Volume two of Marylin Rhie's widely acclaimed and formative multi-volume work presents a comprehensive, scholarly and detailed study of the Buddhist art of China and Central Asia from 316-439 A.D. during the formative early periods of Buddhism in the Eastern Chin and Sixteen Kingdoms Period. Using texts translated from the Chinese together with stylistic and technical analyses, the chronology and sources of the art are more clearly defined than in previous studies for the regions of South and North China (other than Kansu) and the important sites of Tumshuk, Kucha and Karashahr on the Northern Silk Route in eastern Central Asia. Furthermore, by incorporating extensive religious and historical materials, this work not only contributes to clarifying the regional characteristics of the art, but also offers new insights into the broader, interregional relationships of this politically fragmented period.

Early Buddhist Narrative Art is a pictorial journey through the transmission of the narrative cycle based on the life of the historical Buddha. Karetzky, while demonstrating the various evolutions that the image of the Buddha underwent, maintains that there is an underlying homogeneity of the tradition in the cultures of India, Central Asia, China and Japan. The author, while focusing on the visual representation of the Buddhist narrative, goes into some detail regarding the importance of scriptures in each society, and how the written tradition informed the pictorial. Over seventy photos fill this book, which will be of interest to scholars of art history, Eastern religion and Buddhism in particular.

This book, third in a series on the early Buddhist art of China and Central Asia, centers on Buddhist art from the Western Ch'in (385-431 A.D.) in eastern Kansu (northwest China), primarily from the cave temples of Ping-ling ssu and Mai-chi shan. A detailed chronological and iconographic study of sculptures and wall paintings in Cave 169 at Ping-ling ssu particularly yields a chronological framework for unlocking the difficult issues of dating early fifth century Chinese Buddhist art, and offers some new insights into textual sources in the Lotus, Hua-yen and Amitabha sutras. Further, this study introduces the iconographpy of the five Buddhas and its relation to the art of Gandhara and the famous five colossal T'an-yao caves at Yün-kang.

Volume two of Marylin Rhie’s widely acclaimed and formative multi-volume work presents a comprehensive, scholarly and detailed study of the Buddhist art of China and Central Asia from 316-439 A.D. during the formative early periods of Buddhism in the Eastern Chin and Sixteen Kingdoms Period. Using texts translated from the Chinese together with stylistic and technical analyses, the chronology and sources of the art are more clearly defined than in previous studies for the regions of South and North China (other than Kansu) and the important sites of Tumshuk, Kucha and Karashahr on the Northern Silk Route in eastern Central Asia. Furthermore, by incorporating extensive religious and historical materials, this work not only contributes to clarifying the regional characteristics of the art, but also offers new insights into the broader, interregional relationships of this politically fragmented period.

Presenting new studies on the chronology and iconography of Buddhist art during the Western Ch'in (385-431 A.D.) in northwest China, including Ping-ling ssu and Mai-chi shan, this book addresses issues of dating, textual sources, the five-Buddhas, and relation with Gandhara.

A comprehensive analysis of the earliest Buddhist art of China, Bactria, and the Southern Silk Road in Central Asia from ca. 1st - 4th century A.D., elucidating the inter-relationships, history, religious elements, sources, dating and chronology.

A comprehensive analysis of the earliest Buddhist art of China, Bactria, and the Southern Silk Road in Central Asia from ca. 1st - 4th century A.D., elucidating the inter-relationships, history, religious elements, sources, dating and chronology.

The most striking feature of Wutong, the preeminent God of Wealth in late imperial China, was the deity's diabolical character. Wutong was perceived not as a heroic figure or paragon of noble qualities but rather as an embodiment of humanity's basest vices, greed and lust, a maleficent demon who preyed on the weak and vulnerable. In The Sinister Way, Richard von Glahn examines the emergence and evolution of the Wutong cult within the larger framework of the historical development of Chinese popular or vernacular religion—as opposed to institutional religions such as Buddhism or Daoism. Von Glahn's study, spanning three millennia, gives due recognition to the morally ambivalent and demonic aspects of divine power within the common Chinese religious culture.

Presents a history of early Buddhism based solely on dateable artefacts and archaeology rather than received tradition, much of which data is provided by studying Pyrrho's history