On the development of Buddhist sculpture in Ye City and the “Ye City Style” reflected by the Bei Wuzhuang hoard

Abstract

Abstract The Ye City was the important Buddhist cultural center of the Central Plains and North China since the 6th century CE. Since the 1950s, rather large amounts of Buddhist sculptures have been unearthed within the scope of the Ye City Site, of which the hoard at Bei Wuzhuang found in January 2012 was the most noticeable. Through the analyses to the materials, motifs, assemblages and sculpturing characteristics of some typical samples from this hoard, the Buddhist sculptures during the Northern Dynasties in the Ye City area could be divided into four phases, which are the mid through late Northern Wei Dynasty, the end of the Northern Wei through the early Eastern Wei Dynasties, the late Eastern Wei through the early Northern Qi Dynasties and the mid through late Northern Qi Dynasty. Moreover, referring to the given historic background, the derivation of the Buddhist thoughts and the cultural communication between China and the West at that time, this paper points out that the so-called dragon-tree-shaped back screen statues popular in the mid through late Northern Qi Dynasty was a brand-new sculpture type integrated the technical tradition and composition characteristics of the white marble sculpture in the Wuding Era of the Eastern Wei Dynasty and the Gupta sculpture style newly introduced in; the creation and diffusion of this sculpture type were tightly related to the Xianbeization and Western Barbarianization policies applied by the imperial court after the founding of the Northern Qi Dynasty and the reform of monastic restrictions managed by Fashang, the Buddhist comptroller-in-chief of the empire from Zhaoxuan Monastery.