Studies On Tibetan Buddhist Bodhisattva Manjusri's Statues

The main objective of “Studies on Tibetan Buddhist Bodhisattva Manjusri's Statues” is to explain cultural symbol of Bodhisattva Manjusri embodiment by doing iconography study on the Manjusri's statues of different styles and different artistic design.At the same time,we made a preliminary exploration on the evolution of the three-lord statues composed of "Four-armed Kuan-yin,Vajrapani and Manjusri Bodhisattva".Current analysis on domestic and foreign existing research on Manjusri statues shows that it mostly remains as in macro and integral stylistic features.Though there were some specialized studies on iconography of Manjusri statues,they were far away from involving the system of Tibetan Buddhist statues.Instead,most of the relevant scholars would rather focus on evolution of macroscopic and holistic styles.Therefore,by applying iconographic method of study in this thesis,we attempt to do a specialized study themed as Manjusri statues in Tibetan Buddhism through a macro overview and micro comparison on Manjusri statues of different styles in different periods of whole Tibetan Buddhism history.We also try to find out the rules of Manjusri statues' development in different periods,different religious sects and different features,and thus displaying and exploring the aesthetic development of Tibetan buddhist statues.