寶慶寺石佛龕像再考(鎌田茂雄教授追悼号)=The Stone Sculptures of Pao-ch'ing Temple : Revisited : The Role of Fa-tsang 法藏, Third Patriarch of Hua-yen Buddhism 華嚴宗(Shigeo Kamata Memorial Volume)
The stone sculptures of the seven-storied pagoda Ch'i-pao lou-t'ai七寶楼台are usually divided into three categories of Buddhist iconography, i.e., Sakyamuni Buddha is often represented with his right hand touching the ground as witness for his defeat of Mara at the time of his awakening. All Sakyamuni sculptures at Ch'i-pao lou-t'ai wear right hand armlets, and two of its images also have crowns and necklaces. My ex amination of all details of Buddhist iconography has led me to believe that these images actually do not represent Sakyamuni but Vairocana. During the reign of Empress Wu則天武后, the Hua-yen school evolved by Fa-tsang encouraged the worship of Vairocana Buddha. The images representing Vairocana, combined with Tantric elements, point at the possibility of Fa-tsang's being directly involved in the creation of these sculptures at Ch'i-pao lou-t'ai.
