從牽獅人、騎獅人到馭獅人 - 敦煌文殊菩薩“新樣”溯源新探=From the Lion-leading Person and Lion Rider to the Lion Driver - A New Study on the Origin of the New Styled Image of Manjusri Bodhisattva at Dunhuang
The “Byzantine Paintings”, a type of Hellenistic art reflected in the line carvings on Queen Zhenshun’s Stone Coffin dating from the 25th year of Kaiyuan era （737 CE） during the Tang dynasty, were not meant to represent the realistic images of lions and people, but the divinity of the co-existence of lions and people. The scenes of a heroic warrior, an old man with whiskers or a young man with curved hair travelling with a lion in the paintings provide rich information about the origin of the images of a person leading, riding or driving a lion. Comparing the images of lion-leading, lion-rider, and lion-driving persons in the creative paintings of the High Tang period with those of Kunlunnu （people mainly coming from southeast Asia serving as slavers) leading a lion, Manjusri Bodhisattva riding a lion and the King of Khotan driving a lion in the silk, paper and wall paintings of the Middle and Late Tang period, it can be seen that there was a close interaction between the artistic images on the route from Chang’an to Dunhuang. The masterpieces as a result of the Eastern and Western cultural exchanges have provided clues to the gradual Sinicization route from Greek art to Buddhist art, from royal painters to local painters, and from capital Chang’an to prefecture Dunhuang, explained why the image of Manjusri Bodhisattva’s “non-Han Chinese lion-leading person” was disseminated, demonstrated the evolution history of the classic art of the “new-styled Manjusri Bodhisattva” in a thousand years, and exhibited the remarkable cultural exchanges in the High Tang period.
