Guanyin Head Sculpture Features For Secularization In Dazu Rock Carvings

The author is looking at the head of mercy guanyin in Dazu Rock Carvings. Dazu Rock Carvings are cliff sculptures statues whose construction began after the late Tang Dynasty in China. These statues can roughly be divided into three historical periods, including Tang, the Five Dynasties and the Song Dynasty. During the Song Dynast; 30,000 statues were constructed which was a great achievement for that time period. The number of Guanyin statue caves and other shrine-caves related to Guanyin topics which emerged in Dazu County are also considerable, especially in Beishan Rock Carvings where the are 84 groups of well preserved statues. Guanyin images weren’t constructed according to the limitation of Buddhism. Instead, they were created according to the demand of people:they became a middle-aged lady or the girl next door, being worshiped by the people in caves to meet people blessing of having children, escaping disaster and so on. This indicates that Buddhism in China has completed the process of secularization, which is the social roots of the emerged of female deities such as Guanyin in the late period of time.The reason why should I research the head of Guanyin in Dazu Rock Carvings is in the first chapter:First, the secularization of Guanyin statues began from the head, because the need of better communication with the goddess and the believers. Second, through the head of Guanyin statue,we can clearly see the process of secularization about Buddhist.Third, the present, most scholars are from the repair or archaeological Dazu Rock Carvings in-depth study of Guanyin statues, but the research does not make figurative depth, which is the significance of the paper.The image of Guanyin feminine completely shifts in the Song and Yuan dynasties. Fortunately, there are numerous statues about Guanyin as part of the Dazu rock carvings from those dynasties. The author regards these Dazu Guanyin statues as the main subject of this study, discussing the secularization and feminine characteristics of Guanyin Carvings in detail through the facial features, crown and neck wreaths.Based on the characteristics of Guanyin Carvings in Dazu County, the author investigates the reasons for this change extensively.The reasons identified are in regards to politics, history and geography with the major reasons identified being economic and cultural relations. The author conducted an investigation from three different angles including the level of socio-economic development in the Tang and Song Dynasties, the renaissance of Chinese local goddess statues in the Song Dynasty and the understanding of Guanyin from Dazu people to explain why the Guanyin image in Dazu was so popular. It is worth mentioning that the direct and indirect effect of Guanyin construction from local people,such as the officials, scholars, citizens and the monks,who are should not be ignored.By the mason’s name we can see that the great mass of the masons are from Anyue, Therefore we can infer that Dazu Rock Carvings is the counterpart of Anyue Grottoes. A comparison shows that Guanyin in Dazu Grottoes have the most modern shapes, the most technologically mature mason and the most secular style. Dazu rock carvings are also one of the best preserved sites of rock carvings in China.According to this thesis, we can find the image of Guanyin has secular characteristics in the last period.It indicates that more and more artists hope to find an opportunity to express religious from a real-life,it is a positive and selective inheritance that we should be promoted and learn from in our art field.