The Eight Aspects of the Buddha through Text, Ritual, and Image in Medieval China

Prof. Neil Schmid (Vienna)

Abstract

Dominating Chinese Buddhist vernacular and liturgical literature discovered in the library cave at Dunhuang is a range of manuscripts and genres detailing the events of the life of the Buddha. These materials date from the 8-10^th centuries and foreground the increasing importance of the Buddha Śākyamuni as a cultic figure in the medieval period. In spite of the extensive nature of these resources and their potential insights into Buddhist devotional life, they have never been studied in-depth as a coherent corpus. This talk discusses the range of these textual materials and their visual analogues, and explores how at Dunhuang Śākyamuni’s life narrative is explicitly configured through the Eight Aspects 八相 of the Buddha. Also addressed is how these materials and the expanded role of Śākyamuni complicate arguments of Buddhist China’s inward turn away from India during the Tang and Song periods.

Bio

Neil Schmid is Guest Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Vienna. His areas of research are Buddhist and Dunhuang Studies, notably the interplay between texts, ritual, and visual culture in medieval China. He is currently working on several projects, including a study of élite poetry and Buddhist paintings in the medieval period, and a monograph on the cult of Śākyamuni at Dunhuang. (For select publications and talks, please see https://univie.academia.edu/DNeilSchmid)