| If you want to understand the art and artistic style of a place, it is essential to be familiar with and further study its living environments such as geography, history, nationality, race, religion, language and so on. The Buddhist cliff-relief carvings of Lashao Temple, which are located in Wushan County, Tanshui City, Gansu Province, are cliff-relief masterpieces of human beings. One of the cliff-relief carvings - Big Buddha is the biggest and greatest Buddhist cliff-relief carving in China. It is typical artistic style of the North Zhou Dynasty. The artistic style of Big Buddha succeeded to ancient Buddhist carvings as well had its development and innovation of its own stage, which turned out that it was not only characterized by its stage and environments but distinct in its own regional character from other regions' carving forms.The thesis is composed of four chapters. In Chapter One, by objectively introducing the Wushan County's geographical environment, history development and human character etc., author gave a living space by which the cliff relief of Lashao temple was formed. Chapter Two was organized by cluing the missionary course of Kumarajira (343-413), a Buddha Hierarch. Studying on the character of Buddhist carvings before the North Zhou Dynasty as well as the different regions' Buddhist carvings of the North Zhou Dynasty, author presented unique artistic style of carvings of Lashao Temple by a comparison both on time and space. This part is not only the key point but the topic of the thesis. In Chapter Three, author discussed the basis which formed this unique artistic style from many factors such as Buddhist rites, aesthetic tendency of the stage, local human character and so forth, which was expected to have a profound comprehension of former part. The Chapter Four was dedicated to emphasize the history reputation and artistic value of the cliff relief of Lashao Temple and was concluded as contemporary human consideration. |
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