The Feilaifeng Grottoes are the largest treasure house of Buddhist art in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, in southeastern China. It lasted for more than 400 years as a sacred site for making merit and worshipping Buddhas, from the Wuyue Kingdom during the Five Dynasties period to the Yuan Dynasty. There are three kinds of Tibetan Buddha statues at Feilaifeng, namely Amitabha, Sakyamuni, and Medicine Buddha. This article aims to explore the documentary basis, religious function or significance of these three Tibetan-style Buddha statues associated with Feilaifeng, and their artistic origins. The Yuan Dynasty Tibetan-style Buddha statues in the Feilaifeng show influences from Nepal and Tibet. Tibet should be the source of the style of Tibetan Buddhist statues in mainland China, and Nepal is the source of the style of Tibet. The capital of the Yuan Dynasty, Dadu (in present-day Beijing), was the direct source of Yuan statues in Hangzhou. The Yuan period Buddha statues at the Feilaifeng were probably the production of the artists from Dadu, and it was the artistic expression of the Mongolian regime's implementation of Tibetan Buddhism by administrative means in the early Yuan Dynasty. Since Chinese and Tibetan tantra scriptures have the same Sanskrit source, analyzing the descriptions of these Buddha images in Chinese and Tibetan Buddhist sutras can correspond to the representation of Feilaifeng Tibetan style images, in order to find the basis of the image carving of Feilaifeng, and its religious function can also be learned from Buddhist scriptures. In addition, based on the discussion of the inscriptions on the images from the Yuan Dynasty and the Buddhist environment in Hangzhou, it can be clear that the dedication of the meritorious masters of the Feilaifeng statues not only to do merit for themselves, but also to pray for the Mongolian royal family, so that these statues can be covered with the national religion's color.
