Reviews

EUGENE Y. WANG
Shaping the Lotus Sutra: Buddhist Visual
Culture in Medieval China
Seattle: University of Washington Press,
2005. 501 pp.; 21 color ills., 119 b/w.
160.00
Eugene Wang's book on the world of the
Lotus Sutra in medieval China is a new and
challenging contribution to the field of art
history of east Asia, an ambitious undertaking that explores the visual culture of the
most important and popular Buddhist scripture in China. While Wang's main focus is
on the popular genre of painting called
transformation tableaux (Jingbian) found
among murals in the cave temples at Dunhuang, he has no hesitation in turning to a
wide range of visual and textual materials to
outline the proper spatial, temporal, and
cognitive contexts of Lotus Sutra imagery.
Shaping the Lotus Sutra is also a book about
the complicated relation between text and
image, including the "gap between textual
and pictorial representation" (p. xiv) that
Wang bridges in an unconservative methodological manner. Instead of treating Chinese Lotus Siitra depictions in a systematic
chronological order, Wang takes the Lotus
Sutra as a linchpin for observations about
Buddhist pictorial art and culture of mainly
the seventh and eighth centuries and carries
these observations beyond traditional art
historical categories and considerations of
iconography.
One of Wang's major claims is tbat "a certain mental topography or imaginary world"
(p. xiv) shaped Lotus Sutra representations
and determined what was depicted and how
it was depicted, as well as what was not depicted at all. This position causes Wang to
overemphasize the role of the individual
painter (see especially chapters 2 and 5),
almost to the neglect of the influence of
wealthy donors, workshops, and clergy members who advised painters and craftsmen in
religious matters.' In the course of his book
Wang elucidates "a collective 'protopicture,'
or mental picturethe sort of stuff that
dreams are made of, so to speak" (p. 75).
The main strength of the book lies in
Wang's ability to analyze and describe visual
objects according to their inherent compositional principles, an ability that distinguishes an excellent art historian from the
common observer of art. In this respect,
chapter 5, titled "Mirroring and Transformation," is truly outstanding in detecting

the guiding principles of "the visual culture

of world making" (p. xiii). He knows how to
surprise his readers with unexpected, and
eye-opening, juxtapositions of Buddhist and
non-Buddhist pictorial schemes and illuminating diagrams. In addition, the book offers numerous side-by-side illustrations of a
certain sculpture or a painting in photographs and in drawings, sometimes even in
rubbings. These are helpful devices for the
reader to survey quickly the visual materials.
For all this, the book is characterized by less
than thorough research, and this reader was
often puzzled by conclusions that did not
appear to match the visual evidence.
In the first chapter, Wang deals with the
motif of the "Many Treasures Stupa" from
chapter 11 of the Lotus Sutra. His aim is to
show how tbis very popular image of tbe
twin Buddbas Sakyamuni and Prabhtaratna
sitting side by side can be connected to preBuddbist models in China, since it was unknown in India and central Asia. Further,
tbe Many Treasures Stupa motif "constitute [s] a locus around which a topography
of visionary experience could be built"
(p. xxiii) for the further development of the
imagery of the Lotus Sutra. Wang then discusses several versions of the Many Treasures Stupa motif and their accompanying
votive inscriptions, from the first extant wall
painting in Cave 169 at Binglingsi (420 CE)
to sculpted images in the cave temples of
Yungang, the earliest one dated to 489 CE
in the imperially donated Cave 5.
In Yungang Cave 38, wbich was founded
by a certain Wu family in the early sixth
century, Wang finds a good example of a
cave whose "temporal-spatial scheme . . . is
remarkably consistent," which he describes
as a "chronotope" (p. 55). While the main
wall is dominated by an image of the Many
Treasures Stupa, the side walls are occupied
by depictions of the Six Buddhas of tbe
Past, Buddha Sakyamuni, and Maitreya. The
author identifies Buddha Sakyamuni in a
pointed arcb niche and his predestined successor, the bodhisattva Maitreya, above in a
trabeated niche on the east wall. He points
out that the Buddha figure seated with pendant legs on the west wall also represents
Maitreya, as the trabeated niche in which he
sits indicates. In this cave he identifies "two
distinct spatial and temporal realms" (p. 57)
in alluding to the two aspects of the Maitreya cult, well known since Jan Nattier's
study of 1988,^ namely, the ascent to Tusita
Heaven, where the bodhisattva Maitreya can
be met here and now, and the descent to

Maitreya's paradise in Ketumati, where tbe

Buddhist believers might join his "Three
assemblies under the Dragon Flower Tree
there and in the future" (Wang's italics).
Wang prefers to identify tbe west wall Buddha as "Maitreya Buddha presiding over the
Tusita Heaven and greeting the newly arrived deceased soul" (p. 57). However, he
gives no explanation why Maitreya should
be depicted twice in Tusita Heaven, first as
a bodhisattva and second as a Buddha. Tbis
does not make sense because Maitreya will
achieve Buddbahood in our world and not
in Tusita Heaven, albeit in a distant future.
It turns out that Wang needs the "Maitreya
Buddha in Tusita Heaven interpretation"
because of the motif of flying apsaras, or
heavenly musicians, that is more prominent
on the north and west walls than it is on the
east wall (but not, as he states on p. 65, totally absent). The fiying apsaras serve him as
a station on the way that the soul of the Wti
family's deceased son is supposed to take
from the Many Treasures Stupa upward to
the ceiling, where more apsaras ride fantastic animals, and tben further on to the socalled Buddha Maitreya in Tusita Heaven,
where two newborn figures on lotuses are
shown on the trapezoidal arch above the
Buddha niche. Again, since tbis widely used
motif of newborn figures is also found on
the arch of the opposite wall, where the
bodhisattva Maitreya sits, it cannot be exploited for this interpretation.
Wang's treatment of Yungang Cave 38
exemplifies some of the methodological
flaws in Shaping the Lotus Sutra that might be
characterized as a combination of negligence and interpretation toward a predetermined end. This is also evident in Wang's
new and provocative look at the Wei Wenlang stela dated to 424 CE, so far the earliest known stela of a distinct Buddhist-Daoist
flavor (figs. 1.22-23). Since Wang considers
tbe Wei Wenlang stela to be an important
link between Han funerary carvings and the
Many Treasures Stupa motif from the Lotuj
Sutra, he identifies the two figures inside
the big niche on the obverse as Sakyamuni
and Prabhtaratna. The fact that the figure
to the left does not look Buddhist at all but
wears a Daoist gown is explained as not unusual for the early fifth century, wben Buddhism still borrowed many concepts, as well
as terms, from the indigenous Daoist religion. While Wang has a point in arguing
that the wording fodao xiang of the votive
inscription might well be understood as "an
image of tbe Buddhist Way" instead of "a

488

BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2008 VOLUME XC NUMBER 3

Buddhist and Daoist image," his further

conclusions about the overall composition
of the stela are less convincing. As in the
case of Yungang Cave 38, he reconstructs "a
symbolic topography traversed by the spirits
of Wei's deceased parents" (p. 45) along
the four sides of the stela. In fact, this assumed movement around the stela explains
neither the change of hand gestures in the
two Daoist-clad figures on the left-hand side
of the stela that are still called "Buddhas"
nor the identity of the figure on the reverse,
which resembles a pensive bodhisattva but
one wearing a secular, or Daoist, robe.
Wang sees in this figure a meditative Maitreya image that marks the end of the journey of the deceased souls. This identification is problematic. Asjunghee Lee has
demonstrated, not one single pensive bodhisattva figure in early Chinese Buddhist art
can be identified as an image of Maitreya.^
Rather, these figures represent Prince Siddhartha."* Interpretations of the Wei Wenlang stela as a Buddhist-Daoist stela^ or, as
Wang puts it, "a monstrous hybrid yoking
heterogeneous universes together" (p. 41),
seem more reasonable, particularly in light
of numerous Buddhist-Daoist stelae in the
museums of Yaoxian and Lintong in China
and in the Chicago Field Museum. These
stelae date from the sixth century on and
clearly illustrate how a particular Daoist iconography was formed, first by borrowing
from Buddhist iconography, then by establishing its own iconographie formulas.^
To justify the "journey of the soul" interpretation, Wang proposes that the compositional scheme of a carriage procession
placed immediately beneath a niche with
two figures sitting side by side, as found on
the Wei Wenlang stela, was derived from
Han tomb carvings and bricks and represents "a boundary-crossing situation"
(p. 41). This might be true for the two
smaller figures sitting in an open building
to the lower left of the main niche of the
Wei Wenlang stela that are identified as the
donor's parents in an inscription. But to
extend this argument to the twin figures of
the main niche stretches it too far.
In laying out chapters 2 and 3 in the introduction, Wang promises a new iconographie identification of the early-eighthcentury Lotus Sutra tableau in Cave 217 at
Dunhuang, which he places in the tradition
of an "imaginary topography" (p. xxiv). In
an attempt to identify the scenes narrated
clockwise, starting from the lower right corner of the composition, he looks through
all the chapters of the Lotus Sutra for textual
cues, and he finds them not only in the
well-known parable of the "Burning House"
from chapter 3 but also in the four "peaceful acts" of bodhisattvas in chapter 14, the
story of the Medicine King from chapter 23,
and, last but not least, in the "Former Affairs of King Wonderful Adornment" from
chapter 27, which justifies the host of royal

persons whom Wang identifies on the left

side ofthe tableau (fig. 2.10). At times
Wang turns to sources outside the Lotus
Sutra for identification, for example, when
he explains the two figures next to a skeleton, one kneeling and one standing (fig.
2.11 and p. 92), as two princes practicing
the Lotus Samadhi, which had been described by the founder of the Tiantai
school, Zhiyi (538-597) in his Mohe zhiguan
as "partly walking and partly sitting" (banxing banzuo). This association seems farfetched; it does not correspond to what is
depicted, since the second figure is not
walking at all but standing next to the body,
slighdy bending forward, with his arms
reaching out for the deceased in a gesture
of mourning and despair. The new iconographie identification Wang introduces also
includes his recognition of the celestial
spheres on top of the painting as the Summit of Being (Akanistha Heaven), inhabited
by ancestral spirits, which nicely fits into his
otherworld scenario of Chinese medieval
Buddhism.
To cut a long story short, the jingbian
painting on the south wall of Cave 217 has
recently, and more convincingly, been identified as an illustration of the Sutra of the
Dharani of the Jubilant Corona (Taisho no.
967.19.349-53). This identification has been
accepted and commented on by Wang
Huimin from the Dunhuang Research Institute.' According to the new interpretation,
the right side of the panel in Cave 217 tells
the story of Buddhapalita, traditionally regarded as the translator of the Dharani of the
Jubilant Corona, who traveled from Khotan
to China and met an old man on Mount
Wutai. This old man advised Buddhapalita
to return to his home country immediately
to fetch the Jubilant Corona. When the old
man suddenly disappeared, Buddhapalita
recognized him as a divine manifestation
and traveled to central Asia. Buddhapalita
finally brought the siitra to China and presented it to the emperor, who gave orders
for its translation. The scene in Cave 217 of
Buddhaplita's encounter with the old man
compares nicely to the large mural Manifestations on Mount Wutai on the west wall of
Cave 61 at Dunhuang, where it is provided
with an explanatory text in a cartouche.
Now we understand that the city with a
four-gated stupa inside, identified by Wang
as the Phantom City of the Lotus Sutra, represents the place in central Asia where Buddhapalita found the Jubilant Corona. The
large palace compound underneath is by no
means an illustration of the parable of the
prodigal son; it actually shows the palace of
the Chinese emperor, to whom the scripture is presented. The scenes at the bottom
and left side of the painting depict ritual
uses of the Jubilant Corona and the benefits
that are to be achieved by reciting or teaching it, including recovery from sickness and
safeguarding the passage of the souls of the

deceased to the heavens. Wang's "host of

royal persons" who listen to the teaching
Buddha turn out to be Sakra Devnm-Indra and his entourage, who have just descended for this purpose from his heaven
on top of Mount Sumeru, which is shown
above, inhabited by more celestial beings.
In light of this interpretation of the painting in Cave 217, which neatly explains the
narrative sequence of all the scenes on the
right side of the painting and the majority
of the remaining scenes, Wang's new interpretation comes across as rather unusual.
Certainly, Wang had remarked earlier that
"the celebration of the power and reward of
venerating the Lotus Sutra is the dominant
theme that dictates the assemblage of
scenes of both the bottom and left side of
the tableau" (p. 95), but he does not seem
to have considered that it might not be the
Lotus Sutra illustrated here but another
scripture more concerned with ritual. Wang
observes that on the right side the "Phantom City centers on an exotic, foreign-looking stupa of Western Region style" (p. 116),
but he did not recognize it as an illustration
of historical events in an uninterrupted narrative, representing the homeland of Buddhapalita.
In chapter 3, Wang takes the royal scenario of King Wonderful Adornment,
"which is certainly unusually prominent
compared with other narrative situations"
(p. 124), in Cave 217 as the point of departure to elaborate on the connection of the
donating Ym family with the imperial court
in Chang'an, and to assert the direct impact
of court policy on the formation of the jingbian. He goes so far as to say that Empress
Wu Zetian's renewed interest in Daoism
about 700 CE left its traces on the tableau
in its depiction of several types of flights to
immortality that were current in Daoist
scriptures at that time. But since the transformation tableau in Cave 217 does not depict scenes from the Loties Sutra, or the story
about King Wonderful Adornment, there is
nothing left to sustain this claim.
In chapters 4 and 5, Wang traces two
modes of visual representation exemplified
by the tableau in Cave 217 to earlier examples in Chinese art. The sequence of narrative scenes in a landscape setting at the bottom left- and right-hand sides of the panel
is classified as a "topographic map," while
the central panel of the Buddha preaching
to an assembly, constructed in a perspectival
mode, is compared in its visual function to
that of a mirror. Concerning the first visual
mode, Wang lines up Han dynasty vessels
with early topographic representations, birdscript decorations, a map from the tomb at
Mawangdui, and Daoist charts, in this case
on a mirror from the eighth century, to assert that they belong to a type of talismanic
picture that is continued in the Dunhuang
wall paintings. As one example, he quotes
the so-called Treasure Rain Sutra in Cave 321

REVIEWS: D'SOUZA ON CHU

(elsewhere alternatively identified as an illustration of the Sutra of the Ten Wheels, and
thereby closely connected to the cult of
bodhisattva Ksitigarbha) ,** which Wang considers to be characterized by an overwhelming iconography of demonology. In this
sense, the topographic mode "both maps
out the existential anxiety of the living
world and assures its viewer of survival by
way of its tortuous form evocative of the talismanic graphs and maps" (p. 237). In contrast, spatial or architectural illusionism is
supposed to present the ordered world of a
Buddha's Pure Land or paradise. While this
explanation works well with the relief on a
stela from Wanfosi, which pictures a geometrically arranged Pure Land at the top
and illustrates below in topographic mode
all the calamities encountered in this world
from the Guanyin chapter of the Lotus
Sutra, it cannot be generalized. There are
instances of Maitreya paradises that also use
the topographic mode of representation
(Dunhtiang Cave 445 and Yulin Cave 25),
albeit only describing the disaster-free,
peaceftil, and auspicious state of the human
world after the next Buddha has achieved
enlightenment.

Chosts cannot change their appearances in

a mirror. When they look in the mirror and
recognize themselves, they can banish themselves. In this way, the inner and outer
[spheres] are regulated."^ A similar explanation is found in Zhiyi's commentary on the
Vimalakrti-nirdesa-stra: "For example, when
a person who practices meditation does not
discriminate bad ghosts, he should install a
rectangular mirror. Even though a ghost is
able to delude the human eye, it cannot
change its original shape in a mirror."'"
Chapter 6 is dedicated to the four transformation tableaux reliefs of the Longhuta
(Dragon and Tiger Pagoda) of Shentong
monastery in Shandong Province. Wang
identifies the four reliefs iconographically
and then explains their underlying spatial
and temporal schemes. He observes that the
reliefs on the opposite sides relate to each
other in a "spatialized time scheme" that he
calls "past and future" for the symbolic
northsouth axis and "here and there" for
the symbolic east-west axis. To buttress his
case, Wang introduces the iconographie
program of the relic pagoda at Benyuan
monastery in Luquan, Hebei Province,
which is explained in a surviving votive inscription. However, Wang overlooks the fact
Chapter 5 opens with a striking characthat the iconographie program of this relic
terization of the preaching Buddha in the
pagoda (fig. 6.35) perfectly matches that of
recessed central panel of the tableau in
the Longhuta (fig. 6.21). The relief oppoCave 217 as a "mirror image of its implied
site the Maitreya in Tusita Heaven on the
viewerthat is, us" (p. 242). The plane
symbolic north side of the Longhuta should
between the frontally depicted Buddha
be identified as Maitreya residing in Ketuimage and the observer is tantamount to a
mati instead of "Sakyamuni in his Pure
mirror surface, or even a gate to another
Land of Vulture Peak." Moreover, the Budworld. Wang takes this as his starting point
dha statue seated below the Subjugation of
for investigations into the "perceptual exDemons relief of the symbolic east side, opchange between mirror and painting [that]
posite Amitbha and his Pure Land, which
reached its apex in the early eighth cenWang does not identify, is more likely Saktury" (p. 249). He tracks the mirror trope
down to traditional Chinese sources, such as yamuni. Again, Wang did not carefully investigate the materials he presents and thus
The Master Embracing Simplicity {Baopuzi),
misses an important point by single-mindand to Btiddhist sources like depictions of
edly following his line of interpretation.
the so-called karma mirror, the famous mirror installation by the scholar-monk Fazang
Shaping the Lotus Sutra is a beautifully il(643-712 CE), the third patriarch of the
lustrated book that connects a dazzling arHuayan school, and other cases of textual
ray of visual objects under the intellectual
evidence for minor halls. He concludes that auspices of notions of Chinese medieval
Cave 31 in Dunhtiang constitutes such a
world making, specifically through Dunmirror hall. Even though the east ceiling
huang transformation tableaux. The book is
slope of Cave 31 can no longer be considmore successful in uncovering similar prinered a Lotus Sutra tableau (but is, like Cave
ciples of composition in different media
217, an illustration of the Dhran of the fubi- from Han to Tang times than it is in intertant Corona), Wang is to be honored here
preting these objects by marshaling a broad
for being the first scholar to identify the
variety of textual sources, from votive inobjects in front of the meditating figures or
scriptions, historical sources, and Buddhist
on top of the architectural structures as
canonical scriptures to Daoist scriptures. All
rectangular mirrors. Wang might also have
the same, it offers a fresh and at times proremarked that rectangular mirrors seem to
vocative perspective on unsolved problems
have been used specifically to detect and
of Chinese Buddhist art. Vividly written, this
ward off evil spirits, and are thus more in
book guides the nonspecialist through the
accord with protective rituals like those
complexities of medieval Buddhist visual
propagated in the Dhran of the fubilant Coculture. Wang knows how to engage his aurona. In Zhiyi's Creat Calming and Contempla- dience with materials that the non-Chinese
tion, the following procedure is explained:
reader might otherwise never have known.
"Hermits and ascetics all keep rectangular
Albeit Wang's enthusiasm for his materials
mirrors and hang them behind their seats.
is appreciated, more consistency in matters

489

of methodology in Buddhist studies would

have proven useful in harvesting the fruits
of an inquiry about the relation between
images and texts in Chinese Btiddhist culture. Altogether, in the fields of art historical and textual studies it is certain to foster
more lively discussion and debate. And that
is no small achievement.
CLAUDIA WENZEL is research fellow in the
project "Buddhist Stone Scriptures in China"
at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and
Humanities [Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, "Buddhistische Steinschriften in China,"
Seminarstrasse 4, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany].

Notes
1. Sarah E. Fraser, Performing the Visual: The Practice of Buddhist Wall Painting in China and Cen-

2.

3.

4.

5.

tral Asia, 618-960 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).

Dan Nattier, "The Meanings of the Maitreya
Myth: A Typological Analysis," in Maitrtya, the
Future Buddha, ed. Alan Sponberg and Helen
Hardacre (Cambridge: Cambridge LJniversity
Press, 1988), 23-47.
Junghee Lee, "The Origins and Development
of the Pensive Bodhisaitva Images of Asia,"
Artihus AsiaebS, nos. 3-4 (1993): 3n-.57.
A fact observed in the review of Wang's book
by Miao Zhe, "Yishushi zhong de vvenxian yii
'jiafa'" [Textual sources and "domestic discipline" in the history of arts], Dushu (May
2006): 112-22.
Dorothy C. Wong, Chinese Steles: Pre-Buildhist
and Buddhist Use ofa Symbolic Form (Honolulu:

University of Hawai'i Press, 2004), 109-14,

who offers a more cautious analysis of icons,
donors, and votive inscription on this stela.
6. Ibid.; and Jean M.James, "Some Iconographie
Problems in Early Daoist-Buddhist Sculptures
in China," Archives of Asian Art 42 (1989): 7176.
7. Wang Huimin, "Cheng Tang shiji Dunhuang
Foding zunsheng tuoluoni jing kaoshi [Investigations in the Siitra of the Dhran of the Jubi-

lant Corona at Dunhuang from High Tang

dynasty]" (paper presented at the Joint Seminar on Buddhist Art, Yale University and Dunhuang Academy, Jtily 11, 2006).
8. Wang Huimin, "Dunhuang 321 ku, 74 ku Shikm jingbian kaoshi [Investigations in the
transformation tableaux of the Sutra of the Ten
Wheels in Caves 321 and 74 at Dunhnang],"
Yishushi yanjiu 6 (December 2004).
9. Zhiyi, Great Calming and Contemplation, T. 46,
no. 1911, p. 116, a21-24, trans. Chinese Electronic Tripitaha Collection, Feb. 2007: Taisho
Tripitaka Vol. 1-55 & 85; Shinsan Zokuzokyo
(Xuzangjing), Vot. 1-88, CD-ROM, CBETA

(Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association).

10. Ibid., T. 38, no. 1778, p. 644, c8-9.

PETRA TEN-DOESSCHATE CHU

The Most Arrogant Man in France:

Gustave Courbet and the NineteenthCentury Media Culture
Princeton: Princeton University Press,
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