A carved limestone buddhist votive stele Tang dynasty | 唐 石灰岩雕釋迦牟尼幢台

This rare limestone rectangular stele, finely carved with sensuous naturalistic detail of each of the fours sides with a sculpture of a Buddha and bodhisattva, bears testimony to the development of Buddhist devotional art in China. It served as a vehicle for its fervent commissioner to accumulate merits and record their acts of devotion. With the dynamic growth of Buddhism in the fifth century, various regional devotional societies were formed across China which prompted unforeseen innovation in the production of religious art. Votive stone steles emerged as a new genre in the Buddhist sculptural repertoire that differentiates from monumental cave temple carvings.

Compare another Tang dynasty limestone stele included in the exhibition Ancient Chinese Sculptural Treasures: Carvings in Stone, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, 1998, pl. 64. Despite of a slightly smaller size, it draws close comparisons with the present piece in its composition, rendering of the figures and their style of drapery within the recessed niches, and the apsarases above in three-dimensional relief.