Abstract

The rock carvings at Baodingshan 寶頂山 (Treasure Summit Mountain), Dazu, Chongqing Municipality, represent the high achievement of Chinese Buddhist rock art. Scholars have offered various readings of the site’s design but many questions remain. This article suggests that the Baodingshan site was created, and designed accordingly, to serve as a venue for holding shuilu or the Buddhist rites of deliverance of creatures of water and land. The article first introduces the early states (i.e., the Song times) of the Shuilu rites which are very different from the contemporary version. The next section analyzes three elements at the Baodingshan site that indicate the site to be a ritual space for shuilu: Yuwen Qi’s 宇文屺 verse carved at the foothill of the site; the shared compositional characters of the carvings; and, the gāthā (jie 偈) of jiashi re tielun假使熱鐵輪.

A new frontier for the study of Buddhist rituals in medieval China can be opened by closely reading the rock carvings at Buddhist sites within the framework of shuilu ritual.

Keywords: Baodingshan, zhai (ritual feasting), shuilu fahui (water-land dharma assembly), cave temple, Buddhist ritual