IMAGES OF SINICISED VEDIC DEITIES ON CHINESE ALTARS
KEITH STEVENS
51
Introduction
The rear halls of two temples in the Western Hills of Peking each contains some twenty-eight images which, though predominantly Chinese in appearance and style, are Vedic deities referred to in English in Chinese temple brochures as the Deva. The main question arising from this unique pantheon asks what led to its arrangement and character?
Buddhism in China numbers among its many deities several score borrowed from Brahmanism and other Indian religions, other words Hindu deities with Chinese appearance and bearing. These tend to be well-known forms, accepted by Chinese devotees as Chinese and with little suggestion that they had an alien Indian origin. The concepts and forms of Buddhist deities on altars in China were almost exclusively brought there from India either by the northern route over the mountains and deserts of North-western China or the Southern route by sea to Kuangtung or Fukien provinces. The transit of South Asian Buddhism and its statuary to China began during the first century AD with the statuary being uniquely Buddhist, taken from Hinduism via Buddhism.
The Revd. J MacGowan1, during the early days of this century wrote that "the practical, every-day, common religion of the Chinese is idolatry, pure and simple. Ancestor worship is too profound and too ideal and not quick enough to meet the problems that constantly face the Chinese in their struggle for existence. To provide for this difficulty, idols innumerable have been enshrined in homes and in temples all over the land....and many of these idols are of Indian origin, as can be seen by their faces, as well as by the liturgies that are used, which are certainly adaptations from the ancient Sanskrit."
We are particularly interested here in the specifically Hindu deities referred to in English in Chinese brochures as the Devas, but in Chinese guise, on altars in two temples in the Western Hills, the Ta Pei...