The Thousand Buddhas / Ancient Buddhist Paintings from the Cave-Temples of Tun-huang on the Western Frontier of China

The silk painting reproduced here with a reduction to one-third of the original (Ch. 00121) is a particularly fine example of Indian tradition preserved in Chinese Buddhist painting. The picture, damaged at the top and still more at its bottom, shows us Avalokiteśvara seated on a flat Padmāsana in the pose of ‘royal ease’. The shapely right hand hangs open over the raised right knee, while the left hand, now lost, evidently rested on the other knee and held the long spray of purple lotus which rises beside the head.

The figure of the Bodhisattva is presented in accordance with Indian iconographic canons. But the ease and distinction of the drawing, which the simplicity of the figure and the scarcity of colour make all the more noticeable, betoken the Chinese artist’s brush. The slender-waisted body leans towards the left shoulder; the limbs are long and slim; the head erect. The face is young and clean-shaven with an expression of serenity in the downcast slightly oblique eyes and the finely curved lips. The hair rises in a high cone above the three-leaved tiara, the front of which shows Avalokiteśvara’s Dhyāni-buddha, Amitābha. The flesh is left uncoloured.

The dress is confined to a short crimson laṅgōṭī wrapped about the loins, a thin transparent skirt hanging about the legs, and a narrow scarf entwined on the breast. The jewellery is of the type usual in ‘Indian’ Bodhisattvas, but plain. The elliptical nimbus and circular halo behind the figure are painted in pale blue and green. In the background are shown feathery floral sprays of a type common in printed silk fabrics from the Ch‘ien-fo-tung hoard.

In the top corners appear the small figures of two Lokapālas in mail armour, Vaiśravaṇa on the right and Virūpākṣa on the left, both seated on rocks. Corresponding figures of the other two Guardians of the Regions, no doubt, occupied the lost bottom corners.