吴越阿育王塔四本生图辨

The Examination on the Scenes of the Four Jataka Tales of the Asoka Stupas of the Wuyue Kingdom

吴越阿育王塔四面各饰一幅本生故事图,图像内容基本固定,其图像志的识别最初依赖文献《唐大和上东征传》(779年)和2008年南京长干寺(大报恩寺)遗址塔基出土的北宋大中祥符四年(1011年)带有本生图铭文的"七宝阿育王塔",然而塔上铭文与文献记录并不一致,导致对两幅图的辨认存在分歧。本文通过对图式,佛经文本,龟兹、敦煌壁画的一系列比较,排除了文献和塔铭分别提到的"快目王施眼""须大拏太子施子"故事与四本生图的联系,判断有分歧的两幅图分别表现的是待考题材和"萨埵太子饲虎"故事。

On each of the four sides of the miniature Asoka stupas made in the Wuyue Kingdom, the illustration of the scene of a jataka tale is shown. The contents of the scenes are usually fixed, the iconographical identification of which has once been relied upon the historical work To Dai Wajo Tosei Den(Eastern Expedition of the Great Tang Monk, written in 779 AD by Mabito Genkai of Japan) and the inscriptions of the scenes of jataka tales on the ' Seven-gem A’soka Stupa ' made in the fourth year of Dazhong Xiangfu reign period(1011) of the Northern Song Dynasty unearthed from the crypt of the base of the pagoda of the Changgan Monastery(Great Baoen Temple) in Nanjing in 2008. However, the inscriptions of the stupa and the records in the historical work did not closely match, which lead disagreements on the identifications to two of these four scenes. Through comparisons among the scene arrangements, contents of the Buddhist scriptures and the motifs in the murals of Kucha and Dunhuang Caves, this paper excludes the relationships between the tales of 'King Sudhira donating his eyes' and 'Prince Sudana offering his children ' mentioned in the historical works and stupa inscriptions and the scenes of jataka tales on the A’soka stupas of the Wuyue Kingdom, and suggests that one of the two scenes in dispute would be the scene of 'Prince Sattva offering himself to feed tiger cubs',and the theme of the other one is still waiting for further study.