Chapter 98 The Heavenly King Delivers His Son Picture Tang/Wu Daozi

Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Buddhist content has become one of the important contents of Chinese paintings, especially figure paintings. The saint Wu Daozi has painted many Buddhist paintings, but unfortunately most of them are murals. With the collapse of the palace, there is no way to find them.This "Picture of the Heavenly King Sending His Son" is a long paper scroll, which is said to be a copy of the Song Dynasty. The original work no longer exists. Fortunately, there is this copy, which allows us to have a glimpse of the appearance of Wu Daozi's painting. "The Picture of Heavenly King Sending His Son" is based on the "Ruiying Ben Qijing", which shows that after the birth of Prince Siddhartha (later the ancestor of Buddhism Sakyamuni), his father Jingfan King and mother Maya Madame carried him to the The story of the gods worshiping the temple of heaven.

However, seeing this picture, you must have a strange feeling, whether this story is from India or China; whether it is from Buddhism or Taoism.Because of this authentic story of Buddha Jataka, all the characters are the images and costumes of Chinese emperors, empresses, servants and ladies. The two religions of Buddhism and Taoism in the Tang Dynasty have been fighting openly and secretly because of the needs of the ruler's political struggle.The emperor of the Tang Dynasty, surnamed Li, claimed to be a descendant of Lao Tzu Li Er in order to raise his social status, so Taoism was very powerful.However, since Buddhism was introduced to China in the Eastern Han Dynasty, it had a huge influence, and it also had a great influence in the Tang Dynasty.Wu Daozi was a painter who was active in the period of Tang Minghuang. Tang Minghuang believed in Taoism, worshiped Laozi, and personally annotated Laozi. He also named Zhuangzi as the real person of Nanhua, Wenzi as the real person of Tongxuan, Liezi as the real person of Chongxu, and Geng Sangzi as the real person of Dongling. .Her two younger sisters entered Taoism, named Princess Jinxian and Princess Yuzhen.Even Concubine Yang Gui was once regarded as a Taoist priest of the Taizhen Palace, nicknamed "Taizhen".Therefore, it is not surprising that Wu Daozi localized and Taoized all Buddhist characters when he painted the stories of Buddha Jataka.

Behind this painting is Song Li Gonglin's small script "Rui Ying Jing": "When King Jingfan Yan Jia hugged the prince to pay homage to the Dazizai Temple, all the statues of the gods rose up and worshiped the prince's feet. The father exclaimed and said: 'My son is in the god of heaven. Zhong is more respectful and superior, and the appropriate word is Tianzhongtian.'" The painting is a long scroll with three main parts. In the first part, King Jingfan embraces the prince and walks slowly towards the Great Freedom God, and Mrs. Maya walks with her hands folded in her big sleeves.Next to it is a waiter with a lupine on his shoulder.King Jingfan looked solemn and held the baby very carefully.Mrs. Maya looked solemn and full of maternal love.The waiter has delicate features and a peaceful expression.In front of them was a ghost with four eyes, a banner in his right hand, and a fire wheel with an ax handle in his left hand. He prostrated himself on the ground as if to greet him.

The second part is a dragon-shaped monster running wildly with its mouth open and its tongue out. It has powerful four legs and a long tail stretching straight to the upper right, which is very imposing.Two guards, one holding the reins tightly, and the other drawing their swords, are ready to subdue the monster. In the third part, Da Zi Zai Tian Shen sits upright, glaring at the monster.In front of him, there is a military general with a trident on his back and a weapon in his hand, making a counter attack. It seems that if the two guards can't subdue the monster, he will make a move.Next to the king of heaven, an official in court uniform stood holding a wat, and a female official wrote a book with a pen, recording this grand historical moment.

"The Picture of Heavenly King Sending Off His Son" is one of the representative works of Wu Daozi's figure paintings.In the first year of Emperor Guangzong's Taichang era (1620), Zhang Chouba believed that "The Picture of Heavenly King Sending His Son" was written by Tang and Wu, and it is the best painting in the world." In "The Picture of the Heavenly King Sending His Son", the author has an exquisite conception, which deeply portrays the nobility, dignity, and solemnity of the god king and the lord of the people. Strong realistic atmosphere; rich imagination in shaping the images of gods, King Kong, Hercules, and ghosts, such as fire, light, lions, elephants, snakes, three heads, six arms, fierce gods, and evil ghosts, to name a few.In the painting, the majesty of the Holy Lord is compared with the humbleness of the gods and monsters, the serenity of the goddess is compared with the violence of King Kong, the wind and fire of the god who sends the child is compared with the solemn and slow pace of the emperor who receives the child, the comparison between the sky and the world, the comparison between movement and stillness, and the comparison between slowness and speed ...and it all revolves around a baby.That is to say, the author used the birth of Sakyamuni to form a wonderful combination, showing a dazzling and shocking picture scroll.

There are two other points worth mentioning in this painting: Wu Daozi's figure painting method is called "Wu's style". It is "slightly dyed" in the scorched ink marks. On the whole, it changes the complicated "dense body" into a simple "sparse body". The model work of "Wu Jiayang". "Picture of the Heavenly King Sending Off His Son" (copy), also known as "Picture of Sakyamuni's Birth".Long scroll, unmarked, on paper and ink.It is 35.5 cm long and 338.1 cm wide.It was written by Tang Wu Daozi.It is now in the collection of Osaka City Museum of Art, Japan.