Chinese Studies Public Lecture

Friday, March 6, 12:00 noon

Tokioka Room (Moore Hall 319)

“A Hybrid Memorial Inscription and the Rise of Cave Temple Burial in China”

Kate Lingley, Department of Art & Art History, UHM

The Buddhist cave temple known as Shuiyu Si, dated to c. 570 during the early Northern Qi period, is an outlier of the better-known Northern and Southern Xiangtangshan cave temple complexes near Handan. Besides the main cave temple, there are two small funerary caves (瘗窟) on the hillsides flanking the main site. It is likely that these were the tombs of the chief patron of the cave temple, Zhang Yuanfei, and her husband, Lu Jingsong, who predeceased her. Lu Jingsong’s tomb features a remarkable commemorative inscription on a flat stone beside the entrance. It begins as a conventional epitaph inscription, such as might be found in more usual tombs of the period, as a biography of Lu himself and an encomium to his virtues. However, in recounting the deceased’s conversion to Buddhism late in life, the inscription makes a remarkable shift in genre, ending in a way more characteristic of a Buddhist patron’s dedication, as an account of Zhang Yuanfei’s actions after her husband’s death. This genre-bending inscription is a remarkable effort to unite the functions of the epitaph inscription and the Buddhist dedication. It provides rare evidence for the relationship between funerary ritual and Buddhist commemoration in popular practice, which is otherwise obscured in much of the historical record. In fact, this inscription documents one of the earliest instances of cave temple burial, a practice which is largely known from the later Tang period.

Kate Lingley is Associate Professor of Art History and Associate Chair of the Department of Art and Art History. Her research focuses on Buddhist votive sculpture of the Northern and Southern Dynasties period, with a particular interest in the social history of religious art in North China. She is currently working on a book manuscript that examines the relationship between tomb portraits and donor figures in the art of Northern Dynasties China.

Event Sponsor
Center for Chinese Studies and Confucius Institute at UHM, Mānoa Campus

More Information
(808) 956-8891, china@hawaii.edu

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