November 2008

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Demons appear kneeling at the four corners of the North Cave’s central pillar, sculpted almost in the round and supporting columns with lotus-shaped bases on their backs (Fig. 2). The figures have composite animal forms with leonine heads, huge claws, protruding bellies and wings that stand up and behind their shoulders and heads. The head and shoulders of one of the demons are in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University (Fig. 10). Much attention is devoted to the vivid and powerful sculpting of these figures. Similar kneeling demons appear at eye-level around the walls of the cave,where they are shown supporting the columns of the jewelled stupas. They kneel, grimacing and straining under the loads they bear. Their grotesque physiques and awkward poses contrast with the serene images of buddhas and bodhisattvas and the beauty of the radiant jewels. An element of humour is evident in their fearsome but subdued nature. Although displaying large teeth and claws, they have rather bashful expressions, and some, like panting dogs, have their tongues hanging out.

The demons are the most striking and appealing of the cave sculptures. The unfortunate consequence of this has been that most have been cut from the walls. Seven are known to reside in museums in North America. Four are in the Freer Gallery/Sackler Gallery of Art, Washington, dc, and the others are in the Cleveland Museum of Art; the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.

Depictions of monsters or demon figures appear frequently in non-Buddhist as well as in Buddhist contexts in the Northern and Southern Dynasties period (386-581). Popular cults of demons that involved animal sacrifice and ecstatic rituals are believed to have existed in ancient China before the introduction of Buddhism. Demons and spirits of various forms were depicted in native Chinese art and known in religious observances from as early as the late centuries bc. They proliferate in the art of the 6th century, engraved on stone tomb furnishings – such as sarcophagi, couches and epitaph stones – and painted on tomb walls. On the epitaph of the Lady Yuan (dated 522) in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Fig. 13), they are accompanied by inscriptions providing their names or epithets: Changshe ‘long tongue’, Xieshi ‘clutch stone’, Nieshi ‘crunch stone’, Jiaoyuan ‘carry afar by the horns’, Pidian ‘cracking lightning’, Chedian ‘flashing lightning’, and Hiukuang ‘rebounding light’.8 Many of those known from the early part of the 6th century are of the type seen in the North Cave, but other composite beasts are also represented.

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