곤륜산, 수미산, 그리고 삼단팔각 연화대좌 -중국 삼단팔각 연화대좌에 담긴 상징-

Abstract

Octagonal three‐step lotus pedestals, which have three steps, high, middle and low and the middle step of which is octagonal, are not found in Gandhara or in India. It is China that octagonal three‐step lotus pedestals began to appear in around the 6th century. Of course,there had been three‐step pedestals with a slim middle step from the early 5th century, and they were the prototype of octagonal threestep lotus pedestals in the 6th century. The question that this study attempted to answer is “What are the origin and the meaning of octagonal three‐step lotus pedestals that emerged first in China.” In order to understand the symbolism of Chinese octagonal three‐step lotus pedestals, we focused largely on two issues. First, what is the reason that pedestals for seated Buddhist statues came to have three steps from the early 5th century? In order to find the answer, the author paid attention to the image of Xiwangmu’s Mt. Kunlun. Mt. Kunlun consists of three stages, and the middle stage has a narrow and vertical structure that is hardly climbable. Ancient Chinese, who yearned to reach the mountain although not easy to climb, engraved the image of hardly climbable Mt. Kunlun in the Han Pictorial Stone Relief. With the introduction of Buddhism, the image of Mt. Kunlun, which became known widely later, was reflected in the image of Mt. Sumeru in Buddhism. To ancient Chinese, it was common sense that both Mt. Kunlun and Mt. Sumeru were ‘the axes of the universe’ and the center of the world. ‘Octagonal shape,’ which appeared in the process that ‘three‐step pedestals’ developed into ‘octagonal three‐step lotus pedestal,’ is also believed to reflect universal symbolic systems of ancient China including the image of Mt. Kunlun. As mentioned above, octagon is in the middle of development from square to circle or from circle to square. Therefore,it is symbolized as a mediator between heaven and earth. For this reason, the idea that Mt. Kunlun consists of eight pillars is closely related with ancient people’s belief that heaven and earth are connected to each other through eight pillars. This perception of Mt. Kunlun was reflected in the image of Mt. Sumeru in Buddhism, and this might result in the interesting pedestal style with eight pillars in the middle step of octagonal three‐step lotus pedestals. Of course, we do not say that only the image of Mt. Kunlun was reflected in the style of octagonal three‐step lotus pedestals. Our understanding is that the factor playing the biggest role in the establishment of the form of ‘octagonal three‐step lotus pedestals’ was the image of Mt. Sumeru on which the image of Mt. Kunlun was projected. The author has been observing carefully what interactive relation exists between Buddhist arts and traditional arts. In other words, the author’s main interest is how traditional arts were projected on Buddhist arts and how the influence in the opposite direction was. Octagonal three ‐step lotus pedestals, which were the most favorite style of Buddhist statues in China and the Unified Shilla Dynasty, are considered another remarkable example demonstrating that ancient Chinese’ thinking systems and ideas were reflected in Buddhist arts.