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Not a Buddhist subject, but: I’m teaching Xie He’s Six Laws of Painting this week and went back to the original for a refresher. I had forgotten how excellently snarky he is about the painters he rates lower than the top grade. We do a special focus on Gu Kaizhi because several surviving paintings are
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Not too long ago, I was trying to translate two poems that make up a poetry battle between two sixth-century noblewomen, over their shared husband. Pulling on the thread of the story led me to a tale that just got more amazing the more I unraveled it. The story of the poetry battle comes from
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From the bylaws of a 10th-century Buddhist women’s association: 夫邑義者，父母生其身，朋友長其值，危則相扶，難則相救；與朋友交，言如信。”As for the members, our parents produce our bodies, but our friends cultivate our worth. When in danger we will support each other, and when in difficulty we will rescue each other. In speaking with one another, our word is our bond.”
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Back of N. Wei stele of Luo Daoming, Henan Prov. Mus. Donor image appears to depict donors in a real space (like a temple?), venerating a statue of the Buddha, rather than the Buddha himself. Note the pedestal and smaller than life size scale of the Buddha here – more than anything else, the way
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At lower left: TFW you’ve never seen a lion but you’re pretty sure it’s a kind of a cat, and you do know a thing or two about cats. (W. Wei stele of Mr. Yang and his wife née Ma, 542 CE, Osaka Mus. of Art)
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[Twitter, 6/12/23] From a stele of 543: Mahaprajapati and her 500 best girlfriends, setting out on their epic trek to talk Sakyamuni (her nephew and foster son) into letting women be ordained, reminding us that there is no conceptual or historical limit to auntie power.
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[Twitter, 4/13/23] Medieval Buddhist of the Day, slightly disappointing edition: I was going to nominate Prince Cheng of Rencheng 任城王澄, as quoted in the Shilaozhi 釋老志 “Treatise on Buddhism and Daoism,” the final chapter of the Wei shu 魏書. He submitted a memorial in 517 CE, advocating tighter regulations on temple-building and the ordination of
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[Twitter 3/28/23] Medieval Buddhist of the Day: Zhang Yongnu 張永奴, who dedicated a white marble image in 564 under the Northern Qi. It survives as a broken base, part of the Xiudesi hoard found in Quyang in 1954, and kept in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing. In earlier MBOTD posts I’ve pointed
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[Twitter, 3/22/23] Medieval Buddhists of the Day: the donors of a stele dated 530 (N. Wei) in the 中国国家博物馆, usually called the Xue Fenggui 薛凤规 stele. There are approximately a zillion names on this stele, but I want to focus on the dedication and particularly its use of 成语. As anyone who’s learned 普通话 as
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[Twitter, 3/21/23] Medieval Buddhist of the day: Li Yingwu, one of the many donors of the Li family stele (542, E. Wei) in the 河南省博物館. His inscription caught my eye: 天宮主李鸚鵡. Yes, his personal name is “Parrot.” This seemed gratuitously piratical, but apparently in poetic bird metaphors where the emperor is a phoenix, his able
Medieval Buddhist of the Day 