Images of Patronage in Khotan
Textual evidence indicates that Buddhism in Khotan received strong support from royal families during its prime (5th-10th centuries). References to Khotanese kings who founded important monasteries are abundant in Tibetan texts on Khotan. Local legends preserved in the literature of Chinese Buddhism...
| Published in: | Dynamics in the history of religions |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2020
|
| In: |
Dynamics in the history of religions
Year: 2020, Volume: 11, Pages: 40-60 |
| Further subjects: | B
Religion in Asien
B Asia B Religion B Asien-Studien B Religionswissenschaften B Ostasiatische Geschichte B History |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Textual evidence indicates that Buddhism in Khotan received strong support from royal families during its prime (5th-10th centuries). References to Khotanese kings who founded important monasteries are abundant in Tibetan texts on Khotan. Local legends preserved in the literature of Chinese Buddhism underline the constant involvement of the royals with Buddhist miraculous events. If local and religious literature is explicit about royal patronage and depicts the ruling family as the guarantor of the country’s existence as an established Buddhist kingdom, what does the art-historical material from Khotan tell us about such patronage? How were patronage (and legitimation) expressed in images, or through the sculptural and painted decorations of supported monasteries? Generally speaking, although figures of donors appear on wall paintings, it is difficult, given the poor state of the sparse dedicatory inscriptions, to ascertain their exact identities and the nature of their support. This chapter studies pictorial evidence from the Buddhist remains of Khotan related to two famous, local legends: the story of the Silk Princess and the story of the founding of the Gomatī Monastery. This study demonstrates that—despite the absence of explicit depictions of donors and inscriptions—a specific way of communicating patronage can be detected in the art-historical material. Ultimately, these paintings provide telling evidence of the ‘language’ used to express patronage through visual media in Khotan. I underscore here the importance of a systematic survey of archaeological sources (both from old and new excavations) in the study of Central Asian Buddhism. This study provides evidence of the productive methodological combination of archaeological and art historical sources vis-à-vis textual and philological ones, in clarifying understanding the many gaps in the historical developments of Buddhism in Central Asia. |
|---|---|
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Dynamics in the history of religions
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/9789004417731_004 |