Dharma Drum Journal of Buddhist Studies

　　This iconographic study identifies the name, content, features, and nature of various works of Buddhist art. The authors contend that any study of Buddhist art – sculpture or painting – must consider its content and meaning, including the teachings intended to be conveyed by pictorial representations of Buddhist doctrines. Buddhist art, which originated as a religious art form to spread its teachings, was intended to convey beliefs and be used in worship, not solely to be appreciated aesthetically. The goal, content, image-composition and aesthetic style of Buddhist art are all subject to the needs of the Buddhist religion. Moreover, an iconographic study of Buddhist art should include both longitudinal and cross-sectional research on works in the same region that were produced at different historical periods, or vice versa, so as to determine how they evolved and developed. This paper engages in such a study of the relationship between Buddhist sculptures of the Southern Dynasties in Chengdu and different styles of early Buddhist art in India.

　　There are hardly any comparative iconographic studies of the origin of the Buddhist stone sculptures in Chengdu during the Southern dynasties in previous scholarly. Most scholars hold that these Buddhist sculptures came up from Jiankang (present-day Nanjing, in Jiangsu province) on the Yangtze River, and were originally transmitted to China by sea from South India to Southeast Asia during the 5^th century and the first half the 6^th century. Nevertheless, they have failed to attend to the characteristics of the image-compositions of Indian Buddhist art between the 2^th and the 6^th centuries and their transmission route to China. The authors of this paper explore the origin of such Buddhist stone sculptures in Chengdu from the Southern dynasties by comparing them with Buddhist stone sculptures of both early and late Gandhāra style, i.e., the white-plaster sculptures of India and Afghanistan, the Buddha images of Mathurā art of the Gupta period, and Buddha images of Sārnāth style. On the basis of their comparative iconographic study of the image structure and the image composition of such Buddha images, they draw a reasonable conclusion concerning the relationship between the two.

Key words:
Iconography; the Buddhist Sculptures of Southern Dynasties in Chengdu; Gandhara Style; Mathura Style; the Style of Gupta Period