**5. Stripping the Buddha's Gold Garments: The Contradiction between Gold Technology Evolution and Resource Supply and Demand**

The value of gold has a high degree of consensus in human society. After Buddhism was introduced into China, it actively built and spread Buddhist thoughts with the help of gold. Chinese believers gradually accepted and imitated the gold decoration and worship of Buddha statues to obtain spiritual comfort. Generally speaking, Buddhism had a certain influence on the gold technology and social resource distribution in ancient China. As mentioned above, gold resources in ancient China gradually flowed from the ruling class to the religious field. The use of gold has expanded from the showing off of materials in secular life to the spiritual sustenance of religious belief. From a technical processing perspective, ancient Chinese craftsmen further processed solid gold in its simple form into gold amalgam and gold leaf through forging, alloying, melting, and other methods and then applied it in the exterior decoration production of Buddha statues through mercury gilding, gold leaf gilding, and other technologies. These two main surface treatments expanded the application of gold and promoted the development of gold leaf production technology in ancient China.

A comprehensive comparison of the mercury gilding and gold leaf gilding processes used in the surface treatment of Buddha statues shows that the gold leaf gilding process has more advantages in terms of processing technology and decoration applications (see Table 1). As for the mercury gilding process, due to the use of mercury elements that are harmful to the human body in the production of raw materials, the bottom substrate must be made of metal, and the construction needs to be equipped with a stable and continuous fire source for baking. Due to the double influence of technical difficulty and metal material loss, the scale and quantity of production of mercury-gilded Buddha statues can only be relatively small. In fact, the technical difficulty of gold leaf gilding lies in the mass production of gold leaf. This problem was encountered because the original technology could not meet the increasing demand for gold ornaments on Buddha statues, which forced people to seek better technological solutions. Usually, the essence of technology is to utilize phenomena to combine and self-evolve existing technologies so as to bring new efficiency improvements and value niches (Arthur 2009, pp. 168–84). They promote and influence each other through science and the economy. The inventions of mercury gilding and gold leaf gilding make full use of the characteristics of gold. They use a chemical reaction or the means of physical processing to improve the utilization rate of materials and reduce economic costs. With the prosperity and development of the social economy and foreign exchange in the Tang Dynasty, gold crafting was also at the peak of the development period in ancient China (Qi 1999, p. 9). As recorded, the society of the Tang Dynasty greatly respected Buddhism, and eight emperors once spared no expense to welcome Buddhist relics (Han 1993, pp. 4–5). In this case, gold resources and the two technologies of mercury gilding and gold leaf gilding were widely used in the religious field of the country. However, the flamboyant decorative behavior of gilded Buddha statues has gradually evolved into a social phenomenon of extravagance and waste. The gradual imbalance between the technological evolution of gold and the social demand for gold has resulted in the consumption of more gold and other metal resources and even brought unforeseeable and destructive consequences to the social economy.

**Table 1.** Comparison of mercury bronzing and gold leaf bronzing techniques used in the surface treatment of Buddha statues.


After the "An Shi Rebellion," the Tang Dynasty faced the financial dilemma of a lack of national power and expenditure (Gernet 1987, p. 40), which led to a conflict of economic interests between the imperial center and the Buddhist group. Scholastic officials represented by Han Yu (768–842) began to oppose Buddhism in an attempt to stop the extravagance of society (He 2000, pp. 58–59). During the reign of Emperor Wuzong of Tang (814–846), including the Huichang years (841–846), it was repeatedly ordered to destroy Buddha statues and to strip them of their gold ornaments. Moreover, the Japanese monk Ennin (793–864) recorded in his travel notes, "Ennin's Travel in T'ang China," that in Shandong Province, he received a national decree issued by the imperial court: "the state and county department should take the gold of the world's gold and bronze Buddha statues, and weight the gold and turn them over to the State Treasury (Ennin 2007, p. 152)." Under the strong intervention of the imperial court, gilded Buddha statues had to be stripped of their gold, weighed, and handed over to the State Treasury. As a rare and precious metal resource in the social economy, gold served the functions of circulation, payment, and storage in social economic communication14. When the existing social economic order was destroyed, the ruler was bound to focus on the original, stable temple economy. The great tension of the polarization between the poor state and the rich temples led to the rulers confiscating and plundering the temple economy by invitation or forceful means, so as to use it for emergency subsidies of the government's finances, placing labor and resources under the name of the government (Jing 2013, p. 41). In addition, the same situation also occurred in the first year of Renzong Kangding (1040) at the beginning of the Song Dynasty, when the imperial court ordered "the prohibition of Buddha statues decoration with gold leaf" (History of Song Ren Zongji, Toqto'a 1985, p. 208). Although Buddha statues in the Tang and Song dynasties were universally revered and worshipped by the world, they were still stripped of their luxurious and solemn golden skin and clothing in the face of the difficult reality. Therefore, it can be seen that technology is not an independent factor born outside of society. Technology and society interact, restrict, and develop together in the same process.
