Medieval Buddhist of the Day

[Twitter 7/8/19] Medieval Buddhists of the Day: the eight female donors of an especially fine gilt-bronze Buddha group, dedicated in 593 during the Sui dynasty and now held in the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (click here for photographs of all its separate parts). The donors are eight women of various surnames who all married into the Fan 范 family.

They list themselves thus: 范漢若母趙、范誨讓母趙、范寶藏母李、范士峻母趙、范元季母路、范伯仁母李、范希石母李、范子希母馮。In other words, that’s: “Fan Hanruo’s mother, née Zhao; Fan Huirang’s mother, née Zhao; Fan Baozang’s mother, née Li; Fan Shijun’s mother, née Zhao; Fan Yuanji’s mother, née Lu; Fan Boren’s mother, née Li; Fan Xishi’s mother, née Li; Fan Zixi’s mother, née Feng.” It’s striking that they didn’t use their own names, given how regularly women did use their own given names in this kind of situation. I can think of several other cases where female patrons describe themselves collectively as mothers, as in 邑義母人等 or 合邑諸母等. But those women didn’t substitute their sons’ names for their own in the lists of donors. Why here?

We know a few things about them: that they were wives of the Fan family, and that the Fan boys (sorry) seemed to prefer Zhao and Li girls – perhaps for family alliance. One could imagine they pooled their resources to make a donation for family benefit, but in fact the piece is dedicated to the emperor, who at the time would have been Sui Wendi 隋文帝. I wonder whether there were any Fan men at court at this point and if they were related.

Provenance: the sculpture once belonged to the late Qing official and collector Duan Fang 端方, and it was said to have been found near the famous Anji bridge (of Sui date) at Zhaozhou, Hebei. Local history might eventually turn something up to explain all these mothers – who knows?