Internal and External Influences on Shaping Chinese Flying Apsara Images

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-577-5_9How to use a DOI?

Keywords

flying apsara; Buddhist art; Chinese art

Abstract

Apsaras arrived in China with the spread of Indian Buddhist culture and art, eventually transforming into a localized image of flying apsaras in China. Its localization was influenced by a combination of internal and external factors in China, which reflects the integration of different cultures and the change of aesthetic notions in the times. The essay concludes these factors affecting the formation of Chinese flying apsaras imagery. Firstly, the essay explains how the image changed during the spreading process, from its original appearance to the Serindian art style, then to the Central Plains style influenced by the Han culture, and finally to the distinct and unique image. Then, the essay discusses the two major dynasties that critically impacted the development of the image of flying apsaras, the Northern Wei Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty, taking the statues of flying apsaras in the Longmen Grottoes as an example. Finally, the final evidence-based conclusion states that the traditional Chinese culture of music and dance, as well as the traditional Chinese belief in immortals, as the internal factors, significantly influenced the localized image of the flying apsaras. In addition, among the external social environmental factors affecting the localized image of flying apsaras, the political environment of the Northern Wei Dynasty dominated the tendency to sinicize the image of flying apsaras, while the external environmental factors of the Tang Dynasty were complex and diverse.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Kexin Liu
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/05/15
TI  - Internal and External Influences on Shaping Chinese Flying Apsara Images
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 5th International Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities and Arts (SSHA 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 82
EP  - 95
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-577-5_9
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-577-5_9
ID  - Liu2026
ER  -