shaping the lotus sutra: buddhist visual culture in medieval chinaby eugene y. wang
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Shaping the Lotus Sutra: Buddhist Visual Culture in Medieval China by Eugene Y. WangReview by: Claudia WenzelThe Art Bulletin, Vol. 90, No. 3 (Sep., 2008), pp. 487-489Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20619623 .
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Reviews
EUGENE Y. WANG
Shaping the Lotus Sutra: Buddhist Visual Culture in Medieval China Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005. 501 pp.; 21 color ills., 119 b/w.
$60.00
Eugene Wang's book on the world of the
Lotus S?tra in medieval China is a new and
challenging contribution to the field of art
history of east Asia, an ambitious undertak
ing that explores the visual culture of the
most important and popular Buddhist scrip ture in China. While Wang's main focus is
on the popular genre of painting called
transformation tableaux (jingbian) found
among murals in the cave temples at Dun
huang, he has no hesitation in turning to a
wide range of visual and textual materials to
outline the proper spatial, temporal, and
cognitive contexts of Lotus S?tra imagery.
Shaping the Lotus Sutra is also a book about
the complicated relation between text and
image, including the "gap between textual
and pictorial representation" (p. xiv) that
Wang bridges in an unconservative method
ological manner. Instead of treating Chi
nese Lotus S?tra depictions in a systematic
chronological order, Wang takes the Lotus
S?tra as a linchpin for observations about
Buddhist pictorial art and culture of mainly the seventh and eighth centuries and carries
these observations beyond traditional art
historical categories and considerations of
iconography. One of Wang's major claims is that "a cer
tain mental topography or imaginary world"
(p. xiv) shaped Lotus S?tra representations and determined what was depicted and how
it was depicted, as well as what was not de
picted at all. This position causes Wang to
overemphasize the role of the individual
painter (see especially chapters 2 and 5), almost to the neglect of the influence of
wealthy donors, workshops, and clergy mem
bers who advised painters and craftsmen in
religious matters.1 In the course of his book
Wang elucidates "a collective 'protopicture,' or mental picture?the sort of stuff that
dreams are made of, so to speak" (p. 75). The main strength of the book lies in
Wang's ability to analyze and describe visual
objects according to their inherent composi tional principles, an ability that distin
guishes an excellent art historian from the common observer of art. In this respect,
chapter 5, titled "Mirroring and Transfor
mation," is truly outstanding in detecting
the guiding principles of "the visual culture
of world making" (p. xiii). He knows how to
surprise his readers with unexpected, and
eye-opening, juxtapositions of Buddhist and
non-Buddhist pictorial schemes and illumi
nating diagrams. In addition, the book of
fers numerous side-by-side illustrations of a
certain sculpture or a painting in photo
graphs and in drawings, sometimes even in
rubbings. These are helpful devices for the
reader to survey quickly the visual materials.
For all this, the book is characterized by less
than thorough research, and this reader was
often puzzled by conclusions that did not
appear to match the visual evidence.
In the first chapter, Wang deals with the
motif of the "Many Treasures Stupa" from
chapter 11 of the Lotus S?tra. His aim is to
show how this very popular image of the
twin Buddhas S?kyamuni and Prabh?taratna
sitting side by side can be connected to pre Buddhist models in China, since it was un
known in India and central Asia. Further, the Many Treasures Stupa motif "consti
tute [s] a locus around which a topography of visionary experience could be built"
(p. xxiii) for the further development of the
imagery of the Lotus S?tra. Wang then dis
cusses several versions of the Many Trea
sures Stupa motif and their accompanying votive inscriptions, from the first extant wall
painting in Cave 169 at Binglingsi (420 CE) to sculpted images in the cave temples of
Yungang, the earliest one dated to 489 CE
in the imperially donated Cave 5.
In Yungang Cave 38, which was founded
by a certain Wu family in the early sixth
century, Wang finds a good example of a
cave whose "temporal-spatial scheme ... is
remarkably consistent," which he describes
as a "chronotope" (p. 55). While the main
wall is dominated by an image of the Many Treasures Stupa, the side walls are occupied
by depictions of the Six Buddhas of the
Past, Buddha S?kyamuni, and Maitreya. The
author identifies Buddha S?kyamuni in a
pointed arch niche and his predestined suc
cessor, the bodhisattva Maitreya, above in a
trabeated niche on the east wall. He points out that the Buddha figure seated with pen dant legs on the west wall also represents
Maitreya, as the trabeated niche in which he
sits indicates. In this cave he identifies "two
distinct spatial and temporal realms" (p. 57) in alluding to the two aspects of the Mai
treya cult, well known since Jan Nattier's
study of 1988,2 namely, the ascent to Tusita
Heaven, where the bodhisattva Maitreya can
be met here and now, and the descent to
Maitreya's paradise in Ketumati, where the
Buddhist believers might join his "Three assemblies under the Dragon Flower Tree
there and in the future" (Wang's italics).
Wang prefers to identify the west wall Bud
dha as "Maitreya Buddha presiding over the
Tusita Heaven and greeting the newly ar
rived deceased soul" (p. 57). However, he
gives no explanation why Maitreya should
be depicted twice in Tusita Heaven, first as
a bodhisattva and second as a Buddha. This
does not make sense because Maitreya will
achieve Buddhahood in our world and not
in Tusita Heaven, albeit in a distant future.
It turns out that Wang needs the "Maitreya Buddha in Tusita Heaven interpretation" because of the motif of flying apsaras, or
heavenly musicians, that is more prominent on the north and west walls than it is on the
east wall (but not, as he states on p. 65, to
tally absent). The flying apsaras serve him as
a station on the way that the soul of the Wu
family's deceased son is supposed to take
from the Many Treasures Stupa upward to
the ceiling, where more apsaras ride fantas
tic animals, and then further on to the so
called Buddha Maitreya in Tusita Heaven, where two newborn figures on lotuses are
shown on the trapezoidal arch above the
Buddha niche. Again, since this widely used
motif of newborn figures is also found on
the arch of the opposite wall, where the
bodhisattva Maitreya sits, it cannot be ex
ploited for this interpretation.
Wang's treatment of Yungang Cave 38
exemplifies some of the methodological flaws in Shaping the Lotus Sutra that might be
characterized as a combination of negli
gence and interpretation toward a predeter mined end. This is also evident in Wang's new and provocative look at the Wei Wen
lang stela dated to 424 CE, so far the earli
est known stela of a distinct Buddhist-Daoist
flavor (figs. 1.22-23). Since Wang considers
the Wei Wenlang stela to be an important link between Han funerary carvings and the
Many Treasures Stupa motif from the Lotus
S?tra, he identifies the two figures inside
the big niche on the obverse as S?kyamuni and Prabh?taratna. The fact that the figure to the left does not look Buddhist at all but
wears a Daoist gown is explained as not un
usual for the early fifth century, when Bud
dhism still borrowed many concepts, as well
as terms, from the indigenous Daoist reli
gion. While Wang has a point in arguing that the wording fodao xiang of the votive
inscription might well be understood as "an
image of the Buddhist Way" instead of "a
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488 ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2008 VOLUME XC NUMBER 3
Buddhist and Daoist image," his further
conclusions about the overall composition of the stela are less convincing. As in the
case of Yungang Cave 38, he reconstructs "a
symbolic topography traversed by the spirits of Wei's deceased parents" (p. 45) along the four sides of the stela. In fact, this as
sumed movement around the stela explains neither the change of hand gestures in the
two Daoist-clad figures on the left-hand side
of the stela that are still called "Buddhas"
nor the identity of the figure on the reverse,
which resembles a pensive bodhisattva but
one wearing a secular, or Daoist, robe.
Wang sees in this figure a meditative Mai
treya image that marks the end of the jour
ney of the deceased souls. This identifica
tion is problematic. As Junghee Lee has
demonstrated, not one single pensive bodhi
sattva figure in early Chinese Buddhist art
can be identified as an image of Maitreya.3 Rather, these figures represent Prince Sid
dh?rtha.4 Interpretations of the Wei Wen
lang stela as a Buddhist-Daoist stela5 or, as
Wang puts it, "a monstrous hybrid yoking
heterogeneous universes together" (p. 41), seem more reasonable, particularly in light of numerous Buddhist-Daoist stelae in the
museums of Yaoxian and Lintong in China
and in the Chicago Field Museum. These
stelae date from the sixth century on and
clearly illustrate how a particular Daoist ico
nography was formed, first by borrowing from Buddhist iconography, then by estab
lishing its own iconographic formulas.6
To justify the "journey of the soul" inter
pretation, Wang proposes that the composi tional scheme of a carriage procession
placed immediately beneath a niche with
two figures sitting side by side, as found on
the Wei Wenlang stela, was derived from
Han tomb carvings and bricks and repre sents "a boundary-crossing situation"
(p. 41). This might be true for the two
smaller figures sitting in an open building to the lower left of the main niche of the
Wei Wenlang stela that are identified as the
donor's parents in an inscription. But to
extend this argument to the twin figures of
the main niche stretches it too far.
In laying out chapters 2 and 3 in the in
troduction, Wang promises a new icono
graphic identification of the early-eighth
century Lotus S?tra tableau in Cave 217 at
Dunhuang, which he places in the tradition
of an "imaginary topography" (p. xxiv). In
an attempt to identify the scenes narrated
clockwise, starting from the lower right cor
ner of the composition, he looks through all the chapters of the Lotus S?tra for textual
cues, and he finds them not only in the
well-known parable of the "Burning House"
from chapter 3 but also in the four "peace ful acts" of bodhisattvas in chapter 14, the
story of the Medicine King from chapter 23,
and, last but not least, in the "Former Af
fairs of King Wonderful Adornment" from
chapter 27, which justifies the host of royal
persons whom Wang identifies on the left
side of the tableau (fig. 2.10). At times
Wang turns to sources outside the Lotus
S?tra for identification, for example, when
he explains the two figures next to a skele
ton, one kneeling and one standing (fig. 2.11 and p. 92), as two princes practicing the Lotus Sam?dhi, which had been de
scribed by the founder of the Tiantai
school, Zhiyi (538-597) in his Mohe zhiguan as "partly walking and partly sitting" (ban
xing banzuo). This association seems far
fetched; it does not correspond to what is
depicted, since the second figure is not
walking at all but standing next to the body,
slightly bending forward, with his arms
reaching out for the deceased in a gesture of mourning and despair. The new icono
graphic identification Wang introduces also
includes his recognition of the celestial
spheres on top of the painting as the Sum
mit of Being {Akanistha Heaven), inhabited
by ancestral spirits, which nicely fits into his
otherworld scenario of Chinese medieval
Buddhism.
To cut a long story short, the jingbian
painting on the south wall of Cave 217 has
recently, and more convincingly, been iden
tified as an illustration of the S?tra of the
Dh?rani of the fubilant Corona (Taish? no.
967.19.349-53). This identification has been
accepted and commented on by Wang Huimin from the Dunhuang Research Insti
tute.7 According to the new interpretation, the right side of the panel in Cave 217 tells the story of Buddhap?lita, traditionally re
garded as the translator of the Dh?rani of the
fubilant Corona, who traveled from Khotan
to China and met an old man on Mount
Wutai. This old man advised Buddhap?lita to return to his home country immediately to fetch the fubilant Corona. When the old
man suddenly disappeared, Buddhap?lita
recognized him as a divine manifestation
and traveled to central Asia. Buddhap?lita
finally brought the s?tra to China and pre sented it to the emperor, who gave orders
for its translation. The scene in Cave 217 of
Buddhap?lita's encounter with the old man
compares nicely to the large mural Manifes tations on Mount Wutai on the west wall of
Cave 61 at Dunhuang, where it is provided with an explanatory text in a cartouche.
Now we understand that the city with a
four-gated stupa inside, identified by Wang as the Phantom City of the Lotus S?tra, rep resents the place in central Asia where Bud
dhap?lita found the fubilant Corona. The
large palace compound underneath is by no
means an illustration of the parable of the
prodigal son; it actually shows the palace of
the Chinese emperor, to whom the scrip ture is presented. The scenes at the bottom
and left side of the painting depict ritual
uses of the fubilant Corona and the benefits
that are to be achieved by reciting or teach
ing it, including recovery from sickness and
safeguarding the passage of the souls of the
deceased to the heavens. Wang's "host of
royal persons" who listen to the teaching Buddha turn out to be Sakra Dev?n?m-In
dra and his entourage, who have just de
scended for this purpose from his heaven
on top of Mount Sumeru, which is shown
above, inhabited by more celestial beings. In light of this interpretation of the paint
ing in Cave 217, which neatly explains the
narrative sequence of all the scenes on the
right side of the painting and the majority of the remaining scenes, Wang's new inter
pretation comes across as rather unusual.
Certainly, Wang had remarked earlier that
"the celebration of the power and reward of
venerating the Lotus S?tra is the dominant
theme that dictates the assemblage of
scenes of both the bottom and left side of
the tableau" (p. 95), but he does not seem
to have considered that it might not be the
Lotus S?tra illustrated here but another
scripture more concerned with ritual. Wang observes that on the right side the "Phan
tom City centers on an exotic, foreign-look
ing stupa of Western Region style" (p. 116), but he did not recognize it as an illustration
of historical events in an uninterrupted nar
rative, representing the homeland of Bud
dhap?lita. In chapter 3, Wang takes the royal sce
nario of King Wonderful Adornment,
"which is certainly unusually prominent
compared with other narrative situations"
(p. 124), in Cave 217 as the point of depar ture to elaborate on the connection of the
donating Yin family with the imperial court
in Chang'an, and to assert the direct impact of court policy on the formation of the jing bian. He goes so far as to say that Empress
Wu Zetian's renewed interest in Daoism
about 700 CE left its traces on the tableau
in its depiction of several types of flights to
immortality that were current in Daoist
scriptures at that time. But since the trans
formation tableau in Cave 217 does not de
pict scenes from the Lotus S?tra, or the story about King Wonderful Adornment, there is
nothing left to sustain this claim.
In chapters 4 and 5, Wang traces two
modes of visual representation exemplified
by the tableau in Cave 217 to earlier exam
ples in Chinese art. The sequence of narra
tive scenes in a landscape setting at the bot
tom left- and right-hand sides of the panel is classified as a "topographic map," while
the central panel of the Buddha preaching to an assembly, constructed in a perspectival
mode, is compared in its visual function to
that of a mirror. Concerning the first visual
mode, Wang lines up Han dynasty vessels
with early topographic representations, bird
script decorations, a map from the tomb at
Mawangdui, and Daoist charts, in this case
on a mirror from the eighth century, to as
sert that they belong to a type of talismanic
picture that is continued in the Dunhuang wall paintings. As one example, he quotes the so-called Treasure Rain S?tra in Cave 321
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REVIEWS: D'SOUZA ON CHU 4?Q
(elsewhere alternatively identified as an il
lustration of the S?tra of the Ten Wheels, and
thereby closely connected to the cult of
bodhisattva Ksitigarbha) ,8 which Wang con
siders to be characterized by an overwhelm
ing iconography of demonology. In this
sense, the topographic mode "both maps out the existential anxiety of the living world and assures its viewer of survival by
way of its tortuous form evocative of the tal
ismanic graphs and maps" (p. 237). In con
trast, spatial or architectural illusionism is
supposed to present the ordered world of a
Buddha's Pure Land or paradise. While this
explanation works well with the relief on a
stela from Wanfosi, which pictures a geo
metrically arranged Pure Land at the top and illustrates below in topographic mode
all the calamities encountered in this world
from the Guanyin chapter of the Lotus
S?tra, it cannot be generalized. There are
instances of Maitreya paradises that also use
the topographic mode of representation
(Dunhuang Cave 445 and Yulin Cave 25), albeit only describing the disaster-free,
peaceful, and auspicious state of the human
world after the next Buddha has achieved
enlightenment.
Chapter 5 opens with a striking charac
terization of the preaching Buddha in the
recessed central panel of the tableau in
Cave 217 as a "mirror image of its implied viewer?that is, us" (p. 242). The plane between the frontally depicted Buddha
image and the observer is tantamount to a
mirror surface, or even a gate to another
world. Wang takes this as his starting point for investigations into the "perceptual ex
change between mirror and painting [that] reached its apex in the early eighth cen
tury" (p. 249). He tracks the mirror trope down to traditional Chinese sources, such as
The Master Embracing Simplicity (Baopuzi), and to Buddhist sources like depictions of
the so-called karma mirror, the famous mir
ror installation by the scholar-monk Fazang
(643-712 CE), the third patriarch of the
Huayan school, and other cases of textual
evidence for mirror halls. He concludes that
Cave 31 in Dunhuang constitutes such a
mirror hall. Even though the east ceiling
slope of Cave 31 can no longer be consid
ered a Lotus S?tra tableau (but is, like Cave
217, an illustration of the Dh?rani of the fubi lant Corona), Wang is to be honored here
for being the first scholar to identify the
objects in front of the meditating figures or
on top of the architectural structures as
rectangular mirrors. Wang might also have
remarked that rectangular mirrors seem to
have been used specifically to detect and
ward off evil spirits, and are thus more in
accord with protective rituals like those
propagated in the Dh?rani of the fubilant Co
rona. In Zhiyi's Great Calming and Contempla tion, the following procedure is explained: "Hermits and ascetics all keep rectangular
mirrors and hang them behind their seats.
Ghosts cannot change their appearances in
a mirror. When they look in the mirror and
recognize themselves, they can banish them
selves. In this way, the inner and outer
[spheres] are regulated."9 A similar explana tion is found in Zhiyi's commentary on the
Vimalakirti-nirdesa-siitra: "For example, when
a person who practices meditation does not
discriminate bad ghosts, he should install a
rectangular mirror. Even though a ghost is
able to delude the human eye, it cannot
change its original shape in a mirror."10
Chapter 6 is dedicated to the four trans
formation tableaux reliefs of the Longhuta
(Dragon and Tiger Pagoda) of Shentong
monastery in Shandong Province. Wang identifies the four reliefs iconographically and then explains their underlying spatial and temporal schemes. He observes that the
reliefs on the opposite sides relate to each
other in a "spatialized time scheme" that he
calls "past and future" for the symbolic north-south axis and "here and there" for
the symbolic east-west axis. To buttress his
case, Wang introduces the iconographic
program of the relic pagoda at Benyuan
monastery in Luquan, Hebei Province, which is explained in a surviving votive in
scription. However, Wang overlooks the fact
that the iconographic program of this relic
pagoda (fig. 6.35) perfectly matches that of
the Longhuta (fig. 6.21). The relief oppo site the Maitreya in Tusita Heaven on the
symbolic north side of the Longhuta should
be identified as Maitreya residing in Ketu
mati instead of "S?kyamuni in his Pure
Land of Vulture Peak." Moreover, the Bud
dha statue seated below the Subjugation of
Demons relief of the symbolic east side, op
posite Amit?bha and his Pure Land, which
Wang does not identify, is more likely S?k
yamuni. Again, Wang did not carefully in
vestigate the materials he presents and thus
misses an important point by single-mind
edly following his line of interpretation.
Shaping the Lotus Sutra is a beautifully il
lustrated book that connects a dazzling ar
ray of visual objects under the intellectual
auspices of notions of Chinese medieval
world making, specifically through Dun
huang transformation tableaux. The book is
more successful in uncovering similar prin
ciples of composition in different media
from Han to Tang times than it is in inter
preting these objects by marshaling a broad
variety of textual sources, from votive in
scriptions, historical sources, and Buddhist
canonical scriptures to Daoist scriptures. All
the same, it offers a fresh and at times pro vocative perspective on unsolved problems of Chinese Buddhist art. Vividly written, this
book guides the nonspecialist through the
complexities of medieval Buddhist visual
culture. Wang knows how to engage his au
dience with materials that the non-Chinese
reader might otherwise never have known.
Albeit Wang's enthusiasm for his materials
is appreciated, more consistency in matters
of methodology in Buddhist studies would
have proven useful in harvesting the fruits
of an inquiry about the relation between
images and texts in Chinese Buddhist cul
ture. Altogether, in the fields of art histori
cal and textual studies it is certain to foster
more lively discussion and debate. And that
is no small achievement.
claudia wenzel is research fellow in the
project "Buddhist Stone Scriptures in China"
at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and
Humanities [Heidelberger Akademie der Wissen
schaften, "Buddhistische Steinschriften in China," Seminarstrasse 4, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany].
Notes
1. Sarah E. Fr?ser, Performing the Visual: The Prac tice of Buddhist Wall Painting in China and Cen tral Asia, 618-960 (Stanford: Stanford Univer
sity Press, 2004).
2. Dan Nattier, "The Meanings of the Maitreya Myth: A Typological Analysis," in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, ed. Alan Sponberg and Helen Hardacre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 23-47.
3. Junghee Lee, "The Origins and Development of the Pensive Bodhisattva Images of Asia," Artibus Asiae 53, nos. 3-4 (1993): 311-57.
4. A fact observed in the review of Wang's book
by Miao Zhe, "Yishushi zhong de wenxian yu 'jiafa'" [Textual sources and "domestic disci
pline" in the history of arts], Dushu (May 2006): 112-22.
5. Dorothy C. Wong, Chinese Steles: Pre-Buddhist and Buddhist Use of a Symbolic Form (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004), 109-14, who offers a more cautious analysis of icons, donors, and votive inscription on this stela.
6. Ibid.; and Jean M.James, "Some Iconographic Problems in Early Daoist-Buddhist Sculptures in China," Archives of Asian Art 42 (1989): 71 76.
7. Wang Huimin, "Cheng Tang shiji Dunhuang Foding zunsheng tuoluoni jing kaoshi [Inves
tigations in the S?tra of the Dh?rani of the Jubi lant Corona at Dunhuang from High Tang dynasty]" (paper presented at the Joint Semi nar on Buddhist Art, Yale University and Dun
huang Academy, July 11, 2006).
8. Wang Huimin, "Dunhuang 321 ku, 74 ku Shi lun jingbian kaoshi [Investigations in the transformation tableaux of the S?tra of the Ten
Wheels in Caves 321 and 74 at Dunhuang]," Yishushi yanjiu 6 (December 2004).
9. Zhiyi, Great Calming and Contemplation, T. 46, no. 1911, p. 116, a21-24, trans. Chinese Elec tronic Tripitaka Collection, Feb. 2007: Taisho
Tripitaka Vol. 1-55 & 85; Shinsan Zokuzokyo (Xuzangjing), Vol. 1-88, CD-ROM, CBETA
(Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association).
10. Ibid., T. 38, no. 1778, p. 644, c8-9.
PETRA TEN-DOESSCHATE CHU
The Most Arrogant Man in France: Gustave Courbet and the Nineteenth
Century Media Culture Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. 246 pp.; 49 color ills., 88 b/w.
$45.00
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