| By combining Buddhist sutras and figure materials, this paper classifies the dancers of nirvana images into four classes:secular Buddhist followers, Gods of Buddhism, heterodox images and demons’images. Secular dancers’figure in nirvana images usually look as the people of malla who preside over generally the funeral ceremony of Sakya, and look, more or less, the same as Bodhisatta, except that they are destitute of halo.Gods of Buddhism, other than common flying Apsaras, have some new images between Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty, such as Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils and devas which perhaps obtain inspiration from nirvana and ascesion. In the social background that dharma thoughts are relatively prevalent and the society falls into persistent chaos and upheavals, nirvana images in Southern Shanxi province in Song Dynasty emerge the images of Arhat dancers.The figures of heterodox dancers in nirvana images appear firstly in the statue tower in Northern Wei Dynasty, which is located in Zhuanglang, a place in the west of Yellow River(Hexi region), from which we can find the naked Nigannta, one heterodox image in nirvana images. Yet from the beginning of Cave No.332in Mogo Caves which can date back to the early Tang Dynasty, it becomes the heterodox image of Brahman, which is inherited by subsequent images. By extremely contradictory means of artistic expression, nirvana images of this kind mainfest that heterodox is quite prevalent in Dharma Ending Age and remind Buddhists to defend Buddhism.Many deomon dancers’figures in nirvana images experience some changes, for example, they behave firsty in accordance with Theravada Nirvana, and then Mahayana nirvana in Song Dynasty, defending Buddhism and serving Sakya, which indicates that Theravada Nirvana and Mahayana Nirvana have different inheriting changes in different regions and different periods. |
