Early Buddhist Art of China and Central Asia, Vol. 3: The Western Ch'in in Kansu in the Sixteen Kingdoms Period and Inter-relationships with the Buddhist Art of Gandhara

摘要

Marylin M. Rhie's Early Buddhist Art of China and Central Asia, Vol. 3, is a study of Buddhist sculpture during the Western Qin kingdom (385-400; 409-431) in Gansu province of northwestern China. The short-lived and somewhat minor kingdom has had relatively little impact on Chinese history writing. This superbly researched and explicated study of more than 500 pages challenges any assumption of the insignificance of Western Qin in the history of Buddhist art. Instead, by the end of the book, the reader is convinced that a pivotal monument in Buddhist art history, probably the pivotal monument of the Sixteen Kingdoms period (304-439), dates to the last third of Western Qin rule and is in eastern Gansu province.