国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

862 PICTORIAL REMAINS FROM THE THOUSAND BUDDHAS [Chap. XXIII

arranged compositions which M. Petrucci, in accordance with Japanese terminology, has designated as the Mandalas' of Avalokitegvara.

It is among the silk banners representing single Bodhisattvas that the different styles influencing Buddhist painting at Tun-huang reveal themselves with particular clearness. Foremost in sharp definition is a small but very distinctive class of banners, Ch. lvi. oot—ooto (Plate LXXXVII), which exhibit a series of Bodhisattvas all in purely Indian style and strikingly homogeneous in execution. As they were all found in the same bundle and are of practically identical size, there can be no doubt that they were intended as a set. In style of design, treatment of garments, ornaments, etc., they show the closest resemblance to the miniatures illustrating Bodhisattvas in two Nepalese manuscripts of the eleventh century, the iconography of which has furnished the subject for a masterly treatise by M. Foucher.8 A reference to the detailed description given by Miss Lorimer of the common characteristics of these banners' will suffice to show that they must have been painted under the direct influence of that late Buddhist pictorial art of India which prevailed in the Gangetic plains, and the style of which Nepal appears to have preserved in a particularly conservative fashion.10 That this influence reached Tun-huang straight from the south, i. e. through Tibet, is a priori highly probable, and the occurrence of a short Tibetan inscription on one of these banners and of a similar one in Brâhmi on another obviously confirms this. It is worth noting that these banners in no way differ from those of undoubtedly Chinese production as regards material, size, or arrangement of accessories. All of them, judging from attributes, flesh colours, etc., appear to be intended to represent different forms of Avalokite§vara and Manjugri, and in one case Vajrapani (Ch. lvi. 002).

We next distinguish a class of Bodhisattva figures, larger than the preceding and more varied in execution, which reproduces characteristic Indian conventions in pose, physical type, dress, and colouring with sufficient closeness to deserve the general designation of ` Indian ' for the purposes of classification. We find it well represented among the silk banners and even more frequently among those of linen, while on the few paper banners it is the only one met with. The slender-waisted body of the standing figure is usually shown curving at the hips ; its upper part is nude except for rich ornaments and a winding narrow stole, while the hanging drapery of the skirt has folds arranged generally in close conformity with the style of Gandhara sculpture. The painting of the flesh in different colours according to the deity represented is a characteristic feature which this class derives from its Indian models. That these models had been reproduced already in Central-Asian Buddhist art is certain, and that Tun-huang painting received this type of Bodhisattva through its mediation appears highly probable. But no discussion of the evidence supporting this view is possible in this place. For all detailed features of the type and of its several varieties, reference to Miss Lorimer's descriptions in the List below must suffice here."

° Cf. Foucher, Iconographie bouddhique, i. Pl. Iv—VI,

pp. 97 sqq.

9 See Descriptive List below, General Note on Ch. Ivi.

70 Cf. Foucher, Iconographie bouddhique, i. pp. 38 sq.

" One variety of silk banners with Bodhisattvas of Indian' type is represented by *Ch. ]v. 004 (see General Note), 007, oo8, 0029-0031. Another closely allied variety is found in Ch. 0073 ; xxvi. a. *007, oo9, ooro (Pl. LXXXVII) ; a third in lv. *00I4, 0032, 0034 (Pl. LXXX), also Ch. 0017, 0097. For a fr., see 00464. a.

How numerous are linen banners of Bodhisattvas of Indian' type will be seen from the following list. (Here and

in similar lists asterisks * mark banners typical of a large number of others, with descriptive entries recording the characteristics of the group) : Ch. oo6o, cool 33-37,00141 ; i.0015, *0016 (Pl. LXXXIx); iii.0015-18; xx. ooIo, 0012; xxi. 009—I I ; xxiii. 002-004,006 ; xxxviii. 007 ; liv. 009 ; lv. 0036-43 (Pl. LXXxVIII); M. 0022-24 (Pl. LXV); lxiv. 001-2.

The paper banners show all Bodhisattva figures of the

Indian ' type ; see Ch. xx. 0013-15 (Pl. XCIX) ; xxii. 0032 ; lxiv. 003-005. With reference to the subjects represented in the Bodhisattva banners of the Indian' type and in those of the ` mixed' type (see below), I may note that apart from numerous figures of Avalokite$vara (Kuan-yin) only the following can be identified with certainty from dis-

Bodhisattva banners in Nepâlese' style.

Bodhisattva banners in Indian' style.