The early konokraphy of avalokiteivara. liconographie ancienne d'avalokites'vara.

• Author: Boucher, Daniel
• Position: Book review

The Early Iconography of Avalokitesvara. L'Iconographie ancienne d'Avalokiteivara. By GERARD FUSSMAN and ANNA MARIA QUAGLIOTFI. Publications de l'Institut de Civilisation Indienne, College de France, fasc. 80. Paris: DIFFUSION DE BOCCARD, 2012. Pp. 152, 21 plates.

Gerard Fussman is no stranger to Indologists interested in Indian epigraphy generally and Gandharan studies more specifically. His works have graced the pages of journals for decades, and we are very much in his debt for his many important contributions. The one under review here is something of a departure from his usual style. It was composed in English rather than his native French (though with nary a hint of impediment) and focuses on two pieces of Buddhist art from a private collection, devoid of inscriptions: a Mathuran sandstone bust, partially damaged, and a heavily restored seated Gandharan bodhisattva in the classic pensive pose. His own piece is an article-length contribution published here in a monograph series to accommodate the significant number of plates included and his desire to include two already published articles by Anna Maria Quagliotti and one other very short note on another "pensive bodhisattva" image from Mes-e Aynak in Afghanistan. Since the truly new contribution is his own article, -The Genesis of Avalokitesvara's Iconography: About Two Statues in the Pritzkers' Collection," I will focus my remarks on this piece.

Fussman's article raises some very fundamental questions about the methodology behind the identification of Gandharan and north Indian bodhisattva images, including, but not limited to, their relationship to images with similar iconography elsewhere on the subcontinent, their relationship to Buddhist ideology and practice generally, and their relationship to the religious economy of the region, particularly the motivations of donors to have certain images constructed instead of others. Several scholars have addressed these and other issues in recent years. Thus I was disappointed to find some of these studies ignored by Fussman, including my own recent foray into this very topic ("Is There An Early Gandharan Source for the Cult of Avalokitesvara'?" Journal asiatique 296.2 [2008]: 297-330). Therefore I will have to very briefly summarize my earlier findings and ask whether Fussman's consideration of the Pritzker images calls those findings into question.

The fundamental problem in identifying Gandharan and Mathuran cult images as Mahayana bodhi-sattvas is that it appears to present us with a stark inconsistency. On the one hand, art historians have for some time identified a number of Gandharan images as Avalokitesvara on the basis of certain key iconographic features, particularly the small buddha figure in the headdress. But our earliest literary sources for the Mahayana, consisting principally of those Indic texts translated into Chinese during the second and third centuries C.E., show very little evidence for the category of "celestial bodhisattvas." It is presumably these...