China News Service, Beijing, February 14 (Reporter Song Yusheng) "There is almost no Buddha statue in the Tianlongshan Grottoes. This is the first Tianlongshan Buddha head returned from Japan. This slightly smiling Buddha head. Witness the superb artistic level of Tianlongshan Grottoes..."
On the stage of this year's Spring Festival Gala, a returning Buddha in Tianlongshan Grottoes stood at the C position.
Hang Kan, a professor at Peking University's School of Archaeology, Literature and Art, who introduced the Buddha in the program, participated in the identification of this relic last year.
Recently, he accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from Chinanews.com and interpreted the story behind the Buddha from the perspective of a researcher.
CCTV Spring Festival Gala Screenshot
Nervous because there are too many people behind
"The content of the Buddha's head introduced on the stage was finalized only at noon on New Year's Eve."
As a researcher engaged in Buddhist archaeology, Hang Kan participated in a variety show for the first time.
Unexpectedly, this first show is the stage of the Spring Festival Gala.
"Different from our usual academic conferences, the stage of the Spring Festival Gala is still quite stressful." In his opinion, this kind of "tension" is not just because it is the first show in the Spring Festival Gala.
"The main reason is that you are not representing you personally on the stage." Hang Kan told reporters, "It may seem that this is just a few minutes of the Spring Festival Gala, but there are too many people behind it. Only from On the cultural relic level of the Spring Festival Gala stage, it includes details such as on-site presentation and cultural relic safety."
CCTV Spring Festival Gala Screenshot
The return of the Buddha head is a more tortuous process.
On September 14, 2020, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage discovered that Japan Toyo International Auction Co., Ltd. planned to auction a "Tang Tianlong Mountain Stone Buddha Head" in Tokyo, which is a suspected cultural relic lost in the Tianlong Mountain Grottoes.
After organized identification and research, it was determined that the stolen Buddha head (Sui Dynasty), which belonged to the main Buddha statue at the north wall of the Buddhist niche of Cave 8 of Tianlongshan Grottoes, was stolen and illegally transported out of the country around 1924.
The State Administration of Cultural Heritage launched a recourse mechanism to determine the work goal of "stop auctions and strive for return". It wrote to the auction house on October 15 of that year, requesting the termination of auctions and publicity and exhibition activities related to the Buddha's head and the withdrawal of auctions.
On October 16, the auction house actively cooperated to make a decision to withdraw the auction and terminate the relevant publicity.
The State Administration of Cultural Heritage contacted Zhang Rong, chairman of the auction house and an overseas Chinese in Japan, to encourage the return of cultural relics.
The Chinese Embassy in Japan held a cultural relics handover ceremony. Photo courtesy of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage
On October 31, 2020, Zhang Rong negotiated with the Japanese cultural relic holders to complete the purchase, and after full communication with the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, it was decided to donate the Buddha's head to the Chinese government.
On November 17, the Chinese Embassy in Japan held a cultural relics handover ceremony. Zhang Rong donated the head of the Tianlongshan Grotto Buddha to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China for free.
At 12 o'clock on December 12, 2020, the head of Buddha arrived in Beijing safely and was delivered to the warehouse on the same day. The head of Buddha returned to the embrace of the motherland.
On December 12, 2020, the head of the Buddha safely arrived in Beijing, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage for pictures
The Buddha's head is smiling from all angles
In fact, after the Buddha returned to China at the end of last year, Hang Kan was already involved.
"As soon as the head of Buddha came back, we made further physical identification."
According to the information on the official website of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, two days after the return of the Buddha, on December 14, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage organized experts from the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the School of Archaeology and Culture, Peking University, and the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University to carry out physical identification and arrange for China The Cultural Heritage Research Institute conducts cultural relic testing and analysis and health assessment.
The head of the Buddha on the north wall of Cave 8 of Tianlongshan Grottoes.
Photo courtesy of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage Luo Zheng/Photo
Hang Kan came into contact with this Buddha head at this time.
From the professional point of view of researchers, identification is not too difficult.
"Even if this image does not have any information, we can still judge its age, style, and region based on its image, material, etc."
The reason why this Buddha head can be accurately traced to the Buddha statue in the north niche of Cave No. 8 of Tianlongshan Grottoes is because of the old photos kept in the last century.
Photo courtesy of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage before and after the theft
Hang Kan told reporters, "This Buddha head had a photo at the time. After comparison, the face, facial features, shape and spirit of the Buddha head are highly consistent with the old photos, and some traces including natural weathering can be completely matched."
Among them, the mottled marks on the right cheek of the Buddha's head extend from the right eyelid to the right ear, which is exactly the same as the actual object; some subtle features of the Buddha's head face, such as the small spots on the right cheek and the weathered edge of the neck, two Those are also consistent.
According to the historical pictures of the remaining traces of the grotto, after the head of the Buddha was stolen and chiseled, its back and nose have been repaired.
"When we checked repeatedly, we found that no matter from which angle you look at it, the capital of this Buddha is smiling at you. Not all statues are like this. Some statues are better carved on the front, but not on the side. So perfect. But the image is smiling from all angles, which is very moving." He said.
The head of the Buddha on the north wall of Cave 8 of the Tianlongshan Grottoes, which has been lost overseas for nearly a century. Photo courtesy of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. Photo by Luo Zheng
Cultural relics have emotional value
During the physical appraisal, Hang Kan even felt that this Buddha head that has traversed thousands of years seemed to be talking to people today.
The return of the Buddha's head and the standing at the C position during the Spring Festival Gala also made the Tianlongshan Grottoes, which were relatively unfamiliar to the public in the past, a hot topic.
The Tianlongshan Grottoes in Taiyuan, Shanxi, were excavated in the 6th century. After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the carvings lasted more than four hundred years.
The Buddha statues of Tianlong Mountain in Tang Dynasty have the characteristics of elegant demeanor, full body and graceful posture. They are considered to be typical works of the period when foreign art transformed into Chinese grotto art, and they are called "Tianlong Mountain Style".
On February 12, a reporter from China News Agency visited the Tianlong Mountain Grottoes in Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Wei Liang
Unfortunately, after experiencing the prosperity of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Tianlongshan Grottoes gradually declined in the Song and Yuan Dynasties.
At the beginning of the 20th century, after the Tianlongshan Grottoes were rediscovered, they began to receive attention from foreign scholars and aroused a search boom.
Against this background, the remaining Buddha statues in the grottoes were further destroyed.
In the 1920s, driven by foreign antique dealers, the Tianlongshan Grottoes were robbed on a large scale. More than 240 statues were stolen. Almost all the heads and even the whole statues were stolen overseas. They are now collected in Japanese, European and American museums. As well as in private hands, the level of destruction is the most tragic among Chinese cave temples.
For a time, the Tianlongshan Grottoes became "headless grottoes".
On February 12, Cave 8 (left) of the Tianlongshan Grottoes in Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province is under seal protection.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Wei Liang
In the past 100 years, the academic circles have attached great importance to the Tianlongshan Grottoes, but the public knows very little about it.
In Hang Kan's view, this is due to the scale of the grotto itself, but the more important reason is the large-scale robbery in the 1920s.
"After the Tianlongshan Grottoes were stolen and chiseled, almost none of them looked complete, which is very sad."
On February 12, "Xiantong Sifu-Tianlongshan Grottoes National Treasure Return and Digital Restoration Special Exhibition" was launched in Beijing Lu Xun Museum.
The picture shows the head of the Buddha on the north wall of Cave 8 of Tianlongshan Grottoes (Sui Dynasty).
Photo by China News Agency reporter Du Yang
Nearly a hundred years later, this Buddha head finally returned to the motherland.
"From this perspective, this cultural relic has its unique emotional value in addition to the historical value, technological value and artistic value that we have emphasized in the past."
"When we were appraising, we had a feeling of communicating with cultural relics," Hang Kan said. "This Buddha head seems to be saying that it is a pleasure to come back." (End)