Meta-images, or images of images, are a remarkable window into the nature of representation as a visual process. Beyond the writings of theoreticians or ritualists, they can provide insight into what even anonymous artists thought of their own creations. This article highlights the significance of meta-images by showing their relevance to one key point of scholarly debate about Buddhist visual and material culture – whether artistic representations of sacred figures should be understood as constructed objects or as living presences. The analysis proceeds in two separate registers of a comparative framework. On one level, looking at single artworks and cultural contexts, images are compared to other kinds of entities with better-known ontological statuses, such as living beings or relics of the deceased. On another level, looking at multiple traditions from diverse cultural contexts together, meta-images are compared with each other to reveal a rich variety in the ways that artworks can be understood in Buddhist visual culture. Detailed investigation across Buddhist history shows greater variety and nuance in conceptions of representation than a simple polarization between object and presence.
目次
ABSTRACT 105 Introduction 105 -Literature review and definitions 107 -Structure, methods, and thesis 109 Portraying the materiality and constructedness of images in early first millennium South Asian sculptures 111 -Gandhāra 112 -Andhra Pradesh 115 Slab reliefs 117 Gateway figures 121 Portraying images as present deities in early second millennium Himalayan paintings 135 -A Pāla manuscript 135 -The Sumtsek at Alchi 140 -Contextualizing and theorizing these comparisons 142 Portraying a complex visual world in late second millennium Tibetan paintings 148 -Supporting visualization and visionary experience 155 -The documentary impulse 159 Conclusion 162 Bibliography 164
