咸若館供藏擦擦佛整理研究 -- 兼及《諸佛菩薩聖像贊》之比較=A Comparative Study between the Tsa-tsas enshrined in Xianruo Guan,Cining Garden,The Forbidden City and Eulogies to the Sacred Images of the Buddhas and Boddhisattvas(Zhufo-pusa shengxiang zan)
Xianruo Guan is a building located in the garden of Cining Palace along the western ’axial road’ within the Forbidden City.In 1772,the 37th year of the reign of Qianlong,twenty-four vertical alcoves were constructed towards the center of the eastern and western inner walls,and these served to house twelve sets of 360 tsa-tsa Buddha images,totalling 4320 small statues.After sorting and cataloguing,4233 of the statuettes survive,of which 4217 belong to the twelve sets.On 20 December 1757 the original set of 360 bronze moulds had been made in accordance with the design of the Third Zhangjia Khutuktu Robi Dorge,with sixteen additional uninscribed tsa-tsa images of the Wuliangshou Buddha added in the late years of the Qing Dynasty.Among the surviving 4217 Buddhas,there is only one complete set of 360 images,the other sets all being incomplete.Comparing this single complete set with those contained in the Images and Encomiums of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas(Zhufo-pusa shengxiang zan),we find there are 354 correspondences,a 98.3%congruity,with only six statuettes varying from those in the text.As a result of the loss of a number of important related archives,such as Siti wen fo ming zhe,in the fire that destroyed Zhongzheng Hall,the reason for the discrepancy would seem to be that the statuettes in Images and Encomiums of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and the sets of 360 in Xianruo Guan date to before and after the determination of the sequence by the Third Zhangjia Khutuktu,the former being a draft edition and the latter the final version.
