Page 150 - China, 5000 years : innovation and transformation in the arts

worship lacked the power to stir men's hearts.
Since he was both pure in faith and highly
inventive, he was spurred to alter the carving of
the August Visage, so as to attain the utmost in
truthfulness. He pondered the problem for years
on end and finally succeeded in producing a
statue in which the excellence of Chinese
figure sculpture exceeded anything previously
known. 9
Early sources record miraculous finds of golden or
gilded statues deep underground at Buddhist
temple sites. When the Yongning Temple ("Temple
of Eternal Peace") was built in Luoyang by decree
of the dowager empress in 516, thirty golden icons
were unearthed during the construction process.
The Yongning Temple, which was in the inner city,
is said to have rivaled the magnificence of the
imperial palace. Writing three decades later, Yang
Xuanzhi tells us that the unexpected discovery of
thirty sacred images "was interpreted as an
auspicious reward for the dowager empress's
conversion to Buddhism. As a result, she spent all
the more lavishly on its construction." He describes
the splendor of the temple in great and admiring
detail:
North of the stupa [pagoda] was a Buddhist
hall, which was shaped like the Palace of the
Great Ultimate (Tianjidian). In the hall was a
golden statue of the Buddha eighteen feet high,
—along with ten medium-sized images three of
sewn pearls, tive of woven golden threads, and
two of jade. The superb artistry was matchless,
unparalleled in its day. . . . Here were kept all
the Sutras and Buddhist images presented by
foreign countries."3
ASPECTS OF BUDDHIST FAITH AND
RITUAL
The most common Chinese terms for Buddhist
icons azefoxiang and foxingxiang, both meaning
"Buddha images." Since ancient dines the main
object ot veneration or prime statue worshiped in a
particular ritual or enshrined in a building of a
Buddhist temple has been called benzun ("Original
Honored One"); as a rule, the chapel or hall is
dedicated to and named after that particular deity.
The word benzun can be traced back at least as far
as the Northern Wei dynasty (386-534). Stronger
emphasis on the intimate relationship between the
devotee and the deity addressed in an icon is
connoted by the word zizun ("Personal Honored
One"), defined in early exegetic medieval texts as
"the venerated deity to which one's Self is
Weclinging." may assume that icons of this
category were preferably set up on the private altar
of a practitioner. Another key term frequently
encountered in Buddhist scriptures is xingxiang
("form image"), emphasizing the perceptible
TRANSFIGURING DIVINITIES: BUDDHIST SCULPTURE IN CHINA 148
appearance, the formal likeness, and iconographic
appropriateness of the represented deity. Yingxiang
("shadow image") characterizes the icon as an
ultimately illusory reflection without inherent
reality, and is regularly used to designate the
visualized image of a deity and its pictorial
representation. In his instructions on the methods
of performing such visualization, the extremely
learned Tang monk Zhiyan (602-668), who is
regarded as the second patriarch of the Huayan
school, remarks:
How does one attain to dwelling in quiet
meditation? During day and night one should
visualize with energy the form image
[xingxiang] of the Buddha, but without sticking
to [the illusion of] its characteristics [as being
real] .... Should this Buddha have been made
by man, then the practitioner ought to reflect as
follows: Is this Buddha made out of clay or
wood, or is it made out of gold or bronze?
After such a visualization he truly recognizes
the Buddha whom he sees. If you, only relying
on your own self, visualize the form image
[xingxiang] of the Buddha in a pure abode, and
remember it day and night, then this Buddha
will appear constantly before your eyes."
Icons were a means to the fundamental goal of
every devoted Buddhist, a goal the Chinese called
jianfo ("seeing the Buddha"). Material substance
and form remain a totally worthless "shadow"
—that is, a mere visual perception as long as an icon
has not received its proper spiritual enlivenment
through consecration in an adequate ritual. Only
then does a sculpture change from a piece of stone,
wood, bronze, clay, or lacquer to a sacred image: it
metamorphoses from form image (xingxiang) or
shadow image (yingxiang) into the Original
Honored One (benzun), imbued with the potency
to assist and guide believers on their way to true
enlightenment and salvation. The final step in
—creating an icon depicting the pupils of the
—eyes was an act of ritual as well as representation.
The practice seems to have been known in ancient
Indian Buddhism as well as in Brahmamsm, and it
was common cultic practice (along with the
"mouth-opening" ritual) in Mesopotamia perhaps
as early as the third millennium bce. Called the
"eye-opening" ritual (kaiyan), it is the most
important process in consecrating a new icon:
endowing the image with gaze endows it with a
sense of life. The Tang emperor Taizong (r. 627—649)
himself attended such an inaugural "eye-opening"
ceremony for the main Buddha image in the
Xingtu Temple (formerly Hongfu Temple) in
Chang'an, which in 634 he had renamed and
rededicated to the spiritual felicity of his mother.
Unfortunately, the sources give no further details of
this dedication service, but the monarch probably