经典规范与图像表达——敦煌弥勒经变“老人入墓”图的绘画思想与信仰观念

The Classical Norm and Expression of the Image——The Painting Thoughts and Beliefs of the Image of the old Man Entering the Tomb in Dunhuang Maitreya Sutra

关于敦煌弥勒经变"老人入墓"图的研究,前人主要关注"老人入墓"这种现象的来源。我们拟以弥勒信仰为切入点,以文化思想融合为线索,探究"老人入墓"图的绘画思想、老人为何着白衣入墓及"老人入墓"与弥勒净土往生方式的关系三个问题。以史料为依据、以弥勒下生经为基础,并结合敦煌壁画,运用图像学的方法详细探析以上问题,结果表明:敦煌弥勒经变中的"老人入墓"图是大唐盛世背景下佛教思想与孝道思想融合的产物;老人着白衣入墓实与白衣弥勒信仰有关,白衣弥勒信仰崇尚白色,其信徒多穿白衣,所以老人着白衣入墓;老人在墓中不是自然死亡,而是在当时末法思想的影响下,以中国传统信仰中"肉身不坏"的方式来等待弥勒降世,度化众生,进而往生弥勒净土,"生大梵天上及诸佛前"。

The former scholars mainly focused on the source of this phenomenon of the image of old man entering tomb about the research of this image in Dunhuang Maitreya Sutra. We are planning to explore the painting thought of this image,why the old man wore white clothes and the relationship of the elderly entering the tomb and the deceased Maitreya in the pure land by taking the belief of Maitreya as the breakthrough point and the fusion of cultural thought as the clue,which are based on the historical data and the Maitreya Sutra,combining with the Dunhuang murals,and apply the methods of using images to prove history and the mutual proof of images and history. The result shows that the image of the old man entering the tomb in Dunhuang Maitreya Sutra is the integrative product of Buddhist thought and the filial piety thought under the background of flourishing age of Tang Dynasty. The white clothes is associated with the white Maitreya belief which worships white and it＇s followers are in white clothes,so the old man in white clothes into the tomb. The old man in the tomb did not die a natural death,which was thought to wait Maitreya coming into the world,generally spending all living creatures,entering into the Maitreya pure land,living in Brahma heaven and seeing the Buddhas by the way of without putrefaction of the flesh in Chinese traditional belief under the influence of eschatology.