Claims of Buddhist Relics in the Eastern Han Tomb Murals at Horinger: Issues in the Historiography of the Introduction of Buddhism to China

TL;DR

The paper argues that the Eastern Han Horinger tomb murals do not provide reliable grounds for Buddhist readings, especially the alleged relic inscription and white elephant. It traces those readings to lost or remembered evidence, philological overreach, and circular scholarship.

Key findings

• The vanished cartouche on the antechamber’s eastern ceiling, read by Yu Weichao as *shēlì* 猞猁 and equated with Buddhist *shèlì* 舍利, is not securely attested: it was absent from the official excavation report, disintegrated before photography, and rested on Li Zuozhi’s unpublished notes and later memory. The author doubts even the original reading and proposes *hánlì* 𤞻猁 or other animal/auspicious alternatives.
• The white elephant on the southern ceiling is not demonstrably Buddhist: the Tengzhou “six-tusked” elephants show only three tusks in profile; whiteness cannot be verified from black-ink rubbings; the Dabaodang M24 elephant has reddish pigment; and a nursing-elephant motif appears in Zhang Heng, Xue Zong, Xu Shen, and Shen Yue outside a Buddhist context.
• The Buddhist textual basis for the white-elephant conception story, the *Xiuxing benqi jing* (T184), is too late for Zhang Heng and is not accepted as an Eastern Han text. The paper finds no verifiable Eastern Han archaeological evidence for relics, and says claims such as those about Dahuting M2 relics rest on circular reasoning from Horinger.
• The author calls for a sociocultural test: Eastern Han society was not a Buddhist-hybrid culture; Kang Senghui’s later mission shows relics initially met skepticism; and no later Chinese tomb murals show a relic motif, even for known Buddhist sympathizers.

Methods

• Historiographic and art-historical re-examination of Horinger Xiaobanshen M1, dated around 180–90 CE, and of scholarship by Yu Weichao (1980), Wu Hung (1986), Zürcher, and others.
• Comparative iconographic analysis with other Eastern Han tombs and reliefs, including Wangdu Suoyaocun M1, Dahuting M1/M2, Tengzhou, Longyangdianzhen, and Dabaodang M24.
• Philological and textual analysis of terms and sources such as *shèlì* 舍利 / *śarīra*, Lokakṣema’s *Daoxing banruo jing*, Zhang Heng’s *Xijing fu*, Cai Zhi, Xu Shen, Xue Zong, and Shen Yue.

Limitations

• Paper-stated: the inscription is lost, was never photographed, is omitted from the official report, and depends on unpublished notes and memory; its high location in a dark tomb makes the reading doubtful, and some proposed alternatives are speculative.
• Paper-stated: there is no direct archaeological evidence for Buddhist relics in Eastern Han China; the argument relies heavily on absence of parallels and negative evidence.
• Evident: the paper’s sociocultural and psychological claims about relic aversion and unfiliality are interpretive and not directly documented for Horinger; several conclusions depend on later texts and comparative inference.