5至7世纪中国佛教龙王形象考

A Study on the Image of Dragon King in Chinese Buddhism from the 5th to the 7th Century

中国学术界普遍认同"龙王"外来的观点,文献材料表明龙王形象自唐代开始在中国流行,而出土的谭副造释迦牟尼像背面的龙王形象则进一步表明这类图像可能与古印度艺术存在联系,并将中国出现龙王形象的时间上溯至5世纪。通过对比敦煌莫高窟西魏时期第249和285窟中的图像,文章认为龙王形象在中国并非一直呈线性发展,在发展过程中,中华龙有过人格化的转向,这对我们研究中国龙王形象的双重起源和交叉发展具有重要启示。

The claim that the Chinese Dragon King was from a foreign country has been generally accepted by Chinese academia.Most of the previous materials showed that the image of the Dragon King had been popular in China since the Tang dynasty.The image of the Dragon King on the back of the statue of Shakyamuni Buddha,created by Tan Fu,proved with conclusive evidence that the image of the Dragon King really came from ancient India,and the time when the Dragon King image appeared in China dated back to the 5th century.By comparing the image from Cave 249 and Cave 285 of the Western Wei dynasty at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang,we found that the development of the Dragon King image in China was not a linear process.During the development process,the Chinese dragon image underwent a personification transformation.These results have important implications for us to study the dual origins and cross development of the image of Chinese Dragon King.