위진남북조시대 阿育王像 전승과 숭배

Abstract

This thesis studied on the transmission and worship of Asokan Statue through comparative analysis of documents from the Period of Northern & Southern Dynasties and those from the Period of Tang Dynasty. The Asokan Statue generally refers to 'the statue of Sakyamuni built by Asoka of the Maurya dynasty in India', but a statue of the Buddha did not appear until the first century A.D., which means that the existence of the Asokan Statue is mere transmission created by Buddhist believers later. In addition, the Asokan Statue does not exist in Buddhist scriptures and there is still no known fact in India and the Central Asia so it is safe to assume that it might be a statue created in China. That is why the impression of the Asokan Statue in China is various and has changed with the times. There are seven or eight records of the Asokan Statue of the Period of Wei, Jin Kingdoms and Northern & Southern Dynasties in 『Ji Shen-zhou San-bao Gan-tong-lu(集神州三寶感通錄)』written by Dao-xuan(道宣) from the Period of Tang Dynasty. However, documents from the Period of Northern & Southern Dynasties including 『The Biographies of Eminent Monks(高僧傳)』in the fifth or sixth century refer to two stone statues of County of Wu(吳郡), the Temple of Chang-gan(長干寺) statue of Jian-kang(建康), the temple of Chang-sha(長沙寺) statue of Jing-zhou(荊州) and the statue of Bodhisattva of Lu-shan(廬山) as the object of worship, which shows that the number of the Asokan Statue was going up in the Period of Tang Dynasty. The four Asokan Statues from the above-stated were extensively worshiped in the late fourth century, and it is presumed that this worship of Asokan Statue was influenced by the Asokan Stupa faith in the early fourth century. Interestingly, however, the four regions that worshiped the Asokan Statue were the hub of politics, the military and Buddhism of Southern Dynasties. Not until the Period of Northern-Zhou(北周) of the late sixth century did the Asokan Statue appear in Northern Dynasties, which was later than in Southern Dynasties by 200 years or so. This shows that the worship of the Asokan Statue in Northern Dynasties began under the influence of Southern Dynasties in connection with the political incident of Jing-zhou and Jiang-ling(江陵) being occupied by Western-Wei(西魏) The worship of the Asokan Statue seen in four regions of Southern Dynasties from the above-stated was not a fixed form and changed with the times. Two statues of County of Wu and the statue of Bodhisattva of Lu-shan started losing the impression as the Asokan Statue from the early sixth century and the early fifth century, when Hui-yuan(慧遠) entered into Nirvana, respectively. On the other hand, the temple of Chang-gan staute of Jian-kang and the temple of Chang-sha statue of the Buddha of Jing-zhou which was modelled on the Chang-gan staute continued to be worshiped until the fall of Southern Dynasties in the late sixth century. Among two statues, the Asokan Statue that represented Southern Dynasties was the golden statue enshrined in the temple of Chang-gan in the capital, as seen in books by Sheng-you(僧祐) who did active work in Southern-Qi(南齊) and Liang(梁) Dynasty. However, according to the records by Dao-xuan from the Period of Tang Dynasty, the temple of Chang-sha statue of Jing-zhou held a dominant position over the other one, which suggests that a study on the documents containing Buddhist historical materials require cautious approach.