The cluster “Transformation Tableaux” examines the connection between so-called transformation texts and transformation tableaux found in Dunhuang. A central aim of the project is to bring together text and image, and document their use in a ritual context, thereby shifting the focus from manuscripts and art objects to why, how and by whom they were produced. An equally important aspect is to situate the relevant Dunhuang material in the wider cultural and religious currents of the Silk Road region.
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Research for this cluster is primarily concerned with several extant caves from the Northern Dynasties period in Hebei and Henan provinces where sūtras were carved and images with inscriptions remain. For the purpose of propagation or preservation of Buddhist texts, at least in the mid-sixth century, Chinese Buddhist monks and laypeople started to carve texts (usually accompanied by Buddhist images) on the stone in grottoes and monasteries. These stone carving materials not only provide the earliest version of many sutras but also allow scholars to study the history of the practice and transmission of the Buddhist schools in Medieval China.
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The main goals of the “Texts in Statues” cluster are to identify, catalogue, and study all statues from China, Korea, and Japan with manuscripts and texts that have been interred inside of them. Included in the scope of this project will be statues in situ in Asia as well as those in museums in Asia or abroad. Researchers in each area will be charged with compiling an annotated bibliography of:
1) Primary sources (canonical and extra-canonical) that describe the interment of material inside of statues;
2) Academic studies of known statues containing manuscripts and texts; and
3) Mentions of the interment of texts in other historical or literary sources.
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This cluster will investigate the development of specific patterns of text-image relations in East Asian Buddhist iconography, with a focus on Chinese sites but if possible also including data from Korea and Japan. We attempt to analyze how textual and visual media interact with (and reference to) each other and how Buddhist themes were programmatically arranged in cliff and cave sites, and how these arrangements were related to ritual uses and accommodated specific religious (and possibly other) needs/purposes in the local environments.
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