Compared Research For Regional Buddhist Statuaries Of Hunan In The Ming And Qing Dynasties

The religion which has regional characteristics in its spreadingprocess is one important part of human culture. The religious statuaries,as a part of religious culture, are the product of the combination ofreligious ideas and the form of art. Buddhism spreads to our country sincethe Han dynasty, on the one hand, Buddhist art was deeply affected bytraditional marriage and funeral customs, faith in the gods and dressculture etc.; on the other hand, it has penetrated into folk customunceasingly. As important form of Buddhist art, Buddhist statuarieswould present regional characteristics undoubtedly which unified withour native culture when they spread to China. A more comprehensiveelaboration for different regional Buddhist statuaries of Hunan which areinfluenced by diverse national culture include different form and pattern,model and style, material and technology and so on have beenaccomplished in this paper.Buddhist statuaries of Hunan in the Ming and Qing dynasties are theproducts which combine the patterns of that in the Han nationality withthe local culture of Hunan. Firstly, this paper has analyzed geographicalfeatures of Hunan in the Ming and Qing dynasties—the differences ofnatural and cultural environments between the Han nationality and minority nationality, according to these natural circumstances, obviouslywe can conclude that most of the Buddhist statuaries are made of woodmaterial in this place. Secondly, I have given a short description fordifferent form and pattern of Buddhist statuaries of China, it is the basisfor explaining Buddhist statuaries of the Han nationality and minoritynationality which are much alike in writing system. Both of them weredescribed from several aspects of Buddhist statuaries including the form,combination and general furnishing, type of clothing and basic feature ofthe ornamentation. Then the local structures and implied historical andcultural significance have been comprehended. Finally, I have explainedthe differences of regional Buddhist statuaries on form and pattern, type,function and artistic expression, for the above-mentioned differentsurface features, the deeper reason—the affection on regional Buddhiststatuaries by history, social mechanism and cultural tradition has beenexplained.