Today we come to see the Yungang Open-air Giant Buddha in Datong, Shanxi.
Although this is a seated statue, it is 13.7 meters high, which is about the height of a four-story building in an ordinary house.
This Buddhist temple was originally not open-air, but later it became an open-air sculpture due to the collapse of the building outside.
It is a classic work that must not be missed in the history of Chinese art.
Why do people build such a huge Buddha statue?
This question is not difficult to understand-throughout the history of the world, we know that people are always willing to make the greatest effort to maintain and strengthen their beliefs.
The key is, how to make it? What will it look like in the end?
? Magnificent momentum
Let's first talk about how it can be so grand?
This question is very interesting, we can compare it with the Dunhuang mentioned in the previous section.
Yungang is as famous as Dunhuang, but its functions are completely different.
Dunhuang Grottoes
Built on the edge of the desert, it gradually developed into a "service area" for the merchants on the Silk Road to pray and worship.
It is purely folk, but also regional, and the scale of the cave is relatively small.
Dunhuang murals are painted on the wall.
Yungang Grottoes
was built in Northern Wei Dynasty , representing the imperial grandeur.
Yungang's frescoes are reliefs-carved directly on the walls of the grotto .
Yungang Grottoes is actually the only cave in Chinese history that was completely excavated by the emperor.
Royal aura is not only reflected in the size of the Buddha,The overall scale of Yungang Grottoes is also amazing.
The construction of the main part of the Yungang Grottoes took about 30 years.
The entire grotto is excavated against the mountain, stretching for one kilometer from east to west, and there are 53 main caves;
Buddha statues, bodhisattva statues, offering statues and other large and small statues are put together, there are almost more than 50,000.
It was Emperor Wencheng of the Northern Wei Dynasty who led the construction of the grottoes.
The Northern Wei Dynasty was an important dynasty of during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties . The capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty was built in Pingcheng , which is now Datong.
The Northern Wei Dynasty respected Buddhism. After Emperor Wei Wencheng took the throne, he paid more attention to Buddhism. So he invited a high monk, monk Tan Yao, to excavate the five caves of Tan Yao in Pingcheng. In the center of these five caves there stood a huge . Tathagata, used to symbolize the five emperors of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
It is said that this largest open-air Buddha was carved based on the image of Emperor Daowu, the founding emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Buddha, emperor, new country and culture, the three are united in this great Buddha.
? The supreme beauty of the idea
This kind of bigness is not only the size, but also the supreme and most beautiful idea.
When you meet him, you will feel the beauty of vastness, tranquility, and kindness.
The Buddha is well-proportioned and simple in shape, sitting cross-legged.
When we look below, we think this stone seems to be loose, but from the top of the chest, it is basically granite . The stone is very hard and difficult to carve.
It is precisely because the stone is hard, so until 1500, when we look at the Yungang Open-air Buddha, we can still clearly see the thick shoulders, the plump face, the plump lips, and the strong nose.
Let's look at the details of his face again.
From the front, the bridge of the nose is a straight and wide plane, clean,There are no other traces at all.
The straight bridge of the nose and the nostrils form a right angle of almost 90 degrees. This angle is very suitable and beautiful.
Then you look at his mouth. The lips are thin, and the corners of the mouth are deeply sunken into the plump cheeks. The whole shape is very powerful and not flat.
The big Buddha's facial lines are clear and sharp, no matter what angle it looks at, the eyebrows are clear, with sharp edges and corners.
Yungang Giant Buddha There is a touch of seriousness in the kindness. How can this solemnity be manifested?
Let's take a look at his eyes.
According to scholars, the people of the Liao Dynasty, Khitan , made a big hole in his eye when he was restoring this group of grottoes and put black colored glaze eyes.
You may want to ask, is this kind of stone sculpture putting a black glass eyeball, isn't it visually exciting?
No, because these sculptures were originally colored, and to this day, you can still see traces of various colors in some of the crevices of the statues.
Imagine the four-story Buddha back then, with flesh-colored skin, colorful body, backlit with flames, and various splendid decorations such as flowers, grasses, and flying sky.
Whether it is the emperor or an ordinary person, crawling in front of him, what do you see?
, of course, shouldn't be a white eye without eyeballs, but a pair of amiable, kind and solemn eyes of a god, looking at his tiny self with concern, as if communicating with his eyes.
The Khitan people must have thought that these kind and solemn eyes should never fade, so they punched a hole ten centimeters in diameter and twenty centimeters in depth, and made colored glaze eyeballs.
You can imagine how majestic the Lord Buddha was. People stand in front of this Buddha, and they have no other choice but to bow their knees to him.
? Cultural integration
From the perspective of art history,This kind of beauty certainly has the will of the emperor and the inspiration of religion, but there is one more thing we haven't discussed.
This beauty is also the result of cultural fusion.
This big Buddha has a characteristic that cannot be seen from the perspective of tourists and cannot be displayed in publications: he has a beautiful little horoscope that connects from his mouth to his cheeks, which is very cute. It can only be seen from the front-view angle.
Attached is a close-up head-up photo of the Big Buddha. Look at these two mustaches.
These two moustaches often appeared in early Indian Buddhism, but they gradually disappeared in the later Buddhist sculptures in China, which also reflects the process of Sinicization of Buddhism. What does
look like?
It is a bit like KFC after arriving in China, it also began to sell rice porridge, small pickles, fried dough sticks, soy milk, and became a Chinese-style KFC.
After the sinicization and secularization of Buddhism, it has moved towards the aesthetic pursuit of exquisite bones and clear statues.
A beautiful and slender image, as we said in the last class, is a beautiful and slender image.
In the history of art, we call this process the transition from Sanskrit to Chinese, which means from Indian style to Chinese style.
This transition probably began to appear in the fourth century AD, from the Northern Zhou Dunhuang caves in the first clues, and finally became Sinicized. The iconic work is the Big Buddha of the Fengxian Temple in Luoyang in the Tang Dynasty.
The Big Buddha of Fengxian Temple in Longmen Grottoes:
Hundreds of years passed.
After the Tang Dynasty, when you look at the Buddha statues, they are completely Chinese, with few traces of Indian culture.
Buddhism has now become Chinese Buddhism and part of Chinese culture.
So is the open-air Buddha at the 20th Grotto of Yungang Buddha, a Chinese Buddhist image?
is not yet.It is still in the transitional stage from Sanskrit to Han, and it still retains many traces of Indian culture.
In addition, after the Northern Wei Dynasty moved to Luoyang, it also changed its cultural orientation. Wearing Hanfu and using Chinese characters also went through a process of Sinicization.
can be said to be from Fan to Han.
Therefore, the Yungang Buddha is an important cultural achievement between Fanhan and Han Dynasty.
not only marks the root of Buddhism in China, but also a glorious point in the development of Buddhism in China.
These two not-so-obvious mustaches may only be regarded as a secret clue.
If you look at the robes on the body of the Yungang Giant Buddha, it becomes more obvious.
First of all, his drape is very particular.
Although draped over the shoulders, the right shoulder is more exposed.
This style of clothing follows the Indian Buddhist tradition.
The robes are ancient Indian words, meaning "can't see the color", because the standard robes are also called 百家衣 , which are clothes made of cloth strips from begging for alms.
Secondly, what is more noteworthy is the style and expression of its clothes pattern.
There are fine lines on the clothes, and the clothes stick to the body, showing the shape of the body faintly.
This kind of expression is actually indirectly passed from distant ancient Greece.
This is very interesting and very important. It is worth spending more time to learn more about it.
Today, let's remember this knowledge first, and in the next lecture, we will learn more about the origin of this sculpture style.
Now you know, Yungang Giant Buddha, why is there such a style?
It is not only huge in size, but also a manifestation of the imperial aura and the cultural power of a new dynasty.
also allows us to see that cultural integration is a broad and far-reaching process.
The reason why Chinese culture is great and prosperous is not because it has the ability to create out of thin air, but because it is extremely inclusive and can enrich itself with foreign objects.
This Yungang Buddha,It is the crystallization of multiculturalism and the testimony of Sino-foreign exchanges and Fan-Han exchanges.
Okay, that's the introduction of the Yungang Giant Buddha.
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