The Image of the Buddha: Buddha Icons and Aniconic Traditions in India and China
Authors
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Claudia Wenzel
Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften Forschungsstelle "Buddhistische Steininschriften in Nord-China"
Dr. Claudia Wenzel
wissenschaftliche Angestellte an der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Forschungsstelle Buddhistische Steininschriften in Nord-China
This is a study of aniconic Buddhist art in India and China that refers back to the iconoclasm (Bilderstreit) of the 8th and 9th centuries in the Byzantine empire and the subsequent development of an image theory that justified the already well established image cult. By deliberately adopting methodological approaches and terms that have been used for some time in Byzantine art history, relevant visual and textual evidence about the Buddhist tradition will be restructured and evaluated, pointing out similarities and dissimilarities.
Anthropomorphic Buddha images and aniconic representations of the Buddha in India and China are compared; furthermore, an overview of the establishment of a Buddhist icon cult with image worship in China is given, discussing related phenomena like narratives about the First Image, the True Countenance, and miracle-working Divine Images. Against this background, Chinese aniconic tendencies and the image discourse within the Chinese Buddhist community around the time of the second Buddhist persecution (574-577) are explored, when rock inscriptions in Shandong province preferred the Buddha’s Golden Words to his image.
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Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
