A Research On The Statues Of Buddhist Grottoes In Mt. Tai Area

Mt.Tai area holds the important position in Middle Ages Buddhism history, however after the extinguishing Buddhism movement and the chaos caused by war in Northern Dynasty, this place's Buddhism enterprise once fell into the trough. After Sui Dynasty's unification, the government appears to honor the Buddha policy.As a result of the Sui and Tang dynasties imperial family the Buddhism's value in Mt.Tai area, Buddhism believes starts to be popular in social various social strata, among the bureaucrat and the clergy, the letter audiences start wind of the cave statuary. This area becomes one of two generation of statuary main distribution areas in Shandong area from Sui to Tang dynasties, the large-scale rock cave total in all directions, respectively is the Mt.Bai-Fo grottoes, the Yin-Fo temple grotto , the Mt.wu-Feng grotto and the statues nearby shentong temple . This article the above four rock cave achievement unification whole, integrates for the first time the Mt.Tai Buddhism culture research field of vision, to the grottoes statuary with the nearby stone carving statues on the Contrastive analysis.Buddhism grottes statuary in Mt.tai is divided the plain time, the period of expansion, the prosperous time and the transition period. The statuary theme is rich, covered at that time all Buddhism to believe nearly, mainly divided into Shakya, Amita, Maitreya , Bodhisattva, Four -Buddha, as well as Shandong area rarer 16 princes statuary and the nirvana statuary. The Mt.Tai Buddhism is in vogue the imperial sacrifices view, believes in Fahua to believe and the pure land belief, the statuary Buddhism thought and the artistic achievement is very high, ancient times in the Buddhism sculpture history held the important position in China.In middle ages shandong area has two big statuary centers, QiZhou and Qingzhou. Their style and the images have affected the Mt.Tai area statuary. For example the hook Niu type cassock, the animal mask, the dragon holds the lotus flower, small crosswise niche, and so on. From the orthern Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, these artistic element has the stability and the succession. Moreover, because of the Mt.Tai culture influence, the grottes statuary have the folk characteristic, extremely plain. The grottoes in decoration animal mask, seat stand carving chi Long Xianlian as well as the popular small horizontal type-setting makes the statue niche and so on. Moreover these artistic element in the Taishan area, from the Northern Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, demonstrates the stable unity and the succession. At the same time, as a result of the Taishan special culture tradition and geographical environment's influence, the majority of rock cave statuary also has the strong folk characteristic, the modelling is rougher unadornedly.Mt.tai have many folk society Yi Organization statuary prefatory remarks, like the Mt.Bai-fo grottoes nearly 400 statuary autographs, the Mt.Wu-Feng Northern Qi Dynasty Yi statuary stele inscription, the Eastern Wei Dynasty 134 man-made statue stele inscriptions and so on, have reflected this Middle Age folk religious belief and the religious life general appearance. From the concepts like guangmingzhu,xiangzhu,sizhu and zhaizhu, we may see the mass base of Buddhism statuary to be deep in theMt.Tai are, the scale is generally big, the organization is strict, the working procedure is mature.The member in the organization of SheYi surname origin to be widespread, has the powerful family also to have the poor common people, the female holds the important position in the statuary activity. The statuary by Yi is following the strict organization principle and the Buddhism thought.,The folk statuary already became the mainstream in the Mt.Tai area, the standards and standard can strengthen. May also see through the statuary prefatory remarks analysis, since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the domestic Buddhism exchange has been active, many famous monks once in the Mt.Tai area lecture, engraved after or the statuary, enables the Buddhism of Mt.Tai area also to have the recent development in the Sui and Tang dynasties time.