**1. Introduction**

Gilded Buddha statues are religious works of art. These statues' appearances are decorated with gold, which is precious, rare, and soft and will never decay or fade, which has been widely recognized by Buddhist believers in all districts of Asia. Through their long-term production and publicity, they have already formed a solid tradition in sculpture and become a typical representative of Asian religious art. In addition, it must be mentioned that, in almost every Buddhist temple, the gilded Buddha statue occupies the most significant position in order to encourage people's consecration and worship. Meanwhile, gilded Buddha statues remarkably demonstrate the Buddha's extraordinary physiological phenomenon of the human body, which has been one of the most notable artistic expressions since the appearance of the Buddha. Buddhism has obtained great help and benefits from gold as a material medium, which plays an irreplaceable role in the production of Buddha statues and the psychology of believers.

At present, academic research on gilded Buddha statues can be roughly divided into three categories. The first kind of research relies on religious texts to explain the religious connotation of gold in Buddhism. In earlier work, Grafton Elliot Smith noted the sacred and immortal properties of gold in religious literature around the world (Grafton 1934, pp. 313–14). From linguistics, based on the Buddhist concept of "the thirty-two physical characteristics of a great man (mahapuru ¯ s.a-laks.an. a)", Ji Xianlin compared the Buddhist scripture translations in Pali, Tocharian, Chinese, and Uighur (Ji 1982, p. 13). He concluded that the Buddha's "golden appearance" was a specific physiological phenomenon caused by a mixture of ancient Indian folklore and religious superstition. Sun Yinggang and He Ping focused on the special cultural background of Gandhara and believed that the rise of Mahayana Buddhism promoted the establishment of the "thirty-two physical characteristics of a great man (mahapuru ¯ s.a-laks.an. a)" and the emergence of the gilded Buddha statue (Sun

**Citation:** Liu, Xiangyu, and Xinyi Huang. 2023. Gold, Skin, and Body: Chinese Buddha Statues Are Constantly Being Shaped and Stripped. *Religions* 14: 155. https:// doi.org/10.3390/rel14020155

Academic Editors: Fátima Matos Silva, Isabel Borges and Helena Albuquerque

Received: 9 December 2022 Revised: 18 January 2023 Accepted: 21 January 2023 Published: 28 January 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

and He 2018, p. 176)1. Meanwhile, Ma Zongjie paid attention to Lokaksema, a Gandhara monk, who came to China to translate Buddhist scriptures. He combined the golden body concept of Mahayana Buddhism with the rituals of statue making, providing theoretical support for the formation of the phenomenon of Buddha statues' golden bodies (Ma 2013, pp. 260–71). Additionally, based on the color vocabulary in Buddhist texts, Phyllis Granoff suggested that the golden skin of the Buddha has symbolic meanings such as nirvana, health, and solemnity of treasure (Granoff 2020, pp. 10–15). All of these are believed to provide a necessary theoretical basis for shaping the Buddha's image and worshippers' experiences of observing the Buddha.

The second type of research is scientific-empirical research on existing gilded Buddha statues. This type of research involves gradually restoring parts of the materials and steps of ancient gilding techniques, providing a scientific basis for the protection of cultural relics and the restoration of Buddha statues. Hu Dongbo et al. conducted scientific detection and composition analysis on the gold leaf and gold glue materials of the thousand-hand Bodhisattva statue in Baodingshan, Dazu, Chongqing (Hu et al. 2008, pp. 44–51). As the research showed, this Buddha statue was decorated with gold leaf and bonded with a mature paint, with tung oil added as a gold glue. In order to create a more brilliant appearance effect of the Buddha image, mercury sulfide was consciously added to the gold glue. In addition, Xia Yin et al. used chemical methods to analyze the painted composition and gold leaf gilding structure of stone statues unearthed in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, and conducted a horizontal comparison with the gold-leaf-gilded Buddha statues unearthed in Longxing Temple, Qingzhou, Shandong Province (Xia et al. 2008, p. 130). As a result of the research, it was illustrated that the gold leaf composition and gold leaf gilding technology of the Buddhist statues from the two places were the same. Broadly speaking, this result provided new proof for the spreading path of the gilding technology of Buddhist statues. Furthermore, Song Yan et al. expanded the selection scope of research objects (Song et al. 2021, pp. 2599–22). They discovered that gold-leaf-gilded Buddha statues from the Northern Wei Dynasty (386–532) to the Northern Qi Dynasty (550–577) unearthed in Longxing Temple in Qingzhou, Shandong Province, were all decorated and drawn with remarkably consistent high-purity gold leaf and mineral pigments. They pointed out that this might be related to local production. Through scientific examination, Zhou Zhibo et al. found that the gold-plated materials in the Kizil Grotto frescoes were based on a lac dye as the cementation material, which provided key evidence for the exchange of gilding technology on the Silk Road (Zhou et al. 2020, pp. 1–2).

The third kind of research focuses on in-depth analysis from the angle of metal craft and plastic art. Chen Yundun and Li Guoqing focused on the study of the traditional Chinese gold leaf production process and its applications (Chen and Li 1986, pp. 256–65). They believed that Buddhism also led to the introduction of the gold leaf gilding process to decorate the surface of Buddha statues in China, as well as the eastward spread of Buddhism. This progress strongly promoted the development of gold technology in ancient and medieval China. Taking a mercury-gilded bronze Buddha statue as an example, Zhang Fan explored the alliance between the ethnic minority regime in northern China and Buddhist monks during the Sixteen Kingdoms period and designed and produced a Buddha statue model integrated with the Han aesthetic, which promoted the sinicization process of Buddha statue art (F. Zhang 2018, pp. 88–102). Further, Li Jia discussed the artistic cause of gilded Buddha statues from the Northern and Southern Dynasties unearthed in Longxing Temple in Shandong Province from the perspective of gold leaf gilding technology (J. Li 2010, pp. 68–71). It was believed that this technology was introduced with the development of metal technology in the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 BCE–220 CE) in China, but there was no conclusive evidence. In addition, Li Jing and Zhang Jing comprehensively discussed the origin and development of gilded Buddha statues (Li and Zhang 2021, pp. 128–35). The research suggested that the gilded statue of the Buddha was born in Gandhara in the 1st century, leading to the development of mercury gilding technology and gold leaf gilding technology. Later, under the dual role of the arts of Han and non-Han

cultures, this difference was mainly reflected in the form of gold decoration. Gandhara Buddhas were usually covered with gold leaf entirely. However, some Chinese Buddha statues were partially decorated with gold and painted around the 5–6th centuries CE, which was a new look developed in China.

In general, the study of gilded Buddha statues from the perspective of gold production technology and technical exchange has not received sufficient attention from the academic community. In fact, existing studies mostly focus on literature induction, typical case analysis, and single studies of gold craft, but they lack exploration of the interaction of gilded Buddha statues with Chinese local gold craft and social and economic development from the historical dimension. It is an inherent tradition of Buddhist statues to have gold bodies. In this case, gilded Buddha statues reflect the close relationship between gold materials and Buddhist beliefs. This phenomenon aroused our research interest, leading to the following questions: How did foreign gilded Buddha statues enter and influence Chinese artistic creation? In addition to the direct influence on the ancient Chinese gold technology, are there other levels of influence? In what physical form and through what method is gold decorated on the uneven surface of Buddha statues? With these questions in mind, we decided to restudy gilded Buddha statues.

This paper mainly discusses the origin and types of gilded Buddha statues and the process of their spread in China. It focuses on the improvement of local gold processing technology, the expansion of application objects, and the transfer of gold resources due to the introduction of Buddhism. We can analyze the specific routes and characteristics of cultural transmission and integration in Asian civilizations using the golden appearance of Buddha statues as a medium.
