Decontextualization, Reconfiguration, and Symbolization: Reinventing Pensive Bodhisattvas in Early Medieval China

Images of pensive bodhisattva were produced in various Silk Routes regions from Gandhāra to Central Asia, China, Korea and Japan. His identity in each area is debated. The key threshold of pensive image existed in fifth- and sixth century China, where he was placed in some new pictorial contexts. These contexts suggest contradicting identities of him including Siddhartha (pre-enlightened Sākyamuni), Maitreya and several types of devotees/practitioners related to them.
This paper examines the shifting meanings of pensive bodhisattva. I propose that unlike its counterparts in Gandhāra and Central Asia, pensive bodhisattva in China never existed within a complete representation of Siddhartha watching the ploughing event and experiencing his first meditation, whose repertoire typically includes farmers, bulls and kneeling Śuddhodana. I argue that pensive bodhisattva had been decontextualized from the narrative and combined with a motif derived from another key moment in Siddhartha’s quest for Buddhahood: the kneeling horse licking Siddhartha’s feet when he was entering the mountain in search of a spiritual life. The new image was constructed as a visual sign for the Bodhisattva Path: the pursuit and attainment of Buddhahood.

In 470s, pensive bodhisattvas were incorporated into the iconography of Tuśita Heaven as attending figures flanking Maitreya to elevate Tuśita’s status to a quasi-Pure Land, by visually connecting a rebirth in Tuśita with attaining Buddhahood. In sixth century, pensive bodhisattvas were depicted as focal images within donor portraits/processions and later created as independent icons. I consider they embody the guaranteed yet distant Buddhahood of the principal donors.