萬神方胙壽有餘－清乾隆雕漆神像經匣的道釋神譜與寫經供養=Worshipping Myriad Gods for Auspicious Efficacy: Carved Lacquer Boxes with the Qianlong Emperor's Religious Pantheons and Enshrined Scriptures
Drawing on a series of Six-class Buddhist Pavilions constructed in Beijing and beyond, as well as abundant statues and ritual implements enshrined inside them, recent scholarship on religious art at the Qing (1644-1912) court has mainly focused on the dynamic relationship between the imperial household and Tibetan Buddhism. Due to the lack of extant artifacts and archival sources, the question of how Manchu Qing rulers perceived other religious traditions has yet to be fully explored. During the early Qianlong reign, a set of carved lacquer boxes were imperially commissioned in Suzhou to encase Daoist and Buddhist scriptures transcribed by the Qianlong emperor. Carved images of numerous deities decorated on lacquer surfaces serve as rare evidence of the convergence of Buddhist and Daoist visual cultures at the Qing court, and they still remain obscure. This article first analyzes the style and deity formations of the scripture boxes, contextualizing their production in light of the Archives of the Imperial Workshops (Qinggong Neiwufu zaobanchu dang'an zonghui). It then reconstructs the distinct roles of Daoism and Buddhism in imperial patronage by focusing on Qianlong's scripture transcriptions and their interior displays. Elaborately designed and combined as a whole, the lacquer boxes and imperially transcribed scriptures served as religious offerings enshrined at various Daoist and Buddhist temples in the Forbidden City. Despite the official emphasis on Tibetan Buddhism, Daoism was an integral part of court rituals of the time. The Daoist and Buddhist pantheons on lacquer boxes offer a glimpse of Qianlong's religious cosmology, as reflected in his regular scripture copying and devout prayers to myriad deities for merit-making and efficacy. As the most important offerings until the downfall of the Qing dynasty, together they constitute the sacred objects that offered blessings and protection not only for Qianlong himself but for the empire under the Manchu rule.
