Page 487 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

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Bronze ewer just in front of the shrine, and must have been used
for the last (but not necessarily the first) time in
Height 29.5 (11.61); diam. of mouth 4-6 (1.57-2.36),
the consecration ceremony in 741. The six human
diam. of body 13.2 (5.19), diam. of foot 8.0 (3.149)
Probably from northern India, seventh or early faces around the body, with their sharply delin-
eighth century CE eated features, are distinctively Indian in character,
as is the
shape
handle of
neck, mouth, and
of the
From the reliquary deposit at the Qingshan the ewer. Fourteen years after its discovery, the
Monastery, Lintong Xinfengzhen, Shaanxi Province
ewer's exact provenance and date remain difficult to
Lintong County Museum, Shaanxi Province determine. Hildegard Scheid notes evidence that
the foot had come away and had been repaired
Houston and San Francisco only more than once in antiquity, before being
2
deposited in the relic chamber. With its elegant
The sealed and clearly labeled stone reliquary swan-neck handle and palmette-shaped thumb-
chamber of the pagoda of the Qingshan Monastery hold, the most likely answer is that it does indeed
3
was discovered quite by accident at midday on 6 come from northern India, and the presumption
May 1985, at a depth of six meters, in the course of must be that it dates no later than the early eighth
excavating clay for brick-making. The site lies a few century, and quite possibly earlier. RW
hundred yards from the Han gateway, where Xiang
Yu and Liu Bang, rival contenders for the throne 1 Excavated in 1985; published: Berger 1994, cat. 62; Kuhn
1993, cat. 93; Tokyo 1998!}, no. 42.
of China after the fall of the Qin dynasty, famously 2 Scheid in Kuhn 1993, 253.
met to fix the border between Chu and Han in 207 3 The author is indebted to Wladimir Zwalf and Mark
BCE. The monastery itself had long since vanished Zebrowski for their observations.
and was known only from literary records, including
one in the Tang shu (Tang history), recording that
the name Qingshansi — Auspicious Peak Monas-
tery— had been conferred on it by Empress Wu
Zetian in 686 CE. More than a hundred objects,
as well as mural paintings, were found in the inner
chamber, which contained a stone shrine whose
four sides are engraved with scenes of the Buddha
preaching, his death or nirvana, the cremation
of his body, and the worship of his ashes. The roof
of the shrine carries four trees, perhaps in refer-
ence to the grove of sala trees where the Buddha's
nirvana took place, and a central gilded lotus bud.
Lotuses, made of pure gold with painted leaves and
paper-thin petals, stand in front of the shrine on
either side. The relics — tiny crystals — were en-
closed in two small green glass bottles, inside a gold
coffin placed in turn within a silver gilt sarcopha-
gus. Inscriptions concerning the relic deposit show
that it was sealed in 741 CE.
1
The bronze vase exhibited here is the single
most prominent object found in the chamber, apart
from the shrine itself and its contents. It was found

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