painting; banner; 繪畫(Chinese); 幡(Chinese) BM-1919-0101-0.90

Period:Tang dynasty Production date:701-850 (circa)
Materials:silk, 絲綢 (Chinese),
Technique:painted
Subjects:buddha lotus throne architecture musical instrument 佛 (Chinese) 蓮花寶座 (Chinese) 建築 (Chinese) 樂器 (Chinese) life of the buddha
Dimensions:Height: 42.50 centimetres (Mounted in royal card mount) Width: 17.50 centimetres

Description:
Painted banner fragment with three scenes from the Life of the Buddha: Buddha seated on a lotus throne; Śākyamuni, shown in a building as a young prince, in discussion with his teachers; and the Iron Targets (drums used in an athletic contest in which Śākyamuni took part). Inscribed cartouches on alternate sides of the middle and bottom scene. Ink and colour on silk.
IMG


Comments:EnglishFrom Whitfield 1982:This fragment and the next evidently belong to the same series, with each scene framed and divided from the next by a striped band with individual florets.The upper section must have been the top of the banner and was a seated figure of the Buddha with hands in abhaya- and vara-mudrā. There is no accompanying cartouche, as in the remaining scenes, which are inscribed in a neat regular script. The centre scene shows the boy prince seated on a couch, engaged in discussion with the doctors of military science and of literature (one holds a scroll and another an official tablet). Of the lowest scene only the top half is preserved, but this is enough to show that it represented Sākyamuni’s prowess in contest; a similar scene of the iron target drums lined up is to be found in the series of scrolls of the Kako genzai inga-kyō in Japan. Sākyamuni alone was able to pierce them all with his arrow. The competition, along with Sākyamuni uprooting a tree with his bare hands, is also shown in one of the Stein banners now in New Delhi.Both the actual painting and the writing of the captions accompanying each scene in this and the next banner are very well done, in marked contrast to the summary execution and careless hand visible in another pair of banners with individually framed events (Figs. 82 and 83). There the composition seems to follow an archaic formula, with the figures stiffly distributed in the picture area, with little movement or indication of depth. In the present paintings, on the contrary, the figures are grouped so as to make quite clear their individual relationships, and architectural features are used to advantage in establishing a spatial setting. ChineseFrom Whitfield 1982:這個碎片和下一個很明顯屬于同一系列，每個場景是都分別被框起來,用一個由花朵形連成的條紋帶隔開。上面的部分一定是幡的頂部，是佛的坐像。兩手結施無畏印和與願印，沒有下面接續的兩個場景中的那種工整楷書書寫的題箋。中心場景表現少年太子坐在一個椅子上，正在和武功和文學先生進行討論（一個手握卷軸，另一個手持笏），最下面的場景只殘留上半部分，但這足以表現出它代表釋迦牟尼在戰鬥中的英勇，鐵鼓形的靶子—在日本的《過去現在因果經》卷軸中也有相同的場景，釋迦牟尼可以獨自用劍刺穿他們。這個比賽連同釋迦牟尼空手拔樹場面一起，在現存的新德里斯坦因收集品的幡畫中也有表現。此幡和下一幡的每個場景的繪畫本身及其相應的文字說明都做得非常好，與另一對幡的獨立的框起來的事件（參照單色圖版第82圖，第83圖）——演奏的簡略繪畫和潦草筆迹相比，有顯著的區別。那個構圖似乎根據一個古老的公式，人物像被僵硬地分配在畫面裏，幾乎沒有動感或立體感。相反，在現在的繪畫中，人物都被聚在一起，人物關系清楚明瞭，對建築物的描繪也有立體感。