Yamabe Nobuyoshi: "How Was the Pure Land Painted in Dunhuang?"

Abstract:

The theme of the transformation tableau based on the Amitāyus Visualization Sūtra was very popular in Dunhuang. Even today, we can see many mural and silk paintings on this subject in or from Dunhuang. These paintings, however, are also highly problematic, as they often show significant deviations from their source, the Amitāyus Visualization Sūtra. This talk seeks to explain these deviations, by comparing the paintings with sketches, manuscripts, and relevant texts. In doing so, it will show some aspects of artists’ practice in Dunhuang and make clear that depictions of the transformation tableaux at Dunhuang, at least those from later periods, were not meant to be a guide for the practice of visualization.

Bio:

Yamabe Nobuyoshi, Tokyo Nōgyō Daigaku

Yamabe Nobuyoshi studied at Osaka University and took his doctorate degree at Yale, with a dissertation entitled "The Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi of the Visualization of the Buddha: The Interfusion of the Chinese and Indian Cultures in Central Asia as Reflected in a Fifth-Century Apocryphal Sūtra" (1999).

Professor Yamabe specializes in Indian Buddhism, with particular interest in the Yogācāra and Buddhist meditation texts. He is the author of numerous works in both English and Japanese.