An extremely fine and rare pair of parcel-gilt and silvered bronze reliquary boxes and covers (Sarira) Tang / Liao Dynasty

each of hexagonal section with tall straight sides rising from a waisted pedestal base pierced with cloud-shaped openings, the cover of conforming section modeled after a pitched roof and surmounted by a finely worked lotus bud finial set within a separate sheet-cut lappet collar, the first box with its sides richly gilded overall and incised with figures of bodhisattvas, including Avalokitesvara, alternating with Guardian Kings or Lokapala, including Vaisravana, the Guardian King of the North, holding a small stupa in his hand; the second box with its sides parcel-gilded with a panels of pairs of geese flying up amidst a peony meander against a ring-punched ground, alternating with panels of pairs of child-like apsaras, or heavenly angels, flying up amidst feathery scrolls, the cover incised with six lotus blossoms picked out against the silvered ground

Gilt silver sutra boxes are extremely rare and the very few that can be found in important museums are all of cylindrical form making the present piece an unusual example of a container imitating an architectural shape, a hexagonal pagoda. 

See a cylindrical sutra container of Liao date, composed of four nesting cylindrical sections alternately made of silver and gold, with a silver stand and golden roof-shaped cover, excavated from the Northern Pagoda near Chaoyang in Liaoning province, illustrated in Han Wei and Christian Deydier, Ancient Chinese Gold, Paris, 2001, pls. 498 and 499. The cylindrical parts of that sutra box are engraved with Buddhist figures and inscribed with the name of a Buddhist sutra. Another parcel-gilt silver cylindrical container on the back of a silver tortoise, formed part of a large cache of silverware discovered in a tomb at Dingmaoqiao, Dantu, Jiangsu province , which can be dated AD 760, is included ibid., pl. 576. That container is decorated with wild geese among floral scrollwork on a ring-punched ground; its inscription, however, refers to the Analects of Confucious.

Compare also a gilt-silver rectangular box standing on a waisted base with cloud-like openings, dated to AD869 and excavated in 1987 from the Famen Monastery Pagoda, at Fufeng county, Shaanxi province, illustrated ibid., pl. 627-628.

Such extraordinary boxes or cases as the present lot are reminders of the expansion of Buddhism by the northern nomadic tribes from the late Tang period onwards. Related reliquary forms, derived from large-scale architectural models, such as hexagonal or cylindrical stupas are found in Khitan Liao, within present-day Mongolia, and Silla or Koguryo kingdoms, on the Korean peninsula. A very closely related hexagonal sarira, or reliquary casket, with guardian kings incised in almost exactly the same rudimentary format, is datable to the second half of the Unified Silla period, late 8th - 9th Century, now in the collection of the Dongguk University Museum, Seoul (National Treasure no.208), illustrated in Hongsup Chin, The National Treasures of Korea, vol.5. Handicraft Art, Seoul, 1992, pls.22-23, pp.25.