In Wangs study, she surveys miraculous tales compiled in early medieval China, in which cultic images (primarily statues) become living presences. They respond to the devotees prayers, perform supernatural acts, move about out of their own volition, in ways that are comparable to the deities they are supposed represent. But in the meantime, they also exhibit human-like vulnerabilities, as they suffer injuries, bear material traces of their incompleteness, and at times act out of instincts for survival. How do we reconcile these two slightly contradictory sides of cultic imagesthat they are both god-like and like us at the same time? What are the broader purposes of such stories? Who wrote them and for whom? Choose one example and discuss with your peers. According to Sharf, what is the purpose of the nested-set of reliquaries discovered in the crypt under the Pagoda at Famen Monastery? How should we cope with the paradox that the Buddhas finger bone relics found therein were clearly manufactured, and yet such artifice does not seem to have prevented them from being treated as genuine relics?
