The Jataka tales of the Mogao Caves, China in anthropological perspective

Ming-Kuo Wu

doi:10.7273/000005873

The Mogao caves of Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China were constructed and decorated from the 4th to the 14th century and contain several genres of art, colored clay sculptures, and narrative. One of these genres is the murals of the Jataka tales stories of the Buddha s previous lives as Bodhisattvas, those who represent specific goal-directed behavior and perform the acts of a bodhisattva in order to reach the status of buddhahood. The present research addresses the gap in scholarly knowledge about the murals of the Jataka tales at the Mogao caves of Dunhuang in six domains. First, through publicly available pictorial art data research, it presents the first-ever comprehensive, complete, and accurate catalogue of where in the caves the Jataka tale motifs appear, and which tales are depicted. Second, it formulates and uses a new conceptual-analytical paradigm, the Jataka tale-scape. Third, a new analytical perspective is developed, that of cascade altruism, which encompasses deeds done through many lifetimes in the Mahayana Buddhist quest of bodhisattvas. Fourth, the power and scale analytical approach used here compares the number and volume, in both absolute and annual rate of construction, of Jataka tale-containing caves and non-Jataka tale-containing caves made at Mogao in each dynasty. Fifth, it shows that when there was dynastic unrest the artists produced Jataka murals on the cave walls with greater frequency. During more peaceful dynasties, particularly the Tang, the artists produced fewer or no Jataka scenes and usually relegated them to insignificant locales in the caves. There exists a distinctive correlation between the number and placement of the Jataka tale murals in the Dunhuang caves and the socio-political situation of contemporary times. And sixth, it conducts the results of an openended questionnaire with Taiwanese monks and nuns who preached and taught in several temples in three cities in Taiwan. The survey results show that the Jataka tales that transmitted Buddhist beliefs in medieval times are still important today.

The Jataka tales of the Mogao Caves, China in anthropological perspective

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