The study of Far Eastern Buddhist iconography as it developed from the Indian concepts as its earliest origin is an extremely interesting one. It is as interesting and exciting as the study of its routing through Tun huang, China, and Korea, to Japan. Though quite a few earlier researches have been made by scholars, mostly Western, these are confined to its stylistic development rather than with any emphasis on the iconographic transformations and interpretation of the symbolism involved. The present work is focussed on this aspect of the development through the long and chequered art-epochs by which it passed in each country and each region concerned. In the course of the long journeys, it must be noted, iconic entities gathered much of local traits, stylistic and thematic, taking upon itself formal transformations and developed new symbolisms Religions with their sub-sects where ever existed, played no less a contributive part in these changes. The main theses in the present work consist in laying bare these developing changes and transformations, often brought about, specially in Japan, by the religious sects founded and the artists of the Schools they belonged to In the changes that took place, looking back at the Indian origins, one would often find the resultant forms irrecognisably different from their initial proto-types, and more often identifiable only in their translated names.
It has been the endeavour here in the present work to trace these relationships through the undercurrent of translated nomenclature in the lands that stand so apart geographically and linguistically. Yet the fact remains that Indian contribution in this long and complicated development is immense and deep-rooted. Widely considered, it is a cultrual dissemination from the exotic areas known to the East as 'Western", that inseparably binds the two: India, on the one hand, and China, Korea and Japan known as the Far East or East Asia, on the other. And it is this bondage that is emphasized in the present treatise revealing a uniqueness in its approach,
The individual iconic concepts that have been taken up in the present work are by no means exhaustive. For, apart from the more palpable connections that have been traced here, there are several other iconic entities carved, painted and line-drawn that developed in East Asia on basic Indian proto-types but resulted in completely different iconic features. It must be admitted at this point, however, that in some of the countries in East Asia, the contribution of its own regional urge has played considerably larger part resulting in the emergence of a large number of sculptural forms impelled by the many political upsurge and social needs that cropped up and dictated these forms, never-the-less within the frame-work of the current spiritual thinking.
The present work, however, has tried to include the more important and popular themes and iconic forms, individual and in groups, keeping in view the basic theses of the Indian contributions. An attempt to include more of the available iconisms specially in Japan where the ultimate forms found expression, is surely a desideratum and would be hopefully fulfilled in further studies. Yet the theme of Indian contribution in these ultimate forms is well made out, it is hoped, by the study and discussions on the collections included in the present work. Here, however, the profuse illustrative line-drawings of the deities in iconographic texts, like the Besson Zakki and numerous others, have been left out for study, except a few, to avoid unwieldy enormity, and concentration has been laid mostly on sculptures in the various media, as well as the paintings as are preserved in the temples, museums and other collections.
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