Buddhist Pilgrim-Monks as Agents of Cultural and Artistic Transmission: The International Buddhist Art Style in East Asia, ca. 645–770 by Dorothy C. Wong

Abstract

Reviewed by: Buddhist Pilgrim-Monks as Agents of Cultural and Artistic Transmission: The International Buddhist Art Style in East Asia, ca. 645–770 by Dorothy C. Wong Akiko Walley Buddhist Pilgrim-Monks as Agents of Cultural and Artistic Transmission: The International Buddhist Art Style in East Asia, ca. 645–770. By Dorothy C. Wong. NUS Press, 2018. 366 pages. Hardcover, $52.00. In this monograph, Dorothy C. Wong executes the formidable task of catching the tail of the proverbial dragon. Her research, she explains in her preface (p. xv), sprang out of a simple question, derived from her teaching: What was "international" or "cosmopolitan" about the so-called "Tang international art style"—also known as the "East Asian international Buddhist art style" (EAIBAS)? Like Wong, scholars in the field of East Asian Buddhist art have most likely at one point or another taught something about EAIBAS, which swept through the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago during the seventh and eighth centuries. However, because the presence of this shared aesthetic style is so (deceptively) apparent, it has also largely escaped scholars' scrutiny. Wong investigates what EAIBAS constituted and how and why it was embraced so enthusiastically across great geographic distances during this period. Wong proposes to conceive of EAIBAS not as a stylistic trend in a vacuum, but as the expression of a new vision for a Buddhist-based utopian "cosmopolitan order" (the "Buddhist state" or "Buddhist empire") that was shared across East Asia (p. 3). One of her key concerns is to destabilize the "center-periphery" paradigm that is often employed to characterize the spread of art and culture in East Asia. She argues for a shift away from sinocentric discourse on EAIBAS by focusing on the transmission of objects and information by pilgrim-monks and missionaries as well as on the transformation of those entities through the agency of the recipients (p. 5). In terms of transmission, Wong anchors her discussion in the travels and activities of three charismatic pilgrim-monks: Xuanzang (ca. 602–664), Dōji (d. 744), and Jianzhen (Jp. Ganjin; 688–763). These monks not only engaged in transmission but also played instrumental roles in establishing what Wong calls the "great Buddhist monasteries," which constituted the "loci where political, religious, cultural, and economic power converged" and which performed rituals for the state while disseminating and further attracting new religious ideas and culture (p. 14). With respect to sites of transformation, she engages primarily with the cosmopolis of Chang'an/Luoyang during the reign of Wu Zhao (r. 690–705) and the city of Nara during the [End Page 249] time of Emperor Shōmu (r. 724–749) and his consort Kōmyō as well as that of their daughter and successor Koken (r. 749–758). Part 1 ("Xuanzang and His Fellow Buddhist Pilgrims and Missionaries, ca. 645–710") considers the transmission of the new image of Śākyamuni Buddha in earth-touching gesture modeled after the statue at Bodhgayā, one of the eight Buddhist pilgrimage sites and the place believed to have been where the Buddha attained enlightenment. In two chapters, Wong traces how this image was carried from India to China by pilgrim-monks like Xuanzang and other diplomatic missionaries, then was merged with another image of the "bejeweled Buddha" during Wu Zhao's reign to produce a new hybrid expression of the "bejeweled Buddha in earth-touching gesture." For the remainder of the volume, Wong continues to refer back to key Buddhist trends set in motion by either Xuanzang or Wu Zhao, including the appropriation of the teachings and cosmology of the Avataṃsaka Sutra (Flower Ornament Sutra) as the foundational ideal for centralized rulership, the introduction of esoteric Buddhism and associated imagery, and the rise in popularity of Avalokitêśvara worship. Part 2 ("Dōji and His Contemporaries, ca. 710–45") shifts the focus to Japan in the late Asuka (or Hakuhō) and Nara periods to follow the career of the scholar-monk Dōji, who traveled to China between 702 and 718. Dōji studied with prominent Buddhist masters in Chang'an in the last years of Wu Zhao's reign and the early years of Xuanzang's, immersing himself in the...