Life of Lord Buddha from Chinese Sutras Illustrated in Ming Woodcuts

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This Life of Lord Buddha is a reproduction of the Shib-chia ju-lai ying-bua shib-chi, a collection of important episodes in the life of Lord Buddha, cited from different Sutras translated into Chinese from the 3rd to the 13th century. The citations are illustrated on opposite pages, so that the pious could visualise the Dharma of the Tathagata. They are 'Visual Dharma'. The Chinese has been translated into English. It was compiled by monk Pao-ch'eng during the Ming period. It was revised by Prince Yung-shan the grand nephew of Emperor K'ang-hsi. He had new woodcuts done in 1787-93. The landscape, buildings, persons, city layouts, gardens, etc are styled as was done in the 18th century. The simple lines, athirst for the beauty of the beyond, were to deepen the spiritual tone. A Chinese proverb says: "a picture is a voiceless poem, a poem is a vocal picture". The hieratic art of this volume is an evocation of the Chinese proverb in its powerful lines and in its tranquil śūnyatā of minimal art. It has been translated into English for the first time. It is of interest to scholars of Buddhist art, thought, social life, and hagiography.

The book is a homage to the extensive field-work and intensive researches of Prof. Raghuvira, his children, disciples and friends: Indian, Indonesians and Europeans. It investigates the diverse vicissitudes of cultural history as a unique phenomenon of two cousin cultures. The sky-kissing candis, kakawins, parwas, wayangs are melodies that resonate in the carnival of Time and in the kiss of the Eternal. Here you may hear the conch shell resounding on the coconut leaves on the shores of the seas sanctified by the Temple of Varuna, the only one in the world.

Prof. Lokesh Chandra is a renowned scholar of Tibetan, Mongolian and Sino-Japanese Buddhism. He has to his credit over 400 works and text editions. Among them are classics like his Tibetan-Sanskrit Dictionary, Materials for a History of Tibetan Literature, Buddhist Iconography of Tibet, and the Dictionary of Buddhist Iconography in 15 volumes. Prof. Lokesh Chandra was nominated by the President of the Republic of India to the Parliament in 1974-80 and again in 1980-86. He has been a Vice-President of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, and Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research. Presently he is Director, International Academy of Indian Culture.

My father Prof. Raghu Vira was charmed by China's art, its powerful lines and diaphanous colors, the solidarity of her poets and painters with the mist of the brush, beauty born of murmuring sound, the idealism inherent in her landscape art which they evocatively spoke of as shan-shui or 'mountain and water', the fervour of hieratic Buddhist visuals deriving from inner life and contemplation. The contrast produced by empty space, the swirling flames of the halos of deities, the scholarly poets and monk artists in the illusion of meditation gave a subtlety to the visual expression of East Asia, A Chinese proverb says: "A picture is a voiceless poem, a poem is a vocal picture". Art critics of East Asia speak of sixteen ways of drawing the wrinkles or curvatures of mountains corresponding to their geological formations. The contemplation of the human form of Lord Buddha, and the unsymmetrical disposition of the branches of the Bodhi tree in the attractive power of empty space were the growing beyond. The Buddhist art of China is the romance of the mind in the tranquil wonder and beauty of spiritual adventure. The profoundly simple lines, athirst for the beauty of the beyond, became a translation of the Sutras into woodcuts to deepen the spiritual tone of the faithful. My father introduced me to this art in 1939 when his Japanese disciple Dr. Yamamoto Chikyo left for his country on the eve of the darkening clouds of the Second World War. I had studied Japanese with Dr. Yamamoto for nearly three years and my father wanted me to take up Chinese as the Classical foundation of Japanese language and literature, visual arts and culture in its widest connotation. I knew around two thousand Chinese ideograms and 1 could begin to read the Chinese text of the travel account of the earliest recorded Chinese monk Fa-hsien who had come to India in search of the books of Buddhist vinaya or monastic discipline in AD 399 and travelled across India for fifteen years (till AD 414). Father gave me the English translation of Fa-hsien by James Legge, published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford in 1886. It had the Chinese text in large characters which delighted me by their clarity. It had a number of illustrations "from a superb edition of a History of Buddha, republished recently at Hang-ch'au in Cheh-kiang, and rofusely illustrated in the best style of Chinese art" (preface of James Legge, p. xi). An illustration reproduced on the next page from James Legge.