1 Introduction
One’s fate in the afterlife was an abiding concern of devotees across Buddhist cultures. The search for the pure land inspired a vast range of visual and material expressions, from paintings of bodhisattvas to relief sculptures of the wheel of rebirth. Ritual and religious practices ranged from daily practice and pre-mortem preparations to deathbed veneration and post-mortem offerings, all of which could be carried out collectively by devotees and their loved ones. Even given the vast array of soteriological options across medieval Asia, however, one object of devotion remained constant: Amitābha Buddha of the Western Pure Land.
This paper focuses on a small group of paintings in the collection of the Hermitage, originally recovered from Karakhoto, that feature Amitābha Buddha receiving the soul of a devotee into his Western Pure Land. These works are known as welcoming descent paintings (Chin. laiyingtu
Greeting the righteous man on the way to the Pure Land of Amitābha, roll on linen, 84.8 × 63.8 cm (with original border 99 × 63.8 cm). Karakhoto, 13th c.
X2411, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
This set of objects presents a unique opportunity for thinking through the stakes of transcultural research, especially concerning assumptions regarding the origins and afterlives of images, which intersect with the concerns of the global and the local. Previous scholarship on these paintings has positioned them in between Song China (960–1279,
Even prior to the recent scholarly turn toward global art history, Buddhism and its visual cultures offered a readymade model for thinking through transculturalism that has not yet perhaps been fully exploited or complicated. Consider, for example, the following statement by the Islamic art historian David Roxburgh:
The perpetually global nature of Islam—from the seventh century through the modern period—might in fact offer models to some other fields of art history that are now, somewhat belatedly, adopting similar approaches to their materials in recognition of the impact of their individual historiographies, the obfuscation and occlusion of artistic interactions because of nationalism, medium-specific approaches, distinctions between the fine, industrial, and decorative arts, and so on.2
It is precisely the focus on the ‘individual’ character of artistic interactions that is lost by an easy emphasis on the homogeneity of Buddhist cultures across Asia.3
A second, related concern is that transcultural transmission needs both a starting point and an end point. For too long, the locus classicus of Buddhism was the heartland of India; such views were only fairly recently challenged by the discovery of Buddhist manuscripts in the desert oasis cities of central Asia which pointed to their mediating role in the translation and transmission of Buddhist texts eastward into China.4 The discourse of localisation, which gestured toward the sinicisation of foreign forms, has also privileged the cultures of settled states and major dynasties versus those of nomadic or border regimes.5 This dynamic is revisited time and again in discourses of Tangut art, which emerged with the appearance of the Tangut people in the late 10th to early 11th centuries (in the western part of present-day Gansu (
In this paper, I examine paintings of Amitābha’s welcoming descent from Song China and from medieval Japan and Korea, not only to hypothesise about possible paths of transmission, but also to examine them in a comparative context. That is to say, by looking at Tangut Pure Land paintings against those of the Tangut state’s immediate neighbours, we can gain a clearer sense of their unique particularities which emerged from ‘local,’ not just ‘localised’ contexts and distinct phenomenological demands and possibilities.
2 Amitābha’s Welcoming Descent
The corpus of Amitābha paintings from Karakhoto focuses on two distinct motifs, the first of which is Amitābha in the Western Pure Land and the second of which is Amitābha’s welcoming descent from the Western Pure Land. One might say that Amitābha was more or less a moving target, as devotees could aspire to an encounter with the buddha through contemplation of the Western Pure Land during life, at the moment of their death, or upon their rebirth in the Western Pure Land.8 Regardless of the motif, visual representations of both were characterised by a remarkable sense of immediacy, as will be further discussed.
Paintings of Amitābha in the Western Pure Land typically showed him seated frontally facing on a lotus throne in between the Bodhisattvas Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta (fig. 6.2). The hieratic scale between the buddha and bodhisattvas is reinforced as the latter turn their bodies toward the buddha in a three-quarter pose of adoration. The lotus pedestals of the three deities emerge from a single stalk that rises from a lotus pond. In the lotus pond are miniscule images of the souls being reborn in the Western Pure Land from lotus buds (fig. 6.3). As these two paintings indicate, there were variations in material support, style, and ancillary motifs.
Pure Land of Amitābha, roll on silk, 58 × 34 cm. Karakhoto, 13th–14th c.
X2422, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
Pure Land of Amitābha, thangka on canvas, 76 × 43 cm. Karakhoto, late 12th–13th c.
X2349, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
Paintings of Amitābha’s welcoming descent in the Hermitage were also executed on a diverse range of material supports: portable paintings made on silk, hemp, as well as mural paintings. These images, too, display several consistent features. The first of these is the descent of Amitābha on a swirl of clouds from the upper right corner of the pictorial frame (fig. 6.1). In front of him, and standing also on the same mass of clouds, are the Bodhisattvas Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta, who together hold a lotus pedestal in their hands. As noted by other scholars, a distinctive motif is the appearance of the deceased in the lower left corner, and again alighting on the lotus pedestal held by the two bodhisattvas.9 Yet another is the leftward-facing orientation of the buddha and bodhisattvas. In extant works, the deceased is a layman (fig. 6.1, 6.4), a female-male couple (fig. 6.5), or a monk (fig. 6.6).
Greeting the righteous man on the way to the Pure Land of Amitābha, roll on silk, 32 × 19.5 cm. Karakhoto. 13th c. (?)
X2477, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
Amitābha appearing before worshippers, roll on silk, 125 × 64 cm. Karakhoto, 12th–13th c.
x2416, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
Greeting the righteous man on the way to the Pure Land of Amitābha, roll on canvas, 142.5 × 94 cm. Karakhoto, 13th c.
X2410, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
As earlier noted, the discourse on Tangut paintings of Amitābha’s welcoming descent has been dominated by the question of their models. In terms of the chronology of these images in East Asia, one of the earliest might have been a mural painting on the west wall of the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1126,
Detail from buddha preaching scene, west wall of Kaihua Temple, Chinese, mural painting, Gaoping, Shanxi province
In fact, the visual motif of Amitābha of the welcoming descent did not flourish until the Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1179,
Buddha Amitābha descending from his Pure Land, hanging scroll, ink and color on silk, 135.9 × 58.4 cm, with mounting and knobs 243.2 × 85.1 cm, 13th c.
1980.275, Metropolitan museum of art, the Dillon fund gift
Amitābha trinity descending on clouds, hanging scroll, ink, color, and gold on silk, 97.1 × 53.8 cm, 12th c.
09.86, Museum of fine arts Boston, Denman Waldo Ross collection
Welcoming descent of Amitābha Buddha, hanging scroll, gold ink, cut-gold leaf (kirikane), and color on indigo dyed silk, 98.7 × 38.7 cm, mounting including suspension core and roller ends 194.9 × 61.5 cm, Japanese Nambokuchō period (1333–1392), 14th c.
2013.47, Harvard art museums/Arthur M. Sackler museum, the Louis V. Ledoux collection; gift of Mrs. L. Pierre Ledoux in memory of her husband
Amit’a Triad, Korean, hanging scroll, ink, color and gold on silk, 130.2 × 81.9cm, 14th c.
61.204.30, Brooklyn museum, gift of professor Harold G. Henderson
In articles published only a few years after that landmark exhibition, Lee assessed catalogue essays written by the Russian scholars Maria Rudova and Kira F. Samosyuk, both of whom posited that the welcoming descent motif was based upon Song or Southern Song models.13 Lee endeavored to uncover whether the prototypes of Tangut welcoming descent imagery lay in Northern or Southern Song paintings, and whether “Hsi-Hsia works [should] be considered extensions of Song painting into a peripheral region, and thus only a footnote to Chinese Buddhist painting?”14 Ultimately, Lee concluded that Tangut and Southern Song welcoming descent paintings both originated from a Northern Song model but that the compositional differences between them could be explained by their subsequent development into independent traditions.15 Her argument rests largely on chronology, since the earliest Tangut welcoming decent paintings date to the early twelfth century, or the end of the Northern Song. This is despite her acknowledgment that “[…] unfortunately, no Northern Song lai-ying paintings have survived to date.”16
On the other hand, scholars of Japanese and Korean art and Buddhism believe that Tangut paintings might have been the source of welcoming descent compositions in Goryeo painting. Following Ide Seinosuke, Richard McBride states that the iconography was generally believed to have developed from Tangut and Dunhuang (
Here, I want to point out that the emphasis on paintings to the exclusion of works in other media might have turned scholars’ eyes away from another fruitful source of material: the frontispieces of woodblock printed sūtras. In recent years, scholarly attention has been paid to the role of intermediality in the transcultural transmission of artistic motifs, particularly during the Song, Yuan (1279–1368,
During the Northern Song Dynasty, the composition of woodblock prints often borrowed from paintings. In certain cases, prints were even made to mimic the dimensions and format of hanging scrolls.20 Yet the direction of intermedial intervention could also flow from print onto painting. In the case of Lotus sūtra frontispieces, Shih-shan Susan Huang has argued that the particular placement of the frontispiece at the head of a scroll resulted in a more dynamic composition that was diagonally oriented from right to left, distinct from the static and frontally-facing compositions that characterised the Tang Dynasty (618–907,
Frontispiece to the Diamond sūtra, woodblock-printed scroll, ink on paper, 27.6 × 499.5 cm. Dated 868
OR.8210/P.2, British library
For the Lotus sūtra frontispieces, the diagonal orientation of the buddha and his retinue resulted in a purely visual effect that did not necessarily have any substantive bearing on the soteriological concerns of the sūtra. In the case of Amitābha’s welcoming descent, however, the direction of the buddha’s gaze and movement could be considered as significant elements, because they not only distinguished regional variations on the motif, but had the potential to either visually reinforce or obfuscate the movement of the buddha’s descent from the Western Pure Land.
3 Leftward Looking
The previous scholarship on paintings of Amitābha’s welcoming descent has noted that Japanese paintings almost always consistently showed the buddha turning from left to right in a three-quarter profile (fig. 6.10).22 It is believed that this directional orientation was intended to convey the buddha’s eastward (rightward) descent from the west, which was associated with the left-hand side of the painting. Southern Song and Goryeo welcoming descent paintings, on the other hand, were often oriented from right to left (figs. 6.8 and 6.11). This has created confusion, as it seems to imply that the buddha is descending to the west, rather than moving in an eastward direction.
One answer to this visual anomaly, I argue, can be found in printed frontispieces associated with the Amitābha sūtras. So far, I am aware of two extant frontispieces that display Amitābha’s welcoming descent, both of which were recovered from Karakhoto and now kept in Russian collections. The first is numbered TK 244 (fig. 6.13), which was the frontispiece for the Smaller Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra, the Foshuo Amituo jing
Frontispiece to the Smaller Amitābha sūtra, woodblock print, Karakhoto
TK 244, Institute of oriental manuscripts (IOM) of the Russian Academy of Sciences
A second frontispiece is numbered x2478 (fig. 6.14). Amitābha similarly stands in the right-hand side and points his right hand downward in the giving gesture. Swirling clouds around his head replace the rays of light seen in the previous frontispiece. Standing in front of him, Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta hold a lotus pedestal as they peer solicitously at a semi-clad baby rising from a mass of clouds originating from the kneeling lay male devotee below. The baby holds his hands together in a gesture of veneration and steps forward toward the lotus pedestal. Due to extensive damage along the top of the extant portion of the frontispiece, we cannot see whether there is a ray of light connecting the buddha and devotee. Nevertheless, the main elements of both frontispieces remain the same, with the primary difference being the inclusion or lack of the baby. The second frontispiece also lacks cartouches and inscriptions.
Greeting the righteous man on the way to the Pure Land of Amitābha (fragment), xylograph, 16.8 × 21.7 cm. Karakhoto, 12th–13th c.
X2478, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
The frontispieces correspond with the right to left orientation of the Tangut paintings, on the other hand, show a left to right orientation consistently. Furthermore, the similarities between the compositions are striking, in particular, the doubling of the figure of the pious deceased and the welcoming role played by the two bodhisattvas. The circulation of Buddhist sūtras between the Tangut and Song China not only resulted in the transmission of Buddhist teachings and practices, but also in the transmission of Buddhist imagery.
4 Pure Land Devotion in Karakhoto
In Karakhoto, thirteen texts pertaining to Amitābha were discovered.24 From these texts, inscriptions, and prayer texts (Chin. yuanwen
Of the pure land texts discovered at Karakhoto, three were in Chinese, seven were in Tangut, and three were in Sanskrit. Of the Chinese texts, there were:
-
(1) Miyan yuanyin wangsheng ji
密咒圓因往生集 [Collected Secret Mantras of the Perfect Causes of Rebirth into the Pure Land], T. 1956 -
(2) Foshuo dacheng sheng wuliangshou jueding guangming wang rulai tuoluoni jing
佛說大乘聖無量壽決定光明王如來陀羅尼經 [Dhāraṇīsūtra Preached by the Buddha on the Greater Vehicle Sage, the Buddha of Immeasurable Life, the Decidedly Radiant King Tathāgata] -
(3) Wuliangshou jing
無量壽經 [Larger Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra], T. 360
In Tangut, there were:
-
(1) Wuliangshou jing
無量壽經 [Larger Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra], T. 360 -
(2) Foshuo Amituo jing
佛說阿彌陀經 [Smaller Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra], T. 366 -
(3) Wuliangshou zongyao jing
無量壽宗要經 [Sūtra of the Dhāraṇī of the Buddha of Immeasurable Life] -
(4) Jingtu qiusheng shunyao lun
淨土求生順要論 [Discourse on Complying with the Essentials of Seeking Rebirth in the Pure Land] -
(5) Jingtu qiusheng shunyao yu
淨土求生順要語 [Discourse on Complying with the Essentials of Seeking Rebirth in the Pure Land] -
(6) Xifang jingtu shiyi lun
西方淨土十疑論 [Ten Doubts about the Pure Land], T. 1961 -
(7) Fo suoguan wuliangshou fo jing gaoyao shu
佛所觀無量壽佛經膏藥疏 [Plaster Commentary on the Sūtra of the Buddha of Immeasurable Life Contemplated by the Buddha]
Finally, in Sanskrit there were:
-
(1) Miyan yuanyin wangsheng ji
密咒圓因往生集 [Collected Secret Mantras of the Perfect Causes of Rebirth into the Pure Land] T. 1956 -
(2) Sheng wuliangshou yibaiba ming tuoluoni
聖無量壽一百八名陀羅尼 [Dhāraṇī of the One Hundred and Eight Names of the Sage Buddha of Immeasurable Life] -
(3) Amituo fo zhou
阿彌陀佛咒 [Mantra of Amitābha Buddha]
Thus, we can see that foundational texts of pure land Buddhism were available in both Chinese and Tangut; the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra was preserved in Chinese and Tangut and the Smaller Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra was preserved in Tangut. Dhāraṇī sūtras were also preserved in all three languages, indicating the intermingling of Pure Land and Esoteric elements.26 The Foshuo guan wuliangshoufo jing
The presence of the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra is particularly significant, because the welcoming descent motif refers to the vow made by Amitābha to descend from the Western Pure Land and appear before pious devotees, enabling them to be reborn in the Western Pure Land after death.29 According to the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra (T. 360), Śākyamuni Buddha addresses Ananda regarding the three grades of aspirants who seek rebirth in the Western Pure Land. Each grade of aspirant is distinguished by their monastic or lay status, and commitment to performing meritorious deeds. For those in the highest grade, just as they are about to die, Amitāyus will appear before them with his retinue, whereupon they will follow him to be reborn in his Western Pure Land. They will be born “[…] spontaneously from within seven-jeweled lotus flowers.” To those in the middle grade of aspirants, “[…] Amitāyus will manifest his transformed body, which is fully possessed of the same radiance and physical characteristics and marks as those of the real buddha, and make it appear before them, together with a host of sages. Then they will follow this transformed buddha and be born in the Pure Land.” For those in the lowest grade of aspirants, they will see Amitāyus in a dream and be reborn in the Pure Land.30
This notion is elaborated in the Contemplation sūtra. Here, a system of nine grades of rebirth, three levels within each grade, is articulated. For those who attain rebirth in the upper, middle, and lowest levels of the highest grade, Amitāyus will appear to the devotee as they are about to die, along with Avalokiteśvara, Mahāsthāmaprāpta, and a large assembly holding either a vajra seat, purple-gold seat, or golden lotus flower. They are reborn in the Western Pure Land in the time it takes to snap one’s fingers, in an instant (lotus opens after one night), and immediately (lotus opens after a day and a night). For the upper level, it is described that Amitāyus “[…] releases a great flood of light that illuminates the aspirant’s body.” The buddha and bodhisattvas extend their hands in welcome in the upper level and in the middle level, he says that “I have come to welcome you.” In the upper level, the aspirant “[…] rejoices so greatly as to dance […],” in the middle level, he sits on the seat and joins his palms to praise the buddhas, and in the lower level, he sits on the lotus, which closes around him.31
The printed Buddhist texts that were discovered at Karakhoto were mostly sponsored by the Tangut royal clan. In 1031–1073, the Tangut made six requests toward the Northern Song for copies of the Kaibao Canon (Chin. kaibao zang
5 Materiality and Vision
We have discovered how print culture likely resulted in the distinctive orientation of Tangut welcoming descent paintings. Despite their closeness to the visual appearance of the welcoming descent as revealed in frontispieces, at least some of which must have been produced in Song China, there remain important differences between the Tangut welcoming descent paintings and Southern Song (and other East Asian) examples, the most important of which are materiality and format. Unlike welcoming descent paintings from Song China, Korea, and Japan in the hanging scroll format, those from Karakhoto were often mounted as thangkas. This entailed the use of a different set of materials and techniques. Furthermore, the Tangut welcoming descent paintings were generally smaller in size, unlike related examples from Song China, Korea, and Japan, resulting in different modes of viewer-devotee engagement.
The welcoming descent paintings from Song China, Korea, and Japan discussed previously were all painted on silk and mounted on hanging scrolls, a technique that entailed pasting the painting directly onto a sturdy backing and framing it with decorative strips of silk brocade. The Tangut paintings, on the other hand, were produced on cotton, linen, and silk; several were mounted as thangkas or possibly intended for this type of mounting. Cotton and linen are unknown in East Asian paintings and are treated differently than silk before and during painting.33 Unlike East Asian silk paintings, which were sized before painting, the cotton canvas used in Tibetan thangka painting was both sized then treated with gesso before paint was applied. The gesso consisted of a white earth pigment, chalk, or kaolin, that was mixed with the sizing solution (e.g., glue). The application of gesso to the canvas and polishing of the ground resulted in a painting surface that was bright white and opaque.34 This was distinct from the treatment of silk in East Asian painting, in which white paint could be applied to the underside of the silk in order to brighten the appearance of pigments applied on the other side, but never directly on the front side or painting surface. We might say that the material effect of East Asian silk paintings was predicated upon an aesthetic of translucency whereas Tibetan thangka paintings were infused with an aesthetic of opacity.
Welcoming descent paintings from Song China, Korea, and Japan were generally over one hundred centimeters in height and ranged between fifty to one hundred centimeters in width before mounting. With the silk mounting, they were made even larger (sometimes doubling in height) and more splendid. The Tangut welcoming descent paintings, on the other hand, varied in size but were generally smaller. The largest is x2410 (fig. 6.15), which was 142.5 × 94 cm before mounting and 196.5 × 105.5 cm after mounting. This is still smaller than most welcoming descent paintings from Song China, Korea, and Japan, which frequently exceeded 200 cm in height after mounting. However, that particular painting is an outlier, as most of the Tangut welcoming descent paintings were well under one hundred centimeters in height. For example, x2477 (fig. 6.4) measures only 32 × 19.5 cm. On average, the Tangut welcoming descent paintings were roughly half the height of those from Song China, Korea, and Japan. The generally smaller size of the Tangut paintings enabled a more intimate viewing experience.35 Devoid of the elaborate retinues of certain welcoming descent paintings from Song China, Korea, and Japan, the intimacy of the encounter between the deceased devotee, Amitābha Buddha, and his bodhisattva attendants was foregrounded.
Greeting the righteous man on the way to the Pure Land of Amitābha, roll on canvas, 142.5 × 94 cm. Karakhoto, 13th c.
X2410 (With Thangka mounting), The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
The sense of immediacy and intimacy is thwarted or heightened by the method of mounting: the handscroll versus the thangka. As in one Japanese Nambokuchō period (1331–1392,
Welcoming descent of Amitābha Buddha, hanging scroll, gold ink, cut-gold leaf (kirikane), and color on indigo dyed silk, 98.7 × 38.7 cm, mounting including suspension core and roller ends 194.9 × 61.5 cm. Japanese Nambokuchō period, 14th c.
2013.47, Harvard art museums/Arthur M. Sackler museum, the Louis V. Ledoux collection; gift of Mrs. L. Pierre Ledoux in memory of her husband
6 Devotion and Proximity
As stated earlier, the doubling of the figure of the deceased is an element unique to Tangut welcoming descent paintings. Furthermore, they are striking in their engagement with the deities. It has been said that “Khara Khoto paintings contain many likenesses of Tangut donors, as well as monks.”37 But are these figures to be understood unequivocally as donors? Were dedicatory inscriptions written on the verso, as per the conventions of the Tibetan thangka format? According to Kira Samosyuk, welcoming descent paintings recovered from Karakhoto hardly ever had inscriptions, so it seems unlikely.38 Therefore, in the absence of donor inscriptions, whether the figure of the deceased in Tangut welcoming descent paintings represents a specific donor or beneficiary of a donation is a question worth pondering.
Other Tangut paintings display donor images similarly positioned in a natural manner, both with and without donor inscriptions. A silk painting of the Water-Moon Avalokiteśvara (Chin. Shuiyue Guanyin
Water-Moon Avalokiteśvara, roll on silk, 101.5 × 59.5 cm. Karakhoto, early 12th c.
X2439, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
But in the absence of inscriptions, were the images of the deceased intended to represent specific donors/beneficiaries or a more general idea of Tangut devotion? As noted earlier, donor inscriptions are exceedingly rare among Tangut paintings. One notable exception is a thangka of a deity identified by the Tangut inscription as “The Planet Li Mei,” Yue Bo (fig. 6.18). In the lower left corner of the painting is a standing male devotee, above which is a Chinese-style red cartouche with a Tangut inscription identifying him as “the donor [surname] Ie.”40 The writing of inscriptions on the recto of a painting seems to confirm to Chinese practice. More often than not, images of donors or devotees appear in the lower corners of paintings without any dedicatory inscriptions.41 Nevertheless, what we can infer from a comparison between the donors or devotees in the welcoming descent, Water-Moon Avalokiteśvara, and Yue Bo paintings is the sense of animation in the representation of those figures and their active engagement with the deities (looking upward, stepping or reaching toward, etc.).
Yuebo Planet, roll on canvas (with original border), 38.5 × 29.7 cm, with border 53 × 37.7 cm. Karakhoto, 13th c.
X2454, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
A departure from this is the representation of donors and devotees in tantric paintings, in which there is a greater degree of separation between donors and deities. Two thangkas of Acala (figs. 6.19 and 6.20) display kneeling monk and lay devotees in the lower left and right corners of the paintings, with altars or ritual implements placed either directly in front of the figures or in the horizontal frieze between them. They are neatly encased within painted frames, unlike the easy interaction between donor-devotees and deities in the welcoming descent, Water-Moon Avalokiteśvara, and Yue Bo paintings.42 Kneeling before altars, these figures are engaged in active acts of worship but remain ever distant from the deities above. This is suggestive of the general aims and means of tantric ritual, in which engagement with deities unfolds in a hieratic and highly controlled sequence, beginning with the cordoning off of the ritual space. Also, the ritual activity is mediated by monks; this is distinct from the treatment of the monk as a deceased figure in welcoming descent paintings.
Acala, thangka on canvas (with border), 47 × 35 cm, with border 61 × 47 cm. Karakhoto, 13th–14th c.(?)
X2375, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
Acala, thangka on silk, 73 × 56.3 cm. Karakhoto, 13th–14th c. (?)
X2374, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
The hieratic and static arrangement of figures in the Acala thangkas makes the images of the deceased in the welcoming descent paintings appear even more remarkable. It has been argued that they were actually portraits of the residents of Karakhoto.43 Note the funerary scene in the lower left corner and Sudhana in the upper left corner of the Water-Moon Guanyin painting. Another way to interpret these figures may be to examine them from the point of view of their expectations of deities—were they viewed as distant or remote, or as divine figures with the power to interact and intercede personally on behalf of devotees?
Comparative evidence from medieval Japanese Buddhism demonstrates that devotee-deity engagement in Pure Land Buddhism was powerful and could be realised in a number of ways, such as welcoming descent song and dance performances that were enacted by monks. The mukaekō (
Welcoming descent of Amitābha, hanging scroll, ink, color, gold pigment and cut gold leaf (kirikane) on silk, 97.5 × 47.9 cm, mounting with cord and roller ends 198.1 × 73 cm. Japanese Nambokuchō period, 14th c.
1949.95, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, gift of Mrs. Waldo E. Forbes
7 Conclusion
A quote from the Lost Empire of the Silk Road catalogue cites a 12th century poem that articulates the Tangut sense of identity as positioned in between China and Tibet:
I would argue that in the welcoming descent paintings, the subjectivity of Tangut donors and devotees was maintained not by their sense of in-betweenness, but rather by their insertion into the realm of the divine. Welcoming descent paintings showed the close contact between deities and devotees, as well as their certainty of rebirth in the Western Pure Land. In these images, it can be seen that the Tanguts did not view themselves as having been relegated to the periphery,48 but rather were themselves placed squarely front and center.
Moreover, one goal of this paper has been to shift the discourse on transcultural artistic transmission, particularly in the Buddhist context, from one that rests primarily upon the visual to one that takes materiality into account as well. Doing so opens up our understanding of the processes of transcultural transmission beyond the surface level and allows us to consider the objects of our inquiry—and their movement between start and end points—from a fuller, one might even say three-dimensional perspective.
Naomi Standen, “Colouring Outside the Lines: Methods for a Global History of Eastern Eurasia,” Transactions of the RHS 29 (2019): 27. Pay particular attention to the following statement made by Standen (ibid., 28): “I am currently writing a global history of eastern Eurasia between 600 and 1350, without using the word ‘China.’” See also Alicia Walker, “Globalism,” Studies in Iconography 33 (2012): 183–196.
David Roxburgh, “Review: Art, Trade, and Culture in the Islamic World and Beyond: From the Fatimids to the Mughals: Studies Presented to Doris Behrens-Abouseif by Alison Ohta, J.M. Rogers, and Rosalind W. Haddon, ed.,” Middle East Studies 53.1 (2019): 140.
See, for example: “A culture that is ‘cosmopolitan’ or ‘international’ is marked by a shared political order, set of beliefs, language, and/or aesthetics […] I argue that this homogeneous, cosmopolitan Buddhist art style that held sway in East Asia for about a century was underscored by the common ideal or utopia of a ‘Buddhist state’ or ‘Buddhist empire.’” In Dorothy C. Wong, Buddhist Pilgrim-Monks as Agents of Cultural and Artistic Transmission: The International Buddhist Art Style in East Asia, ca. 645–770 (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2018), 2.
See, for example, Valerie Hansen, “The Path of Buddhism into China: The View from Turfan,” Asia Major Third Series 11.2 (1998): 37–66.
The term ‘localisation’ often appeared in tandem with discourses of ‘sinicisation’ in earlier scholarship on Buddhist art; see, for example, Ning Qiang, Art, Religion and Politics in Medieval China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004), 5, 77.
Yu-Min Lee, “Amitābha Paintings from Khara Khoto,” National Palace Museum Bulletin 31.6 (1997): 1. According to Lee, “Tangut Buddhism developed in the shadow of China and Tibet.” See Lee, “Amitābha Paintings from Khara Khoto,” 2.
Craftsmen from the Northern Song court were requested by the Tangut in 1063. Xi Xiaji
Jimmy Yu, “Pure Land Devotion in East Asia,” in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to East and Inner Asian Buddhism, ed. Mario Poceski (Chichester; Malden: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2014), 201–220 provides a helpful overview of the multiplicity of pure land discourses in Asia, problematizing the sectarian history of Pure Land Buddhism and urging attention instead to devotion to Amitābha Buddha and the goal of rebirth in his Western Pure Land. My thanks to an anonymous reviewer of this article for the reference.
Lee, “Amitābha Paintings from Khara Khoto,” 12.
Lee, “Amitābha Paintings from Khara Khoto,” 10.
A detail from the Tang Dynasty Mogao Cave 431 shows the deceased ascending but not the welcoming descent of Amitābha. See Li Yumin
Lee, “Amitābha Paintings from Khara Khoto,” 2. See footnote 3 on the same page for a survey of the relevant Japanese-language scholarship.
Lee, “Amitābha Paintings from Khara Khoto,” 3 and nos. 4–5. See also Li, “Heishuicheng chutu Xixia Mituohua chutan,” 14.
Lee, “Amitābha Paintings from Khara Khoto,” 3.
Yu-Min Lee, “Amitābha Paintings from Khara Khoto (continued),” National Palace Museum Bulletin 32.1 (1997): 16–33, especially 17–18, 26.
Lee, “Amitābha Paintings from Khara Khoto (continued),” 18.
See Richard McBride, “Koryŏ Buddhist Paintings and the Cult of Amitābha: Visions of a Hwaŏm-Inspired Pure Land,” Journal of Korean Religions 6.1 (April 2015): 106 and Ide Seinosuke, “The World of Goryeo Buddhist Painting,” in Goryeo Dynasty: Korea’s Age of Enlightenment, 918–1392, ed. Kumja Paik Kim (San Francisco: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 2003), 36.
See An-yi Pan, “A Southern Song Dynasty Amitābha Triad Painting Reconsidered,” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 81.9 (1994): 351, 359–360 and Junhyoung Michael Shin, “The Face-to-Face Advent of the Amitābha Triad: A Fifteenth-Century Welcoming Descent,” Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 6 (2001): 37–40.
Anne Saliceti-Collins, “Xi Xia Buddhist Woodblock Prints Excavated in Khara Khoto: A Case Study of Transculturation in East Asia, Eleventh-Thirteenth Centuries” (MA thesis, University of Washington, 2007); Shih-shan Susan Huang, “Reassessing Printed Buddhist Frontispieces from Xi Xia,” Zhejiang University Journal of Art and Archaeology 1 (2014): 129–182, especially 130–131, especially 130, no. 2.
Shih-shan Susan Huang terms this “media transfer.” See her “Media Transfer and Modular Construction: The Printing of Lotus Sutra Frontispieces in Song China,” Ars Orientalis 41 (2011): 135–163, especially 137–140.
Huang, “Media Transfer and Modular Construction,” 140–141.
Ide, “The World of Goryeo Buddhist Painting,” 40; see also Lee, “Amitābha Paintings from Khara Khoto (continued),” 18–19.
For a detailed analysis of this image, see Saliceti-Collins, “Xi Xia Buddhist Woodblock Prints Excavated in Khara Khoto,” 80–81. See also Han Xiaomang
Li, “Heishuicheng chutu Xixia Mituohua chutan,” 9–10. Saliceti-Collins, “Xi Xia Buddhist Woodblock Prints,” 79; Cui Hongfen
Li, “Heishuicheng chutu Xixia Mituohua chutan,” 7–10.
Li, “Heishuicheng chutu Xixia Amituo hua chutan,” 9–10.
Georgios T. Halkias, Luminous Bliss: A Religious History of Pure Land Literature in Tibet—with an Annotated English Translation and Critical Analysis of the Orgyan-gling Gold Manuscript of the Short Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2017), 63–64.
Ruth W. Dunnell studies the eight Tangut imperial preceptors, at least some of whom were Tibetan, in her “Translating History from Tangut Buddhist Texts,” Asia Major 22.1 (2009): 41–78. For the preference by Tanguts for the Chinese translations of Buddhist sūtras, see Imre Galambos, Translating Chinese Tradition and Teaching Tangut Culture: Manuscripts and Printed Books from Khara-Khoto (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2015), 124–125. Kirill Solonin helpfully outlines the development of “Sinitic Buddhism” among the Tanguts, especially Chan and Huayan Buddhism, in his “Sinitic Buddhism in the Tangut State,” Central Asiatic Journal 57 (2014): 157–183. Solonin further points to the role played by Tangut monks in mediating between Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism; see his “Buddhist Connections Between the Liao and Xixia: Preliminary Considerations,” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 43 (2013): 177.
Shin, “The Face-to-Face Advent of the Amitābha Triad,” 28.
Hisao Inagaki and Harold Stewart, trans., The Three Pure Land Sutras (Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2003), 35–36. Also T. 12.360, 272b15–272c10.
Inagaki and Stewart, The Three Pure Land Sutras, 92–94. Also T. 12.365, 344c9–346a26.
Huang, “Reassessing Printed Buddhist Frontispieces from Xi Xia,” 137–138. There are five woodblock printed versions of the Smaller Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra extant; Meng Liefu
It should be noted, however, that banner paintings made from materials other than silk have been discovered along the silk roads, such as Dunhuang.
David and Janice Jackson, Tibetan Thangka Painting: Methods and Materials (London: Serindia Publications, 1984), 18–23.
This also raises intriguing questions regarding how the paintings may have been used in deathbed rituals in different regions of Asia.
Marion Boyer and Jean M. Terrier, “Thangka Restoration and Conservation,” June 19, 2003, accessed February 29, 2020. https://www.asianart.com/articles/thangkas-/index.html.
Mikhail Piotrovsky, ed., Lost Empire of the Silk Road: Buddhist Art from Khara Khoto (X–XIIIth Century) (Milan: Electa, 1993), 83.
Kira Samosyuk, “‘Donors’ in the Tangut Painting from Khara-Khoto: Their Meaning and Function,” The Tibet Journal 26.3–4 (2001): 165. According to a personal communication from Kira Samosyuk on 16th October 2019 that was shared with me by Lilla Russell-Smith: “It is difficult to answer for your question, because each painting is framed and has covered back side. I think that the ‘Welcoming’ have not any inscription. The inscriptions are at Tibetan style maṇḍala, sometimes at the other icons with the names of the donators, or sometimes with the mantras, or at Jin guang mingjing there are the titles of the sūtra parts. There is Tibetan style thangka Tangut letters mantra at the very bad condition Tibetan style Eleven headed Avalokiteśvara, not reproduced in my book. (X 3554). Nobody in 50th–60th years did not think [sic] to keep the back of the paintings.”
This painting is discussed in Piotrovsky, Lost Empire of the Silk Road, 198.
Piotrovsky, Lost Empire of the Silk Road, 232. On astral deities, see Jeffrey Kotyk, “Astrological Iconography of Planetary Deities in Tang China: Near Eastern and Indian Icons in Chinese Buddhism,” Journal of Chinese Buddhist Studies 30 (2017): 33–88.
In the Lost Empire of the Silk Road catalogue, see 150, 155, 160, 170, 238, and 245 for donors with no inscriptions.
It should be noted that the welcoming descent and Water-Moon Avalokiteśvara paintings both pertain to pure land motifs: The Western Pure Land and Mt. Potalaka.
Samosyuk, “‘Donors’ in the Tangut Painting from Khara-Khoto,” 165. In this article, Samosyuk argues for the ethnic and class identifications of individual donor figures.
Jacqueline I. Stone, “By the Power of One’s Last Nenbutsu: Deathbed Practices in Early Medieval Japan,” in Approaching the Land of Bliss: Religious Praxis in the Cult of Amitābha, ed. Richard K. Payne and Kenneth Ken’ichi Tanaka (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004), 82–83.
Stone, “By the Power of One’s Last Nenbutsu,” 82. See, for example, one famous example of such a painting at Konkaikōmyō Temple (
See Kirill Solonin, “The Formation of Tangut Ideology: Buddhism and Confucianism,” in Buddhism in Central Asia I—Patronage, Legitimation, Sacred Space, and Pilgrimage, ed. Carmen Meinert and Henrik Sørensen (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2020), 147. Solonin also explicates the important role that Buddhism played in Tangut state protection; Solonin, “The Formation of Tangut Ideology: Buddhism and Confucianism,” 140. My thanks to an anonymous reviewer of this article for the reference.
Kira F. Samosyuk, “The Art of the Tangut Empire: A Historical and Stylistic Interpretation,” in Lost Empire of the Silk Road: Buddhist Art from Khara Khoto (X–XIIIth Century), ed. Mikhail Piotrovsky (Milan: Electa, 1993), 59.
In this regard, Susan Huang calls attention to the ‘peripheral vision’ articulated by Rob Linrothe in his article “Peripheral Visions: On Recent Finds of Tangut Buddhist Art,” Monumenta Serica 43 (1995): 235–262, especially 250–251, 255–257; as cited in Huang, “Reassessing Printed Buddhist Frontispieces from Xi Xia,” 130, no. 2.