Intriguing Relations between India, China, and Tibet

Among the bronzes that Ulrich von Schroeder documented in some of the major monuments of Tibet, this Crowned Buddha stands out for the questions it poses.1 Of Indian origin, it features a Chinese inscription on its back, and today it is in the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. This object raises a number of intriguing issues relating to the transmission of Buddhism from India.

East Asian Pilgrims to India

Much of what we know about Indian Buddhism in the second half of the first millennium CE stems from the reports Chinese and Korean pilgrims wrote for their home audiences. Their presence in India covers the emergence of esoteric Buddhist teachings, a development that can be approximated on the basis of dated Chinese translations of Indian texts. This bronze speaks directly to these connections through the Chinese inscription found on its back (fig. 2).

The main parts of this inscription, to be read in vertical rows from left to right, have been translated as follows:

The dharma master Huichao [of the] Kaiyuansi [-monastery in] Anxi [has this statue] made on his tour [through India ], vowing [that] all groups of living beings of the dharma realm may reach enlightenment [literally: become Buddha] and realize the way [of the Buddha]. Copied [in the] monastery of Nalanda in the middle of the kingdom of East-India. . . . [reach] high age, father and mother [may be] reborn in heaven. . . . happiness.2

Taken literally, the inscription informs us that the dharma master Huichao, of Kaiyuan Monastery in Anxi, had this bronze made in Nalanda Monastery in northeastern India for the sake of his parents. Huichao is also the Chinese name of the Korean pilgrim Hyecho, of whom a fragmentary pilgrimage report has been found in the Dunhuang Library Cave. According to this report, he visited India from 724 to 727 before arriving via Central Asia in Anxi, on the western end of the Gansu Corridor, late that year.3 However, trying to bring these facts together is far from straightforward, and Max Deeg thus asks in his study of the bronze if Hyecho (Huichao) had later gone back to India. The issue is that Hyecho reached Anxi only at the end of his trip, and that the system of Kaiyuan state monasteries was not established until 738. But can such an overlap in information between the bronze and the biography of this eminent monk be accidental?

An Informative Back

On the back of the nimbus, the bronze has a second inscription, the commonly applied consecration verse (ye dharma . . .), in the northeastern Indian Gaudiya or Siddhamatrika script. But the execution of the script differs remarkably from that of the Chinese text. Deeg has already assumed that the Chinese text must have been executed by somebody not familiar with the script but merely copying it. I want to add to this that given the gradation of strokes achieved with the Indic script and the absence of such gradation in the Chinese text, it is unlikely that the copyist had seen the text painted with a brush. 

Observing the back of this sculpture provides direct insight into its production. The parts of the throne appear to have been molded separately in wax and then joined together, often using additional wax to strengthen the connection. We can observe this at the back of the two bodhi leaves on top of the nimbus, the frame of the throne, the back cushion placed between the two uprights of the throne, the throne animals, and, in particular, the strings of pearls hardly recognizable as such hanging at the sides of the throne. While the object was expertly cast, the fact that some of the rougher patches were not smoothed out hints at a workshop production.

Seen from the front, the bronze produces a similar impression of an object finely made, but not exceptionally so. The minimalist modeling contrasts with the exuberant use of inlays, whether copper and silver for the lotus petals, dress, and presumably also eyes and mouth, or semiprecious stones along the periphery of the bronze. Of the latter, only the setting remains in most cases.

Esoteric Awakening

In this bronze, the Buddha, performing the earth-touching gesture (bhumisparsha mudra), is bejeweled and crowned, an iconography that alludes to his esoteric awakening. According to tantric sources, the awakening under the bodhi tree, two leaves of which are placed on top of the nimbus, does not represent the actual awakening of the Buddha. The latter takes place in Akanishtha heaven in the form of a tantric initiation by the Buddhas of the Ten Directions. The crown initiation is part of this esoteric initiation, and the rich set of inlays found on the bronze can be seen as signifying a miraculous event. 

The Buddha sits on a throne executed in fine detail with a back cushion fitted between the uprights of the throne back. The two horned lions standing on elephants are part of the traditional throne ornamentation. The two somewhat abstracted stupas on top of the throne back can be read as hints toward the past and future Buddha and the continuation of the Buddha’s teaching.  

Northeastern Indian Bronzes

The chronology of northeastern Indian art is a complex issue. It largely relies on inscriptions mentioning the regnal years of different Pala dynasty rulers, some names of which are repeated multiple times, and the development of the diverse scripts used within the realm that can also be related to manuscripts. They make it possible to assess the development of the stone sculptures of a site on the basis of provenanced objects and the interrelations between these sites. Given the flourishing of artistic production in the entire northeastern Indian region, much of it related to major monastic or pilgrimage sites, such as Nalanda, Vikramashila, or Bodhgaya, this results in a complex picture that is increasingly refined.4 It is more difficult to attribute bronzes to a site, as they are generally rarer, yet more diverse.5 

Based on their art historical judgment in this light—and supported by Gourishwar Bhattacharya’s assessment of the Gaudiya (that is, Siddhamatrika) script as belonging to the tenth or eleventh centuries—art historians have dated this bronze to the tenth century, much later than the Chinese inscription implies.6 Indeed, comparing any of the details of this bronze with dated or roughly datable bronzes of the region, the tenth century is the most likely production date. Some details, like the cushion between the throne uprights, seem comparable to earlier examples, while others, such as the Buddha’s crown, the shape of the bodhi leaves, and the rich inlay, relate to bronzes produced under rulers of the tenth and eleventh centuries. This attribution relies on stylistic features and is independent of the iconography, which would also be relevant to the mid-eighth century.

Northeastern India and Tibet

Stylistically, the bronze can be considered typical of northeastern India’s high-quality sculptural production during the time in which Tibetans adopted Buddhism. But although numerous Tibetans traveled to the holy places and monasteries of India on pilgrimage and to receive teachings, there are only a few instances when Tibetan artistic creation can be directly linked to the artistic production of northeastern India. Depictions of the life of the Buddha based on the concept of the eight great events provide probably the most prominent example of such a direct impact.7 In this connection, it is interesting to note that the crowned Buddha appears not to have been employed for such compositions in early Tibetan art, even though the esoteric awakening has, for example, been used to guide the iconographic program of the Tabo Assembly Hall.

Likely Scenario

Given its Chinese inscription, the bronze has been lauded as the only material confirmation of the presence of any East Asian pilgrims in India,8 which is doubtlessly the case. But taking the different disciplinary viewpoints considered above into account, this evidence appears not to be as direct as one would hope. The most likely scenario is that this bronze was produced for a Chinese monk, of whom we have no record, with the same name as the one used by the famous Korean pilgrim. Another possibility would be that it replicates an earlier bronze and its inscription, which may well have been considered auspicious.

How the bronze ended up in the Potala Palace is another intriguing question. If the Chinese monk took it to his home monastery, it may have reached Tibet from there. In the second scenario, a Tibetan pilgrim may well have acquired it in India and taken it back to Tibet. The bronze thus documents the complex network of Buddhist travels at the time Tibet adopted Buddhism. The collections of Tibetan monasteries preserve plenty of evidence in this regard, but none of them quite literally brackets Tibet in the way this bronze does.