Collection Of And Research On Buddhist Votive Inscriptions Of Female Donors During The Northern Wei Dynasty

During the Northern Wei Dynasty, the activities of constructing Buddhist statues flourished,in which women were particularly active. The votive inscriptions contain a large number of female donors. They are primary source materials for study of Buddhist faith of the contemporary women. This thesis attempts to collect the female inscriptions from this period.Using onomastic method to settle the gender of the donors bearing typical female name characteristics, 135 inscriptions of female donors are collected. On the whole group the author performs a statistical analysis on the chronological changes, regional distributions, donors' identity, image types, causes of the founding and wishes, especially women's prayer in the inscriptions. Four dedicative texts of Buddhist association(yiyi) are taken to be the next object of analysis, and finally focus is put on the bhik?uni donors to see their relation to the empire power.