Ph.D. candidate, Art History
University of Chicago
Friday, December 3, 4- 6 pm
CWAC 156
Wholeness in the Face of Fragmentation: A Study of Wuyue Buddhist Relic Deposits
Abstract:
In recent years, a growing body of scholarship has examined the significance of the Buddhist relics from a variety of perspectives. Yet, it is often unclear what precisely the term “relics” refers to in the Chinese Buddhist context. In Chinese Buddhist texts, the term relics or sheli is often modified by other terms, implying the particular nature of the body of the Buddha present in the relic. This paper will investigate one of such terms, the “whole-body relics” or quanshen sheli, as conceptualized and materialized in the relic deposits of the Wuyue kingdom (907-978). I will offer two case studies in which the Yiqie rulaixin mimi quanshen sheli tuoluoni jing, a dharani-stura that involves the notion of the whole-body relics, played an important role. The first case is the printing of this dharani-stura and production of the miniature stupas, commissioned by Qian Hongchu (929-988), in the years between 955 and 965 AD. The second case is the relic deposits at Leifeng Pagoda for which the same sutras and miniature stupas were made but used in a different way in 970s.
