This dissertation concerns small shrines made for Buddhist worship during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Because they were intended for personal devotions, these diminutive sculptures were created as portable works of art. Without a specific temple site it is difficult to establish provenance, a condition that has determined the methodology used in this study; that is, each of the three shrines considered is evaluated for style and iconography, and related to an appropriate cultural context and textual evidence.
The first shrine studied is an ivory diptych found in Gansu, China. By reference to similar stone diptychs of northwestern India, stylistic and iconographic analyses, and textual evidence the work is defined as a late seventh-early eighth century private commission from the Kasmiri region.
The second shrine is a wooden triptych now in the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Missouri. The work's style and iconography, evidence of a Khotanese-Tibetan-Chinese cultural context, and the Eight Bodhisattva cult with its cosmic relation to consecration rites identify the mandala as a late eighth-early ninth century ritual object of northeastern Tibet or Dunhuang during the period of Tibetan occupation (787-848).
The third shrine, unlike the previous two, is not unique; the wooden triptych belonging to the Inui Family in Japan is compared to four other related works in Japan and Korea. The small Inui triptych is placed in the context of imported devotional art works or shorai bijutsu, studied for style and iconography, and related to pertinent texts. The weighing of this evidence results in the definition of new Maitreya imagery, which may account for the continuation of Northern Qi architectural forms in a work clearly executed during the Tang.
This dissertation concludes that although related as portable works of one period each shrine represents a different school of Buddhism, and was created to serve a particular function in disparate cultural contexts. Lastly, the small shrines are shown to be modeled on monumental prototypes--sculpture cycles, banner and wall paintings, and cave temples.
