“甘露施饿鬼、七宝施贫儿”图像考释

在密教观音造像中,常常可以看到一组对称出现的甘露施饿鬼、七宝施贫儿图像,主要出现在千手千眼观音像和十一面观音像中,这组图像在密教经典中并无明确记载。本文考察了图像的经典依据,认为是受到《千手千眼观音经》、《十一面观音经》、《请观世音菩萨消伏毒害陀罗尼咒经》等密教经典的多重影响,而非来自某一特定密教经典。

An iconographic study for the pair of Buddhist images in Dunhuang Art

There are often the pair of images of the hungry ghost receiving Amrita and the beggar having Saptaratna appears on flanking of Avalokiteshvara,especially found in the illustrations to thousand-eyed and thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara or the illustrations to the eleven-faces Avalokiteshvara,but we could not find any definite narration from the two sūtras.By a careful textual research,this article draws a conclusion that those images should be created under influences from Sahasrabāhu-sahasrāk a-mahā-karu ika-h idaya-dhāra ī,Ekada amukhāvalokite vara-bodhisattva-h idaya-mantrādhyāya-kalpa-sūtra and Sūtra on the dhāranī-mantra for asking the Bodhisattvāvalokite vara to counteract the injury of poison.