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when the first images were carved on behalf of a local military leader.^11
However, the site flourished during the Northern and early South-
ern Song, when the majority of the most interesting and sophisticated
sculptural groups were made at Fowan , as Mt. Bei is known
today. There is an unusually high concentration of Esoteric Buddhist
images among the more than two hundred numbered groups at this
site.^12 They include images such as the bodhisattva Precious Seal-hand
(Fowan group no. 136),^13 Amoghapāśa-Avalokiteśvara (Fowan group
no. 123, 119), the four vidyārājas (Fowan group no. 133), Cintāmaṇi-
Avalokiteśvara (Fowan group no. 149), Mārīcī (Fowan group no. 130),
Mahāmāyūrī (Fowan group no. 155), and so on.^14 As is also the case
in many other sites in Sichuan, the various forms of Avalokiteśvara
are prominently represented. Compared with the iconography of the
mature Zhenyan tradition of the Tang, most of the images at Mt. Bei
are often quite different and somewhat “non-canonical,” apparently
reflecting local or at least regional characteristics. In a sense they
appear less orthodox, perhaps as a result of a general break with the
earlier tradition.
Mt. Baoding , essentially a Buddhist sanctuary located on
top of a small mountain northeast of the county seat of Dazu, has
some of the most spectacular and iconographically diverse Buddhist
sculptural groups of all and it represents the last major efflorescence
of Buddhist sculptural art in China.^15 The site was established dur-
ing the late Southern Song under the visionary instructions of one
man, the Buddhist monk Zhao Zhifeng (1178–ca. 1225).^16 The
Esoteric Buddhist iconography seen in the sculptures and reliefs here
are mainly the result of local traditions and only vaguely reflects the
Golden Age of the Tang, though Zhao consciously invoked the pedigree
(^11) For a discussion of these early images, cf. Sørensen, “Esoteric Buddhist Art under
the Tang,” in this volume.
(^12) All the images are numbered and briefly described in Liu, Hu, and Li, comp.
1986, 364–429.
(^13) This is of course a constructed name.
(^14) See the monumental and groundbreaking study by Suchan 2003. All the groups
at Mt. Bei are discussed and described in considerable detail. 15
For a survey of the sculptural art at Mt. Baoding, see Howard 2001.
(^16) The official dates for him are 1178–ca. 1249 C.E. However, the exact date of his
death is uncertain and may have taken place sometime between 1225 and 1250. For a
study of this truly important figure, see Sørensen 2006b.