XV
The predominant share which the Bodhisattvas claim in popular Buddhist worship as developed under Mahāyāna influences is illustrated by the fact that about one-half of our Ch‘ien-fo-tung paintings are devoted to their representation, whether singly or along with attendant divinities. However large may be in devout speculation the number of different Bodhisattvas, popular imagination had already in the North-Indian home of the Mahāyāna system been concentrated upon a small select group of Bodhisattvas. Among them Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva of Mercy, occupies the foremost place, and the frequency of his representations among our Tun-huang paintings is just as marked as the popularity of his female manifestation, known to the Chinese as Kuan-yin, to the Japanese as Kwannon, the Goddess of Pity, is in modern Buddhist worship throughout the Far East.
The large and fairly well-preserved painting (Ch. xxxviii. 005), reproduced on the scale of one-third in Plate [xv], presents two almost life-size figures of Avalokiteśvara standing erect and facing each other. Their outer hands are raised in the vitarka-mudrā, while the Bodhisattva on the left carries in the other hand a yellow flower, and the one on the right a flask and a willow sprig. These are well-known attributes of Avalokiteśvara.[35] Which of his many particular forms are intended may be determined from the inscribed cartouche above, of which no translation is as yet available.
The figures, drawn with much care and painted in a wealth of harmonious colours, reflect a certain grandeur of design which breaks through the hieratic conventions of pose and externals. Except for the oblique eyes these conventions are all unmistakably Indian in type and origin. But equally clear is the change, here seen in highly perfected technique, which their treatment has undergone by the eyes and hands of Chinese painters. We notice their distinctive touch quite as much in the grace and dignity of the features as in the mastery of sweeping line with which the rich robes of the Bodhisattvas are treated. The features are finely drawn and delicately shaded with pink; the ears are elongated and show hieratic convention in a particularly striking fashion. The fine drawing of the shapely hands curiously contrasts with the clumsy foreshortening of the feet.
Dress, coiffure, and jewellery are of the elaborate style, often displayed by our Bodhisattva banners;[36] but the ornamentation, though carefully treated in detail, is not overdone. On the front of the tiaras is shown Avalokiteśvara’s Dhyāni-buddha, Amitābha. From lotus buds at their sides descend rainbow-coloured tassels. The garments comprise shawl-like stoles, lined with light green, under-robes of Indian red, and long skirts of orange hue. A white girdle is held round the hips by a jewelled belt; its end hangs down in front of the skirt and is tied below in a butterfly knot. From a heavy gold necklet descend jewelled chains, which are gathered together by a large circular jewel at the waist, and then part again to loop up the skirt about the knees. A jewelled anklet seems to gather the end of the under-robe above the feet, and these in either figure are set upon a pair of open lotuses. On the outer sides of the figures gracefully drawn flowers and leaves are shown as if floating down gently through the air.
PLATE XVI
FOUR FORMS OF AVALOKITEŚVARA
XVI
This well-preserved large silk painting (Ch. lv. 0023), reproduced here on a scale of two-fifths, offers special interest.[37] It is the oldest exactly dated painting in the Collection, the dedicatory inscription below indicating the year corresponding to a.d. 864. It also combines in a curious fashion hieratic conventions of Indian origin, such as prevail in the row of four Avalokiteśvara figures ranged stiffly side by side in the upper half, with the more Chinese and more animate treatment of others in the lower half. There the Bodhisattvas Samantabhadra and Mañjuśrī are represented in procession advancing towards each other on lotus seats carried by their respective ‘Vāhanas’, the white elephant with six tusks and the lion, and accompanied by their attendants, just as we have already seen them in the more sumptuous compositions of Plates [iii] and [iv]. Samantabhadra has his hands raised in the vitarka-mudrā and Mañjuśrī in the pose of adoration. Their dress, ornaments, circular haloes, &c., as well as their cortèges, here limited to two lesser Bodhisattvas carrying three-tiered umbrellas and a dark-skinned Indian attendant leading the divinity’s mount, all show very close agreement with the types displayed in those large paintings. These conventions are shared also by the single Bodhisattva figures in many fine silk banners of the Collection,[38] and our dated picture proves them to have been already fully established by the middle of the ninth century.