To Carry on The Past and Open A Way for Future
--Grottos Art in Sui Dynasty--

In A.D.589, Sui Dynasty united the whole country and ended almost 300 years chaos caused by war. It brought the relative peace and steady life to various nationalities and established the united political situation.

The Emperor Yang of Sui Dynasty Yang Guang was a famous tyrant in Chinese history, but he adopted the active policy to support the Buddhism. Especially after he calmed down south of the lower reaches of the Changjiang River, he protected and coordinated the Buddhism in South and did many contribution to uniting southern Buddhism and northern Buddhism. And then, in the short period of over 30 years that Sui Dynasty established the country, lots of Buddhist cultural remains were left to the late generations. The Buddhist artworks of Sui Dynasty were kept in Longmen Grottos, Tianlong Mountain Grottos, Binling Temple Grottos, Maiji Mountain Grottos, Xumi Mountain Grottos and Xiangtang Mountain Grottos. Compared with the above, the artworks of Sui Dynasty in Dunhuang Mogao Grottos were the abundant all over the country.

In Mogao Grottos, over 80 grottos were carved in Sui Dynasty and this number was egregious. Seeing from the form of its inner structure, there were still the central pillar grotto, which was popular in the Northern Dynasties, and they were the large-scale grottos. The central pillar directly to the ceiling was cut in the back of the main room and the single-decker niche was built in pillar’s back and its both sides. The images of Buddha and his two prentices were molded inside the niche. Instead of building a niche in front of the central pillar, the 3 or 4-meter large images of one Buddha and two Bodhisattvas were molded sticking to the pillar. In addition, the sitting images of one Buddha and two Bodhisattvas were molded in the northern and southern sides of the main room and they formed the subject of Three Periods Buddha and formed the wide hall in front of the central pillar. So it had the function of sermon, such as the No.297 Grotto and No.427 Grotto. In addition, the images of gods and Hercules were in the both sides of front room of central pillar grotto. Their height was nearly 3 or 4 meters and protected the Buddhist doctrine.

A new central pillar grotto appeared in Mogao Grottos of Sui Dynasty. The plane of the grotto was quadrate. There was a quadrate altar under the central pillar and a circular niche was respectively built in four sides of the pillar; the lotus and four dragons were covered in the upper part of the pillar and supported Buddhist fairy mountain—Xumi Mountain. Xumi Mountain was the famous mountain in Indian myth and was adopted by Buddhism in later. Tradition had it that Dishitian lived in the peak and the four gods guarded the mountainside. The seven fragrant seas and seven golden hills surrounded it. The Xumi Mountain in the central pillar grotto of Sui Dynasty in Mogao Grotto was a token. The massif showed the verse filler-shape and it was divided into six floors. The small thousand Buddha were stuck on each floor. The No.302 Grotto and No.303 Grotto belonged to this style. The front part of the ceiling was herringbone and it was obviously the style of former dynasty. In late Sui Dynasty, the central pillar gradually changed qualitatively; the central pillar of No.305 Grotto left the altar and had no Xumi Mountain; the No.282, No.280, No.287, No.293, No.295, No.312 and No.419 grottos were used to use this herringbone style. Some style was moved to the back part of the room or made a whole herringbone ceiling. The character of those grottos developed from the worshiping place to the hall of expounding Buddhist doctrine.

In fact, the main style of Mogao Grottos in Sui Dynasty was Buddhist Hall Grotto. This kind of grotto developed from the single-niche Buddhist Hall Grotto of Northern Zhou Dynasty. Its plane was foursquare and its ceiling was filler shape and showed slope shape. Some grottos had one niche in the front room, and some grottos had three niches in front and both sides. It meant that the style of Mogao Grottos had more and more Hanzu’s style.

The grottos of Sui Dynasty had images group: for example, there were 11 images in No.244 Grotto, five in the front wall and three in both southern and northern sides. Many grottos had the image in the front wall and the sermon mural which prentices and Bodhisattva surrounded Buddha was painted in northern and southern sides. In Northern Dynasties, it was popular that the stories of Jataka and Causes were painted in the ceiling. In addition, as another Buddhist sutra, the sutra painting began to develop. Although they emphasized some basic doctrine of the Buddhist sutra, they contained related stories. They structure of composition of a picture was completely different from the former. There had been Amitabha Sutra, Maitrga Shangsheng Sutra, Fahua Sutra and Vemogy Sutra and so on. In Tang Dynasty, the sutra painting developed into the large whole-wall sutra painting. We will pay special attention to the sutra paintings in the later part of the article.

In the aspection of molding image, the more style of Northern Zhou Dynasty was kept in early period. The characteristic of bodily form was bigger head, wide shoulders and short lower limbs. In the late Sui Dynasty, people paid more attention to graceful bodily form of characters, such as slim waist, slim body and fleshy skin. The Bodhisattva was farther feminized. They had comely faces and light-footed posture. Some Bodhisattvas bent the leg to form the natural reclining posture. And it indicated the feminine grace.

Besides few were offered to monks to cultivate themselves according to a religious doctrine, the more functions of most of the grottos were the place to expound Buddhist doctrine. Some sutra paintings painted in the ceiling were to cooperate the art content of preaching the Buddhism. So, why did the new situation appear? It should be talked from the basic doctrine.

The Indian Hinayana advocated “The Threefold Learning” in the way of cultivation, namely Morality, Concentration and Wisdom. “Morality” meant religious discipline; “Concentration” meant the dedicated spirit and acquiring the mental condition of making correct thought and judgment. In China, “Concentration” was often fixed with “Meditation”. “Wisdom” meant “Brightness” and it was to acquire the capability of judging the situation and right and wrong, and kind and evil by way of studying the Buddhist doctrine. On the basis, the Mahayana advocated “The Six Virtuous Acts”, including Offering, Obeying Mitzvah, Forbearance, Effort or Energy, Meditation, and Wisdom. When Buddhism was spread into China in Eastern Han Dynasty, the ideas of Mahayana and Hinayana were basically spread at the same time. In Northern Dynasties, the Buddhism emphasized making good earnestly to cultivation. From the art of Mogao Grottos, we could distinctly see the former five acts of “The Six Virtuous Acts” and litter last one. Because the murals couldn’t reflect the theory of Buddhist philosophy and not emphasize particularly on some sutra, they only taught the believers some specific practices.

Sui Dynasty uniting the country promoted the cultural exchange among different places. The Buddhist belief in north and south began to permeate and complement each other. The communication between northern and southern monks linked up the doctrines. The requirement of paying equal attention to theory and practice appeared and it was the way to break up the estrangement and preach both doctrines. It asked the Buddhist believers to pay attention to practice and intensify Buddhist theory cultivation.

Looking back the new characteristics of art in Mogao Grottos of Sui Dynasty, we could know the Buddha Grotto Hall’s building and sutra painting’s drawing were to preach the Mahayana philosophy. Seeing from the evolvement law of murals’ contents, thousand Buddha, history of Buddha and jataka that were used into the stories of deep meditation reduced increasingly and the sutra paintings increased quickly. Seeing from the requirement of making those artworks, the hope of eliminating the disasters and prolonging life and entering the Elysium increased. Compared with Northern Dynasties, the difficulty of being Buddha became less and less, and the speed became faster and faster. In Tang Dynasty, the material object and thought of the sutra exceeded the contents of Buddhist. Analyzing the above, in the process of Dunhuang Buddhist art development, the art in Mogao Grottos in Sui Dynasty made the historical effort to carry on the past and open a way for future.

Compiled by www.travel-silkroad.com
Translated by www.xinghui.com
February 12th, 2001