五世紀以來北傳地區「法界人中像」與《十住經》「法雲地」=Images of the Cosmological Buddha Vairocana along The Buddhist Northern Transmission Route Since the Fifth Century and Dharmameghā-bhūmi,The Tenth Chapter of Da’sabhūmi-sūtra
For seventy years scholars have used the Buddhāvatamsaka-mahāvaipulya-sūtra, translated by Buddhabhadra and others in the Eastern Jin dynasty (317-420), as a major source of reference in the study of images of the cosmological Buddha found along the northern transmission route of Buddhism and dated from the fourth century onward. There have been substantial achievements in this field of iconographical study. However, later researchers have encountered some difficulties because the scriptural sources are too extensive. This article shows that the origin of the scenes on the Buddha image with can be narrowed to Dharmameghā-bhūmi, the tenth chapter of Da’sabhūmi-sūtra, translated by Kumārajīva. This will not only solve the problems that later researchers have been facing, but it will also offer a better interpretation of the imagery on the robes of the cosmological Buddha.
