The art and politics of Watermoon Avalokiteshvara paintings in East Asia during the 8th to 14th centuries

Abstract

Watermoon Avalokiteshvara is a specific manifestation and representation of the Buddhist deity Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara first developed in the metropolitan capitals of Chang’an and Luoyang in Tang China (618-907 CE) in the 8th century. This subject matter was actively adopted and appropriated by East Asian polities in the following centuries. By the 14th centuries, Yuan China (1271-1368 CE), Kamakura Japan (918-1392 CE) and the Koryo Kingdom (918-1392) in Korea were all important centres of production and consumption of this imagery. As one of the first representations of Avalokiteshvara developed in China that is not based on scriptural specifications, this subject matter had attracted scholarly interest since the early 20th century. While previous scholarship has shed much light on the iconographic and stylistic aspects, the socio-political context of Watermoon Avalokiteshvara paintings remains inadequately addressed. The few pioneering attempts by more recent scholarship in connecting the paintings to their context are informative. Yet the nationalistic overtones and the arbitrary associations of certain stylistic features to specific class within a society adopted in these studies have their limitation. It inhibits a more nuanced recognition of the agency of a larger spectrum of viewers and consumers within and between the polities. Responding to this lacuna, this thesis is a full-length comprehensive inquiry into Watermoon Avalokiteshvara paintings’ socio-political context within East Asia during the 8th to 14th centuries. Multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary in scope, this thesis made full use of both religious and secular textual and visual evidences from the period. The aim is to reconstruct the complex networks of inspiration that informed the innovations in the modes of representation, circulation and appropriation of Watermoon Avalokiteshvara. Beginning with a critical evaluation of Watermoon Avalokiteshvara in China during the 8th to 12th century. This contextual study advocates for the necessity to consider the imagery’s iconographic and stylistic fluidity and constancy alongside contemporaneous changing political and aesthetic preferences. These considerations also informed the study on the Watermoon Avalokiteshvara paintings under the three non-Chinese polities of Yuan, Japan and Koryo in the latter parts of this thesis. By charting the distinctive Buddhist visual culture of these polities, this thesis reclaims the active agency of these polities beyond the traditional Sino-centric perspective. These considerations were further supported by study on the international Buddhist and commercial network that developed from the 9th century onwards. Taken together, this thesis reclaims the interconnectedness within a larger East Asia context that informed the creation, consumption and circulation of Watermoon Avalokiteshvara during 8th to 14th centuries.