Dunhuang Aesthetic Series

A painting, A story

Text/Chen Shou-chiang

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1. The Buddha’s hand with a flower

According sutra, on top of a mountain, the Buddha takes a beautiful flower in hand and says nothing. No one can tell what the Buddha means. Only Maha-kassapa knows what’s going on and have a secret smile on face.

The Buddha, therefore, said to the public that I have the Right-dharma-treasure and a wonderful knowledge about Nirvana, however, any languages or thoughts can’t describe the treasure and the knowledge. Now, I already told Maha-kassapa all about them.

Afterward, when people talk about “The Buddha’s hand with a flower” that means two people can communicate with heart or any inter course.

2. Female Musicians flying in the sky

Heavenly beings fly in the sky and offer singing, dancing and flowers to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas for respect. In ancient India, there are more than plenty of stories and legends about them, therefore, there are a lot of wall paintings and sculpture found in the major relics of Buddhism.

The Flying-angel, the Eastern-flying-beauty, she fly westward from India to Dunhuang. She is the most vivid image within all Dunhuang arts, therefore, she becomes the symbol of Dunhuang.

Although some Hinayana sutras said singing and dancing have six shortcomings, however, people can use singing, dancing and flowers as offerings in some Mahayana sutras. Therefore, singing and dancing just for fun might not be encouraged, however, doing the same things as offerings is a good business you may do as much as you like.

3. Heavenly angels sprinkle flowers

According Vimalakirti sutra, when some heavenly angels sprinkle flowers on Bodhisattvas and pupils of the Buddha, those flowers clung onto the pupils’ body but didn’t cling on the Bodhisattvas. That is because the pupils didn’t get rid of the self-will.

In fact, can the flowers tell the difference between the Bodhisattvas and the pupils?

However, it is the cling about form and thought making the flowers cling onto the pupils instead of the Bodhisattvas.

Annotation: In the current Practical-application-of-Dunhuang-esthetics∼Dunhuang Aesthetic Notebook, there are three beautiful and meaningful paintings on the notebook.