Top Ten Ming Wang Water And Land Painting Research

Vidyarajas or Brilliant Kings of Wisdom are wrathful deitiesin Buddhist pantheon who were created and developed along with the Tantric Buddhism.Vidyarajas are emanations of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.They are generally depicted as male and topless images with many heads and arms,holding various dharma-implements in hands,and wearing extremely angry looks.Vidyarajas ride many sorts of mythical creatures and trample demons under their feet.They are endowed with the tasks to protect dharma,subdue devils and get rid of obstacles or disasters.In mandalas,they are responsible for defending all directions as guardian deities.In Shui-Lu rites,the Ten Brilliant kings protect the dojo and Bai semaon behalf of their Yidams,namely,Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.This papermainly discusses four kinds of combinations of Vidyarajas:firstly,the Five Great Wis-dom Kings,includingAcala,Trailokyavijaya,Kundali,Yamantaka,and Vajrayaksa or Ucchusma;sec-ondly,the Eight Brilliant Kings of Wisdom,including Trailokyavijaya,Yamantaka,Vajrahasa,Mahacakr-avajra,Hayagriva,Aparajita,Acala,and Padanaksipa;thirdly,the Ten Great Wisdom Kings of Shui-Lu rites,including Ya-mantaka,Vajrahasa,Aparajita,Padanakispa,Hayagriva,Mahabala,Amrtakundali,Acala,Trailokyavijaya and Mahacakravajra;and fourthly,the Ten WrathfulDeities of Direc-tion in Tibetan Buddhism,including Yamantaka,Prajnantaka,Padmantaka,Vighnantaka,Acala,Takkiraja,Niladanda,Mahabala,Usnisacakravartin,and Sumbharaja.The first part of this paper studies the images of the Five Great Wisdom Kings and the Eight Brilliant Kings of Wisdom.It should be noted that the former was widely spread in Japan,such as the sculptural mandala in the Lecture Hall of Toji Temple,Kyoto,while the latter was mainly popularin China,including the two sets of images at underground palace in the FamenTemple,the stone carvings in the Avalokitesvara Hall in Datong,the sixth grotto of Shizhongshan in Jianchuang,the embossment at the ninth niche of Xiaofowan in Dazu and the murals in the pagoda of Jueshan Temple.The Ten Wrathful Wisdom Kings of Buddhist Scriptures that were introduced in early years of the Song Dynasty are different from the Ten Great Wisdom Kings of Shui-Lu rites,since they belong to two different pantheons of Buddhism,and the latter was developed from the former on the basis of the Eight Brilliant Kings of Wisdom.The ten Great Wisdom Kings of the 22nd grotto in the Dazu rock carvings are the earliest existing images of the Ten Great Wisdom Kings of Shui-Lu rites.The second part of this paper highlightsthe Ten Great Wisdom Kings of Shui-Lu rites and analyzed the image rules and evolution of the Ten Great Wisdom Kings of Shui-Lu riteswith the emphasis on the Shui-Lu temple murals from Shanxi and Hebei,such as the Qinglong Temple,the Yunlin Temple,the PiluTemple,the Gongzhu Temple,the Chongtai Temple,the Dayun Temple,and the HuayanTemple.Shui-Lu paintings dis-cussed in this paper include the scroll paintings from the Capital Museum,the Datong Museum and the Minle Museum.In addition,this paper also discusses thepainted scul-ptures of the Ten Great Wisdom Kings of Shui-Lu rites,such those in the Vidyarajas Hall of the YunfengTemple in the Mianshan Mountain.The third part of this paper specifically examines the Ten Wrathful Deities of Dir-ection in Tibetan Buddhism,including with Guhyasamaja(Akshobhyavajra)mandala,images from some thangkas of Rubin Museum of Art and Museum Guimet and some small figures of Buddha.TakingGuhyasamaja(Akshobhyavajra)mandala as the focus,it compares the two sets of Ten Great Wisdom Kings from Chinese Buddhism and Ti-betan Buddhism.The last part of this paper studies the images of the Ten Great Wisdo-m Kingswhich integrate the styles of the two sets of images mentioned above,such as the mural of Vajra Hall's arch eyes at the Gan'en Temple in Gansu Province and the painted sculptures at the Pilu Hall of the Jile Temple in Mount Wutai.