"Seeing" the "Ordinary" at Lingyan Temple in Eleventh-Century China.

Abstract

This dissertation explores the little studied grouping of twenty-seven eleventh-century luohan (Skt: arhats) figures in Thousand Buddha Hall 千佛殿 at Lingyan temple 靈巖寺 in Shandong province to recover their place within the artistic, religious, and intellectual trends of the Song dynasty (960-1279). Dated to 1066, these life-size clay sculptures depict luohan— historio-mythical enlightened monks tasked with protecting Buddhism on earth—with a naturalism that blurs the visual distinction between luohan and monks. Not presented as sacred and supernatural divinities, these are instead rendered as “ordinary” clerics. Focused on the artistic and discursive practices around pictorial naturalism and the viewing strategies involved with “seeing” religious imagery during the Song period, this study offers three primary points. First, correlating the gestures, poses, and naturalism of the figures with contemporary monastic imagery and practice reveals the temple’s engagement with contemporary Chan Buddhist practices and politics. During the years the sculptures were produced, the visual demonstration of the monastic community’s competency in these matters would have been important, as Lingyan temple was being incorporated into the legal structure of the state and a larger network of Chan Buddhist institutions with its registration in 1070 as a Chan public monastery. Second, the naturalistic style of the sculptures raised concerns around the “truth” of imagery for a range of Song educated people—from Chan monks to civil officials, poets, and others. For these diverse viewers, the sculptures would have acted as sites for negotiation around the function of similitude, the objectivity of representation, and the authenticity of a represented subject. Appeal to these potential viewers and donors would have helped raise the temple’s public visibility, securing its financial and institutional viability. Third, the viewing strategies of that potential public were diverse; “seeing” was not a singular experience during this period. Encounters with the Lingyan temple sculptures would have been shaped by a multiplicity of factors, including social and religious protocols, expectations of responses from divinities, and skepticism around viewing. Not simply objects of Buddhist devotion, these sculptures could be viewed as religious objects, as works of artwork, or both.