Location info and some photos withheld. As of my last visit, this mural site is vulnerable to theft or destruction. I have withheld the location beneath the county level and any photographs (of steles, signs, scenery, etc.) that might identify the place. If you are an accredited scholar and you have a good reason to want to see this information, email me and we’ll talk about it.
Structure Type: Buddhist Monastery 佛寺. There’s a main hall with the Water and Land Images; there are also a number of smaller side-halls. Most of these do not have extant murals, but one does, showing the feeding of the hungry ghosts below.
Location: Jia County, Shaanxi Province 陝西省佳縣. The monastery is located on the valley floor, at the edge of an un-walled village.
Period: 1844. A stele sitting outside says that in this year, during a repair of the monastery, the donors “newly fixed stations for the Water and Land gods” 新配水陸神位. This could mean that the murals were older and were simply re-colored in this year, but they’re one of a number of closely-related Water and Land sets in this area, all of which seem to have been either painted or heavily edited in the 19th century. I’m relying on Hu Yansheng’s PhD thesis on these, see: 呼延勝, “陝北土地上水陸畫藝術,” 博士論文, 西安美術學院, 2012, pp.136.
Artists: Li Guan 李琯, Deng Ju 登舉, Zhe Dashi 折大石, Pei Shengchang 裴生長, Dan Benyuan 單本元.
Mural Contents: The main-hall murals show the Buddhist Feast of Water and Land, in which all the gods and demons of the cosmos are called down to the altar to partake of offerings and be converted. The bottom halves of both flanking walls have been re-painted, badly, in garish and reflective tones.
A sub-hall devoted to the King of Ghosts 鬼王 or the Great Master of the Flaming Mien 面然大師 has an interesting 20th century mural (before or after the Revolution I’m not sure) displaying the Ullambana 盂蘭盆 or feeding of the hungry ghosts 餓鬼施食. This is often a segment of the Water and Land ritual, and thus may be connected to the murals in the main hall, I’m not sure.
Highlight Gallery
Ghost King Hall Full Gallery
Water and Land Hall Full Gallery
