A GREEN JADE 'BODHIDHARMA' BOULDER, QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG PERIOD

Collection of Stephen Junkunc, III (d. 1978).

來源

史蒂芬•瓊肯三世（1978年逝）收藏

The present jade sculpture illustrates the legend of Bodhidharma, the 'First Patriarch' of Chan Buddhism in China. Bodhidharma, also known as Damo in Chinese, is largely credited with transmitting Mahayana Buddhism to China from its westerly neighbors. Accounts of his birthplace differ and include both Central and South Asian places as possibilities. According to the legend, Bodhidharma traveled to China to propagate the Buddha's teachings. One day he at arrived the Shaolin Temple, but he was denied entry. He then resided in a nearby cave, where he meditated in front of the cave wall for nine years, without eating or drinking. Upon the completion of the wall-gazing meditation, he was admitted into the Shaolin Temple. 

Compare a related celadon jade boulder with a similarly depicted Bodhidharma gazing into a grotto wall in meditation, inscribed to the back with an imperial poem by the Qianlong Emperor, included in the National Palace Museum exhibition The Refined Taste of the Emperor: Special Exhibition of Archaic and Pictorial Jades of the Ch'ing Court, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1997, cat. no. 39. The depiction of Buddhist monks in a mountain grotto is an extremely popular subject in Chinese art, and may have derived from a woodblock print of this theme in the eighteenth-century catalogue, Guyu tupu, attributed to the Southern Song period. A large number of such carvings were made during the Qianlong period; for example, see a white jade luohan boulder sold at Christie's London, 15th May 2018, lot 94.

本山子刻畫達摩面壁之典故。菩提達摩，為大乘佛教中國禪宗之祖。菩提達摩出生地尚未祥切，或為中亞及西亞一帶。據傳，達摩入東土傳佛，於少林寺附近石洞中面壁九年不飲不食，修成正理，後方入寺。

參考一相類青玉山子，雕達摩面壁圖，背面岩壁陰刻填金隸書清高宗御製文，錄台北國立故宮博物院展覽《宮廷之雅•清代仿古及畫意玉器特展圖錄》，國立故宮博物院，台北，1997年，編號39。佛教人物玉山屬於中國藝術常見題材，或受清中期出版的宋本《古玉圖譜》影響。乾隆一朝可見大量相類玉山，如一白玉例，售倫敦佳士得2018年5月15日，編號94。