A few days ago (November 1st), I saw the local public account Shaanxi Guangming posted an article "Behind the Tang Feng Sculpture in the South Square of the Little Wild Goose Pagoda, what kind of Grand Tang Dynasty is it?" The article puts forward some questions and suggestions about the historical prototype and design of the newly built sculpture group in the South Square of the Little Wild Goose Pagoda.
After forwarding the circle of friends, some people said that it reminded him of the Grandma Temple in Yixian County, Hebei Province, mentioned in the speech of Tsinghua doctoral student Xu Teng, and some people said that if they went to see it at night, they would not be scared to cry, and some people said that this was to pinch the Mona Lisa into a clay sculpture. Aesthetics are different, and I am more concerned about this statue of The Suspected Master Xuanzang.
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This sculpture is based on the "Xuanzang Negative Flute Diagram", which we can see in various books and videos.
The monk in the picture is barefoot and barefoot, and the servants of the wind and dust are indeed like Xuanzang who is bent on going to the Buddha and traveling thousands of miles. However, if we pay a little attention, we will find many doubts:
1. Looks. When he traveled west, Xuanzang was less than thirty years old and was rich and powerful, while the round face and curved eyebrows in the picture and the long eyebrows were generally considered to show the longevity of the elderly, which was somewhat inconsistent.
2. Skull. The original image shows nine skulls hanging from the neck. In tantra, skulls are associated with angry-eyed gods, which are completely different from the Middle-earth Buddhist regulations, and only the yokai of the sand monks are worn. It is hard to imagine that Xuanzang, as the ancestor of the Fa Xiang Wei Zhi Sect, would wear skull beads and travel all the way west through the layers of cities and villages. Looking at the current statue shape, there is a high probability that the designer does not know that this is a skull, otherwise it will not be changed to this.
3. Bamboo pipe. Everyone's deepest impression should be the appearance of Ning Caichen in the movie "Ghost of Qiannu", which is also similar in "Qingming On the River Map", and the cargo lang walks the streets and alleys on his back. However, such shapes appeared concentrated in the late Tang Dynasty to the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and were more popular in Japan in later generations. The ancients generally took livestock carriages on long trips, and if they carried luggage on foot, they were mostly wrapped in cloth or wrapped. For example, the accompanying disciple behind the sculpture carries luggage in this way, and I can't figure out why I carry a branch that is much heavier than the luggage.
4. Earrings. It is hard to imagine which Central Plains monk would wear earrings other than a western monk like Hatsuma Zhi?
5. Clothing ornaments. Monks' clothes are generally pure color clothes, even if there is a pattern, it is also a very simple decoration such as swastika and zigzag pattern, and such gorgeous clothing, embroidered at the corners, and exquisite silk wrapping on the chest, is not a local style, and it should not be what a monk with walking feet should be.
6. Straw shoes. Traditional Chinese straw shoes are woven from hemp rope, rather than the leather strips shown in the picture.
■ Left: Grass shoes on the sculpture | Right: Traditional Chinese slippers
7. Sabre. Ancient monks had a tradition of carrying a sword when they went out, and the size was short and placed in the bag, which was used to cut clothes, repair hair, and cut food. The length and shape of the statue are more in line with the size of ancient combat weapons, and the sword sheath is a very clear style of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Monks are compassionate and unlikely to travel with a murder weapon.
■ Buddhist texts require that the sword should not be pointed straight, and the Dunhuang murals should show that it should be a razor similar to the one on the right
Obviously, this "Xuanzang standard image" is full of doubts.
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So where did this image come from?
There are two most widely circulated versions of the figure, one of which is a color painting on silk, painted in the late Kamakura (1185-1333) period, and is now in the Tokyo National Museum. That is, the mother of the current statue in the South Square of the Little Wild Goose Pagoda.
The second is a line-carved stone stele, which is located at the Xingjiao Temple where the Xuanzang Master's Bone Pagoda is located.
The first to systematically study this image was the Japanese scholar Eiichi Matsumoto, and since then, Chinese and Japanese scholars such as Wang Jingfen and Li Ling have participated in it.
In ancient China, there are popular paintings with the theme of walking foot monks, fan monks look like they are carrying bamboo pipes and holding sticks, and there are often beasts such as tigers and leopards under their feet, which some people also believe is the original image of Fuhu Arhat, and there are many similar patterns in Dunhuang.
■ Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes Tang Dynasty "Walking Foot Monk Diagram"
"Xuanzang Negative Diagram" should be borrowed from this motif, and is the result of a secondary creation combined with the use of Japanese elements. In fact, in the Yuan Dynasty, the Image of Xuanzang created by the Japanese was still a traditional monk image, so it may be that the original author painted an ordinary foot-walking monk, or a Fuhu Arhat, but later the Japanese attached it to Xuanzang.
■ Yuan Dynasty Nara Yakushi-ji Temple Tibetan Xuanzang Sutra Diagram
In recent years, experts from the Dunhuang Research Institute have found 6 pairs of "Xuanzang Sutra Drawings" in the murals, which may be closer to the image of Xuanzang in people's minds at that time.
In 1933, a famous layman named Ouyang Wei introduced the pattern of this Japanese silk painting to China and carved it on the stone stele of Xingjiao Temple, and the rubbings were widely circulated. In particular, the horn clearly reads "Xuanzang Master Statue", which is more convincing, with the development of modern printing and the Internet, it has gradually become the "standard statue of Xuanzang" in the Chinese world.
In recent years, many people have recognized this problem. For example, the "Xuanzang Statue" in the history textbook of the People's Education Publishing House in the early years is like this:
Later, it was modified to a stamp screen.
Comparing the stamp picture and the Japanese silk painting, it is obvious that the face modification is younger, the clothes are changed to traditional monk's robes, embellished with some Western elements, the leggings and shoes are also changed to Chinese style, the skull is changed to Buddha beads, and the waist sword is changed to a crutch, indicating that China Post has noticed some problems in the original painting when designing, and has made many detailed modifications under the care of people's habitual cognition.
Look at the image of the elderly Master Xuanzang in the same set of stamps, and understand the design ideas better.
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What Xuanzang specifically looked like is also recorded in the history books.
When he was a monk at the age of 14, the shaved officials saw that he was very good-looking, "virtuous and instrumental, so specially taken." He was tall and well-mannered, both mild-mannered and dignified.
At the Eighteen-Day Unobstructed Assembly held for him by the King of the Precepts, because he was knowledgeable and eloquent, no one was able to argue with him for a while. He is revered by Indian scholars as the "Mahayana Heaven", the god of Mahayana Buddhism. Even more than 50 years after his return to China, many monks and monasteries enshrined pictures of his shoes and daily necessities, "every fasting day", worshiping as a god.
On the way to the west, he talked and laughed with the princes and nobles of various countries, and after returning to China, he met Tang Taizong, because of his profound and quiet manners, the first time they met, the two talked for a day. At the end of the "Biography of the Three Tibetan Masters of the Great Ci'en Temple", he is praised as "a very beautiful heavenly person" and "restored to qiyu", and the image of this fat head, big ears, and crooked eyes in the statue is really difficult to accept.
The bronze statue of Xuanzang in the south square of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda is relatively good for the restoration of the image of Master Xuanzang, with a firm gaze, a solemn Appearance of the Law, a Zen staff in his hand, and a body leaning forward to appear determined, which is more in line with the records in the history books.
The Xuanzang motif in the Silk Road-themed mural in the Big Wild Goose Pagoda subway station is closer to the original Japanese painting than the statue in the South Square of the Little Wild Goose Pagoda.
For example, the Buddha dust in the hand, may be because the hair in front of the Buddha dust in the original painting is very close to the background of the picture, so that the designer ignores it, or it may be mistaken for a deformed fan, in the statue of the South Square of the Little Wild Goose Pagoda, Xuanzang's right hand is only left with an unknown handle.
For a long time, when the history and culture were restored in China, the phenomenon of mistaking the Japanese wind as the Tang style abounded. Although we have always believed that the current Japanese wind is derived from the Tang style, it is too unobtrusive to say that "the authentic Tang style is in Japan" and directly move Japanese things over to pretend to be the Tang Dynasty style.
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At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Buddhism had spread in China for hundreds of years, and there were many texts and translations of different texts, and over time, they were very different and complicated, and they often found differences in theory. Xuanzang vowed to go to the holy land of the Buddha to study Buddhism and verify the deviations in the Chinese translation of the Buddhist scriptures, and it was nineteen years.
Once crossed the Gobi desert, once four days and four nights did not enter the water, as the border poet Cen Shan wrote, "Huangsha Moraine guest fans, looking at the clouds and the sky straight down." For the sake of the end of the heavens, the line to Anxi is even more west." He once encountered robbers, almost lost his life, and was forced to stay, and finally went on a hunger strike to continue to move forward; through the snowy area of the Tianshan Mountains, encountered an avalanche, and was full of dangers along the way, going through all kinds of difficulties and dangers, and finally seeking the true scriptures.
In the first month of 645, Master Xuanzang returned to Chang'an. The crowd on Suzaku Avenue was surging and Li Shimin, who was in Luoyang, sent the chancellor Fang Xuanling to lead hundreds of officials to greet them, the people of Chang'an City dressed in the best clothes, lit incense, and sprinkled flowers, and the monks of various temples arranged tents and treasure cases, solemnly reciting the scriptures and greeting them.
Xuanzang was proficient in Sanskrit and knew sanskrit, and was one of the most accomplished figures in the history of Buddhism. With the widespread spread of Journey to the West, it is not an exaggeration to say that he is the most famous monk in China.
The Tang Dynasty lawyer monk Dao Xuanxuan commented on him: Listening to words and observing deeds, keeping the name and truth; being vigorous in the morning and evening, counting and dividing karma; being pious and unremitting, concentrating on legal affairs; saying no fame and fortune, and acting in vain; quipping the sense of chance, being good at material nature; not being obedient, and acting in a timely manner; spitting out deep tastes and opening up doubts. The sages of the Shi ji generation are the dharma of the Buddha.
Xuanzang was a flawless example, with a will rarely seen in ordinary people, and whether it was academic achievements or personal cultivation, it was almost extraordinary. Liang Qichao praised him as "one of the people of the ages", and Lu Xun called him "the backbone of the Chinese nation".
Master Xuanzang set out from the Daxing Guochan Temple in the living room of the high-tech city to travel west, and after returning to China, he translated the scriptures in the Yuhua Palace and the Big Wild Goose Pagoda for a long time, and finally the spirit bone was buried in the Xingjiao Temple, where he left many footprints in Xi'an. For Xi'an, Xuanzang is an important cultural resource, and carrying forward the spirit of Xuanzang is also a kind of cultural responsibility and responsibility, commemorating its people and deeds, carrying forward its deeds and achievements, and benefiting the hearts of the people of the world.
Previously, some researchers even thought that this painting was an image of a Japanese nobleman, and had nothing to do with Xuanzang. Of course, the builders can also say that this is not "Xuanzang", they just created a character in an ancient Japanese painting. It is probably inappropriate to erect such a controversial statue in the Xi'an World Cultural Heritage Area, a famous historical and cultural landmark, not to mention that it is another master, Yijing Master, who translated the scriptures at Xiaoyan Pagoda Anda, not Xuanzang.
Attached are other statues that are said to have been designed according to Tang Dynasty murals, paintings, and pottery figurines, for viewing only:
Author | Liangen | Chastity author