Picture axis of Wu Bin and Pu Xian

[Picture axis of Wu Bin’s statue of Pu Xian]

Picture axis of Pu Xian, Ming Dynasty, Wu Bin’s painting, paper version, color setting, vertical 127.5 cm, horizontal 66.2 cm
The painter at the bottom left of this painting has his own title: “Ren Yin Meng Dong Zhi Yin Nun Tou Tuo Wu Binzhai worships and writes.” He seals “Zhi Yin Nun Tou Tuo” and “Wen Zhong Shi” Zhu Wenyin. Renyin was the thirtieth year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1602).
The picture shows the situation when the Great Patriot sat on the back of the white elephant and spoke with his disciples. In the picture, Pu Xian wears a red scarf on his head, a white monk’s robe on his inside, and a red cassock on his outside. He holds a short tin stick in both hands, with his head slightly hanging down to the right, to communicate with his disciples standing down to the right. Around the five disciples, all of them were standing, wearing cassocks of different styles and colors, and holding different objects. Puxian’s lower right disciple wears a blue wide-sleeved monk’s robe, a red cassock with a right shoulder, and holds a Buddhist clip. It should mean asking Puxian for the meaning of the scripture; There are two disciples standing on the right behind Puxian, wearing a white cross-necked monk’s clothing, holding a round bowl in hand, a pink round-necked monk’s clothing, and holding a tin stick in hand; Puxian’s left rear disciple wore a pink round-neck monk’s robe inside, a cassock on his right shoulder outside, and a tripod stool in his arms; Puxian’s left front disciple, dressed in red cross-necked monk’s clothes, is bending over to arrange flowers on a finely crafted bronze platform
The allusion of the Buddha riding on an elephant can be found in the “Lotus Sutra of the Magical Dharma”, the image of the Buddha riding on an elephant has been very popular since the Northern and Southern Dynasties. In the Tang Dynasty, a stable image pattern was formed with the Buddha riding on an elephant as the center, surrounded by the Bodhisattva Heavenly Maiden, the Emperor and the Eight Heavenly Dragons. Different from the previous image style, the white elephant in this picture is lying on the ground meekly, and Puxian is wearing men’s clothes. All around are disciples, which is a new image style derived from the late Ming Dynasty