Ten Cases of Hunan Province Buddhist Statue of Prayers

Buddha statue epigraphs are the words written by the sculptor upon completion of the statue that describe his intent for the Buddha's function and express his personal wishes for how the Buddha will bless him. The inscriptions exist only in conjunction with the statue. Regrettably, restricted by the attitude prevalent in traditional epigraphy, which favors the anicent over the more recent, scholars have been more concerned with Buddha statue epigraphs from before the Song dynasty at the cost of ignoring research into later periods, especially the Qing. The study of ten Hunan Ming and Qing era Buddha statue epigraphs, as compiled here, is the result of the author's some ten years of field research. We must give an appropriate amount of attention to Ming and Qing Buddha statue epigraphs so as to avoid historical disconnect and an unearned sense of completion in the research of Chinese Buddhist culture.