A Study On The Backlight Of Buddhist Sculptures In Northern And Southern Dynasties

In the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Buddhist statues backlight showed different but interacted systems of form, content and pattern in various regions. Even in the same region at different periods, or different regions at the same period, there were differences and changes in backlight images. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, paintings and sculptures were created according to Buddhist scriptures about transformations to Buddha, flames, apsaras, lotuses, and stories of Buddhism in a limited space for the purpose of publicizing the moral principles of Buddhism.The backlight in Chinese Buddhist statues originated in ancient India but was little influenced by the backlight in ancient Indian Buddhist statues. In the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Buddhist statues backlight boasted a wealth of shapes and content, which was mainly due to the continuous translating of Buddhist scriptures into Chinese and the impact of local geography, politics and culture. These two factors, like wings of the Chinese Buddhist statues backlight, have made the shape not only comply with its own law of development, but also promote the development of the East, the West, the South and the North. As a result, seemingly simple statues backlight has become complex and complicated, reflected in two aspects: first, differences in presentation of statues backlight between the North and the South; second, similarities and differences in form and content of statues backlight between the East and the West. Specifically speaking, the differences between the North and the South are: the North emphasized the concept of Zen and thus Buddhist statues and the backlights became part of Zen learning for monks. The common presentation of statues backlight in the Northern Dynasty was two-side continual and patterns-oriented composition style. The South stressed moral principles of Buddhism and thus presentations of statues backlight were closely combined with Buddhist stories and moral stories, with vivid propaganda pictures created. In the Northern Central Plains, the West, the Central and the East also had distinctive but interacted characteristics in Buddhist statues backlight. The overall trend was: the West was influencing the Central, but the East also influenced the West in Gansu at the early period of grotto digging. In the mid-and-late Northern Wei Dynasty, in the Northern Central Plains, the presentation of statues backlight of the Central differed from that of the West. It was maybe because of the rulers’ attitudes toward Buddhism, popularity of Zen classics, the people’s aesthetics in various regions, statues backlight’s own law of development, etc. These factors led to the differences in form and content of statues backlight between the East and the West during the same period, and the differences in form and content of statues backlight in the same region during different periods. The grottoes dug later would retain some characteristics of statues in the grottoes dug earlier. In a word, during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Buddhist statues backlight had inheritances and innovations in the continuous development.