Music And Dance Murals Of The Dunhuang Mogao Cave 148

The cave No.148 of Mogao Caves in Dunhuang is a great cave, in which the wall paintings describe the Buddhism nirvana. It was excavated and completed by the Li Dabin Family that living in Dunhuang at the late of the flourishing period of Tang. In this cave, there are a great deal of legibly elegant wall paintings showing the scene of making music and dancing.In this paper, firstly, on the basis of objectively describing all the paintings in the cave No.148,the author researches the images of instruments separately, and makes some collation and textual criticism for those instruments which have blurry forms or unsure names.Secondly, the author divides the content of the paintings into five sections:the instruments which could sound without a player, the group of musicians, the kalavinka birds, the sorcerous dance of monks and the flying Kwan-yin of Esoteric Buddhism, then, analyzes the content of them and explores the very principle of Buddhism.The instruments which could sound without a player, the group of musicians, the kalavinka birds and the sorcerous dance of monks, these four forms, which depended on the Buddhist Scripture mural of Pure Land and then developed images of making music and dancing, had started with the doxy of Buddhism with the intention of showing the various beauty and the sounds of nature in Pure Land of Buddhism world. However, it also shows the trace of mundane life about music and dance.The appearance of the Buddhist Scripture mural of Esoteric Buddhism illuminates that, the creations of wall paintings at the Mogao Caves are pervaded by the belief of Esoteric Buddhism in Tubo.The postures of the two flying characters painted in the Buddhist Scripture mural of Kwan-yin, are different from the S-shape of Dunhuang.They reflect the unique style of the wall paintings about music and dance of Esoteric Buddhism.The images of making music and dancing in the cave No.148 contain all of the representations in the sound world of Buddhism.The whole art in that cave is a model of wall paintings about music and dance of Buddhism in the flourishing period of Tang. Also, it shows the connotation of musical aesthetics of Buddhism. It came from the religion doxy, formally represents the gloriousness and grandeur of Buddhism. Besides, in its content, it shows the trace of mundane life carelessly, and integrates ideal and reality with matter and spirit perfectly.