Multi-sources of Heaven in Tangut (Xixia) Esoteric Buddhist Art

• In Event: Artistic Multiplicity in China’s Middle Period

Abstract

This paper examines the multiple sources of a Tangut astral maṇḍala excavated in Khara-Khoto in Inner Mongolia. I argue that this mandala exhibits the earliest known Tibetan-inspired astral imagery and ancient Indian astrological imagery, and that its composition reveals a close tie to Tibetan and India Vedic artistic traditions. Building upon past scholarship by Н. А. Nevsky and Kira F. Samosyuk, who have worked on translating the astral text associated with the belief in planetary gods, I trace further back to ancient Indian sources concerning the order, colors, and shapes of star gods and their associated astral rituals pertinent to the configuration of this astral mandala. In the Tangut context, I further propose that it is the lore of the Daoist-inspired benming (or one’s destiny) originating in China and incorporated into Esoteric Buddhism that stimulated the proliferation of stellar iconographies. This examination of the Xi Xia astral mandala thus sheds light on its many sources, from Indian astrology and Tibetan Buddhism to the ways in which all the iconographic sources were appropriated and intertwined in the visual culture of Tangut Buddhism and localized in accordance with the planetary belief system of the region during the Xi Xia period.

Author

• Pi-fen Chung, Ministry of Culture, Taiwan