| Description |
xxiv, 487 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 26 cm |
| Contents |
1. The many treasures stupa : visionary signpost and cognitive model -- 2. Textual space and pictorial reconstitution -- 3. The circumstantial world and the numinous realm -- 4. Mapping and transformation -- 5. Mirroring and transformation -- 6. Chronotope and heterotopia |
| Summary |
"The Lotus Sutra has been the most widely read and most revered Buddhist scripture in East Asia since its translation in the third century. The miracles and parables in the "king of sutras" inspired a variety of images in China, in particular the sweeping compositions known as transformation tableaux which developed between the seventh and ninth centuries. Surviving examples in murals painted on cave walls or carved in relief on Buddhist monuments depict celestial journeys, bodily metamorphoses, cycles of rebirth, and the achievement of nirvana. Yet the cosmos revealed in these tableaux is strikingly different from that found in the text of the sutra. Shaping the Lotus Sutra explores this visual world." |
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"The book examines murals in cave shrines at Binglingsi and Dunhuang in northwestern China and relief sculptures in the grottoes of Yungang in Shanxi, on stelae from Siohuan and on the Dragon-and-Tiger pagoda in Shandong, among other sites. By tracing formal impulses in medieval Chinese picture-making, such as topographic mapping and pictorial illusionism, the author pieces together a wide range of visual evidence and textual sources to reconstruct the medieval Chinese cognitive style and mental world. The book is ultimately a history of the Chinese imagination."--BOOK JACKET |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 447-468) and index |
| SUBJECT |
Tripiṭaka. Sūtrapiṭaka. Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra -- Illustrations.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85116411
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| Subject |
Buddhist mural painting and decoration -- China.
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Mural painting and decoration, Chinese.
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Buddhist cave temples -- China.
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Buddhist art and symbolism -- China.
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| Genre/Form |
Pictures.
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| LC no. |
2004013585 |
| ISBN |
0295984627 hardback alkaline paper |
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