The Heavenly King of Sending Sons
4 min readPainter: Wu Daozi
Painting Year: the Tang Dynasty
Material: paper scroll
Dimension: vertical length of 35.6 centimeters and the unknown horizontal length collection Place: Osaka Municipal Museun of Art, Japan The Heavenly King of Sending Sons was the rep-resentative work of Wu Daozi,a master of painting in the Tang Dynasty. The picture tells the story that the Buddha Sakyamuni was born as the prince of King Suddhodana. It is divided into three scenes: the Heavenly King rode an auspicious animal and sent the son; King Suddhodana sat up in the palace and received the Heavenly King of Sending Sons; and King Suddhodana walked slowly with prince carried in his arms.
The way of orchid-leaf sketching is used in this artwork many times. The brushwork is fluent, unstrained and powerful. The fgures brim with energy and vitality. The military offcers and the Heavenly King wear exaggerated but vivid expressions. The apparels of characters in the picture are mostly the clothes of the Tang Dynasty. Apart from the military offcers and the Heavenly King whose shapes retain the marks of foreign Buddhist painting, King Suddhodana, the queen, concubines, eunuchs and ministers all have facial features completely matching the Chinese images. This means that the Chinese elements had already been integrated into the Buddhist painting at that time. This artwork is a facsimile made in the Song Dynasty. But it also refects the painting style of Wu Daozi and his superb painting skills.
Art Master
Wu Daozi(circa 689-758)
He was a famous painter in the Tang Dynasty and came from Yangzhai(today’s Yuzhou, Henan). He had versatile painting skills and was profcient in painting fgures, Buddhist objects, gods and ghosts, landscape, trees and flowers, palaces and animals. He was especially good at painting Buddhist frescos and totally drew pictures on more than 300 walls in his life. Wu Daozi’s paintings were mainly based on line drawings and sometimes light colors were applied as well. People refer to the painting style with lines as the core and simple and light colors created by Wu Daozi as”Wu Zhuang”(the Wu Style). People of later generations revered Wu Daozi as the”Saint of Painting.”The religious painting style created by him was called”Wu Jia Yang”(theWu-school Style).
The minister holding an King Suddhodana There is a mighty man with a snake tied office plate,a maid holding was sitting up with around his neck and a halberd in his hand, an ink slab and a maid a gracefui and as well as a military officer wearing a taking a papeterie composed manner helmet and holding a mace. Both had strange appearances.
with a solemn expression, King Suddhodana was sitting up with full stateliness when her eceived the Heavenly King of Sending Sons. His ministers, military officers, concubines were waiting on the left and right sides of him. The lines of the picture looked like the orchid leafs, which are simple but powerful. The belts of people in the picture are fuent and foating.
Brief Background
Orchid-leaf Sketching
Orchid-leaf Sketching refers to a way of painting fgures in ancient China. It was suitable for showing the flying belts. It was created by Wu Daozi in the Tang Dynasty. The lines of figures drawn in this method look like the orchid leafs.
The Heavenly King with three heads and six arms knelt before the prince.y…c.,A eunuch was The middle hands of the Heavenly King touched the ground while the other cing Suddhodana walked carrying a fan o…
two left hands gripped a hexagonal fire ring and an ax while a spear and a toe wel e ahig amdc carrying over his shoulder Mt cat sword were taken by the other two right hands.
— following behind King Suddhodana.
King
Suddhodana carefully carried the prince and was closely followed by the queen wearing a set of Chinese-style clothes.A eunuch was holding a fan and waiting beside them. The Heavenly King groveled on the ground and hastily kowtowed to the prince.
Story about the Birth of Sakyamuni
There was a country named Kapilavastu(in today’s Nepal) in the northeastern part of ancient India. Its ruler King Suddhodana and his wife Queen Maya failed to produce a child years after their marriage. One day, Queen Maya had a dream in which a person who had light around his body rode a white elephant with six teeth and few into her body. Several days later, she felt that she was pregnant.
King Suddhodana followed the traditions and ordered people to escort his wife back to his father-in-law’s palace to give birth to the child. When walking past the garden of her father, Queen Maya got into the gardento have a casual walk. When she stopped before a sal tree, she raised her hand to pick the fower. At that timethe prince came to the world from her right fank. The prince was able to walk when he was born. His feet were four feet away from the ground and stepped on a lotus. He walked towards four directions respectively by seven steps and then opened his mouth, saying:”Between the earth and the heaven, the Buddha’s nature, the only wayto be enlightened to reach the perfection of benevolence, is the cleanest and most respectable. Every being has its own Buddha nature and I was born to enlighten their Buddha natures.”At this time, clean water poured down from the heaven like a silver chain to wash the prince. Then the heaven clothes made of thin yarns few down and covered him.
The prince was given the name Siddhartha. He became a monk to practice the religious behaviors when he wasThen he became the founder of the Buddhism and was revered as”Sakyamuni.””Sakyamuni”is the transliteration of the Indian, which meant the”Saint of Sakya Clan.”
