The two silk paintings reproduced in this Plate on the scale of
one-fourth, and originally mounted as Kakemonos, present special
interest on account of their subjects and treatment. The one above (Ch.
liv. 007), according to the Chinese inscription in the left-hand top
corner, dates from A. D. 897, and yet is painted in a style which, as
pointed out by Mr. Binyon,[82] looks distinctly earlier. It represents
the Buddha Tejaḥprabha (‘radiant with light’) on a chariot which two
bullocks draw, and surrounded by the genii of the five planets whom
the inscription mentions. The same subject appears to be treated also
in one of the finest of the wall-paintings of the Thousand Buddhas’
Caves.[83]
The Buddha is shown seated on a blue lotus which occupies the top of
an open two-wheeled car. A draped altar placed in front of him across
its shafts is decked with gilded vessels. Two elaborately decorated
flags float behind the car, hung from slanting poles. The Buddha, whose
figure alone in the picture shows distinct Indian convention, raises
his right hand in the _abhaya-mudrā_. His flesh was originally gilded
and his hair is shown blue. Rays of different colours radiate from his
person, replacing a halo. Overhead a rich canopy waving in his advance
symbolizes rapid movement. By the side of the trotting bullock strides
a dark-skinned attendant, recalling the ‘Indian’ leaders of Mañjuśrī’s
and Samantabhadra’s mounts, but carrying a mendicant’s staff instead
of a goad and playing a sistrum with his left hand, as clearly seen
in the original.
Of the genii represented two stand beyond the car dressed in Chinese
official costume with trailing under-robes and wide-sleeved jackets.
The one on the left carries a dish of flowers, and within the crown
of his black head-dress appears a white boar’s head. The other on
the right holds a brush and a tablet in his hands; between two loops
of his elaborate head-dress there rises the figure of a monkey. A
third, dressed all in white, plays upon a large lute with a very long
plectrum;[84] his head is surmounted by a phoenix. The figure of the
fourth divinity is of demonic type, four-armed, with fiery hair and
grotesque features. The right hands carry sword and arrow, and the left
hands a trident and bow; above his crown is seen a horse’s head.
With the comparative stiffness of the figures contrasts the freedom of
the whirling mass of cloud upon which the whole group is shown sweeping
past as in a vision. The colouring is strong, yet harmonious, and the
workmanship careful.
The picture below (Ch. lvii. 002), which is in excellent preservation
and still retained its original Kakemono mounting of brown silk, is a
noble composition strikingly different in style and entirely Chinese
in feeling. It shows the figure of Avalokiteśvara, as Guide of Souls,
drawn with much dignity and grace, and behind him an attendant soul
represented on a smaller scale in the guise of a Chinese woman.
The figure of Avalokiteśvara, who turns head and gaze backwards over
the left shoulder, is in physical features and dress a fine specimen
of the ‘Chinese’ Bodhisattva type already repeatedly noticed. In his
right hand he carries a smoking censer, in his left a curving lotus
spray and a waving white banner with triangular top and streamers, the
whole exactly alike in shape to the silk banners brought away from
Ch‘ien-fo-tung. In the dress of soft and harmoniously blended colours
the elaborate rosettes of the borders may be noted as manifestly
reproducing contemporary textile patterns.
The figure of the woman behind, with her head bowed and hands muffled
in wide sleeves at her breast, well expresses devout reliance on the
divine guide. Her attire, by the brilliant colouring of the robes
and the absence of the elaborate metal head-dress, stands out in
marked contrast to the costume familiar from the donor figures of our
tenth-century paintings. The purple cloud which carries both figures
sweeps up behind them to the top of the picture. There a Chinese
mansion resting on conventional cloud scrolls represents the Paradise
to which Avalokiteśvara leads his worshippers.
By the evidence of the dress and coiffure of the Bodhisattva’s
attendant, which seem to belong to post-T‘ang times, the painting
may be classed amongst the latest of the deposit. But what for our
appreciation of this beautiful picture must matter far more than this
chronological difference is the fact that the style of its design
and its refined execution give full and exclusive expression just to
those qualities which are characteristic of Chinese pictorial art at
its best. As Mr. Binyon, when comparing this picture with another
presentation of Avalokiteśvara, the one reproduced in our Plate XLII,
has pregnantly put it, ‘we have [here] a sense of suavity and flexile
movement. Flowers seem really to be floating down the air, and the
cloud on which the votaress follows the Bodhisattva coils up with a
wavering motion. We feel the presence of the Chinese genius, with its
instinct for living movement, and its love of sinuous line, and its
reticent spacing.’[85]