安西东千佛洞第5窟毗沙门天王与八大夜叉曼荼罗解说

Interpretation on The Illustrations to Vaisravana and The Mandala with Eight Yaksas inside Cave 5 of The East Cave of Thousand Buddhas at Anxi County

安西东千佛洞第5窟绕道南向壁面所画毗沙门天王及八大夜叉曼荼罗,据笔者的初步调查,该题材不见于莫高窟及其它石窟,其经典依据亦不见于汉译经典,为西夏时代受藏传密教影响的一个新的题材。

The Illustrations to Vais ravan a and the Mandala with Eight Yaksas is found to be painted on the south direction of a winding corridor around the centre p'illar inside Cave 5 of The East Cave of Thousand Buddhas. To the best of author's knowledge, this sort of motif could not be find at any other site of Buddhist Temple -caves include Mogao Grottoes at Dunhuang based on the initial investigation. For the textual research, the subject of the painting could not be check out any dependable Chinese text of Buddhist Sutra. The illustrations has reflected the important fact that the newly appearance of motif must be influenced by Tantric Buddhism from Tibetan when the area under the reign of the Western Xia Dynasty.