Buddhist sculpture in white marble which flourished in China during the Eastern Wei to Northern Ch'i Dynasties around the regions along the eastern foot of the Tahsing Mountains, centering around Ting-hsien in Hopei, is distinguished for its unusual form not found in sculpture of other districts and for its peculiar employment of openwork which gives it a distinctive graceful effect. Buddhist statues in white marble continued to be made in the Sui Dynasty as well, but the characteristic Ting-hsien works generally date back to the end of the Northern Ch'i at the latest. Later examples among them show a considerable degree of mannerism both in form and in the style of openwork, owing, perhaps, to localized and vulgarized tendency of the art there. It is another characteristic of white marble sculpture that very large fullsculptured statues were carved in the last part of the Northern Ch'i, but it may probably be taken for granted that the Buddhist faith in this region was best represented by small statues in white marble in prescribed sizes ranging from forty to sixty centimeters in height. Many of these statues are presented in the pose known as hanka shiyui (“half cross-legged in contemplation”), the majority of this kind being in the form of triads. Some of them have a couple of trees in their background; this is a form peculiar to sculptural works in this district. The central figures in such triads with “couple trees” backgrounds are not always in the hanka shiyui pose. There are some standing and some others seated cross-ankled. The style of carving, however, are in common among them. The statue(Pl. III) in the hanka shiyui pose with an inscription dated the Second Year of Wu-ting (544 A. D.) in the Eastern Wei Dynasty is an early example of white marble hanka shijui images in the Ting-hsien area. This statue presents a perfect symmetrical front view; in this respect it inherited the two-dimensional, decorative treatment which had characterized the sculpture in the second half of the Northern Wei. It should be noted that this characteristic maintained its existence until the Northern Ch'i in hanka shiyui statues of white marble. In these cases no attention for the side-view was at work on the part of the sculptor. Unlike such white marble hanka shiyui statues of the Northern Ch'i, the example shown in Pl. IV, with a date of the First Year of Wu-p'ing (570 A.C.), is seated with the upper half of its body bent foreward and twisted to the right, presenting a richer side view. In its refined beauty of from it surpasses other contemporary examples in this district. Surely it contains certain elements which distinctly differentiate it from other white marble statues in the hanka shiyui pose. If this statue can be admitted as a work in the Ting-hsien area, we cannot help believing that the influence of some othe district was instrumental in this particular case. Pl. V shows another excellent specimen of white mable hanka shiyui statue distinguished for its three-dimensional effect. This statue from the Northern Ch'i, with the rounded carvings on its pedestal suggestive of the approach of sculptural style of suggestive of the approach of sculptural style of the following Sui Dynasfy, manifest at a novel style. It is to be noted that while white marble sculpture of the Northern Ch'i tended to be conventionalized towards its end, it has also left such unusual works indicating a new activity arising in the period. The statue with the date of the year Wu-p'ing 1, in particular, is outstanding among them, and is important also in view of its possible connection with similar hanka shiyui statues in Japan and Korea.
