CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

169
Bronze ewer
Height 29.5 (11.61); diam. of mouth 4-6 (1.57-2.36),
diam. of body 13.2 (5.19), diam. of foot 8.0 (3.149)
Probably from northern India, seventh or early
eighth century CE
From the reliquary deposit at the Qingshan
Monastery, Lintong Xinfengzhen, Shaanxi Province
Lintong County Museum, Shaanxi Province
Houston and San Francisco only
The sealed and clearly labeled stone reliquary
chamber of the pagoda of the Qingshan Monastery
was discovered quite by accident at midday on 6
May 1985, at a depth of six meters, in the course of
excavating clay for brick-making. The site lies a few
hundred yards from the Han gateway, where Xiang
Yu and Liu Bang, rival contenders for the throne
of China after the fall of the Qin dynasty, famously
met to fix the border between Chu and Han in 207
BCE. The monastery itself had long since vanished
and was known only from literary records, including
one in the Tang shu (Tang history), recording that
the name Qingshansi — Auspicious Peak Monastery—
had been conferred on it by Empress Wu
Zetian in 686 CE. More than a hundred objects,
as well as mural paintings, were found in the inner
chamber, which contained a stone shrine whose
four sides are engraved with scenes of the Buddha
preaching, his death or nirvana, the cremation
of his body, and the worship of his ashes. The roof
of the shrine carries four trees, perhaps in reference
to the grove of sala trees where the Buddha's
nirvana took place, and a central gilded lotus bud.
Lotuses, made of pure gold with painted leaves and
paper-thin petals, stand in front of the shrine on
either side. The relics — tiny crystals — were enclosed
in two small green glass bottles, inside a gold
coffin placed in turn within a silver gilt sarcophagus.
Inscriptions concerning the relic deposit show
that it was sealed in 741 CE.
The bronze vase exhibited here 1 is the single
most prominent object found in the chamber, apart
from the shrine itself and its contents. It was found
just in front of the shrine, and must have been used
for the last (but not necessarily the first) time in
the consecration ceremony in 741. The six human
faces around the body, with their sharply delineated
features, are distinctively Indian in character,
as is the shape of the neck, mouth, and handle of
the ewer. Fourteen years after its discovery, the
ewer's exact provenance and date remain difficult to
determine. Hildegard Scheid notes evidence that
the foot had come away and had been repaired
more than once in antiquity, before being
deposited in the relic chamber. 2 With its elegant
swan-neck handle and palmette-shaped thumbhold,
the most likely answer is that it does indeed
come from northern India, 3 and the presumption
must be that it dates no later than the early eighth
century, and quite possibly earlier. RW
1 Excavated in 1985; published: Berger 1994, cat. 62; Kuhn
1993, cat. 93; Tokyo 1998!}, no. 42.
2 Scheid in Kuhn 1993, 253.
3 The author is indebted to Wladimir Zwalf and Mark
Zebrowski for their observations.
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