votive panel; 木板畫(Chinese) BM-MAS.459

Period:Unknown Production date:6thC
Materials:wood, 木 (Chinese),
Technique:painted
Subjects:sun/moon buddha 日/月 (Chinese) 佛 (Chinese)
Dimensions:Height: 37.80 centimetres Width: 18.50 centimetres Depth: 2 centimetres

Description:
Rectangular votive panel with a pointed top, showing a standing Buddha with both haloe and mandorla. The Buddha can be recognised as Vairocana from the two seated Buddhas on his torso, the sun and the moon on his shoulder, the pairs of long rectangles on each upper arm and the bird on each forearm. Painted in ink and colours on wood.
IMG


Comments:EnglishFrom Whitfield 1985:This votive plaque was found by Stein in a large cella, 5.4 m by 4.2 m, and surrounded on three sides by a circumambulatory passage 1.8 m wide, behind the square image base. Five more plaques were found along the wall. Vairocana, the supreme Buddha, is recognized by the other images appearing on his body: two seated Buddhas appear on his torso, symbols of the sun and moon on his right and left shoulders, pairs of long rectangles on each upper arm, and a bird on each forearm, besides many double circles. The long rectangles are generally taken to represent the scriptures in the form of pothi. Joanna Williams (1973) has suggested that “the significance of the books on the arms of the Cosmic Vairocana possibly lies in their identification with the Avatamsaka Sutra itself, indicating the unusual importance of the literary basis for the iconography” (p. 123; see the notes to Pl. 71).The buildings F. Ⅱ at Farhad-beg-yailaki, of which F. Ⅱ. iii formed a part, were thought by Stein to be the living quarters of a small monastery. The coins found at the site were all wushu pieces of the Eastern Han dynasty (A.D. 25-220), with no Tang coins, and for this as well as for stylistic reasons Stein concluded that the site had been abandoned at some time between A.D. 519, when the Chinese monk Song Yun described Mocheng (identified with Charchan by Stein; see Serindia, Vol. Ⅲ, p. 1255), and the end of the sixth century. This conclusion still seems to be a reasonable one: the oval shape of the head and the protruding eyes recall the three dimensional images of the Buddha from Rawak. ChineseFrom Whitfield 1985:此木板畫是斯坦因從三面圍有1.8m寬的走廊5.4m×4.2m的大殿的方型台座背後發現的。在這裏，沿著牆壁還發現了五件木板畫。根據身上畫的各種形象，可確認本圖的像是至高無上的毘盧遮那佛，即軀幹上有兩身坐佛，兩肩上有象徵性的日月，上臂有豎的長方形，前臂上是鳥和小的同心圓。長方形一般是表示梵夾形式的佛典。Joanna Williams則認爲“毘盧遮那佛兩臂上所繪的經本，在圖像學上作爲文獻，可以認爲它就是《華嚴經》”（參照《和田佛教美術圖像》，1973年，123頁）。斯坦因認爲，末城F. Ⅱ. iii的建築物，是這個小型寺院的生活區。此遺迹發現的貨幣都是東漢末年（25～220年）的五銖錢，沒有唐代的貨幣，從此情況及風格上的特點綜合考慮，斯坦因得出了此遺迹在中國僧人宋雲曾到過末城（斯坦因把記爲末城。參照《西域》，卷3，1255頁）的519年至6世紀末間被遺棄的結論。本圖像的橢圓形頭部和突出的眼睛等，使人想起熱瓦克佛像的立體感，斯坦因的觀點迄今爲止仍是最有說服力的。