Studies On The Murals Of Yulin Cave3

The Yulin cave3is located in the east bank of Tashi River at Guazhou in Gansu Province. The mural paintings were produced during Tangut period, but we cannot state an accurate date because of the absence of documentary records, tablets and inscriptions. The main purpose of this paper is to examine Yulin cave3murals’ iconographical content, textual resources and the implication of their visual composition. I take the methodology of Iconography and Art History to analyze the murals’ pictorial content and features, and take the philological methodology to search for the key historical information out of multi-linguistic materials, including Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese, Tangut Buddhist documents and excavated texts. I also lay great effort in the analysis of iconographical origin and transmission trace. Furthermore, a detailed comparative examination between Tangut grotto murals in Hexi corridor area and other Buddhist artworks like xylographs, scroll paintings, sculptures, etc. has been carried out. Based on the above investigations, this paper tries to build a theoretical system for interpreting the visual project of Tangut grotto murals.This paper contains five chapters. Chapter one mainly introduces the Buddhist development in Dangxiang ethnic group and tangut kingdom during11th-13th century, looks back at the cultural communications between Song China and India from the end of10th century, explores the close Buddhist connections between Tangut and other kingdoms/regions adjacent to it, such as Song, Liao, Uyghur, etc. The Tangut Buddhist art should be conceived in a historical background of multi-ethnic communication in11-13th century China.Chapter two to Chapter four are is main body of this paper. Based on my analysis of the iconographic content and features of Yulin cave3’s murals, the textual exploration of various Buddhist sutra, dharani, sadhana which are related to those topics under discussion, as well as the comparative inquires on Yulin cave3’s murals and the other Tangut artworks, we can get a sense that most esoteric themes in Yulin cave3are originated from Indian Buddhist iconographic tradition. They were transmitted to the Hexi corridor in the process of tantric-texts translation and illustrated manuscripts circulation brought by the cultural exchange activities between Indian and Inner China. These wholly new visual projects gradually form steady development lineage among Tangut grottos.Chapter five is to catch the whole pictorial structure of Yulin cave3. The esoteric representations basically follow the Buddhist iconographic tradition of Pala dynasty in East India, with Ba ri brgya rtsa (One hundred Sadhana of Ba ri lo tsa ba) as fundamental treatise. The esoteric and exoteric themes get perfectly integrated in one architectural space. Traditional Buddhist concept and newly-translated tantric themes are to be found coexisting. So this cave’s visual program is to-some-extent a reflection of Tangut Buddhist connotation.Generally, in terms of iconography, Yulin cave3chooses to follow the Buddhist artistic tradition in Eastern India, while in terms of the connotation of visual program, it shows succession to local historical, artistic and religious contextualization in Dunhuang. It turns out to a concentration of several influencing elements, including early Mahayana Buddhist belief in Han China, esoteric Buddhist belief during Tang dynasty, the Pala artistic representations in Dunhuang when Tubo kingdom was in control of this region, and the new iconographic system recorded in Sanskrit and Tibetan tantric texts since the11th century. It also receives influences from featured religious beliefs in bordering kingdoms or regions. Yulin cave3makes a great contribution to out understanding of the cross-cultural and trans-regional communication histories from11to13century.