| The period from the early Song Dynasty to the Western Xia Dynasty is an important transition period in the history of Chinese Buddhism.With the help of the traditional Silk Road and the strong support of the royal family of Song Dynasty,a large-scale Buddhist group set foot on the road to India to seek Dharma,thus opening the prelude to the new development of Buddhism in Song and Xia dynasties.Since then,the Uighurs,who occupied the leading position of the Silk Road,and the ethnic governments such as Western Xia also actively used the fruits of Buddhist exchanges along the Silk Road to serve their own Buddhist belief needs.Dunhuang is a Buddhist holy land in the Silk Road since ancient times.The Dunhuang Grottoes with a thousand years of construction history are the carrier and demonstration of Buddhist exchange in the silk road.In the Song and Xia dynasties,with the upsurge of seeking Dharma and the existence of multi-ethnic Buddhist beliefs,the mural images in Dunhuang Grottoes also changed.The purpose of this study is to analyze some typical cases from the perspective of Buddhist communication on the Silk Road,and to explore the painting style,the Buddhist belief reflected in the images,the spread of Buddhist fine arts and other related issues.The paper is divided into seven chapters.The first chapter mainly introduces the general situation of the land Silk Road traffic in Song and Xia dynasties and the Buddhist exchange activities carried out with the help of the Silk Road,and roughly combs the regime alternation and the great political and social environment in Dunhuang during this period,and introduces the historical background of the construction of Dunhuang Grottoes in Song and Xia dynasties.Combining with the background of Silk Road and selecting typical cases to explore,are the main contents of this paper.In view of the special images of Mogao Grottoes,such as the murals of walking monks,eight pagodas illustration,Maitreya holding a fan,I would like to discuss the above themes from the perspective of the Silk Road and social reality.The theme of walking monk murals were rare in Mogao Grottoes,only in the Uighur and a few caves in the Xixia period.The main elements of the image are the monks who take scriptures and the Buddha in the clouds.The whole picture shows the theme of promoting Buddhism and saving the world,and this patterns were all drawn at the entrance or corridor of the cave,which has a unique meaning in the mural configuration of the whole cave.By combining the emergence of this theme with the activity of seeking Dharma monks along the Silk Road in the early Song Dynasty,we can think that the drawing of walking monks in Mogao Grottoes was influenced by religious belief and silk road communication,which confirmed that Dunhuang,as a key node of transportation between China and the west,had an irreplaceable position and role.The eight pagoda illustration in cave 76 of Mogao Grottoes is a hot topic of academic concern.This paper intends to explore the dissemination and specific functions of this image again.There are predecessors who have studied the subject from the perspective of image source,different ethnic art elements,etc.From the point of view of the times,the image of the eight pagodas in cave 76 of Mogao Grottoes was a work of the early Song Dynasty,and the pattern is special,which contains the characteristics of the Indian Pala art.The process of the spread of the manuscripts should be completed through the Buddhism communication activities of the Central Plains and the Indian along the Silk Road.Considering the religious background of Dunhuang,Dunhuang at that time was in the atmosphere of the thoughts of Dharma Ending Period.The eight pagoda illustration,as the symbol of the Dharma,contained the believers’ desire for the eternal Buddhism.On the other hand,the construction of the cave 76 of Mogao Grottoes was dominated by the upper class of Dunhuang,which had a special status.Therefore,as a family Grottoes built by a large ethnic group,the cave 76 should have the function of holding Buddhist activities.The interaction between the eight pagoda changes and other themes in the grottoes can better serve the religious practice activities of the believers.The cave 237 of Mogao Grottoes,as a key cave operated by the Uighurs in Shazhou,is of great significance for investigation.I have visited the cave for many times and found that the reconstruction activities of the cave was quite different.The murals in the main cave completely retained the content of the middle Tang Dynasty,and only the front cave and the corridor were redrawn.In addition,the new image of Maitreya holding a fan was arranged on the front door,and in the corridor,a standing Uighur Khan holding treasures was painted.Through the analysis of the theme of Maitreya holding fan,we can find that it contains the double connotations of the belief about reborning and the secular kingship.The joint interpretation of this image and the image of Uighur Khan shows that this restoration has a clear purpose and planning:it not only publicized the orthodoxy of Uighur rule in Dunhuang,but also skillfully used the caves of the previous generation to serve the needs and practice of their own Buddhist beliefs.For Yulin grottoes,the representative of Xixia Grottoes art in Dunhuang,this study also selects two typical statues to analyze under the background of cultural exchange along the silk road.Through the search of the cand the comparison of the details,it was determined that the manuscripts of the South and North murals and the strip story paintings in the main wall of the grottoes were from the illustration of the volume of Pu Xian Xing Yuan,which were published on a large scale in Xixia.In addition,the cave 2 of Yulin Grottoes had a high level of painting art,which was the embodiment of the maturity of Buddhist art in Xixia.The manuscripts in the grottoes were closely related to the Song Dynasty,and a large number of Central Plains landscape painting and figure painting techniques were used,showing a pattern of multiple arts under the silk road traffic.The Vijiya mandala in the cave 3 of Yulin Grottoes is a masterpiece of Buddhist art in the late Xixia.In the process of the creation of the image,based on the Tibetan Buddhism theme,the painter skillfully integrated into the styles of Han,India,Kashmir and other places,showing us the Buddhist art system of Xixia.The last chapter is the study of the single grottoe in the cave 363 of Mogao Grottoes.Cave 363 of Mogao Grottoes was a repainted cave by the Uighurs.Although its shape was small,there were many mural themes in it,such as walking monk,single statue of herbalist,seven past Buddhas,Maitreya with fan,etc.and there were one-to-one corresponding relations among different themes.In the aspect of painting art,cave 363 presented the situation of different ethnic arts of Han,Uighur and Khitan.Through the study of cave 363 of Mogao Grottoes,we can have a glimpse of the meeting and combination of multi culture of Silk Road in Dunhuang in this period. |
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