Chongshanshi(Chongshan T emple) was built in 1383 by Zhu Gang, to honor the memory of his mother, Empress Ma, and to consolidate the imperial authority over Buddhism. The walls of the eastern and western galleries of Zhengdian, the main hall of the temple, were decorated with illustrations of the life of the Shakyamuni Buddha, painted between 1383 and 1391. The paintings were copied when repair works for the temple was carried out in 1472-80, and compiled as the Eighty-four-leaf Album of the Shakyamuni Buddha in 1483. Consequently, the album contains faithful reproductions of the mural paintings at Chongshansi. The use of different colors for the air and the earth are important features of Ming Buddhist paintings and the axe-cut brushstrokes on mountains and rocks are characteristic of the landscapes favored at the Ming court. The depictions of red marbles on architecture emphasize the prestige of the imperial buildings and the rolled edges of Buddha’s clothes resemble the paintings of the Zhu Haogu school, active in late Yuan. Among the illustrations of Buddha’s life made during the Ming Dynasty, this album is recognized for its active employment of traditional iconography, as the paintings were made after the mural paintings of Chongshansi in the earliest years of the Ming Dynasty. The emphasis on Shakyamuni Buddha’s activities as Prince Siddhartha are likely based on a political agenda to convey the sacredness of imperial powers through the illustrations of Buddha’s life.