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"accession_number": "1929.983",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Section of a Dharani Pillar, 618\u2013907. China, Tang dynasty (618\u2013907). Limestone; overall: 50.2 x 40.4 cm (19 3/4 x 15 7/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, 1929.983",
"current_location": "241C Chinese Buddhist Sculptures",
"title": "Section of a Dharani Pillar",
"creation_date": "618\u2013907",
"creation_date_earliest": 618,
"creation_date_latest": 907,
"artists_tags": [],
"culture": [
"China, Tang dynasty (618\u2013907)"
],
"technique": "limestone",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Chinese Art",
"collection": "China - Tang Dynasty",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 50.2 x 40.4 cm (19 3/4 x 15 7/8 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 0.502,
"height_inch": 19,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"width": 0.404,
"width_inch": 15,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.875
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"provenance": [
{
"description": "(Yamanaka and Company, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?\u20131929",
"sortorder": 1
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{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1929\u2013",
"sortorder": 2
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"description": "This octagonal stone pillar, with Buddhist figures carved on its eight sides, is part of a dharani pillar commissioned by Buddhist believers to pay tribute to the dead. The eight inscriptions seen here are eulogies dedicated by eight families to their deceased family members.
Dharanis were a form of spell in Esoteric Buddhism said to possess supernatural power when being recited or carried and were incorporated into sutras, such as the Buddha Usnisa Vijaya Dharani Sutra. Dharani pillars, also called sutra pillars, became the dominant bearers of Usnisa Vijaya Dharani which supposedly helped sentient beings prolong life and destroy hardships of the eternal cycle of life and the realms of hell.",
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"citations": [
{
"citation": "Hollis, Howard C. \"A Chinese Buddhist Pedestal.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 19, no. 4 (1932): 56\u201363.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 63",
"url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/25137471"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 824",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1958/page/n146"
},
{
"citation": "Yeung, Sara. \"Stone Eulogies.\" Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine, vol. 51, no. 4 (July/August 2011): 13\u201315.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 13\u201315",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2011-04/page/12/mode/2up"
},
{
"citation": "Vogelaar, Kevin. \"Locating the Xi'an Stele on the Four-Hundredth Anniversary of Its Discovery.\" In Visual Culture in Medieval Syriac Traditions, Emily Chesley, ed., 325\u2013387. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2026.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 351; Reproduced: p. 378, fig. 8.12",
"url": ""
}
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"gallery_donor_text": "Clara T. Rankin Galleries of Chinese Art",
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"updated_at": "2026-05-29 05:54:23.249000"
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