佛教艺术是佛教文化的重要载体之一,故中国古人也将佛教称为像教,可见佛像在佛教中占有多么重要的位置了。随手翻翻佛教史籍,历代高僧传之类的书,里面关于塑造佛像、绘制壁画、建寺起塔之类的记载,真是极为丰富浩瀚,令人有读之不能穷尽之感。在佛教文化圈内遗存至今的大小石窟,塔庙数量庞大,而流布于全世界的公私立博物馆、私人收藏家以及古董店、杂货摊的佛像等,就更是浩如烟海,不可数记了。 Buddhist art is one of the important carriers of Buddhist culture. Therefore, the ancient Chinese also called Buddhism as a religion and showed how important the Buddha image is in Buddhism. Turn over the books of Buddhist history, biography of high monks throughout history, inside the records about shaping Buddha statues, painting murals, building temples from the tower and so on, is extremely rich vast, people can not read the exhaustive sense. In the Buddhist cultural circle remains the size of the caves so far, a huge number of pagodas, and public places throughout the world private museums, private collectors and antique shops, grocery stalls Buddha statues, etc., is even more vast, not to be counted.