From Khotan to Xi Xia and Beyond: The Transmission of Vaiśravaṇa Iconography and Its Reconfiguration in New-Style Mañjuśrī Imagery

Khotan is one of the principal sources of the iconographic tradition of Vaiśravaṇa, and a standing posture and a halberd constitute the core features of what may be termed the “Khotanese style.” After taking shape, this iconographic style spread eastward through Dunhuang. To date, no systematic account has explained how it changed in Dunhuang under Tibetan rule, during the Five Dynasties period, and in Xi Xia or what transregional effects these changes produced. In this article, I argue that images of Vaiśravaṇa in the Khotanese tradition became increasingly varied under Tibetan rule and during the Five Dynasties period. In Xi Xia, they further incorporated diverse elements from Chinese and Tibetan Buddhist art; iconographic types became more finely differentiated, and their functions more explicit. At the same time, the Xi Xia integrated Khotanese-style images of Vaiśravaṇa into representations of New-Style Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra. By depicting Vaiśravaṇa together with the king of Khotan, these compositions constructed a sacred genealogy linking the state-protecting power of Khotanese kingship to the cult of Mañjuśrī. This compositional logic continued at the Yuan-dynasty Cloud Platform at Juyong Pass, where a New-Style Mañjuśrī image appears on the breastplate mirror of the Heavenly King of the North. Through this case study, I reveal the functional transformation and semantic reconstruction of medieval Buddhist images as they circulated across regions.