Medieval Buddhist of the Day

[Twitter, 2/3/23] MBOTD: the 31 donors of a white marble statue dedicated in 549, unearthed in 1980 in Huanghualing Village in Hebei. Most of these donors appear to be from the Wang family, and include both men and women, plus at least one monk. (This is in 定州白石佛像 no. 123).

As Amy McNair has observed, part of many donor inscriptions is the “rhetoric of the gift” in which they tell you what it cost them to make their donation. They usually say something like “We sacrificed some of our family funds” or “I used my money for girdles and rouge;” as you can see, sometimes this rhetoric tells you something about the subject position of the donor. So what do we get from this example? They write that they 割愛子之奇珍，減身[ ]之歲命，敬造白玉像一軀 which seems rather over the top, or at least invites speculation. Translated, this is “[we] sacrificed the rare treasures of our beloved sons, and diminished the years allotted to our lifespan, to reverently make one white marble figure.”

What real-world donation could be described in terms that basically indicate shortening your own life and reducing your children’s inheritance? The sculpture is substantial but not out of the ordinary at 83cm in height (skipping the picture since it is in pieces) So I want to offer these 31 donors not only the title of Medieval Buddhists of the Day, but also the Rhetorical Flourish award for this week. Just goes to show that social media is not the only place you can toot your own horn.