painting; 繪畫(Chinese) BM-1919-0101-0.168

Period:Tang dynasty Production date:851-900 (circa)
Materials:paper, 紙 (Chinese),
Technique:painted
Subjects:monk/nun
Dimensions:Height: 41 centimetres (Painted image) Height: 56 centimetres (Painting in mount) Width: 30 centimetres (Painted image) Width: 40.70 centimetres (Painting in mount)

Description:
Painting of a travelling monk, shown wearing a wide-brimmed hat, with a load of scrolls on his back, and a fly wwhisk in his left hand. Next to him is a tiger and a Buddha on a cloud. Ink and colour on paper.
IMG


Comments:From Whitfield 2004b, pl. 15:’This and several similar paintings showing a monk with a back pack full of scrolls, a staff and a tiger, have been the subject of several studies and later images were usually identified as the famous Chinese pilgrim monk Xuanzang or the arhat Dharmatrata. Mair has instead suggested that the figure depicted is a travelling storyteller and that the scrolls are illustrations for his public recitations. He argues that such performers would have been frequent travellers on the Silk Road, going from town to town to give public recitations of popular Buddhist tales.’ EnglishFrom Whitfield 1983:Several examples of this figure of a traveling monk with a fly-whisk and a back-carrier of Buddhist scrolls, accompanied by a tiger and protected by a small figure of the Buddha, are known from Dunhuang and have been studied first by Eiichi Matsumoto, then by Terukaze Akiyama (Bijutsu Kenkyu, no. 238, Jan. 1966) and more recently by Paul Demieville (Jao Tsong-yi, 1978, pp. 43-49). Two of them are in the Stein collection at the British Museum: the one shown in this plate and a smaller fragment (Fig. 105).All these drawings on paper show the monk and the tiger supported on clouds, here largely corroded away by the pigment used to depict them, as is the cloud supporting the small Buddha above. Two paintings on silk in the Pelliot collection (Bannieres, Nos. 206, 207), also studied by Akiyama, show the monk and the tiger actually walking through a landscape. Both are drawn with fine lines and considerable care. Akiyama has dated them to the ninth century and to the end of the ninth century respectively, the latter date on account of part of a letter dating from the mid-ninth century which was lining the back of the painting. In my view, however, details such as the bird perching on a rock in one painting and the facial details of the monk in the other (close to those of the monks in Vol. 1, Pl. 7-2) indicate that both paintings are of eighth century date (the ninth century letter must simply have been added later as a repair to the back of the painting). It is the second, damaged at the top but with colours still very intense and bright, that is of the greater interest, since the mysterious figure of the monk is there labeled as Baosheng rulai 寶勝如來. Two of the paintings on paper from the Otani collection (one in Seoul National Museum, one in a private collection in Japan) are also so labelled. Akiyama has noted that while Baosheng is known from two books of ritual translated by Amoghavajra to correspond to the Sanskrit Prabhutaratna, a famous statue of Baosheng in the Canmo 讃摩 temple at Khotan is recorded in the biography of Seng Biao 僧表, in the Biographies of Eminent Monks 名僧伝 written by Bao Chang 寶昌 in A.D.514, and he therefore concludes that Baosheng must have been revered as a deity who protected travellers who crossed deserts. Akiyama therefore felt that it was Baosheng himself who was represented as a monk carrying sacred writings. While accepting that there is a well-attested link in the three paintings with Prabhutaratna, I agree with Demieville in identifying Prabhutaratna as the small Buddha on a cloud who is shown in almost every case (the exception is the Musee Guimet painting with the clearest of the labels, but even there the top of the painting is apparently incomplete and might originally have contained a representation of the Buddha). Whatever the original identity of the main figure, the monk with his load of scrolls was a powerful image that lived on in later images identified either as the famous monk Xuanzang who traveled to India between A.D. 629 and A.D. 645, or as the lohan Dharmatrata, who, accompanied by a tiger, was an addition to the original total of sixteen lohans in China and Tibet. The numerous confusions and variations of this last name are discussed in detail by Paul Demieville (Jao Tsongyi, 1978, pp. 43-49). ChineseFrom Whitfield 1983:身背裝經卷的書箱，手持麈尾，跟著老虎，由小的佛像護佑着的行腳僧圖，在敦煌畫中可見到幾件。對此，首先是松本榮一博士，其次是秋山光和教授（參見《美術研究》238號，1965年1月）、再是戴密微教授（參見饒宗頤《敦煌白畫》，1978年，43-49頁）發表過各種研究。大英博物館藏斯坦因搜集品中可見兩件，一件是本圖所示，另一件是稍小一點的殘片（參見圖105）。這些紙繪作品都有一個共同的特點，即行腳僧和老虎都乘雲。在本圖中，那雲與上方的小佛駕的雲一樣，但由於顔料的腐蝕作用，大多脫落。秋山光和也研究了伯希和收集品中的兩件絹畫（參見伯希和圖錄《敦煌的幡和繪畫》，圖206、207），僧與虎都是在地上行走，沒有駕雲。兩件都用細線描繪，相當細緻。秋山教授認爲，其年代一件在9世紀，另一件爲9世紀末。之所以認爲後者製作於9世紀末，是因爲畫的襯紙上書寫的文字是9世紀中期的。然而我認爲從其中一幅圖岩石上站著的鳥，和另一幅圖行腳僧面部的表現手法（與第1卷圖7－2中所見比丘的表情近似）等方面看，我想兩者是不是8世紀的？（我認爲寫有9世紀文字的紙，是後來爲修補背面畫而粘上去的襯紙）。此外，雖然那後圖的上端有些殘缺，但留下的色彩至今還很鮮豔。尤其引人注目的是，這位謎一樣的僧人起著“寶勝如來”的名字。大谷收集品中也有兩件題有“寶勝如來”的紙繪作品（一件藏在韓國中央博物館，另一件爲日本私人所藏）。秋山教授舉出不空譯的兩種儀軌中，“寶勝”一詞被用於翻譯梵語中的“多寶如來”，及寶唱514年所撰的《名僧傳》的僧表傳中，也有關於于闐國讚摩伽藍的著名寶勝像的記載，由此推斷寶勝如來是沙漠旅行者們的守護神。因此秋山教授認爲，這個背負經卷的行腳就是寶勝如來。而我承認有“寶勝如來”記錄的三件作品，與多寶如來有密切的聯繫。我也認同戴密微教授的觀點，认为除一件外，其餘图中的駕雲小佛就是寶勝如來（這個例外是指前面提到過的伯希和收藏品的絹畫，長方形题笺中记有寶勝如來的作品。但此畫的上端明显缺失，或許当初此畫也绘有小佛）。無論當初此像是何身份，這背負經卷的僧人形象，後來對629到645年間赴印度旅行的著名的玄奘三藏的像，及中國和吐蕃地區在十六羅漢之上增加的帶著老虎的達摩多羅的像，都産生了強烈的影響。有關達摩多羅的種種混同和變形，戴密微教授有詳細的論述（參見饒宗頤《敦煌白畫》，1978年，43-49頁）。