高昌ベゼクリク窟寺の仏教再考 ――誓願画等の流布と観音信仰儀礼――=Reconsidering Buddhism at Bezeklik Cave Temples in Karakhoja: Circulation of praṇidhi Paintings and Worship of Avalokiteśvara
A. Six years ago, thanks to an antiquarian I could see and get photos of faithful copies of wall paintings which had belonged to cave temple no. 9 at Bezeklik (Albert Grünwedel’s numbering)．All of them are said to be from Kaesong in North Korea．These are 10 praṇidhi paintings, a picture of Goddess Ḍākiṇī (Chi. Tuzhini 荼枳尼), portraits of three abbots (都統, Tutung) with Chinese names, three venerable teacher monks with Sanskrit names, three Uigur noblemen, and two Uigur noble women, together with another 19 Korean Buddhist wall paintings.
B. Among the 10 praṇidhi paintings, six correspond to ①，②，④，⑥，⑪，⑭ of the praṇidhi paintings published by A. von Le Coq, Chotscho (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1913). But four of the praṇidhi paintings are reversed just as a reflected image in a mirror, with the exception of the inscriptions. These are shown here as －①,－②,－③, and－⑪ which correspond to ①, ②, ③, and ⑪ of the original praṇidhi paintings published by A. von Le Coq.
C. The copies of the wall paintings of cave temple no. 9 at Bezeklik would have been introduced to Koryŏ in the late 13th or in the 14th century when Koryŏ became a vassal state of the Yuan dynasty.
D. The origin of Tutung and abbot’s change of social roles through successive centuries.
E. Worship of Avalokiteśvara.
F. Meditative practices and the Guan Wuliangshou jing 観無量寿経.
G. The Poetical translation into Uigur of the Guan Wuliangshou jing by Kki Kki (Chi. Naonao 巙巙, 1295–1345) circulated in the Yuan dynasty, when Uigur Buddhism was in its glory, until it was expelled by Islamic forces in the next century.
H. A very simple prototype of the so-called praṇidhi paintings can be traced to the wall paintings of the Buddhist grottoes near Kucha, i.e., Kizil, Kumutra, etc., but the latter paintings were so artificially and naturally damaged that we can hardly understand their narrative meaning exactly.
I. Reconsidering the Buddhism of the Northern route of Chinese Turkistan, in areas such as Kucha and Turfan, we can know that the Sarvāstivādin or Mūlasarvāstivādin School flourished there and Mahāyāna Buddhism was believed in as is shown in historical records and excavations.
J. The 13 praṇidhi paintings and other paintings which had originally been in cave temple no. 9 at Bezeklik, and are now only available in photos in A. von Le Coq’s edition, are a nearly perfect copy, and so should be considered as newly found scale copies of these lost wall paintings.
