Surviving Nirvana: Death of the Buddha in Chinese Visual Culture

Chapter One - Doubles: Stone Implements

25 Doubles Chapter One Doubles: Stone Implements In the year 551, members of the Ning clan in Gaoliang gathered to celebrate the completion of a Buddhist stele that they collectively commissioned. The work was a large-size rectangular stone slab densely decorated with Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and heavenly figures on all sides, along with numerous names and images of their earthly donors. What the devotees had hoped to bring about through an object like this was stated in the dedication: “We reverently wish that the emperor, his great ministers, multitudes of officials and hundreds of staff, teachers and monks, fathers and mothers, living and deceased relatives, and all sentient beings, be granted happiness; that our doubts be cast away so we may comprehend emptiness; and that we all could attend the first of three assemblies with Maitreya Buddha”(Appendix 1 FBC lines 8–10).1 It is not clear whether these lofty aspirations were ever realized in the lifetime of the Ning clan, but the stone stele resulting from their devotion has survived and is now in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago (hereafter the Chicago stele).2 The piece (fig. 1.1) provides us with the most concrete evidence that the idealism which fueled its creation and reception was thoroughly inscribed into its pictorial contents.Two seated bodhisattvas in the middle register of the front side (fig. 1.2), identified in the nearby cartouches as “Maitreya,” appropriately give expression to the yearning for the coming of the Future Buddha that is so forcefully asserted in the dedication. What is also intriguing is the top register of the back side, in which a reclining Buddha is depicted side by side with a coffin in two separate frames (fig. 1.19). As it turned out, these two motifs were construed on the stele as if they were a natural pair from inception. In describing the wondrous functions of the stele, the author of the dedication proclaimed: “The visage of Tusita Heaven would again appear this morning; and the event at the Two Trees [Śākyamuni’s nirvana] would soon manifest today. May we rely on these [images] to bring about benevolence”(Appendix 1 FBC).3 The thematic partnership of the nirvana Buddha and Maitreya is key to understanding the religious impulse of our donors from Gaoliang and assessing the beginning of the nirvana image in China. Simply put, the Chicago stele 26 Surviving Nirvana exemplifies a rupture with the motif ’s past, which so far was defined by its constituency within the discursive framework of the Buddha’s life story. Instead of being depicted along with Śākyamuni’s previous lives or jātakas, or episodes from his final incarnation as Prince Siddhārtha, the nirvana moment now became closely aligned with the Buddhas of the Past, Present and Future, or the Buddhas of Three Ages in short. This change in pictorial context was arguably the first contribution that China made to the motif’s pan-Asian legacy. More germane to the local development, however, is the fact that the Buddhas of Three Ages were one of the most common thematic templates for designing Buddhist steles from the sixth to eighth centuries. How and why the nirvana image became a part of this programmatic scheme is the main storyline in this chapter. One significant subplot to add to the present discussion has to do with the look of the nirvana image itself. While the classic figuration of the reclining Fig. 1.2 Maitreya bodhisattvas. Detail of the front, stone stele, dated 551, relief sculpture. Art Institute of Chicago: Gift of the Orientals, 1926.591. 27 Doubles Buddha surrounded by mourners remained largely intact, there were noticeable modifications of the composition and iconography that were apparently the result of circumstances specific to the making of the Chicago stele. The introduction of the coffin was without a doubt the most provocative. Not only did the new element help expand the temporal scope of the actions in depiction, its immediate juxtaposition with the reclining figure had effectively established a relationship of symbolic equivalence with one another. This visual doubling of the reclining Buddha with the coffin in many ways paved the way for a kind of polyscenic narrative form that was to flourish in the Tang dynasty, as each element would represent respectively the first two stages in a three-part sequence detailing the Buddha’s transformation from presence to absence (fig. 2...