6 - “True Forms” and “True Faces”: Daoist and Buddhist Discourse on Images

Summary

Abstract

During the late fifth century local communities composed of Buddhist and Daoist adherents installed dozens of stelae that combined Buddhist and Daoist iconographies, aspirations, and motivations. Engraved with the earliest anthropomorphic image of Lord Lao, the physical manifestation of the ineffable Dao, and inscribed with theological apologetic statements, these stelae indicate a shift in Daoism from a profound aniconic theology to an iconographic practice. Intriguingly, at the same time Buddhists began to inscribe statues with similar apologetic statements. Focusing on the terms “true forms” (zhenxing 真形) and “true faces” (zhenrong 真容), Raz examines the confluence of Buddhist and Daoist rhetoric, discourse, and practice in medieval China.

Keywords: Daoism, Buddhism, inscriptions, statues, stele.

A major revolution in Daoist ritual practice and discourse occurred near the ancient capital region of Chang’an between the late fifth (480’s) and late sixth century (580’s). It was during this time that local communities installed dozens of stelae that combined Buddhist and Daoist iconographies, aspirations, and motivations. Combining Buddhist and Daoist figural images, with votive inscriptions that reveal complex merging of Daoist and Buddhist cosmologies, hopes, aspirations, and by the donors who are identified as Buddhists or Daoists, these stelae reveal communities that were simultaneously devoted to Buddhism and Daoism.

These stelae display the earliest anthropomorphic representations of the ineffable Dao, personified and represented as the highest Daoist deities, Lord Lao (Laojun 老君) or the Celestial Worthy (天尊), thus marking a fundamental change in Daoist ritual practice. Prior to the sixth century Daoist canonic texts rarely advocate the production of statues, and there is little room for figural imagery in the ritual formulations produced by the Celestial Master community or in the Shangqing textual corpus. While here are hints for the use of statues in the Lingbao corpus, these are restricted to a section of textual transmission rites and not to the main ritual programs. Indeed, most Daoist references to statues prior to the sixth century are negative and stress the aniconic aspect of Daoist practice. It is only in the early seventh century that figural, anthropomorphic imagery was first included as central in Daoist ritual practice.

The Daoist figural representations were clearly influenced by Buddhist models.