From the tenth century onward, Chinese Buddhism and its art increasingly won over both scholars and common people, and new indigenous subjects and styles catered to their aesthetic tastes. The reincarnation of Buddhist deities as Chinese monks or lay Buddhists reflects one aspect of this change. Exemplifying new forms of Buddhist deities in China are carvings of Budai (―Cloth Bag‖), a Chinese rendering of the Maitreya Buddha, and of the eighteen luohans, an indigenous group of deities based on a group of sixteen from India, both of which reside in niche no. 68 at the rock-cut cave temple complex Feilaifeng in Hangzhou. The author analyzes how the local monk Budai became a representation of Maitreya, how artists created the image of the Budai in the niche, and how the eighteen luohans and their iconographies originated, in order to clarify the dynamics by which indigenous deities were created.
目次
Textual Accounts of Budai & the Budai Image in Niche No. 68 24 Niche No. 68 & the Tradition of Budai Images 27 Religious Contexts of the Budai Image 30 The Group of Eighteen Luohans 31 The Appearance of the Eighteen Luohans in Niche No. 68 38 Steps Taken to Indigenize Images 42
