By Filippo Salviati

Foreword
In 1988, as I was bringing to an end the field work needed to complete my dissertation on "Oriental motifs in the Architectural Decoration of Early Romanesque Rural Churches in Tuscany," I had the privilege of meeting Paolo Cuneo. I had come across a group of iconographic motifs that appeared in the decoration both of the Italian churches I was studying and of some early Armenian churches. One motif in particular, that of two confronting snakes on either side of a human figure sometimes with their mouths -if not their tongues- close to the figure's ears, was then the object of much of my research, and I sought from Paolo more information on its Armenian background. Our friendship developed as together we sought the solutions to complex iconographic problems, which still remain open to investigation.

The research, of course, continues. This is why I thought that a preliminary investigation into the presence of another motif, the makara, in Chinese art would be appropriate in a volume celebrating the memory of Paolo Cuneo, himself a "piscean" and protean character, whose generous friendship and intellectual curiosity were invaluable at a time when, as a young scholar starting my university career, I most needed encouragement and constructive criticism.

The Makara
The makara [1] is one of the many images of foreign origin which entered the Chinese artistic vocabulary through cultural exchanges over the centuries. [2] Its persistence through time-attested as it is on different classes of artifacts from the sixth to the eighteenth century-its adaptation to different media, and the iconographical changes it underwent in China make it an interesting case study. In the literature in Western languages, however, the motif has rarely been the subject of specific studies,[3] though a number of scholars have pointed out its occurrence in discussing particular artifacts.[4]

The Indian origin of the motif is commonly accepted, as is its adaptation to the Chinese cultural and artistic context under the influence of Buddhism. In China, however, the makara takes on characteristics of the dragon and produces new variations of the basic motif. Thus the iconographic variants and the different contexts within which the image occurs offer the possibility for its closer investigation. This has been attempted so far only by Chinese scholars in articles written in Chinese concerning the occurrence of the term describing the makara in historical texts and the representation of the composite animal in the arts of various periods in Chinese history. [5]

This article is the first attempt at establishing a chronological sequence for the presence of the makara in Chinese art and architecture through an examination selected examples drawn from the arts of the various periods: although this list does not attempt to be exhaustive, it is meant to provide the basic material for analyzing the iconographic and stylistic variations of the motif and the way it has been adapted to decorate different types of objects and parts of sculptural decoration in architectural complexes.

The evidence at our disposal related to the presence of the makara in the visual arts of China allows us to divide the material into four broad categories corresponding to the historical phases when the motif is attested in a number of media and contexts. The examples selected will be discussed within the framework of these categories:

1. The first phase dates from the fourth to the sixth century a.d. It is during this period that the motif of the makara penetrates China, its use on artifacts is established, and the stylistic models for later periods are set.

2. The second phase is represented by artifacts produced in the Tang period (a.d. 618-907). It is at this time that the makara undergoes stylistic and iconographic changes that depart from its prototypes.

3. The third phase corresponds to the Liao period (a.d. 907-1125), when the motif is used to decorate new classes of artifacts and when it presumably acquired meanings specific to the period.

4. The fourth phase runs from the postLiao period to the eighteenth century, a broad chronological time span under which are grouped the late occurrences of the motif, which basically refer back to the models and values established in earlier periods.

First Phase. Both literary and archaeological evidence indicates that the makara made its first appearance in China around the fourth or fifth century a.d. The Chinese term mojie (or mojia, written with several graphic variations of the character jie), the phonetic transliteration of the Sanskrit term makara, is first attested in texts of the fourth century, in which the mythical animal is described as a creature inhabiting the oceans, with an enormous mouth, huge eyes, and a long, scaly body.[6]

These textual descriptions of the animal are mirrored in the way the makara is depicted in the earliest artifacts attesting the presence of the motif in China and related to the Northern Wei (a.d. 386-534), a dynasty of nonChinese origin. [7] A tiny makara emerging from the waters is represented on the inside of a lobed dish, part of a hoard discovered in 1970 at Pingcheng, the capital of the Northern Wei near Datong, Shanxi province.

Dated to the fifth century a.d. the dish-a prototype for later depictions of the "makaraamongwaves" motif in vessels of this kind and the other artifacts recovered from the hoard are imported objects of Western Asian manufacture decorated with late Classical and Central Asian motifs alien to the Chinese iconographical tradition. [8]

Also to the Northern Wei period can be ascribed the first occurrence of the makara in a Buddhist context: the motif is found in the decoration of the Buddhist caves located at Yungang, near Pingcheng, and in those carved in the cliffs at Longmen, near Luoyang, the city to which the Northern Wei moved their capital in a.d. 495, studied for the first time by Lindsay (1951) who identified as makara the dragonlike creatures flanking the borders of niches containing images of the Buddha.

2. Glazed tile, Northern Qi dynasty, 6th century

To a century later belong two glazed tiles dated to the Northern Qi dynasty (a.d. 550-77) in which the makara is represented in profile (figs. 1-2). The tiles surfaced in 1996 in the New York antique market and are now in the collection of the Princeton University Art Museum. They form a homogeneous group together with several others of the same size and characteristics. all of unknown provenance: the likely sixth-century date has thus been proposed on the basis of stylistic analysis. [9] Most probably the two tiles were placed, like the others of the same group showing motifs in pairs, on either side of an entrance, probably that to the main chamber of a tomb or a pagoda.

The makara retains the features described in the literary texts: the mythical animals have oisproportionately large eyes, an enormous mouth with strong teeth, and large scaly bodies terminating in big caudal fins. Interestingly, some differences can be noted in the way the two animals are rendered: the one on the right, in addition to a background enriched with stylized motifs possibly representing sprays of water or waves-also suggested by the short undulating incisions scattered on the surface of the tile-has a crested edge around the mouth, lacks the upturned tooth of the other animal, and has its fin and tail differently rendered, not through simple incisions on the clay as on the other makara, but as a series of concave spaces.

These differences may represent sexual distinction - one being male and the other female, and thus forming a pair of diversified dragonlike creatures occasionally seen in Chinese art and in Buddhist sculpture. [10]

This pairing of makara occurs frequently in representations of this imaginary being in the arts of the following periods, particularly those of the Tang dynasty. Though it is impossible to ascertain the nature or cultural designation of the monument to which the tiles once belonged, whether a funerary monument or a Buddhist one, it is plausible to assume that in this case the makara retained its protective function by guarding the entrance on either side of which the two tiles were once placed.

Slightly later in time but firmly dated is another occurrence of the makara, which appears engraved among the motifs making up the decoration of the stone sarcophagus of Lihe, buried in a.d. 582 or 583 at Sanyuan, Shuansheng, Shaanxi province, [11] at the beginning of the Sui dynasty (a.d. 581-618). The decoration on one long side of the sarcophagus (fig. 3) is dominated by the motif of the "White Tiger of the East," one of the animals of the four directions, surrounded by several mythical creatures, including a phoenix like bird, a squatting, monstrous figure under the forelegs of the tiger, and a makara pursuing a "flaming pearl" under the tiger's tail.

3. Drawing of the side of the stone sarcophagus of Lihe, 16th century

The makara is stylistically similar to those featured on the tiles just discussed: the two representations of the animal are also related by virtue of their combination and relationship with other images of mythical beings occurring in the two contexts. The demonic creature portrayed on the stone sarcophagus under the tiger's forelegs in particular echoes the demonic images molded on some of the Northern Qi tiles and anticipates the demonic figures struggling with snakes on the tiles decorating the doorway of the Tang period Xiuding pagoda (fig. 8), placed just above two confronted representations of makara.[12] In all these cases the foreign motif of the makara is used within a context featuring unearthly creatures consistently part of the Chinese pantheon at least since the Han period (206 b.c. - a.d. 220), showing a process of assimilation of the motif and its gradual adaptation into an alien cultural context.

This association of the makara with other more typically Chinese mythical animals is visible also in a section of the painted handscroll entitled The Nymph of the Luo River." Attributed to the famous painter Gu Kaizhi (ca. a.d. 344-406) the scroll, in the Palace Museum collections in Beijing, is most likely athirteenth-century Song-period copy of a sixth-century work. [13] Despite the late date of the actual painting, it is assumed that it is a faithful copy of the original scroll, depicting an imaginary encounter between the poet Cao Zhi (a.d.192-232) and a beautiful nymph. In the central portion of the scroll (fig. 4), the nymph is portrayed as sitting on a heavenly carriage floating over the water. A host of mythical creatures accompany the nymph on her journey: six horned dragon like animals draw the carriage, followed by two whitebodied unicorns and flanked by two big makara emerging from the waters.

4. Detail of the handscroll 'The Nimph of the Luo river', 13th century copy