The Miho Couch Revisited in Light of Recent Discoveries

By Annette L. Juliano & Judith A. Lerner

A panel from the Miho funerary couch showing a banquet scene Height 61 cm, width 34.6 cm

Until 1992, three relief panels and two gateposts, said to have come from Zhangdefu near Anyang in Henan province, were all that remained of the only known sixth century funerary couch to depict Westerners (Central Asians) in a possible Chinese context (Figs 1 and 2). They are scattered among three museum collections: the Museum fur Ostasiatische Kunst in Cologne, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Musee National des Arts Asiatiques - Guimet in Paris. The panels are filled with figures dressed in Central Asian garb - long tunics with pearled borders and high boots - participating in horseback processions and banquets. The gateposts, Chinese in their architectural style, are decorated with standing men clothed in similar garb who wear the Zoroastrian padam or mouth-cover, tending bowls that contain fire. These reliefs were fully published by Gustina Scaglia, who identified the figures as Central Asians, either Sogdians or Hephthalites (Scaglia, 1958).

The publication in 1992 of the first complete funerary couch, excavated near Tianshui, southeastern Gansu province and now in the Tianshui Museum, and the appearance on the art market that year of the panels of another couch, said to have come from northern China, have added to the number of funerary couches with images of Central Asians and suggest that these couches formed a distinct artistic tradition (Figs 3 and 4). At the time, the Tianshui couch was the least known of the three and the most `Chinese-looking', but the northern China panels, displayed in New York and Los Angeles, and owned by the Miho Museum in Shiga prefecture, Japan, became more widely known, and their exotic style and imagery have stirred controversy. The front panel of a base which may belong to this couch is now in a New York private collection and is illustrated here for the first time (Fig. 5).

Unfortunately, the Tianshui couch was deemed too fragile to be included in the exhibition (curated by the authors) `Monks and Merchants: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China, 4th-7th Century', although the five painted and gilded sculptures of musicians, which had been placed in front of the couch in the tomb, have travelled from China (see cover). The possibility of its inclusion, however, led us to re-examine our earlier work on the Miho panels (Juliano and Lerner, 1997 and 1997a; Lerner 1995). It also provided the opportunity to study in detail even more recent finds in China: a fourth funerary couch from Xi'an, in Shaanxi province, excavated in 2000 (Shaanxi Archaeological Institute, 2001 and Yin, 2000) and a sarchophagus from near Taiyuan in Shanxi province, found in 1999 (Shanxi Archaeological Institute, 2001 and Zhang, 2000) (Figs 6 and 7). Such discoveries, we believe, dispel any doubts surrounding the authenticity of the Miho couch.

The Xi'an funerary couch, dated by its epitaph stone to 579 (Northern Zhou dynasty), belonged to An Qie, a Sogdian aristocrat from Guzang (present-day Wuwei in Gansu province); he settled in Xi'an, serving as sabao, the title given by the Chinese government to the leaders of resident Iranian and Central Asian communities. The sarcophagus contained the remains of Yu Hong, a Central Asian of possible Turkic ancestry, and his wife. Yu Hong died in 593 (Sui dynasty), and also served as sabao.

From the fifth to the seventh century, tomb furnishings in northern and northwestern China included stone couches and sarcophagi, which were typically decorated with traditional Chinese mythological and cosmological symbols as well as Confucian filial piety stories. However, these four couches and the sarcophagus utilize predominantly non-Chinese iconography and represent almost exclusively non-Chinese ethnic groups engaged in a variety of secular and religious activities. These distinctive funerary monuments seem to be associated with people of Central Asian descent. They thus provide a glimpse of the Chinese and Iranian - specifically Sogdian - worlds encountering each other within the borders of China.

Space limitations preclude a full discussion here of the extraordinary and complex imagery of these pieces, so we can only point out themes that are shared by all or most of them. All contain allusions to Zoroastrianism, which in Sassanian Iran (242-650) was a hierarchical, centralized religion, and in the cities of Sogdiana incorporated a variety of practices and beliefs. For all Zoroastrians, fire was the most sacred of the elements, and those who tended the sacred fire covered their mouths so that their breath would not defile it. Such fire-tenders appear on the gateposts of the Zhangdefu couch (see Fig. 2) and on the central panel of the Miho couch (see Fig. 4a); on the latter the padam is worn by a priest who performs a part of the Zoroastrian burial ceremony known as sag-did (`glance of a dog'). These figures are clearly mortals, in contrast to the winged beings that flank the fire on the New York couch base (see Fig. 5a) and on the base of Yu Hong's sarcophagus (see Fig. 7a); and, though not on An Qie's couch, on the lunette above the entrance to his tomb (Fig. 8 and 8a).

Chinese and Western scholars have cited these creatures, half man and half bird, as evidence that the owners of these funerary monuments were Sogdians practising Zoroastrianism. In Sogdiana itself, however, such birdmen are virtually unknown on monuments that can be associated with funerary or Zoroastrian rites. On the decorated ossuaries (containers for the bones of the deceased) found in Sogdian territory and depicting Zoroastrian deities and rituals, no such creatures appear. Sculptures of female-headed birds, some with human breasts and resembling harpies of the Classical world, were found in the seventh and eighth century Sogdian cities of Panjikent and Varakhsha (in modern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan respectively), and a variety of realistic and fantastic birds and animals, winged and beribboned, hover above the heads of combatant heroes, banqueters and votaries at fire-altars in the wall paintings of Panjikent, Varakhsha and Afrasiab (ancient Samarkand in Uzbekistan). Unlike the birdmen, none of these beings wears the mouth-covering, although they may display Zoroastrian connections by symbolizing the soul of the deceased or possess a general auspicious meaning.

It may be that the birdmen were inspired by non-Sogdian or Zoroastrian sources. In China, composite beings were associated with the afterlife and often adorn tombs and Buddhist cave temples; some of these representations go back to the Han period (206 BCE-CE 220) and earlier. The possibility of Indian influence also cannot be discounted. The style and clothing of the hybrid beings on the New York base panel and Yu Hong's sarcophagus recall Indian Gupta (c. 350-550) kinnaras, the celestial human-avian musicians of the gods, who appear in Buddhist monuments in India as well as in Central Asia. Their bare torsos, their physiognomies and winged crowns are very different from the birdmen in An Qie's tomb, with their long-sleeved tunics, black moustaches and short, curly hair free of any headgear. While the Yu Hong birdmen and those on the New York couch base stand to either side of a Chinese-style incense burner with lotus petals, the An Qie birdmen flank a fire-altar that is supported by the foreparts of camels. The camel was one of the animal forms of the Iranian warrior god, Verethragna, who was worshipped in Sogdiana. The An Qie birdmen hover in the air, each above a table set with vases filled with leafy branches and small cups, perhaps performing the Zoroastrian Afrinagan ceremony that is part of the Zoroastrian funeral rite.

A recurring theme on all five funerary monuments is the animal hunt (see Figs 4b, 6a and 7b). Set in a rocky landscape, which often contains flowers and foliage and an occasional tree, mounted archers, accompanied by hunting dogs, pursue a variety of prey - lions, tigers, deer and wild sheep. The hunters themselves represent several different Central Asian peoples - Turks, Hephthalites, Sogdians - identified by their headgear, hairstyles and facial characteristics. Mounted archers chasing their prey were a popular subject in Chinese art as far back as Han times, beginning with clay and bronze vessels, and later decorating the walls of tombs. Hunting scenes were also popular in Sassanian art, epitomized by the royal mounted hunters depicted on gilt-silver plates. Long ribbons flutter behind the crowns of these and other royal images and are a hallmark of Sassanian imperial art. The adoption of these ribbons as a decorative or perhaps symbolic motif in the art of Central Asia and China is evidence of the broad influence of Sassanian art in areas east of Iran. Fluttering ribbons appear on the head-dresses of most of the figures on the Miho panels and Yu Hong's sarcophagus but are absent from those on An Qie's couch, the Zhangdefu panels and the Tianshui couch (Juliano and Lerner, 2001, cat. no. 106).

A third important theme, and another that unites all five pieces, is the banquet set within a pavilion (see Figs 1, 4c, 6b and 7c). A Central Asian man, most likely Sogdian, sits on a carpet with one or both legs crossed, and feasts with a woman who may be Central Asian or Chinese. Although the theme of the royal or princely banquet has a long history in the Ancient Near East, under the Sassanians it occurs only in the art of the eastern part of the empire. Its apparent absence in imperial Sassanian art may simply be due to chance, as it frequently appears in non-royal contexts, such as Sassanian sealstones, and elsewhere in the Iranian world, in Bactria and Sogdiana. At Panjikent, paintings of banqueters grace the walls of important residences and temples and may refer to the feast of Nowruz, the New Year celebration of the renewal of life. In China, banquets are associated with the afterlife, appearing in tombs from at least Han times.

On all but the Tianshui couch, the feasting couples are entertained by a male dancer and musicians (see Juliano and Lerner, 1997); feasting couples appear in three separate panels on An Qie's couch, but only two panels include entertainers (see Figs 1 and 4c). In all these banquet scenes, the dancer, dressed in Central Asian garb, performs what the Chinese called the huxuan wu (`Sogdian whirl'). Central Asian music and dance were extremely popular in China from the sixth century to the Tang period (618-906), and male and female dancers were imported from Samarkand and Tashkent in Sogdiana. Seventh and eighth century Tang poets described the performances of these foreign dancers, extolling their whirling and complex movements. It seems that the dances were typically performed on a rug, probably of Central Asian manufacture:

The body leaps gyrating as on an axle, the jeweled belt jangles. The feet move in rapid motion, the embroidered boots are soft. ... Wildly jumping on the new carpet of pure white and crimson wool. It appears as if some light flowers have spilled over a red candle. (Dien, 1985)

Although a fringed rug appears in most Tang portrayals of the dance, among the earlier representations - that is, on these funerary pieces and on the ceramic pilgrim flasks of the sixth century - only Yu Hong's sarcophagus shows the rug. This rendition is of further interest because the dancer's particular posture and the billowing scarf around his shoulders have parallels in later Tang depictions, such as a pair of male dancers on the stone doors from an early eighth century tomb from Yanchi in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, which are also in the exhibition (see the interview with Vishakha Desai in this issue).

The couples in the banquet scenes drink from shallow bowls (identified in Chinese as poluo) or footed cups, which they hold at the base with their fingertips (see Fig. 6b). These kinds of cups and the elegant way in which they are held recall festal scenes in Central Asian wall paintings, particularly those from fifth or sixth century Balalyk Tepe (in southern Uzbekistan). A second vessel type of Central Asian origin and from points even further west makes a more limited appearance in other feasting or drinking scenes: on one of the Zhangdefu panels (see Fig. 1), on the Tianshui couch, and possibly in a subsidiary scene on Yu Hong's sarcophagus. This is the rhyton, a quintessential Iranian drinking vessel that was in widespread use in Central Asia, particularly Sogdiana, where, for example, it is used by the Panjikent banqueters. From there, it apparently came to China by way of the Silk Road. In contrast to the scenes in which more than one person uses the wine cups, those with the rhyton show only a solitary drinker. On the Zhangdefu panel, the princely figure sits in a grape arbour, surrounded by courtiers and drinking from a rhyton that ends in an animal head. On the Tianshui couch, the drinker, accompanied by a kneeling attendant, sits with one leg crossed and the other pendant (a posture that appears several times on Yu Hong's sarcophagus and may have been influenced by Buddhist art). Although actual rhyta were no longer made in Iran at this time, their images appear on late Sassanian vessels of the sixth and seventh centuries in a ritual or even eucharistic context. It is likely that the liquid associated with the rhyton is not wine but haoma, the Zoroastrian sacred `liquor of immortality'.

These themes - the banquet and the hunt - and explicit or implicit references to Zoroastrianism - the birdmen and the rhyton - connect the five funerary monuments with each other and with Central Asia, specifically with Sogdiana. From their epitaphs, we know of An Qie's Sogdian roots and Yu Hong's Central Asian origin; unfortunately, we know nothing about the owners of the other couches. However, the images that they chose for their funerary monuments reflect a Central Asian, if not actually Sogdian, background. But if this is true, why did they, as well as An Qie and Yu Hong, choose to be buried in the `Chinese style', and what impelled them to combine Zoroastrian images with Chinese burial practice?

The Chinese buried their dead in tombs, which evolved from simple earthen pits into elaborate, underground multi-chambered structures of brick or stone. By the Han dynasty, one of the central concepts of the funerary rites was to `treat death as life'; the form and structure of the tomb was a microcosm of the world of the living, fashioned to imitate an actual house and provided with a complement of furnishings and provisions. In addition to the tomb furnishings, the walls and ceilings of the tomb were decorated to incorporate the microcosm of the world of the living and the macrocosm of the universe and the spirit realms: processions, on foot, horseback and by ox-cart, to escort the deceased to his final resting place; banquets with musicians, dancers and acrobats; mounted hunts; celestial symbols and deities, along with mythological creatures to assist the deceased on his journey to the spirit world - human and animal guardians to protect the tomb and ward off evil.

The coffin of the deceased was set in a rear chamber corresponding to a bedroom, and elevated on a wooden framework, a platform of layered bricks or a flat stone. By the late fifth century, stone platforms had begun to take the form of a discrete piece of furniture, a low, bed-like platform (chuang) raised on rectangular feet. As an alternative to the platform, some tombs used stone sarcophagi for the body of the occupant. In addition to the pieces that are the subject of this article, parts of stone funerary couches and sarcophagi, along with separate platforms and panels, sit in museum collections around the world.

In contrast to the Chinese, Zoroastrians do not inter their dead. Proscribed from polluting the earth with burials, Zoroastrians expose the corpse so that the flesh can be picked clean by vultures and wild animals, and the bones then gathered and placed in an ossuary that was kept above ground. In Sogdiana, ossuaries were typically box-shaped, rectangular or oval, made of clay and embellished with moulded, applied or incised decoration. Many have complex scenes on the exterior that reveal different aspects of Sogdian funerary practices and religious beliefs.

The prominence of the sag-did ceremony on the Miho couch and the human and divine fire-tenders on the Zhangdefu gateposts, the New York base, Yu Hong's sarcophagus, and over An Qie's tomb door refer to the beginning of the deceased's journey to the next world. The banquets and drinking scenes with a rhyton, along with their garden and grape arbour settings, may be paradisiacal, evoking notions of immortality; similarly the scenes of the hunt, as in Chinese tombs, may refer to events in the life of the deceased or continued activity in the afterlife.

These motifs and subject matter on the five funerary monuments dramatically show the mixing of foreign and Chinese elements across several provinces of China. The monuments also show the existence of what appear to be regional schools, either of foreign sculptors or local Chinese, working with new iconography. Not only are several different kinds of stone used for the pieces (granite for the Tianshui couch, white marble for Yu Hong's sarcophagus and the Miho couch and New York base, black limestone for the Zhangdefu couch), but the styles and iconographic details of their decoration differ. For example, the birdmen on the New York base and Yu Hong's sarcophagus are portrayed differently from those in An Qie's tomb. The Tianshui couch, with its extensive architectural, aquatic and landscape elements is the most Chinese in style and imagery, recalling Chinese Buddhist visions of the Western Paradise; many of the figures on Yu Hong's sarcophagus - their postures and details of dress - have parallels in Indian art; the strong sculptural quality of the Miho couch and New York base contrasts strongly with the flat and decorative carving of the Zhangdefu panels and gateposts. Indeed, the diversity of artistic expression among these funerary monuments reflects the lack of central authority and regional power centres that characterized northern China between the fall of the Han and the rise of the Tang dynasty.

The recent discovery of Yu Hong's sarcophagus and An Qie's couch within a year of each other, which has significantly increased the number of known funerary monuments of this type, offers hope that more will be found in good archaeological contexts. With such documented discoveries, we should be able to reach a more accurate assessment and understanding of the dynamics of intercultural exchange as revealed by the funerary furniture of Central Asians in China.