Emperor in the face of Buddha: the Five Caves of Tan Yao as triggers of obeisance in the Tuoba Northern Wei.

This paper examines the Yungang Grottoes (Datong, Shanxi province, China), particularly the earliest Five Caves of Tan Yao (dated to 460–465 CE), outside the much-studied Buddhist narrative. Proponents of the iconographic scheme have decoded the five larger than life-sized stone Buddha sculptures carved out of a low mountain range as embodying the family cult of the Northern Wei (386–534 CE) Tuoba ruling household in its design. Advancing on the notion proposed by the Northern Wei clergy of venerating the emperor as 'the coming Buddha Maitreya', I aim to explore how the visual scheme of the Five Caves of Tan Yao created a 'presence' of the emperor at the Wuzhou Mountain to elicit different types of perceptual response from its contemporary audience. The materiality of the stone sculptures was meant to awe the viewer into submission, as the 'presence' of the emperor, instead of his words, demanded obeisance from all his subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]