Buddhist Art

Glance of Our Exhibition

佛曰：一微尘映世界，一瞬间含永远。 --《华严经》

Buddha says: “ A mote of dust reflects the world, and a moment contains forever” --《Avatamsaka Sutra》

Before exploring this small world of Buddhist art, we would like you to spend a few minutes to go through the history of Buddhism in China and have a common idea of some interesting facts.

Nowadays, Chinese Buddhism is the largest institutionalized religion in Mainland China. During the development, there are 4 main stages. In early East Han Dynasty, Buddhism enters China. Emperor Wu of Han sent envoys to Tianzhu (India) to invite monks and bring many Buddha statues and Buddha scriptures. White Horse Temple in Henan was established at that time as the center of spreading Buddhism.

In Northern and Southern dynasties, Buddhism spreads widely with some twists and turns. In Northern dynasty, Buddhism fails to spread. Taiwu Emperor advocates Daoism and Wu Emperor of Zhou forbite Buddhism to unify the country. However, in Southern dynasty, Wu Emperor of Liang advocates Buddhism and facilitates the spread of Buddhism. The culture of Buddhists as vegetarian are decided by him.

In Tang Dynasty, Buddhism reaches peak. There are 2 main divided traditions during this period: Mahayana(大乘佛教) and Hinayana(小乘佛教). Mahayana is the mainstream with many different schools including Huayan school, Chan school and so on. Although the national religion of Tang Dynasty is Daoism, Buddhism has high status. There are eight emperors who advocate Buddhism a lot including Gao emperor of Tang, Wuzetian, Zhong Emperor of Tang and so on. They hold the ceremony of six welcomes and two sending to worship Śarīra(舍利子). In Song Dynasty, the Chan school becomes the mainstream.

Finally, in Ming Dynasty, Buddhism becomes secularized because of the interactions with Tibetan. Inheriting from Song Dynasty, the Chan school is especially popular in Ming dynasty such that, at one point, most monks were affiliated with either the Linji school or the Caodong school.

With a general idea of Buddhism history, I would like to introduce some basic knowledge about Buddhism. The main ethics of Buddhism is Śīla, the concept of “moral virtues”. It consists of three rightness: right speech, right action and right livelihood. There are also different percept regulations for laypeople and monks to follow. There are many Buddhas because Buddhism believes that Buddhas have been born in this world in the past, present and future. Under the teaching of Buddha, there are countless and endless sages, bodhisattvas, and arahants. Therefore, I may only list some famous Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and some monks and sages from ancient times to the present.

tryadhva-buddhāḥ(三世佛): Śākyamuni(释加牟尼）, Bhaiṣajyaguru(药师佛), Amitābha(阿弥陀佛)

Sixteen Arhats

4 Buddhas(四大菩萨)： Mañjuśrī（文殊菩萨）， Samantabhadra（普贤菩萨）， Avalokiteśvara（观世音菩萨）， Kṣitigarbha（地藏菩萨）

During the following visit, you will see exquisite artifacts in three fields of Buddhist art: depictions of Buddhas, notable Buddhist figures both historical and mythical, narrative scenes from their lives.