Digitally restored damaged Bodhisattva statue from the Tang Dynasty in Longmen Grottoes

Abstract Bodhisattvas has the highest level in practice, which is second only to or equal to Buddha. Because of the special status of the Bodhisattva, most of the statues are beside the Buddha. It is also because of her importance that she has become the first choice of many grave robbers. The heads of many existing Bodhisattva statues have been stolen. Besides that, due to environmental and other factors, many Buddha statues have been unreasonably damaged. In order to prevent secondary damage and let future generations still enjoy this magnificent art after hundreds of years, this paper will digitally restore this valuable statue. In this paper, firstly, the facial features of the same type of Bodhisattva were analyzed by MEGVII "face++" software to obtain the angle extremes of the restored data. Then, the facial features analyzed by systematic literature review(SLR) method were used for artistic processing to make it closer to the original appearance of Buddha statue. Notably, the digital restoration of the damaged Bodhisattvas could provide a new approach to the restoration plan and basis for the digitization of Longmen Grottoes. This form of restoration is also able to organically combine modern science and technology with traditional art research, which offers a new academic research method for restoring traditional art history.