National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

Sec. vil   LOKAPALAS AND VAJRAPANIS   871

the development of the type as fixed in them.6 The time when this type and the worship of the gods that it depicts became popular in Chinese Buddhism can fortunately be determined with approximate accuracy from the rock-carvings of Yün-kang and Lung-mên.° Whereas the Lokapalas are conspicuous by their absence in the former, they are found at the latter site represented by sculptures which are proved by inscriptional evidence to have been executed during A. D. 672-75.' A comparison of the colossal Lokapala figures reproduced in certain of M. Chavannes' plates leaves no doubt either about the origin of their type or about its definite adoption by Chinese Buddhist art in the early Tang period.8

The fixed uniformity of the type in bodily appearance, attire, and pose on the one hand, and the variations on the other which the attributes of individual Lokapalas appear to have undergone in the course of their long migration from India to Japan,9 would necessarily raise considerable difficulty about the identification of the particular Demon Kings intended in our numerous paintings. But, fortunately, we are spared all iconographic doubts of this kind by the clear and definite indications with which we are furnished by the pictures to be found in one of the Chinese manuscript texts specially devoted to the worship of the Four Regents.10 The inscribed cartouches by their side in Ch. xviii. 002, with which the inscriptions found on some of the other paintings are in full agreement, make it quite certain that Vaigravana, the Regent of the North and, as the god of wealth, also the most prominent of the Lokapalas, is always to be recognized by his pike ; Dhrtarâstra, the ruler of the East, by his bow or arrow ; Virûdhaka, the guardian of the South, by his club ; and finally Virupâksa, who holds sway in the West, by his bared sword.

Leaving aside for the present certain representations of larger size, intended to be hung on walls, which either show Lokapalas attended by their demon followers or else are preserved only as fragments, we find in the numerous banners, as well as in the paper pictures, ` the Four Great Kings ' (Cater-mahârâjas) almost invariably depicted standing on a demon as cognizance, or ` Vâhana'. In these contorted crouching figures I cannot trace any specific indications of the different classes of demigods which the Buddhist mythology of the texts associates with the several Regents."' But in one instance we meet with an interesting exception to that general rule. In the banner Ch. 0087 we see a Vaigravana, marked also by some other peculiar features, resting his feet, not as elsewhere on the prostrate figure of a demon, but on the hands of a fair girl rising with head and breast from a lotus beneath. The girl's face, suggesting Iranian features, the dress of her hair,

Identification of individual Lokapalas.

Cognizances of Lokapalas.

S Much of the material yielded by the exploration of the cave-temples, etc., of those northern oases is as yet unpublished, nor are all the publications bearing upon them accessible to me at present. Hence the following brief references to Professor Gritnwedel's works must suffice : Altbuddhistische Kultställen, pp. x52, 155, figs. 345, 346 (two fine bearded Lokapala heads of an early type, among the Kizil wall-paintings); ibid. p. 185 (four Lokapalas at Kirish);

p. 205, Fig. 460 (L. in interesting armour, from a cave of the Shôrchuk site near Kara-shahr); p. 239, Fig. 512 (at Murtuk, a fine wall-painting evidently representing Dhrtarâstra and closely resembling our pictures in style); p. 38i, fig. 628 (with scene of Garuda hunt, as in Ch. o0r8). For other representations, see ibid. Index, s.v. Lokapalas ; also Idikutschari, p. 63, Pl. XIII. (heads of Lokapala statues).

See also below, chap. xxix. sec. iii, iv, with Pl. CXXVII, for the fine wooden Lokapala statuette, Mi. xv. 0031, excavated at the ruined site of Shikchin (Shôrchuk).

6 Cf. Chavannes, Mission archéologique, i. pp. 553 sq. ;

Planches I, Nos. 353, 356 ; also Petrucci, Revue de l'Université de Bruxelles, r 9I0, pp. 505 sqq. ; Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1911, septembre, p. 206.

7 Regarding the tradition quoted by M. Petrucci, loc. cil., p. 5o6 (from Eitel, Handbook of Chinese Buddhism, p. 174), which attributes the introduction of the Lokapala cult into China to Amoghavajra, an Indian monk, who followed Vajra bodhi there in A. D. 719, cf. Chavannes, Mission archéologique, i P. 554.

8 See Chavannes, Mission archéologique, Planches r, Nos. 353, 356, 395, 396.

' Cf. GItinwedel-Burgess, Buddhist Art, p. 136.

10 See the fine miniatures in the booklet Ch. xviii. 002, Pl. XC, dated A.D. 890, and the smaller but equally spirited illustrations of the book Ch. xxii. 0026, Pl. XCII.

" Cf. Griinwedel-Burgess, Buddhist Arl, p. 136, where Yaksas, Kumbhândas, Nagas, and Gandharvas are mentioned as the divine hosts ruled by Vai§ravana, Virûdhaka, Virilpaksa, and Dhrtarâstra respectively.