Koryo Buddhist Painting Study

After Buddhist paintings were introduced to Korea from China, most of Korea's Buddhist paintings were in the style of Amitabha pictures, being quite similar to the Buddhist pictures of the same material in the Song Dynasty, but also having their unique features. In this article, we shall further probe into the causes of such a condition, through a comparative study between Korea's Buddhist paintings and China's Buddhist paintings in the Song Dynasty. Amitabha pictures fall into scripture reading pictures, Amitabha teaching pictures, and Amitabha meeting pictures. From the works of the two countries, we have made some selective comparison. In Korea, there were five major scripture reading pictures handed down to the present age. Yet, in the Song Dynasty, there were not many scripture reading pictures, but such pictures were rich in the Tang Dynasty. Those of the Song Dynasty did not change much in fashion from those of the Tang Dynasty, and most of them inherited the stereotyped form of the Tang Dynasty. Thus, we have chosen Buddhist pictures of the same material from the works of the Tang and Song dynasties, and made some comparison in their composition, style, pattern and so on. And then, we found: Korea's Buddha pictures are different from those of the Song Dynasty in composition. In the former, the order arrangement and the sixteen styles of scripture reading are treated separately, but in the latter, the two kinds of contents are treated together. With regard to the Amitabha teaching pictures and Amitabha meeting pictures, we chose some works of the same material collected abroad to make a comparative analysis chiefly in the picture composition and fashion characteristics. After probing into their common points and differences, we have drawn a conclusion:the major common point is that the composition of the Buddha sitting on the stand is similar to the Amitabha stretching out his hands to meet people coming to the other world; the major difference is that Korea's Buddha pictures have the eight major Bodhisattvas of Amitabha, but we cannot see such a pattern in the works of the Song Dynasty. As for the causes of the common points and differences between the Buddha pictures of Korea and the Song Dynasty of China, their common points resulted from the continual cultural exchange between the two countries. In the process of Buddhism cultural exchange, both the Buddhist thoughts and dogmatas of the monks and the painting techniques of the painters tended to become similar. Yet, in introduction of the thoughts from the Song Dynasty, Korean people melted their own living customs, sociopolitical condition, ideas and other factors into them, forming a unique Korean culture. That is the cause of the differences. The significance of this paper is:through the comparative analysis of Korea's Buddha pictures and those of the Song Dynasty, probing into the characteristics of the Buddha pictures of the two countries, and the causes of their common points and differences.