Page 44 - Sotheby's Part II Collection of Sir Joeseph Hotung Collection CHINESE ART , Oct. 9, 2022

ACUOYE GUANYIN, ROYAL PROTECTOR

OF THE DALI KINGDOM

REGINA KRAHL

Gilt-bronze Buddhist figures such as the present Avalokiteśhvara ajaya, meaning ‘all victorious’, or else the Sanscrit acarya, to refer to a
sculpture hold a unique place in the development of Chinese spiritual teacher of Azhali teaching.
Buddhist sculptures. They are remarkable due to their independent
idiosyncratic style, their grace and serenity, and their sheer size. The scroll also depicts the legendary casting of such a sculpture out
What is known as Acuoye bodhisattvas are mostly standing figures of a bronze drum, after a foreign monk who had performed various
of remarkable stylistic consistency. To find a seated sculpture is miracles, had disappeared into the air transformed into an Acuoye
extremely rare and the present Guanyin appeals particularly due to Guanyin. It depicts a large figure of a monk with an Avalokiteśhvara
its gentle, feminine facial features. image emerging from his head, and shows two men seated in front,
one working on a metal drum, the other holding a Guanyin sculpture,
Figures of this type can be attributed to the southwestern part of surrounded by metal-working utensils and a fire (Guy 1994, pp. 67-8,
China, today’s Yunnan province, a region that was independent figs 2 and 3).
for over 500 years, under the Nanzhao (750-902) and later the
Dali (937-1253) kingdoms. Buddhism had been established as state The handscroll also shows a monumental standing Acuoye Guanyin
religion by the last Nanzhao ruler, and at a time when the religion being venerated by Yunnanese royals (Guy 1994, p. 70, fig. 5). Such
was facing multiple challenges in China’s heartland under the Song a monumental bronze sculpture, believed to have been eight meters
dynasty (960-1279), it flourished in China’s southwest – as it did in the tall, is reputed to have been held in the Chongsheng temple, the
northeast, under the Liao (907-1125). royal temple of the Dali kingdom, of which three pagodas are still
standing near the old town of Dali, Yunnan. The figure is lost but
When the Duan family came to power in Yunnan in 937, they may be reproduced in a hazy black-and-white photograph (Lutz
pointedly used the religion to support the legitimacy of their 1991, p. 116, fig. 70). Although not very close to the Acuoye figures
rulership. They named their kingdom Dali, ‘Great Ruling Principle’, – and probably in a much-restored state – it already shows the same
a term with Buddhist connotations, which they claimed had been slender built and straight frontality of the later Yunnan figures, for
selected for the kingdom by the bodhisattva Avalokiteśhvara himself. which it is believed to have been a model.
Azhali (or Ajali) Buddhism, a special form of Vajrayana Buddhism
that seems unique to Yunnan, took hold in the region, with an The casting story is similarly depicted in another highly important
Avalokiteśhvara cult, where this bodhisattva held greater significance handscroll, Fanxiang juan (Scroll of Buddhist Images) by the painter
than even the Buddha. According to John Guy, the straight frontal Zhang Shengwen (active 1163-89), now in the National Palace
representation of these figures confirms their placement in a central Museum, Taipei, in which one of the Dali kings, Duan Zhixing (r.
position in a temple, rather than on either side of the Buddha, as was 1172-1200) had himself and his courtiers portrayed in the 1170s
common for bodhisattva figures in the Tang (618-907), which are (Guy 1994, p. 69, fig. 4). First published by Helen B. Chapin, who
clearly depicted as supporting sculptures flanking a main image, with discovered and identified these figures already in the 1930s as ‘A
the body swaying and slightly turned (Guy 1994, p. 76). Long Roll of Buddhist Images’, this scroll, one of the most important
extant Dali works of art, depicts twenty different representations of
Yunnanese gilt-bronze bodhisattva figures are distinctive through Guanyin, among them a seated figure not unlike our sculpture (fig.
their physical characteristics of a very slender built with prominent 1), similarly dressed and wearing similar armlets, as well as a standing
shoulders, hands held in vitarka mudra and varada mudra, bejewelled figure very similar to the usual standing gilt-bronze Acuoye figures.
necklace, armlets and single bracelet, simple dhoti, and high coiffure
with an Amitābha Buddha figure in front, which identifies them The provenance, the dating and the royal status in the Dali kingdom
as representations of Avalokiteśhvara. The style appears to have of these Buddhist sculptures is confirmed by one closely related
been clearly developed already at least by the 10th century. This standing figure. An Acuoye Avalokiteśhvara in the San Diego
bodhisattva type is depicted in the Nanzhao tuzhuan (Illustrated Museum of Art, California, bears a long inscription on the back,
history of Nanzhao), a handscroll of 947 that copies an earlier version which mentions another Dali ruler, Duan Zhengxing (r. 1147-72), as
of 899, today preserved in the Fujii Yūrinkan, Kyoto. On this scroll, donor (Lutz 1991, no. 1) (fig. 2). Chapin, coined for these figures the
it is identified as Acuoye Guanyin, a Guanyin manifestation unique term ‘Luck of Yunnan’, to indicate their function as lucky charms of
to Yunnan. Acuoye may be a transliteration of the Sanskrit term the Dali kings (Chapin 1936-8 and 1944).

THE PERSONAL COLLECTION OF THE LATE SIR JOSEPH HOTUNG I 87