Page 155 - China, 5000 years : innovation and transformation in the arts

mother, brothers and sisters, wife and children
below all may perceive the correct Law [of the
Buddha] ."There follows a panegyric in four verses
on the prospects of salvation, the true marks ot the
Buddha's body becoming manifest, cause and effect,
illusion and rebirth, and finally on salvation in
AAmitabha's paradise. red sandstone stele more
than sixty years older than the Sui altar was
unearthed in 1954 at the ancient site of theWanfo
Temple ("Thousand Buddha Temple"), at Chengdu
in Sichuan Province (cat. 150). Tradition holds that
the Wanfo Temple was established shortly after the
middle of the second century; under the Liang
dynasty (502—557) it was known as Anpu Temple
("Temple of the Peaceful Riverbank"), and under
the Tang (618-907) as Jingzhong Temple ("Temple
of the Cleansed Multitude"). The first Buddhist
sculptures were discovered at this site in 1882.
Subsequent investigations in 1937, 1945, and
1953-54 brought to light a total of about two
hundred figures and fragments (cats. 151, 163, 168,
176). The elaborate configuration of this stele
depicts the standing Buddha Sakyamuni surrounded
Aby pairs of bodhisattvas, deities, and disciples.
scenic composition in shallow relief on the rear of
the stele shows Sakyamuni worshiped by
ceremonially aligned men and women in a
landscape setting as he sits in meditation under a
tree. The inscription below may be translated:
On the eighth day of the third month in the
fourth year of the Putong [era] of the Liang
[dynasty, i.e., 523] the [Buddha] disciple Kang
Sheng, upon his awakening, reverently had one
stone image of Sakyamuni made. We pray that
his present relatives may always be at peace and
quiet, and that by giving up the world [entering
priesthood] his body will be blessed with
receiving a state in which he forever will see the
Buddha and hear his Law. May his fathers and
mothers for the past seven generations, together
with all sentient beings, share one and all in this
prayer. May they quickly attain Buddhahood
and altogether magnificent salvation.
ON THE PRODUCTION AND ICONOMETR.Y
OF BUDDHIST IMAGES
A few Buddhist image makers may have been
ecclesiastics or artists loosely associated with a
religious institution; most were probably
professional lay craftsmen who may have been
organized in workshops through which they
handed down their technical skills and experience
to following generations. Ancient Chinese prejudice
condemned even the most talented masters in the
laborious art of sculpture to social inferiority and
anonymity. Not until the end of the Tang dynasty is
any individual sculptor known to have left his
signature on an extant work. A few sculptors are
known by name solely through literary sources.
TRANSFIGURING DIVINITIES: BUDDHIST SCULPTURE IN CHINA
Chinese sculptors rarely had the opportunity to see
Western Buddhist monuments with their own eyes.
Only now and then could they draw inspiration
from major Western prototypes that had been
imported or officially presented to the court or to a
renowned temple in China. Instead, sculptors had to
rely largely on oral descriptions by missionaries and
returning pilgrims, perhaps on their sketches and
drawings made en route, on manuals handed down,
—and on images made for private worship small and
therefore easily portable.
—Canonical scriptures some of Indian origin, some
—apocryphal contain detailed accounts of the
imagining, in the true meaning of the word, of
Buddhist deities. These compilations of ritual
prescriptions read like iconographic handbooks.
They provide accurate descriptions of the figures
with all their features and attributes. Although no
early Chinese manuals on designing and making
Buddhist images have survived, there must have
— —been guides plus strong oral traditions with
rules, instructions, perhaps even illustrations. The
famous Pmtiinamana laksliana was translated from a
Tibetan version as late as 1742 by the Manchu
prince Gongbu Chabu and published under the
title Zaoxiang liangdu jing ("Classic of Measurements
for Making [Buddhist] Images"). 18 As with the
canon of classical Greek sculpture, Buddhist
imagery followed elaborate rules: proportions and
measurements of a figure were of fundamental
significance and may be traced back to the old
Indian iconometric system called talomana.' 9 The
Buddhist "doctrine of measuring icons" (S:
pratimamana) is based on various modules. For
example, the smallest unit is the width of a finger
(S: angula; C: zhiliang). Next comes the span of a
hand (S: tala or vitasti; C: shouliang): this maximum
distance between tips of thumb and middle finger
corresponds to the length of the face from hairline
to the tip of the chin. The length of the forearm
from elbow to the tip of the thumb (C: zhouliang)
constitutes another unit. Standard measurements of
this sort provide the fabric and grid for the canon
of proportions. Although derived from parts of the
human body, the proportions were not used to
represent observed reality or to depict the natural
beauty and harmony of the human figure. Rather,
this system of proportions embodies spiritual and
metaphysical laws of the Sacred, symbolic norms of
abstract character: it prescribes different
mathematical relationships for the various categories
of figures, according to their level ot existence in
the Buddhist pantheon. Multiples of the modules
determine the size of a standing or .1 seated figure
as well as the height and proportions ol .1 Buddha,
bodhisattva. deity, guardian, or an ordinary human
being. In sculpture, configurations are dominated by
this principle of hieratic scaling. Individual figures
are also distinguished h\ then volume and
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