Page 101 - Christies September 13 to 14th Fine Chinese Works of Art New York

A luohan (the Chinese transliteration of the Sanskrit word, arhat) was originally the term referring to
those that had achieved a certain degree of enlightenment, but by the Tang dynasty in China (AD 618-
907), luohan were considered the disciples of Buddha Shakyamuni who maintain his teachings until
the coming of the Future Buddha, Maitreya. The political strife of the 7th and 8th centuries left many
devotees calling for Maitreya’s arrival, and thus elevated the importance of the luohan. That popularity
endured for centuries after, even during times of relative peace and prosperity in China.

Prior to the 7th century, luohans were generally represented as a pair fanking an image of Buddha,
usually identifed as Kasyapa, like the present fgure, and Ananda, and were both two of the ten principle
disciples of Buddha and important fgures in the early Buddhist sangha (monkhood). In these depictions,
the fgures are usually shown with foreign, “Indian,” features and one is older than the other. Such an
arrangement can be found in the Northern Wei-era Central Bingyan Cave at Longmen (see A. Howard,
et al., Chinese Sculpture, New Haven, 2006, p. 238, fg. 3.39) and a niche at the Huangze Monastery in
Sichuan Province, carved in the Northern Zhou period (ibid., p. 289, fg. 3.94).
Complete large-scale stone fgures of Kasyapa are very rare, and very few examples appear to have
been published. One very similar, but smaller (122 cm.) stone fgure of Kasyapa from the collection of
the Palace Museum Beijing, dated to the Northern Song dynasty, is published by Li Jingjie, Essence of
Buddhistic Statues (shifou xuancai), Beijing, 1995, p. 160, no. 140 and discussed on p. 242. This example
has very similarly rendered strong facial features, including long eyebrows that curve down towards his
eyes, and is also wearing long loose robes with hands clasped together before his chest. Li states that
the drapery and knot on the robes of the Palace Museum Kasyapa are similarly rendered to those on a
statue of a monk in Tang county, which is dated to the third year of yuanfu, corresponding to A.D. 1100 in
the Song dynasty.
Compare, a stone head of a luohan with similarly rendered facial features but a more joyful expression,
in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, is illustrated in Hai-Wai Yi-Chen (Chinese Art in Overseas
Collections; Buddhist Sculpture), National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1986, p. 150, no. 140; and another
similar head of a luohan, sold at Christie’s New York, 21 March 2000, lot 206.

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