仙人好樓居:襄陽新出相輪陶樓與中國浮圖祠類證=An Analogy Analysis of The Newly-Excavated Pottery Building Decorated with Xianglun(Xianglun Taolou) and The Hall of Buddha(Futu Ci) of China
The pottery building decorated with ’Xianglun’(Xianglun Taolou) unearthed archaeologically from the Caiyue tomb in Xiangyang city,Hubei province of China could be dated back to the period of the Three Kingdoms of the Eastern Han dynasty.Together with the carved Chinese immortals,auspicious beasts and the Indian devas and men as the motif,its structural feature integrating Chinese Han people’s pottery house and the Indian stupa presents the mixture of Sino-Indian cultures of the early stage when the Buddhism first came over to China.As for its structure,the author’s analogy analysis of the same-aged funeral pottery houses from North China and the excavated soul jar(Hun Ping) with molded decoration in the southern area along the Changjiang River in the Han and Jin dynasties suggests that the funeral wares of the two types are linked to the recorded Hall of Buddha(Futu Ci) that marks the Han-styled storey-building was initially developing in shape into the skyscraping Buddhastupa,among which was Caiyue pottery house constructed as the typical model for the Hall of Buddha(Futu Ci) in the early days of the Buddhism spreading into the area where the Han people lived.The hall of Buddha(Futu Ci) buried together with other funeral wares symbolizes the changes of the funeral customs for the Han inhabitants with the Buddhism coming into China.The buildings of the same design have been discovered in the brick tombs of the Six Dynasties lying in the middle areas along the Changjiang River.
