrong departed from its appearance.” For more instances, see Hou Xudong, Wu, liu shiji beifang minzhong fojiao xinyang [Common people's Buddhist beliefs in northern China during the fifth and sixth centuries examined through dedicatory inscriptions] (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1998), 230–40.
For an analysis of various patterns, see Sun-ah Choi, “Quest for the True Visage: Sacred Images in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Art and the Concept of Zhen” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2012), 29–60.17. I am influenced by Jennifer Trimble and Jaś Elsner in regard to this view that the practice of replication has a complex relation to visual artworks in contemporary circulation and their contemporary reception. Trimble and Elsner, “Introduction: ‘If You Need an Actual Statue …,’” Art History 29, no. 2 (2006): 208.
18. Yijing, Biographies, in T. no. 2066, vol. 51. Yijing left for India in 671 via the so-called southern sea route. He traveled through more than thirty countries before returning to China in 695. On his way back to China, he spent four years in Srivijaya (Sumatra). While there, he sent back to China a complete manuscript of Nanhai jigui nei fazhuan [A record of the Buddhist religion as practiced in India and the Malay Archipelago] (in T. no. 2125, vol. 54) and the Biographies. For further information on Yijing and his works, see Latika Lahiri, trans. and ed., Chinese Monks in India: Biography of Eminent Monks Who Went to the Western World in Search of the Law during the Great T'ang Dynasty, A.D. 1–600, by I Ching (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1986), xv–xxvii.
19. Yijing, Biographies, in T. no. 2066, vol. 51: 1c, 10a, and so on.
20. Zanning, Song gaoseng zhuan [Biographies of eminent monks of the Song dynasty], in T. no. 2061, vol. 50: 710 b.
21. For more information about Xuanzang and his travelogue, see Nancy Elizabeth Boulton, “Early Chinese Buddhist Travel Records as a Literary Genre” ( PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1982), 80–128;
and Dorothy C. Wong, “The Making of a Saint: Images of Xuanzang in East Asia,” Early Medieval China 8 (2002): 43–98.22. For an English translation, see Samuel Beal, trans., Si-yu-ki, Buddhist Records of the Western World by Hiuen Tsiang, 2 vols. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1884; reprint, Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corp., 1969).
See also Li Rongxi, trans., The Great Tang Dynasty Record of the Western Regions (Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1996).23. Leoshko, introduction to Bodhgaya: The Site of Enlightenment, 2.
24. For more on the meaning of Bodhgayā, see Malcolm D. Eckel, To See the Buddha: A Philosopher's Quest for the Meaning of Emptiness (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 51–64.
25. Faxian, Gaoseng Faxian zhuan [Biography of the eminent monk Faxian], in T. no. 2085, vol. 51: 863b. Faxian's journey lasted almost sixteen years, from 399 to 414. His travelogue has been translated into English several times. For Faxian and the different English translations, see Boulton, “Early Chinese Buddhist Travel Records,” 44–79. For an English translation of this part, see James Legge, trans., A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms: Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of His Travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 394–414) in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886; reprint, New York: Paragon Book Reprint and Dover Publications, 1965), 96.
26. Xuanzang, Da Tang xiyu ji, in T. no. 2087, vol. 51: 915a–b. See also Beal, trans., Si-yu-ki, vol. 2, 114–15; and Li Rongxi, trans., The Great Tang Dynasty Record, 243–44.
27. In regard to the record on the image in Bodhgayā, there is one exceptional case. In his biography, the fifth-century Chinese monk Zhimeng is reported to have worshipped an “image of [an act of] defeating the evil spirits [xiang mo xiang]” in Bodhgayā. Huijiao, Gaoseng zhuan [Biographies of eminent monks], in T. no. 2059, vol. 50: 343b. However, it is not certain if this image is the same one witnessed by Xuanzang.
28. Xuanzang, Da Tang xiyu ji, in T. no. 2087, vol. 51: 916a–b, translation adapted from Beal, Si-yu-ki, vol. 2, 119–21; and Li Rongxi, The Great Tang Dynasty Record, 247–49, emphasis and numbering mine; referred to hereafter as Legend.
29. As Robert L. Brown shows, size is one of several aspects to which Xuanzang paid attention in his description of images. Brown, “Expected Miracles: The Unsurprisingly Miraculous Nature of Buddhist Images and Relics,” in Images, Miracles, and Authority in Asian Religious Traditions, ed. Richard H. Davis (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1998), 24.
However, his notations are generally limited to records of height and rarely extend to measurements of other parts, such as the width of the shoulders and the knees.30. For instance, a votive inscription of a Buddha statue dated 566 includes the following phrases: “Reverently made a stone statue of the Buddha Śākyamuni. Lavishly decorated, and carved extravagantly. The beauty was equal to a golden quality. The beauty of the appearance is similar to that of the true visage.” For more information and an interpretation of this pattern, see Choi, “Quest for the True Visage,” 44–45.
31. The only other surviving example in which the legend of the image is recounted is the biography of the Tibetan monk Dharmasvāmin, who traveled to India in the early thirteenth century and visited the Mahābodhi Temple in 1234. Although it shares a similar narrative, the legend in the Tibetan text does not contain as detailed a description of the image's formal features or such a patterned expression in describing the impression of the image. For an English translation of the relevant part of his biography, see George Roerich, trans., Biography of Dharmasvāmin (Chag lo tsa-ba Chos-rje-dpal): A Tibetan Monk Pilgrim (Patna: K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 1959), 67–70.
32. T. H. Barrett, “Exploratory Observations on Some Weeping Pilgrims,” in The Buddhist Forum, vol. 1, Seminar Papers 1987–1988, ed. Tadeusz Skorupski (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1990), 99–110.
33. For the list of Buddhist images in Record, I consulted Juhyung Rhi, ed., Tong'asia kupŏpsŭng kwa Indo ŭi pulgyo yuchŏk [Buddhist pilgrim monks of East Asia and sacred sites in India] (Seoul: Sahoe pyŏngnon, 2009), 502–30.
For Xuanzang's pattern of describing images, see Brown, “Expected Miracles,” 24–27.34. Xuanzang, Da Tang xiyu ji, in T. no. 2087, vol. 51: 879a. See also Beal, Si-yu-ki, vol. 1, 93; and Li Rongxi, The Great Tang Dynasty Record, 67.
35. For more on the “shadow image,” see Alexander C. Soper, Literary Evidence for Early Buddhist Art in China (Ascona: Artibus Asiae, 1959), 265–68;
and Choi, “Quest for the True Visage,” 67–69.36. Wang Xuance traveled to India at least four times during the mid-seventh century as an imperial envoy under Emperors Taizong and Gaozong. For more information about Wang Xuance and his travel to India, see Amy McNair, Donors of Longmen: Faith, Politics, and Patronage in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Sculpture (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007), 94–96.
37. Although it does not survive today, a portion of his writing—in particular, the account of the Mahābodhi image—is preserved in Fayuan zhulin [The Pearl grove of the Dharma Garden], the encyclopedia of Buddhism compiled sometime before 668 by Daoshi. In the chapter entitled gantong, or “spiritual resonance,” the author introduces the holy places in India based on the travelogues of prominent contemporary figures, such as Xuanzang and Wang Xuance. Wang Xuance, in Daoshi, comp., Fayuan zhulin, in T. no. 2122, vol. 55: 502c–503a.
38. Ibid., in T. no. 2122, vol. 55: 503a. In naming the image, Wang, however, used expressions that made reference to the location where the image was seated, such as the “Image of the Mahā [Great] Bodhi Tree” and the “Holy Image on the Diamond Seat,” rather than directly referring to it as zhenrong.
39. Yijing, Biographies, in T. no. 2066, vol. 51: 1c, 10a, and so on.
40. With regard to this matter, T. H. Barrett's suggestion that Yijing shared the same ambition as Empress Wu (624–705) of reshaping China as a Buddhist land is quite appealing. Barrett, “Did I-ching Go to India? Problems in Using I-ching as a Source for South Asian Buddhism,” Buddhist Studies Review 15, no. 2 (1998): 150.
Indeed, Empress Wu welcomed Yijing when, after his twenty-five-year journey to India, he returned to China in 695 with a replica of the True Visage on the Diamond Seat, along with other sacred materials. However, further evidence is lacking. For more on Empress Wu's ambition and the atmosphere of the Chinese Buddhist world of the late seventh and early eighth centuries, see Tansen Sen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600–1400 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2003); and Jinhua Chen, Philosopher, Practitioner, Politician: The Many Lives of Fazang (643–712) (Leiden: Brill, 2007).41. Huili, Da Tang da ci'ensi sanzang fashi zhuan, in T. no. 2053, vol. 50. It should be noted that the personal aspect of this travel is totally omitted in Record, which more closely resembles an official report of the geography and the demography of the western land.
42. Ibid., T. no. 2053, vol. 50: 236b, translation adapted from Samuel Beal, The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1911), 105.
43. Barrett, “Exploratory Observations on Some Weeping Pilgrims,” 107.
44. We can gain insight into how Xuanzang perceived the time period he belonged to from the word “xiangji,” which I translate here as the “days of the semblance dharma.” For a discussion of this term (or xiangfa) in relation to the idea of mofa, see Jan Nattier, Once upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1991).
45. This idea is borrowed from Kenneth Gross, Dream of the Moving Statue (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992), 15.
46. Yijing, Biographies, in T. no. 2066, vol. 51: 1c. The translation is adapted from Lahiri, trans., Chinese Monks in India, 8–9, with revisions. Although the exact dates of Xuanzhao's life are not known, according to Yijing's record, he went to India during the zhenguan era (627–49) and returned to China during the linde era (664–65). After his return in the linde era, he was asked to go to India again, and he finally died there.
47. Yijing, Biographies, in T. no. 2066, vol. 51: 10a. The translation is adapted from Lahiri, Chinese Monks in India, 102. The exact dates of Daijin's birth and death are also unknown. According to Yijing's recount, Daijin left for India in 682 and decided to return to China in 692.
48. This stela was found during the excavation of Bodhgayā by British archaeologists. For more on the stela, see Samuel Beal, “Two Chinese-Buddhist Inscriptions Found at Buddha Gaya,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 13 (1881): 552–72.
49. Daoshi, Fayuan zhulin, in T. no. 2122, vol. 55: 502c–503a. Paul Pelliot suggested that this event occurred on Wang's third trip to Bodhgayā during the period of 657 to 661. Pelliot, “Notes sur quelques articles de Six dynasties et des T'ang,” T'oung Pao, 2nd ser., 22 (1923): 280. In addition, Wang Xuance supervised the creation of an image in Jing'ai Monastery in Luoyang based on the sketch that he brought from India. Zhang Yanyuan (815–879), Lidai minghua ji [Record of the famous paintings of the successive dynasties] (Beijing: Jinghua chubanshe, 2000), vol. 5.
50. Daoshi, Fayuan zhulin, in T. no. 2122, vol. 55: 503a. Initially, ten volumes about this image with illustrations were created. Literary evidence further indicates that Wang compiled at least two different works, both of which must have included this painted copy. The first one, entitled Zhong tianzhu guo tu [Illustration of India], comprised ten volumes of travelogue and three volumes of illustrations and was completed in 658. See Zhang Yanyuan, Lidai minghua ji, vol. 3, sec. 5. The second work is titled Xiguo ji [Record of the western country] and was compiled in 666. It consists of sixty volumes of text and forty volumes of illustrations. In regard to this second work, see T. no. 2122, vol. 55: 703c, 1024a.
51. Zanning, Biographies of Eminent Monks of the Song Dynasty, in T. no. 2061, vol. 50: 710b.
52. Luo Shiping, “Qianfo ya Lizhou Bigong ji zaoxiang niandai kao” [Examination of Duke Bi of Lizhou of the Thousand Buddhas Cliff and the date of the images], Wenwu, no. 6 (1990): 34–36;
and idem, “Guangyuan Qianfo ya Puti ruixiang kao” [An examination of the puti ruixiang in the Thousand Buddhas Cliff, Guangyuan], National Palace Museum Research Quarterly 9, no. 2 (1991): 117–38.53. These include Liu Xihai (d. 1853)'s Jinshi yuan and Lu Zengxiang (1816–1882)'s Baqiongshi jinshi buzheng.
54. Luo Shiping, “Qianfo ya Lizhou Bigong ji zaoxiang niandai kao.” This identification was suggested by Lu Zengxiang in the nineteenth century. His suggestion was corroborated by Luo's meticulous examination of Bi Zhonghua's family tree and the list of the minor officials, whose names are carved on the south wall of the cave.
55. It is a Chinese transliteration of the Sanskrit word bodhi. For more on this word, see Tetsuji Morohashi, Dai kanwa jiten [Dictionary of Chinese], 13 vols. (Tokyo: Daishukan shoten, 1955–60), vol. 9, 707.
56. …泥 不滿備珍飾…
57. Lei Yuhua and Wang Jianping, “Shilun Sichuan de puti ruixiang”; and idem, “Zailun Sichuan de puti ruixiang” [Further discussion on the puti ruixiang in Sichuan Province], Gugong bowuyuan yuankan, no. 6 (2005): 142–61.
58. Lee Yu-min, “Shilun Tangdai xiangmo chengdao shi zhuangshi fo,” 39–90.
59. Simon Lawson, “Votive Objects from Bodhgaya,” in Leoshko, Bodhgaya: The Site of Enlightenment, 61–72.
60. Benjamin Rowland, “A Miniature Replica of the Mahābodhi Temple,” Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art 6 (1938): 73–83;
and John Guy, “The Mahābodhi Temple: Pilgrim Souvenirs of Buddhist India,” Burlington Magazine 133, no. 1059 (June 1991): 356–67.61. There are four important Southeast Asian re-creations of the Mahābodhi Temple. The earliest was built at Bagan in the first half of the thirteenth century. Three were built in the fifteenth century—one in Myanmar and two in Thailand. Alexander B. Griswold, “The Holy Land Transported,” in Paranavitana Felicitation Volume on Art & Architecture and Oriental Studies, ed. N. A. Jayawickrama (Colombo, Sri Lanka: M. D. Gunasena, 1965), 173–222;
and Robert L. Brown, “Bodhgaya and South-east Asia,” in Leoshko, Bodhgaya: The Site of Enlightenment, 101–24. The one in Nepal dates to the sixteenth century. Mary Shepherd Slusser, “Bodhgaya and Nepal,” in ibid., 125–42.62. Roerich, Biography of Dharmasvāmin, 67.
63. For more about the history of the Mahābodhi Temple, see Geri H. Malandra, “The Mahabodhi Temple,” in Leoshko, Bodhgaya: The Site of Enlightenment, 21–45.
64. Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, An Account of the Districts of Bihar and Patna in 1811–12, ed. John F. W. James, 2 vols. (Patna: Bihar and Orissa Research Society, 1936), 89–162.
For more about the Hindu occupation of the site, see Jacob Kinnard, “When Is the Buddha Not the Buddha? The Hindu/Buddhist Battle over Bodhgayā and Its Buddha Image,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 114, no. 2 (1998): 226–38; and Alan Trevithick, The Revival of Buddhist Pilgrimage at Bodh Gaya (1811–1949): Anagarika Dhamapala and the Mahābodhi Temple (Delhi: Motilal Barnasidass, 2006).65. Alexander Cunningham, Mahābodhi, or The Great Buddhist Temple under the Bodhi Tree at Buddha-Gaya (London: W. H. Allen, 1982).
Concerning British explorations of the site, see Janice Leoshko, Sacred Traces: British Explorations of Buddhism in South Asia (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2003).66. According to Xuanzang, the height of the image was 11 ft. 5 in. in Tang-foot measurement (approximately 3.4 m).
67. This statue was a replacement for a crude statue that had been set on the main altar of the temple by the Burmese several decades before. W. S. Desari, “History of the Burmese Mission to India,” Journal of the Burma Research Society 26 (1936): 20–45.
For more information on the current statue, see Susan Huntington, The “Pāla-Sena” Schools of Sculpture (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1984), 99–100; and Leoshko, “The Iconography of Buddhist Sculptures of the Pāla and Sena Periods from Bodhgayā,” 124–29.68. This international phenomenon is discussed in Leoshko, Bodhgaya: The Site of Enlightenment, in which independent articles are devoted to the influence of Bodhgayā in Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, Nepal, and Tibet. However, as Leoshko notes in the introduction, 8, the influence in East Asia is not addressed, in spite of the fact that the records of the Chinese pilgrims document the special significance that Bodhgayā had for East Asian traditions.
69. Jane Casey Singer, “Tibetan Homage to Bodh Gaya,” Orientations 32, no. 10 (2004): 44–51.
70. There are several exceptions in Nepal and Tibet in which some of the Buddha images in bhūmisparśa mudrā are depicted with jewelry and crowns. Dated to the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries, they were, however, created much later than the Chinese examples. Jane Casey Singer, “Bodhgaya and Tibet,” in Leoshko, Bodhgaya: The Site of Enlightenment, 153–55; and Slusser, “Bodhgaya and Tibet,” 136.
71. Leoshko suggests that Buddha images in bhūmisparśa mudrā seem to have originated somewhere other than Bodhgayā at an earlier time, but that Bodhgayā became the center of this iconography in eastern India. For a detailed examination of statues of this type that were excavated or retrieved from Bodhgayā and dated earlier than the seventh century, see Leoshko, “The Iconography of Buddhist Sculptures of the Pāla and Sena Periods from Bodhgayā,” 76–103.
Her discussion of the crowned/jeweled Buddha statues produced in Bodhgayā in the following section is also worth considering. She demonstrates conclusively that it was not until the eleventh century that this special type was produced in eastern India (196–227). These Indian examples, particularly those that were excavated in Bodhgayā, have received a great deal of scholarly attention. Paul Mus, for instance, relates what he calls the “crowned Buddha” to the Indian interpretations of Śākyamuni's enlightenment as a coronation into Buddhahood on the transcendent, sambhogakāya level. Mus, “Le Buddha paré: Son origine indienne, Śākyamuni dans le Mahayanisme moyen,” Bulletin de l’École Française d'Extrême-Orient 28 (1928): 153–278. Ananda Coomaraswamy described this iconographic development as part of the emancipation of the Buddha principle from its historical setting. Coomaraswamy, Elements of Buddhist Iconography (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1935), 46.72. Takada, “Hōkan butsu no zō ni tsuite,” 50–52. The image (Fig. 17) that I suggest here to give us an idea of what the painted copy of the statue looked like (also used by Takada for the same purpose in his article) is part of a silk painting found in Dunhuang, currently in the collection of the National Museum of India in New Delhi (former Stein Collection). The original painting was divided in two and preserved separately in the British Museum (Asia OA 1919, 1–1, 0.51) and the National Museum of India in New Delhi (Ch. XX11.0023). For more information about the painting, see Waley, A Catalogue of Paintings Recovered from Tun-huang, 268–69; Ono, “Hōkan butsu shiron,” 279–99; Alexander C. Soper, “Representations of Famous Images at Tun-huang,” Artibus Asiae 27 (1964–65): 349–64; and Roderick Whitfield, “Ruixiang at Dunhuang,” in Function and Meaning in Buddhist Art, ed. K. R. van Kooij and H. van der Veere (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1995), 149–56.
The subject matter of this painting has been studied extensively, and it is now thought that it is an iconographic grouping of the Buddha images famous in India, Central Asia, and China, but the further meaning and function of the painting itself have yet to be studied.73. For instance, Yijing's copy was counted by the word pu, a word that is usually, but not always, used for painting. The word qu is normally used for counting the numbers of three-dimensional statues.
74. For a brief review of the background of these images, see Chen Zhen, “Tangdai nifo xiang” [Clay Buddha images of the Tang dynasty], Wenwu, no. 8 (1959): 49–51.
A more systematic analysis of the materials is found in Hida Romi, “Tō So jōji shozō no Indo butsuzō senbutsu ni tsuite” [On the clay Buddha image inscribed as “Indian Buddha Image” commissioned by changshi (attendant) Su of the Tang dynasty], Bijutsushi kenkyū 22 (1985): 1–18.75. The earliest surviving literary source where we find the term yindu used as the designation for India is Da Tang xiyu ji. Hida, “Tō So jōji shozō no Indo butsuzō senbutsu ni tsuite,” 12–13.
76. Ibid., 12.
77. The only literary source introducing this image is Ōmura Seigai, Shina bijutsushi: Chōsohen [Chinese art: Sculptures] (Tokyo: Bussho kankokai, 1915–20), fig. 818.
This plaque has been investigated by Hida, “Tōdai ni okeru Buddagaya Kongōza shin'yōzō no ryūkō ni tsuite,” 177–78; and Kim, “Chungguk ŭi hangma chokji'in pulchwasang,” 301–2.78. Ōmura, Shina bijutsushi: Chōsohen, 89.
79. John Ma, “The Two Cultures: Connoisseurship and Civic Honours,” Art History 29, no. 2 (2006): 325–38;
rephrased by Trimble and Elsner, “Introduction: ‘If You Need an Actual Statue … ,’” 206.80. There is a strict hierarchical order in the composition of the relief figures. On the walls of the antechamber are eight classes of the divine guardians and two diamond bolt bearers, while heavenly guardians of the four cardinal directions are carved on the walls of the corridor. Deities of higher status are rendered in the main chamber: Brahma and Indra, the bodhisattvas Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra, ten disciples of the Buddha, and the eleven-headed Avalokiteśvara. Above these relief panels are ten semicircular niches. Each contains a seated figure of various bodhisattvas and the old man Vimalakirti.
81. For a detailed description of this monument, see Sŏng-mi Yi, “Problems Concerning the Sŏkkul-am Cave Temple in Kyŏngju,” Seoul Journal of Korean Studies 1 (1988): 30–35.
82. Samguk yusa 5: “Taesŏng hyo ise pumo Sinmunwangdae,” in Han'guk Chŏngsin Munhwa Yŏn'guwŏn [Academy of Korean Studies], ed., Yŏkchu Samguk yusa [Annotation and translation of the Samguk yusa] (Seoul: Ihoe Munhwasa, 2003–4), 376–82. For an English translation of this section, see Richard D. McBride II, Domesticating the Dharma: Buddhist Cults and the Hwaŏm Synthesis in Silla Korea (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008), 121–22.
83. Various issues, including original motivations of the construction, identity of the individual who was responsible for its planning and execution, iconographic program and doctrinal basis, and mathematical principles that govern the overall proportions of the architecture and sculpture, have been enthusiastically explored over the past several decades. For a brief summary and review of Korean scholarship concerning the issues of this monument, see Yi, “Problems Concerning the Sŏkkul-am Cave Temple in Kyŏngju,” 35–43; and Park Chanhŭng, “Sŏkkul-am e taehan yŏnkusa kŏmt'o” [a review of the studies on Sŏkkul-am], in “A New Research for Sokkuram,” special issue, Silla Munhwajae haksul palp'yohoe nonmunjip 21 (2000): 199–234.
84. The link between the main Buddha statue of Sŏkkul-am and the image at the Mahābodhi Temple based on their shared iconography had been suggested by Kim, “Indo pulsang ŭi chungguk chŏllae ko.” What makes Kang's approach distinctive is his focus on the size of the image in relation to its suggested model. Originally published in 1984 in Korean, Kang's article is now available in English. U-bang Kang, Korean Buddhist Sculpture: Art and Truth, trans. Cho Yoonjung (Chicago: Art Media Resources; Seoul: Youlhwadang Publisher, 2005), 97–124.
85. The height of the Sŏkkul-am Buddha is 3.45 m, the width between knees is 2.61 m, and the width between the shoulders is 2.01 m. Converted into Tang-foot measurement, these dimensions are 11 ft. 5⅜ in., 8 ft. 8 in., and 6 ft. 6 in., respectively. For this conversion, see Kang, Korean Buddhist Sculpture, 123.
86. Ibid., 97. Buddha statues at both Sŏkkul-am and the Mahābodhi Temple are facing east.
87. Cunningham, Mahābodhi, 54.
88. There are many studies on Borobudur, but for a comprehensive description of the monument, see A. J. Bernet Kempers, Ageless Borobudur (Wassenaar, the Netherlands: Servire, 1976).
For a recent study, see Julie Grifford, Buddhist Practice and Visual Culture: The Visual Rhetoric of Borobudur (London: Routledge, 2011).89. For instance, N. J. Krom argued that the statue was placed there later in the nineteenth century. Krom, cited in J. E. van Lohuizen-de Leeuw, “The Dhyani-Buddhas of Barabudur,” Bijdragen tot de taal-, land-, en volkenkunde 121 (1965): 398; and Brown, “Bodhgaya and South-east Asia,” 56.
90. For this proposal, I consulted van Lohuizen-de Leeuw, “The Dhyani-Buddhas of Barabudur,” 398; and Brown, “Bodhgaya and South-east Asia,” 118–19.
91. Alfred Foucher, “Le Buddha inachevé de Boro-Budur,” Bulletin de l’École Française d'Extrême-Orient 3 (1903): 78–80.
For more on this group of scholars, including J. L. Moens and A. J. Bernet Kempers, see van Lohuizen-de Leeuw, “The Dhyani-Buddhas of Barabudur,” 398–99; and Brown, “Bodhgaya and South-east Asia,”118–19. Brown has defined this phenomenon as “conceptual influence.” With regard to the notion of the “unfinished image,” see also Joanna Williams, “Unfinished Images,” India International Centre Quarterly 13, no. 1 (March 1986): 91–104.92. Among surviving Chinese examples, none is known to be of the same size as the Buddha statue at the Mahābodhi Temple or as the Buddha statue at Sŏkkul-am (11½ ft., or 3.45 m). The puti ruixiang at Thousand Buddhas Cliff, for instance, is 54 in. (137 cm) in height, and the Buddha statue in the middle cave of Leigutai at Longmen Caves is 84⅝ in. (215 cm) in height.
93. In addition to the example at the Thousand Buddhas Cliff, a Buddha statue in bhūmisparśa mudrā with jewelry decoration and carved onto the cliff of the Feixian ge Cave in Pujiang has an inscription that refers to the image as ruixiang. As this dates to 689, it is the earliest known example that has such a designation. For more discussion about the Buddhist sculptures in Pujiang, see Angela F. Howard, “Buddhist Sculpture of Pujiang, Sichuan: A Mirror of the Direct Link between Southwest China and India in High Tang,” Archives of Asian Art 42 (1998): 49–61;
and Henrik H. Sørensen, “The Buddhist Sculptures at Feixian Pavilion in Pujiang, Sichuan,” Artibus Asiae 58, nos. 1–2 (1998): 33–67. We also know that the same type of image was regarded as a ruixiang from the wall paintings of Mogao Caves in Dunhuang. For instance, mid-Tang caves, such as Cave 237, show the same iconography that had been suggested by Zhang Xiaogang as a representation of puti ruixiang. Zhang Xiaogang, “Zaitan dunhuang mojiatuo guo fangguang ruixiang yu puti ruixiang” [Reexamination of the Pratima of Radiance image of Maghada and famous image of Bodhi in Dunhuang Caves], Dunhuang yanjiu, no. 1 (2009): 21–25.94. On the definition of ruixiang, see Whitfield, “Ruixiang at Dunhuang,” 149; Wu Hung, “Rethinking Liu Sahe: The Creation of a Buddhist Saint and the Invention of a ‘Miraculous’ Image,” Orientations 29, no. 6 (November 1996): 32–43;
and Ning Qiang, Art, Religion & Politics in Medieval China: The Dunhuang Cave of the Zhai Family (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004), 82.95. To select a few, Whitfield, “Ruixiang at Dunhuang,” 149; Ning Qiang, “Diplomatic Icons: Social and Political Meanings of Khotanese Images in Dunhuang Cave 220,” Oriental Art 44, no. 4 (1998): 2–15;
Koichi Shinohara, “Changing Roles of Miraculous Images in Medieval Chinese Buddhism: A Study of the Miracle Image Section in Daoxuan's ‘Collected Records,’” in Davis, Images, Miracles, and Authority in Asian Religious Traditions, 143–88; and idem, “Dynastic Politics and Miraculous Images: The Example of Zhuli of the Changlesi Temple in Yangzhou,” in ibid., 189–206.96. For more about King Aśoka and legends related to him, see John S. Strong, The Legend of King Aśoka: A Study and Translation of the Aśokāvadāna (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983);
and Koichi Shinohara, “Gao Li's Discovery of a Miraculous Image: The Evolution of Ashoka Image Stories in Medieval China,” in The Flowering of a Foreign Faith: New Studies in Chinese Buddhist Art, ed. Janet Baker (New Delhi: Marg Publications, 1998), 20–27.97. Liu Zhiyuan and Liu Yanbi, Chengdu Wanfosi shike yishu [Arts of the stone sculpture excavated from Wanfo Monastery in Chengdu] (Beijing: Zhongguo gudian yishu chubanshe, 1958);
Yuan Shuguang, “Sichuan sheng bowuguan cang Wanfosi shike zaoxiang zhengli jianbao” [Brief report on the stone sculptures found in the Wanfo Monastery and currently preserved in Sichuan Provincial Museum], Wenwu, no. 10 (2001): 19–38.98. For information concerning drapery, see Alexander B. Griswold, “Prolegomena to Study of the Buddha's Dress in Chinese Sculpture,” Artibus Asiae 26, no. 2 (1963): 117–19;
and Alexander C. Soper, “South Chinese Influence of the Buddhist Art of the Six Dynasties Period,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 32 (1960): 92–94.99. Wang Jianping and Lei Yuhua, “Ayuwang xiang de chubu kaocha” [Preliminary approaches to the King Aśoka images], Xinan minzu daxue xuebao, no. 9 (2007): 65–69.
Meanwhile, Marilyn Rhie has suggested a more diverse source of origins, including Kushan Mathura, Central Asia, and China, arguing that the 551 King Aśoka Image is a faithful copy of a fourth-century image. See Rhie, Early Buddhist Art of China and Central Asia: Handbook of Oriental Studies, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1999–2002), vol. 2, 159–68.100. Soper, “South Chinese Influence,” 92–94; and Kim Lena, “Hwangnyongsa ŭi changnyuk chonsang kwa silla ŭi ayugwangsang kye pulsang” [The sixteen-foot Buddha of Hwangnyong Monastery and Aśoka image-type Buddha statues of Silla dynasty], in Han'guk kodae pulgyo chokaksa yŏn'gu, 72–73, originally published in Chindan hakpo 46–47, no. 6 (1979): 195–215.
101. Koichi Shinohara, “Gao Li's Discovery of a Miraculous Image,” 22.
102. For more about the aniconic period of Buddhist art and the beginning of image making for worship in India, see Benjamin Rowland, “A Note on the Invention of the Buddha Image,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 11, nos. 1–2 (1948): 181–86;
Susan Huntington, “Early Buddhist Art and the Theory of Aniconism,” Art Journal 49, no. 4 (Winter 1990): 401–8; Vidya Dehejia, “Aniconism and the Multivalence of Emblems,” Ars Orientalis 21 (1992): 45–66; and Susan Huntington, “Aniconism and the Multivalence of Emblems: Another Look,” Ars Orientalis 22 (1992): 111–56.103. For more about the legend, see Martha L. Carter, The Mystery of the Udanaya Buddha (Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1990).
For a comparative interpretation of various versions of the legend, see Choi, “Quest for the True Visage,” 61–72.104. Gregory Henderson and Leon Hurvitz, “The Buddha of Seiryōji: New Finds and New Theory,” Artibus Asiae 19, no. 1 (1956): 5–55;
Carter, The Mystery of the Udayana Buddha; and Donald F. McCallum, “The Saidaiji Lineage of the Seiryōji Shaka Tradition,” Archives of Asian Art 49 (1996): 51–67.105. Hida Romi, “ShoTō jidai ni okeru Udennōzō: Genjō no Shakazō shōrai to csono juyō no itsō” [The Udayāna Buddha image in the early Tang: One aspect of the acceptance of Xuanzang's Śākyamuni image], Bijutsusi 120 (1985): 81–94;
Li Wensheng, “Wo guo shiku zhongde Youtianwang zaoxiang” [The King Udayana images in cave chapels in China], Zhongyuan wenwu, no. 4 (1985): 102–6; and McNair, Donors of Longmen, 99–104.106. Henderson and Hurvitz, “The Buddha of Seiryōji”; Soper, “South Chinese Influence”; Carter, The Mystery of the Udayana Buddha; Hida, “ShoTō jidai ni okeru Udennōzō”; and so on.
107. For more about this relief, see Rowland, “A Note on the Invention of the Buddha Image,” 183–84.
108. Daoxuan, Daoxuan lushi gantong lu [The record of Master Daoxuan's spiritual response], in T. no. 2107, vol. 52: 213a. For more on this issue, see Soper, Literary Evidence for Early Buddhist Art, 265.
109. This aspect has rarely been discussed in previous studies of ruixiang. The lack of interest in such an aspect of auspicious imagery is mainly due to the methodology of conventional art history. Most art historians have approached ruixiang with a strong expectation that there is a specific prototype somewhere in India or another place that is suggested in the legend. They have also assumed that surviving materials are the faithful replication of an uncertain original. Conditioned by the methodical examination of influences, the study of ruixiang in medieval Chinese visual culture pays insufficient attention to the fact that the images were created with the help of imagination, in which more than one kind of process was at work.
110. As Wu Hung, “Rethinking Liu Sahe,” 38–39, correctly points out, a miraculous image entails a contradiction, especially when it is represented as an independent icon in frontal view in a certain ritual space like a cave chapel. Its central location and ritual function identify it as the Buddha, to whom worshippers paid their utmost respect. Yet it is also unmistakable that this statue deliberately imitated an existing image.
111. As suggested by Henry A. Millon, in his preface to “Retaining the Original: Multiple Originals, Copies, and Reproductions,” special issue of Studies in the History of Art 20 (1989): 6, we can think of two aspects of originality in the practice of copying. First, copies of recognized works of art are made, in some sense, to possess the original or replicate its iconic or cultural meaning. Second, copies are intended to be multiple originals that equally enable possession of the original while replicating and disseminating its image. In the dual aspects of originality, the nature of the puti ruixiang is closer to the former.
112. One of the important issues that have not been discussed here is a possible difference in the nature of the ornamented Buddha images made in regions other than Sichuan Province. Unlike the images in Sichuan Province, those created in Luoyang, for instance, are located in different types of settings. For a new interpretation of the statue, see Michelle Wang, “Changing Conceptions of ‘Mandala’ in Tang China: Ritual and the Role of Images,” Material Religion 9, no. 2 (June 2013): 186–217.
This article is based on a chapter of my PhD dissertation. I am grateful to the members of my dissertation committee at the University of Chicago, Professors Wu Hung, Paul Copp, and Verity Platt, for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I also wish to thank the two anonymous readers for The Art Bulletin for their thoughtful suggestions. Special thanks go to John C. and Susan L. Huntington, Juhyung Rhi, Taeho Lee, Kyeongmi Joo, Bokyung Kim, Haewon Kim, Lin Sheng-chih, and Lei Yuhua for generously sharing their image archives with me. Many thanks also to Li Qingquan, Mei Lin, Anne Feng, Jin Xu, Inoue Chikara, Hyejeong Choi, Sonya Lee, Winston Kyan, Wei-cheng Lin, Seunghye Lee, Jinah Kim, J. P. Park, Mi Jeongh Kang, and Kyeong-ah Son for their assistance in dealing with various issues related to images. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine.
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Sun-ah Choi
Sun-ah Choi is an assistant professor of art history at Myongji University. She specializes in Buddhist art of East Asia. Her current book project examines how medieval Chinese claimed special ontology of their sacred images by using the notion of zhen (real), in the contexts of both Buddhism and Daoism [Department of Art History, Myongji University, 34 Geobukgol-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 120-728, Republic of Korea, [email protected]].