LOT 69 RARE AND MAGNIFICENT CARVED STONE RELIQUARY TANG DYNASTY
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48cm long, 48cm wide, 34.5cm high
Provenance:From the Sze Yuan Tang Collection; acquired in Hong Kong in the 1980s.Note:With the transmission of Buddhism from India to China, the custom of building pagodas for the sepulchral burial of Buddhist relics also transmigrated to China. The Indian stupa, which is shaped as an inverted bowl, served as the architectural model for the Chinese pagoda while at the same time coming to adopt Chinese characteristics.Receptacles for Buddhist relics (Sanskrit: sarira) such as the present lot would have been deeply interred in a vaulted crypt in the foundation of pagodas. Among the ones that have been excavated in China, none can be dated before the 5th century. It was between the Northern Dynasties and the Tang Dynasty that the making of Buddhist reliquaries and their burial under pagodas of monasteries flourished.The traditional Chinese Buddhist reliquary is typically a square-shaped stone chest with a chamfered lid. The stone chest however is only the outermost layer in a nest of three to five containers. The reliquary excavated from Dayunsi monastery in Jingchuan, Gansu Province, for example is comprised of four nested containers: a stone casket with a chamfered lid, a gilt bronze casket, a silver sarcophagus, and finally a gold coffin in which a glass bottle containing grains of sarira was found.Of the stone reliquaries known, most are of plain form with the sides uncarved and only the lid inscribed. Stone reliquaries with bas-relief carvings around the sides, typically depicting scenes from the life of Shakyamuni Buddha, are extremely rare. A stone reliquary with bas-relief carving, also from the Tang Dynasty, is mentioned in P.E.Karetzky: A Scene of the Parinirvana on a Recently Excavated Stone Reliquary of the Tang Dynasty, in East and West, Vol. 38, No. 1/4 (December 1988), pp. 215-230.For further reading, see Hong Yang: Ancient Buddhist Reliquaries in China and Korea, in: Chinese Archaelogy, Vol. 10, Issue 1, 2010.
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2016年5月28日-30日
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两依藏博物馆(香港上环荷李活道181至199号)
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