On white marble half-lotus meditation statues carved in Wuding Era of the Eastern Wei Dynasty

Abstract

Abstract In 2012, large amounts of white marble Buddhist statues of the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi Dynasties were unearthed from the Buddhist sculpture hoard at Bei Wuzhuang in Ye City Site. This paper makes a comparative study on a bodhisattva statue in meditation seated in half-lotus posture (resting right ankle on the knee of pendent left leg and holding right hand upward) among them and another sculpture of the same type and made in the same period unearthed at the Xiude Monastery site in Dingzhou; from the double-tree, stupa and coiling dragon designs shown by them, this paper explores the commonalities and differences of the Buddhist arts in these two areas. Moreover, this paper reveals that this motif emerged earlier in the Ye City area than in the Dingzhou area, and diffused to the latter after it became popular in the Ye City area. By these conclusions, this paper infers that the white marble meditating statue seated in half-lotus position with the date of the second year of Wuding Era (544 CE) in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, USA was produced in Ye City area.