TEXT
LONDON
BERNARD QUARITCH, Ltd.
1921
PRINTED IN ENGLAND
AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
BY FREDERICK HALL
TO THE MEMORY OF
RAPHAEL PETRUCCI
TO WHOSE DEVOTION TO FAR-EASTERN ART
THE STUDY OF THESE PAINTINGS OWES MOST
THIS ALBUM WHICH HE HAD HELPED TO PLAN
IS DEDICATED
IN ADMIRATION, AFFECTION, AND SORROW
TABLE OF CONTENTS
| PAGE | ||
| PREFACE | [ix] | |
| THE TUN-HUANG PAINTINGS AND THEIR PLACE IN BUDDHIST ART An Introductory Essay by Laurence Binyon | [1–10] | |
| DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF PICTURES by Sir Aurel Stein | [11–63] | |
| I, II. | The Paradise of Bhaiṣajyaguru | [11] |
| III. | A celestial assemblage | [13] |
| IV, V. | Processions of Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra | [14] |
| VI. | Details from a painting of a Buddhist Heaven | [15] |
| VII. | The Paradise of Śākyamuni | [16] |
| VIII. | Amitābha’s Paradise | [18] |
| IX. | Legendary scenes from a painting of Maitreya’s Paradise | [19] |
| X. | Amitābha with attendants | [20] |
| XI. | A Paradise of Amitābha | [21] |
| XII. | Scenes from Gautama Buddha’s Life | [23] |
| XIII. | Scenes from the Buddha legend | [25] |
| XIV. | Images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas | [26] |
| XV. | Two forms of Avalokiteśvara | [28] |
| XVI. | Four forms of Avalokiteśvara | [29] |
| XVII. | Avalokiteśvara in Glory | [30] |
| XVIII. | Avalokiteśvara standing, with willow spray | [31] |
| XIX. | Two Avalokiteśvaras with the willow | [32] |
| XX. | Avalokiteśvara with flame-wreathed halo | [33] |
| XXI. | Avalokiteśvara standing | [33] |
| XXII. | Two Avalokiteśvara paintings with donors | [34] |
| XXIII. | Six-armed Avalokiteśvara with attendant Bodhisattvas | [35] |
| XXIV. | Two paper paintings of Avalokiteśvara | [36] |
| XXV. | Two paintings of Kṣitigarbha | [37] |
| XXVI. | Vaiśravaṇa’s Progress | [39] |
| XXVII. | Virūpākṣa and Mañjuśrī | [40] |
| XXVIII. | Bust of a Lokapāla | [42] |
| XXIX. | Two Dharmapālas and a Bodhisattva | [43] |
| XXX. | Side-scenes and details from a Buddhist Paradise painting | [44] |
| XXXI. | A Tibetan painting of Tārā | [45] |
| XXXII. | Paper pictures of a Bodhisattva, saint, and monk | [47] |
| XXXIII. | Paper pictures of hermit and horse-dragon | [47] |
| XXXIV, XXXV. | Embroidery picture of Śākyamuni on the Vulture Peak | [48] |
| XXXVI. | Bhaiṣajyaguru’s Paradise | [50] |
| XXXVII. | Banners with scenes from the Buddha legend | [51] |
| XXXVIII. | Buddha Tejaḥprabha and Avalokiteśvara as guide of souls | [53] |
| XXXIX. | Kṣitigarbha with the Infernal Judges | [54] |
| XL. | Kṣitigarbha as Patron of Travellers | [55] |
| XLI. | Avalokiteśvara and two other Bodhisattvas | [56] |
| XLII. | Avalokiteśvara, thousand-armed, with attendant divinities | [57] |
| XLIII. | Avalokiteśvara with Lokapāla attendants | [58] |
| XLIV. | Fragment of standing Avalokiteśvara | [59] |
| XLV. | Vaiśravaṇa crossing the ocean | [59] |
| XLVI. | Fragment with child on demon’s hand | [61] |
| XLVII. | Three Lokapāla banners | [61] |
| XLVIII. | Fragment with figure of demonic warrior | [63] |
| INDEX | [64] | |
PREFACE
The purpose of this publication is to place before students interested in Eastern art reproductions of select specimens from among the great collection of ancient Buddhist paintings which in the course of the explorations of my second Central-Asian journey, carried out in 1906–8 under the orders of the Government of India, I had the good fortune to recover from a walled-up chapel at the ‘Caves of the Thousand Buddhas’ near Tun-huang. The essential facts concerning their discovery will be found summarized in Mr. Laurence Binyon’s Introductory Essay. Those who may wish for details of the circumstances attending it, and for some account of the local conditions which explain the preservation of these relics of ancient Buddhist art in the distant region where the westernmost Marches of true China adjoin the great deserts of innermost Asia, will find them in my personal narrative of that expedition.[1] They have been recorded still more fully in Serindia, the final report on the results of my explorations, recently issued from the Oxford University Press.[2]
In Mr. Binyon’s Introductory Essay there will be found a lucid exposition, by the hand of a competent expert, of the reasons which invest those paintings with special interest for the study of Buddhist art as transplanted from India through Central Asia to the Far East, and with great importance, too, for the history of Chinese art in general. There light is thrown also on the manifold problems raised by the variety of art influences from the West, the South, and the East which are reflected in different groups of these paintings and which some of them show in striking intermixture.