Heretic figures are an important theme in Buddhist art and are commonly found in the art of ancient India, Central Asia, and the Western Regions and Central Plains of China, the majority of which resemble traditional Brahmin figures. However, we have noticed that most of the heretic figures in Dunhuang Buddhist art are male and that almost no attention has been paid to the female figures simply because they are too scarce.Looking at the Dunhuang murals, we find that there are specific images of female heretics in several paintings,such as the illustrations of Vanquishing Mara, Raudraksa’ s battle with Sariputra, and the Sutra of Repaying Kindness. Most interestingly, the images of the female heretics vary significantly over time. At first, the female figures were either beautiful young girls or ugly old female Brahmin painted in the style of Central Asia and the Western Regions, but in the Tang dynasty, they became almost identical with general depictions of Chinese ladies. What’s more, there are two different figures in the illustration of Vanquishing Mara in Western Xia kingdom: one is a beautiful Tangut lady and the other is a girl heretic, a difference in depiction which reveals that Sinicization is key to the development of these female heretic figures. The reason for this phenomenon,broadly stated, was the growing influence of a standard of female morality in traditional Han Chinese culture and society. The cultural bias of Han Chinese towards foreign women led to discrimination in the artistic depiction of women in historical materials, including the Buddhist art in regions dominated by Han Chinese culture.Through analysis of the female heretic figures in Dunhuang paintings, we can find traces of the assimilation of exotic art by Han Chinese cultureas well as discriminatory artistic practices influenced by certain cultural prejudices.
