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Four Sichuan Buddhist Steles and the Beginnings of Pure Land Imagery in China Author(S): Dorothy C

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Four Sichuan Buddhist Steles and the Beginnings of Pure Land Imagery in China Author(S): Dorothy C Four Sichuan Buddhist Steles and the Beginnings of Pure Land Imagery in China Author(s): Dorothy C. Wong Source: Archives of Asian Art, Vol. 51 (1998/1999), pp. 56-79 Published by: University of Hawai'i Press for the Asia Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20111283 . Accessed: 22/11/2013 13:42 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of Hawai'i Press and Asia Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Archives of Asian Art. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.143.172.192 on Fri, 22 Nov 2013 13:42:46 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Four Sichuan Buddhist Steles and the Beginnings of Pure Land Imagery in China Dorothy C.Wong University of Virginia 1 he Northern and Southern Dynasties (386?589) iswell thriving economic and cultural center since Han times, a recognized as period of significant developments in but compared with Nanjing and Luoyang, capital cities Chinese art history. Idioms and artistic conventions estab where ritual art in the service of a state ideology remained lished in Han-dynasty (202 BCE?220 CE) art continued, an imperative, Sichuan always allowed artists a much while the acceptance of Buddhism and Buddhist art forms greater degree of freedom. An analysis of the inventiveness inspired new artistic expressions. Mutual influence of the Sichuan steles elucidates how local artists adroitly between indigenous and foreign artistic traditions engen adapted and transformed pre-existing conventions to dered vitality, and sometimes these fertile interactions led articulate a new religious doctrine. to fundamental changes in ways of seeing things and in The content of the four steles to be discussed informs us Such interactions and how about in representation.1 innovations, Buddhist beliefs Sichuan during the Northern and ever, did not occur uniformly A case in point is the coex Southern Dynasties. Two of them depict prototypical images istence of disparate but parallel traditions at Nanjing and of the Western Pure Land associated with Buddhas - Luoyang two important artistic and cultural capitals of Amit?bha/Amit?yus; the third stele portrays Maitreya s par the Southern and Northern dynasties, respectively. Even adises; and the fourth contains iconic images of Amit?yus though Nanjing and Luoyang were well-known centers of and Maitreya. The depictions of theWestern Pure Land and Buddhism and of Buddhist art, the content of their mor of Maitreya s paradises count among the very few examples tuary rituals was still informed by the indigenous tradi that predate the Tang dynasty (618-907), and provide tions of Confucianism and Daoism. Ritual art on steles, important evidence for understanding the beginnings of mortuary shrines, and sarcophagi continued to express the Pure Land painting in China.3 The strong devotional focus concepts of Confucian virtue or Daoist immortality. on Amit?bha/Amit?yus and Maitreya also distinguishes the Much of the thematic repertory of the Han dynasty con character of Sichuan Buddhism within the larger context of tinued popular: paragons of filial piety or womanly virtue, early Mah?y?na Buddhism in China. or Immortals and fantastic beasts that populated the Land It is well known that Daoan (312?385) and his disciple of the Immortals. One may say that this persistence of tra Huiyuan (334?416)?two key intellectual figures in ditional ritual art expressed a conservative spirit. Buddhist Chinese Buddhism?emphasized the worship of Maitreya on the other remained a and thus is considered the art, hand, foreign, "sep and Amit?bha, respectively Huiyuan arate" or "other" tradition. It followed prototypes and founder of the Pure Land school of Buddhism in China, artistic principles established by foreign models. The fact but his practice (and that of Daoan) differed somewhat as a that these two cultural capitals were strongholds of indige from the devotion to Amit?bha/Amit?yus savior that nous traditions may have inhibited freer interactions characterized later popular Pure Land Buddhism. Both between native and foreign traditions. Daoan and Huiyuan were eclectic: they advocated This paper argues that some of the more innovative Prajn?p?ramit? ("Perfection of Wisdom," the earliest developments occurred elsewhere. It examines a group of school of Mah?y?na Buddhism), the bodhisattva doctrine, Northern and Southern Dynasties Buddhist stone steles devotional Buddhism, and dhyfina ("meditation") practice. from Sichuan that combined new ideological content Through the missionary work of their disciples, the teach with an experimental mode of representing space.2 The ings of Daoan and Huiyuan influenced Buddhist belief was parallel orthogonal perspective inherited from Han and practice in Sichuan. Understanding the nature of the a replaced by a convergent, multiple-viewpoint perspective Buddhism practiced in Sichuan provides context within which formed the principal compositional scheme in later which to interpret the complex iconographie programs of on large-scale Pure Land paintings. The lyricism and sensitive the pictorial reliefs the hitherto unexplored Sichuan treatment of landscape in these carvings also marked the steles. This interpretation suggests that the origins of Pure beginnings of a landscape art in China. That those innova Land imagery may be rooted in the early Chinese under tions and that extraordinary achievement should have standing of Mah?y?na doctrine as expounded in the occurred in Sichuan is not surprising. Sichuan had been a teachings of Daoan and Huiyuan. 56 This content downloaded from 128.143.172.192 on Fri, 22 Nov 2013 13:42:46 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions were As Pure Land Buddhism gained strength, Amit?bha's periods. In 1958 fifty selected pieces published by Western Pure Land was also being represented elsewhere Liu Zhiyuan and LiuTingbi.5 A full study of theWanfosi in as in the cave-tem has to sixth-century China, Xiangtangshan sculptures, however, yet appear. ples of Hebei-Henan. But the Sichuan steles are unique in The three Wanfosi steles all date from the Northern a their treatment of landscape and in their graphic, low and Southern Dynasties, when the temple first became 1 most relief figurai style, and these unique characteristics incor major Buddhist art center. Stele is the problemat art in exem ic the it is from a porate pre-existing styles prevalent Sichuan, of three, because known only rubbing on stone plified by pictorial tomb tiles and other tomb reliefs of the (Fig. 1).6 Based accounts in Chinese sources, the Han dynasty. Buddhism's interactions with local artistic was part of the first find, that of 1882. Wang Liansheng traditions therefore account for the distinctive artistic recorded the discovery in Tianxiangge biji, mentioning expression of these Sichuan Buddhist steles. In the highly that three of the sculptures bore inscriptions. He further was sophisticated societies of Nanjing and Luoyang, individual wrote that the earliest of these three dated to theYuanjia was artists, some from literate and elitist backgrounds, were reign-period (424-453) and that it superbly carved. At was beginning to gain recognition and improved social stand the request of his father, who then chief of Chengdu ing by virtue of their art. But in Sichuan artists/artisans county, Wang built a small temple, called Xiao Wanfosi, to remained largely anonymous. Since the Sichuan steles house the sculptures. The temple later collapsed and the cannot be associated with known artists, they bring to sculptures were lost, but not, apparently, the three attention the role of anonymous craftsmen in representa inscribed pieces, which Wang had removed earlier. The tional innovation, and cast doubt on the relevancy of Yuanjia-dated stele is said to have been sold by his descen ascribing creative breakthroughs to artists whose names dants.7 Only a few rubbings of the stele survived. In the have survived in literary records. early part of this century one of them was published and circulated as a "Han pictorial relief." On the basis of the FOUR SICHUAN STELES: modern inscription written on the right side of the rub FORMS, CONTENT, AND DATING bing, the 1958 catalogue asserts that this rubbing was taken from the Yuanjia-dated stele.8 This claim, however, Our steles number 1-3, portraying Pure Land and para cannot be ascertained because the dated inscription has dise imagery, all come from the famous Wanfosi ("Temple never been published together with the rubbing.9 In of Myriad Buddhas") site in Chengdu, Sichuan. Our 1969 Nagahiro Toshio published the first major study of number 4, bearing iconic images of Amit?yus and the stele, judging it to be a fine work of Southern Maitreya, comes from Mao xian, north of Chengdu. The Dynasties Buddhist art.10 Given the uncertainties about Wanfosi steles were in fragments by the time they were the authenticity and date of the stele, it deserves a thor first excavated, whereas the Mao xian stele was damaged ough investigation, especially in conjunction with the more But of reconstruct recently. careful comparison the other Sichuan steles. ed fragments confirm that all four steles were oblong slabs, The rubbing in Figure iA is a reconstruction, made in relatively shallow in depth but carved on all four sides. All Japan, based on the original rubbing published by Liu probably stood between one and two meters high.
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