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Define the influence and character of the Tibetan cultural aesthetics in the Tangut Empire

SOAS Ref. No. 221618, Cultural History of Tibet, Convenor: Nathan Hill, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of the Study of Religions

4/28/2010

Carmen Cochior Plescanu

Define the influence and character of the Tibetan cultural aesthetics in the Tangut Empire

Ssu - ma of Yin, the author of the Shih-chi - the first of the dynastic histories of China around 100 BC- was the

first to employ the term ‘Tangut’ to denominate the Proto-Burmese kingdom of Kansu. Great interpretations

were given to the utilization of the ‘Tangut’, as used by Marco Polo in the thirteen century according to the

Books of the Marvels of the World. Whether descending from the Turkish horde as the termination –ut might

suggest, from the nomadic people of North Korea as Meillet and Cohen would imply as hypothesis, it is yet not

clearly decided among scholars. In contrast with the Rising Sun of China, Ssu-ma Ch’ien has named Kansu the

‘Great Moon Family’, Ta Yueh Shih which in Old Chinese was pronounced Da-Ngwat (Tangut).1

It was in the late tenth and early eleventh century that the Tangut people (Tib. Mi-nyang; Mong. Tangyud)

established an independent regime in the steppe region within the loop of the Yellow River, in Ordos, which

developed rapidly into the ‘Great State of White and High’ as they self-proclaimed or the empire of Xixia. The

geographical parameters of that period, places Xixia as neighbouring the Song, Liao and Jin states to the south

and east, Tibetans to the southwest and the Central Asian kingdoms in the west.2 An imperial state was

formally defined in 1038 and its existence is presented in chronicles until the fatal crush of Chinggis Qan’s last

campaign, in 1227.3 Although Chinggis Qan’s punitive expedition left only ten percent of the Tangut population

alive, it is evident from the re-edition of Xixia Tripitaka in 3,620 juan, completed seventy years after the fall of

Xixia at the request of Kublai Khan, that their culture has not vanished immediately, but continued through

1 Classical civilizations of South East Asia: an anthology of articles. Published in The Bulletin of Soas, Edited by Vladimir Braginsky, University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, Routledge 2002, p.439 2 The Great State of White and High, , Ruth W Dunnell, University of Hawaii Press 1996, p. 33 Ibid 2

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the thirteen and into the first part of the fourteen century.4 It was in Tibet that some of the Tangut royal

family members took refuge in 1227, where their descendants assumed the name of Byang and “supplied the

abbots for sTod rDorje brang, a branch of great rNying-ma-pa monastery of rDo rje brang, founded in 1610

CE”.5

The primary sources materials for Xixia history have greatly expanded during the past century imperialist and

archaeological preoccupation in Inner Asia, which mostly date to the twelfth century and later and which are

predominantly Buddhist in nature.6 Because the prodigious majority of extant Tangut materials are Buddhist

and products of imperial patronage7, it is important to understand and analyse Tibetan Buddhist influence-

diplomatic, political and cultural - on Xia state. It is worth mentioning that the Khokhonor ‘black headed and

red faced’ Tibetans and the Tangut shared ancestral, linguistic and cultural ties. These common epithets

constantly attributed to the Tibetans are used not only in odes and poetry but in other Tangut indigenous

texts as well.

It is a great possibility that the term ‘black headed ’ which stands for the Tangut priests in the pre-Buddhist

times, later to have been employed to designate the Karma pa Black Hat Sect, which penetrated the Tangut

state in twelfth and thirteenth centuries as registered in Tibetan sources.8 The presence of Karma Pakshi

(Tibetan ཀརྨ་པཀྵི� ་1204–1283), second in the Kagyupa (Wylie: bKa’-brgyud-pa) lineage of the Karmapas (Tibetan

ཀརྨ་པ) in a painting of Bhaisajayabhattaraka collected from the Kharakhoto stupa, evidence its powerful

presence and influence within the Tangut Empire. His iconographic depiction appears distinct wearing a black

hat showing a visva-vajra in front, having a dark complexion, his hands in dharmacakra mudra (Tibetan: འཀ� ར་ལོ� , Wylie: chos kyi 'khor lo)and goatee beard (his nickname being rGya-bo or ‘beardy’). 9 Similar figures of

spiritual representatives are found in early Tibetan paintings and their location in the bottom left corner could

imply or represent the actual donor. This particular artistic image was perpetuated throughout centuries up to

the present day in all paintings of the Tshur-phu Karma-pa lineage10. It is worthy to mention that Karma Paksi

4 Early Sino-Tibetan Art, Heather Stoddard, Orchid Press Thailand 2008, p.335 Ibid 46 Ibid 27 Ibid 2, p.48 Ксения Борисовна Кепинг, The Black-headed and the Red-faced in Tangut Ingidenuous Texts, http://www.sx-ys.com9 Ibid 4, p.1610 Tshur-phu Karmapa lineage related to Tsurpu Monastery (Wylie: Tshur-phu dGon-pa) was founded in 1189 by the First Karmapa, Dusum-kyenpa (Wylie: Kar-ma Dus-gsum mkhyen-pa, 1110-1193), Kagyü Monasteries. Alexander Berzin, Chö-Yang, Year of Tibet Edition, Dharamsala, India 1991

2

was responsible for building a large temple and many smaller ones in the Hor Mi-nyag ‘Ga’ (Xixia) between

1255-56, which evidently held the aesthetic basis of the beauty and spiritually communicated Tibetan

Buddhist architectural and pictural elements. 11

The Xixia people formed a mixture of Tibetan and Turco-Mongol elements, speaking a Tibeto-Burman

language and employed an extremely complex system of writing based on Chinese characters. The territory on

which the Tanguts settled was an old Buddhist site within which the Central Asia, Chinese and Tibetan

Buddhism met and a peculiar form of Buddhism emerged.12 The Tangut kingdom of Xixia avowed profession of

Buddhism as the state faith and their culture was deeply embedded with the Buddhist elements and symbols,

particularly with those which may be called Tibetan styled. The artefacts found in the Dunhuang and Yulin

caves of the twelfth century permit us to appreciate the aesthetics and Buddhist influence imported to Xixia

from Tibet.13

Fragments of frescos and sculptures found in Kharakhoto, the presumed capital of Xixia, but merely a frontier

town which served as outpost for exiled political prisoners,14 provided the earliest known woodcuts and prints

in the Tibetan style. Serge d’Oldenburg remarks on the paintings, stucco and wood images found in the

Kharakoto stupa (Mon. suburgan) of the ancient Empire of Minia that they hold an extreme resemblance in

composition and that “make us presume that they all came from a common source, known to the ancient

Buddhist world”.15 These artefacts reflect with no doubt the style of Pala –Sena dynasty, whose concepts and

iconography was brought to Tibet from India by the early Kagyu (Wylie: bKa’- brgyud) masters such as Marpa

Lotsawa (1012–1097) and further transmitted to Xixia through ‘Bri-gung-pa16. The influence of the Pala

aesthetic vocabulary – chromatic nuancing of the deep, rich colours used to model the bodily and facial

features of the spiritual characters- extended far beyond central Tibet towards Dunhuang and the territories

occupied by the Xixia kingdom, later being incorporated into the Yuan Empire (Chinese: 元朝, Mongolian: Их

Юань улс).

The inherent cultural transference from Tibet to the Tangut Empire, took place once Liang zhou, the

cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic population long ruled by the Tibetans, was occupied by the rapidly expanding 11 Ibid 912 The Spread of Buddhism, Edited by Ann Heirman and Stephan Peter Bumbacher, Part 8, Vol. 16,Brill 2007, p.38113 Tibetan Art, ,p. 13114 Ibid 4, p. 3315 Ibid 4, p. 1616 Ibid 4, p.14

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Xixia, in 1100. Once with the establishment of the Xixia Empire in 1038, the Tangut occupation progressively

encompassed the former Tibetan areas of influence along the Silk Route, respectively Dunhuang and much of

the former territory of the Purgyel dynasty(Wylie: spu rgyal). The political and geographical situation that gave

Tibetans direct access to Xixia, with whom they shared close ethic and cultural ties, facilitated the

dissemination of their particular Buddhist artistic elements. Facing the historical changes, the Tibetans, while

absorbing the foreign influences, also succeeded to leave their own cultural imprint. The Tibetan prelates and

their retinue of artists were assiduously supported and invited to Xixia particularly during the reign of Xia

Renzong (1139-1193) for their teachings but also for the aesthetic idioms employed in their architecture,

iconography and paintings.

The Xixia monasteries followed iconographic and liturgical patterns prevalent in the Tibetan culture, such as

representations of stupas, The Five Transcendental Buddhas - also known as the Five Wisdom Tathāgatas, or

meditational and protective deities such as Samvara and Acala. The brilliant colours, highly decorative and

meticulously refined qualities of the Tangut art, were executed according to the principles and taste of the

Tibetan patrons.17

The most important findings of the two expeditions led by Colonel Kozlov during 1908-1909 to the ruins of

Kharakhoto, was a great stupa originally built in honour of a ‘incarnate teacher’, 18 which held hidden a variety

of books and manuscripts, a large number of printings on cloth, silk, paper, statues in metal and wood,

miniature stupas and other artefacts which are currently kept at St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum. The

abundant remains of Buddhist manuscripts were written in both Tangut and Tibetan script, while other papers

reveal to be written Chinese, Uyghur and Tangut. The indication that the Tibetan script was employed in

religious literature and official writings reflects that the Tibetans became part of the Tangut identity,

particularly after the 12th century, when the Tibetan Buddhist influence expanded in Xixia.

Noticeably, the Halahot manuscripts preserved in Russia contain much characteristic of the ancient Tibetan

script employed in the Tangut Empire. The Nationality Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Science and

the St. Petersburg Institute of Oriental Studies concluded that in addition to the manuscripts from the

Dunhuang Grottos, the discovery of the early Halahot Tibetan manuscripts added significant contents to the

research on the history of Tibet and Tibetan culture. As a characteristic creation of the Tibetan culture in Xixia,

the use of butterfly binding-with transverse writing- in Tibetan manuscripts represents a unique feature,

17 Ibid 12, p.13318 Ibid 4, p. 35

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“neatly written, elegant script, carefully carved, tidy rows and using the broad space of the whole page.”19

The skilfulness and the degree of complexity reveals a maturity in the art of printing, which lead us to the

conclusion that Tibetan woodblock printing had already existed long before the Tanguts begun to employ the

system and that through them the mastery was developed in the Xixia Empire. Furthermore, Xixia created a

decorative system for writing the alphabetic words on the basis of Tibetan culture (nowadays we can only see

such patterns of decoration of the text in the manuscripts stored in the Russian library), which shows a

dynamic cross-cultural interaction which led to the development of science and artistic techniques across clan

borders.20 The Tibetan artistic elements found with predilection in the Halahot manuscripts, written during the

Xixia period, consist of images with wheel designs which contain incantations used to pray to ward off

calamities and send down blessings- both Tibetan and Sanskrit-, diagrams, Zodiac, animal symbolism, motifs

which are woodblock- printed in the Derge Scripture Printery until nowadays.21

According to the Xixia fragments of illustrations of Buddhist texts found in Kharakhoto, published in the

Innermost Asia,22 one could remark the Tibetan stylistic physiognomy features of the tantric images, of the

bodhisattvas, monks and Buddhas.23 The woodcuts in Tibetan style published in the large collection of Xixia

texts, the Tangut Tripitaka24, belong to both the Xixia kan and Yuan kan. The earlier Tibetan artistic

illustrations consist of figures of bodhisattvas, Buddhas and monks with slim proportions of the body,

triangular shapes on the arm bands and crown, round earrings and bear a subtle transformation of the figure

features, from the Indian type to the Tibetan one.

The unpublished Kharakhoto woodcuts kept at the Institute of Oriental Studies in St. Petersburg, appear to be

stylistically linked with the Xixia kan period, and it is important to note that the arrangement of the figures

and the style recall of the elegance of the Pala dynasty of northern India which could indicate further the close

association between Tibet and Xixia, and the presence of a particular Tibetan monastic school on Tangut

ground.25

The Yuan engravings illustrated in the Tangut Tripitaka, show an eclectic aesthetic approach, a mingling of

Daoist Chinese ornamental, secondary elements with the Tibetan elements which remain central: in the

19 A study of the earliest Tibetan woodcut copies, Translated by Zhang Xiaomei, Chima Information Centre, www.Tibet.cn 2007, p. 120 Ibid 18, p.321 Ibid 1922 Ibid 4, p.3523 Ibid 2124 Ibid 2125 Ibid 4 , p.36

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illustration of the Mahaprajnaparamita sutra26, the Buddha, his mandorla and throne are purely Tibetan, while

the flower patterns on the robes and the mandorla and furthermore, the host of listeners to the Buddha’s

teachings are purely Chinese. The Yuan prints, as Max Loehr remarks27, show a strong Tibetan influence and

reports the findings of Ogawa Kanichi, who states in his work Daizokyo Seiritsu to hensen, that some of the

prints were actually cut from blocks of the Xixiazang – a complete edition of Buddhist text in Xixia script

completed in 1302- and have been later reconstructed and added new aesthetic elements. He further refers to

Guanzhuba (Wylie: bKa’-‘gyur-pa) of Xixian origin but with Tibetan education, an artist in charge with the

printing and later completion of Xixiazang with Tibetan esoteric elements.

There is an astonishing variety of artistic quality design of spiritual beings or important teachers which held

the Tibetan clothing and physiognomy features among the Xixia engravings, whether triangular in shape when

abstracted and stylized in Pala representations, round shaped for the female divinities or square for the male

bodhisattvas and Buddhas representations. Details of the jewellery, necklaces and other ornaments hanging

over the forehead of a stone figure of Tara evidence the dominance of ‘lamaist style’.28

The Tibetan artistic vocabulary infused and represented a direct source of inspiration for the Xixian culture.

Although the Tibetan artistic style is presumed to be extremely conservative and resumed to the imitation of a

strict stylistic model, the Tangut artefacts of Tibetan origin, reveal that Tibetans begun to be permeated by

new aesthetics especially in painting. The artistic interchange between the Xixia Kingdom and their Tibetan

compatriots resulted evidently in “products of the technical ingenuity and the unerring aesthetic instincts and

rich imaginations of the mostly unknown artists”.29

Bibliography

26 Alternatively, this name refers to the Large Sutra on the Perfection of Wisdom (Skt. Pancavimsatisahasrika-prajnaparamita-sutra) attributed to Nagarjuna Acharya, conventionally placed around 150–250 CE27 Ibid 4, p 3328 Ibid 4, p. 2729 Himalayas, An Aesthetic Adventure, Prarapaditya Pal, with contributions by Amy Heller, Oskar von Hinuber and Gautama V. Vajracharya, The Art Institute of Chicago in association with the University of California Press and Mapin Publishing 2004, p.166

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A study of the earliest Tibetan woodcut copies, Translated by Zhang Xiaomei, China Information Centre, www.Tibet.cn (2007)

Amy Heller Tibetan Art, Jaca Book, Antique Collectors’ Club, (1999)

Prarapaditya Pal, with contributions by Amy Heller, Oskar von Hinuber and Gautama V. Vajracharya, Himalayas, An Aesthetic Adventure,The Art Institute of Chicago in association with the University of California Press and Mapin Publishing (2004)

Ann Heirman and Stephan Peter Bumbacher (Editors), The Spread of Buddhism, , Part 8, Vol. 16,Brill (2007)

Ксения Борисовна Кепинг, The Black-headed and the Red-faced in Tangut Ingidenuous Texts, http://www.sx-ys.com

Heather Stoddard, Early Sino-Tibetan Art, Orchid Press Thailand (2008)

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Patricia Ann Berger, Terese Tse Bartholomew, James E. Bosson and Heather Stoddard Mongolia: The Legacy of Chinggis Khan by (1995)

Vladimir Braginsky (Editor)Classical civilizations of South East Asia: an anthology of articles. Published in The Bulletin of Soas, University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, Routledge (2002)

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