China; Iconographic; Buddhist; Sculpture; Fowan; Beishan; Dazu
摘要
The religious sculpture of Sichuan has become increasingly recognized as an important resource for the study of the development of Buddhist sculpture in China. One of the most important centers of Buddhist sculpture in Sichuan is the area of Dazu county where there are dozens of cliff sculpture sites. This dissertation focuses on the sculpture of Beishan (North Hill), which is one of the two primary sites with Buddhist sculpture in Dazu and the site with the longest chronology in the local area. The principal location for cliff sculpture at Beishan is an approximately quarter mile long sandstone cliff near the summit of Beishan, which is known as the Fowan (Buddha Cove). The cliff sculpture at this site consists of some two-hundred seventy odd image niches and small excavated caves that were carved over a period of roughly two-hundred sixty years from the late ninth to mid twelfth centuries.
