On Three Remarkable Waves Of The Ancient Indian’s Influence On Chinese Buddhist Statue

This paper. On three remarkable Waves of the ancient Indian s influence on Chinese Buddhist statue, makes an attempt to survey three waves formed as Buddhist art spread from India to China. These three waves were formed in the Kushan period. Gupta period and Pala period, during which ancient Indian Buddhist statues reached its peak, corresponding respectively to Easter Han、Wei and Western Jin Dynasty, Easter Jin Dynasty to early Tang dynasty, the late Tang to Northern Song Dynasty in China. The first wave was formed during which Buddhist art from ancient India reached China along the Yunnan-Burma Road, leading to the first boom of Chinese Buddhist Statues. The second wave rised in the Gupta period when the culture and art in India was thriving unprecedentedly. With the powerful forces of Gupta dynasty. Buddhist art in India spread to China through the ancient Silk Road, and then through the southern sea, leading to a another boom of building temples and statues in China. The third wave was in the Pala period, roughly corresponding to the late Tang Dynasty to Northern Song Dynasty、Fifth Dynasty and Northern Song Dynasty in China. At this time. Esoteric Buddhism became popular and its statues were similar to that of Hinduism. Buddhism nearly disappeared in the early13century in ancient India. After that. Chinese Buddhist statues continued to develop and was no longer influenced by India.The impact of ancient Indian on Chinese Buddhist statues was complex. Ancient Indian Buddhist statues had been influenced by Hinduism in many respects. On its way to China, Buddhist statues also absorbed the the religion of Central Asia and Southeast Asia. After arrived to China. Buddhist statues had been misreading and transformed by Chinese monk. Three waves of the ancient Indian’s influence on Chinese Buddhist statue were various. The first wave, Buddhist statues, out of sync with its theory, had been popular in the Yangtze River valley, but its influences was limited. The third wave, Chinese Buddhist statues was influenced more by external factors than its own creation. Generally speaking, Gupta art played the greatest role in Chinese art, not only contributed to the flourish of Chinese Buddhist, but also made the Buddhist statue and Buddhism integrated into the Chinese traditional culture.Chinese have not only introduced the style of Indian Buddhist statues,but also created new statues based on Buddhist texts. The so-called "Impact" means both imitation and creativity. Comparatively speaking, creativity is a further development on the basis of imitation.The impact includes following areas:statues ritual, statues theme and artistic style. Most statues ritual was accepted by Chinese, reflecting Chinese monks’yearning for ancient Indian Buddhist. However, few of the art style was least, which can be regarded as traditional Chinese cultural transformation of foreign culture. Imitation and creativity were not so distinctive, and always coexisted with each other. When Buddha in India was flourishing, foreign characteristics which coming from elsewhere was relatively obvious in Chinese Buddhist statues. When Indian Buddha was in decline, the characteristic traditional culture of Chinese Buddhist statues became clear.