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there are, of course, numerous ways to look at and appreciate works of Chinese Buddhist art, and many di¤erent questions that one may ask about them. Images of buddhas, bodhisattvas, lohans, patriarchs, and other sacred figures associated with the Buddhist tradition in China might be appreciated, for example, from a purely aesthetic point of view. Or they might be viewed and interpreted as representational art that symbolizes various elements of Buddhist mythology or doctrine. As a historian of Chinese Buddhism who is interested in the social, institutional, and cultic as well as doctrinal dimensions of the religion, I have my own particular way of looking at images—paintings and sculpture. It is this point of view I endeavor to share in this essay. I have had much opportunity to see works of East Asian Buddhist art in their original cultural contexts, monasteries and temples where they are placed on altars, serve in rituals, decorate abbots’ quarters, or are stored and occasionally displayed as treasures. When I encounter such works in a museum, I cannot help but see them as things somehow severed, incomplete, and out of place, like the friezes in the British Museum that were physically cut o¤ the Parthenon and carried away to a foreign environment. I react this way because I take it for granted that an understanding of the native contexts is essential if one wants to appreciate why Buddhist images were produced in China, how they were used, and what they meant to the people who used them. It is not enough to see an image in a museum, identify it on the basis of its iconography, and then try to explain its meaning and function in classical Chinese culture by referring to the mythology of the figure presented in normative Buddhist scriptures. This is not to blame museums that have collections of Chinese Buddhist art for the fact that the works in their collections have been separated from the physical, social, and religious settings that once framed them and gave them meaning. After all, those settings existed in the past, and little or nothing of them may remain today. Indeed, I am grateful that the works of art themselves have survived, that they are well cared for, and that we have the opportunity to view them. I do not mean that we should bemoan their fate or try to return them to their places of origin in any literal sense, for that is obviously impossible. What I mean, rather, is that viewing works of Chinese Buddhist art in a museum triggers in me a desire to reconstruct 13 1 Religious Functions of Buddhist Art in China T. Gri◊th Foulk in my imagination the world in which they were first produced, used, and understood. As a historian, I want to use all of the evidence and critical methods at my disposal to ensure that these reconstructions, while imaginary, are not merely figments, but as “true” as I can make them. In this essay, I begin by sketching a rudimentary scheme of classification designed to elucidate the range of religious, economic, and social functions that Buddhist art has had in China from medieval times down to the present. I then discuss the di◊culties involved in trying to guess the erstwhile functions of Chinese Buddhist images now in museums on the basis of their appearance alone. Finally, I raise the issue of the “meaning” of images in the Chinese Buddhist tradition, arguing that scholarly interpretations in this area should not be based on normative sutra and commentarial literature alone. Rather, they should take into account the original settings and functions of the works of art in question and should consult, whenever possible, procedural manuals and liturgical texts that shed light on how these works were used in rituals. Iconic and Noniconic Functions of the Buddhist Images A fundamental distinction can be drawn between the use of images—representations of buddhas, bodhisattvas, lohans, patriarchs, and other sacred figures associated with the Buddhist tradition in China—as icons and the use of images in various noniconic ways. By “icon” I mean an image, either two- or three-dimensional, of a sacred personage that serves as the focal point of an active cult (worship or propitiation) of the figure depicted. In Chinese Buddhism, there is a clear sense that such images not only resemble the beings represented, but actually embody or provide a “seat” (zuo) for their invisible spirits (ling). When used as icons, images are...

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