TANG DYNASTY, 8TH CENTURY

During the Tang dynasty, stupa-form reliquaries such as the present example were used in ceremonial worship, often to hold special sacred offerings or sariras of revered monks. The stupa itself was thought to have embodied the Cosmic Parasol, also known as the Tree of Enlightenment, ascending to supernatural realms from the summit of Mt. Meru, a world-mountain in Buddhist cosmology. The seven tiers of the stupa hold profound significance, representing various states of existence and consciousness within the Buddhist cosmos' celestial realm. Scholars believe that the number of tiers on the stupa corresponds to different levels of transcendence in the journey towards achieving nirvana. A similar Tang bronze reliquary with a seven-tiered stupa is in the Nelson-Atkins Gallery of Art, and illustrated in the exhibition catalogue by Henry Trubner, The Arts of the Tang Dynasty, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1957, and another, slightly larger example (7 7/8 in. high) is in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, accession no. 99.178.1A,B, can be seen on the museum website. See, also, a Tang gilt-bronze reliquary of similar size excavated in 1983 from the tomb of the 7th Patriarch of Chan (Zen) Buddhism (d. 758) at Longmen, Luoyang, illustrated in Huanghe wenming zhan, Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, 1986, p. 136, no. 110. For an example of a bronze reliquary with a five-tiered stupa, see the example in the Nara National Museum illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Exhibition of Shoso-in Treasures, Nara, 1997, p. 94, no. 69.