Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c6.s1.t2.6

v1.c6.s1.t2.6

As communications between India and China flourished since the Tang Dynasty, the paintings of constellations prevalent in India gradually spread to China. Zhang Sengyao was a painter in Liang dynasty whose three pieces of paintings were said to be the earliest record of constellation paintings ie *Painting of Nine Constellations*, *Painting of Saturn*, *Paintings of Five Planes and Twenty-eight Constellations*. If these records are true, they show that as early as the Liang Dynasty, China began to take in Indian star-god pictures. However, scholars mostly deem that there was some doubt that the star-god paintings emerged in Liang Dynasty and the real author of those paintings should be someone in the Tang Dynasty instead.