Chan Master Foguo's Illustrated Verses of Praise on the Teaching of Mañjuśrī is based on the quest of Sudhana in search of wise advisers found in the Avatamsaka Sutra, this Buddhist text utilizing the technique of texts accompanied by images to tell the story of a pilgrimage seeking wise advisers. The author of these verses of praise is the monk Weibai, who was bestowed with the sobriquet Foguo Chanshi ("Chan Master Foguo") by the Northern Song emperor Huizong, and the book with a preface by Zhang Shangying (1043-1121) survives as an imprint made at the residence of an official surnamed Jia. Much of the current research on this book focuses on interpreting its contents and examining its version history, but the present study instead employs the study approach of "visual language" to examine the formal qualities of the motifs in the images and the function of their meaning. Through the interactive result of integrating the two elements of text and image, this book can be seen as material for observing Chan Buddhist visual culture in the Song dynasty and as providing an achievement in the visual narrative that it demonstrates. The present study examines the book format and effect of Chan Master Foguo's Illustrated Verses of Praise on the Teaching of Mañjuśrī from the aspects of materiality and visuality. Then, from the compositions, visual language, and even the effect of visual narrative, it analyzes how the images, Weibai's verses of praise, and text of the Avatamsaka Sutra complement each other, focusing on an examination of the intended function of the arrangement of texts and images. Thus, through this case study, it can be shown that Chan Buddhism in the Song dynasty saw the use of this type of illustrated book format as worthy of attention, also offering religious art an alternative research outlook from that of ceremonial works.
