Page 242 - Christies March 15 2017 Fujita Museum

Most traditional Chinese wooden and stone sculptures, including steles, originally were painted,
the faces and other fesh portions sometimes further embellished with gold leaf, to make them as
naturalistic and as radiant as possible. Few such sculptures retain their pigments today, but many
bear traces of the rich colors, as do these three rare steles from the Fujita Museum.

Dated to 526—the second year of the Xiaochang reign—the exquisite Northern Wei stele from the
Fujita Museum represents a Chinese adaptation and interpretation of the Indian stele style type,
particularly the type carved in Sarnath (鹿野苑), in Uttar Pradesh (北方邦), in the late ffth century,
during the Gupta dynasty (古普塔時代; c. AD 320 – 550). In such Gupta steles, the fgures—often just
a single Buddha—appear on a plinth and rise in high relief against a vertical mandorla with rounded
top and beaded border3. In the Chinese transformation of the type, the stele becomes formalized to
include multiple fgures hierarchically arranged in a symmetrical grouping; in addition, the mandorla
not only assumes a lotus-petal shaped with a small point at the top but is highly embellished, and
the plinth typically features a dedicatory inscription, often including the date along with the names of
monks and donors.

The 526 stele is the simplest of the three Fujita steles in terms of iconography, featuring a seated
Buddha—likely the Historical Buddha Shakyamuni (釋迦牟尼佛)—at the center fanked on either side
by a standing bodhisattva (pusa 菩薩). A lion crouches at the foot of each bodhisattva. The fgures
appear on an inscribed, table-like plinth, and an intricately embellished, lotus-petal-form mandorla
rises behind the triad of deities. The peaceful fgures embody a profound spirituality. The Buddha
raises his right hand in the abhaya-mudra (施無畏印), or gesture of “do not fear”, and lowers his left

THE BODHISATTVAS CLASP THEIR HANDS

BEFORE THEIR CHESTS, PALMS TOUCHING, IN

THE ANJALI-MUDRA (合掌印 OR 合十印), A GESTURE

INDICATING VENERATION.

in the varada-mudra (予愿印 or 予願印), or gift-giving gesture, the two mudra together indicating that
he is preaching. (A ritual hand gesture, a mudra—shouyin (手印) or yinxiang (印相)—symbolizes a
particular action, attitude, or power of a deity.) The bodhisattvas clasp their hands before their chests,
palms touching, in the anjali-mudra (合掌印 or 合十印), a gesture indicating veneration.

Of course, a Buddha appears as the central and most important fgure in each of the three steles. The
term “Buddha” (fo 佛) means “the Enlightened One”.4 The Buddha is an individual who has attained
enlightenment and has entered into nirvana, or niepan (涅槃). Presented in the guise of a monk, the
Buddha generally is depicted with a single head, two arms, and two legs; he may be shown standing
or seated and always displays a benevolent countenance. He wears a monk’s robes and may be
shown either barefoot or with sandals. Buddhas typically are portrayed without jewelry. His elongated
earlobes, which resulted from the heavy earrings that he wore in his youth as a crown prince,
symbolize his rejection of worldly life and his embrace of the religious life. He may be represented
with a shaven pate or with short hair arranged either in small, snail-shell curls or, as in the 526 stele,
in wavy locks. The sutras state that he bears the “32 Marks of a Great Man”; among those marks, the
ones typically portrayed are the urna (baihao 白毫), or circular mark at the center of the forehead, the
webbed fngers and toes, and the ushnisha, or foding (佛頂), which is the cranial protuberance atop the
head that symbolizes the expanded wisdom that he gained at his enlightenment. In fact, the ushnisha
is the Buddha’s diagnostic iconographic feature, as no other being bears that iconographic attribute.

3 For examples of sculptures of the Buddha carved at Sarnath in the late ffth century, see a Standing Buddha from the Mr.
and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Collection at The Asia Society Museum, New York (1979.5) or the related one in the collection of
the British Museum, London (Asia 1880.15).
4 For books on Buddhist art, see: Pratapaditya Pal et al., Light of Asia: Buddha Sakyamuni in Asian Art, Los Angeles: Los
Angeles County Museum of Art, 1984; Denise Patry Leidy, Donna Strahan, et al., Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and
Daoist Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2010; Marsha Weidner, ed., Latter Days of the Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism, 850-1850, Lawrence, KS: Spencer
Museum of Art, University of Kansas, and Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994; Pratapaditya Pal, The Arts of Nepal,
Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1974; Pratapaditya Pal, ed., On the Path to Void: Buddhist Art of the Tibetan Realm, Mumbai:
Marg Publications, 1996.

240 IMPORTANT CHINESE ART FROM THE FUJITA MUSEUM