Sogdian Daēnās, also known as Sogdian Deities (; ) is a line drawing discovered by the French Orientalist Paul Pelliot at the Mogao Caves, Dunhuang, dated to the 10th-century Guiyi period. It is probably associated with the Zoroastrian cult of the Sogdian people. The historian , a member of the Academia Sinica of Taiwan, recognised this "paper image" as one of the "pieces of paper depicting Mazdean deities for the celebration". This piece is part of the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Description This sketch, painted on paper in black ink with light colouring, depicts two ladies sitting opposite each another, their heads being encircled by nimbi. Both are represented holding various attributes: the lady on the left, who sits on a rectangular throne supported by a row of lotus petals, holds a foliated cup and a tray with a dog seated on it. The one on the right is seated on a dog or wolf, and has four arms, the upper two supporting the sun and moon discs, the lower two arms holding a scorpion and a snake. They wear a characteristic hairstyle, surmounted by a water-drop-shaped or peach-shaped headdresses that are probably made of metal.
Analysis
The drawing had been published in Jao Tsung-I's The Line Drawing of Dunhuang in 1978, but has only attracted the interest of researchers since it was displayed in the Sérinde exhibition in 1995.
The peach-shaped headdress resembles the hairstyle of the Uyghur princess. The dress of the lady on the left, at least, does not seem to correspond to the Chinese fashion at the time, and both representing the expression of foreign beliefs. According to Lilla Russell-Smith, the painting was most likely "commissioned by a Buddhist Uyghur donor who was still very much influenced by Manichaean thought" or possibly "a Manichaean Uyghur who was already deeply influenced by Buddhist ideas of rebirth."Lilla Russell-Smith, "The 'Sogdian Deities' Twenty Years On: A Reconsideration of a Small Painting from Dunhuang," in Yukiyo Kasai and Henrik H. Sørensen, eds., Buddhism in Central Asia II: Practices and Rituals, Visual and Material Transfer (Brill, 2022), 153–204.
According to Jiang Boqin ()—a professor at Sun Yat-sen University—it is a piece of Zoroastrian art, and the four-armed deity is a Sogdian goddess worshipped in their Zoroastrian cult, whose name is Nanâ, or Nanaia, the goddess originated from Mesopotamia. Frantz Grenet—a French specialist on Sogdiana and Zoroastrianism—and the historian Zhang Guangda argue that the lady on the left representing Daēnā, the good according to Zoroastrian vision; the other one represents Daēva, the bad. Jiang Boqin agrees with Grenet and Zhang that the deity on the left being Daēnā, but he determined the one on the right is the goddess Nanâ.
See also Serindian art Viśa Īrasangä Mogao Christian painting Zoroastrianism in Sichuan Ancient Arts of Central Asia
Notes
References
External links Pelliot chinois 4518 (24) : Deux divinités féminines at