A rubbing of an Eastern Wei Stele Commissioned by Helian Ziyue and a Devotional Society of Five Hundred Individuals, Early 20th century

Collection of Esther Underhill Haviland (1921-1996) and John McMullen Farrior (1920-1989), acquired in China between 1947 and 1950, and thence by descent.

The present lot is a rubbing of the celebrated Eastern Wei stele now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (accession no. 29.72). The upper half of the stele depicts a pivotal episode from the Discourse of Vimalakīrti, capturing the moment when Śāriputra transforms himself into a woman and then returns to his original form. This episode serves to illustrate one of the central teachings of the sutra—the impermanence and ultimate irrelevance of gender and all other conditioned states of being—and is among the many instances in which the learned layman Vimalakīrti bests the Bodhisattva of Wisdom in doctrinal debate.

The long and exceptionally abstruse inscription on the front of the stele records its commission by a devotional society headed by Helian Ziyue (ca. 501–573), who is depicted kneeling just to the right of center in the upper register of figures. It is extremely rare to find a donor who is named in a Buddhist monument who can also be securely identified by historical sources. His family lineage included the chieftain of a tribe originally based in the Ordos region; during the fifth century, members of this clan were incorporated into—or possibly intermarried with—the ruling Northern Wei dynasty. Following the dissolution of the Northern Wei, Helian Ziyue was appointed to oversee a group of subdued rebels and was resettled in northern Henan province.

The stele sustained significant damage and was broken in half prior to entering the Museum’s collection. Thus, depicting the stele in its complete, unbroken state, the present rubbing constitutes a rare documentary evidence of the stele’s former condition prior to its acquisition by the Museum in 1929.