The Use of Books for Buddhist Embroideries in Seventeenth-Century China: The Cases of Avalokiteśvara and Bodhidharma Designs

Abstract

Buddhist women in traditional China used embroidery—considered the most feminine art form—to produce images of deities, allowing them to visualize their religious aspirations while adhering to the decorum expected in Confucian society. This paper examines three Buddhist embroidery designs: one visualized in Avalokiteśvara (1619) and two from a catalog of embroidery designs titled A Collection of Scattered Red Clouds (mid-seventeenth century). By analyzing their similarity to the images found in popular illustrated publications of the seventeenth century, this study explores how Buddhist iconography circulated across different media. Through a comparative analysis of the embroidered works and woodblock prints featuring Buddhist deities such as Avalokitesvara and Bodhidharma, I demonstrate that seventeenth-century Chinese women embroiderers often utilized contemporary woodblock prints as models for their devotional embroidered works. The publications that supplied the models for the embroiderers vary from one for a pronounced ritual value—Dharani Sutra of White-robed One—to one that is fundamentally non-religious and educational—a painting manual titled Canon of Painting. This variety highlights the breadth of reading materials that reached the inner chambers of Chinese women, enabling them to engage with religious visual culture beyond their domestic confines and express their spiritual devotion through artistic means.

1. Introduction

In traditional Chinese society, embroidery—the application of patterns and images on fabric using needle and thread—was considered the epitome of “womanly works”.1 Chinese women, whether from rich or poor families, all adorned their dowry with embroidery, and especially for women of gentle upbringing, embroidery was the symbol of their virtue and good qualities, just as the writing and painting skills were for learned men (Bray 1997, pp. 265–69). As a consequence, embroidery was one of the central elements in girls’ education (C. Wu 2015); women were expected to learn embroidery before mastering other arts, such as poetry and painting, if they had any education in the latter, a social and cultural norm attested to in biographical writings from the Qing dynasty (1644–1912).

While the technique of embroidery was most commonly used by women to adorn garments and bedding to prepare the dowry, embroidery also served as a medium for creating valuable artworks of various subjects, including religious ones. Seventeenth-century Chinese women could express their artistic individualities through painting-like, large-scale embroidery, which commanded high prices in the market (Ko 1994, pp. 173–75). Embroidered objects could also carry psychological value for women beyond the monetary value they were traded for. Buddhist embroidery, especially, had become established as a woman’s domain to express deep and often bodily devotion by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) (Y. Li 2020, pp. 108–13).

Primary sources attest to the importance of Buddhist figures and scenes as subject matter in Chinese women’s embroidery. Illustrations of Embroidery, the earliest known Chinese treatise devoted to the art of embroidery, names “embroidered Buddhist figures” as the first among the list of the subjects for embroidery.2 A later, Republican era (1912–1949) treatise based on the collection of the imperial court and the author’s personal observations also named Buddhist themes among the most frequently mentioned subjects in embroidered works.3 Previous scholarly investigations in this category note that the labor-intensive nature of embroidery—the sheer number of repetitive stitching actions required to complete a piece—was perceived as a gesture of extreme devotion, efficacious in generating good merits (Sheng 2003; Y. Li 2020, pp. 108–41). Focusing on hair embroidery and the theme of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Ch. Guanyin), specifically, Li’s study also demonstrated how women during the Ming and Qing dynasties transformed the feminine medium into an ultimate form of bodily dedication, a feat achieved by incorporating literal body parts into their work. Beyond Guanyin embroidery, a single theme in Chinese Buddhist embroidery has seldom been the subject of in-depth research, except the theme of Sixteen Arhats, which emerged in the Song (960–1279) and Yuan (1271–1368) dynasties as a popular topic in imperial gift embroideries and enjoyed revived popularity among lay Buddhist artists in late Imperial China (R. Wang 2018; Liu 2010).

Aside from the studies outlined above, most existing scholarship on Chinese Buddhist embroidery focuses on works from the Tang dynasty (618–907). A significant contribution to the field is Zhao and Wang’s study of works excavated from the Dunhuang Mogao Caves, which demonstrated that precursors to later embroidery techniques, such as split stitch and gold stitch, appeared in the embroidered Buddhas from Dunhuang (Zhao and Wang 2012, 2022). Researchers have also examined how the rise of Pure Land Buddhism during the Tang dynasty influenced Buddhist embroidery and how the period’s preferred color palettes and clothing styles were reflected in embroidered Buddhist imagery (Y. Wu 2012; Zhang and Yuan 2021). In contrast, studies on Buddhist embroidery in late Imperial China remain relatively sparse. One notable exception is Liu Gang’s study on Ming dynasty (1368–1644) works featuring the 16 Arhats, which partially inspires my research methodology; it systematically traces the paintings that provided the embroiderers with the model designs for their embroidered works (Liu 2010).

The present study contributes to the existing literature by examining a key step in Buddhist embroidery production that precedes stitching, namely, how the choice of patterns for a specific deity could be assisted. According to the practitioners, the choice of pattern was not a trivial matter in traditional Chinese embroidery. Ding Pei, the author of Treatise on Embroidery (1821) and a Qing dynasty woman who practiced the art of embroidery, states that “As a painter needs a sketch/draft [to paint], the technique of embroidery requires a pattern. Once determined, the structure and layout cannot be altered. Thus, it (the selection of a pattern) is a matter one should deliberate”. From this statement, one learns that free-hand stitching was not commonly practiced; an embroiderer needed to follow a pattern. While embroiderers equipped with drawing techniques would have been able to produce their patterns, others who lacked such skills must have used a pre-existing model in paintings or prints. Such models were useful for Buddhist embroidery since the iconography of Buddhist deities often followed fixed elements to depict a certain deity.

Below, I explore the cases in which embroiderers utilized widely circulated illustrated publications of their time as patterns for works depicting Buddhist deities. I first investigate Avalokiteśvara, Embroidered by Jin Shufang (dated 1619), of which the composition of the embroidered hanging scroll reveals the rearrangement of two illustrations from a seventeenth-century Buddhist publication, The Great Compassionate Heart Repentance for the Thirty-Two Images of Guanshiyin Bodhisattva (dated 1622 (reprint version); hereafter Thirty-Two Images). I then analyze A Collection of Scattered Red Clouds (mid-seventeenth century; hereafter Red Clouds), the earliest embroidery design catalog of traditional China that contains two Buddhist images. The Buddhist images included in this album showcase women’s use of printed materials of their time, both Buddhist scriptures and non-religious publications, as sources of embroidery patterns. These cases demonstrate that seventeenth-century Chinese embroiderers often utilized illustrated books as references for model images of Buddhist deities. I argue that such practice of acquiring and appropriating published images demonstrates the facilitating role that print culture played in the lives of Chinese women embroiderers. As women tried to overcome the secluded living conditions of late Imperial China and engage with Buddhist material culture beyond the boundaries of the inner quarters, books became their critical asset for artistic input and inspiration. The works I examine show the fuller impact of the popularization of Buddhist publications, which cultivated women practitioners of Buddhism who not only prayed, chanted, and contemplated but also created new devotional artworks based on what they read. Such devotional artworks having the format of embroidery, the symbol of the commendable upbringing for women in late Ming and early Qing China, is particularly significant, as it allowed women to merge their religious devotion with an art form deeply associated with feminine virtue.

2. Copying and Rearrangement of Printed Images in Buddhist Embroidery: The Case of Avalokiteśvara, Embroidered by Jun Shufang (Dated 1621)

During the seventeenth century, painting-like Buddhist embroidery was actively produced and valued as both aesthetic and religious objects. Among such works was the Avalokiteśvara, Embroidered by Jin Shufang (dated 1621), an embroidered hanging scroll housed in the Beijing Palace Museum (Figure 1). This work is a rare example in which the information about the maker and the date is available for embroidery; at the bottom right of the work, an inscription reads “In the first month of the lunar calendar of Jiwei year of the Wanli period (1619), Shufang of the Jin family embroidered [this] reverently”.4 Other than this short inscription, the composition of the embroidered hanging scroll can be divided into two main parts: the longer inscription at the top of the hanging scroll and the image in the middle. The inscription praises the Buddhist value of the work and the skill of the embroiderer, which is further explained below, and the image depicts a scene consisting of two Buddhist figures and a fantastical beast.

The central figure in the image is Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. The deity depicted in this hanging scroll has a recognizably feminine appearance with her flowing hair, white robe, and elegant posture as she reclines on a rock. Since Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara was introduced to China and acquired the Chinese name Guanshiyin (often shortened to Guanyin), the deity went through a significant degree of feminization, which contributed greatly to the indigenization and the local fame of the deity (Reed 1992; Yü 2001). As a result, Guanyin as a Chinese transformation of Avalokiteśvara is distinguishable from the original Indian Bodhisattva in its widely recognized appearance in art. Next to Guanyin is a guardian of Buddhist law called Weituo. Weituo, originally called Skanda in Sanskrit, is recognizable with his characteristic attire of a feathered helmet and a jeweled sword, which is again a result of the deity’s transformation as it was introduced to China from India from around the fifth century (Ciyi 2014, p. 3990; Kim 2021, pp. 55–66). Below them is a dragon, the subject of the observant gaze from the two deities, writhing in waves or clouds.

A comparison to the publications of its time reveals that the design of embroidery is a combination and rearrangement of the two illustrations from a book titled Thirty-Two Images (dated 1622), Leaves 3 and 9 (Figure 2 and Figure 3). Thirty-Two Images is a catalog featuring multiple “manifestations” of Guanyin. In China and East Asia in general, one of the defining characteristics of the deity Guanyin has been its multiplicity. The deity is believed to be capable of transforming into various manifestations to guide different groups of beings to the enlightenment, an ability attested in central Buddhist scriptures, including Lotus Sūtra and Śūraṅgama Sūtra (T.09.0262.0794a–b, T.13.0826c–0827c). This belief, as well as the popularity of various indigenous forms of Guanyin developed in China since the eleventh century, led to the creation of artworks consisting of 5, 16, 32, 33, or 53 different appearances of Guanyin in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Thirty-Two Images is one of the most impactful ones among them, as it was the precursor of a set called The Fifty-Three Manifestations of the Compassionate Appearance (hereafter Fifty-Three Manifestations), a catalog that was immensely popular among the Chinese reading public of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which circulated in at least five different editions (Gao 2006; McLoughlin 2006, pp. 155–270).

The paradox in date—that Avalokiteśvara, Embroidered by Jin Shufang, dated 1619, predates its model book published in 1622—is explained by the fact that the 1622 version of Thirty-Two Images is a reproduction of an older version that did not survive. According to the donor’s inscription in the earliest surviving edition of Thirty-Two Images, it was Cheng Dayue (1541–c. 1610/1616) who sponsored the original version of the woodblocks used for the book’s publication. Later, Fang Shaozou (?–?) of the Anhui region reproduced Cheng’s set in 1622 to circulate beneficial images among Buddhist audiences.5 While little is known about Fang, Cheng is a well-known cultural figure from the late Ming dynasty. Primarily a successful ink cake merchant of then-Huizhou prefecture (currently the southern part of Anhui province), Cheng was a patron of the late Ming print culture as well, who published a highly reputed catalog of ink cakes titled Master Cheng’s Ink Garden (c. 1606) (Lin 1998, pp. 35–44, 51–66). The existence of Thirty-Two Images—if we take Fang’s inscription at face value—indicates that Cheng Dayue sponsored the publication of not only an ink-cake catalog but also at least one catalog of Guanyin images in his lifetime. Since it is generally accepted that Cheng Dayue died around 1616 (Lin 1998, pp. 62–63), it provides a terminus ante quem for the initial publication of Thirty-Two Images, which is earlier the production of Avalokiteśvara, Embroidered by Jin Shufang. Hence, in terms of the timeline, it makes sense that Jin Shufang referred to the deity designs in Thirty-Two Images.

From a geographical standpoint, it is difficult to establish a connection between Jin Shufang and the book Thirty-Two Images. Apart from the inscription in the work, there is no other source of information about Jin Shufang, including her hometown or family lineage. The accession no. of the work starts with the Chinese letter 新 (新00105475), indicating that it entered the collection of the Palace Museum after 1949 (Jin 2019, p. 573), and further provenance information or document associated with the work is lacking. On the other hand, looking at the circulation history of Thirty-Two Images, there are reasons to believe that this book was read in a fairly wide area in late Ming China. It is most likely that Cheng Dayue’s original Thirty-Two Images was produced in Huizhou, as were his other publications.6 Additionally, it is known that Thirty-Two Images served as a painting manual for Xing Cijing (1573–after 1640), a female Buddhist painter who produced an album of Guanyin images identical to those in Thirty-Two Images (Y. Li 2020, pp. 68–69).7 Since Xing Cijing resided in her hometown of Linyi County in Shandong province most of her life—except for a period when she accompanied her husband to his official post in a remote border region of Guizhou (Fong 2008, pp. 91–99)—one can be fairly certain that Thirty-Two Images circulated widely, from its publication origin in Huizhou to regions beyond of the southern publishing hubs.

What can be surmised from the analysis above is that although we do not know much about Jing Shufang, she was one of the female readers who likely benefited from the wide circulation of illustrated Buddhist publications in the late Ming dynasty. Women were emerging as important consumers and producers of printed materials in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and Buddhist texts were a genre they were particularly keen on. A significant number of late Ming and early Qing women sponsored the publication of Buddhist texts and owned them, including the genre called gatha—the genre of Buddhist poetry featured in Thirty-Two Images alongside the illustrations of Guanyin (Grant 2010, p. 218). Therefore, it is entirely possible that Thirty-Two Images, which can be understood as a type of illustrated collection of gathas about Guanyin, had a strong appeal to Buddhist women readers, eventually providing women such as Jin Shufang with the source of her Guanyin image. Painter Xing Cijing’s case, discussed above, attests to not only the wide circulation of the particular volume Thirty-Two Images but also the existence of a female reader who utilized the volume as an artistic resource. Jin Shufang could have been another such case, whose residence could have been anywhere between the Yangzi Valley and Beijing along the Grand Canal in early seventeenth-century China, assisted by the increasingly extensive routes for the book trade.8

The composition Jin Shufang created by reconstructing illustrations from Thirty-Two Images is based on the design of Leaf 3 with the insertion of Weituo from Leaf 9. Such an insertion of Weituo seems to reflect the new role this deity acquired from around the late Ming dynasty in print culture, namely, as an attendant of Guanyin. Originally, being a gatekeeper at a temple was the most prominent role Weituo assumed in Chinese Buddhist visual culture. Enshrined with other deities in the Hall of the Heavenly Kings, Weituo’s sculpture has served as a symbol of protection for Buddhist law since the Southern Song dynasty (Bai 1989, pp. 48–49; S.-h. Li 2004). Understood as the protector of the Dharma, Weituo has assumed a similar function in Buddhist scriptures as well, often taking up the space next to the cartouche at the end of a sūtra and thereby becoming a visual symbol of protection for the Dharma-preaching verses. From the Ming dynasty, the placement of this guardian figure in illustrated Buddhist publications became increasingly liberal, and its proximity to Guanyin was reinforced. Weituo started to occupy the same space with Guanyin in frontispieces of illustrated scriptures, as in Great Dhāraṇī Sūtra of the Buddha Essence (1429) housed in the National Palace Museum, Taipei (Lee 2000, pp. 153–54). Weituo also appeared in non-scriptural Buddhist publications when the subject was Guanyin. One of the stelae depicting the Nine-Lotus Guanyin (1592), the politically charged derivative of the deity devised and promoted by Empress Dowager Xiaoding (1545–1614), presents a remarkable example from the late sixteenth century (Weidner 2005, pp. 245–80). Here, Weituo floats above the rail, where Guanyin leans to contemplate the splendid lotus blossoms (Figure 4). The imperial patronage of the production of Nine-Lotus Guanyin stelae and their active dissemination through rubbing reproductions may have contributed to the rapid spread of the combination of Guanyin and Weituo in print format. The most prominent heir of this tendency would be Fifty-Three Manifestations (the enlarged version of Thirty-Two Images); in one of many editions of this popular publication, Weituo appears on every page, floating around or half-hidden behind the central deity.9

The close association between Weituo and Guanyin, as visualized in Buddhist publications and prints, was consistent with the newfound role of Weituo in folk beliefs as the guardian not only of Buddhist law but also the devotees. The broadened function of Weituo in public minds left traces in folkloric tales of strange events (Ch. zhiguai) in Chinese literature, which were compiled into volumes in the Qing dynasty, with titles such as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (1766) and What the Master Would Not Discuss (1788). In Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, Weituo appears when one Mrs. Han summoned it through Taoist magic; Weituo then protects Mrs. Han’s family from bandits. In What the Master Would Not Discuss, Weituo appears twice, warning the clueless protagonists of an impending peril. In the tale titled “Ma Fanfan (A Ghost of a Courtesan)”, Weituo warns a scholar named Yu to prevent him from developing a relationship with the ghost of a famous courtesan named Ma Fanfan (and thus ruining himself). In another tale titled “A Hopping Vampire hugs Weituo”, Weituo appears in a clothier’s dream to warn him of an approaching attack by a Jiangshi (Chinese hopping vampire); when the clothier wakes up, indeed a Jiangshi jumps toward him, only to be blocked by the animated sculpture of Weituo, who gets hugged and bitten instead. What we gather from these stories is that Weituo’s role gradually transformed into that of a protective figure who helps those in danger as the deity became increasingly Sinicized throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The power to save sentient beings from jeopardy or crises, which Weituo adopted during the Qing dynasty, has long been an important trait of Guanyin. During the late Ming dynasty, noted scholar Hu Yinglin (1551–1602) collected miracle stories of Guanyin acting as the savior for the good; the dates of the stories varied from the Six Dynasties Period (220–589) to the Tang and Song dynasties (Hu [1606] 1773–1781). This collection of miracle stories can be found in Hu’s collected literary work and as a preface to one of several editions of the Fifty-Three Manifestation—the expanded version of Thirty-Two Images—thereby being part of the widely circulated picture book about Guanyin in the seventeenth century (McLoughlin 2006, p. 209). Such a shared nature as the protector of the believers between Guanyin and Weituo could have accelerated the affinity of the two deities in the minds of the Buddhist laypeople and influenced how they are pictured together in publications.

It should also be noted while Jin’s Avalokiteśvara, Embroidered by Jin Shufang used the book Thirty-Two Images as a reference, her work is not simply the result of mechanical copying. By excerpting visual elements from two different images and rearranging them, Jin created a scene with a triangular composition comprising Guanyin, Weituo, and the dragon. Compared to Leaf 3 of Thirty-Two Images, Jin’s embroidery provides more space between Guanyin and the writhing dragon. This change suits the selected framing format of a hanging scroll, which has more vertical space to fill than a book page. Still, the most recognizable difference from the model is the embroiderer’s use of threads of various colors. The black lines in the printed models were colored and executed using multiple types of stitches. Approximately ten different stitch techniques were utilized in Jin’s work. Guanyin’s free-flowing hair is executed in long and short stitches, the beads in her hand in parallel stitches, and the clouds where the dragon writhes in outline stitches. Other parts, such as Weituo’s armor and helmet, and the scales of the dragon, are done in stitches that are specifically developed for these types of motifs: network and scale embroidery. Thus, while the image section of Avalokiteśvara, Embroidered by Jin Shufang took its models from printed images, the final work shows the full potential of embroidery as an art medium, which is distinguished from the prints.

Finally, the eulogy at the top of the hanging scroll reveals that Avalokiteśvara, Embroidered by Jin Shufang was well received by Jin Shufang’s contemporary literatus and Buddhist layman. The eulogy was first calligraphed by Sheng Keji, a calligrapher who was active during the Wanli era (1572–1620), and then embroidered.10 To praise Jin’s embroidery, Sheng Keji made a partial duplication of the literary work by the legendary Song dynasty literatus Su Shi’s (1037–1101), originally titled “A eulogy for embroidered Guanyin done by Madame Xu from Jing’an County”.11 The part duplicated by Sheng Keji begins as follows:

學道求心 妙湛自觀 One studies the way and seeks the heart-mind [through] mysterious and deep self-observation

觀觀世音 凜不違顏 Looking at the Guanshiyin, the magnificent and unchanging/not-differing face

三年之後 心法自圓 After three years, the heart-mind self-perfected

聞思脩王 如日現前 Hearing and reflecting on the teaching, as if the sun appears before one’s eyes

心識其容 口莫能言 The content of heart-mind and consciousness cannot be spoken.

After these five lines of eight-character verses, six more lines follow to praise the hard and repetitive endeavor required for the production of Guanyin embroidery, equating each stitch to a Buddha.12

The eulogy provides a literary justification for producing a Guanyin image in a visually accessible format. The first and second verses teach the importance of perceiving Guanyin through the eyes for one’s seeking of the heart-mind: “One … seeks the heart-mind [through] mysterious and deep self-observation / Looking at Guanshiyin, the magnificent and unchanging face”. The importance of optical perception is emphasized again in the fourth verse with a visual metaphor: “…as if the sun appears before one’s eyes”. Finally, the fifth verse claims the ultimately non-verbal nature of the heart-mind: “The content of heart-mind and consciousness cannot be told”. Thus, the eulogy teaches viewers that the inexplicable wonder of Guanyin would be delivered through the medium of visual art.

From the inscription, one obtains a strong sense of self-recognition of Jin Shufang as an artist. Jin stated her name and embroidered the eulogy that was calligraphed in her work. The embroidered eulogy indicates that Jin appreciated a positive appraisal by Sheng Keji and wanted to preserve it as part of her work. This can be read as a sign of her self-positioning as an artist, especially when it is not common practice to leave a dedicatory inscription in embroidered works. At the same time, the participation of a male calligrapher and a female embroiderer in completing a eulogy indicates a cultural network where such a collaborative practice could occur for Buddhist artwork. Overall, Jin’s Avalokiteśvara, Embroidered by Jin Shufang is a representative case in which the maker’s skill of embroidery became a legitimate tool for artistic and religious expression. It also explains how the circulation of the Buddhist imagery in the print medium could assist the process.

3. Embroidery Pattern Book and the Popular Buddhist Iconography Therein

The example of Avalokiteśvara, Embroidered by Jin Shufang demonstrates how existing printed designs could be adapted for Buddhist embroidery. While I do not analyze it in this study, another seventeenth-century embroidery also used a page from Thirty-Two Images as its design source. This example, discussed at length in Li’s book, highlights that Jin Shufang’s use of a Buddhist publication for embroidery patterns was not unusual (Y. Li 2020, p. 138). Seventeenth-century Chinese women’s utilization of illustrated books as a source of embroidery patterns, while the books were not necessarily published to serve such a purpose, was somewhat inevitable, as commercial embroidery pattern books were rare until at least the late eighteenth century. Women used book illustrations as embroidery patterns especially when they were in need of intricate painting-like designs—the ones that cannot be easily devised by the embroiderer herself.

A Collection of Scattered Red Clouds (mid-seventeenth century; hereafter Red Clouds) provides a case study on how Buddhist illustrations could be excerpted from a sūtra or commercial encyclopedia to be transformed into embroidery designs. The volume is the earliest known embroidery design catalog in Chinese print history, compiled by Shen Linqi (1603–1664), a late Ming calligrapher and a silk merchant from Hangzhou (Edgren 1984, pp. 112–13; McNair 1988, pp. 411–13). The album consists of sixteen woodcut designs exquisitely printed in red, brown, blue, green, and gray; all designs feature a short inscription to explain the theme of the scene depicted, such as “Child-bringing Guanyin” and “a hundred sparrows”. Fourteen of the sixteen designs have an additional inscription indicating the purpose of the design, such as “pillow head” and “embroidered folding screen”.13

Two Buddhist-themed designs appear on the album. The design “Child-bringing Guanyin”, which features the deity Guanyin holding a boy at a seaside cliff, is numbered the first in the album (Figure 5). The other is “[Bodhidharma] Crossing the river on a reed”, marked as number eleven and featuring Bodhidharma, the patriarch who introduced Chan Buddhism to China (Figure 6). Other themes in the album include popular motifs considered auspicious in Chinese tradition, such as hundred sparrows, hundred boys playing, and scenes from popular literature.

Based on the extremely elaborate quality of polychrome prints, previous studies by Sören Edren and Amy McNair argue that Red Clouds must have served as “a scholar’s reference work or a collector’s item” rather than a practical pattern book to be sold and used by practitioners of embroidery (McNair 1988, pp. 411–13). Indeed, the intricacy of the designs and the number of colors used would have raised the price of the album to a level not suitable for any practical how-to book. Polychrome printmaking in early- to mid-seventeenth-century China was mostly a technology used for books catering to the pleasures of the gentlemen elite, such as catalogs of ink sticks, pictorial guidebooks for sightseeing, and sophisticated pornography (Edgren 2011). One is led to believe that the images in the book Red Clouds were not invented by a designer for future embroiderers, but they rather reflected common embroidery designs that existed at the time the book was produced.

A later volume titled Precious Mirror of Feminine Virtues (1777) (hereafter Precious Mirrors) can provide a point of comparison here as a book that was intended and used as an actual pattern book. Precious Mirrors is a compendium compiled by Zhang Lüping (fl. 1777) to furnish women with the knowledge for domestic life. After two prefaces stating the benefit of the book for women of the inner chamber, volumes 1–7 of Precious Mirror present didactic stories about exemplary women, knowledge on textile and attire, and cooking recipes. It is volumes 8 and 9 where patterns for sewing and embroidery are featured (Ko [2005] 2019, pp. 219–20) (Figure 7). The designs in Precious Mirrors are distinguished from those in Red Clouds in three significant ways: first, the designs are in monochrome, second, they are generic and more pattern-like than a painting, and third, they are often provided as a part of sewing patterns.

As mentioned in the Introduction of this article, Chinese embroidery was a strongly feminine skill, one of the four techniques that women were supposed to command as textile producers. While it would be wrong to assume all late Ming embroiderers as women, records by elite men as well as the accounts by women themselves suggest that embroidery was fundamentally recognized as a “woman’s work”. Embroidery, as embodied female knowledge, symbolized the good upbringing of a gentry girl, while it was a skill that strengthened and symbolized the bonds between women, as a girl learned embroidery among her female relatives and kept the outcome as part of her dowry when she left her original home to get married (Bray 1997, pp. 265–69; Fong 2004, pp. 9–13).14 The pattern section of Precious Mirror presents a structure that corresponds to this social expectation. With the previously mentioned traits such as relative simplicity, the embroidery patterns in volumes 8 and 9 of Precious Mirrors conspicuously lack explanatory texts. The only Chinese characters one can find are the titles of the items, such as “headbands”, “purse”, and “children’s shoes”. This lack of explanation indicates that the book was not designed as a textbook; it only provides patterns, and the readers were to learn how to actually sew and embroidery from someone else.

With Precious Mirrors as a representative case, one can assume that women were the main audience of practical embroidery pattern books in late Imperial China, equipped with the necessary skills to apply the information from such books to actual practice. On the other hand, the volume Red Clouds does not display as firm notion for the gender of the target audience as Precious Mirrors. Compared to the designs in Precious Mirrors, it seems reasonable to assume that Red Clouds was produced fundamentally as a collection of existing embroideries of highly decorative quality for the visual pleasure of readers, with its bursting colors and much more intricate designs. In other words, Red Clouds is more of a catalog without a fixed target gender for its audience, while Precious Mirrors was a true pattern book for women with domestic duties.

Under this assumption, the page with the inscription “[Bodhidharma] Crossing the river on a reed” in Red Clouds indicates that an embroiderer must have adopted a page from a contemporary painting manual as her embroidery pattern. The page bears a striking resemblance to an illustration in the manual titled Canon of Paintings (1607) (Figure 8). The similarity is evident in the posture of Bodhidharma, the shape of his sleeves, and the way that the stalk and leaf of the reed under Bodhidharma’s feet are executed to imitate the ‘boneless’ manner of Chinese painting (painting without the outlines) while the body of the Bodhidharma is outlined clearly.

Canon of Paintings, the volume that would have been used as a reference for the unknown embroiderer, is one of the many painting manuals that became a popular genre of publication in the late Ming publishing industry. Such manuals achieved great popularity among the public not simply as a “how-to book” to acquire the skill of painting but also as an informative guide to the history of painting, the knowledge of which was a prerequisite for claiming the status of a social elite. Ripping off earlier volumes such as Grove of Paintings (c. 1579) and Album of Paintings by Famous Masters of Successive Dynasties (1603), Canon of Paintings quickly gained a currency in the early seventeenth-century book market, with multiple editions printed in a short period (Park 2012, pp. 67–72). The widespread status of the Canon of Paintings may have allowed it to reach the inner chamber of a late Ming woman who adopted the Bodhidharma image as her embroidery pattern, which was eventually reproduced in Red Clouds in color print.

What purpose did Bodhidharma’s embroidery serve? An inscription that reads “Wrapper for Bodhidharma Sūtra” is found in the lower right corner of the illustration of Bodhidharma in Red Clouds. One can assume that the design was considered suitable for wrapping cloth for sūtras, a gear routinely used to protect valuable scriptures since the Tang dynasty and often decorated with embroidery (Duan and Deng 2022). The illustration also shows the changes the embroiderer made while working on a model: in Red Clouds, Bodhidharma’s robe is colored red. It bears the pattern of an auspicious cloud, while his skirt underneath bears a floral pattern. These elements are not found in similar images of Bodhidharma in the Canon of Paintings. The elaborate quality of the images in Red Clouds is identical to that of Jin Shufang’s embroidered work, Avalokiteśvara, Embroidered by Jin Shufang, which transformed the black-and-white illustrations from Thirty-Two Images into a colorful and more intricate design. This was not a rare practice in embroidery in traditional China; an ink outline for embroidery often provided only the structure of an image, leaving room for them to fill in sections with various colors and types of stitches, as they wished (Y. Li 2020, p. 137).

The other Buddhist image in Red Clouds, with an inscription that reads “Child-bringing Guanyin”, displays an even more splendid depiction of the deity Guanyin (Figure 5). It shows Guanyin holding a boy at a seaside cliff, seated on flat rock and bamboo trees to her right, and a parrot hovering in the top left corner of the scene. Guanyin’s clothing has highly elaborate patterns that differ in terms of shawls, robes, and skirts. An image close to this one is found in the late Ming or early Qing stele of Dhāranī Sūtra of Five Mudrās of the Great Compassionate White-robed One (hereafter Dhāranī Sūtra of White-robed One) (Figure 9). This short apocryphal Buddhist text has been circulated in China at least from the Tang dynasty (Yü 2001, pp. 126–31). While the similarity between the images is not as evident as it is between the two Bodhidharma illustrations discussed above, the overall composition bears a noticeable resemblance, especially in the way that the boy on Guanyin’s lap reaches out to the parrot while holding a twig in his hand and with the inclusion of a lush group of lotus flowers near Guanyin’s feet.

One reason for Guanyin’s great popularity in China was the belief that the deity could grant children to those who hoped to become parents. Guanyin’s child-granting power is stated in the twenty-fifth chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, which enabled the widespread propagation of the notion (T.09.0793c). The image of Guanyin holding a child on her lap has been produced from as late as the mid-Ming dynasty, quickly becoming established as the visual token for the specific and widely pursued power, often called “Child-bringing Guanyin” (Yü 2001, pp. 131–37; Wicks 2002, pp. 139–46). The iconography of child-bringing Guanyin, as it developed, borrowed heavily from the iconography of the “White-robed Guanyin”—a more historical variant of Guanyin whose artistic depictions were executed in China at least from the tenth century (Karetzky 2004, p. 44; Yü 2001, pp. 247–62). Thus, it is not uncommon to see the two confused or conflated in Ming dynasty records. This is evident in the text of Dhāranī Sūtra of the White-robed One, which is accompanied by the depiction of Guanyin holding a boy on her lap, an image which should be called “Child-bringing Guanyin” even though it is titled “White-robed One”.

Dhāranī Sūtra of the White-robed One enjoyed great popularity in the early seventeenth century; at least five versions were published in ink rubbings, the earliest dated one made in 1613 (Y. Li 2020, p. 232, n. 89). It was one of many dhāranī sūtras that were circulated in China based on a belief: if one wholeheartedly chants a dhāranī—a text transliterated from Sanskrit to Chinese, serving as an incantation spell—one’s wish will be granted. From the testimonies attached to its end and the frontispiece image, it is evident that Guanyin in this dhāranī sūtra was worshipped as a fertility goddess, one who will grant a child to believers. A woodblock print version dated 1603, housed in the Fayuan Temple in Beijing and published by Chün-fang Yü, has yet another frontispiece similar to the Guanyin image in Red Clouds (Yü 2001, p. 97). Given this popularity in different formats—rubbings and woodblock print books—it is not difficult to imagine Dhāranī Sūtra of the White-robed One entering the boudoir of a woman embroiderer yearning for a child, who would have utilized the Guanyin images included in this famously efficacious text to produce a devotional embroidered work featuring Guanyin, which was eventually cataloged in Red Clouds.

The inscription “Child-bringing Guanyin” on the Guanyin image in Red Clouds confirms its purpose as a visual prayer: the original embroidery must have been created to wish for the birth of a son. This illustration is one of two designs in the book without an assigned practical usage, lacking the functional inscription such as “wrapper for sūtra” or “pillow head” (the other is an illustration of Queen Mother of the West). Instead, it features a second title, “A bright pearl comes into the palm”. The bright pearl in the palm is a well-known metaphor for a precious child in Chinese literature.15 Together, the primary and the secondary titles emphasize the significance of the child depicted in the illustration. The theme continues to the verses printed on the left side of the illustration, which is an excerpt from the poem “Regulated Verse” by Wang Dalie (active around 1221). It reads: “A stone qilin of heavenly species, a phoenix newborn in its lair”.16 A stone qilin is a literary phrase that indicates a talented child, originating from Du Fu’s (712–770) verse; this quote further emphasizes the preciousness of the baby boy that the maker of the image hoped for.

The inclusion of the Child-bringing Guanyin illustration in the catalog of embroidery designs suggests that this child-granting form of Guanyin, among other manifestations, was especially popular among female embroiderers. This is a reasonable assumption, given that the religious beliefs and practices of Chinese women during the Ming and Qing dynasties were shaped by the social obligations imposed on them. Under Confucian ideology, women were primarily expected to fulfill their social roles by producing heirs for their families. Consequently, Buddhist women, like their non-Buddhist counterparts, had to integrate their religious devotion into the social demands imposed by Confucian gender roles. Chinese women’s modeling of their embroidered Buddhist works after the published images of Child-bringing Guanyin, as indirectly evidenced by the design cataloged in Red Clouds, reflects how social expectations—the expectation for them to become good wives and wise mothers—were intertwined with their religious lives, shaping its artistic outcome.

It is unfortunate that one cannot compare the embroidery designs with Buddhist themes in Red Clouds to actual embroidery. However, assuming that these designs reflect the general appearance of seventeenth-century embroidery, it is reasonable to speculate that the embroidered works were often more colorful and intricate than the printed images of Buddhist deities available in books. The case of Avalokiteśvara, Embroidered by Jin Shufang supports this assumption; the completed embroidery is notably more vibrant than the version depicted in the book Thirty-Two Images. Although printed models facilitated women’s religious embroidery, embroiderers likely felt the need to individualize these designs to make their works appear more elaborate. Their use of printed images, therefore, was not mere copying but an artistic appropriation, which allowed them to visualize the deities according to their devotional intent.

4. The Value and Function of Buddhist Embroidery in Late Imperial China

In a broad sense, the practice of women using published images as models for creating Buddhist embroidery can be seen as part of a larger trend in visual culture during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. During this period, cross-referencing between different media for visual reference was common; artists and craftspeople frequently incorporated pictorial elements from woodblock prints into their works, a practice that became increasingly feasible with the expansion of the illustrated publication industry (Clunas 1997; Brokaw and Chow 2005). A well-known example of this phenomenon is the widespread use of illustrations from Romance of the Western Chamber, a popular play first published during the Yuan Dynasty, as decorative motifs on Ming and Qing porcelain (Hsu 2011). As such, illustrated merchandise in late Imperial China—including books, clothing, small furniture, stationery, and ceramics—often visualized themes from popular literature and religion in a standardized manner, establishing visual tropes that were easily recognizable to audiences even without textual explanation. It was within this network of image circulation and amplification—what Clunas terms an “iconic circuit”—that Buddhist embroideries modeled after illustrated books also existed (Clunas 1997, pp. 46–49). This suggests that women who created Buddhist embroidery inspired by published images were not isolated from the contemporary trends of material culture but were actively engaged participants in them.

One important aspect to note is that the pictorial items within the “iconic circuit” were largely market-driven products. The use of well-known tropes from illustrated books reflects an intention to appeal to a standardized taste—in other words, to attract the masses, often at the expense of artistic originality. Given this, it is necessary to consider whether the Buddhist embroideries discussed in this article held any market value or influence, for if they did, the significance of creating these embroideries might have extended beyond devotional practice for their makers.

The fact that Buddhist embroidery held various forms of value in late Imperial Chinese society, including monetary worth, is confirmed by Zhu Qiqian’s (1872–1964) A Compendium of Biographies on Womanly Work (1931). This work is a compilation of biographies of historical Chinese women renowned for their achievements in textile art and considered an important reference material for traditional Chinese people’s understanding for the art of embroidery.17 Of the 85 embroiderers the author recorded in chronological order, 68 were from the sixteenth century or later, and nearly half of them—32—produced Buddhist-themed embroidery. Among them, Madame Chao, wife of Zou Tao, who was active during the reign of Emperor Jiaqing (r. 1760–1820), is said to have supported her family through embroidery when their fortunes declined. Her specialty is mentioned only as Guanyin, which underscores the marketability of Buddhist embroidery.

Compendium also highlights the role of Buddhist embroidery in fostering relationships through gift-giving. One notable example is how embroidery served as a diplomatic tool in interactions between Emperor Qianlong (r. 1735–1796) and his subjects. For instance, Madame Wang, the mother of Minister of Military Affairs Qiu Rixiu, embroidered images of Manjushri, Bodhidharma, and Avalokiteśvara and presented them to the emperor. Similarly, another Madame Wang, the wife of Grand Secretariat Jiang Pu, embroidered an image of Avalokiteśvara and offered it to the emperor. While gifts of embroidered bodhisattvas to the imperial family were particularly prestigious, Buddhist embroidery was also used in religious offerings. One recorded case is that of Jin Cailan, who was active during the reign of Emperor Daoguang (r. 1820–1850). She embroidered an image of Cundi Bodhisattva and dedicated it to a monk. These cases attest that women could contribute financially to their families through Buddhist embroidery while also participating in the broader system of value exchange through gift-giving.18

If the value-generating (monetary or otherwise) power of Buddhist embroidery from the eighteenth century onward is confirmed in the Compendium, what about the seventeenth century, the focus of this article? While written records do not state this explicitly, it is reasonable to assume that painting-like Buddhist embroidery was already part of the commercial market in the seventeenth century. This assumption is supported by the fact that an embroidery genre known for its highly painterly quality had achieved commercial success during this period, and Buddhist-themed works were often produced within this genre. This style, known as Gu Embroidery, was a specialized form of Shanghai-region embroidery developed by the women of Gu Mingshi’s (1508–1588) family. Praised for its varied, colorful, and exquisite stitches, Gu Embroidery became synonymous with high-quality, painting-like embroidery. Its commercial value was well recognized; seventeenth-century regional gazetteers mentioned Gu Embroidery as a noteworthy local product (Huang 2012, p. 96), while contemporary essays recorded its specific price—“no less than several gold taels” for a large piece using the full width of silk. Although the most common themes in surviving Gu Embroidery are landscapes, flora and fauna, and auspicious imagery, several examples also depict Buddhist deities.

Among them, the Maitreya housed in the Liaoning Provincial Museum is particularly noteworthy, as its use of various stitching techniques and colors, along with the incorporation of calligraphic elements into the picture plane, closely resembles Jin Shufang’s Avalokiteśvara (Shanghai Bowuguan 2007, pp. 76–77). This Maitreya also stands out for the lavish patterns applied to the deity’s clothing, a decorative tendency that aligns with the stylization of Buddhist deities’ garments in Red Clouds. Another Gu Embroidery with a Buddhist theme, an album titled Sixteen Arhats housed in the Shanghai Museum, demonstrates similarities to Jin Shufang’s work in its choice of subjects. Its first leaf features Guanyin, while the fourth leaf depicts Weituo alongside one of the sixteen arhats (Shanghai Bowuguan 2007, pp. 64–65). While Sixteen Arhats differs from Jin Shufang’s Avalokiteśvara in its color scheme—being relatively monochromatic for a Gu Embroidery—it shares another striking similarity with Jin’s work: it was also based on a contemporary pictorial reference. The blueprint for this embroidered album was Album of Luohans, a painted album by Ding Yunpeng (c. 1547–1628), one of the most renowned Buddhist painters of the late Ming dynasty (Liu 2010).19 This case supports the idea that painting-like embroidery in seventeenth-century China, particularly those featuring detailed visualizations of Buddhist deities, was often derived from established contemporary designs. Given this historical context, the Avalokiteśvara and Bodhidharma motif embroideries discussed in this article may also have had commercial potential.

Sixteen Arhats is possibly the most self-evident example of Gu Embroidery modeled on a contemporary painting. However, records indicate that Gu Embroidery makers frequently referenced paintings from both their own time and earlier periods, regardless of the religiosity of the depicted subjects. Han Ximeng (active 1634–41), the most renowned practitioner of Gu Embroidery, is said to have created her representative works by studying and imitating Song- and Yuan-dynasty masterpieces featuring landscapes and flora-and-fauna themes (Shanghai Bowuguan 2007, pp. 28–33). Additionally, surviving works suggest that the women of the Gu family drew upon Ming-dynasty figure paintings, woodblock prints, and popular auspicious images to attract potential buyers (Shi 2010). Given that contemporary paintings and illustrated prints would have been far more accessible than rare and valuable works from the Song and Yuan dynasties, it was likely a practical decision for embroiderers to use the former as embroidery patterns when the latter were unavailable.

Still, for a believer, the very act of embroidering a Buddhist image functioned as a ritual. The sacred nature of the depicted subject was what made the relationship between Buddhist embroidery and printed materials particularly significant, an element lacking in secular embroideries. The ritual dimension of Buddhist embroidery has been well-recognized throughout the history of Chinese material culture. As briefly mentioned in the introduction of this article, its labor-intensive nature heightened embroidery’s efficacy as a religious medium. The repetitive actions required to complete an embroidery piece translated into a dedication of one’s body—the physical self. As Li Yuhang points out, not only did this labor-intensive process demand considerable time and effort from the devotee, but the investment was also made visible in the completed work. Unlike metalworking or carving, which conceal the labor behind a polished finish, embroidery presents each stitch as a distinguishable mark of the creator’s hand (Y. Li 2020, pp. 108–10).

Printed materials featuring deity designs could play a crucial role in facilitating this ritual of embroidery, which was often one of the few religious practices available to women. In pre-modern Chinese society, women’s participation in religious activities beyond the inner quarters was restricted or even actively discouraged; embroidery, conducted in a domestic setting alongside other private acts such as chanting sutras and maintaining a vegetarian diet, was a relatively safe practice in this regard. Records from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries show that some Buddhist women joined lay associations that engaged in group activities such as reciting scriptures and worshipping. These actions immediately provoked negative reactions from male writers (Ter Haar 1992, pp. 199–201). Another account by a seventeenth-century literatus Liu Qi, advice to his daughter who would soon be married, states that it would be acceptable for her future mother-in-law to adhere to vegetarianism or recite scriptures—both of which could be done at home—but if her mother-in-law visited a temple or burned incense, she should reprimand her (Zhou 2003). The key concerns in these cases were not only that women were potentially mingling with male monks or other male believers through Buddhist acts, which implied sexual misconduct, but also that women were physically leaving the home and entering the temple—a public space governed by a belief system different from Confucianism—for the purpose of religious practice. This was seen as a symbolic act of abandoning the hearth and ancestral altar, which women were expected to protect.

Thus, even when the production of Buddhist embroidery involved collaboration between a male calligrapher and a female embroiderer, as in the case of Jin Shufang’s Avalokiteśvara, it would have been less of a breach of womanly conduct compared to attending worship at a temple, as it still took place under her roof.20 In this context, the prints that provided embroiderer with Buddhist deity designs not only served as embroidery models but also provided a tangible connection to the broader religious community by introducing them imagery from outside the domestic sphere. Such prints symbolically linked women to a higher realm of religiosity—an aspect of value that secular embroidery could not fulfill. Moreover, the synergy between repetition as an expression of one’s spiritual dedication and embroidery’s Confucian connotation of virtuous womanhood made Buddhist embroidery the quintessential mode of Buddhist devotion socially acceptable for women in the late Ming dynasty. To revisit an example from the Compendium, a Qing dynasty woman named Wang Qiong embroidered an image of Guanyin wearing jewelry as a prayer for a relative’s speedy recovery. In such a case, the embroidery functioned both as a religious ritual invoking the efficacy of the Buddhist deity Guanyin and as a means of positioning the embroiderer as a virtuous figure within her familial network—the foundational unit of Confucian society.

In summary, Buddhist embroidery served as both an economic means, bringing financial and social benefits to the women who produced it, and, for those who did not seek worldly gains, a gendered devotional practice that provided religious efficacy through the production process itself. Illustrated publications, which facilitated this by supplying designs, would have been especially valuable visual resources in pre-modern Chinese society, where other religious practices for women were often restricted. It is important to note, however, that not all Buddhist women had access to such resources. Embroiderers were generally women from wealthy families, typically from literati or gentry backgrounds, and their skill in needle symbolized the gentle upbringing and sophisticated education they enjoyed (Bray 1997, pp. 265–69). In particular, it can be assumed that the creators of painting-like embroidery were a group who had received a high level of cultural education and enjoyed a rich material culture, as creating such embroidery required access to paintings or illustrated publications that could serve as models. Further research is needed to explore how women from less privileged social classes engaged with Buddhist material culture and whether print culture played a significant role in their interaction with Buddhist visuals.

5. Conclusions

This study explores the processes behind the creation of Buddhist embroidery, focusing on what could enable Chinese women to produce religious images. By analyzing the shared iconographic elements in Guanyin and Bodhidharma embroidery designs with printed albums, dhāranī sūtras, and painting manuals, this paper argues that a key factor facilitating women’s production of Buddhist embroidery in seventeenth-century China was the availability and circulation of illustrated publications. These print materials allowed Buddhist imagery to enter women’s private spaces, enabling their devotional practices through embroidery. Furthermore, this study examines the value that Buddhist embroidery, produced through such a process, could have had for individual women in seventeenth-century China.

As discussed, Jin Shufang’s Avalokiteśvara draws directly from the illustrations in Thirty-Two Images. On the other hand, the Guanyin and Bodhidharma designs in Red Clouds closely resemble the images found in the Dhāranī Sūtra of the White-Robed One and Canon of Paintings, respectively. Notably, these sources were not intended to be embroidery pattern books. The fact that Buddhist women used these books as references for their embroidery demonstrates their flexible and creative engagement with these publications beyond their original purpose. This resourcefulness highlights both the adaptability of these women and their capacity to navigate the limitations imposed by social constraints. Through this process, they transformed a range of secular and religious materials into deeply personal expressions of Buddhist devotion.

Buddhist embroidery in late Ming and early Qing China was part of a larger visual culture trend that involved cross-referencing between various media, including printed illustrations, paintings, and textiles. Women engaged with these illustrated materials in a domestic context to create religious images, thereby navigating and artistically overcoming the constraints of their social roles. My argument is that Buddhist embroidery served as a means of connecting women to the wider religious community beyond their inner quarters, offering them a form of participation that helped compensate for their limited access to public religious practices.