492 henrik h. sørensen
The Buddhist Cult Centers on Mt. Shizhong and at Mt. Jing
Located some twenty-five kilometers to the west of the northern town
of Jinchuan , an old Dali garrison town, is Mt. Shizhong with its
unique Buddhist cult center and site commemorating the early roy-
alty of Nanzhao. The site consists of several manufactured caves with
mainly Buddhist sculptures.^13 Although the Buddhist iconography is
dominated by a variety of standard Mahāyāna themes, its Esoteric
Buddhist images are highly significant.^14 A precise dating of the site
has generally been avoided in most scholarly reports, but it would
appear that the majority of the caves and their images were carved
sometime during the late ninth and early tenth centuries.^15 In terms
of Esoteric Buddhist iconography, one of the most important caves on
the site is no. 6, which features a central Śākyamuni/Vairocana Buddha
flanked by images of the eight vidyārājas, Mahākāla, and Vaiśravaṇa.
Cave no. 8, with a small niche holding a vulva (usually explained in
the secondary literature as a fertility symbol), is also important. The
sculpted vulva was probably not only envisaged as a fertility symbol
(at least that was not its original meaning) but would appear to have
Moreover, a few years ago Christie’s in Hong Kong sold three outstanding Yun-
nanese Buddhist gilt bronzes at their auction. Cf. Christie’s London 1991, 50–51; lot.
no. 52 of Vairocana, gilt bronze, 28.5 centimeters high, is wrongly identified as Five
Dynasties/Song dynasty. Christie’s Hong Kong 1998, lot. no. 603 of a standing image
of Avalokiteśvara holding willow wisp (now lost) and kuṇḍīka, richly adorned with
jewel garland and other ornaments, 46.2 centimeters high, is wrongly dated to the Liao
dynasty. Lot. 604 of an adorned Śākyamuni Buddha (actually Amitābha on account of
the mudrā) seated in the sattvapayankāsana with hands in the dhyāna-mudrā (there
is a similar image in the Cleveland Museum of Art), 22.3 centimeters high, is wrongly
dated to the Liao dynasty. Acuoye Guanyin seated in ardhaparyankāsana with the
hands in the vitarka and varada-mudrās Is correctly dated to the Dali kingdom, ca.
eleventh to twelfth centuries (38.1 centimeters high, lot. 606). Apparently none of
these pieces have been published previously, and therefore constitute important addi-
tions to what we already know about the Dali bronzes. 13
See Chen 1980. The most extensive recording of the sculptures at Mt. Shizhong
can be found in Li 1999, 50–103. Provided access can be had, the Fine Arts Library
Image Collection, University of Pennsylvania Libraries, has nice, clear photos of most
of the sculptures available online at http://dla.library.upenn.edu. 14
For a useful survey of the site, see Howard 1991.
(^15) One drawback of Howard’s otherwise excellent article is the early and overall
general dating, i.e., “9th century,” which Howard ascribes to the sculptures here 1991,
- In my view such a dating is imprecise and too general. Inscriptions in situ reveal
that while the earliest dated carvings in cave no. 1 were made as early as 850 C.E.,
other carvings date from the early tenth up to the mid-eleventh centuries. Cf. Liu
2001, 14–33. The most up-to-date discussion of the dating of the site can be found in
Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji bian jiwei yunhui 2000, 2–13.