Donors of Longmen: Faith, Politics, And Patronage in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Sculpture

Amy McNair is associate professor of Chinese art at the University of Kansas.

chinese art  |  religion Of related interest

Mirror of Morality

donors of longmen

the dedicatory inscriptions reveal not only how much was spent but also the rhetoric appropriate to the donor’s station in life, gender, and intended audience. McNair argues that donors made conscious decisions regarding the style of their sculptures — a lively interplay between native Chinese imagery and icons and styles of art from the Buddhist holy land of India — so as to imbue the images with meanings that were immediately comprehensible to their contemporaries.   Through her sensitive and well-informed exploration of Longmen’s huge repository of remarkable early sculpture, McNair gives voice to a wide array of medieval believers, many of them traditionally excluded from history. Hers will be the definitive work on Longmen for years to come.

Mc Nair

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Chinese Narrative Illustration and Confucian Ideology Julia K. Murray

2007, est. 208 pages, color & b/w illus. Cloth ISBN 978-0-8248-3001-4 Mirror of Morality takes an interdisciplinary look at an important form of pictorial art produced during two millennia of Chinese imperial rule. Ideas about individual morality and state ideology were based on the ancient teachings of Confucius with modifications by later interpreters and government institutions. Throughout the imperial period, members of the elite made, sponsored, and inscribed or used illustrations of themes taken from history, literature, and recent events to promote desired conduct among various social groups. This dimension of Chinese art history has never before been broadly covered or investigated in historical context.

University of Hawai‘i Press

Faith, Politics, and Patronage in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Sculpture

Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888

Jacket art: Bodhisattva, northwest corner, Great Vairocana Image Shrine. Photo, the author, 1994.

donors of longmen

Jacket design: April Leidig-Higgins www.uhpress.hawaii.edu

Amy McNair

Donors of Longmen is the first work in a Western language to re-create the history of the Longmen Grottoes, one of China’s great stone sculpture treasure houses. Longmen, a UNESCO World Heritage site located near the old capital of Luoyang in modern Henan Province, consists of thousands of ancient cave chapels and shrines containing Buddhist icons of all sizes that were carved into the towering limestone cliffs from the fifth to the eighth centuries. Beyond its superb sculpture, Longmen also preserves thousands of engraved dedicatory inscriptions by its donors, who included emperors and empresses, aristocrats, court eunuchs, artisans, monks, nuns, lay societies, female palace officials, male civil and military officials, and ordinary lay believers.   Based on wide reading of both Asianand Western-language scholarship and careful analysis of the architecture, epigraphy, and iconography of the site, Amy McNair provides a rich and detailed examination of the dynamics of faith, politics, and money at Longmen, beginning with the inception of the site at Guyang Grotto in 493 and concluding with the last major dated project, the forty-eight Amitābhas added to the Great Vairocana Image Shrine in 730. Believers sponsored statues and cave shrines as public acts of giving (dāna) and merit (karma) to generate social credit in the political realm and karmic merit in the spiritual. Although donors’ choices of icons reveal the changes in Buddhist religious concerns over the 250-year life of the site, the discussions of expenditure in

(Continued on back flap)

Donors of Longmen

Donors of Longmen Faith, Politics, and Patronage in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Sculpture

Amy McNair

University of Hawai‘i Press  |  Honolulu

© 2007 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 12  11  10  09  08  07  6  5  4  3  2  1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McNair, Amy.   Donors of Longmen : faith, politics, and patronage in medieval Chinese Buddhist sculpture / Amy McNair.   p.  cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8248-2994-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8248-2994-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)   1. Gods, Buddhist, in art.  2. Sculpture, Buddhist  — China — Longmen Caves.  3. Sculpture, Chinese —  China — Longmen Caves — Three kingdoms-Sui dynasty, 220–618.  4. Sculpture, Chinese — China — Longmen Caves — Tang-Five dynasties, 618–960.  5. Buddhist art and symbolism — China — Longmen Caves.  6. Art patronage — China.  I. Title. NB1912.B83M43  2007 730.951'18 — dc22 2006024200 Frontis: A honeymooning couple poses in “Tang” costume as “donors of Longmen.” Photo, Jin Yini, 1999. University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Designed by April Leidig-Higgins Printed by Thomson-Shore, Inc.

For Harrie Vanderstappen

Contents



List of Illustrations  ix



Acknowledgments  xi



Introduction  1

One

Emperor as Tathāgata  7

Two

The Mechanics of a Karmic Gift of Sculpture  31

Three

The Rhetoric of Expenditure  51

Four

The Politics of Filial Piety  75

Five

Cīnasthāna Preserves the Dharma  89



Rouge and Powder Money  111

Six

Seven

The Satellite Grottoes  123

Eight

Salvation for One  143



Epilogue: The Later Life of the Site  157



Appendix: Chinese Texts of Longmen Inscriptions  167



Notes  181



Bibliography  213



Index  237

List of Illustrations

1.1. Guyang Grotto  8 1.2. Buddha triad, Guyang Grotto  8 1.3. North wall shrines, Guyang Grotto  9 1.4. South wall shrines, Guyang Grotto  9 1.5. Duke of Shiping inscription, Guyang Grotto  10 1.6. Bodhisattva, Guyang Grotto  13 1.7. Huicheng’s shrine for the Duke of Shiping, Guyang Grotto  14 1.8. Standing Buddha, Cave 16, Yungang Grottoes  15 1.9. Large Buddha shrine, Cave 16, Yungang Grottoes  15 1.10. Apsarasas and “ribbon” halo, Fasheng’s shrine, Guyang Grotto  16 1.11. N4, Guyang Grotto  18 1.12. The Sun Qiusheng shrine, Guyang Grotto  20 1.13. Wei Lingzang’s shrine  22 1.14. Flying celestial, Danyang County, Jiangsu Province  25 1.15. Auspicious ram and qi clouds, Suide County, Shaanxi Province  26 1.16. Shrine of Yang Dayan, Guyang Grotto  27 2.1. Seated Śākyamuni, Binyang Central Grotto  32 2.2. Courtyard of the Binyang trio of grottoes  33 2.3. Guardian, Brahmā bodhisattva, and apsaras, Binyang Central  35 2.4. Floor, Binyang Central  36 2.5. Ceiling, Binyang Central  37 2.6. Bodhisattva, Binyang Central  38 2.7. East wall reliefs, Binyang Central  39 2.8. Silver dish with Dionysus and Twelve Gods of Mount Olympus, Jingyuan County, Gansu  40 2.9. Emperor procession, Binyang Central  41 2.10. Empress procession, Binyang Central  42 2.11. Vimalakīrti, Binyang Central  46 2.12. Vimalakīrti and Mañjuśrī, Cave 6, Yungang  47 3.1. North wall, Lianhua Grotto  54 3.2. Maitreya bodhisattva, Cixiang Grotto  58 3.3. Map: Longmen (4)  65

3.4. Queen Mother of the West and King Father of the East, Huoshao Grotto  66 3.5. West wall, Huangfu Grotto  68 3.6. Pensive prince with lotus flowers and worshiping Brahmā, Huangfu Grotto  69 3.7. First Meditation, Lianhua Grotto  70 3.8. The Offering of the Bowl of Food, Lianhua Grotto  71 3.9. Worshiper procession, Huangfu Grotto  72 3.10. Worshiper procession, Huangfu Grotto  73 4.1. Map: Longmen (1)  79 4.2. South wall shrines, Binyang South Grotto  80 4.3. Bodhisattva, Binyang South Grotto  81 4.4. Buddha, Binyang South Grotto  82 4.5. Sishun Ward shrine, Binyang South Grotto  83 4.6. Amitābha shrine of Li Fu, Shentong Monastery, Shandong  84 4.7. Shrine of Nanping princess, Shentong Monastery, Shandong  85 4.8. Buddha, Qianxisi Grotto  87 5.1. The medieval Chinese traveler’s India  95 5.2. Seated Buddha, Leigutai South Grotto  97 5.3. King Udayana Buddha figures, Grottoes 305 and 306  100 5.4. Seated Buddha, possibly Sārnāth  100 5.5. Map: Jingshan Monastery Grotto area  101 5.6. Standing Buddha, Binyang South Grotto  102 5.7. Guardian, Jingshan Monastery Grotto  105 5.8. Amitābha, Jingshan Monastery Grotto  105 5.9. Seated bodhisattvas around monk worshiper, Jingshan Monastery Grotto  106 5.10. Amitābha and the fifty-two bodhisattvas, Zitong County, Sichuan  107 5.11. Stele from Mohammed Nari  108 6.1. Great Vairocana Image Shrine  112 6.2. Map: Longmen (3)  112 6.3. Vairocana, Great Vairocana Image Shrine  113 6.4. Bodhisattva, Great Vairocana Image Shrine  113

6.5. Vaiśravan.a and dvārapāla seen from the side, Great Vairocana Image Shrine  114 6.6. Vaiśravan.a and dvārapāla seen from intended angle, Great Vairocana Image Shrine  115 6.7. Buddhas on lotus petals, Great Vairocana Image Shrine  116 6.8. Gandhāran Buddha from Loriyān-Tangai  121 7.1. Map: Longmen (2)  124 7.2. Map: Satellite grottoes to Great Vairocana Image Shrine  124 7.3. Paired Grottoes, North  125 7.4. Paired Grottoes, South  125 7.5. Maitreya, Huijian’s Grotto  128 7.6. Throne back, Huijian’s Grotto, and throne back from The First Sermon, Museum of Archaeology, Sārnāth  129 7.7. Save-from-Suffering Guanyin, Qingmingsi Grotto  131 7.8. North-wall forecourt, Wanfo Grotto  133

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7.9. South-wall forecourt, Wanfo Grotto  134 7.10. Fifteen Thousand Buddhas and King Udayana Buddha figure, Wanfo Grotto  136 7.11. Amitābha assembly, Wanfo Grotto  137 7.12. Court lady worshiper between disciple and bodhisattva, Wanfo Grotto  138 7.13. Amitābha and the fifty-two bodhisattvas, Wanfo Grotto  139 8.1. Map: Lower terrace of Great Vairocana Image Shrine  144 8.2. Amitābha figures, Great Vairocana Image Shrine  146 8.3. Standing Buddhas, interior of Grotto 1250  152 8.4. Trio of Amitābha figures, Pure Land Hall of the Northern Market Damask Silk Guild  153 8.5. Amitābha, Grotto 105, Xumishan  155 9.1. Chu Suiliang, The Stele for the Yique Buddha Shrine, detail  161 9.2. Wei Lingzang’s inscription, detail  163

Acknowledgments

For financial support of this project, I gratefully acknowledge the award of a J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Art, in 1995 – 1996, and a Research Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a Fellowship from the Howard Foundation, Brown University, both awarded in 2001 – 2002. With no less gratitude, I acknowledge the General Research Fund of the University of Kansas, the International Travel Fund of the KU Center for Research and the Kress Foundation Department of Art History Faculty Travel Fund for assistance with travel to Longmen in the summers of 1994, 1996, 1999, and 2004. I am also grateful for receiving the Vice Provost for Research Book Subvention Award from the University of Kansas in 2006. My dear colleague Robert Harrist was kind enough to read and comment on draft chapters of this book, and Joanna Williams directed me to sources in Indian sculpture. For much-needed clarification on matters Buddhistic, I thank the anonymous readers for the University of Hawai‘i Press, and for help with Japanese materials, I am grateful to Sherry Fowler. My greatest debt, however, is to Audrey Spiro, who read practically every word of the much-toolong draft manuscript and whose good advice and enthusiasm came at just the right time. I also learned a great deal from the fine work of the students in my graduate seminar on Longmen in 1997: Michael Bass, Karil Kucera, Ling-en Lu, Karen Mack, Bruce MacLaren, Theresa Shetler, Hans Thomsen, Wang Hui, and Suhn Nyung Yi. It continues to

be a pleasure to work with our bodhisattva, Patricia Crosby, executive editor at the University of Hawai‘i Press. My thanks to Li Wensheng and Fan Qingcheng, formerly of the Longmen Grottoes Research Academy, for their helpful conversation, and thanks also to Ning Qiang for inviting me to lecture at the academy, along with Wang Zhenguo, Yang Chaojie, and Gu Yanfang, as part of “Dunhuang Art and Society: The Third International Seminar” in 2004. For invaluable assistance with archival images, I want to thank Wendy Holden, archivist, Asian Art Photographic Distribution, University of Michigan, and Colleen Hennessey, archivist, Freer Gallery of Art. For information concerning their holdings of Longmen sculpture, I thank my former student, Jason Steuber, assistant curator of early Chinese art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. At the University of Kansas, we art historians are fortunate to work with Susan Craig, art and architecture librarian par excellence, and Mark Olson, visual resources curator in the Art History Department. For help with historical sources, I thank Mr. Qin Huanming of the T’ang Studies Hotline, Sarasota, Florida. Let me end this in the Chinese style with a rhetorical question: what surpasses a friend who would willingly spend time in humid, smoggy central China, patiently discuss minutiae of interpretation and half-baked theories, and take your nonsense as seriously as you do?

Introduction

T

he limestone cliffs that flank the Yi River some twelve kilometers south of the modern city of Luoyang, Henan Province, are carved with 2,345 grottoes, which bear nearly 3,000 votive inscriptions and contain more than 100,000 individual Buddhist statues, ranging in size from a few centimeters in height to over seventeen meters. Longmen, the “Dragon Gate,” was considered an auspicious place for sponsoring Buddhist icons for about 250 years, from the time the Northern Wei (386 – 534) capital was relocated to Luoyang in 494 until the sack of the city in 755 during the An Lushan Rebellion, under the Tang dynasty (618 – 907). The people who paid to have the statues and grottoes produced are the focus of this reconstruction of the history of Longmen. My interest was not only in finding out who these donors were, but also in why they undertook the expense of a donation. Thanks to the proximity of the site to the capital, the donors of Longmen came from an extraordinarily broad range of society, including emperors, empresses, empress dowagers, other members of the royal family, the aristocracy, court eunuchs, women palace officials, imperial artisans, monks, nuns, lay societies, civil court officials, military officials, wealthy local men of influence, local government functionaries, and members of commercial guilds. The most remarkable thing about Longmen, however, is that many of these people wrote or commissioned dedicatory inscriptions that were engraved near their donations. Some are lengthy eulogies written in fancy parallel prose by famous literati, while others are merely a name, but many were composed by the donor and reveal his or her beliefs and motivations for commissioning an icon. Herein lies the unique suitability of Longmen for a case study in patronage. While other cave-shrine sites have had longer lives or their grottoes contain more elaborate programs of painting

and sculpture, Longmen alone has preserved the voices of hundreds of medieval donors. Long abandoned as a site of worship, Longmen was “discovered” at the very end of the nineteenth century by students of art from abroad. In 1894, on his return from a trip to China, the arts educator Okakura Kakuzo lectured with his lantern slides of Binyang Central Grotto, thereby introducing the site to other scholars in Japan. Sekino Tadashi surveyed the site in 1906 and again in 1918, documenting it in his multivolume Shina bukkyō shiseki (Buddhist monuments of China) of 1926 – 1931. A French mining engineer, F. Leprince-Ringuet, brought back photographs and ink rubbings taken at the site in 1899, inspiring Édouard Chavannes, the great Sinologist of the Collège de France, to spend twelve days surveying Longmen in the summer of 1907. Chavannes published his superb translations of 550 inscriptions, along with ink rubbings, photographs of the statuary, and his descriptive notes, in his multivolume Mission archéologique dans la Chine sep­ tentrionale (Archeological expedition in northern China, 1909 – 1915). The American industrialist and art collector Charles Lang Freer traveled to Longmen in 1910, and the glass photonegatives taken by the photographer Utai are now preserved in the Freer Gallery Archives, Washington, D.C. Continuing the nineteenth-century Chinese interest in Longmen as a site for epigraphy study, Guan Baiyi made ten research trips there in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1935, he published his list of over 2,200 inscriptions, with selected photographs and ink rubbings, as Yique shike tubiao (Charts of the stone inscriptions of Yique). In 1936, the Japanese archeologists Mizuno Seiichi and Nagahiro Toshio, professors from the Institute of Oriental Culture, Kyoto, spent a momentous six days at Longmen, under armed guard, producing photographs, notes, and ink rubbings,

all of which were published in 1941 as the three-volume Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū (Research on the grottoes of Longmen), which was for many decades the authoritative work on the site. The early-twentieth-century documentation of the site proved to be a two-edged sword, however. Publication of the sculptures was soon followed by the looting of the site in the 1920s and 1930s, a venture accomplished by local stonecutters, an unscrupulous antiquities dealer in Beijing, and Western collectors and museum curators. Portions of the early-sixth-century relief murals from Binyang Central Grotto are now found in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Freer Gallery of Art, while all manner of fragmented hands, heads, and figures are displayed in museums in China, Japan, North America, and Europe. From the perspective of the twenty-first-century scholar, however, the irony is that the very photographs that inspired the mercenary pillaging of the site are now the only record of its earlier appearance. After the Chinese regained control of their country, an initial inventory of the site was undertaken in 1954 by the newly instituted Longmen Caves Cultural Relics Management and Conservation Office. Its name was changed to the Longmen Grottoes Research Institute in 1990, and in 2002, it became the Longmen Grottoes Research Academy. The fruit of decades of work by the archeologists of Longmen includes a map book showing every grotto labeled by number (Longmen shiku kukan bianhao tuce, 1994), a two-volume compilation of all the inscriptions (Longmen shiku beike tiji huilu, 1998), a twelve-volume catalogue of the site, with each grotto described in words, drawings, and small black-and-white photographs (Longmen shiku zonglu, 1999), and a ten-volume color photographic record of all the statuary at Longmen (Longmen shiku zaoxiang quanji, 2002 – ). Interpretive studies by Chinese scholars began with Gong Dazhong’s detailed and knowledgeable book of 1981, in which he discussed the iconography, dating, and patronage of several major grottoes, and it continued with extensive archeological reports on individual grottoes, such as Wen Yucheng’s painstaking work on Guyang Grotto and the Paired Grottoes, which focused on identifying the iconography and determining the timeframe for production of undated statuary through typological and    |  i n t r o d u c t i o n

statistical data derived from large numbers of dated intrusive shrines. Chang Qing produced fine studies of the iconography of the Pure Land Hall of the Damask Silk Guild and of Yaofang Grotto and useful iconographical studies on spirit kings, Dizang bodhisattva, and Esoteric imagery at Longmen, while Liu Jinglong has written a thorough survey of the Great Vairocana Image Shrine. Scholars from Japan and the West have focused more on issues of development of sculptural style posed by the site, especially the issue of the Sinicization of style during the Northern Wei. Important articles by Yoshimura Rei and Ishimatsu Hinako deal with the development of style at Longmen in the Northern Wei, especially with regard to the sculpture of Yungang and the art of the southern dynasties (317 – 589), and Alexander Soper and Emma Bunker have argued for influences from the south on both style and iconography during the late Northern Wei. Recently, Katherine Tsiang has described how the Sinicization of style formed a part of Emperor Xiaowen’s political policies, while Stanley Abe has analyzed the assumption of the superiority and dominance of southern Chinese culture on the part of modern scholars in Japan and the West. Ink rubbings of the inscriptions at Longmen have been collected as art objects since the Qianlong period (1736 –  1795), and the Northern Wei inscriptions in Guyang Grotto have been taken as sources for creative interpretation in the stele studies (beixue) school of calligraphy from the nineteenth century to the present. As the Northern Wei inscriptions also contain a wealth of variant characters, they were studied by philologists in the late Qing (1644 – 1911). Deeper delving into their content only began in the twentieth century. The inscriptions have been mined for revelations concerning the development of Buddhism in the Northern Wei and Tang dynasties, notably in the work of Tsukamoto Zenryū and Li Yukun. Since many of the inscriptions are dated, they have also been used to reconstruct the history of the site, though this is not always a simple matter. As one example, various problems with the dates of the earliest inscriptions in Guyang Grotto have sparked considerable debate about the original date of the grottoes, and theories have been proposed by Katherine Tsiang, Zhang Naizhu, Liu Jinglong, Wen Yucheng, Sofukawa Hiroshi, and Long Hui. Li Yukun wrote several articles relating to the religious and political content of

the inscriptions, while Yan Wenru deciphered the inscriptions relating to the Great Vairocana Image Shrine and the forty-eight Amitābhas added to it. Sun Guanwen analyzed the inscriptions according to various categories, such as donor, beneficiary, and purpose. In the West, the only work on patronage at Longmen was Alexander Soper’s 1960 article “Imperial Cave-Chapels of the Northern Dynasties: Donors, Beneficiaries, Dates,” in which he combined detailed information on the political situation in the Northern Wei with what little was known about Longmen then to offer his theory of the patronage of the Binyang grottoes. No one had yet investigated the donors of other major Northern Wei grottoes or the thirty or so substantial Tang grottoes, including the Great Vairocana Image Shrine. When I was in graduate school at the University of Chicago, participating in Father Harrie Vanderstappen’s seminar on Chinese Buddhist sculpture in 1983, I read Zhang Ruoyu’s groundbreaking 1980 article on the completion of Binyang South Grotto. Zhang combined a very close reading of Li Tai’s dedicatory inscription with an analysis of the grotto’s program of sculpture and knowledge of the political events of the time to argue that Li Tai’s motivation lay in the politics of his campaign to become heir apparent. Zhang’s persuasive methodology sparked my interest in the issue of patronage. As I pursued further study of the donors of Longmen, I also relied on Wen Yucheng’s work on patronage in his lengthy articles “Research on Guyang Grotto” and “Survey of Statues at Longmen by People Found in the Two Tang Histories.” It is abundantly evident from the contents of this book that I could have written little of it without an unremitting reliance on the extraordinary body of scholarship on Longmen produced by the great Sinologists, archeologists, and art historians of Asia and the West. I owe a particular debt to three substantial surveys of the Tang sculpture at Longmen published between 1979 and 1991. The first was Ding Mingyi’s article “Periodization and Categorization of the Tang Dynasty Sculpture at Longmen Grottoes,” in which he classified dated Buddha and bodhisattva figures into seven stages of development by changes in such iconographic elements as robes, mudrās, and thrones, from which he postulated three phases of activity at Longmen in the early Tang and asserted that the schools of Buddhism represented there included Pure Land, Huayan, Three Levels Teachings, Chan, and Esoteric. Sofukawa

Hiroshi’s book-length article of 1988, “Research on the Tang Dynasty Sculpture of Longmen Grottoes,” is a comprehensive study of most of the major Tang dynasty grottoes, in which he explored their patronage and iconography within the context of the political and religious trends of the time, based on his extensive knowledge of the Buddhist canon, the dynastic histories, the monastic biographies, and the writings of such medieval figures as the great pilgrim Xuanzang. Yen Chüan-ying of Academia Sinica, Taiwan, is to be commended for translating the entire work into Chinese. From 1987 to 1991, Okada Ken published a three-part article, “On the Early Tang Sculpture of Longmen Grottoes,” in which he carefully analyzed selected Tang projects such as the finishing of Binyang South and North and the making of Jingshan Monastery Grotto, the King Udayana figures, Wanfo Grotto, Qingmingsi Grotto, and the Great Vairocana Image Shrine, arguing for a continuing developmental relationship between the early Tang sculpture of Longmen and contemporaneous sculpture from the Western Capital at Chang’an. One of Okada’s most important contributions was to point out the relationship between the periodic presence of the imperial court in Luoyang and donations at Longmen. My study differs in its emphasis on understanding the site through its donors. Every grotto at Longmen is unique and hence must represent a unique situation with regard to the beliefs, motivations, and choices of its patron. To understand the donor’s purpose in commissioning a shrine, I have worked to consider all factors, both intramural and extramural. Intramural factors include the choice of the primary icon, the style of the icon, the program of the grotto, the size of the shrine, the quality of the carving, the content of the dedicatory inscription, the placement of the shrine, and its proximity to commissions by related donors. Extramural factors include the donor’s beliefs, relationship to the beneficiary, role in society, and relationships with influential clerics, as well as the social and political events of the time, trends in religious belief, the presence of the court in Luoyang, and conditions among the population of Luoyang. The structure of this book is narrative and chronological, beginning with the inception of the site at Guyang Grotto around 493 and concluding with the last major dated project, the forty-eight Amitābhas added to the Great Vairocana Image Shrine in 730. Chapter 1 introi n t r o d u c t i o n   | 

duces monk Huicheng, a member of the Northern Wei royal family who joined with several local men of wealth and influence to sponsor the opening of Guyang Grotto with a colossal Buddha triad on the back wall and eight large Buddha shrines on the side walls. This program was designed to generate karmic merit for the Northern Wei state and Emperor Xiaowen and, in particular, embodies the identification of the emperor with the Buddha. In the year 500, just after his accession to the throne, Emperor Xuanwu determined to dedicate a pair of grottoes for the karmic benefit of his late parents, Emperor Xiaowen and Empress Dowager Wenzhao. The social and spiritual functions of Binyang Central Grotto as a karmic gift are the subject of chapter 2. Chapter 3 discusses the actual cost of having a grotto produced and how it was paid for, as well as the rhetoric of expenditure used in the dedicatory inscriptions and how it was conditioned by gender and status. Here I describe the patronage of Empress Dowager Hu, the last effective ruler of the Northern Wei. After the forced evacuation of Luoyang in 534, donations at Longmen practically ceased until 637, when Emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty returned to Luoyang. Though he was not a believer, many of his children and consorts were, and chapter 4 describes their donations at Longmen in the 640s and 650s, particularly Prince Li Tai’s finishing of the abandoned Binyang South Grotto in honor of his late mother in 641, in which he was supported by his sisters, the Yuzhang princess and the Nanping princess, and the latter’s husband, Liu Xuanyi. As Zhang Ruoyu demonstrated, Li Tai’s purpose in dedicating the grotto to the late empress was largely to impress his father with his filial piety, in pursuit of the goal of being named to replace his brother as heir apparent. Chapter 5 examines a broad array of early Tang donors whose commissions reveal a reaction to notions of the disappearance of the Buddha’s teachings that arose in the sixth century. Their anxieties about the ability of their icons to survive the scourging of the world at the end of the age are expressed in their dedications, in which they extol the durability of the stone at Longmen, and in their decisions to reproduce specific Indian icons. The King Udayana image of Śākyamuni, “Amitābha and the Fifty-Two Bodhisattvas,” and the Śākyamuni figure from Mahābodhi Monastery in Bodhgayā were believed to be original, authentic artifacts of the Dharma, in addition to being of supernatural manufacture. The vogue for copying    |  i n t r o d u c t i o n

Indian icons reached its apogee in the Gandhāran-style Buddha at the center of the colossal Great Vairocana Image Shrine of Fengxian Monastery, sponsored by Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu, which is the subject of chapter 6. Various theories concerning the iconography, dates, patron, and purpose of this monument are surveyed here, while I propose that the shrine was begun around 660 by order of the emperor only to be abandoned by the ailing ruler around 665, then taken up by the empress in 672, and completed in 676. In chapter 7, I describe how several large grottoes north of the Great Vairocana Image Shrine were produced at the same time, as satellite commissions. Known donors include Abbot Huijian, one of the clerical advisors for the Vairocana shrine, and the sponsors of Wanfo Grotto: the female palace official Yao Shenbiao and the Palace Chapel nun Zhiyun. I propose that Qingmingsi Grotto was sponsored by Shandao, the other cleric credited on the Vairocana shrine, and argue that the Prince of Zhou, son of Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu, donated the Paired Grottoes in honor of his parents. Smaller grottoes and shrines were also produced at this time by people associated with the throne, including a vice director for palace buildings, an illustrious general, a monastic imperial envoy to India, and an imperial artisan. Chapter 8 examines forty-eight life-size figures of Amitābha added to the Great Vairocana Image Shrine in 730. The donors were the court eunuchs who served Emperor Xuanzong, headed by Gao Lishi, the director of the Palace Domestic Service. The figures represent the forty-eight vows of Amitābha and refashion the Vairocana shrine into a Pure Land representation whose sole beneficiary was the reigning emperor. The statues may have been intended for worship, or they may have functioned as vows to effect the conversion and salvation of the unbelieving emperor. More than once during the course of writing this book, I have been asked if such a study is “really art history.” While I could have simply replied that Buddhist icons are an important component of the visual culture of China and objects whose function is intimately tied up with religious practices of seeing and visualization, the answer I prefer is that this study demonstrates how the donors of Longmen made conscious decisions concerning the style of their icons to imbue them with meanings that were immediately comprehensible to their contemporaries. Analysis of meaning conveyed through style is the essence of

what I was trained to understand as art history, and in this book, I argue that the donors of Longmen made all manner of choices concerning the style of their icons. At the turn of the fifth century, in the period of transition between the Central Asian mode inherited from the earlier Yungang grottoes and the Sinicized style taken from the south, it appears that donors considered the older style to represent the past rulers of the dynasty, while the new Sinicized style represented the present and future rulers. Imitation of the style of a certain icon or program carved earlier at Longmen was likely done to associate the donor with the preceding, higher-status patron. Examples of this include the arriviste Huangfu Du’s imitation of the imperial program of Binyang Central Grotto and the deliberate reproduction of the distinctive facial features of the imperial Vairocana image on the Maitreya figure sponsored by the imperial cleric Huijian. Special spiritual efficacy was surely imputed to the icons at Longmen that closely replicate Indian sculptural modes, such as the Sārnāth-style King Udayana Śākyamuni figures and the Gandhāranstyle Vairocana. Though the donors of Longmen never referred to their icons as works of art, they were quick to praise them as “marvelous” or “majestic,” suggesting that aesthetic effects, although unquestionably in the service of karmic function, were consciously sought. Behind the meanings conveyed by choices of style are the issues of purpose and motivation on the part of the donors. By my estimation, the cost of a small sculpture grotto in the late Northern Wei was equal to half a year’s salary for an official in the central government, and the high level of expense for these projects reinforces my sense of a high degree of intentionality on the part of the donors. There is no evidence that any ritual activity other than offering worship before icons was performed in the grottoes of Longmen, indicating that the primary spiritual function of the site was the generation of merit through the making and worshiping of icons. Nothing suggests that large spaces were created for social or ritual activities or that grottoes were revisited by generations of clansmen of the original donors, as one sees at the Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang. In short, it would appear that the main action performed by most donors at Longmen was to commission a statuary grotto that was dedicated and then left to operate in the spiritual realm as an engine of karma, fueled by the worship offered by later visitors. This idea that

the statues were either meant to generate karma for the beneficiaries once, at the moment of their dedication, or that they operated on their own, in perpetuity, is found in the donors’ inscriptions, which reveal several different religious reasons why donors sponsored statuary grottoes. The donors of Longmen believed their icons would function to transmit the Dharma, preserve the Dharma, serve as a repository for the dharmakāya (the Buddhaprinciple), edify the faithful, convert the unbelieving, galvanize the deities to rescue those reborn in undesirable paths, and generate karmic merit. They had faith that their dedicatory inscriptions would operate to transfer merit to the beneficiaries named therein, and they trusted in the limestone cliffs to endure through the world’s destruction at the end of the age. Equally clear is that many donors had specific social goals that were also met by the sponsorship of an icon or shrine. Longmen was a public place and easily accessible from the capital. Though the absence of intrusive shrines in the imperial grottoes (Binyang Central, Huoshao, and the Great Vairocana Image Shrine) suggests they were off-limits to other donors, the other large grottoes were open for people to enter and offer worship or to add their own shrines. Not only does the stream of dated inscriptions testify to the traffic out to Longmen, but we know from historical records that royal parties visited there repeatedly. Tang poetry describes literati and government officials stopping at the monastic establishments in the hills and tells of fashionable young people from the metropolis picnicking there at Qingming Festival time to enjoy the pleasures of springtime in a romantic natural setting. The public nature of Longmen also made it a suitable venue for the traditional social purposes of mortuary stone monuments, and though they were expressed in the vocabulary of Buddhism, political messages of filial piety or loyalty to the throne could be easily conveyed through the dedication of a shrine. Self-serving exhibitions of loyalty to the throne are commonly seen among donors who were employed by the palace, such as the monks and abbots who were patronized by the emperor, the nuns of the Palace Chapel, and the court eunuchs. Although many donors dedicated the merit from their shrines to the emperor or their parents with simple statements of gratitude, the seeking of social credit for virtue is more apparent in those dedications where the donors emphasize their dāna, i n t r o d u c t i o n   | 

or giving, by commenting on the expense of the shrine. A prince demonstrated his filial piety to all when he claimed he “opened his treasury and was liberal with tortoise shells and cowries” for his late mother, while two laymen recognized by the state for loyalty stated they had “exhausted our families’ wealth” on behalf of the imperial house, and an aristocratic young laywoman said she had “parted with half my hairpins and girdles” for her late father, recently executed for plotting against the prince-regent. Even in a case where no dedicatory inscription survives, a royal patron used imagery to claim credit for self-sacrificing expenditure on behalf of his late parents. Two jātaka tales are carved inside Binyang Central Grotto; in one, the prince gave away all his possessions as charity, while in the other, he offered his own body to save another being. One might expect this rhetoric of expenditure to be hyperbole, yet

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it would appear from surviving evidence that donors did indeed spend all they had. Both the evidence of ruinous expense and its description connect the donors of Longmen directly to traditional burial practices in which costly monuments were sponsored to display unimpeachable expressions of filial piety and loyalty. I am convinced that these beliefs and motivations are embodied in the images and inscriptions of Longmen, but since a study such as this is necessarily interpretive, overreading or misreading evidence is an attendant danger. In the following pages, where speculation is involved, I have endeavored to make that clear, but the reader should be warned that I have chosen not to err on the side of caution. My intent is to allow the donors of Longmen to speak, but if my voice has misrepresented theirs, I welcome correction.

One    Emperor as Tathāgata Emperor Taizu is a living Tathāgata of the present age. — Superintendent Faguo (ca. 342 – before 423)1

S

tanding in the open mouth of Guyang Grotto, the visitor looks into a huge, dark stone chamber whose walls are a jumble of image shrines of different sizes, extending from the floor up into the ceiling eleven meters overhead and almost twelve meters deep into the living rock of the cliff (figure 1.1). Embedded in the welter of dozens of smaller shrines is a matrix of three registers of large shrines, each about three meters high. The lowest register is sunk partially below the floor, the middle is somewhat higher than eye level, and the highest is far overhead. The ceiling is honeycombed with large and small shrines and carpeted with rows of hundreds of square niches containing a single Buddha figure each. The archeologists of the Longmen Grottoes Research Academy count 1,350 individual shrines within Guyang Grotto along with 685 dedicatory inscriptions.   In the darkness at the back of the cave, a colossal seated Buddha figure in very high relief seems to float at the top of the wall; two standing bodhisattva figures that attend him project from the side walls as if suspended in midair (figure 1.2). They were carved during the initial phase of the grotto’s excavation, when the floor lay just below the top register of large shrines.2 Around 508, the floor was lowered and the second register carved; the floor was lowered yet again and the third register carved around 518. The commanding size of the Buddha trio suggests the donor was an emperor. The fine quality, detail, and variety of the sculpted shrines do little to contradict that view, but since the inscriptions in the grotto are problematic and no external historical record ascribes it to an imperial patron, identifying the donor or donors has been the subject of inquiry and controversy since the early twentieth century.

The Problem of the Original Program Identifying the donor is intimately bound up with determining the original program of sculpture, yet not only the composition of an original program, but also its dates, iconography, and political significance have been disputed. The evidence in the grotto is at once rich, partial, and contradictory. Many dedicatory inscriptions are long and complex, yet their wealth of information is strained by the terseness of literary language and the hyperbole typical of eulogy as well as their ruinous condition and the possibility of original errors and omissions. Stylistic and iconographic relationships to the sculpture’s immediate predecessor, the grottoes of Yungang, are inconsistent and complicated. As a result, scholarly interpretations vary widely. In this chapter, I present my theories concerning the original program and the religious and political goals of the original donors, with reference to the ideas of scholars from China, Japan, and the West. I propose that the original program of Guyang Grotto consisted of the eight large Buddha shrines in the top register of the side walls and the colossal Buddha triad on the back wall. The original donor was the Buddhist monk Huicheng, a member of the royal family, who worked in concert with a group of nonroyal donors, some of whose names survive in inscriptions.3 Of the eight shrines, Hui­ cheng specifically dedicated the one nearest the entrance on the north wall (N1) (figure 1.3). All eight are the same size, about two and a half meters high and a meter and a half across, and contain a central seated Buddha flanked by two standing bodhisattvas. The Buddha’s hands are folded together in the lap in dhyāna mudrā, and the robe is worn with the right shoulder bare, in the so-called Cen-

Figure 1.1. Guyang Grotto. Photo, Jin Yini, 2004.

Figure 1.2. Buddha triad, west wall, Guyang Grotto. From Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, pl. 132.

tral Asian costume. The only exception is N4, the shrine on the north wall nearest the back, in which the Buddha wears the “Chinese costume” — an open robe with lapels over a belted under-robe. This shrine has no dedicatory inscription. The other three on the north wall have long inscriptions, engraved on relief steles carved to the right of each shrine. N3 was dedicated by General Yang Dayan around 504, N2 by the layman Wei Lingzang around 502, and N1 by monk Huicheng in 498. On the south wall, the shrine nearest the back (S4) and the shrine nearest the entrance (S1) lack inscriptions, while S3 has a dedication by Sun Qiusheng and a lay Buddhist society in 502, and S2 was dedicated by the monk Fasheng in 504 (figure 1.4).

Only three of these inscriptions are dated, yet even these dates are highly problematic. Further, internal evidence reveals the shrines completed in 504 were not finished by their original sponsors. Monk Huicheng’s statement as a patron is given in his inscription, a uniquely beautiful work of engraved calligraphy (figure 1.5). Unlike all other inscriptions at Longmen, which are carved in intaglio, the characters are in relief, with a bold angularity that is intentionally aesthetic. Even the grid the characters are set within is carved in relief, and the name of the calligrapher is given at the end of the inscription, which is also quite rare. The time and money spent on this unnecessarily expensive type of carv-

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Figure 1.3. North wall shrines, Guyang Grotto: (N1) Huicheng, (N2) Wei Lingzang, (N3) Yang Dayan, (N4) Anonymous, (1) Lady Yuchi, (2) Wife Yifu, (3) Yuan Xiang, (4) Xie Boda, (5) Gao Shu, (6) Huile, (7) Wang Shiping, (8) Huigan, (9) Dang Faduan, (10) Zhao Shuangzhe, (11) Fawen and Falong, (12) Daojiang. Adapted from Ishimatsu Hinako, “Ryūmon sekkutsu koyōdō zōzō kō,” fig. 6.

Figure 1.4. South wall shrines, Guyang Grotto: (S1) Anonymous, (S2) Fasheng, (S3) Sun Qiusheng group, (S4) Anonymous, (1) Gao Chu, (2) Yuan Xie, (3) Zheng Changyou, (4) Ma Zhenbai, (5) Yuan You, (6) Great Consort Hou, 502, (7) Great Consort Hou, 503, (8) Daosong, (9) Cixiang, (10) Zhao Ahuan, (11) Du Yong’an. Adapted from Ishimatsu Hinako, “Ryūmon sekkutsu koyōdō zōzō kō,” fig. 6. e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a   | 

Figure 1.5. Duke of Shiping inscription, Huicheng’s shrine, 498, Guyang Grotto. From Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen ershipin: Bei Wei beike zaoxiang juzhen, fig. 64.

ing, in addition to the engagement of an accomplished calligrapher, suggest the high status of the donor and the importance of the inscription. The heading reads: “A Single Image for the Duke of Shiping.” The duke was the late father of the monk Hui­ cheng, to whom the karmic merit generated by this shrine was dedicated. The text opens with an “apology for imagemaking,” then devotes the grotto to the state, dedicates the shrine to the late Duke of Shiping, and concludes with a benediction, the names of the calligrapher and the author, and a date, which is now partially ruined.4 The inscription begins as follows: “Were the Divine Traces [not] 10   |  e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a

made manifest, then one could scarcely know where to find a master to which one could cling. Were images of the Countenance not displayed, then reverence for it would surely [wane]. That is why the True Visage [was revealed] to former ages, and the form He left behind has been transmitted to later generations. And so, in the time of the Great Dai (i.e., the Northern Wei dynasty), this work of merit was undertaken” (1A). This is a justification for the making of Buddhist icons. If images of the Buddha were not produced, how would people be converted to Buddhism, and how would it continue as a religion? Just as the Buddha-nature (dharmakāya) took the form of Śākyamuni in ancient times, so also have images of Śākyamuni been created since then for it to occupy. The living body and the effigy serve the same purpose — to manifest and propagate the doctrine of Buddhism. The “apology for image-making” is a typical opening for the lengthy dedications at Yungang and Longmen as well as freestanding image steles in the fifth and sixth centuries, but since Buddhist images had been produced in China since the fourth century, it may seem strange that the practice required defending. Alexander Soper believed the apology for image-making was an attempt to bridge the distance believers felt between the “ineffable transcendence” of the Buddha himself and the crudeness of mundane effigies.5 Yet there were other problems facing image-making, as well. Certain scriptures seem to scorn believers who need a concrete image of the Buddha. In the Diamond Sūtra, for example, the Buddha says: Who sees me by form, Who seeks me by sound, Perverted are his footsteps upon the Way, For he cannot perceive the Tathāgata.6

In another apology for image-making, the literatus Shen Yue (441 – 513) offered a kind of solution to this problem: “The dharmakāya has no image; it is eternal and formless. (But though) the ultimate principle is nothingness, it yet responds. (Though) the true wisdom was annihilated (in nirvān.a), it (still) produces supernatural manifestations.”7 Shen Yue’s view was typical of his time. The Tathāgata, or incarnate Buddha, Śākyamuni had passed into nirvān.a and ceased to exist physically, so his body was no longer a place for the dharmākaya to occupy. Although it could be considered courting sacrilege to give form to some-

thing formless and to revive what had been released from samsāra by creating an effigy of the Tathāgata, still the dharmakāya will emanate to occupy the effigy.8 Were this not an accepted belief, there would be no Buddhist icons, yet tension over this issue must have been felt from the beginning of the faith because there is an early scripture that answers this very concern: the Sūtra on the Produc­ tion of Buddha Images, which was first translated into Chinese around the third century.9 This scripture promises marvelous rebirths to any believer who has an image produced. This tension was also exploited by the enemies of Buddhism. In a debate of 578, Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou (r. 560 – 578), explaining his intention to suppress Buddhism and destroy all scriptures and icons, stated that “the true Buddha is beyond representation.” In defense, one brave monk replied: “It is by relying on the scriptures, or by listening to the Buddha, or with the aid of images, that the truth is made manifest. If they are now to be done away with, there will be no way to arouse devotion.”10 Justification of art by its didactic powers was not confined to Buddhist sculpture in this period, however, but was typical in discussions of the arts. The first lines of the Old Record of the Classifications of Painters, by Xie He, a portrait painter who wrote in the early sixth century, offer a moral justification for the art of painting: “But of all who draw pictures there is not one but may illustrate some exhortation or warning, or show (the causes for) the rise and fall (of some dynasty), and the solitudes and silences of a thousand years may be seen as in a mirror by merely opening a scroll.”11 The ubiquity of justifications of art-making and art appreciation indicates many people in the Northern and Southern Dynasties period (420 – 589) still believed in a Han dynasty (206 B.C.E. – 220 C.E.) Confucian world view that required art to serve morality. It was not a great leap of imagination for Buddhist apologists to borrow this same polemical device to solve their own tension between morality and art. The perceived problems concerning the representation of the Buddha could be solved by a similar appeal to the soteriological power of images. Monk Huicheng’s inscription continues: “Since the shadow (of the Buddha) has purified the deep current (of the Buddhist order), and he has had the good fortune to encounter this glorious epoch, monk Huicheng, resolved to give the greatest testimony to his sincerity, had a Stone

Grotto [Monastery] made for the state, in this way to respond to the August (Emperor’s) grace and to give encouragement to future works (of the same kind).” I interpret this as a claim by Huicheng to have sponsored the excavation of the original grotto, which he calls “Stone Grotto Monastery.”12 Huicheng says he made it “for the state,” which suggests the grotto was produced at a time when Huicheng believed the ruling family and the Wei state needed spiritual support, such as when the capital was being relocated, as it was from 493 to 495, which was a controversial and difficult undertaking. Huicheng also gave two additional reasons why he sponsored the grotto. The first was to “respond” to the “august grace,” or the physical presence of the emperor. In my view, this reveals that Huicheng made the grotto as a loyalist, merit-generating response to Emperor Xiaowen’s decision to come to Luo­ yang and relocate the capital there. Huicheng’s second reason was “to give encouragement to future works (of the same kind).” “Future works” likely refers to the other shrines in the top register of the grotto, which were sponsored by other patrons whom Huicheng was advising and whom he wished, naturally enough, to encourage in seeing their projects through to completion. Since Huicheng stated only that he sponsored the grotto and a single shrine for his father, while giving “encouragement to future works,” the theory that he conceived the program of the grotto to encompass all eight large Buddha shrines is debatable. The eight large shrines do not match in every detail, so it is possible they were produced one at a time, in successive imitation of each other, and not designed as a group by a single patron. This seems unlikely, however. The shrines match in overall design, in size, and in their principal iconography, which suggests a complete plan devised at the beginning of the project, with the shape of the niches and the size and posture of the main Buddha figures sketched out together. Where they do not match is in the peripheral areas: the backgrounds of niches, the lintel carvings, and the inscriptions. Unfinished carvings in this grotto reveal that niches and lintels were embellished last, while inscriptions were carved after the shrines’ completion, if at all. Thus, it seems likely the eight shrines were all sketched out and begun at the same time, around 493 when the decision was made to move the capital, even though they were finished at different times, from 498 to around 504. e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a   |  11

Another indication the eight large shrines were started as a set is that smaller intrusive shrines with completion dates of 495 onward are fitted around them. On the north wall, the small shrine of Xie Boda, dated to before 499, is wedged between the large shrines of Huicheng (N1) and Wei Lingzang (N2), while the small shrine of Wife Yifu of 496 was set above and between the large shrine dedicated by General Yang Dayan (N3) and the large anonymous shrine N4. The evidence on the south wall is the same. Gao Chu’s small shrine of early 498 sits between the large shrine dedicated by monk Fasheng (S2) and the large anonymous shrine S1. This strongly suggests the sketch of all eight large shrines was already made on the walls before shrines that were completed in 495 onward were even begun. Larger shrines sponsored by aristocrats follow the same pattern. Lady Yuchi’s Maitreya shrine of 495 is placed above the large Buddha shrine by Wei Lingzang (N2), while the Maitreya shrine of 498 sponsored by the Prince of Beihai (Yuan Xiang, 476 – 504) is squeezed above Lady Yuchi’s.13 It is hard to imagine why these nobles would place their shrines so far from view if there were space available on the main portion of the side walls, unless perhaps the ceiling was considered a place of higher status. This does not appear to have been the case, however. Lady Yuchi (454 – 519) was the wife of Mu Liang (451 – 502), the aristocratic official in charge of the capital, and she occupied the apex of Northern Wei society, yet the shrine by plain Mr. Ma Zhenbai and his modest lay society, for example, is at about the same height in the ceiling as hers. In my view, the colossal Buddha triad on the west wall was also part of Huicheng’s original program, even though it is different in costume mode from the eight Buddha shrines on the side walls. In fact, this contrast contributes to the meaning of the entire program, as the following detailed descriptions should show. The 4.85-meter-tall Buddha figure is quite worn, and the lower parts of the figure and the platform on which he sits have been shored up by stone blocks added in later centuries (see figure 1.2). Narrow-shouldered, with an angular form and thin legs in the cross-legged pose of meditation, he wears the costume seen on the Buddha in N1, an open robe that hangs from both shoulders over an undergarment tied at the waist, and his hands are in dhyāna mudrā. He is likely intended to represent the historical Buddha, Śākyamuni. The left 12   |  e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a

side of his tall, narrow head is broken, but his crescentshaped eyes and triangular nose are still readable. The full lips compressed into a gentle smile create a joyful expression, conveying the compassion of the Buddha as he contemplates the world he comes to enlighten. The standing bodhisattvas to either side are 3.7 meters tall and proportionately smaller than the Buddha (figure 1.6). They wear flowered and jeweled crowns, pendant necklaces, long ropes of jewels, armbands, and bracelets. Curling strands of hair fall over their shoulders, which are covered by the flaring edges of long scarves that fall from their shoulders to cross over their bellies, passing through a circular jade ring. This manner of rendering the scarves over the shoulders is considered to be Han Chinese in mode, in contrast to the bare shoulders of the Central Asian mode. A long flowing skirt, or dhoti, covers their lower bodies in narrow folds that flare away from the body and drape into stylized zigzag folds at the lower border to display their bare feet. The inside hands of both figures are now shattered, but it appears they were held against the chest, possibly grasping a lotus bud. The outside hand of the south wall bodhisattva holds a spade-shaped fan inside of which is a half-length image of a person rising from a lotus flower, which probably represented a believer being reborn in paradise.14 The bodhisattva on the north wall holds a kundikā, the water vase for ritual ablutions. Haloes are carved in low relief into the walls behind them, with an inner band of lotus petals, a center band filled with apsarasas (flying celestial beings), circumscribed by strings of jewels, and an outer band of flames representing radiant light. In short, the west-wall triad figures are colossal, project in high relief, and are elaborately detailed. The Buddha figure is imposing, being significantly larger and taller than the bodhisattvas. His majestic singularity makes him seem imperial. The haloes and nimbuses are carved in very low relief, and their decoration is linear and patterned, qualities that are hallmarks of Chinese sculptural style. The costumes are also in the Chinese mode. Overall, the main impression left with the viewer is of Chinesestyle, imperial-sized figures. By contrast, the immediate effect of the large Buddha shrines is more Central Asian: figures wear less drapery, their limbs are more rounded, and the poses of the background figures are more open with a livelier sense of move-

Figure 1.6. Bodhisattva, north wall, Guyang Grotto. From Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen ershipin: Bei Wei beike zaoxiang juzhen, fig. 7.

ment. All but one of the Śākyamuni figures wear the Central Asian style of robe, that is, one shoulder covered and the other bare, and the hem of the robe crosses diagonally over the chest with the folds described in an arcing zigzag line (the exception is N4). The cavernous backgrounds of all the niches are alive with haloes filled with apsarasas, flamboyant nimbuses, and ranks of monk disciples and gandharvas (celestial musicians) elaborately carved in raised lines. Huicheng’s shrine itself is one of the most Central Asian in feel, owing to the sharp undercutting, intricate detail, and vivid sense of movement in the relief carvings of the niche and its background (figure 1.7). The façade of the platform on which the Buddha sits is carved with an al-

ternating series of bas-relief roundels containing garudas, mythical birds that protect the Buddha, and bust-length images of a pair of people being reborn in paradise from lotus flowers.15 The roundels are separated by bas-relief trefoil shapes. Below the platform is a censer in high relief, with two dragons entwined around it and two small figures kneeling in worship, who may be monastics representing Huicheng. Flanking the censer are four larger figures in northern dress kneeling in worship to the Buddha, hands clasped in añjali mudrā, who may represent Huicheng’s father, uncles, or brothers. The façade of the platform they kneel on is incised with grapevines bearing clusters of grapes.16 Grapes came to China from the western regions during the Han dynasty and so are symbolic of the Indian prince Śākyamuni, the savior from the West whose teachings came to China in Han times. Flanking the worshipers are two seated lions, who symbolize the royal-born “Lion of the Śākya Clan.” Above them is a pair of four-armed guardian figures, clothed only in dhotis, necklaces, and jeweled armbands, with one foot planted on the back of a small, doubled-over figure. These guardians of the Buddhist Dharma who trample the demons of ignorance serve as caryatid figures. With one pair of arms, they plant their hands on their hips in a pose of victory; with the other, they hold a small platform over their heads. The façades of these platforms are incised with a delicate “honeysuckle” vine pattern,17 and crouching on this platform are the forelegs of a dragon, whose back extends upward to form the arch of the niche. The dragon turns his head backward to bite the dangling end of a garland of woven flowers draped over the lintel of the arch. On the lintel, the garland is held in crossed swags by jeweled celestial beings, whose upper bodies emerge from the stone as if flying toward the viewer as they present these festoons to the Buddha. Alternating with the round haloed heads of these apsarasas are round lotus flowers rising from leafy stems. Such is the lavishly carved frame of the niche. Behind the now-missing head of the Buddha is carved a halo in three bands, the innermost as the petals of a lotus flower encircled by a string of pearls or jewels, the middle bearing ten apsarasas kneeling in adoration, and the outer a strand of jewels and another twelve apsarasas. Ten are flying and holding offerings to the Buddha, but the two that flank his head are kneeling on lotus flowers connected by their stems to a point outside the Buddha’s nime m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a   |  13

Figure 1.7. Huicheng’s shrine for the Duke of Shiping, 498, Guyang Grotto. From Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng, pl. 14.

bus. These figures were probably not intended to be read as part of the halo but as figures flying in front of the halo, in the same space as the Buddha. In bronze sculptures, this effect of floating figures can be created by suspending them from wires, but in stone it can only be suggested by such illusionistic means, which were likely increased with contrasting colors of paint. The nimbus flares up to the ceiling in rivulets of flame, described by concentric raised lines, with small, leaping dragons at the base. In the ceiling above the Buddha are nine gandharvas, playing drums, flutes, and stringed instruments as they fly. The overall effect is of the Buddha sitting quietly amidst a swirl of lively 14   |  e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a

movement, suggesting the idea of a Buddha realm more than the awesome presence of a majestic individual. The contrast between the Central Asian mode of the shrines and the Chinese mode of the colossal triad was made intentionally, in my view, in imitation of Cave 16 at Yungang. Five large Buddha shrines are arrayed across the west, south, and east walls of Cave 16, carved in the late 460s or early 470s in the Central Asian mode before the grotto was temporarily abandoned, while on the back wall is a colossal standing Buddha in Chinese costume, likely finished after the appearance of the Chinese costume on Buddha figures at Yungang in 489 (figure 1.8).18 I propose Huicheng designed the eight shrines in imitation of the set of five large Buddha shrines in Cave 16, with a similar colossal Buddha figure in Chinese costume on the wall between them. Further, I suggest that he modeled the shrine for his father on Shrine 4, the westernmost large Buddha shrine on the south wall of Cave 16 (figure 1.9). At the base of the niche in Shrine 4 is a panel of worshipers, while the sides of the niche are caryatid figures that hold up the front feet of the addorsed dragons that form the lower border of an ogive lintel. Inside the lintel are kneeling celestial worshipers in raised relief, with the full, round limbs, torsos, and faces of the Central Asian figure type. The central seated Śākyamuni figure is flanked by two standing bo­ dhisattvas, and the back of the niche is filled with the Buddha’s halo and nimbus, containing lively celestial figures in low relief. The Buddha wears the Central Asian costume with zigzag folds of the hem falling across the chest, and the folds of the robe pleat over the exposed foot and spill onto the floor of the niche. The head is quite round and the face is full, with a swelling rounded torso and round arms that hang gently away from the body. Although Huicheng’s shrine uses the same vocabulary of forms and the Central Asian costume, the difference in the figural style reveals a later date. Huicheng’s Buddha is proportionally taller and more angular; the limbs are thinner, longer, and less rounded; and the torso is flatter, less full. These differences reveal the changes in style from the mid-480s onward that resulted from the Northern Wei policies of Sinicization, which only increased with the move of the court southward. Huicheng’s Buddha is more advanced in style than Shrine 4, but by how much is open to interpretation.

Figure 1.8. Standing Buddha, back wall, Cave 16, Yungang Grottoes, Datong, Shanxi. Photo, the author, 1999.

Figure 1.9. Large Buddha shrine, south wall, west side (Shrine 4), Cave 16, Yungang. From Mizuno Seiichi and Nagahiro Toshio, Yün-kang (Unkō sekkutsu): The Buddhist Cave-Temples of the Fifth Century A.D. in North China, v. 11, pt. 2, pl. 91.

The Ruined Date

the character for “two” can still be read, but between them the stone is broken away. Since the Great Peace era lasted twenty-three years, the effaced character could have been “ten” or “twenty,” making the date either the twelfth year (488) or the twenty-second year (498). Turning to the epigraphy catalogues of the nineteenth century for early transcriptions, we find them divided over the reading of the date. One school, starting with Sun Xingyan, whose Rec­ ords of Visiting Steles throughout the Realm was published in 1802, recorded the date as 488, while the other, beginning with Wang Chang, who published his Compilation of

Clearly, my argument that Guyang Grotto imitates Cave 16 at Yungang holds only if it was produced after Cave 16 was completed, which was sometime between 489 and the move of the capital in 493, when large-scale projects at Yungang ceased. The date of Huicheng’s shrine, however, is a point of controversy. One of the dozens of diagonal cracks that score the walls of Guyang Grotto runs through the date at the end of the inscription. The name of the reign period Taihe, or “Great Peace,” is unaffected, and below it,

e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a   |  15

Epigraphy in 1805, recorded it as 498.19 The modern scholar Gong Dazhong tentatively stated that, from his scrutiny of Qing dynasty ink rubbings of the inscription, the mystery character suggested “ten,” while Wen Yucheng, by contrast, says that early rubbings preserve the character for “twenty.”20 To my eyes, the remains of the character on the well-known mid-nineteenth-century ink rubbing held by the Beijing Library are unreadable.21 This difference of a decade is important since in 488 the capital was still located at Pingcheng, the grottoes at Yungang were being excavated, and the costume on Buddha figures was still Central Asian, while by 498 the capital had been moved to Luoyang, and the imperial design for cultural and political Sinicization of the Northern Wei was far advanced. The official view of the Longmen Grottoes Research Academy is that the grottoes were begun after the move of the capital in 493 and that the date therefore could only be 498.22 I agree with this view, but interesting arguments for a date of 488 have been made by Zhang Naizhu, a researcher at the academy, and Katherine Tsiang of the University of Chicago. To Zhang, the floor-level position of the niche, which forced Lady Yuchi’s shrine of 495 and the Prince of Beihai’s shrine of 498 to be placed in the ceiling, indicates that Huicheng’s shrine must have been done before 495, and further, the Buddha figure is wearing the old-fashioned, one-shoulder-bare Central Asian – style robe that was replaced by Chinese costume in the sculpture at Yungang beginning around 489.23 Tsiang made a case for a completion date of 488 based on the stylistic similarities between the eight large Buddha niches and developments at Yungang in the 480s.24 She notes that the Huicheng shrine has a nimbus flame pattern carved in a linear fashion, where those on the other large shrines are drawn in bands, like ribbon. This corresponds to the development she sketches from linear flame patterns to ribbon flame patterns at Yungang, with the linear appearing in Caves 9 and 10, which she dates to around 470 to 480, and the ribbon appearing in Caves 5 and 6, which she dates to around 490. Thus, she believes the linear flame pattern used on Huicheng’s shrine means it was begun earlier than 486. A change from the linear flame pattern to the ribbon pattern did take place in Guyang Grotto, but not during the 480s. Rather, the evidence from dated shrines clearly reveals a sudden shift in the summer of 502. The linear flame 16   |  e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a

Figure 1.10. Apsarasas and “ribbon” halo, Fasheng’s shrine, 504, Guyang Grotto. From Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen ershipin: Bei Wei beike zaoxiang juzhen, fig. 182.

pattern is seen on all the earliest dated shrines, beginning in 495 and including most of those dated to 502. They include Lady Yuchi’s shrine of 495, Xie Boda’s shrine of before 499, Zheng Changyou’s shrines of 501, and shrines offered by three donors in 502: Gao Shu (fifth month), monk Huigan (fifth month), and Great Consort Hou (eighth month). Around this time, the transition occurred, and the ribbon flame pattern is seen in Sun Qiu­sheng’s shrine, which was finished in the fifth month of 502; Fasheng’s shrine of early 504 (figure 1.10); Yang Dayan’s shrine, finished around 504; Yuan Xie’s shrine of 507; and Yuan You’s shrine of 517. In short, since the linear flame pattern was used in shrines

dated from 495 to 502, its presence on Huicheng’s shrine cannot argue for the early date of 488. In fact, it reconfirms a reading of 498.

Reading the Program The sketching of the eight shrines around 493 is also consonant with the meaning of the eight large Buddha shrines, which I consider were intended to represent the seven rulers of the Northern Wei and the heir apparent. This idea was already expressed at Yungang. Scholars generally agree that the five Buddha statues planned by superintendent monk Tanyao (ca. 410 – ca. 486) at Yungang were intended to stand for the five emperors who had ruled the Northern Wei up to 460 (that is, Emperor Daowu, r. 386 – 409; Emperor Mingyuan, r. 409 – 423; Emperor Taiwu, r. 423 – 452; “Emperor Jingmu,” the posthumous honorary title given to the heir apparent Tabgatch Huang, d. 451; and the reigning emperor Wencheng, r. 452 – 465), in line with the bronze Śākyamuni statues cast in 454 “on behalf of the five emperors from Taizu (Daowu) on down” and the ideological equation between emperor and Buddha promoted by superintendent monk Faguo (ca. 342 – before 423), who famously pronounced that Emperor Daowu “is a living Tathāgata of the present age.”25 The five shrines inside Cave 16 may well have been intended to represent the five emperors as well.26 At the time the Tanyao grottoes were made, five emperors had ruled the Northern Wei, but by Huicheng’s day, two more had held the throne: the late emperor Xianwen (r. 465 – 471) and the current ruler, Emperor Xiaowen (r. 471 – 499). I propose that in Huicheng’s design, the seven Buddhas in Central Asian costume represented the seven emperors. Veneration of the seven emperors by the Buddhist establishment was not uncommon at this time. In 492, a monk sponsored three colossal bronze figures “in honor of the Seven Emperors.”27 In the same year, a Maitreya image was made for the “Temple of the Seven Wei Emperors” in Dingxian, Hebei Province, and in 495 an inscription was carved for “Seven Emperors Monastery.”28 Huicheng’s statement that his grotto was made “for the state” was embodied in the representation of the entire line of Northern Wei emperors, past and present, in the large Buddha shrines. The eighth shrine is the anomalous N4, in which the Buddha wears Chinese costume (figure 1.11). It has been

assumed the reason for the Chinese costume is that this figure was finished later than the other seven. At Yungang, the Central Asian style of robes is seen on Buddha figures produced through 489, while Chinese-style robes are seen from then on (although since so little is dated at Yungang, this may be an oversimplification of developments there). Applying this same scheme of development, the seven Buddhas in Central Asian costume would be earlier than the one in Chinese costume. As with the transition from the linear to the ribbon mode of flame patterns, however, the evidence of the dated shrines shows a transition from Central Asian to Chinese costume in 502, the date of both the earliest Buddha in Chinese costume and the latest one in Central Asian costume.29 Hence, if both Central Asian and Chinese modes were produced in 502, the Chinese costume of N4 does not necessarily make it later than the other large Buddha shrines in Central Asian costume. Since the change to Chinese costume had already been made at Yungang by 489, the sculptors at Longmen were not locked into an “evolution” of style but were capable of making conscious choices that conveyed meaning. To Huicheng, the Central Asian costume may have been associated with tradition and the past as well as with the “Five Tanyao Grottoes” at Yungang and the emperors who ruled from the old capital of Pingcheng, while the Chinese costume was seen as contemporary, even future-oriented, and was representative of the new capital at Luoyang and Emperor Xiaowen’s policy of Sinicization. Despite the difference in costume, much about N4 suggests it was conceived of and begun at the same moment as the other seven shrines. Not only are the size and shape of the niche and the main Buddha figure the same as the others, but one detail is particularly convincing: the apsarasas in the halo are in the Central Asian mode, just as in all the other large shrines, which suggests N4 was begun at the same time as the other seven.   As a further anomaly, other elements of N4 suggest a Maitreya shrine. On the base of the niche, instead of the panels containing worshiper figures found on the other shrines, N4 has a platform holding two seated lions who turn their heads back in toward the main figure. As Katherine Tsiang has pointed out, this is similar to the typical lower portion of a Maitreya bodhisattva shrine in Guyang Grotto, where the lions turn to adore the figure of Maitreya and an earth spirit holds up the feet of the crosse m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a   |  17

Figure 1.11. N4, Guyang Grotto. From Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng, pl. 17.

ankled figure. Reading the broken carving between the lions as the remains of a caryatid bust-length earth spirit, she proposed that N4 originally held a cross-ankled Maitreya bodhisattva figure, which was later recarved into a Buddha in Chinese costume.30 Were that the case, the original program of the eight large shrines would have been the Seven Buddhas of the Past and Maitreya, Buddha of the Future, a well-known theme on votive stone stūpas in the fifth century.31 Although recent photographs of N4 taken from above show the broken carvings to be two kneeling worshipers flanking a censer, still the lions at the figure’s knees are unquestionably typical of a Maitreya shrine.32 Further, a small niche in the center of the lintel 18   |  e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a

contains figures of Śākyamuni seated side by side with Prabhūtaratna, a Buddha of the Past, as described in chapter 11 of the Lotus Sūtra. Śākyamuni and Prabhūtaratna are often grouped with Maitreya at this time, so the presence of this pair further suggests a deliberate association of the N4 Buddha with Maitreya. I propose that the Maitreya-related elements of N4 were intended to suggest the ruler-to-be, even though the figure is a Buddha. If the seven Central Asian–style Buddhas represent the seven emperors of Northern Wei, the N4 Buddha should represent the ruler to come, that is, the heir apparent. The emperor’s first son, Tabgatch Xun (482 – 497), was designated the heir apparent in 493.33 An inauguration date of around 493 for N4 as the shrine representing the heir apparent would match this historical situation. We could extend this level of specificity to the other seven shrines. According to Ishimatsu Hinako of Jissen Women’s University, the eight shrines vary in the ratio of Central Asian to Chinese costume worn by the Buddha, bodhisattva, and apsaras figures.34 Through careful analysis, she observes that the highest percentage of Central Asian costume is in S4, the innermost shrine on the south wall, whose Buddha, bodhisattvas, and apsarasas are all in what she calls the “Western mode.” Slightly more Chinese is S1, the outermost shrine on the south wall, which has a Western-style Buddha and apsarasas, with bodhisattva figures that combine Western and Chinese features (the ribbons on the crown are Western, while the sashes crossing the body are part of the Chinese mode). S3 (completed 502) and S2 (completed 504) have Chinese bodhisattvas but still mix Chinese and Western elements in their lintel carvings. Ishimatsu considers Huicheng’s shrine (N1) more Chinese than S4 and S1, since the bodhisattvas are entirely in the Chinese mode (the scarves cover the shoulders). N2 is also all Chinese-mode except for the main Buddha and the apsarasas in the halo, as is N3, which was finished around 504. N4 is entirely Chinese except for the apsarasas in the halo. In short, the percentage of Chinese elements seems to increase continuously, if a bit unevenly, starting with the entirely Central Asian–mode S4 and moving counterclockwise through the eight shrines to the almost entirely Chinese-mode N4. If the most Chinesemode shrine were intended to represent the “newest” ruler, the heir apparent, perhaps the most Central Asian–mode

shrine was intended to represent the “oldest” ruler, Emperor Daowu, with the other shrines representing the other rulers in between, in chronological order.

The Duke of Shiping To return to monk Huicheng’s inscription, he next dedicates the karmic merit earned from the production of the shrine to his late father: My father — the Duke of Shiping, Grand Master for Splendid Happiness, Regional Inspector of Luozhou, and Commissioned with Extraordinary Powers — passed away suddenly. Looking up at his kindly face, my whole being was overcome by sadness, and ominous birds (seemed) to fill the sky. As a result, for my late father, I have had made a single stone image. I pray that my late father’s spirit will fly over the three worlds, the five circuits (of cause and effect), and the ten stages (of the bodhisattva’s enlightenment).

No one has successfully identified the Duke of Shi­ ping, but his status in life can be surmised from his titles. The aristocratic title of duke was held only by members of the royal family. The prestige title Grand Master for Splendid Happiness and the post of Regional Inspector of Luozhou could have been held in life or awarded posthumously, while the special designation Commissioned with Extraordinary Powers was not a post in itself but an enhancement of authority in a particular position. Identifying the Duke of Shiping has exerted a magnetic attraction on those who study Longmen, but though many have attempted it, few feel confident they have found him.35 Some proposed candidates are so wide of the mark that I began to think of searching for the duke, humorously, as one of the proverbial three signs of senility in a Sinologist. I had no intention of searching for the Duke of Shiping, but I, too, was hooked when I saw the epitaph of one Yuan Yan.36 Yuan Yan was buried in Luoyang on December 30, 498. His brief epitaph records that he died on July 11, 498, at which time he was given the posthumous prestige title of Superior Grand Master of the Palace. In life, he was appointed General for Pacifying the West in 492, at which time he already held the position of General for Pacifying the North, Commissioned with Extraordinary Powers, and the aristocratic title of Duke of Shiping. In 496, after the move of the capital, he was appointed Commandant

of the Capital Gates. This is not a definitive identification, however, since although Yuan’s title of nobility was Duke of Shiping and he had the special designation Commissioned with Extraordinary Powers, his posthumous prestige title was Superior Grand Master of the Palace, not Grand Master for Splendid Happiness. Moreover, his epitaph says nothing about being awarded the post of Regional Inspector of Luozhou. Nevertheless, it is intriguing that Huicheng’s moving farewell to his father was written out in the ninth month of 498, three months after the death of Yuan Yan. Even without finding the Duke of Shiping, the search for his identity reveals the depth of fascination with donors and beneficiaries and the value of the donors’ inscriptions at Longmen. The inscriptions are not simply religious boilerplate but genuine artifacts of religious and social practice that indicate what the donors thought important to tell their contemporaries, posterity, and the karmic mechanism. Further, that the identity of the Duke of Shiping cannot be established through the standard dynastic histories reconfirms the importance of archeological documents, such as the dedicatory inscriptions of Longmen and the epitaphs recovered from the aristocratic tombs in the Mang Mountains north of Luoyang. Such texts contain information not found in the standard histories written by Confucian-educated literati, which routinely ignored or deprecated self-willed women, charismatic religious people, wealthy merchants, and court eunuchs, and they relate information about people and events that is uncorrupted by later editing or censorship. Lastly, work on identifying such “unknown” donors and beneficiaries as Huicheng and the Duke of Shiping is important as a corrective to the human tendency to ascribe all impressive projects to the throne. Not every imperialsized statue was sponsored by the emperor. Huicheng’s inscription concludes with a final bene­dic­ tion: In the evening, may there be an illumination of mystery such that the myriad sentient beings may have enlightenment, and in the morning, may there be an echo of wisdom such that the universe will be awakened. May those of previous . generations, my teachers in the sangha, my parents, and my dependent relatives, soar like the phoenix to the place of enlightenment and rise like the divine luan bird up to the Tu-­ e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a   |  19

Figure 1.12. The Sun Qiusheng shrine, 502, Guyang Grotto. From Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen ershipin: Beike yu zaoxiang yishu.

s.ita Heaven. If they should awaken still fallen in this mortal realm, (may it be in the courtyard where) the three acacia trees flourish in splendor and the nine date trees spread out like clouds.37 May all living beings of the five realms of existence share in this prayer.

At the end of the inscription a separate line reads: “Finished on the fourteenth day of the ninth month of the [twenty-]second year of the Taihe era. Calligraphy by Zhu Yizhang, text by Meng (Guang)da.” The great majority of inscriptions at Longmen are anonymous, so the naming of the calligrapher and the author is quite unusual and a further indication the patron intended this shrine as an artistic production of the highest aesthetic quality. Zhu Yizhang, the expert calligrapher of this inscription, is otherwise lost to history, but Meng Guangda wrote a second 20   |  e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a

inscription in Guyang Grotto, which dedicated S3, traditionally called the Sun Qiusheng shrine.

The Sun Qiusheng Shrine Donated by a lay society of over 140 Buddhist devotees, the Sun Qiusheng shrine is practically identical to Hui­ cheng’s shrine in size and style, differing only in some motifs (figure 1.12). Details on the lintel and shrine wall show Buddhas and apsarasas in the Central Asian mode, indicating the shrine was begun with Huicheng’s, but the completion date of 502 is confirmed by the flames in the nimbus, which were carved in the ribbon mode. To the left of the shrine is a large relief stele bearing the dedication. The heading states the lay society was led by two local officials: Sun Daowu, governor of Yingyang, and Wei Baidu,

governor of Yingchuan. Yingyang was the closest commandery to the east of Luoyang, about seventy-five kilometers away, while Yingchuan was a local district seat, about seventy-five kilometers southeast of Yingyang.38 The inscription reads: In the seventh year of the Taihe era of the Great Dai (483), Sun Qiusheng, Military Aide of Xincheng District, Liu Qizu, Military Aide of Xincheng District, and two hundred others reverently made one stone image.39 We pray that the imperial house forever flourish and the Three Jewels increase in brilliance. May those disciples offering this prayer bloom luxuriously like flowers in spring and come to be in the courtyard of the acacia trees that thrive in splendor. May the orchid (of the Dharma) diffuse its fragrance in this flourishing age, and may its golden light broadly illuminate this time of our Sage (Emperor). May our living relatives (enjoy) myriad blessings that gather around them like clouds and have red-wheeled carriages in great numbers.40 May the souls of our departed parents and other disciples, in future incarnations, vault up to the ninth heaven and their footsteps ascend the ten stages (of the bodhisattva’s path to enlightenment), and may all sentient beings in the five realms of existence share in this prayer. Text by Meng Guangda; calligraphy by Xiao Xianqing. (One hundred forty names of the society members are listed.) Finished on the twenty-seventh day of the fifth month, in which the first day was a wuzi day, in a renwu year, the third year of the Jingming era (July 17, 502).41 (1B)

The date of 483 given as the inaugural year of the shrine is the earliest date at Longmen and has given rise to much controversy and theorizing. Those who accept the date as given include Tsukamoto Zenryū, Yan Wenru and Chang Qing, and Katherine Tsiang.42 I consider 483 too early for royal donors and experienced sculptors to be present in Luoyang, and I see no historical impetus then for the donation of a grotto to the state. Since the sack of Luoyang in the early fourth century, it languished under a succession of minor northern states, and even when it was brought into the Northern Wei empire, the government further depleted it by removing some of the populace north to Pingcheng. When Emperor Xiaowen determined to relocate the capital to Luoyang in the autumn of 493, he had to rebuild and repopulate the city. Moreover, as Ishimatsu has demonstrated, there is no evidence of any production

of stone sculpture in the Luoyang area before 500, probably because of the lack of a significant elite population.43 The most likely explanation for this implausible date is that the character for “ten” was accidentally omitted, and the inaugural date was actually 493.44 One might think that great care was taken with the accuracy of the inscriptions at Longmen, but in fact, errors are rife. Instances where characters were accidentally left out in Northern Wei inscriptions include the second character in the reign period in Song Jingfei’s inscription, the middle character of Meng Guangda’s name in Huicheng’s inscription, and the name of the town where Zheng Changyou was governor.45 The year 493, when the emperor suddenly arrived in Luoyang and announced the move of the capital, would have been an auspicious time for local people of influence to welcome the emperor with a public display of loyalty and piety. The official titles borne by Sun Qiusheng and Liu Qizu also suggest why they were eager to demonstrate their loyalty to the emperor. A regularly appointed district military aide served as an adjutant in a military commander’s headquarters, which is a relatively low-ranking post, but honorary titles of District Military Aide were bestowed by the Northern Wei court on local men of wealth and power to gain their allegiance.46 The Xincheng District seat was located five kilometers south of the modern town of Yichuan, just south of Longmen, which suggests Sun and Liu were given this honorary title because they were local men of importance whom the Northern Wei wished to enlist in their cause. They were probably also wealthy, and they may have been listed prominently in the inscription because they donated the largest amount of funds for the project. Occupying the lower three-fourths of the stele is the list of the society’s members, an examination of which reveals that some were sponsors of other shrines in Guyang Grotto and some were related to sponsors of other shrines. For example, Gao Wenshao, Gao Tianbao, and Gao Zhenbao also cosponsored a Buddha shrine dedicated by Gao Shu and a group of thirty-two believers, which was completed at the same time, in the fifth month of 502.47 Eight men of the Wei clan also participated in the Sun Qiusheng shrine, including a Wei Baier, who must have been a brother or cousin of Wei Baidu, the governor of Yingchuan, while e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a   |  21

Figure 1.13. Wei Lingzang’s shrine. From Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng, pl. 15.

one Wei Lingqiu was quite likely the brother or cousin of the sponsor of N2, Wei Lingzang.

Wei Lingzang’s Shrine The large Buddha shrine sponsored by Wei Lingzang (N2) closely resembles Huicheng’s (N1), which suggests it was begun around 493, and the shrine sponsored by Sun Qiu­ sheng’s group (S3), which suggests it was finished around 502. The main Buddha figure, though unique in bearing a bas-relief svastika inside a flaming disc on the chest, wears the same Central Asian costume with the robe in zigzag folds across the chest (figure 1.13) as the Buddha in N1 and S3, while the halo, the halo’s apsarasas, the attendant bodhisattvas, and the size and shape of the niche are also quite similar. Other details, however, agree more with the Sun Qiusheng shrine, which suggests a date of completion close to 502. Evidently, the sculptors usually left the carving of the back wall of the niche to last, as seen in the 22   |  e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a

unfinished niche attached to Great Consort Hou’s shrine of 502 and in the unfinished upper niche background in the Sun Qiusheng shrine. As such, the style of the interior background carvings allows for a tentative date for the completion of the shrine. Here in Wei Lingzang’s shrine, the Buddha’s nimbus is not the linear flame type, but the barbed ribbon flame type that appeared in mid-502. Further, the apsarasas in the niche interior are the type with long, slender arms and legs that bend sharply, also introduced in 502 (discussed below). The dedication is on a relief stele topped by twining dragons of the same design as the Sun Qiusheng group stele, to the right of the niche. In a peaked rectangle at the top are large characters reading “Śākyamuni Image,” flanked by the two names “Wei Lingzang” and “Xue Fashao.” Most of the inscription is now broken off, but the text is preserved in old ink rubbings.48 The opening lines read as follows:

Whenever the Divine Traces have been widely encountered, they have always manifested the evidence of something brilliant and great, and wherever the profound work of merit has already spread, it has also shown acts rarely seen in our world. When, under the twin sala trees, there was a change in the light (in the world, when the Buddha passed into nirvān.a), the universe held in its bosom the sorrow of being in the confusion of twilight, and when the Sun of Wisdom veiled its brilliance, all living beings held in their hearts the pain of thinking with regret of the Way. This is why the arhat (Maudgalyāyana), pained by the insufficient support of the Three Vehicles, rose into the Heaven (of the Thirty-Three Gods) in order to carve an image (of the Buddha).49 Now (this custom) has come down to later generations, and thus this image was made. (1C)

The next section is the dedication: Wei Lingzang of Julu and Xue Fashao of Hedong, we two, seeking the favor of the brilliance from the (white curl of) hair (i.e., the ūrnā between the Buddha’s eyebrows that emits light) illuminating the East and lacking the advantage of (the future Buddha Maitreya having descended from) the Tus.ita Heaven and (being reborn on earth in) Ketumati, we made bold to exhaust our families’ wealth to make one stone image such that none of the auxiliary figures have been omitted. We pray the imperial house may long flourish and the myriad regions render homage and bring tribute. We pray that (Wei Ling)zang and the others will stand like the three acacias on a solitary peak and flourish like the nine date trees in a magnificent garden. May their perfumed fruits multiply more and more, their thorny branches especially thrive, their entire families blossom gloriously, and their blessings flow over onto their descendants.50 After their lives have ended, may they fly to encounter the Thousand Holy Ones, their souls rise to the six supernatural powers (acquired by a Buddha), and their intellects embrace the three aspects of the omniscience (of a Buddha). In their existences in the generations to come and their relatives in their former lives, if they are released from the hundred obstacles, then may they, like the roc, perch in the Dragon Flower (Tree, to hear Maitreya preach on earth and thereby gain enlightenment), and if they are enlightened and freed from all rebirths, may they, like the phoenix, mount up to the bodhi tree. May the sentient beings in the five paths (of rebirth) all share in this felicity.

Wei Lingzang’s inscription is structurally similar to the inscriptions for Huicheng and the Sun Qiusheng group, and it includes an initial dedication to the imperial house. The use of the pre-Buddhist imagery of fabulous birds that fly up to heaven and the classical metaphor of the three acacias and nine date trees further suggests this inscription was also written by Meng Guangda. The end of the inscription reads: “Wei Lingzang, Military Aide of Luhun District.” Luhun District was about fifty kilometers southwest of Longmen. Hence Wei Lingzang was likely another local man of influence who was given the honorary title of District Military Aide by the Northern Wei government. It is entirely likely, therefore, that Wei Lingzang’s motivation in sponsoring this shrine was to make an offering of merit to reciprocate the imperial favor, while his inscription made a public record of his honorary title and his reciprocal gift.

A Consortium of Donors Several factors suggest that Huicheng, Sun Qiusheng’s lay society, and Wei Lingzang donated in concert. First, their dedications are similar in content, structure, and language, suggesting they asked Meng Guangda to write their inscriptions corporately. Second, Wei Lingqiu, who participated in the Sun Qiusheng group shrine, was probably closely related to Wei Lingzang. Third, the social status of these donors probably worked symbiotically. Sun Qiusheng and Wei Lingzang were local men important and wealthy enough to be given titles by the court to secure their loyalty and support, and were probably already established in the Luoyang area when the emperor determined to move the capital in 493. As the son of a duke, Huicheng had the high rank necessary to be granted permission to make and dedicate a grotto to the state and the prestige to galvanize a group of local donors. As a Buddhist monk, he also had the spiritual authority to design the program of imagery. He had probably lived in Pingcheng before the move of the capital and likely saw the grottoes at Yungang. In fact, it is hard to imagine why he would have had a grotto created near Luoyang if he had not seen the grottoes at Yungang. Lastly, these three may have been linked by motivation. Emperor Xiaowen’s decision to move the capital to Luo­ yang aroused feelings of betrayal among many Northern e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a   |  23

Wei Xianbei elites and contributed to the rebellion of the heir apparent, Tabgatch Xun.51 In such an atmosphere, a public statement of loyalty to the throne would be a wise action. Sun Qiusheng and Wei Lingzang had already accepted the imperial grant of the title of District Military Aide, which their dedications acknowledge, in a reciprocal statement of loyalty. As a member of the royal family, Huicheng was part of the group whose allegiance was even more suspect at this time. With his dedication of the grotto, Huicheng demonstrated his loyalty to the state and his support for the Sinicization policies of Emperor Xiaowen. The large Buddha shrines could have had as many as eight original donors, though only Huicheng, Wei Lingzang, and the Sun Qiusheng group are still known. Of the remaining five shrines, two were finished by donors who were unlikely to have been part of the original group: monk Fasheng, who dedicated S2 in 504 to the Prince of Beihai, and General Yang Dayan, who finished N3 around 504 for the late emperor Xiaowen. The other three shrines, S4, S1, and N4, were not separately dedicated, and since they lack steles, it is possible they were never intended to have their own inscriptions. They may have had individual sponsors who, for some reason, elected not to engrave a dedicatory inscription, or as Stanley Abe has proposed, perhaps Hui­ cheng was the donor of the four corner shrines.52 He may have claimed them as a framework and invited others to donate the shrines in between.

The Colossal Triad The other component of the grotto’s original program is the colossal Buddha triad in Chinese costume on the main wall. In his inscription, Huicheng stated that he “had a Stone Grotto [Monastery] made for the state, in this way to respond to the August (Emperor’s) grace.” In my view, the eight large shrines and the colossal Buddha correspond to this dedication. The eight large shrines represented the seven emperors of the Northern Wei state and the heir apparent in combinations of Central Asian and Chinese modes and were intended to honor and bless the Tabgatch imperial line, that is, “the state,” while the colossal Buddha represented the living emperor Xiaowen in pure Chinese mode and was intended to exalt and prosper him personally. 24   |  e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a

Although dated intrusive shrines confirm the colossal triad was complete by 505, I believe it was begun as a gift to the living ruler before his death in 499. This is based on Wen Yucheng’s theory that the triad was completed around the year 500. As he argued, certain novel motifs seen in this triad were used experimentally by the sculptors of various shrines finished in 502, and since shrines completed in 502 would likely have been started in 500 or 501, it suggests the colossal triad would have to have been finished around the year 500 to serve as their model.53 The triad has four new features: the colossal figures wear Chinese costume, all the nimbuses contain the barbed ribbon flame pattern, the bodhisattvas’ haloes have the “flying celestial” type of apsarasas, and the scarves on the bodhisattvas pass through a jade ring. These features appear suddenly in 502 on intrusive shrines. As discussed above, the ribbon flame pattern is first seen in Sun Qiusheng’s shrine of 502, while the earliest Buddha figure in Chinese costume is in the shrine of Zhao Shuangzhe, dated to July 20, 502, and the earliest dated bodhisattva figures wearing scarves that pass through a jade ring are in monk Huigan’s shrine, finished also on July 20, 502.54 All apsarasas made before 502 in Guyang Grotto fly in an outstretched position with legs extended and are depicted in high relief, with rounded limbs, just as they were at Yungang (see figure 1.7). The latest dated example of this Central Asian type is seen in the shrine dedicated by Gao Shu in the fifth month of 502. The earliest dated example of the long, slender apsarasas in low relief that fly upright with legs bent sharply up behind is in the panels of the trabeated arch of the shrine dedicated by Great Consort Hou in the eighth month of 502.55 From that moment onward, all apsaras figures made in Guyang Grotto were this type. Other examples are in the 503 shrine of Ma Zhenbai, the 504 shrine of Fasheng (see figure 1.10), and the shrine of Yang Dayan, finished after 504.56 Two facts should be noted about the dated shrines of the summer of 502. One is that entirely old-fashioned shrines were also produced for the last time at this same moment. For example, the Gao Shu shrine, finished on July 20, 502, has a Central Asian–style Buddha, the old-fashioned ap­ saras figures, and the linear flame pattern in the nimbus. The other fact is that none of the shrines of 502 has all four of the new features. Great Consort Hou’s shrine, for example, which boasts the earliest new apsaras type, also bears

Figure 1.14. Flying celestial, west wall of tomb of Emperor He (Xiao Baorong), Wu Family Village, Danyang County, Jiangsu Province. Ink rubbing. From Liuchao yishu, fig. 198.

the old-fashioned linear mode of nimbus flame pattern. From this we can conclude there was not a wholesale intrusion of a new group of sculptors for the smaller shrines. Evidently, the sculptors who were already working at Longmen saw something that did have all these motifs, and they began to incorporate one or two tentatively into the kinds of statuary they already knew how to make. The colossal Buddha triad was capable of introducing several new motifs because it was produced intentionally with a different vocabulary. To represent the Sinicizing emperor Xiaowen, it had to be made in the most Chinese manner possible, and indeed, the sources for the new motifs were all from Chinese art, either contemporaneous or classical. Yoshimura Rei has demonstrated that the new style of apsaras was borrowed from native funerary art of the contemporary Southern Qi dynasty (479 – 502).57 The new style of apsarasas in Guyang Grotto (see figure 1.10) compare closely to the flying celestials depicted on molded tiles in Southern Qi imperial tombs found near the southern Chinese capital of Jiankang (near modern Nanjing) (figure 1.14). These small flying figures flutter above the larger figures of a winged immortal traversing the heavens with a tiger. The example here is from the west wall of an imperial tomb in Danyang County identified as belonging to the last ruler of the Southern Qi, Emperor

He (r. 501 – 502).58 Both the apsaras of the Fasheng niche and the celestial from the Southern Qi tomb fly forward in an upright posture, in three-quarter view, with the body outlined by the backward-flying robes down to the knees, below which the lower limbs are lost in the streaming drapery. Scarves fly back from the shoulders and arms, fluttering upward behind the figures. The other Southern Qi imperial tombs that contain these flying celestials were produced from 493 to 501, in other words, at the same time as the earliest shrines in Guyang Grotto.59 The source for the scarf passing through the jade ring was art of the Later Han dynasty (25 – 220), when it was carved on stone funeral steles and spirit road gates in Sichuan, with the ends of the scarf bitten by a dragon.60 Something similar to the barbed ribbon flame pattern is seen in Later Han art as well, as Katherine Tsiang has observed.61 On the carved bas-relief stone panels of a tomb recently excavated in Shaanxi Province, the figure of an auspicious ram is surrounded by arcing flat, ribbonlike bands whose edges are silhouetted with rounded hooks (figure 1.15). These were probably intended to be clouds, or qi (life-breath), used to indicate a celestial or immortal setting. With a little imagination, an artist could transform these qi clouds into the flames of the Buddha’s radiance (see figure 1.10). e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a   |  25

Yang Dayan’s Shrine Contemporaries recognized the colossal Buddha as Emperor Xiaowen. This is revealed by the inscription with which General Yang Dayan (d. ca. 509) dedicated the completion of N3. The general was the last patron to dedicate one of the eight large Buddha shrines, but he was not an original donor, since his inscription makes clear he did not conceive of sponsoring a shrine before the colossal Buddha was complete. N3 has the same size and shape of niche and a nearly identical Buddha in Central Asian dress (figure 1.16), indicating it was probably begun with the original plan, but several elements on the back wall indicate it was only finished around 504, such as the halo centered on a bas-relief seated Buddha over the head of the main Buddha, also seen in S2, finished in 504, and the southern type of apsaras that appeared around 502. Its stele was planed down and reengraved, suggesting the shrine was abandoned before the general adopted it. The purpose of Yang’s sponsorship of a preexisting (probably abandoned) Buddha statue is revealed in the dedication, which opens with the familiar defense of image-making: Figure 1.15. Auspicious ram and qi clouds, west wall of a tomb, Later Han, Suide County, Shaanxi Province. Ink rubbing. From Zhongguo meishu quanji, hui hua 18: Huaxiangshi huaxiang, pl. 79.

The sculptors who introduced these traditional Chinese motifs must have known late Han funerary imagery and Southern Qi pictorial tomb tiles. Alexander Soper has suggested that artisans in the Southern Qi city of Yuzhou (modern Shouxian, Anhui) would have been quite familiar with the art styles current at the Southern Qi capital of Jiankang, which was just two hundred kilometers to the southeast. Yuzhou was turned over to the Northern Wei by its Southern Qi governor, Pei Shuye (438 – 500), in 500.62 If they or other artisans like them came to Luoyang, surely Huicheng would have been quick to retain them to produce the colossal triad on the back wall. If his intent was to honor the Sinicizing emperor Xiaowen with Chinesestyle figures, who better to employ than artisans from the south?

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If the Divine Brilliance had not been illuminated, the universe would have kept in its bosom the sadness of eternal night. If the [Sacred] Traces had not been encountered, perishable beings would have kept in their mouths (without expressing it) their repentance for deeds that hinder the truth. That is why the Tathāgata responded to all these causes in manifesting himself in his traces (his physical body). Thus through the following generations, images were produced, continuing down to our era of latter-day rulers, when this work of merit was made.63 (1D)

The inscription continues with a biography of the donor: Yang Dayan of Chouchi, Bulwark-General of the State, Zhige General [four effaced characters], Senior Rectifier of Liangzhou, enfeoffed as Dynasty-Founding Viscount of Ancheng District, received at birth an inheritance of dragon resplendence, as the offspring, following at a distance, of one who was in accord with celestial portent (his grandfather Yang Nandang). He was endowed in his youth with extraordinary qualities, and he surpassed the crowd (of his contemporaries) when he was first capped (on attaining the age of majority). Later, he drew down a reputation for humaneness such as had

Figure 1.16. Shrine of Yang Dayan, ca. 504, Guyang Grotto. From Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen ershipin: Bei Wei beike zao­ xiang juzhen, fig. 98.

never been heard of before. When he stirred up his glory, he crushed a million (enemies) in the palm of his hand. When he thundered with his exceptional bravery, the nine regions of the empire were all frightened (into submission). When he stayed before the emperor to give him counsel, court and countryside were obedient to him. He cleared the royal route of the three obstacles that blocked it, and he swept the clouds and monsters from Heaven’s way.

Amazingly, this bombast concurs with Yang’s biography in The History of the Northern Wei, which says he was the

grandson of Yang Nandang, a chief of the Di nationality.64 As a boy, he displayed great bravery and physical prowess, and as a young man, he enjoyed an extraordinarily successful military career under Emperor Xiaowen, whom he served with on the campaigns against the state of Southern Qi. The general was especially solicitous of his troops, addressing them as his sons and weeping at the sight of their injuries. He was with his troops, in fact, when he arrived at Longmen. The following section of the inscription is important to establishing the date of the shrine’s completion: “When the mess in the south was cleared up, he reorganized the troops and returned to (Yi)que. The army encamped [one effaced character]. By the side of the road was Stone Grotto (Monastery).” Stone Grotto Monastery was Guyang Grotto, while “the mess in the south” must be a euphemism for one of the military missions Yang led south of Luoyang. Wen Yucheng has put forward two possibilities for identifying the campaign. Early in 500, Yang Dayan was ordered to lead his troops to Yuzhou to reinforce Governor Pei’s recent decision to turn the city over to the Northern Wei.65 This hardly qualifies as a “mess,” however, since Pei died before the army had even crossed the Huai River.66 The more likely possibility is the campaign against a “rebel” of the Man nationality named Fan Ji’an.67 The army under Yang Dayan defeated Fan’s troops in the first month of 504 in East Jingzhou, a small region south of Luoyang, which lay on the border with Southern Qi. After the defeat of the rebels, Yang’s army would have come back through the pass at Yique (Longmen) to return to Luoyang. It was probably in 504, then, that he determined to sponsor a shrine for the late emperor, asked the stoneworkers to finish N3, and employed a literatus to write a dedication. Although the voice is clearly his own, he could not have written the inscription himself since he was illiterate.68

What the General Saw Yang Dayan was an eyewitness to the program of Guyang Grotto in the early sixth century. What exactly did he see? His inscription continues: Contemplating the brilliant traces (zong) of the former August (Emperor), gazing upon the beautiful traces (ji) of the magnificent Holy (sheng) (Buddha), he fixed his eyes upon e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a   |  27

(this sight) all through the night, and in tears, his emotions flowed. And so, for the August Emperor Xiaowen, he had a single stone image made such that none of the auxiliary figures have been omitted. He engraved stone to record this work of merit that it may be shown.

The interpretation of this passage is contested. Most agree that “the former August (Emperor)” refers to the late emperor Xiaowen, but the phrase I have translated as “the beautiful traces of the magnificent Holy (sheng) (Buddha)” could also be translated as “the beautiful traces of the flourishing Sage (Emperor),” since sheng can mean “sage,” as an epithet of the emperor, or “holy,” as a description of a Buddhist deity. One possibility is that “the brilliant traces of the former August (Emperor)” meant the inscriptions dedicated to Emperor Xiaowen, and “the beautiful traces of the magnificent Holy (Buddha)” referred to all the Buddha figures within the grotto. In this case, the general would have been moved by the sight of all the carving in the grotto, including the eight large Buddha shrines on the side walls, the many Maitreya shrines in the ceiling, and the colossal Buddha triad on the back wall. Since the grotto was created during Xiaowen’s reign, perhaps the general thought of the grotto as a relic of the glorious Taihe era. This theory, however, does not take into account the specific language of the inscription, which we will explore below, and it does not fit the mind of Yang Dayan. He was a man who wept over people, and he was illiterate. It is hard to believe he would mourn for his old friend at the sight of a cave filled with indecipherable inscriptions. The Longmen Grottoes Research Academy has recently published an interpretation in terms of the general’s career under the late emperor: “Contemplating the brilliant achievements (zong) of the former August (Emperor)” is a euphemism for Emperor Xiaowen having the vision to use a great hero like Yang Dayan. “Gazing upon the beautiful achievements ( ji) of the flourishing Sage (sheng) (Emperor)” is praise for Emperor Xiaowen’s great achievements in moving the capital to Luoyang and completing the great undertaking of unification. As a result, “he fixed his eyes all through the night, and in tears, his emotions flowed,” and for Emperor Xiaowen, he made this statue.69

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In this interpretation, sheng is read as meaning the emperor, and both phrases refer solely to Emperor Xiaowen’s political exploits. The general’s thoughts were of his glorious career under the late emperor and of the emperor’s ambitious designs for the empire. This is based on an understanding of the terms zong and ji as “achievements” rather than as “traces,” as I have translated them. Zong and ji both have the same range of meanings. From their fundamental meaning of “footprint,” by extension they mean “footsteps,” “traces,” “external indications,” or “achievements.” One problem with this interpretation is that it ignores the religious function of image worship entirely in favor of a secularized reading of the general’s project. Yang had a very emotional response to the experience of seeing a Buddha image, and he then determined to reciprocate by sponsoring another Buddha image within the same grotto. His shrine was not a monument to his own career or even to the career of the late emperor; rather, it was an attempt to act on his feelings for his beloved commander through the posthumous generation of merit for him. The elite patrons of Longmen were often focused on the politics of public sponsorship, it is true, but they also shared an unquestioning belief in the power of image worship to generate merit and in the magical efficacy of statues. Hence, I cannot accept an interpretation that eliminates the power medieval Chinese people ascribed to images in favor of simple political calculation. Another interpretation sees the inscription as ascribing the sponsorship of the grotto to the emperor.70 In the opinion of Long Hui, the word zong should be read literally, as “footprints,” and the entire first phrase should mean that Emperor Xiaowen went out to Longmen in person to order the making of Guyang Grotto. Long states that the “Chapter on Buddhism and Daoism” in the His­ tory of the Northern Wei says, “Each time an emperor ascended the throne, at a stone cliff near the capital, they would make a stone grotto for the emperor and empress and engrave Buddhist images.”71 From this, he speculates that the emperor sponsored the excavation of Guyang Grotto near the new capital in accord with an old Tabgatch custom, arguing that moving the capital would have been seen as analogous to an emperor ascending the throne. He argues further that since Emperor Xiaowen personally took the ancestral spirit tablets from the imperial ances-

tral temple in Ping­cheng at the end of 494 and had a new temple built for them in Luoyang, within the realm of Buddhist belief, the emperor would wish the new capital to have its own cave-shrine, just as Pingcheng had the grot­ toes of Yungang. As for who the beneficiary might have been, Long points out that the emperor established Baode Monastery south of Luoyang “for the posthumous merit of Empress Dowager Feng,” Emperor Xiaowen’s late regent, and he suggests that Guyang Grotto was also made to “commemorate” her. An accurate understanding of the inscription comes from a correct reading of the words zong and ji. The conventional meanings of “footprints,” “achievements,” or even “traces,” understood in a secular way, were not intended, and the general’s inscription cannot be made to prove that Emperor Xiaowen was the patron of Guyang Grotto. The use of zong and ji in a religious sense is made clear by General Yang’s inscription itself, in the opening apology for image-making. It states that the dharmakāya manifested itself originally in a body, the Sacred Traces of Śākyamuni, but now that the Buddha is gone, it must be manifested in statues of the Buddha: “If the [Sacred] Traces (zong) had not been encountered, perishable beings would have kept in their mouths (without expressing it) their repentance for deeds that hinder the truth. That is why the Tathāgata responded to all these causes in manifesting himself in his traces ( ji) (his physical body). Thus through the following generations, images were produced.” The terms zong and ji here mean the physical body of the Buddha, and in the later part of the inscription where Yang described what he saw in the grotto, the meaning remains the same.72 Zong and ji should continue to be translated as “traces” because they still refer to a body or in the case of someone who is deceased, an image of him. In yet another interpretation, Wen Yucheng believes the inscription refers to the colossal triad and reveals the triad was begun by order of Emperor Xiaowen and completed by his son, Emperor Xuanwu (r. 499 – 515).73 “The brilliant traces of the former August (Emperor)” means the late emperor Xiaowen was the original patron of the large Buddha triad on the west wall, while “the beautiful traces of the flourishing Sage (Emperor)” indicates the work was continued by the living sovereign, Emperor Xuanwu. This theory has great psychological appeal. The

size of the Buddha triad seems imperial, while its central position on the back wall echoes the design of the colossal Buddhas in the imperially sponsored Tanyao grottoes at Yungang. Emperor Xiaowen was a great ruler, responsible for great projects, and he could certainly have produced a cave-shrine had he so desired. Indeed, he did visit Yungang several times as a child, under the wing of his regent, Empress Dowager Feng (441 – 490), and may well have been responsible for Caves 5 and 6 there.74 The emperor sponsored other Buddhist projects and was personally involved in the reestablishment of imperial ritual practices in the new capital. Therefore, the notion that he would want to establish an imperial cave-shrine site near Luo­ yang seems rational. Yet there is no record of the emperor visiting Longmen, as there is for the other Northern Wei imperial donors Emperor Xuanwu and Empress Dowager Hu (ca. 493 – 528), and there is no evidence of imperial sponsorship for Guyang Grotto. All inscriptional evidence indicates the grotto was made for Emperor Xiaowen, not by him. The dynastic history does record that Emperor Xuanwu went to Longmen in mid-January of 505, but I suspect that was done to find out what was going wrong with the excavation of his project, the two grottoes now called Binyang Central and Binyang South.75

Emperor as Tathāgata I agree with Wen Yucheng that Yang Dayan was looking at the colossal Buddha, but I do not believe he was addressing the issue of patronage or that his inscription can support the notion that he referred to two emperors. Between the characters for “former” and “August,” the writer left a space. Leaving a space before someone’s name is the traditional way of showing respect for that person. In the second phrase, no space was left between the words “magnificent” and sheng. The absence of this traditional sign of respect in front of sheng strongly suggests the writer was not referring to a ruler and that the term sheng should be translated as “Holy,” meaning the Holy Buddha. My theory is that Yang Dayan was speaking simultaneously of one emperor and one Buddha statue. He said, “Contemplating the brilliant traces (zong) of the former August (Emperor), gazing upon the beautiful traces ( ji) of the magnificent Holy (sheng) (Buddha), I fixed my eyes e m p e r o r a s t a t h ā g a t a   |  29

upon (this sight) all through the night, and in tears, my emotions flowed.” When someone’s eyes are fixed, he is looking at a single thing, and when a military man’s eyes are fixed, he is standing at respectful attention before his commander. Surely General Yang had his eyes fixed on the most singular body in the grotto — the colossal Buddha on the back wall. Why would looking at a Buddha image

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cause him to weep for the late emperor? It would have to be because Yang Dayan believed the image of the Buddha was also an image of the emperor. The two phrases concerning the emperor and the Buddha actually describe the same thing: the colossal Buddha image on the back wall. This is a concrete example of the Northern Wei belief in the equation of emperor and Tathāgata.

Two    The Mechanics of a Karmic Gift of Sculpture In any society it is in the nature of the gift in the end to being its own reward. — Marcel Mauss1

T

he first imperially sponsored cave-shrine at Longmen — Binyang Central Grotto — is featured in nearly every textbook of Chinese art as a monument of late Northern Wei art. In Laurence Sickman’s words, not only is it “lucid and coherent” in plan, but also “it seems to represent in stone a close approximation to the interior of freestanding temples of the early sixth century — all of which have disappeared centuries ago.”2 The sculpture, moreover, is considered peerless (figure 2.1). Sickman wrote of the main image: This Śākyamuni Buddha, the central deity, is in many respects, the supreme example of the archaic Buddha image preserved in China. On body and arms the enveloping mantle lies in formal folds like overlapping scales, curves over the legs and falls in flat, sinuous pleats above the lion-guarded throne. Powerful hands in abhaya and varada mudrās are rendered large to emphasize the mystic gestures. The neck is like a truncated cone, supporting an almost rectangular head on which the protuberances of the us. n.īs.a and the large ears are joined like the elements of an integrated, architectural form. The abstract treatment of the body and robe taken together with the large, generalized features, lighted by the archaic half-smile, result in an icon of profound sincerity.3

  Despite the universal admiration for this rare showcase of late Northern Wei sculpture, the question of why it was produced has not been satisfactorily answered, nor has the question of how it functioned been raised. Yet the grotto itself reveals that the donor invested considerable thought and expense in its design in order for it to function in the spiritual realm as a karmic gift to the beneficiaries. A careful examination of all elements of this complexly constructed shrine will show how a visitor was intended to read and interact with the sculptural program of the

grotto in a particular sequence of stages through space and time, not only to understand the self-presentation of the donor and his relationship to the beneficiaries, but also more importantly, to offer worship before the icons to generate merit that the rest of the grotto program was designed to transfer.4

History of the Binyang Grottoes Unlike Guyang Grotto, the three Binyang grottoes are described in the dynastic histories. The “Chapter on Buddhism and Daoism” in The History of the Northern Wei records: Early in the Jingming era (500 – 503), Emperor Shizong (Xuan­wu) ordered Bai Zheng,5 the director of the Palace Domestic Service, to construct two stone grottoes in the mountains at Yique, south of the Luo (River), on behalf of Emperor Gaozu (Xiaowen) and Empress Dowager Wenzhao, taking as his standard the stone grottoes of Lingyansi (Yungang) at the capital city Dai (Pingcheng).6 In the beginning, when the construction was begun, the ceilings of the grottoes were to be 310 chi from the ground. By the second year of the Zhengshi era (505), they had begun to cut into the mountain at twenty-three zhang (230 chi). At this time, Wang Zhi, the director of the Palace Domestic Service, saying that where they were cutting into the mountain was too high and the (necessary) expenditure of labor would be difficult to achieve, memorialized for permission to seek a lower, more level spot (for the grottoes).7 (The new site) was to be 100 chi from the ground and 140 chi from north to south. In the Yongping era (508 – 512), the palace governor Liu Teng memorialized to make another stone grotto for Emperor Shizong (Xuanwu), for a total of three.8 From the inaugural

Figure 2.1. Seated Śākyamuni, west wall, Binyang Central Grotto. From Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen baoguansuo (1961).

year of the Jingming era (500) through the sixth month of the fourth year of the Zhengguang era (July 523), the expenditure for this work of merit was 802,366 (cash).9

Although this record is marvelously detailed, it does not identify the specific grottoes produced. It does say, however, that the final site was over twenty-seven meters (100 chi) from the ground and thirty-nine meters (140 chi) from north to south, and that three grottoes were made.10 Only one spot at Longmen meets this description (figure 2.2).11 The three Binyang grottoes face onto a courtyard that is a little over thirty meters from north to south, and the ceilings range between nine and ten meters in height, putting them about twenty meters from the base of the cliff. Only the grotto known as Lingyansi, the middle one

now called Binyang Central Grotto, was finished in the Northern Wei.12 The other two were evidently abandoned in 523, when the court eunuch Liu Teng (463 – 523) died, and only finished in the seventh century by unrelated patrons. The mate to Binyang Central was probably Binyang South, which contains Northern Wei motifs that match those in Binyang Central, including the celestial musicians in the ceiling and the spirit kings carved on the east wall.13 Binyang Central is thought to have been dedicated to the late emperor Xiaowen, since it was finished first, with Binyang South intended for the emperor’s late mother. Since it lacks any Northern Wei elements inside, Binyang North is believed to have been the third grotto, begun in 508 by Liu Teng in honor of the living emperor Xuanwu.14 A large stele was carved in relief immediately to the left of the entryway to Binyang Central, probably to bear

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Figure 2.2. Courtyard of the Binyang trio of grottoes: (104) Binyang North, (118) Elders of Luozhou shrine, 637, (140) Binyang Central, (A) Stele for the Yique Buddha Shrine, 641, (159) Binyang South, (176, 192, 194) King Udayana Buddha shrines. Drawing adapted from Longmen shiku kukan bianhao tuce, ed. Longmen shiku yanjiusuo and Zhongyang meishu xueyuan meishushi xi, Xishan limian tu 3.

the emperor’s dedication. If an inscription was engraved, however, there is no telling now; the stele has borne a Tang prince’s dedication of the finishing of Binyang South Grotto since 641. If any information from the lost inscription does survive, it may be in the record from the History of the Northern Wei given above.

An Imperial Buddhist Patron All evidence suggests this project was dear to the heart of the young emperor. The order was given in the first year of his reign, and four years later, when little progress had been made, he paid a visit to Longmen.15 His mother, Lady Gao, had been murdered during the move of the capital

to Luoyang in 494 (some said by henchmen of her rival, Lady Feng), when he was only twelve.16 As soon as the boy ascended the throne in 499, he granted his mother the posthumous title of Empress Dowager Wenzhao, and he granted fiefs to her living relatives and posthumous honors to the dead.17 His father, Emperor Xiaowen, was only thirty-three when he fell ill on campaign. On his deathbed, he called for his son to be brought to him to take the throne, and he appointed two Tabgatch princes as the boy’s regents and secretly ordered that his consort Lady Feng be “granted suicide” to spare him her domination.18 As a result, the transfer of power went relatively smoothly, and Emperor Xuanwu began to hold court on his own in 501, at the age of eighteen.19 One can scarcely imagine the

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young man’s feelings for his late parents, but likely they consisted not only of a traditional filial desire to recompense their gift of life to him, but also of a sense that their souls, given the unfortunate manner of their deaths, were in grave need of karmic rescue. Like his father, Emperor Xuanwu had an intellectual interest in Buddhist thought, though he was more active as a public patron of Buddhism. While Emperor Xiaowen had been a student of the Satyasiddhi śāstra (Cheng shi lun) and was said to have been devoted to meditation, Emperor Xuanwu lectured annually on Buddhist scriptures and commentaries in assemblies of learned monks.20 He had a special interest in the Vimalakīrti Sūtra, and it is recorded that in 509 the emperor summoned all the monks and courtiers to the Shiqian Palace, where he expounded upon the sūtra.21 The emperor welcomed the Indian monk Bodhiruci to Luoyang in 508 and sponsored his activities as a translator. Bodhiruci and his team produced translations of thirty-nine sūtras and commentaries, including influential texts such as the Daśabhūmika-sūtra śāstra. The emperor also sponsored a rival translation of this text, done by the Indian monk Ratnamati, and the two translations were kept in separate halls in the palace, under armed guard. He also ordered Ratnamati to expound on the Avatamsaka Sūtra at court and commanded the Buddhist hermit Feng Liang to come to court to lecture on Daśabhūmika-sūtra texts.22 When Feng refused, the emperor built him a monastery on nearby Mount Song as a retreat, echoing his father’s order to build Shaolin Monastery on Mount Song for the Western monk Bhadra, whose teachings he had revered.23 Emperor Xuanwu also funded an imperial Buddhist monastery south of the city walls. Emperor Xiaowen had sponsored Baode Monastery for the posthumous generation of merit for his regent, Empress Dowager Feng.24 Emperor Xuanwu began his reign with the building of Jingming Monastery, for which no beneficiary is known.25 Emperor Xuanwu also sponsored Yaoguang Convent, situated in the western part of the city, between the central Palatine City and the Jinyong Citadel in the city’s northwest corner.26 By analogy to his grotto project, the emperor may have dedicated Jingming Monastery to his late father and Yaoguang Convent to his beloved mother.

The Mechanics of the Binyang Central Grotto Program Binyang Central Grotto has a unified and complex program of iconography that expresses a unique relationship between the emperor as donor and his parents as beneficiaries, and since no religious advisor was cited for the project, it seems likely the program should be credited to the emperor himself. Further, while not an exact recreation of any one grotto at Yungang, the program accords with the emperor’s stated goal of “taking as his standard the stone grottoes of Lingyansi.” The history of the fifth-century grottoes at Yungang is encapsulated in the Binyang grotto, yet restated in an orderly and monumental way. The jubilant riot of figures and crowded compositions characteristic of the Yungang caves have been transformed into a measured space where symmetry and unity reign. Finally, I believe the evidence reveals the program was designed to be read and activated in three stages. The first is at the façade and the entryway, as the visitor approaches. The second is in the interior, when the visitor enters the grotto to offer worship. The final stage is the reading of the east wall, seen when the visitor has turned from his or her obeisance before the main Buddha figure on the west wall and walks the path to the doorway. Each stage has a discrete iconography designed for a particular expression of the donor’s intent and a specific role within the karmic function of the grotto. To begin the experience of the grotto, the visitor climbs up to the courtyard in front of the grotto and confronts a huge open doorway cut into the cliff face. The lintel overhead is composed of a band of honeysuckle vine centered on a faintly visible kirtimukha over addorsed dragons, above which rise the flames of the Buddha’s radiance. Columns flanking the doorway are topped with unusual scrolled capitals reminiscent of the Ionic order, surmounted by palmettes, while to each side a huge niche, topped with a sculpted imitation-tile roof, shelters a colossal, barechested dvārapāla, or door guardian (only the northern figure survives). The jambs of the entryway are carved in three registers of reliefs. At the bottom are three-meterhigh multiarmed guardian figures (figure 2.3).27 The north jamb figure is largely ruined, but the multiheaded figure on the south jamb is still intact, though marred by having a

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channel for a door frame carved down the center. His four arms brandish weapons as he stands in a bent-knee pose of triumph on an earth spirit or dwarf yaks.a who holds up his feet. The breastplate, belly plate, and shin guards of his armor are carved with the faces of fanged deities, elephants, and fierce beasts. Scarves swirl around him, suggesting a frenzy of motion. In the second register, above the head of the viewer, are a standing bodhisattva and a figure of Brahmā, turning in toward the interior of the grotto and making offerings toward the figures inside.28 A flying ap­ saras fills the top register of each jamb. Imitating the entrance to a monastery image hall, the façade is the site of several functions. As at the entrance to an image hall, a stele is inscribed with words to announce the patronage and purpose of the shrine to mortal viewers and to the karmic machinery. The architectural function of the façade is to divide mundane space from sacred space, and the disposition of the sculpted figures transitions the pilgrim from the outside inward. The guardian figures face outside to protect the worshiper, who will be rendered vulnerable by entering a sacred space of worship. The worshiping bodhisattvas, Vedic gods, and apsarasas at the top of the door jambs face in toward the Buddha realm inside, directing the entry into sacred space, where karmic merit can be generated. The sculptural elements on the façade were also intended to recall the grottoes of Yungang, thereby connecting this imperial project with its illustrious predecessor at the old capital. Doorjambs elaborately carved in registers, gigantic door guardians, and multiarmed Vedic gods are found on the façades of the earliest paired grottoes at Yungang, Caves 7 and 8.29 Entering the grotto, the visitor begins the second stage. The interior measures 11.4 meters across and 9.85 meters deep, and the wide rectangular floor is carved with a pathway leading from the doorway up the center of the grotto to the altar on the back wall (figure 2.4). To each side are two large lotuses, around which are swirling vines and flowering vegetation. This design may have been intended to suggest a carpet design or real plants in a pond. It certainly was intended to direct the visitor’s experience of the grotto, leading him from the doorway straight to the main Buddha figure and then back out along the same axis. The ceiling is even more elaborate (figure 2.5). In the

Figure 2.3. Guardian, Brahmā and bodhisattva, and apsaras, south doorjamb, Binyang Central. Photo, the author, 2004.

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Figure 2.4. Floor, Binyang Central. Drawing from Mizuno Seiichi and Nagahiro Toshio, Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 1, fig. 13.

center is a large, high-relief lotus, with a seed pod in the center surrounded by a double row of petals. It is circled by eight gandharvas, celestial musicians who face toward the main Buddha on the back wall and converge on the upper tip of his nimbus. Each plays a different instrument: reed pipe, bamboo flute, baoruan (a plucked string instrument), waisted drum, chime stone, panpipes, zheng (a twenty-five-stringed zither), and brass cymbals.30 Below the gandharvas are two kinnaras, heavenly beings who excel at singing and dancing and who protect the Buddha. At the edge of the nimbus, they fly toward the Buddha, holding dishes of fruit. Around the celestial figures, who are flying amidst swirling cloud patterns, is a border of flowers alternating with feather fans, ringed by bands of repeated shapes of ancient coins, scale patterns, and tall, narrow triangles. This is intended to represent the interior of a canopy. This view is dominated by the colossal Buddha figure seated cross-legged on a low throne against the back wall

(see figure 2.1). At 8.42 meters tall, it is the largest figure in the grotto. His costume is in the Chinese mode, and though, as Sickman noted, the figure received an “abstract treatment,” the hem of the outer robe is described in curving folds that are evenly spaced yet not rigidly symmetrical, allowing for some slight sense of movement. The face is composed of simple shapes: semicircular eyebrows, crescent eyes, triangular nose, and small mouth curved into the smile of compassion. Around the halo of lotus petals is a pattern of twining, flowering vines, while the nimbus is composed of an inner band containing flying apsarasas and a large outer band filled with a flame pattern. Smaller high-relief figures of the elder disciple Kāśyapa and the younger Ānanda stand to either side, 4.78 meters and 4.88 meters tall, respectively. Flanking the disciples at the edge of the wall are two large attendant bodhisattvas, 6.13 meters high (figure 2.6). Their faces are essentially the same as the Buddha’s, but they wear high jeweled crowns, pendant necklaces, bracelets, and long strands of jewels

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Figure 2.5. Ceiling, Binyang Central. Drawing from Mizuno Seiichi and Nagahiro Toshio, Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 1, fig. 14.

that loop and cross at their knees. Robes cover both shoulders, over an under-robe tied at the waist. Each holds a lotus bud in the upraised right hand and a small fan in the lowered left hand. Their bare feet are widely spaced, while their bodies taper upward, giving them a kind of triangular shape when seen from the front. As with the Buddha figure and the disciples, the upper part of their bodies and their heads are carved more forward than the lower part of their bodies, so they lean outward from the wall over the worshiper. This is a simple but effective device to bring the heads and hands, the most expressive part of the figure, closer to the viewer, counteracting the effect of diminution of the head and upper body caused by the height of the figures. On each side wall is a standing Buddha figure, flanked by two attendant bodhisattvas, whose head, halo, and nimbus match those of the seated Buddha on the main wall.31 The program of the main statuary, then, is the Buddhas of the Three Periods. The attendance of disciples

on the seated Buddha indicates he was likely intended to depict Śākyamuni, as the representative of the thousand Buddhas of the Present Kalpa (eon). The standing Buddha on the south wall displays the same mudrā as the seated Buddha, while the left hand of the Buddha on the north wall extends the first two fingers instead of just the index finger.32 I suspect this slight difference in mudrā was intended to identify one Buddha as the representative of the thousand Buddhas of the Kalpa of the Past and the other of the thousand Buddhas of the Future Kalpa, but such an identification is now lost. The Buddhas of the Three Periods are venerated in the Lotus Sūtra and other associated texts. In one such scripture, translated by Superintendent Tanyao in the fifth century, the supplicant says: “I focus my heart on mindfulness of all the Buddhas of the Past, all the Buddhas of the Future, and all the Buddhas of the Present, the unsurpassed dharmarājas. Thus to all the Buddhas of the Three Ages I entrust my life, and in all of them I take refuge.”33

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his commentaries, saying: “The later Buddhas’ ability to convert is solely based on the ability of earlier Buddhas. What is the reason? The later Buddhas are because of the earlier Buddhas. This is like the succession of one emperor to the next.”36 Hence, the imagery of the Buddhas of the Three Periods would have been just as suitable in terms of political symbolism for Emperor Xuanwu as for his greatgrandfather. Third, beyond the functional attraction of being able to represent and worship all the Buddhas of all time with the simple device of three figures, great benefits are promised to rulers who worship the Buddhas of the Three Periods. The Sūtra of Golden Light, for example, says: “If you worship all the Buddhas of the Past, Present, and Future, then you will accumulate unlimited and unimaginable merit. For this reason, rulers ought to support this, and all their princes, queens, consorts, and palace women also ought to support this, so that decline and worry will be extinguished, while happiness and joy will flourish. Their palaces and halls will be peaceful and pure, with no catastrophes.”37 The function of the colossal images of the Buddhas of the Three Periods in this grotto is exactly as described in the Sūtra of Golden Light. The statues were created to provide a location for the generation of “unlimited and unimaginable merit” through worship. The final stage of the grotto experience, however, makes clear that mere “accumulation” of merit was not the ultimate purpose of the grotto; rather it was the transfer of merit. Figure 2.6. Bodhisattva, south wall, Binyang Central. Photo, the author, 2004.

The Exit Wall Reliefs

The relevance of this imagery to Emperor Xuanwu was multivalent. First, this program was already associated with the imperial family. The Buddhas of the Three Periods was the program of the three largest grottoes at Yungang sponsored by the emperor’s great-grandfather and designed by Superintendent Tanyao.34 According to Liu Huida, an archeologist at Beijing University, this iconography was produced in the imperial grottoes of the 460s because of Tanyao’s study and translation of the Lotus Sūtra and related texts.35 Second, it is likely that the idea of the Buddhas of the Three Periods, who follow upon each other, was associated with the idea of the imperial succession. Tanluan (476 – 542) articulated this notion in one of

In contrast to the fine state of preservation of the rest of the grotto, the east wall relief carvings have been ruined by looting, so the final stage must be reconstructed (figure 2.7). The reliefs were executed in four registers on both sides of the doorway, a design that mimics the composition of the exit wall of Cave 6 at Yungang, likely the latest imperial commission before the move of the capital (see figure 2.12). The Cave 6 design leads from standing worshipers at the base of the wall up through one register of scenes of the life of Siddhārtha and another of the Buddha’s enlightenment and preaching, to a depiction of the debate between Vimalakīrti and Mañjuśrī over the doorway. In the bottom register of Binyang Central’s exit wall are ten spirit kings, five on each side, and above them were two

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Figure 2.7. East wall reliefs, Binyang Central. Drawing from Mizuno Seiichi and Nagahiro Toshio, Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 1, figs. 18 and 19.

life-size processions of imperial worshipers — the men on the north side of the doorway (the viewer’s left), the women on the south. Above the processions was a narrower register containing stories from the Buddha’s previous lives: the story of Prince Mahāsattva and the starving tigress and the story of what happened when Prince Sudāna gave away the white elephant.38 The top register contained the debate between Vimalakīrti and Mañjuśrī, with Mañjuśrī seated on the north side of the doorway, facing across toward Vimalakīrti. At the base of the north wall, the fish spirit king holds a fish with a ferocious open mouth. The tree spirit king holds a flaming jewel, flanked by a tree, while the lion spirit king

wears a lion-head helmet, and the dragon spirit king confronts a small dragon. The figure embracing a large bag as his hair streams out behind him is the wind spirit king. No inscriptions identify these figures, but Emma Bunker has compared them to the spirit kings on an Eastern Wei stele of 543 in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, on which they are identified.39 On the south side, the figure with the head of a rooster represents the bird spirit king, while the elephant-headed figure next to it is the elephant spirit king (see figure 2.10 below). Next is a flame-headed figure holding a flaming object, then a figure spitting pearls into his hand, and finally one supporting a miniature landscape in a dish. They are the fire, pearl, and mountain spirit kings.

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Figure 2.8. Silver dish with Dionysus and Twelve Gods of Mount Olympus, eastern Roman empire, second – third century, found in Jingyuan County, Gansu. Drawing from Lin Meicun, “Zhongguo jingnei chutu daimingwen de Posi he Zhong Ya yinqi,” Wenwu 1997.9: fig. 5.

Spirit kings (shen wang) are not attested in scripture or discussed in inscriptions. Their significance can only be deduced from their role in surviving stone monuments, where they were invariably placed at the base of walls and steles, suggesting a vestigial caryatid function from architecture. They are also reminiscent of the semihuman dwarf figures commonly encountered on the base of sculptural objects from the Han dynasty onward. This supportive position may indicate a protective function as well, or the figures may simply be at the base of the wall because they are lowly nature deities. As such, their proper position would be below the socially and spiritually superior figures of the royal family, the princes who were the Buddha’s former incarnations, and the enlightened beings Vimalakīrti and Mañjuśrī.40 Spirit kings enjoyed a vogue for about a century in central China and then faded away.41 They were carved for the first time in the Binyang Central Grotto, then slightly later at two other cave-shrine sites in the Henan area, Gong­

xian and Xiangtangshan, and on steles produced under the Eastern Wei (534 – 550) and the Northern Qi (550 – 577) dynasties. They were depicted through the sixth century, only to disappear forever in the Sui dynasty (581 – 618). Another group of weird nature deities — the so-called thunder monsters — also appeared around this time, carved on epitaph steles in the south and on tomb epitaphs in the north.42 As Shi Anchang has shown, the “thunder monsters” were Sogdian in origin.43 Similarly, as Bunker notes, spirit kings are not native and must derive from some foreign source. Not only were spirit kings always produced as a set, which suggests the Chinese encountered them as a preexisting group, but they also hold or wear attributes.44 A gilded silver platter of eastern provincial Roman manufacture found in southern Gansu Province was probably made in the second or third century and later exported to Bactria, whose capital lay near what is now Mazar-isharif, Afghanistan.45 The platter was then taken along the Silk Road into China proper. In the center is the figure of

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Figure 2.9. Emperor procession, north and east walls, Binyang Central. Photo, ca. 1920. From Friedrich Perzyński, Von Chinas Göttern: Reisen in China, pl. 28.

Dionysus, reclining on a lion (figure 2.8). The outer band of decoration is filled with a pattern of ivy and grapevines with grape clusters, occupied by birds, insects, and reptiles, while the inner band of decoration features the heads of the twelve gods of Mount Olympus, each one closely adjoined with their symbolic attributes, such as a bird or an animal. Such a set of Roman deities with attributes might well be a source for the spirit kings, perhaps seen by the Chinese in compositions mixed with the Zoroastrian and other deities that were also worshiped in Bactria and Sogdiana (modern-day Uzbekistan).

The Imperial Processions The imperial processions depicted large, richly dressed aristocratic figures with servants bringing offerings for worship. On the north side a large male figure wearing vo-

luminous robes and a pearl-fringe crown is attended by three servants before him (figure 2.9). Several attendants clustered behind him hold up two large feather fans and a large tasseled umbrella and carry other ritual implements. He places a piece of incense into a censer held out for him by a servant. This largest figure is nearly six feet high, while the other figures around him are all smaller. Because of his costume and comparative size, this figure seems certain to represent the emperor. The procession moves from left to right, as if entering the grotto and approaching the colossal seated Buddha figure on the west wall, and is usually interpreted as the emperor and his retinue approaching the Buddha to offer worship. The tops of three trees set amidst these figures may signify the countryside setting at Yique, indicating the royal party had arrived and was about to enter the grotto. Facing the men on the other side of the doorway was

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Figure 2.10. Empress procession, east and south walls, Binyang Central. Photo, 1910, glass negative. Charles Lang Freer Papers, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the Estate of Charles Lang Freer. Photog­ rapher: Utai, pl. 93.

a company of women (figure 2.10). The figure closest to the viewer leads the procession, which though appearing to move toward the left was probably also understood to be moving inward toward the main Buddha on the back wall. This lady wears elaborate, pleated robes, “cloud-toed” shoes, and a broad, flamboyant lotus crown. She extends her left hand away from her body, while her right holds up a slender stick of incense to place in the censer held by a servant in front of her. Two female attendants are directly to her right and left, one of whom holds a large lotus flower aloft, and she is surrounded by a circle of a half-dozen female servants, some of whom hold other offerings, such as a tray of fruit. Behind her, servants attend to a second, smaller woman dressed in royal apparel. To the right of this woman was the smallest royal figure, in a more modest crown, yet wearing “cloud-toed” shoes and attended by her own servants. At the extreme right stood two women servants holding two large feather fans upright in a stationary position.

Portions of the imperial processions are now in the United States. Laurence Sickman acquired the empress procession in the 1930s for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. When he first went to Longmen in the fall of 1931, he had ink rubbings made of the reliefs, which were then intact.46 In December of the same year, however, he saw fragments of sculpture from Longmen in the art markets of Beijing, and on his next visit to Longmen, in March of 1933, he observed that “a large section of the Empress relief and several isolated heads were gone.” On his last visit, in 1934, the relief was “almost completely gone.” Sickman soon discovered that the fragments were in various hands, mostly in Beijing, Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, and Shanghai but some as far away as Germany. After he returned to take a curatorial position at the Nelson Gallery in 1935, Sickman spent the next several years gathering pieces, large and small, and only in the winter of 1939 – 1940 did the museum commence the laborious project of reconstruction. Based on the ink rubbings he

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had fortuitously taken in 1931 and with the assistance of the sculptor Wallace Rosenbauer, the mural was reconstructed. The missing pieces of drapery were replaced in plaster, as was the head of the figure on the lower left and the figure and the upraised hand in the upper right corner. The mural was placed on display in 1941. Sickman described the final effect memorably: “The work is rather like a person who has suffered a very severe accident. The skill of the facial surgeon may make him recognizable to his friends but he is never quite the same. . . . All who are concerned with the cultural traditions of China would far rather wish that the relief of the empress were still in faroff Ho-nan province, an integral part of the Pin-yang cave for which it was made.” By contrast, the acquisition of the emperor procession for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is described by American and Chinese sources as a case of premeditated international art theft. As curator of Far Eastern Art in the early 1930s, Alan Priest requested to be sent to China. Hearing that the relief sculptures of Binyang Central Grotto were being looted, he wanted to obtain some of them. According to his letters, Priest knew the empress procession had been dismantled, and he had an idea that Sickman was gathering the pieces.47 Rather than wait for the emperor procession to be taken apart by local stonecutters and run through the Beijing art market, however, Priest made a contract with the antiquities dealer Yue Bin in the autumn of 1934.48 The contract stated that Priest would pay $4,000 for six heads already in the possession of Yue, who further agreed to provide an additional thirteen heads for a complete price of $14,000. The contract noted that “if things occurred at the mountain” (i.e., Longmen) and “conditions no longer obtained,” the contract was void. This strongly suggests the other pieces had not yet been stolen. His contract notwithstanding, Priest had great difficulty in getting the heads and the remainder of the mural. He complained often that he was being sent fakes of the relief. In his correspondence, he was concerned with obtaining “twenty-one key pieces.”49 Since there are twenty-one heads in the emperor procession, these may be the pieces Priest considered most important. They seem to have come to him first, yet his efforts to obtain the entire mural may not have been as successful. Even a casual observer in the Chinese sculpture galleries of the Metropolitan Museum

can see the difference in color between the heads and the rest of the reconstructed mural. Gong Dazhong wrote that when Beijing was taken by the Communists in 1949, pieces of the emperor procession were found at Yue Bin’s house.50 Reassembly proved them to be the procession, minus the heads. As it is displayed in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the empress procession constitutes about two-thirds of the original composition, that is, only the section from the east wall, comprising the first two royal ladies and their attendants. The third royal lady, her six attendants, and the two servants with the large feather fans on the south wall were not acquired by Sickman.51 Gong Dazhong wrote that the pieces from the south wall were also found in Yue Bin’s house and were returned to Longmen.52 By contrast, the emperor procession represents the entire original composition, yet the manner in which the mural has been reconstituted and displayed in the Metropolitan Museum obscures the original construction. The entire length of the mural has been flattened into a single plane, but old photographs make clear that the figures from the right edge to the trees were on the east wall, while the figures from the trees to the left end of the composition were on the north wall. The trees were originally in the corner, serving as a transitional device from the east wall to the north. The way the heads angled toward each other across the corner suggested separate but related groups, as if the sculptors wanted to create a relationship between the two groups on the two walls but also perhaps to suggest that they were somehow different. The figures on the north wall are more densely clustered from top to bottom, suggesting a crowd of officials, not just a single file of worshipers. Alexander Soper thought the imperial processions represented the donor, Emperor Xuanwu, and his concubine Lady Hu, who became Empress Dowager Hu shortly after his death in 515.53 Two reasons why this is unlikely are given here, and I discuss the issue further in the following chapter. In the only Northern Wei procession at Longmen where the participants are labeled — the large Buddha shrine of 504 dedicated by monk Fasheng in Gu­ yang Grotto — the lay worshipers in the procession are also the shrine’s beneficiaries.54 Based on this precedent, the figures in the imperial processions are more likely to be the intended beneficiaries, Emperor Xiaowen and Empress Dowager Wenzhao. The second reason relates to

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the religious function of these processions. The purpose of representing people in a grotto is to direct the merit generated there to their souls. If Emperor Xuanwu dedicated the Binyang grottoes to his late parents, why would he have himself depicted and accrue the merit to himself? The gift-giving action of the grottoes is performed toward the beneficiaries’ representation inside the grotto, which is the pictorial equivalent to dedicatory inscriptions that transfer merit to the beneficiary by name. The figure of the emperor must represent the late emperor Xiaowen, the father of Emperor Xuanwu. His face is mature yet youthful, befitting a man who died at the age of thirty-three. The leading royal female figure must represent the emperor’s late mother, Lady Gao, ideally young and beautiful. She appears to be depicted as an empress, which would have been a posthumous elevation in rank as well as a posthumous Sinicization of that role since Emperor Xiaowen followed the Tabgatch tradition and did not appoint an empress. The other two aristocratic women, however, are not likely to be the other consorts of Emperor Xiaowen, since Lady Lin died before Emperor Xuanwu was born, while Lady Feng was suspected in the death of his mother and had been “granted suicide” by the emperor on his deathbed. The other consort known as Lady Feng was the younger sister of the first, and she had already been poisoned for having an affair. More likely the second and third women were the two sisters of Lady Gao.55 Their inclusion as beneficiaries of this grotto would be consonant with the honors and perquisites bestowed on Emperor Xuanwu’s maternal relatives when he succeeded to the throne.

The Jātaka Illustrations Above the imperial processions, the story of Prince Mahāsattva and the starving tigress is depicted on the left side of the doorway, while scenes from the story of Prince Sudāna are found on the other side. The Chinese versions are rather different in content from the old Pāli jātaka tales and the refined Sanskrit recensions in the courtly fourth-century Jātakamālā.56 The Viśvantara jātaka narrative, for example, was transformed by monk Shengjian of the Western Qin dynasty (385 – 431) into “The Scripture of Prince Sudāna.”57 The Mahāsattva jātaka narrative is found in at least six texts in the Chinese Buddhist canon,

but only one version is set in a bamboo grove, as illustrated here.58 This version is as follows: Once there was a king named Mahāratha, who had three sons, the youngest of whom was named Mahāsattva. One day, when the three princes were on an excursion in the imperial park, on their return home they saw a tigress with cubs several days old. Drawing around them, they could see the tigers were on the verge of starvation. Mahāsattva said, “What type of food does this tiger usually eat?” The eldest brother replied, “It only eats fresh, warm flesh and blood.” Mahāsattva then asked, “Who here can give this tiger something to eat?” The second brother replied, “Whoever is able to give up concern for his life.” Perceiving the dread in the minds of his brothers, Mahāsattva said, “Brothers, please return to my family what the tigress leaves of me.” So saying, he stripped off his clothes, hung them on bamboo branches, and placed himself before the tigress. She was too weak to eat him, so Mahāsattva cut his throat with a dry stalk of bamboo and threw himself down from a high hill. At this great act of charity, the earth shook, the skies went dark, and a rain of flowers and fragrance fell. The tigress then consumed his flesh and blood, leaving only his bones. Seeing this, the two brothers threw back their heads and wailed. When the queen heard the news, she went with the king into the hills to meet the two brothers. In the bamboo grove, they collected Mahāsattva’s bones and raised a seven-jeweled stūpa over them for worship. The Binyang illustrations read from right to left. On the right, the two brothers stand in the bamboo grove, talking to each other, their foreign royal status signified by their headdresses, which imitate the distinctive crescent-moon crown of Persian royalty.59 Prince Mahāsattva’s clothes hang from bamboo branches nearby. One brother gestures toward the scene on the left, in which the disrobed Mahāsattva kneels before the tigress. Since she is too weak to eat him alive, he is cutting his throat. Farther to the left, he is seen again, leaping from a high hill to his death below. The rest of the panel on the north wall is the imperial park — a hilly landscape with trees. The illustrations of the Prince Sudāna story are to be read left to right. On the left, Prince Sudāna (Skt. Viśvantara) and his wife Mandi take leave of his parents, the king and queen. The prince had devoted his life to charity, giving away food, clothing, and money to all who asked. He never refused a request. The king of an enemy state, taking ad-

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vantage of Sudāna’s charitable nature, sent envoys to ask him for the king’s giant “lotus-treading” white elephant. When the king found out his son had given away the protection of their state, he was terribly dismayed, but not wishing to harm his son, he banished him for twelve years to faraway Mount Dantaloka. The first scene shows the young couple offering obeisance to the king and queen before departing. The next scene shows Sudāna and Mandi carrying their children, a boy and a girl, into a mountain landscape. They left the capital riding in a horse-drawn carriage, but the prince gave away the horses and the carriage to those who asked. After he had given away everyone’s clothes, too, with “peaceful countenances and filled with joy,” the family entered the mountains. The third scene shows the family standing before a giant figure with a staff. Behind him, an immortal-like figure seated in a cave is the five-hundred-year-old monk Acyuta, whom Sudāna encountered on Mount Dantaloka. When the monk asked him what he sought in the mountains, Sudāna replied that he sought Mahāyāna enlightenment. Foreseeing that Sudāna would be reborn in his very next life as Prince Siddhārtha and become the Buddha, the monk said: “Your works of merit are so extensive that it will not be long now before you attain Mahāyāna enlightenment. When the prince attains unsurpassed and perfect enlightenment, I would like to become your first disciple.”60 The large figure with the staff is the god Indra, putting Sudāna’s charity to a final test.61 After Sudāna gave away his children to be servants, Indra disguised himself as a Brahmin and came to ask Sudāna for his beloved wife Mandi. When Sudāna, with a willing heart, gave her away, heaven and earth quaked with the magnificence of such an act of charity. Indra walked seven steps with Mandi, then turned and released her to Sudāna. He then revealed himself in splendor. Mandi offered him worship and asked him to grant three wishes: that her children be restored, that they not suffer hunger or thirst, and that she and her husband soon return to their home. The scene in the relief shows Mandi with her hands clasped together, making her requests to Indra. The story has a happy ending. The children were recognized in the public market and reported to the king, who immediately ransomed his grandchildren and, stricken with remorse, sent for Sudāna and Mandi. They were met on the road by the white elephant, decked out in a harness

of silver and gold, returned by the enemy state as a gesture of friendship to bear Sudāna home. The people welcomed him with flowers and incense, and he made his obeisance before his father and mother in the palace. The king then turned over his treasury to his son, whose desire to give was even greater than before. Sudāna gave without ceasing until he became the Buddha. These two stories were closely related in the minds of the Northern Wei faithful. The events were believed to have occurred in the same region. When the pilgrims Song Yun and Huisheng were sent to the West to obtain scriptures in 518, in their account of the country of Udyāna, they noted that this was “the place where Viśvantara gave up his children and where Mahāsattva threw his body to the ground.”62 Southeast of the capital, they saw the very spot where Mahāsattva had sacrificed himself to the tigress, while on the mountain was the Monastery of the Collected Bones. Southwest of the capital, they traveled to Mount Dantaloka, where they saw Prince Sudāna’s thatched cottage, the tree the children had run around while trying to escape, and the cave of the five-hundredyear-old monk Acyuta.63 To a Northern Wei visitor to the Binyang grotto, the two stories connected in space and time. Further, the point of both stories was the same: to celebrate the virtue of giving (dāna) and to illustrate the limitless compassion and generosity of the bodhisattvaprince, the Buddha-to-be.

The Icon of Vimalakīrti and Mañjuśrī The debate between the Indian layman Vimalakīrti and the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī is depicted in the top register, high over the viewer’s head. Mañjuśrī is on the left side of the doorway, sitting cross-legged, wearing the flowing scarves and robes of a bodhisattva, facing across the exit toward Vimalakīrti.64 Behind Mañjuśrī stand two bodhisattvas on lotus bases, while in front of him is the Buddha’s disciple Śāriputra, gesturing toward the goddess in Vimalakīrti’s retinue. On the right, Vimalakīrti reclines in a curtained bed, against a plump bolster, holding a large feather fan in his right hand (figure 2.11).65 Next to his bed stand two women of his household, while in front of him is the goddess, who is teaching Śāriputra a lesson.66 These are the principal figures in an episode in chapter 7 of the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa Sūtra, or Sūtra on the Exposi­

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tions of Vimalakīrti, translated by Kumārajīva in 406. This scripture, which teaches the doctrine of nonduality, centers on the figure of Vimalakīrti, a wealthy householder living in Vaisali during the time of the Buddha, who was renowned for his wise understanding of the Dharma and his invincibility in religious debate. According to the scripture, seeing “the sickness of the world” caused Vimalakīrti to feign illness, to give the Buddha the opportunity to ask his company of bodhisattvas and disciples to visit Vimalakīrti and be taught by him. Each gave the Buddha a harrowing description of his last visit, when he tried to discuss the Dharma with Vimalakīrti and was found deficient in understanding. None could bring himself to visit the invalid. Only the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, the most sagacious of all bodhisattvas, agreed to lead the others to call on Vimalakīrti. The company discussed the doctrine of nonduality, that is, the idea that enlightenment consists in understanding the error of making distinctions, since all things are but temporary phenomena. Asking each of the bodhisattvas in turn for his definition of nonduality, Vimalakīrti demolished every one. Finally, when Mañjuśrī asked him how he would define it, Vimalakīrti simply maintained an unbroken silence, thereby producing a perfect expression of nonduality and “winning” the debate.

Reading the Reliefs Although a modern visitor might need some time to make sense of the sequence of elements on the exit wall, a Northern Wei viewer would have been able to read it quickly as she left the grotto in a ritual procession walking up the center path toward the doorway. The relief carvings on the back of a Maitreya stele of 471, now in the Forest of Steles, Xi’an, reveal that the composition of the panels on the east wall was already conventional for Northern Wei viewers.67 At the base of the 471 stele are four seated figures of bo­ dhisattvas. In the panels above, the jātaka tale of Sumedha and the Dīpan.kara Buddha is told in several scenes over five registers. The narrative device is the boustrophedon (as the ox plows), that is, the action proceeds from right to left in the lowest register, then from left to right in the register above it, and so on. At the top of the stele in a single panel is the climax of the story, where Sumedha is later reborn as Siddhārtha, shown as a large standing figure. The exit

Figure 2.11. Vimalakīrti, east wall, Binyang Central. Photo, ca. 1920. From Friedrich Perzyński, Von Chinas Göttern: Reisen in China, pl. 27.

wall of Binyang Central is similarly arranged. Using the south side as an example, at the base of the wall are several seated, nonnarrative figures, the spirit kings. Above them, the narrative action begins at the right with the women fan bearers of the empress procession, which moves to the left, with the leftward movement of the royal ladies and their servants. Above the women, the jātaka story of Prince Sudāna begins at the left and moves to the right. In the panel at the top, the large figure of Vimalakīrti, seated

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Figure 2.12. Vimalakīrti and Mañjuśrī on exit (south) wall, Cave 6, Yungang. From Zhongguo shiku: Yungang shiku, v. 1, pl. 110.

at the right, and the goddess both face and gesture toward Mañjuśrī on the left. The debate of Mañjuśrī and Vimalakīrti was as immediately recognizable as any single icon. In the Northern Wei, this scene was invariably placed at the top of an arch, the two figures facing each other. At Yungang, in Cave 6, for example, the facing figures of Mañjuśrī and Vimalakīrti are situated over the doorway, to be seen as the worshiper exited (figure 2.12), while in the shrines in Guyang Grotto,

the two are found either on the inside spandrels of the niche or on the façade, but always above and flanking the main Buddha figure, facing each other. Thus, the Mañjuśrī and Vimalakīrti figures in Binyang Grotto are situated and oriented to be instantly recognized by the contemporaneous viewer. Thanks to the conventional layering of the iconic image of Mañjuśrī and Vimalakīrti over two bou­strophedon registers and a base of caryatid figures, no matter which side of the procession the aristocratic wor-

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shiper was on, she could run her eyes up the wall and read the reliefs easily, without having to crane her neck and peer at the images like a country bumpkin. The sculptors also used certain devices in their carving to ensure the reliefs were readable by the natural light filtering through the doorway. For example, the noses of the figures in three-quarter view were carved frontally. This intentional distortion is best observed in the emperor procession in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the panel is lit from above and the noses stand out rather weirdly. By contrast, in the sculpture gallery of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the lighting of the empress procession is set to imitate the shaft of light that came through the open doorway to the left. Here the viewer can observe the intended effect: the noses cast deeper shadows across the faces, which prevents them from disappearing and creates a fuller sense of three-dimensionality in the faces. A second device is the use of undercutting to project certain elements forward. For example, the layered petals that make up the headdresses of the two royal ladies in the empress procession are deeply undercut at the sides in order to make each layer of the petals appear to be coming forward toward the viewer. The sides of their “cloud-toed” shoes are also rendered in this fashion, which creates a sense of volume with effects of light and shadow. Optical illusions were produced on a larger scale as well. The relief panels on the left side actually wrap onto the north wall, while the panels on the right side wrap onto the south wall. The sculptors designed the imagery on the north and south walls to pull the figures in the eastwall sections forward toward the viewer. In the Mañjuśrī panel, for instance, the two attendant bodhisattvas are placed high on the north wall in a standing position, while Mañjuśrī is seated lower, on the east wall. Thanks to the viewer’s mental understanding that things higher in the composition should be read as “behind” things positioned lower, Mañjuśrī comes forward to sit “in front of” the standing bodhisattvas. The Vimalakīrti panel is particularly clever in this regard. Vimalakīrti himself is depicted on the east wall, but the bolster against which he leans is on the south wall so that it appears to emerge from behind him toward the viewer. The frame of the bed also extends onto the south wall, with its curtains swinging onto the south wall, further creating a three-dimensional setting. The area behind the two women who attend him on the

south wall is deeply carved away, creating the sense they are in the viewer’s space. The two jātaka stories also make use of the division into two areas. In the tigress story on the left, the cliff from which the prince throws himself is in the corner, while the leaping figure of the prince is on the east wall. To a viewer exiting the grotto, it would appear that the prince was hurling himself forward from the north wall into the space of the grotto itself. In the Prince Sudāna story, the mundane settings where the prince and his family are banished from court and sent into exile in the mountains are depicted on the east wall, closer to us in the human realm, while the supernatural figures of Indra and the ancient monk are on the south wall, as if in the depths of the mountains, in a sacred space. In the empress procession, the first two royal women and their attendants are on the east wall, while the third royal lady, her attendants, and the two attendants holding the tall feather fans are on the south wall. The south wall section repeats many of the east-wall elements, such as the turning of the heads at various angles to create psychological space and a royal lady shown in an elaborate crown and holding a lotus flower aloft. This section also functions separately to bring the crowd of women into our space and to bracket the group by means of the stationary attendants with the large feather fans. In the emperor procession, the two sections are divided by a column of layered tree crowns in the corner. The heads of the northwall group of men rise higher on the wall, and they are more densely crowded together, which gives the impression they are moving forward into the viewer’s space. The last three men on the left, who all face toward the doorway, constitute the left bracket for this panel. All these devices demonstrate that the sculptors designed the east-wall reliefs to be read by someone exiting the grotto along the path engraved on the floor of the grotto. Such a viewer, walking in a ritual procession, would not have the opportunity to examine the east wall and the side walls separately, but would have a single oblique view in her peripheral vision that would merge the two into a three-dimensional space. All the devices work together to create the illusion of three-dimensionality and realism, which indicates the difference in function between the reliefs and the colossal icons. According to traditional “five phases” ideas about sym-

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pathetic resonance, the closer an image is to the “true” appearance or nature of the thing depicted, the more likely the spirit of the thing is to respond to and occupy the effigy.68 This accorded with contemporaneous Buddhist thought, which held that just as the dharmakāya had manifested itself in the human form of Śākyamuni Buddha in the past, now it manifested itself in man-made images of the Buddha’s body. If the statue has a light-emitting ūrnā, glowing deep-blue hair, and radiant golden skin (as the scriptures describe the Buddha), and if its inscription claims it manifests the thirty-two laks.ana on its body, the donor can feel confident that her statue is sufficiently a “Buddha body” for the dharmakāya to manifest in the icon.69 These beliefs are expressed in the “apology for image-making” that opens almost all of the substantial Northern Wei dedications at Longmen, and they explain why so many dedicatory inscriptions at Longmen assert the accuracy and completeness of their image of the Buddha.70 In contrast to the ideal qualities Buddha figures had to possess in order to get the response of the dharmakāya, in terms of the spiritual function of the grotto, it was important that the effigies of the emperor and empress be realistic, which is why they are life-size, wear contemporary costume, and gesture convincingly. The purpose of placing images of the late emperor Xiaowen and Dowager Empress Wenzhao in the grotto was to identify them as the sole beneficiaries to whom the merit generated there was transferred. As such, their images should be as lifelike as possible so that the merit would be transferred precisely to them. The sculptors did everything they could to attain this goal through sculptural means, but no doubt the final effect of lifelikeness was realized with paint and gilding. Were we able to see these figures as they were originally decorated, the effect would have been quite convincing.

The Karmic Gift The imperial procession scenes constituted the endpoint of the great act of charity on the part of Emperor Xuanwu, for this is where the merit is credited. From the moment of the grotto’s completion onward, anyone entering the grotto and offering worship to the Buddha figures within would generate merit.71 By producing simulacra of his late parents, the emperor guaranteed that the merit would be transferred to benefit the souls of his parents, as surely

as if he had done so by listing their names in an inscription.72 Moreover, the act of transferring merit also earns merit.73 It is even possible that medieval believers considered the sculpted images of the imperial couple to be making merit, since they were obviously depicted in the act of offering worship. In sum, the grotto embodies as many as five different avenues of merit generation: sponsoring icons, charitable giving, transferring merit, worshiping before icons, and perhaps even images of people offering worship. Equally, there is a portrait of the donor in the grotto, for in Marcel Mauss’ memorable words: “to give something is to give a part of oneself.”74 Ilana Silber has called this sociological observation “the deep intermingling of the donor’s identity with the gift that is transferred.”75 In my opinion, the reliefs on the east wall were not only intended to direct a karmic gift to the donor’s late parents, but also to represent Emperor Xiaowen as a patron of Buddhism and the emperor of all China, while depicting Emperor Xuanwu himself as filial, wise, compassionate, and generous. Let us review the relief panels from the perspective of self-representation and self-reward. In the traditional caryatid role, the spirit kings represent the submission of all other faiths to the Buddha and elevate Emperor Xiaowen into a royal protector of the faith. Further, as foreign images set beneath the imperial figures, they represent the traditional submission of foreign states to the emperor of China. This positioned Emperor Xiaowen in the never-realized role of the ruler of a reunified China, the attainment of which was his purpose in adopting policies of Sinicization, relocating the capital to Luoyang, and warring against the Southern Qi. Giving (dāna) is the greatest of all merit-making activities, and the greater the cost, the greater the merit. The intended impression that the emperor had spared no expense in his gift to his parents was suggested by the ultimate acts of charity in the two jātaka tales, in which Prince Mahāsattva gave his body and Prince Sudāna gave all his possessions. These stories present a totality of Buddhist giving. Together they represent the two fundamental types of giving (the gift of material goods and the gift of a person) and the two acceptable motivations (to help others and to attain Buddhahood).76 Again, however, this great gift returns to the giver, since the comparison of Emperor Xuanwu’s act of charity to his late parents with the great

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sacrifices of the bodhisattva-princes not only emphasizes his royal station and his faith, but also shows him as a paragon of filial piety. In the top register is the debate of Mañjuśrī and Vima­ lakīrti. Vimalakīrti was a wealthy layman who attained such wisdom that he could defeat enlightened beings in debate, yet he never left his home and family to enter the monastic life. He was wise and compassionate, yet he lived in the world as a wealthy and powerful man. As such, he was a natural model for aristocrats hoping for enlightenment in lay life. Everyone at court knew the Vimalakīrti

Sūtra was a particular favorite of Emperor Xuanwu, so the contemporaneous aristocratic visitor might easily have seen him represented in the figure of Vimalakīrti. Taken overall, the message of the east wall reliefs is that an expensive act of charity has been carried out for the late emperor of China, a powerful international ruler and protector of Buddhism, by his filial son, the wisest and most compassionate of Buddhist laymen, a generous bodhisattva-prince. The east wall completes the donor’s gift to his parents and his reward to himself.

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Three    The Rhetoric of Expenditure Princes, aristocrats, and noble officials donated elephants and horses as if they were slipping shoes off their feet. Commoners and wealthy families parted with their possessions and their wealth as a person leaves behind his footprints on the road. As a result, Buddhist monasteries were built side by side, and jeweled pagodas rose up in row after row. People competed among themselves in copying images of the Buddha. — Yang Xuanzhi, 5491

W

hat price salvation? Chinese Buddhists believed that acts of merit generate karmic benefits that can be credited toward a salvation conceived of commonly as rebirth in a paradise or Pure Land, where one could see the Buddha and hear the Dharma directly, or less commonly as the attainment of enlightenment and nirvān.a from this existence. Acts of merit included a variety of faith-filled actions intended to propagate the Buddhist Dharma, such as establishing monasteries, building pagodas, setting up dhāran.ī pillars, copying sūtras, painting icons, and carving statuary. As most believers were not artisans, they could not produce such objects themselves. Thus, to generate acts of merit, the believer had to spend money.2 The inscriptions of Longmen tell us about beliefs and practices concerning expenditure for one particular type of merit generation — the carving of a shrine or grotto in stone. That the cost was cited is worth note and suggests there were perceived spiritual and social benefits to the donor for stating how much he or she spent. About a dozen dedicatory inscriptions and records mention the cost of making a shrine or grotto at Longmen. Many speak in general ways, and the language used could be dismissed as figures of speech or hyperbole, but I have chosen to take the statements of the donors at face value and, from what they say, to explore certain questions. Was a shrine supposed to be expensive? Who was the social audience for information about the cost of a shrine? Was the level of expenditure and the rhetoric used to describe it conditioned by gender? What was used to pay for a shrine? Why were lay societies

formed to produce a shrine? To whom did the donors give the fee? How much did a grotto cost? As to whether shrines were supposed to be expensive, an inscription by the monk Daoxing indirectly answers in the affirmative. Speaking on behalf of the society of laymen he headed, Daoxing wrote a lengthy dedication of a Śākyamuni shrine added to Yaofang Grotto in 575.3 The inscription opens with the traditional apology for image-making, in which Daoxing made this argument: “If there is not a spilling out of valuables to create an image, how can we be illuminated by those posthumous rays of light (from the Buddha)?” (3A). Daoxing meant to say that icons help people have faith, but his language — “a spilling out of valuables”  — reveals that paying for a statue was not a routine expenditure. Not only was making statues expensive, it was supposed to be expensive. Of the groups traditionally called “the four assemblies” of believers — laymen, lay­women, nuns, and monks — let us begin with laymen in lay socie­ ties to examine the rhetoric they employed in discussing their expenditures, what they really did spend, and whom they intended to inform.

Laymen Donors Donations by laymen most readily reveal who the social audience was for information about the expense of a shrine because laymen had traditionally borne the burden of public demonstration of filial piety, and this task seems to have carried over into Buddhist practice as a motivation for producing a shrine. In the Han dynasty, the desire to

make a public spectacle of filial piety resulted in the practice known as “rich burials.” The sons of prominent people were expected to bankrupt themselves in producing the most lavish possible funeral service and tomb for their late parents since the amount the son spent was considered a tangible measure of his love and respect for them. Attending the funeral service and viewing the contents of the tomb were public events, and it was upon the public response to the expenditure of the son that his reputation would rest.4 The fine quality of the tomb and its expense were described in the inscriptions carved on the pillars and steles set up at the burial site.5 This traditional urge to extol the quality and expense of the project was easily expressed in Buddhist dedications. Good examples of filial-son lay society donors are Wei Lingzang and Xue Fashao, since their large Buddha shrine in Guyang Grotto was probably the most expensive shrine by a layman group in the Northern Wei (see figure 1.13 above). The niche is two and a half meters high, large enough to be a good-sized small grotto on its own.6 Moreover, it is elaborately carved with large high-relief figures and broad areas of low-relief decor, with a large dedicatory stele that bore a lengthy inscription. Such a large amount of skilled labor must have been very expensive. Wei Lingzang and Xue Fashao dedicated the merit from this large shrine first to the imperial house, then to themselves and to their families.7 Of their expenditure, they said: “We made bold to exhaust our families’ wealth to make one stone image such that none of the auxiliary figures have been omitted” (1C). The phrase, “we exhausted our families’ wealth,” occurs consistently in dedications by societies of laymen. A lay society of thirty-five members, headed by their society leader Zhao Ahuan, said: “Having experienced the border between life and obliteration, and understanding the divide between going and staying, we know the body is a floating cloud and our lives are like frost and dew. Therefore each of us has exhausted his family’s wealth to make one statue of Maitreya” (3B).8 Another lay society of more than twenty men said in their inscription in Lianhua Grotto, “Each one exhausted his own and his family’s valuables” (3C).9 In his inscription, monk Daoxing praised the generosity of his lay society’s members, saying, “Everyone (in the society) released marvelous [wealth], reverently to have made one image of Śākyamuni . . . that this slight 52   |  r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e

act of sincerity may aid and benefit our society members’ spiritual leaders, parents, and seven generations of ancestors to take refuge in the truth” (3D).10 The clichéd nature of these statements could suggest that claims of lavish expenditure were hyperbole, but it should be noted that the merit from these shrines was usually transferred to the parents and ancestors of the patrons, so although the mechanism for blessing them was Buddhist, the motivation was the demonstration of filial piety. Therefore, it is more likely these laymen were actually making a public display of lavish expenditure in the same way their ancestors had drained their finances in the practice of “rich burials.” An imperial edict issued in 472 expressed concern that believers were indeed “exhausting the family wealth”: The inhabitants of the capital and the provinces are devoted to establishing merit-making enterprises and to creating towering and magnificent pagodas and monasteries, worthy of glorifying the supreme doctrine of the Buddha. However, some ignorant followers assert their pride in surpassing one another. Poor and rich compete with each other in expending and exhausting their wealth and property. . . . We are father and mother to the people, and compassion and nurture is Our task. From now on, this practice is to stop.11

Evidently, believers were ruining themselves to pay for acts of merit, and this must have been commonplace, or the throne would not have issued such a proclamation. The social purpose for this excessive spending on Buddhist projects appeared to be the same as for “rich burials” — that is, gaining social credit through the public demonstration of the patron’s filial dedication to the posthumous welfare of his parents. In addition to making his expenditure manifest through a magnificent project, in the text that accompanied the commission, the patron further reinforced the impression that nothing was spared in providing for the deceased, stating in his dedicatory inscription that he “exhausted the family wealth.” The lay society patrons’ assertions that they had “exhausted their families’ wealth” may have been particularly vehement because they were concerned they would be perceived as miserly for having joined a society in order to be a donor. Still, there were practical and spiritual functions particular to lay societies that made them highly advantageous to donors and beneficiaries. Jacques Gernet de-

scribed two reasons why believers would group together to finance an act of merit.12 The first reason is the most practical — the desired project was simply too expensive for any individual to bear on his own. Even if someone gave “all his wealth,” he still could not afford to have a statue made; only by joining with others could he become a sponsor. The second reason is that giving in groups was believed to generate more merit than giving individually. According to a mid-sixth-century indigenous scripture, the Buddha said: Son of good family! Even if, moreover, there were a person who, with his abundant wealth, carried out giving singlemindedly from the time of his birth until old age, [his charity still would] not be as good as a multitude of people, regardless of whether they are poor or rich, noble or lowly, clergy or laity, together exhorting and influencing one another to each take a little of their resources and accumulate them at one place and, as needed, donate them. . . . The merit thus acquired will be extremely great.13

Here, the amount of money donated was not the issue. What was important was that these people joined together to build up each other’s faith and make public witness of it, which generated merit as surely as did the making of the statue. Perhaps part of this process of mutual edification was for all to declare that their sacrifices were equal and total. Hence, another audience for the donors’ statement concerning expenditure might have been themselves, to the benefit of their faith. Lay individuals, by contrast to lay societies, did not confess that they “exhausted the family’s wealth.” Instead, they said they had parted with their own belongings or their own private funds. Inscriptions in which an individual layman discussed expenditure are rare, but one by a Northern Wei man named Du Yong’an said, “Then I parted with my money and property, to make a Measureless Life Buddha” (3E).14 Although Du’s prayer that all sentient beings ascend to the “marvelous land” of the Measureless Life Buddha and all his ancestors and living relatives attain enlightenment at the three assemblies of Maitreya is not exceptional for the year 519, the phrase “money and property” (zi chan) is unusual, and it suggests Du sold or traded some material goods.

Laywomen Donors Individual laywoman donors spoke of giving their belongings to finance a shrine. The Śākyamuni shrine dedicated by a laywoman named Song Jingfei is the most widely known intrusive shrine at Longmen, thanks to its publication in Sherman Lee’s popular textbook A History of Far Eastern Art.15 Lee chose this shrine of 527 to illustrate late Northern Wei sculptural style, principally the “cascade or waterfall effect” of the drapery in the robe spilling over the Buddha’s knees and down the front of the shrine.16 What the textbook does not reveal is that the shrine is eighty centimeters in height and is situated on the north wall of Lianhua Grotto, to the lower right of the colossal attendant bodhisattva (figure 3.1).17 The inscription is at the bottom of the niche, just a few inches above the erosion that has claimed the lower part of the grotto. It reads: On the eighth day, a gengzi day, of the fourth month, in which the first was a guisi day, of the third year of the Xiao(chang) era of the Great Wei, a guiwei year (May 23, 527), Laywoman Song Jingfei, whose poor karma from former incarnations has left my fortune shallow and dirty, was born (on the continent of) Jambudvīpa and received the form of a woman. I relied on my late parents, who compassionately raised me with profound kindness, until I attained maturity. My insignificant self, looking respectfully upon their labor to raise me, but lacking the means to recompense them, has now parted with half my hairpins and girdles, and respectfully, for my late father and mother, has reverently had made one image of Śākyamuni. With this bit of merit, I pray that my late father and mother may be reborn in the land of marvelous joy in the West, there to meet Buddha and hear the Dharma, then to see Maitreya manifest in the world.18 May all those with form share in this blessing.19 (3F)

Although her shrine is typical, Song Jingfei’s inscription is unusual in discussing how she paid for it. “I have now parted with half my hairpins and girdles” indicates she had no money of her own and had to give some of her personal possessions in order to finance the shrine, and since she cites no husband, living or dead, she was not a married woman with control over the household finances but a young woman from an aristocratic family who had been orphaned before marriage and was using what she had to produce this act of merit. That she had r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e   |  53

Figure 3.1. North wall, Lianhua Grotto, shrine of Song Jingfei in lower right, 527. Photo, © H. Iwata, Peking, ca. 1920s. AAAUM slides #44,855. Courtesy of the Asian Art Archives, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

hairpins and girdles worth selling, however, suggests she was the daughter of a family of some means, and she may well have been the younger daughter of Song Wei (d. 525), a hereditary aristocrat who served as Regional Inspector of Luozhou.20 If so, she would have been about twelve or thirteen when she sponsored her shrine in 527, and though it might seem precocious to us that Jingfei said she had “attained maturity,” actually she would have been considered an adult woman in Northern Wei society.21 Another laywoman who used her own property was an elderly woman named Zhu Zhunian, who sponsored a small shrine containing a seated Buddha triad in Yaofang Grotto in 650.22 Below the shrine, which is only twentythree centimeters in height, is an engraved inscription, which reads: On the twenty-third day of the first month of the inaugural year of the Yonghui era of Great Tang (March 1, 650), the Pure and Faithful Woman Zhu Zhunian, approaching old age and having received an imperial grant of figured silk, now has had made one Amitābha shrine. Reverently, to repay (the imperial) kindness and largesse, I first (transfer the merit) to aid the emperor and next (transfer it) to all sentient beings. Together may they pass out of the gates of suffering and all ascend that other shore.23 (3G)

Zhu Zhunian’s property was a grant of silk, which the state routinely bestowed on persons who had reached the ages of sixty, seventy, or eighty, and she responded by spending the silk on an act of merit to transfer the merit directly to the personage who had given it to her. Silk was used as money in medieval China, since its quality and quantity could be easily determined, and it was durable and lightweight. It was also used as a standard of value throughout the country, although in the north, merchants also used lead and iron, while in the south, gold, silver, cinnabar, and ivory were also used for trade.24 Only in 732 was a cash economy encouraged by the government issue of coin. Hence Zhu undoubtedly paid for her shrine with the silk itself. This issue of forms of payment raises a related question: whom did the donors pay? What little information there is on to whom the money and goods were paid suggests patrons contacted sculptors. The only records I have found at Longmen in which a patron describes interaction with someone responsible for his or her shrine are the inscription for the Sishun Ward

shrine in Binyang South Grotto and Lady Yuchi’s inscription in Guyang Grotto.25 The first states “we commissioned inspired craftsmen” (5C), while Lady Yuchi said, “I have asked the artisans to engrave stone to make this image of Maitreya” (3H). Although her statement could be taken as a figure of speech, if taken at face value, it would mean Lady Yuchi, or more likely her factotum, negotiated directly with the sculptors to have her shrine made. Monk Fasheng, in his dedication at Maijishan, also said, “I humbly asked the good workmen.”26 There is no indication that monks operated as go-betweens for patrons and stoneworkers. One reason may be that no monks were resident at Longmen before the Tang dynasty.27 The emperor did not go through clerical intermediaries either; his orders for a grotto were carried out by the director of the Palace Domestic Service, the court eunuch in charge of imperial building projects. Laywomen donors seem to describe their expenditure in accord with the size and quality of their projects. Chen Yun, who was married to an important military official named Li Changshou (d. 535), sponsored a modest Śākyamuni shrine on the upper part of the south wall of Yaofang Grotto.28 The carving is rather shallow and not of particularly high quality, and the shrine gives no indication of having been expensive.29 The truth of this is hinted at in the inscription, which was carved to the left of the shrine in a crudely planed area. The dedication reads: Chen Yun, the wife of Li Changshou, Superior Grand Master of the Palace, General for the Pacification of the South, Southern Area Commander in Chief, and Dynasty-Founding Duke of Qingshui District, who in the past was not the legal wife, for the house of Li and in reverence to the good wife (Li’s late wife), makes known her intention that she (the late wife) be released into enlightenment. Thus I have parted with the family wealth to have made one Śākyamuni image shrine. I vow that the favor my lord received from the August Emperor Gao (Emperor Xiaowen) be remembered. Further, I pray for myself, my late son, my grandson in the army, and all those living that they have peace. May the holy saints protect and aid us so my family members have security and tranquility and their lives ascend to heaven’s level, and may those to come all agree with this prayer. This record prepared on the thirteenth day of the sixth month of the third year of the Yong’an era (July 23, 530).30 (3I) r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e   |  55

A careful reading of Chen Yun’s language shows that she did not say she “exhausted the family wealth”; rather she “parted with the family wealth,” which implies that she spent some money but did not bankrupt herself or her family with this commission. This does not indicate any lack of desire to honor her predecessor, Li Changshou’s late first wife, since the decision to earn merit for that lady was presumably Chen Yun’s anyway. Rather, as a second wife who had come up in the world, she made a modest statement to match the plainness of the project and the humility expected of a second wife spending her husband’s money. A laywoman donor who did control her own money was Dang Faduan, who was employed as a palace director.31 Under Emperor Xiaowen, the positions in the women’s bureaucracy were graded into five ranks among which the position of director was near the top, at rank 2, so Dang was a person of some consequence who had a salary from the government. She sponsored a substantial Buddha shrine on the north wall of Guyang Grotto with the following dedication: The Pure and Faithful Woman and Buddhist Disciple, Palace Director Dang Faduan, was not fortunate enough to die in old age, but she had gathered her life’s earnings in anticipation of this inspired plan (to sponsor a shrine). For this reason, Si Yun, the Supervisor of the Entourage in the Court of the Women’s Chambers, for (her) has had made one image of Śākyamuni with two bodhisattvas. I pray that Duan be reborn directly in the land of marvelous bliss. I further pray that the imperial influence be increasingly magnified, the Great Wei abound in successions and draw a sequence of a thousand reigns, and blessings be garnered for myriad generations. Completed on the nineteenth day of the third month, in which the first day was a bingyin day, in the third year of the Zhengshi era, a bingxu year, of the Great Dai (April 27, 506).32 (3J)

The inscription reveals that Dang Faduan had passed away before the shrine was commissioned and that the commission was actually carried out by a eunuch official in the palace women’s quarters who was her coworker. Si Yun must have been her friend, as well, for he rather touchingly refers to her by the nickname “Duan.” He transferred the merit first to her and then to their employer, the royal house of Wei, which makes the social audience for his statement quite obvious: the imperial family. 56   |  r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e

The eunuch’s dedication says that Dang Faduan entrusted him with her life’s savings to have a shrine made at Longmen. Is this hyperbole, or was the shrine that expensive? Her shrine is impressive in its size — 130 centimeters high and 84 centimeters wide — and it was placed in a very visible spot above N1 (see figure 1.3). Although the large seated Buddha figure in the center has been stolen, the large standing attendant bodhisattvas are still there, and there is considerable detail in the relief carvings, including the disciples and apsarasas in the ceiling of the shrine. Compared to the shrine donated by Great Consort Hou in 503, it has more detail and is actually somewhat larger than the other shrine, which is 110 centimeters high. That Dang could have produced a shrine larger and finer than one made for a member of the royal family suggests a substantial expenditure of funds. I suspect that the information provided by Si Yun was not hyperbole and that Dang did indeed spend her life’s savings for this shrine.

. Sa ngha Donors With regard to expenditure by members of the Buddhist . sangha, it would appear that Chinese monks and nuns, like their counterparts in India, donated their private wealth for sculpture.33 The Maitreya shrine dedicated by the nuns Fawen and Falong in Guyang Grotto is inscribed: On the twenty-fifth day of the fourth month of the second year of the Yongping era, a jichou year (May 29, 509), nuns Fawen and Falong, awakened (to the fact that this is) not an eternal world, deeply expressed our sincere vow, and parted with and exhausted our private wealth, each for herself, reverently to have made a single Maitreya image. We pray it may cause all who pass by and see it to be saturated with the moisture of the Dharma rain and all who offer worship to it to share in unsurpassed joy. At the three sermons under the Dragon Flower (Tree), we pray we may take our place in the stream (of those who achieve enlightenment). May all sentient beings universally share this blessing.34 (3K)

The shrine is approximately seventy-five centimeters high, or about two-thirds the size of the shrines sponsored by Palace Director Dang Faduan and Great Consort Hou, and although the Maitreya bodhisattva and the inscription below have been stolen, the remaining niche is finely carved and includes bas-relief images of the nuns.35

Thus, it would seem that Fawen and Falong probably donated either as Dang Faduan did, giving everything they had, or as Great Consort Hou did, from the riches of a princely treasury. Even without this explicit reference to “private wealth,” the evidence of Guyang Grotto alone indicates some members of the Buddhist order had considerable funds at their disposal. Huicheng produced the entire grotto, for example, while Fasheng sponsored a large shrine (S2). Even those who seemed to play down their wealth, however, are contradicted by the evidence of their projects. Monk Huile wrote, “Now I follow with my meager funds . . . and with sincerity I have had one image made (3L),” yet his “meager funds” produced a shrine as large as the one by his patron, the Prince of Beihai.36 Huile’s inscription says the Prince of Beihai was instrumental in his conversion to Buddhism and that the prince was mindful of him day and night, an intimacy that suggests Huile was a member of the prince’s household before . he entered the sangha. If so, then Huile’s “meager funds” were those of an aristocrat. Another monk who alluded to his poverty may have been more truthful. Monk Daosong of Taoquan Monastery in Qingzhou (in modern Shandong Province) sponsored a small shrine in 508 on the south wall of Guyang Grotto.37 In his dedication below the shrine, he wrote, “From this world of Jambudvīpa, I was blessed to be able to take refuge in the Three Jewels, (so with my) begging bowl leftovers, I have had a Maitreya made and Seven Buddhas with two bodhisattvas such that their appearances are complete, and I take this slight blessing and extend it universally to all sentient beings” (3M). Daosong’s statement that he came to Buddhism after having lived in the world suggests he became a believer as an adult and may have already possessed the financial means to travel to Longmen and produce a shrine. His shrine is quite small, wedged in below the draperies of the colossal bodhisattva on the south wall, and at thirty-seven centimeters high, it was not likely to have been very expensive, although the inscription must have raised the price somewhat. Small as his shrine is, however, it still cost something, and what that reveals of his possession of personal money the pious language in his inscription seems to excuse. . One member of the sangha who apparently felt no need to disguise her wealth and status was the nun Cixiang. She had a small grotto produced on her own (no. 660), sev-

eral meters to the north of Lianhua Grotto, in 520. A cube about a meter and a half in all dimensions, the grotto has no east wall and is open to the daylight. Its floor is about four meters above the path at the base of the cliff, and since there is no stairway up to it, to see into the shrine the visitor must step on the low retaining wall of the pond at the cliff base, stand on tiptoe, and peer upward, taking care not to fall into the pond. Not only is it a good-sized grotto, its program is one favored by the elite: the Buddhas of the Three Periods. On the altar on the back wall is a seated Buddha figure with hands in dhyāna mudrā flanked by small standing attendant disciple and bodhisattva figures. He depicts Śākyamuni as representative of the Thousand Buddhas of the Present Kalpa, while seated on the north wall is a similar Buddha who is likely one of the Buddhas of the Past, and on the south wall is a seated, cross-ankled Maitreya, intended to represent the Thousand Buddhas of the Future Kalpa (figure 3.2). Further expense was added to the grotto with the basrelief carvings on the walls above the attendant figures and on the ceiling. Directly above the attendant figures is the debate between Vimalakīrti and Mañjuśrī. Above Vimalakīrti are two large lotus flowers floating in the air, while above Mañjuśrī is a lotus with elaborately articulated petals, rather like a snowflake, flying on clouds. Above these are a couple of small apsarasas whose scarves flow into the swirl of the three large apsarasas around the large lotus in the middle of the ceiling. On the face of the main wall altar is the inscription: Record of a single grotto made by the bhiks.unī Cixiang Huizheng on the twenty-first day of the third month of the third year of the Shengui era of Great Wei (April 24, 520). Though it is the case that spiritual enlightenment is vast and profound, and the incorporeal is true and far-reaching, it is traces that establish the Way, their sublimity expressing an unvarying model.38 Without them, how could we know how to symbolize and praise its profound principles? For this reason, we revere and thirst for the Dharma ford. Though this reflection (of the Buddha) image is constructed small, the forms of blessings (it engenders) will be extensive. As I have been born in this troublesome body, I pray I may vault to a realm without obstacles (to enlightenment), where I will receive the favor of immersion and the enrichment of all beings in the Dharma realm. I have had stone carved to realize the true r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e   |  57

Figure 3.2. Maitreya bodhisattva, south wall, Cixiang Grotto, 520. From Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen ershipin: Beike yu zaoxiang yishu. (image) and engraved this act of merit (to last) eighty(-four) thousand (years). May it extend unto the thrice-obedient, and may they dare to share in this blessing.39 (3N)

Two concepts expressed by Cixiang are specific to her as a woman and require explanation. The first is in her statement “as I have been born in this troublesome body, I pray I may vault to a realm without obstacles.” What was “troublesome” about her body was its female form: the Buddhist tradition held that a woman could not be reborn directly into paradise and attain enlightenment but would have to pass through rebirth as a man first. A glorious transcendence of this problem is found in chapter 12 of the Lotus Sūtra in the well-known story of the daughter of Sāgara, the dragon king. After Mañjuśrī announced that the eight-year-old girl had learned the Lotus Sūtra and attained enlightenment, Śāriputra said to her: You suppose that in this short time you have been able to attain the unsurpassed way. But this is difficult to believe. Why? Because a woman’s body is soiled and defiled, not a vessel for the Law. . . . Moreover, a woman is subject to the five obstacles.40 First, she cannot become a Brahmā in the Brahmā 58   |  r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e

Heaven. Second, she cannot become an Indra, king of the gods. Third, she cannot become a Māra in the heaven of the Māras. Fourth, she cannot become a cakravartin universal monarch. Fifth, she cannot become a Buddha.41

In response to this, instantly the dragon king’s daughter changed into a male form, carried out all the practices of a bodhisattva, was seated on a lotus throne in the Spotless World of the south, attained complete enlightenment, and expounded the Dharma to all sentient beings. This story would seem to be what Cixiang alluded to in her prayer. Though she had the “troublesome body” of a woman, her desire was to “vault to a realm without obstacles,” just as the dragon king’s daughter did. The other concept Cixiang used is the “thrice-obedient” as a metonym for women, based on the notion that a woman is always obedient to a man in all three stages of her life: to her father as a girl, to her husband as a wife, and to her son as a widow. This normative idea of women as “thrice-obedient” is asserted in both Indian Buddhist scriptures and native Confucian thought.42 Cixiang dedicated the merit from her shrine specifically to “the thrice-obedient,” or

women as a class. She may have believed that since she was born in the form of a woman, she was uniquely positioned to come to the spiritual rescue of the class of creatures to which she belonged. This idea is embodied by the heroine of the Vimalakīrti Sūtra. After the goddess had bested the monk Śāriputra in debate by changing his form to hers and back again, the sage Vimalakīrti revealed to Śāriputra that the goddess not only was already an enlightened being but that she had chosen to refrain from entering nirvān.a to help sentient beings in the form of a woman. Vimalakīrti said: “She has fulfilled all that she vowed, has accepted the truth of birthlessness, and dwells in a state from which she will never regress. Because of her original vow, she can show herself anytime she wishes and teach and convert living beings.”43 In other words, the goddess was a bodhi­ sattva, who could become a Buddha whenever she chose. As a bodhisattva, she had chosen to inhabit a bodily form in order to help relieve the sufferings of sentient beings, and given her ability to choose any form she wanted, obviously it was her choice to assume a female body, which would be especially efficacious in rendering aid to other beings in female bodies.44 Hence, I suspect Cixiang also identified with the goddess, since she used her female incarnation to help other women, in her case, dedicating the merit from her grotto to all womankind. Lest the modern reader consider Cixiang unconventional, however, it should be noted that she also sponsored a Maitreya bodhisattva shrine on the south wall of Gu­ yang Grotto with a typical dedication to the emperor, her parents, and all sentient beings.45 Not only her selection of the elite subject matter of the Buddhas of the Three Periods, but also her possession of the money to sponsor a medium-sized intrusive shrine and a small grotto on her own suggests that Cixiang was the daughter of an aristocratic clan or the royal family.

The Price of a Grotto Although Cixiang did not discuss expenditure in her inscription, an estimate of the price of her grotto can be extrapolated from the information we have concerning the making of the three Binyang grottoes, which were produced around the same time. The History of the Northern Wei records the cost of the Binyang trio as 802,366 cash.46 To arrive at a rough estimate of a unit of cost for grotto pro-

duction, I divided the total amount by the floor area of the three grottoes. The floor of Binyang Central Grotto measures 11.4 meters by 9.85 meters, which is about 110 square meters, and Binyang South and Binyang North are roughly the same size, yielding a total floor area of about 330 square meters. Dividing the approximate cost of 800,000 cash by the total floor area of 330 square meters, the resulting unit of cost is about 2,400 cash per square meter of grotto floor. The floor of Cixiang’s grotto measures 1.65 meters by 1.87 meters, for a total area of about 3.1 square meters. Multiplying this area by 2,400 cash gives a rough-estimate cost of around 7,400 cash for Cixiang’s grotto. How much was 7,400 cash worth in the late Northern Wei dynasty? According to the “Chapter on Food and Commodities” in The History of the Northern Wei, a bolt of silk was worth two hundred cash at that time.47 This history also records that by the late Northern Wei, official salaries had risen to seven bolts of silk (I take this to be per month) so that an official salary would be worth 16,800 cash per year. Thus, Cixiang’s grotto cost about half the annual salary of a government official.48 A married couple who worked the land probably earned the equivalent of something between 2,200 and 6,600 cash per year.49 Ci­ xiang’s grotto was worth as much as three times their annual income. In sum, it seems safe to say that patrons’ assertions that they “exhausted the family’s wealth” or spent their “life’s earnings” were nothing short of the truth. Substantial as Cixiang’s expenditure was for a woman, it was paltry compared to the huge amounts donated for Buddhist monasteries in Luoyang by wealthy and powerful men. In his Record of Monasteries in Luoyang, Yang Xuanzhi quoted from an inscription listing the funds given by government officials: Zhengshi Monastery was founded (through the contributions of) various government officials. It was built during the Zhengshi era, hence the name. . . . It had a stone stele on the back of which was an inscription (listing donations by various officials). Cui Guang, the Chief Palace Attendant, donated four hundred thousand cash, while Li Chong, Marquis of Chenliu, donated two hundred thousand cash. Other officials contributed in amounts appropriate to their rank, and the smallest amount came to no less than five thousand cash.50

Except for the inhabitants of the palace, these two men would have been among the most able to engage in r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e   |  59

“paroxyms of dāna.”51 Cui Guang (450 – 523) was not only a pious and learned Buddhist who lectured and wrote commentaries on the Vimalakīrti Sūtra and the Daśabhūmi Sūtra, but also arguably the most powerful Chinese official of the late Northern Wei and consequently quite wealthy.52 Li Chong (455 – 525) was a member of the royal family who had served three emperors in numerous high positions of responsibility, and he was famous for his love of material possessions and his fabulous wealth.53 The language of the inscription clearly intends to impress the reader with the hugeness of the sums donated by Cui and Li, and although the inscription describes the lesser officials’ donations as “appropriate to their rank,” not as “exhausting the family wealth,” it still suggests that even five thousand cash is an impressive amount. Indeed, it might have been a third of a year’s salary for some. The cost to build this substantial metropolitan monastery was probably roughly comparable to the price of a grotto.54 The record of Zhengshi Monastery states that the two most prominent donors together gave six hundred thousand. If there were twenty or more other officials involved, each contributing from five to ten thousand cash apiece, the total cost would have been eight hundred thousand or more. The Binyang trio, which when abandoned consisted of one completed grotto (Binyang Central) and two half-finished grottoes (Binyang South and North), cost 802,366 cash. Thus, a large grotto (or one finished and two unfinished) probably cost about what a large monastery cost. If it required a group of officials to fund the building of a monastery, it would take a group of individuals to produce a substantial grotto, unless the donor had access to the state treasury. There was only one higher level of ostentatious expenditure for merit, which was to sponsor both a monastery and a grotto. Only one class of person was able to do so — the inhabitants of the palace. Emperor Xuanwu had at least two monasteries built in Luoyang: Yaoguang Convent and Jingming Monastery. He also had two grottoes excavated at Longmen: Binyang Central and Binyang South. The eunuch Palace Governor Liu Teng sponsored Changqiu Monastery, a large, lavish monastery in Luoyang, and he also ordered the excavation of Binyang North Grotto. Empress Dowager Hu sponsored more building projects than either of these two men. In Luoyang, she sponsored the Yongning Pagoda, a building at Yaoguang Convent, and 60   |  r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e

two monasteries for her late parents. I will argue that she also sponsored a grotto at Longmen.

Empress Dowager Hu as Donor Empress Dowager Hu was thoroughly suited to be a patron of Buddhism by virtue of her birth and education.55 Her mother, Lady Huangfu (d. 502), came from the Huangfu clan of Anding Commandery, in Gansu Province, whose illustrious history could be traced back to the Later Han dynasty (25 – 220). Lady Huangfu died young, likely before her daughter entered the palace as a concubine. Her father, Hu Guozhen (437 – 518), belonged to the aristocratic Hu clan, also of Anding Commandery, who had served the Northern Wei government in high positions since the early fifth century.56 The Hu and Huangfu clans were Han Chinese and devout Buddhists. Hu Guozhen’s sister was a Buddhist nun, while Hu himself, as an old man of eighty, actually perished from overexertion the day after piously following the procession of icons on the birthday of the Buddha for too great a distance.57 The young Lady Hu entered the palace as a result of the efforts of her aunt. This nun was invited to teach Buddhist scriptures in the palace women’s quarters soon after Emperor Xuanwu ascended the throne in 499, and over the next few years, she talked up her niece’s gracious comportment to the palace women. Word of her charms finally got to the emperor, and he ordered the young woman to enter the imperial apartments as a Chenghua Hereditary Consort, an attendant to the empress.58 In 510, Lady Hu bore a son, Yuan Xu, and was upgraded in rank to Lady of Complete Loveliness, one of the Nine Concubines. This boy was the emperor’s only son. Empress Yu had given birth to a boy, Yuan Chang, but he was killed in 508, five months after his mother was murdered by the emperor’s second consort, Empress Gao. It was rumored that the imperial favorite Gao Zhao (d. 515), who was uncle to both the emperor and Empress Gao, was involved in the death of Yuan Chang. By 510, Emperor Xuanwu was twenty-eight years old and fearful he would have no heir, so he had the baby removed from the women’s quarters and placed with trustworthy wet-nurses in a separate palace. Neither Empress Gao nor his mother was allowed to see the child. When Emperor Xuanwu died, Lady Hu’s five-year-old

son ascended the throne, becoming Emperor Xiaoming on February 11, 515, in a hasty midnight ceremony while Gao Zhao was away in Sichuan.59 The Tabgatch princes and the Chinese officials briefly put aside their differences in order to eliminate this hated man, and when he returned to court, he was strangled by the court eunuchs. When Lady Hu was given the title Imperial Mother, Empress Dowager Gao tried to kill her, but the plot was foiled by Liu Teng, who spirited Lady Hu away into the depths of the palace, where she was sheltered for the next few months by the anti-Gao consortium. Empress Gao was deposed and forced to live as a nun in Yaoguang Convent, where she was eventually murdered in 518. A government was formed, and on August 30, Lady Hu was formally appointed empress dowager.60 She immediately granted honors to her supporters, while her father was given a higher prestige title. Soon, however, because of various squabbles between the Chinese officials and the Tabgatch princes, Empress Dowager Hu was asked by the Chinese court officials to take the reins of government herself, and she began to hold court on September 18.61 The empress dowager immediately dismissed her chancellor to the provinces and moved the chancellery operations to her palace, whence she issued imperial edicts in her own hand. She traveled around Luoyang in a specially made carriage to receive petitions from the populace and personally interviewed candidates for office and officials from the provinces. She sponsored archery contests and poetry competitions in which she awarded prizes of silk cloth. As generous as she was to the populace and the courtiers, she was all the more so to her family. Her father was made Palace Attendant and enfeoffed as Duke of Anding Commandery, given a fine mansion, and lavished with silk, grain, slaves, carriages, horses, and oxen.62 He was quickly given the highest policy-making position, Secretariat Supervisor, and the lofty prestige title Unequaled in Honor. Her maternal uncle Huangfu Du (d. 528) was granted the absurdly high positions of Left Vice Director of the Department of State Affairs and Left General of the Guards, which were no doubt sinecures.63 Her half-brother Hu Xiang was given a succession of exalted positions, including Palace Directorate Minister, Secretariat Supervisor, and Palace Attendant, and enfeoffed as Duke of Dongping Commandery, and her cousin Hu Sengxi was also made a Secretariat Supervisor and Palace Attendant.64

As soon as she took power, the empress dowager initiated several large Buddhist projects in Luoyang. In 516, she led a host of officials to a site just south of the imperial palace for a public ceremony to mark out the boundaries of a monastery to be called Yongning Monastery.65 Not coincidentally, this was the name of the imperial monastery in the old capital of Pingcheng.66 Then she ordered the building of an extraordinary nine-story pagoda. This remarkable edifice was the first building described in Yang Xuanzhi’s Record of Monasteries in Luoyang. He wrote of it: Within the precincts [of the monastery] was a nine-story pagoda built with a wooden frame. Rising nine hundred feet above the ground, it formed the base for a mast that rose another hundred feet. Together they soared one thousand feet above the ground. You could see it even at a distance of a hundred li from the capital. In the course of excavating for the construction of the monastery, thirty golden statues were found deep underground. The empress dowager regarded them as proof of the sincerity of her faith. As a result, she spent all the more lavishly on its construction. On the top of the mast was a golden vase inlaid with precious stones, with a capacity of twenty-five piculs. Underneath the jeweled vase were thirty tiers of golden plates for collecting the dew. Golden bells hung from each of the plates. In addition, chains linked the mast with each of the four corners of the pagoda. Golden bells, each about the size of a onepicul jar, were also suspended from the link works. There were nine roofs, one for each story, with golden bells suspended from the corner of each one, totaling one hundred twenty in all. The pagoda had four sides, each having three doors and six windows, all painted in vermilion lacquer. Each door had five rows of gold studs. Altogether there were 5,400 studs on twenty-four panels of twelve double doors. In addition, the doors were adorned with gold ring knockers. The construction embodied the best of masonry and carpentry, and its design reached the limit of ingenuity. Its excellence as Buddhist architecture was almost unimaginable. Its carved pillars and gold door-knockers fascinated the eye. When the bells chimed in harmony deep in a windy night, they could be heard over ten li away.67

Yang’s account was written from memory and was surely somewhat exaggerated, since his description of the pagoda’s height as a thousand Northern Wei feet would equate to about 278 meters, which is impossibly high for a r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e   |  61

structure in earth and wood. Yet a modern reconstruction of the pagoda resulted in a figure of 147 meters in height, over twice the height of the eleventh-century pagoda at Yingxian, the tallest wooden building in the world.68 Such a fantastically high structure could only have been built by someone of extraordinary skill. Indeed, the designer and builder was the imperial architect An Guoxing.69 In a series of excavations that took place in 1979 – 1981, 1994, and 2000 – 2001, the foundations of the pagoda and of the monastery’s gates, walls, and main Buddha hall were thoroughly explored. Not surprisingly, the Chinese archeologists discovered that the great wooden pagoda stood at the center of the complex. In the foundations were the remains of polychrome clay sculptures, entirely reduced to fragments.70 Some Buddha figures were larger than life size, while others were about life size, and the archeologists concluded that the figures were arranged in shrines, with a central Buddha figure flanked by figures of bodhisattvas and disciples, around which were relief scenes from the life of Śākyamuni and miracle stories. Many figures represented aristocratic donors and civil officials. The Yongning Pagoda might have been a public attraction, to be climbed by a grateful populace, but such was not to be its purpose. This eighth wonder of the world was for the exclusive use of the empress dowager and her guests: “After the ornamentation was finished, Emperor Xiao­ming and the empress dowager ascended (the pagoda) together. They looked down into the palaces as if into the palms of their hands and gazed out upon the capital as if it were their own courtyard. To keep the interiors of the palaces from public view, people were denied access to the pagoda.”71 Empress Dowager Hu also sponsored a project at Yaoguang Convent, which had been established by the late emperor Xuanwu and was situated in the western part of the city, between the palace district and the Jinyong Citadel in the city’s northwest corner. No record specifically states what kind of building the empress dowager ordered there, but a memorial of around 516, which is presented in its entirety below, makes clear that some kind of substantial building was sponsored by the empress there. It may have been a pagoda. The description of the Yaoguang Pagoda given in the Record of Monasteries in Luoyang suggests it was the most spectacular building on the grounds: “There was a five-story pagoda that rose five hundred feet 62   |  r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e

from the ground. Its ‘immortals’ palms’ soared into the sky; its bells hung from the clouds. The dexterity of workmanship was comparable in beauty to the Yong­ning Monastery Lecture Hall.”72 If the workmanship of the pagoda was the same as that of Yongning Monastery, it was probably also designed by the imperial architects and built by the artisans in the Imperial Manufactories, which means the empress dowager was the sponsor. Although it may be unfair to speculate that the empress dowager had a purpose in building a pagoda at Yaoguang Convent that went beyond a desire to propagate the faith, perhaps she desired to eclipse, once again, the glory of a site associated with her late husband. Another possibility suggests itself, however. Yaoguang Convent was where her enemy Empress Gao was immured and where she was murdered by the empress dowager’s agents in 518. Perhaps the murder took place under cover of the building of the pagoda. The empress dowager’s other substantial Buddhist projects were the two monasteries established for the karmic benefit of her late parents. The monastery for her mother was built in the eastern suburbs of the city, a luxurious area where the estates of several high officials were located, and it was named after the presumptuous posthumous title the empress dowager had granted her, Grand Duchess of Qin.73 It was reported to be decorated as lavishly as the Yongning Monastery. The establishment honoring her father was equally grand, and it was paired with a second monastery built by the empress dowager’s younger sister, the Lady of Pingyi. The “Monasteries of the Two Sisters” were located in the southern suburbs of Luoyang, in the vicinity of the old ruined Imperial Observatory and the third-century Biyong Hall for Confucian ritual education, and they were supported by state funds. These were the only monasteries to which palace eunuchs were dispatched to provide the six monthly vegetarian feasts.74 The amounts spent by the empress dowager on all these projects must have been stupendous. If Zhengshi Monastery, sponsored by a consortium of government officials, cost something in the neighborhood of 800,000 cash, given the astonishing amounts of gold used in the ornamentation of the Yongning Pagoda, which must have been spectacular, even accounting for any exaggeration caused by Yang Xuanzhi’s memory, it alone would have cost over one million cash and quite possibly a great deal more. If the Yaoguang Pagoda and the two monasteries for her parents

also cost nearly one million apiece, the total sum could have been four million cash or more. Such an amount could scarcely have come from her private funds. As head of the realm, the empress dowager controlled the silk and other commodities sent as tribute and taxes that were stored in the capital. The History of the Northern Wei stated: “Since the power of the Wei was known far and wide, the western regions and the eastern barbarians sent their treasures as tribute, and they were plentiful in the imperial storehouses. In the Shengui and Zhengguang eras (518 – 525), the imperial storehouses were full to overflowing. The empress dowager once ordered all the high officials to carry off as much as they could.”75 The last line is a reference to a notorious incident that took place at the eastern imperial storehouse: Later (in 519), she visited the eastern storehouse with over one hundred princesses, concubines, and others accompanying her. There, she ordered all of them to take as much silk for themselves as they could carry out. Many people took over two hundred rolls. Everyone took at least a hundred rolls. However, the Princess of Changle only took twenty rolls of silk, which showed she was no different from anyone else and could not get rewards without working for them. Everyone praised her incorruptibility. Li Chong, the Duke of Chenliu, and Yuan Yong, the Prince of Zhangwu, both fell over because they were carrying too much.76

While I agree with Jennifer Holmgren’s interpretation that the empress dowager “deliberately created a situation where courtiers and ministers had to jostle and elbow each other in an undignified scramble to grab as much as they could,” this anecdote also illustrates the fact that she controlled the state treasury and readily disbursed it to gain the favor of her contemporaries.77 I believe the empress’ use of state funds also extended to sponsoring a grotto at Longmen but that this fact has been obscured by misunderstanding of the notice of her visit to Longmen in The History of the Northern Wei. It records that “on the yimao day of the fourth month (late May 517), the empress dowager graced Stone Grotto Monastery at Yique, and the same day she returned to the palace.”78 Alexander Soper advanced the theory that Empress Dowager Hu went to Longmen to see the finished Binyang Central Grotto: “Lady Hu’s excursion in 517 . . . must have been to inspect a newly completed wonder, the shrine of

her father-in-law, Kao Tsu (the late emperor Xiaowen).”79 More specifically, she went to view the changes she had made to the grotto’s original program. Soper added: “I believe that Lady Hu not only came to pay her respects at Kao Tsu’s cave-chapel in 517, but that she had in the previous months directed its completion according to her own wishes. Specifically, she had seen to it that the shrine should contain a permanent, visible record of her relationship: her portrait as worshiper and donor. . . . The great donor procession . . . I take to be a representation of Hsüan Wu Ti (Emperor Xuanwu) and Lady Hu, advancing in full state panoply to pray for Kao Tsu’s soul.”80 Soper apparently believed the empress dowager chose to depict “her relationship” as empress to her late husband and dutiful daughter-in-law to the late emperor Xiaowen by creating the empress procession, but this theory faces several problems. First, the empress dowager never filled either of these roles since she had yet to enter the palace when Emperor Xiaowen passed away, and she was only a concubine when her husband died. Further, an image of herself as a part of the Tabgatch royal family would not only have been a mendacious view of her past, but also have been completely out of character for a woman who sponsored nothing in honor of her late husband or his father. On the contrary, her purpose in life was to magnify the Hu and Huangfu clans. Moreover, the empress dowager might have had an outright aversion to the Binyang grottoes, since Binyang South was intended for the late empress dowager Wenzhao, née Gao, who was the aunt of the empress dowager’s mortal enemy, Empress Gao. In addition, the function of Binyang Central as a karmic gift to the donor’s parents required that the people in the imperial processions be the grotto’s beneficiaries: Emperor Xiaowen and Empress Dowager Wenzhao. Lastly, merely adding relief panels to someone else’s grotto was hardly ostentatious enough for the empress dowager. Why would a woman who had sponsored the Yongning Pagoda, the most magnificent building ever seen, content herself with merely amending someone else’s project? Why would someone who believed that money could buy salvation spend less than her predecessors? Surely she would have her own grotto created at Longmen, and it would be the largest, the finest, and the most expensive. I propose that when Empress Dowager Hu went to Long­ men in 517, she visited the grotto she was having made. I r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e   |  63

derive this from an admonitory memorial to the throne in which the author complained about the expense of three projects the empress dowager was pursuing in 516: the pagoda of Yongning Monastery, a building at Yaoguang Convent (probably its pagoda), and something called Stone Grotto Monastery. In his memorial, Li Chong said: Thirty years have elapsed since Gaozu (Emperor Xiaowen) relocated the capital, and the Hall of Light has not been restored, the National University has fallen into disrepair, and the city walls, tower gates, offices, and courts are also ruined. This is not the way to carry on the imperial inheritance or set a good model for all nations. Now, although nominally there are educational officials for the sons of state, in reality, they have no instructors. How will (the students) know how to be discerning about rabbit silk (which is a plant, not silk), swallow wheat (which is a weed, not wheat), the southern winnowing basket, and the northern dipper (which are names of constellations, not actual utensils)? As two endeavors cannot flourish at once, one must advance while one retreats. It would be appropriate to stop the wasteful and extravagant use of the Imperial Manufactories, to reduce the labor in earth and wood for the Yongning (Pagoda), to decrease the industry in timber and tile at Yaoguang (Convent), and to cut back on the work of chiseling and carving Stone Grotto (Monastery). As far as all endeavors for which the use of corvée labor is not urgent, these many things should be worked on in the slack season for agriculture. Such would make the face of our nation majestic and brilliant. As for the civilizing influence of ritual giving rise to our conduct, that should never cease!81

For Li Chong to complain about Stone Grotto Monastery in the same breath as the Yongning Pagoda and the Yaoguang Convent building means it was at the same level of exorbitant expenditure in his mind and was likely an equally large and expensive project.82 This Stone Grotto Monastery must have been an entirely new cave-shrine, not some carving added to a preexisting grotto, and if the expense was comparable to ostentatious monastic buildings in the capital, this cave-shrine would have to have been a spectacular presence at Longmen.

Huoshao Grotto There is one Northern Wei grotto larger than Binyang Central. We do not know what it was called originally, but it is 64   |  r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e

now known as Huoshao Grotto, or the “Grotto Destroyed by Fire,” a name that describes its present appearance. Sometime after the statuary program inside was completed, the interior was destroyed. Almost all the carving inside has crumbled or been broken away, and the exterior statues were also shattered, with only the partial figure of one colossal guardian remaining by the entryway. What happened to this grotto is a mystery. Some believe it was struck by lightning and incinerated, while others suggest it was deliberately destroyed.83 The original program on the back wall of the grotto was centered on a figure of Śākyamuni Buddha, seated crosslegged with hands in dhyāna mudrā. Two lions sat at the corners of his throne, evinced by the paws and the tail that remain, while the two disciple figures are also completely ruined, except for bare feet standing on round bases. The same is true for the colossal attendant bodhisattvas flanking them: all that can be seen are outlines on the wall and bare feet on double-petal inverted lotus bases. In the center of the south wall is a ruined relief stele, of which only the lower part remains. It must have been comparable in size to the stele outside Binyang Central and was surely intended to bear the dedication, but it may never have been carved, since the surface is covered with about two dozen bas-relief figures of female worshipers labeled with the names of a local laywomen’s society.84 I propose that Huoshao Grotto was Empress Dowager Hu’s Stone Grotto Monastery.85 It must have been the most expensive of the Northern Wei grottoes. At 10 meters high, 9.5 meters across, and 12 meters deep, it is slightly larger than Binyang Central Grotto, which is 9.3 meters high, 11.4 meters across, and 9.85 meters deep.86 The interior of Binyang Central was necessarily that large in order to accommodate its program of eleven figures arrayed on three walls, but the interior of Huoshao Grotto is ostentatiously large, which is to say, it is unnecessarily large for its program. Its pentad was on the back wall and did not require side walls as deep as it has. The façade is also conspicuously large. The entryway is six meters high, and the carving on the lintel reaches nearly four meters higher, which is comparable to the imperial Binyang Central Grotto, whose entryway is 6.9 meters high, with a more modest lintel of around two meters in height. Part of the expense of the grotto resulted from its height on the cliff face. The floor of Huoshao Grotto is nearly

Figure 3.3. Longmen (4): (25) Yaofang Grotto, (26) Guyang Grotto, (27) Huoshao Grotto, (28) Huangfu Grotto. Adapted from map in Ryūmon sek­ kutsu, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, endpaper.

thirty meters above the base of the cliff, which makes it the highest Northern Wei grotto (figure 3.3). Work higher on the cliff face meant more difficulty and danger for the workers, making the project more expensive in terms of time, lives, and materiel. The Binyang grottoes were started too high on the cliff face, at about sixty-four meters, and later begun again at the more feasible height of about twenty meters. Since the ceiling is ten meters higher than the floor, the height for cutting Huoshao Grotto (starting at the ceiling) would have been almost forty meters. It would appear the goal was to make the grotto the highest one on the cliff, which is rather like building a pagoda that was the tallest ever seen. The most unusual aspect of this grotto is the huge façade, which is very eye-catching from the vantage point of the river or the eastern hills. The design around the entryway arch is unique: riding on dragons amidst flowing clouds are the Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu), wearing her distinctive crown, and the King Father of the East (Dongwanggong) (figure 3.4).87 At the head of the Later Han dynasty pantheon of native Chinese deities, the Queen Mother of the West and the King Father of the East dwell in the land of the immortals. Paired to represent yin and yang, they are most commonly encountered in traditional Later Han funerary contexts, on funerary shrines or

bronze mirrors placed in tombs.88 This kind of immortality imagery entered the Northern Wei artistic repertory in a mortuary context also, and dragon-riding immortals were depicted on Northern Wei sarcophagi placed in the royal tombs constructed in the Mang Mountains, north of Luoyang.89 As the unique appearance of the Queen Mother of the West and the King Father of the East at Longmen, the imagery must have been highly significant to the donor. Since these immortals are not part of the Buddhist pantheon but belong to native Chinese mortuary belief, their presence suggests the patron was a Han Chinese person who well understood the funerary connotations of this imagery and used it to signal that the project was dedicated to a deceased relative. In 517, the empress dowager’s father was still living, but her mother had died in 502. As soon as she was made regent in 515, she granted her mother the posthumous title of Lady of Jingzhao Commandery and resettled ten households to maintain her tomb, while in 518, she changed her mother’s title to Grand Duchess of Qin and enlarged the grounds of her tomb, setting up watchtowers, steles, and columns in the manner of the spirit roads of royal tombs.90 Lady Huangfu was granted a posthumous epithet as if she had been an empress, and thirty households were moved to her tomb to provide maintenance and r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e   |  65

Figure 3.4. Queen Mother of the West and King Father of the East, façade, Huoshao Grotto. Photo, the author, 2004.

sacrifices. In line with these posthumous benefices created within the native Chinese tradition and the building of the Grand Duchess of Qin Monastery, I propose that the imagery of the Queen Mother of the West and the King Father of the East indicates that Huoshao Grotto was also constructed for her posthumous benefit. Moreover, it was likely intended also to be a public monument, since the bold design would have been immediately legible to any contemporaneous viewer, its immortality imagery signaling the grotto’s purpose as a funerary monument. Inscriptions on intrusive shrines in Huoshao Grotto also suggest it was the empress dowager’s grotto, by their absence and by their presence. The earliest shrines were added only during the years she was out of power. In 520, her son reached the age of ten, the legal age to rule in his own right, and the retirement of his regent mother was expected. All signs, however, indicated she had no intention of doing so. She was at that time coregent with her lover Yuan Yi (486 – 520), Prince of Qinghe, but Yuan Cha, who was married to her sister, set himself up as coregent with Yuan Yong, Prince of Gaoyang, and Liu Teng locked the empress dowager in the northern palace to keep her from contact with her son.91 After Liu’s death in 523, however, Yuan Cha grew lax. The empress dowager pleaded for an audience with her son on the pretext of getting his permission to enter a convent on nearby Mount Song. Yuan Yong then invited her and the emperor to his private residence, where they plotted to trick Yuan Cha into relinquishing his military positions. After Yuan Cha was further stripped of 66   |  r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e

his civilian positions, his brother threatened to revolt, and Cha was ordered to commit suicide. Empress Dowager Hu then resumed the regency on May 24, 525. Huoshao Grotto has no intrusive shrines dated to before 520, suggesting the grotto was off-limits to anyone but the empress and her guests, in the same manner as the Yongning Pagoda, until her fall from power in 520. Shortly thereafter, the sculptors began adding intrusive niches to the open space on its walls. These smaller shrines inside the grotto are mostly in ruins, too, but some of the inscriptions have survived. Seven of them have dated inscriptions, which all fall between 522 and May 16, 525.92 No more were added after she returned to power on May 24, 525, until after her death in 528.93 A final connection to Empress Dowager Hu within Huoshao Grotto is a large shrine on the west wall with an inscription that reads: In the [three illegible characters] year, the seventh month, the [illegible character]teenth day, the Pure and Faithful Woman and Buddhist disciple Hu Zhi[illegible character], Consort of the Prince [of Qinghe, reverently] made one [Śākyamuni] image. I pray that the state [will prosper] without limit and there be security and peace within the four seas [and that all sentient beings have] eternal joy. Yuan Shanjian serves the Buddha. Yuan Jingsun serves the Buddha. [Yuan?] Zhonghua serves the Buddha.94 (3O)

This laywoman donor was a member of the empress dowager’s paternal clan whose identity is made clear by the name of one of the worshipers listed: Yuan Shanjian. This boy would have a short and harrowing life as the puppet Emperor Xiaojing of the Eastern Wei (523 – 551, r. 534 – 550).95 The use of his personal name in the inscription indicates the shrine was produced sometime between his birth in 523 and his elevation to the Wei throne in 534. His father was Yuan Dan (d. 536), who had succeeded his father Yi as Prince of Qinghe, and his mother was Hu Zhi(?), a daughter of Hu Ning, who was a paternal cousin of Empress Dowager Hu.96 That the empress dowager’s niece placed her shrine in Huoshao Grotto is one more piece of evidence suggesting the grotto was sponsored by the empress dowager herself.

Huangfu Grotto One last external factor to consider is Huangfu Grotto, dedicated by Lady Huangfu’s brother, the empress dowager’s uncle. Located just a dozen meters to the south of Huoshao Grotto, the grotto is not on an imperial scale, but it has a complex, coherent plan and detailed, exquisite carving that is ostentatious, assumes the imperial manner, and promotes the empress dowager’s maternal clan.97 A very large relief stele carved just south of the entryway bears the longest dedication at Longmen, over two thousand characters in length. Long inscriptions were usually written by famous literati, and this one is no exception.98 The stele is now almost entirely effaced except that, by a happy twist of fate, the date of 527 and the name of the author are preserved. Yuan Fan (475 – 528) was the most celebrated literatus of the Xiaochang era (525 – 528), employed in high positions at court for his learning and literary ability. He was much admired by Empress Dowager Hu, who once toasted him during a banquet in Hualin Park, and it has been suggested that her influence was used to get Yuan Fan to write the Huangfu Grotto inscription.99 The name of the patron survives only in the ruined heading, the last three columns of which read “Stele of the Stone Grotto of Defender in Chief Lord Huangfu.” Chavannes was the first to identify this man as Huangfu Du (d. 528), maternal uncle of Empress Dowager Hu.100 Further, Sofukawa Hiroshi reads two of the first three columns as “Palace Attendant of the Wei” and “Minister of Works,”

which were the posthumous titles given to Huangfu Ji, the elder brother of Huangfu Du, who died in 521. Sofukawa’s theory is that the grotto was produced by Huangfu Du but was intended also to honor the late Huangfu Ji and that it was, in effect, a family grotto.101 Huangfu Du was the most egregious example of Empress Dowager Hu’s inappropriate promotion of her family members.102 On her initial accession to power, he was granted the lofty positions of Left Vice Director of the Department of State Affairs and Left General of the Guards. When she was immured in 520, Yuan Cha attempted to send Huangfu Du out to a provincial post, but so obstinately did he refuse that he was simply allowed to stay in the capital, without position. When the empress dowager regained power in 525, he was again crowned with such sinecure posts as Minister of Works, General of the Palace Guard and Palace Attendant. Aware of Huangfu’s wrath over his attempt to send him to the provinces, Yuan Cha actually bribed Huangfu and his wife Lady Chen not to assassinate him. Huangfu continued to pester his niece for greater honors and positions, particularly those with the greatest potential for graft. She knew him to be incompetent yet was unwilling to refuse a family member. By 527, he was at the height of his wealth and influence. The façade of Huangfu Grotto has an ornate design, with a dragon-arch lintel and a pair of gigantic gandhar­ vas playing a four-stringed crookneck pipa and a transverse flute under an imitation roof, complete with carved eaves, roof tiles, acroteria, and a colossal bird perched on the ridgepole. As with Huoshao Grotto, the façade looks like a funerary shrine and projects the aura of a Chinese mortuary monument. Inside, the design of Huangfu Grotto is so similar to that of Binyang Central as to suggest a deliberate imitation. The ceiling has flying gandhar­ vas playing musical instruments surrounding a central lotus, while the floor is carved with a pathway leading to the altar, flanked by rows of lotus flowers. The main program is also the Buddhas of the Three Periods, although it is important to note that the side-wall Buddhas are depicted as specific seated deities, rather than as the nonspecific standing Buddhas of Binyang Central. As in Binyang Central, the west-wall Buddha is Śākyamuni, the Buddha of the Present (figure 3.5). The Buddha of the Past, however, is specifically Prabhūtaratna, identifiable by his representation within the standard pairing of Śākyamuni and r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e   |  67

Figure 3.5. West wall, Huangfu Grotto, 527. From Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng, pl. 71.

Prabhūtaratna, which is further reinforced by the Seven Buddhas of the Past overhead. These two are flanked by a figure of Brahmā (figure 3.6), likely intended to echo the same figure on the entryway jambs of Binyang Central.103 The south-wall figure is a large seated bodhisattva, with elaborate scarves, jewelry, and a crown, seated on an altar flanked by lions. His bare right foot dangles slightly over the cascading draperies that spill in front of the altar, as if it had just been pulled up from a cross-ankled position.104 This blend of attributes could have been meant to encompass Maitreya’s transformation from the bodhisattva now in Tus.ita Heaven to the Buddha of the Future on earth. Nevertheless, although the iconographic specificity of the figures may have aided the viewer in identifying them as the Buddhas of the Past, Present, and Future, such specificity interrupted the grotto’s imitation of Binyang Central. This may explain the presence of the two standing Buddha figures flanking the entryway inside, each with hands in abhaya and varada mudrās, similar to the standing sidewall Buddhas in Binyang Central. Perhaps the designer added them in order to have all elements of the Binyang Central program present. Huangfu Grotto also shares with Binyang Central sculp68   |  r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e

tural indicators of ritual worship performance. One of the most striking components of the grotto’s program is the large pair of “pensive prince” (siwei taizi) figures on the altar. Dressed as bodhisattvas, they sit with one ankle resting on the opposite knee and one hand held to the cheek, under gingko trees arching overhead. Beside the northwall “pensive prince” illustrated here (see figure 3.6) is a relief carving of a large lotus plant in a vase, its broad leaves seen from the side. The lotus flowers are in all stages of bloom, from bud to blossom to seedpod, and a soul being reborn in paradise rises from the top flower. I suspect these two figures had a special significance in terms of worship offered before the statuary in the grotto. Though pensive bodhisattvas in conjunction with Maitreya bodhisattva can represent the inhabitants of the Tus.ita Heaven who wait with Maitreya for his advent on earth, since these figures flank an image of Śākyamuni, it is more likely they represent the pensive Prince Siddhārtha.105 By comparison with another pair of such figures in a contemporaneous Śākyamuni shrine in Lianhua Grotto, we can identify these two figures as Siddhārtha in the First Meditation and Siddhārtha receiving the offering of a bowl of food. In the scene of the First Meditation, Siddhārtha is

Figure 3.6. Pensive prince with lotus flowers and worshiping Brahmā, northwest corner, Huangfu Grotto, 527. From Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng, pl. 75.

seated in the “pensive” pose under a gingko tree as the sun sets into a range of mountains in the distance (figure 3.7).106 Kneeling before the prince is his father, King Śuddhodana, wearing the robes and pearl-fringe crown of a Chinese ruler, who raises his hands in worship. Behind him stand four attendants in Chinese robes, holding the accouterments of Chinese royalty: an umbrella, a large feather fan, a banner, and a scepter or weapon. This is the final scene of the story, in which Prince Siddhārtha went with his father the king to the annual plowing ceremony.107 Moved to compassion by seeing the onerous toil

of the ox and the plowman, the young man further observed that as the soil was turned up, the exposed insects were swiftly eaten by birds. Filled with pity for the misery of living beings, the prince began to meditate under the shade of a jambu tree. All day, while the sun crossed the sky, the shade of the jambu tree miraculously held still, to protect him from the burning rays of the sun. At the end of the day, his father found him still under the tree, and recognizing that a miracle had taken place, Śuddhodana knelt in worship before his son. In the matching scene in the upper right spandrel of the shrine, a “pensive” Siddhārtha sits under a gingko tree next to which is a vase holding a lotus plant with flowers (figure 3.8).108 Facing the seated prince is an aristocrat in a tall cap, kneeling in front of the prince, making an offering of a large bowl. Behind the nobleman stand three attendants. The first, who wears Chinese robes, holds an umbrella over the head of his master, while the other two, in northern costume with trousers, hoist a huge feather fan and a large axe. The “offering of a bowl of food” was an event related to the second and final meditation of Siddhārtha.109 After his long years as an ascetic, Siddhārtha decided to eat one more meal to gain the strength necessary to enter the final meditation that would result in his enlightenment. Two merchants offered him a meal, but he could not accept it, since it was not offered in a begging bowl. Next, the Four Heavenly Kings offered him food, but he could not accept four bowls, so he magically joined them into one. In this representation in Lianhua Grotto, the Indian merchants and the heavenly kings were replaced by the figure of a Northern Wei aristocrat. The Huangfu Grotto “pensive prince” figures have the gingko tree and the vase of lotus flowers of the meditation scenes in the Lianhua Grotto shrine, but they lack the worshiping emperor and aristocrats. I suggest that the missing figure of the royal worshiper was filled by Huangfu Du himself, as he came to worship in his grotto. In addition to playing the imperial role in offering obeisance to the Buddhas of the Three Periods, as Emperor Xuanwu had done in Binyang Central, playing the role of “King Śuddhodana as the Chinese emperor” in offering worship before the “pensive prince” figures would surely have appealed to Huangfu Du’s insatiable desire for self-aggrandizement. As a further imitation of Binyang Central, worshiper processions are carved under the two side wall niches. r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e   |  69

Figure 3.7. First Meditation, Lianhua Grotto, late Northern Wei. Ink rubbing. From Liu Jinglong, ed., Lianhua dong: Longmen shiku di 712 ku, fig. 59.

Under the south wall niche, three adult men holding lotus flowers face the entrance of the grotto (figure 3.9). Walking behind the now-broken image of a monk, the leading male is the tallest, while the second figure is smaller, and the third smaller yet. According to Gu Yanfang of the Longmen Research Academy, the first figure represents Huangfu Du, while the other two are the sons of the late Huangfu Ji: Huangfu Zixi, whom Huangfu Du raised as his own son, and Huangfu Yong.110 The long faces and high cheekbones of these men are a different facial type than the rounded youthful faces of the emperor and his courtiers in the Binyang Central emperor procession, although likely no less idealized. Huangfu Du was probably in his fifties in 527, so he would not have been represented with the full face of the late Emperor Xiaowen, who died at thirty-three, but rather with the more gaunt face of age. The long head may be an idealized representation, however. To the people of the Northern Wei period, an elongated head was considered a sign of good health and sound pedigree, so perhaps the sculptors blessed the patrons with physiognomies they did not actually possess.111 70   |  r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e

Facing the Huangfu men on the south wall is a nun leading a procession of two adult women holding lotuses, accompanied by servants bearing fans. The two processions converge on a half-length caryatid guardian figure that holds up a large tray containing lotus flowers and a jewel. Gu Yanfang has identified them as representing Lady Chen and the other women of the Huangfu household. We know who these women were because, two years earlier, their female spiritual advisors had sponsored a project in Lianhua Grotto on their behalf. The dedication reads: The nuns of Zhongming Convent, Daoyang, Daoji, and Daobao, relying on the vaipulya (Mahāyāna teaching) to follow the Way, vowed to make the Thousand Buddhas of the Present Kalpa.112 Further we pray (on behalf of) Minister of Works Huangfu Du and Lady Chen, Lady Xiong, Lady Jian, Lady Liu, and all the concubines and the Consort of the Prince of Beihai, née Fan, that reverently, for the emperor and the empress dowager, all teachers of distant kalpas, seven generations of ancestors, living parents, living dependents, Dharma

Figure 3.8. The Offering of the Bowl of Food, Lianhua Grotto, late Northern Wei. Ink rubbing. From Liu Jing­ long, ed., Lianhua dong: Long­ men shiku di 712 ku, fig. 60.

realms of all directions, and those born in the path of the heavens, in rebirth after rebirth, generation after generation, may they serve the Thousand Buddhas of the Present Kalpa, and whether they have a mind for good or for evil, at the three assemblies of Maitreya, we pray they may ascend at the head of the first group and at once become Buddhas. Completed on the thirteenth day of the eighth month of the inaugural year of the Xiaochang era of the Great Wei (September 15, 525).113 (3P)

In the north-wall procession in Huangfu Grotto, three nuns place incense in a censer, while behind them are a mature woman and a young couple, holding lotus flowers, along with several attendant servants (figure 3.10).114 In Gu Yanfang’s view, the mature woman represents Empress Dowager Hu, who was around thirty years of age in 527, while the young man would be Emperor Xiaoming, aged seventeen.115 The young woman was probably his principal consort, a daughter of the empress dowager’s cousin Hu Sheng, selected by the empress to consolidate power

within the family.116 Gu Yanfang has also argued that the nun next to the empress dowager represents her aunt née Hu, the Buddhist nun who helped her enter the palace.117 If these identifications are correct, and Huangfu Du did represent his own family together with the empress dowager’s family, it reinforces my notion that the nearby colossal grotto now called Huoshao was produced by his niece. Moreover, that his grotto honors his late brother and transfers merit to his nephews also accords with my theory that the empress sponsored Huoshao Grotto to honor her late mother, their sister.

Monasteries in Ashes After the empress dowager resumed the regency in 525, it became clear to all that her only desire was to retain power for herself.118 She surrounded herself with favorites, while the emperor’s intimates, by contrast, were quickly murdered. By 528, the emperor was a man of eighteen, frustrated by his mother’s illegal hold on power and her r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e   |  71

Figure 3.9. Worshiper procession, south wall, Huangfu Grotto, 527. From Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng, pl. 73.

sycophantic Chinese advisors. Early in the spring, he sent a secret order to the fearsome northwestern general Erzhu Rong (492 – 530) to bring his cavalry to liberate him and imprison his mother, but she got wind of the order, and the young emperor died suddenly. The next day, the empress dowager put an infant child of the emperor on the throne in order to calm the populace, only to reveal the following day that the child was actually a girl and that a new heir would have to be found. She then enthroned a boy of three, a great-grandson of Emperor Xiaowen. Erzhu Rong’s horsemen soon reached the Yellow River. He and his advisors selected Yuan Ziyou (506 – 530), the son of the Prince of Pengcheng, to rule. Hearing that a new emperor had been enthroned, the officials in charge of the fortifications north of the river opened the gates, and when this news was learned in Luoyang, the empress dowager’s favorites began to slip away in the night. Summoning the women of the rear palace, the empress dowager ordered them all to become nuns. She also cut her own hair. 72   |  r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e

Erzhu’s cavalry crossed the river and waited on the plain at Heyin, just beyond the Mang Mountains north of the capital. On May 16, Erzhu ordered the metropolitan officials out to Heyin to greet the new emperor. When they arrived, bearing the imperial seals to offer him and accompanied by a group of Buddhist monks, they were told to gather in order to offer sacrifices to Heaven. As they did, the ranks of armored horsemen closed around them, and they were harangued for causing disorder throughout the realm and blamed for the violent death of the emperor. Then the mounted soldiers cut them down. Over two thousand people died at Heyin, including most of the Northern Wei aristocracy. Erzhu sent riders into the capital to seize the empress dowager and the child pretender and bring them to Heyin. The empress dowager pleaded with Erzhu at length, but he merely whisked off his sleeve and rose. She and the child were drowned in the Yellow River. The empress dowager’s awesome works scarcely outlasted her. Six years later, the Yongning Pagoda went up in

Figure 3.10. Worshiper procession, north wall, Huangfu Grotto, 527. From Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng, pl. 72.

flames, apparently struck by lightning. In Yang Xuanzhi’s account: In the second month of the third year of the Yongxi era (March 534), the (Yonging) pagoda was destroyed by fire. Emperor (Xiaowu, r. 532 – 534) ascended the Cloud-Breaching Tower to watch the blaze. He dispatched Yuan Baoju, Prince of Nanyang, and Zhangsun Zhi, the Overseer of the Department of State Affairs, with a thousand men of the Forest of Plumes Guard to fight the fire. Everyone was so saddened that they went away in tears. The fire had started in the eighth story, and by dawn it was raging. The sky was dark with thunder clouds, and sleet and snow were falling. The common people and the monks and lay believers all came to see the fire, and the sound of wailing shook the capital. Three monks hurled themselves into the conflagration and died. The fire lasted three months before going out. It went into the ground, seeking the foundation piles, and smoke wafted out for a whole year.119

In 534, the strongman Gao Huan, who controlled the puppet Wei emperor, the young son of the late empress dowager’s niece, ordered the capital moved north to the city of Ye and gave the half million residents of Luoyang three days to evacuate. The only people left behind were the monks and nuns of the city’s four hundred monasteries. A few months later, thousands of corvée laborers

entered Luoyang to strip the palaces of building materials, which were transported to build the Eastern Wei capital at Ye. In 538, the rebel general Hou Jing burned what remained of the government buildings and residences of Luoyang. Finally, even the Jinyong Citadel was destroyed in the struggle between Eastern Wei (534 – 550) and Western Wei (535 – 556) forces. In 547, when Yang Xuanzhi passed through Luoyang on government business, he described it as follows: The outer and inner city walls lay in ruins, palaces were toppled, temples and monasteries were in ashes, and pagodas were no more than deserted graves. Walls were covered with wild vines, and streets were dotted with thorny bushes. Wild beasts lived under deserted stairways, and mountain birds nested in courtyard trees. Wandering youngsters and cowherds walked back and forth through the intersections of the city, while farmers and ploughmen grew crops on the grounds where palace towers once stood.120

A few intrusive shrines were added to Huoshao Grotto in the mid-seventh century. Were they added to a grotto that was already in ruins? One theory holds that this grotto was destroyed during the holocaust that took place in 955, when Emperor Shizong (r. 954 – 959) of the Later Zhou ordered an official persecution of the Buddhist establishment. For three days, the skies over Luoyang were red, r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e   |  73

as wooden monastery buildings went up in flames, and it was said there was much destruction of the statuary out at Longmen.121 This theory, however, does not explain why this particular grotto was destroyed, when more accessible grottoes, such as the Binyang trio, were not harmed. Another theory holds that it was deliberately demolished when the Western Wei took control of the Luoyang area in 538. Angered perhaps by an ostentatious grotto sponsored by the woman who had “lost” the dynasty, which

74   |  r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e

also contained a shrine donated by the mother of the puppet ruler of the opposing Eastern Wei, the Western Wei troops may have smashed up all the statuary.122 Perhaps, less dramatically, the carved surfaces of the grotto simply exfoliated slowly over the centuries, quietly shattered by the subtle expansion and contraction of the damp limestone. However it happened, the only legible remains of the original program inside this chapel are the bare feet of bodhisattvas.

Four    The Politics of Filial Piety At the time of the semblance dharma age . . . there will be sentient beings who will see other ancient reliquaries, images, and scriptures that are ramshackle or ruined, but will be unwilling to repair them. Then they will say: “These were not built by my ancestors. What is the use of fixing them? I would much rather build a new one myself.” Son of good family! It is better that sentient beings repair old ones than build new ones — the merit [of the former] is extremely great.  — Xiangfa jueyi jing, mid-sixth century1

J

ust south of the entryway to Binyang Central Grotto is a gigantic Northern Wei relief stele. In all likelihood, it was originally carved to bear Emperor Xuanwu’s dedication of the Binyang grot­toes to his late parents, but now it bears the abraded remains of an early Tang dynasty (618 – 907) inscription titled “The Stele for the Yique Buddha Shrine” (see figure 2.2 above).2 The author was Cen Wenben (595 –  645), a historian, memorialist, and close advisor to Emperor Taizong (r. 626 – 649), who was known for his moral uprightness and extreme frugality.3 Despite Cen’s skill with language, or perhaps because of it, the scope of the work dedicated and the real motivation of its donor remain ambiguous. The inscription opens with an elaborate panegyric to the superiority of the Buddhist doctrine, then elides into a rationale for image-making: Nevertheless, when the merit (of the Buddha) attained to perfection beneath the tree of enlightenment, this was not the commencement of the refinement of gold (the final product of the alchemist). When the traces (of the Buddha) disappeared under the steadfast grove (of sāla trees, when he attained nirvān.a), how could this be the end signified by the breaking of a record tally? When his merit attained perfection, there followed beneficent rules written to transmit his precepts (i.e., the scriptures were written). When his traces disappeared, we made use of the divine countenance to represent his excellence (i.e., icons were produced). Thus, gold and jade (statues) were carved to enlarge his transformative power in Kapila-

vastu (capital of the state ruled by the Śākya clan), and the reds and blues (i.e., painting) are employed to manifest his goodness in Cīnasthāna (China). Ever unceasing! The power of their expediency is unsurpassed! Ever majestic! The significance of their fecundity is great! (4A)

The Beneficiary The inscription follows with a long paean to the virtues of the late empress Zhangsun. The companion of Emperor Taizong’s youth, she was a learned woman with whom he enjoyed discussing literature and history. Although Cen Wenben’s language is high-flown, his description of her selfless character accords with the image given in her biographies in the Tang dynastic histories.4 The inscription continues: The Cultured and Virtuous Empress had a Way higher than the star Xuanyuan and a Virtue that poured out over the earth. Her kind saintliness was manifested without limits; her gentle clarity reached to the heavens. (The collapse of Mount) Shalu multiplied her blessings.5 (The daughter of the Prince of) Tushan issued (her) an auspicious omen.6 She helped the family and the state, inheriting the good renown (of the mother of the emperor) and assisting the imperial enterprise.7 She practiced well the feminine skills, and, as principal wife, she collaborated with the emperor in his rule. In seeking out worthy men (for office), she demonstrated (an intelligence) as bright as the two orbs (of the sun and moon), and in reaching out to the people, she was commended for a virtue that was

generous and capable of supporting them (like the earth).8 Her loyal plans were manifest in the quarters of the palace, while her filial respect was displayed in the sacrifices to the ancestors. Such was the influence exercised by her utter sincerity that she rendered the dark moon clear in the heavens. Such was the extent of her gentleness that she could dispel the troubles and confusions of the world. Her heart was always engaged (in helping with) the sorrows and toil (of others). Her conduct was ever thrifty and moderate. The education she received from her mother’s womb was classical, and she was thoroughly crowned by the Three Dynasties. The governance of the women’s quarters was orderly, and the palace women were more splendid than in the time of the two nan.9 Disdaining embellishments of brocade and embroidery, she was comfortable in plain silk. Scorning jewelry of pearl and jade, it was her intent never to wear valuable ornaments. The nine generations of her relatives were thereby increased in their closeness, and the myriad states were thereby able to attain the Way. She had studied a great many drawings and writings, and she took pleasure in the arts and literature. She meditated on the purity and calm extolled by Huangdi and Laozi, and she had a deep knowledge of the vast (doctrine) of the Book of Odes and the Book of History. The abundance of the virtues she established matched in extent the heavens and the earth, and the elegance of the words she established equaled in brilliance the five planets. On the strength of the causes she planted all along in her previous existences, in this (lifetime), they bore fruit — the spirit of the woman on the bank of the River Wei (the wife of King Wen of Zhou) descended on her that she might understand the Four Noble Truths in order to be cut off from future rebirths, and the traces of (the Han imperial concubine of) Zhaoyang responded to her that she might gallop with the three vehicles in order to be saved from the bonds of existence.10 Therefore, throughout the land, she showed (support for) the monasteries, covering them in gold as Sudatta did with (Prince Jeta’s) Grove, and (from) high in the air, she scattered flowers, where they leaped into appearance as at the stūpa of Prabhūtaratna.11 Her sincerity in highly esteeming the four dhyāna (heavens) (made us) take lightly Queen Mallikā (the pious wife of King Prasenajit of Kosala), and her entering deeply into the eightfold canon (made us) regard slightingly Queen Śrīmālā (the learned daughter of King Prasenajit and Queen Mallikā).12 How could we suffice 76   |  P O L I T I C S O F F I L I A L P I E T Y

it to say that, as one whose heart was prepared to be given (in marriage) to depend as an ornament (to her husband’s rule), she surpassed the two women of the River Gui (the daughters of the legendary ruler Yao, who were loyal to their husband Shun), and as one who undertook to offer sacrifices to the ancestors and to hand down substantial offspring, she was superior to the four consorts of Gaoxin (the wives of the legendary ruler Ku, each of whom bore an illustrious son)? (4B)

In short, the late empress possessed all the traditional feminine virtues and abilities. Kind and gentle, loyal and filial, she was also a tireless and intelligent helpmeet to her husband. Modest and thrifty, orderly and well educated, she was not only learned in the arts and literature but was well versed in the documents of Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. Her good deeds in previous lives came to fruition in this existence, in which she compares favorably to the great women of the classical Three Dynasties in China and the Indian Buddhist queens who were contemporaries of Śākyamuni. Lastly, her greatest achievement was to give birth to several sons. In 636, after months of nursing the emperor through an illness, she fell ill herself, only to die that summer at the age of thirty-six sui. With the posthumous title of Cultured and Virtuous Empress, she was buried in Zhaoling, the emperor’s mountain mausoleum northwest of Chang’an. The emperor had a multistory tower built in the palace garden, from which he could see Zhaoling, and he invited his old friend and advisor Wei Zheng (580 – 643) to climb the tower to see it with him. Gently admonishing him to ignore his personal pain for the sake of his rule, Wei said: “I think what Your Highness sees is Xianling (his father’s tomb). If it were Zhaoling, surely I would see it, too.” The emperor wept, but he heeded the admonition and had the tower taken down.13 At the beginning of the following year, the emperor departed Chang’an for Luoyang.

The Donor The next section of the inscription extols the attainments of the sponsor. Despite reading one hundred chapters and writing three essays every day, prince Li Tai (618 – 652) thought of his late mother continually, and the inscription says he wished to “show the pain in his heart in the same way as the one who climbed the bare hill.” This line alludes

to a poem in the Book of Odes in which a homesick young soldier climbed a bare hill to look far off in the direction where his mother lived, a reference designed to touch the heartstrings of the emperor.14 As a result of his continual longing for her, the prince determined to establish a memorial to his late mother. Cen Wenben then described why Li Tai chose Longmen as the site: He made an extensive search to find the ford (that would allow him) to acknowledge the kindness (of his mother). He reviewed all locations in order to choose the region where the divine influences are concentrated. He considered that, among all the sovereigns who have established a state, those who had a grand plan ruled from the Central Region (Henan Province). He further considered that the thousand Buddhas who have taken form could not have attained enlightenment in a borderland.15 It is this region of the three rivers (Yi, Luo, and Huang) that is truly where the six directions of space are gathered together. The royal city (of Luoyang) was established in a strong strategic position, for this was the site where (the Prince of) Qufu (the Duke of Zhou) planned to set up the tripods. The pass on the Yi River (Longmen) is encircled by countryside, for it was opened by Wenming (the legendary Great Yu) to channel the waters that were submerging the hills. Its lofty arches rise as high as the sky, its mountains so precipitous that light cannot reach into them. Its deep forests attract hermits; its grottoes store (statues of) gold. The mists born in the verdant valley are arrayed as canopies over the rock chambers (of its grottoes), while the colored clouds spreading over the red peaks lie like banners on the pine gates (of its monasteries). The majestic base (of these mountains) confronts Mount Song and resembles the Snowy Peaks (the Himālayas). The current (of the Yi River) flows into the Virtuous River (the Yellow River) and resembles the River Nairañjanā (that flows past Bodhgayā). Certainly this place is as famous among the religious as among the laity, a favorite spot as much for men as for divinities. (4C)

Cen Wenben began his case for the site of Longmen by arguing the virtues of the city of Luoyang. Traditional ideas associated with Luoyang about “ruling from the center” were joined with the idea that the enlightenment of the Buddhas also took place in a central region. Tang Chinese believers thought of the contemporaneous Indian state of Magadha, where many of the holy sites of Buddhism were, as “Central India” (Zhong Tianzhu).16 Nearby

Longmen shares the geopolitical advantages of Luoyang, yet it is also a numinous natural place, an appropriate setting for eremitic immortals and for Buddhist enlightenment. As his grand conclusion, Cen conflated the cliffs at Longmen with the Himālayas and the Yi River with the River Nairañjanā, relocalizing Indian sites of Buddhist enlightenment into the heartland of China.

The Problem of the Project The following section is the most important for understanding the exact nature of the project Li Tai undertook at Longmen. It opens with an assertion of the great expense Li Tai bore and with the image of two clever and tireless strategists of the Warring States period, whose exploits are offered as a flattering metaphor for Li Tai’s exertions in having this project executed for his late mother. Following that is a description, of a sort, of what work was actually done: The prince then poured out his heart to demonstrate his love of charity, and opening his treasury, he was liberal with tortoise shells and cowries. (Lu) Ban, in the state of Chu, expended his ingenuity, even as (Mo) Di, in the state of Song, gave free rein to his cleverness.17 Dividing the sheer walls to the outer edge of the (constellation) Jade Cord, the sacred shrines are ranged like stars. Carved in the [dark?] stone beyond the moonlight, the venerable visage rises like the moon. Where the old remained, (Li Tai) added to its magnificence; where the new was made, it reached the utmost in marvelousness. The flow of brilliance from the white tuft (the ūrnā between the Buddha’s eyes) eclipses the beauty of the lotus flower. The spread of light from his dark blue hair distinguishes his sandalwood grove (monastery) companions. This is why, when one looks closely at the precious special marks (laks.an.a), (the statue) is as majestic as if the entire person of the Buddha (were present). When one sees from afar its divine light, it is as clear as his shadow left behind (in the cave at Nagarahāra). (Creating) derision for the inferior quality of carved jade and scorn for the imperfect art of engraved sandalwood, (this Buddha image) is brilliant as the sun, surpassing the solar orb resplendent in the Long River (the Milky Way), and lofty as a mountain, exceeding the golden Mount (Sumeru) shining on the Great Valley (the oceans). Gr.dhrakūt. a lies before your eyes; Nagarahāra can be imagined. P O L I T I C S O F F I L I A L P I E T Y   |  77

Precious flowers rain down auspicious blessings, hiding the colors of the five clouds. Heavenly musicians strike up their music, competing with the sound of the myriad pipes (of nature). Thus it is that gazing on the marvels of (this image made to house) the dharmakāya, the eight difficult (conditions under which to see a Buddha) are ended, and hearing the sound of the supreme enlightenment (of scriptures chanted in this grotto), the six devalokas (the heavens above Mount Sumeru) may be ascended. If this is not (an image of) He who is correct and straight, to what can it be compared? Benevolently, (Li Tai) established this Buddhist work in order to reciprocate the kindness of (his mother’s) upbringing. Generously, (Li Tai) constructed this field of blessing in order to aid the cause of bodhi. If this is not one who is pure and filial, to whom can he be compared? (4D)

The merit generated by worship in this place will be transferred to the soul of the late empress Zhangsun, and the credit for this monumental act of giving goes to Li Tai, whose lavish expenditure reveals his piety, but the question remains: what place is being described? Certain key phrases help identify the grotto. The first is: “Dividing the sheer walls to the outer edge of the (constellation) Jade Cord, the sacred shrines are ranged like stars. Carved in the [dark?] stone beyond the moonlight, the venerable visage rises like the moon.” The first sentence describes grotto walls that have been carved into smaller intrusive shrines, which extend from the floor to a height on the wall marked with a line that is euphemistically called the Jade Cord, a constellation, while the second indicates that the face of the main Buddha figure is far over the head of the viewer, like the moon in the sky. This must be a description of a large grotto, since both the extent of the shrines and the face of the statue are described as being high overhead, like celestial bodies. Another key phrase is “Where the old remained, (Li Tai) added to its magnificence; where the new was made, it reached the utmost in marvelousness.” These lines suggest Li Tai refurbished sculpture made in an earlier dynasty, perhaps repairing it, or simply repainting and regilding it, while he also ordered some new sculpting, so the grotto in question should contain both pre-Tang and early-Tang sculpture. While this may have made for a quicker and less expensive project, the indigenous scripture quoted at the beginning of this chapter reveals that such an act of refurbishment was actually 78   |  P O L I T I C S O F F I L I A L P I E T Y

credited with even greater merit than an original venture. The inscription also says: “The flow of brilliance from the white tuft (the ūrnā between the Buddha’s eyes) eclipses the beauty of the lotus flower. The spread of light from his dark blue hair distinguishes his sandalwood grove (monastery) companions.” This special emphasis on the head of the Buddha implies Li Tai felt especially proud of the work done on it, and the way these lines follow directly from the line about the marvelousness of the new carving suggests the Buddha head was the finest part of the “new.” It may well have been the most expensive. The inscription describes the light shining from the ūrnā and the hair as brighter than the paint on the lotus flower carved in the ceiling overhead and strong enough to illuminate the figures of the monk disciples (“his sandalwood grove companions”) flanking the Buddha, which suggests that a costly jewel was set into the statue for the ūrnā and the hair was painted with an expensive pigment such as lapis lazuli. Further descriptive lines describe a ceiling with a central lotus flower, surrounded by swirling clouds, in which flying gandharvas play musical instruments: “Precious flowers rain down auspicious blessings, hiding the colors of the five clouds. Heavenly musicians strike up their music, competing with the sound of the myriad pipes (of nature).” In sum, the inscription identifies a large grotto with flowers, clouds, and celestial musicians in the ceiling and many intrusive shrines cut to a great height on the walls, in which some carving had already been completed and to which more carving was added, especially on the head of the main Buddha. In the early twentieth century, the Japanese scholars who first surveyed and studied the Longmen grottoes believed Li Tai’s inscription referred to Qianxisi Grotto.18 Since it lies some thirty meters to the north, however, this idea is not persuasive (figure 4.1). Further, as Zhang Ruoyu has since pointed out, the interior of Qianxisi Grotto does not match the descriptions given in Li Tai’s inscription.19 The grotto has no ceiling decoration, its walls have no intrusive shrines, and it also lacks any carving done in earlier dynasties. I might add that the main Buddha figure does not have a circular indentation carved between the eyes to hold a precious stone for the ūrnā. Zhang Ruoyu proposed that the inscription refers to Binyang South and Binyang Central grottoes, arguing that “precious flowers” and “heavenly musicians” refer to the

Figure 4.1. Longmen (1): (1) Qianxisi, (2) Binyang North, (3) Binyang Central, (4) Stele for the Yique Buddha Shrine, (5) Binyang South, (6) Grotto 305 in King Udayana Buddha shrine area, (7) Madame Han’s Grotto (no. 331), (8) Jingshan Monastery Grotto (no. 403), (9) Cliff-Carved Three Buddhas. Adapted from map in Ryūmon sekkutsu, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, endpaper.

lotus flowers and gandharvas carved into the ceilings of both Binyang South and Binyang Central grottoes in the Northern Wei. He also translated the line that Chavannes read as “Gr.dhrakūt.a est devant nos yeux; Nagarahāra peut être répresentée” in a different way. Zhang read qishe as gijjhas, or vultures, instead of Gr.dhrakūt.a (Vulture Peak), and najie as nagas, or snakes, not as an abbreviation for Nagarahāra, the place of the famous dragon cave containing the image of the Buddha’s shadow. Zhang read these lines as “Gijjhas are there to be seen; nagas can be envisaged” and interpreted “gijjhas and nagas,” or vultures and snakes, as the birds and dragons involved with the Northern Wei spirit king figures carved at the base of the east walls in both Binyang South and Binyang Central. I think Chavannes’ reading of Gr.dhrakūt.a and Nagara­ hāra is accurate. The lines in question come at the end of a long description of the statue that is intended to impress the viewer with the realism and magnificence of the main Buddha statue. The idea is that the statue is so convincing that the viewer could imagine he was in the presence of Śākyamuni himself, preaching at Vulture Peak, or seeing an image made from the person of the Buddha, as the shadow image in the cave at Nagarahāra was universally believed to be. It would contravene the structure of Cen Wenben’s essay to devolve suddenly from a description of

the grand Buddha image to mention the lowly carvings of nature spirits at the base of the wall. Since Binyang South and Binyang Central grottoes seemed to be a pair, on the evidence of their matching ceilings and spirit king images, Zhang interpreted the crucial lines “Where the old remained, (Li Tai) added to its magnificence; where the new was made, it reached the utmost in marvelousness” as referring to Binyang South and Binyang Central. “The old” meant the Northern Wei Binyang Central, which Li Tai had repaired, repainted, and regilded, “to add to its magnificence,” while “the new” meant Binyang South, the grotto left incomplete at Liu Teng’s death in 523, which Li Tai had finished in the early Tang style. In Zhang’s interpretation, Li Tai’s project actually resulted in a pair of grottoes.20 In my opinion, Li Tai’s inscription refers only to Binyang South. First, there was no mention of two grottoes, and surely such an ambitious politician would want recognition for as large a project as possible. For example, he seems to claim credit for the intrusive shrines on the side walls, when the inscriptions on them plainly reveal they were sponsored by other people. Second, the descriptions uniquely match Binyang South. The line “Dividing the sheer walls to the outer edge of the (constellation) Jade Cord, the sacred shrines are ranged like stars” deP O L I T I C S O F F I L I A L P I E T Y   |  79

Figure 4.2. South wall shrines, Binyang South Grotto. From Zhang Naizhu, Longmen fojiao zaoxiang, pl. 172.

picts the situation only in Binyang South. The side walls of that grotto are carved into hundreds of smaller intrusive shrines, with over 160 votive inscriptions (figure 4.2). Many were dedicated by Tai’s friends and relatives in 641, including shrines by his sister, the Yuzhang princess, and Cen Wenben, the author of his inscription.21 They fill the walls up to the line demarcated by the edge of the canopy carved into the ceiling in the Northern Wei, which the inscription euphemistically called by the name of a constellation, the Jade Cord. Binyang Central, by contrast, has only two dozen minor intrusive carvings, none of them dated to 641. Lastly, the name of the project also suggests it was Binyang South alone. According to its inscription, the name of Li Tai’s project was the “Yique Buddha Shrine.” A very similar name is seen inside Binyang South itself, in 80   |  P O L I T I C S O F F I L I A L P I E T Y

the dedication for a shrine added to the north wall in 646. A man named Han Wenya and his wife “parted with their purified wealth and, in Yique Monastery, reverently had made one shrine in stone.”22 Binyang South was apparently called “Yique Monastery” or “Yique Buddha Shrine,” while Binyang Central was probably still known by its old Northern Wei name of Lingyansi. Therefore, I think the “old” and “new” in Li Tai’s inscription were both found in Binyang South.

Early Remains in Binyang South If the inscription does refer to “old” Northern Wei sculpture and “new” work done in the early Tang, the grotto itself should contain both elements. Since the Northern Wei

Figure 4.3. Bodhisattva, south wall, completed 641, Binyang South Grotto. From Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen baoguansuo (1961), pl. 89.

sculpture was done as part of Emperor Xuanwu’s project to make a matched pair of grottoes for his parents, it not only should look Northern Wei in style but should match the sculpture in Binyang Central, while any work ordered

by Li Tai, being produced over a hundred years later, should be different in style. According to the archeological examination carried out by Wen Yucheng, the remains of Northern Wei sculpture in Binyang South are in three areas.23 One is the jeweled canopy carved in the ceiling, which includes a central lotus surrounded by flying gand­ harvas and kinnaras as in Binyang Central, bordered by lotus petals and a pattern of triangular tassels. Another comprises two of the spirit kings carved at the base of the east (interior) wall: the mountain spirit king at the south wall and the wind spirit king at the north wall. He considers the others to be Tang. The third is the low altar on the floor in front of the main wall and two side walls on which the figures stand. I suspect the Buddha and bodhisattva figures were also partly carved in the Northern Wei. The south-wall bodhisattva in Binyang South (figure 4.3) is virtually a perfect match to the main-wall bodhisattvas in Binyang Central (see figure 2.6), and the thick, squarish feet, the upwardtapering triangular form of the figure, the double strand of jewels, the necklace, the shoulder scarves, and the gestures of the hands are all the same. The north-wall bodhisattva in Binyang South is not an exact match to the south-wall bodhisattva in the details of its jewelry, but the form of the figure, the distinctive feet, the arrangement of the jewelry and scarves, and the specific gestures of the hands (right hand holding a lotus bud up to the chest, left hand bent down holding a fan) are the same. While these elements suggest the figures were roughed out in the Northern Wei, other elements are later in style, such as the faces of the bodhisattvas, which lack the characteristic Northern Wei smile. The south-wall bodhisattva has a heavy, squarish face with thick features, while the north-wall figure has a rounder face with smaller features. They do not match each other, nor do they particularly resemble the main Buddha. These mismatched faces are in stark contrast to the consistent style of faces seen in Binyang Central, which makes them unlikely to have been a part of the original and perfectly coordinated Northern Wei plan for the imperial pair of grottoes. Moreover, both bodhisatt­vas have the “triple-ringed neck,” that is, a neck carved with three shallow folds suggesting fleshiness. This is not a feature of the Binyang Central figures and was probably also done later. It would appear the main Buddha was at least roughed P O L I T I C S O F F I L I A L P I E T Y   |  81

(see figure 2.1). The sculptors of the Binyang South Buddha were able to create a slight sense of the underlying bone structure of the face around the eyes, while suggesting fleshiness in the cheeks and under the chin. The proportions of the figure are also taller and narrower, and the proportion of the head to the body is generally more realistic. The chest is higher and fuller; consequently, the drapery hangs across it in a more natural swag, and the fabric appears to pucker in a convincing way where the belt is tied across the abdomen. More details of the drapery are depicted, as in the places below the proper right hand and above the left hand where it is gathered into folds with a clasp. It is clear the sculptors’ attitudes toward the function of drapery and the depiction of anatomy were different from those of the Northern Wei.

The Later Completion of Binyang South

Figure 4.4. Buddha, west wall, completed 641, Binyang South Grotto. From Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo (1980), pl. 118.

out in the Northern Wei, since the size, posture, and even the mudrās are the same as those of the main Buddha in Binyang Central, suggesting that a basic form created and abandoned in the Northern Wei was too far advanced for the later sculptors to alter in anything but the surface details (figure 4.4). As with the bodhisattvas, however, the face lacks the Northern Wei smile, and the head is flatter and squarer, with a nose and lips that are more naturalistically described than the cylindrical face and simple geometric facial features seen on the Binyang Central Buddha 82   |  P O L I T I C S O F F I L I A L P I E T Y

Prominent scholars of Chinese Buddhist sculpture have argued that the main Buddha in Binyang South was finished in the Sui dynasty (581 – 618).24 There are several reasons for this view. First, no revolution in art accompanied the change in dynasty, and late Sui sculptural style is not strikingly different from early Tang. Further, more grotto sculpture is extant from the late Sui period than from the early Tang, so the natural tendency was to compare Binyang South to the larger body of Sui material. Lastly, only with Zhang Ruoyu’s important article of 1980 was a convincing argument made for the idea that Li Tai sponsored the completion of Binyang South in 641. I accept the Longmen Grottoes Research Academy assessment of 641 for the finishing of the Binyang South main figures.25 First, the production of shrines dated to 641 by friends and relatives of Li Tai strongly suggests the grotto was finished at that time. Two were produced by the prince’s sister and female members of her staff. The Yuzhang princess had a special motivation for adding a shrine to the grotto dedicated to the late empress Zhangsun, for after the girl lost her mother, she was raised by Empress Zhangsun as if she had been her own daughter.26 The princess’ first shrine has a composite dedication: “On the tenth day of the third month of the fifteenth year of the Zhenguan era (April 25, 641), the Yuzhang princess reverently had made one image shrine, praying for peace and security for herself and for all sentient beings. The

Figure 4.5. Sishun Ward shrine, 648, north wall, Binyang South Grotto. From Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng, pl. 95.

princess’ wet-nurse Sa prays for herself and her son. Jiang Xiuzi and five other people also share in the making of the image shrine.27 May all sentient beings attain to true enlightenment” (4E).28 The other shrine was dedicated three months later by another wet-nurse employed by the princess.29 Another small shrine was made by one Lu Shengu, who served as a director in Li Tai’s Princedom of Wei, and a double shrine was dedicated by Cen Wenben and a relative.30 Other shrines of around the time are similar in style to the main Buddha and reinforce dating it to 641 on stylistic grounds. In the lower center of the north wall is a large shrine, 2.33 meters high, made in 648 by a lay society called “The Old and Young of the Sishun Ward, Henan District,

Luozhou.”31 Over a hundred men and women from the Sishun Ward, located on the western edge of the Southern Market in the southeast section of Luoyang, joined in this society to produce a shrine dedicated to the imperial house.32 The main figure is a pendant-legged Maitreya Buddha, flanked by pairs of disciples, attendant bodhisatt­ vas, and guardians (figure 4.5). The style of the Maitreya is very close to that of the Binyang South Buddha.33 The head has the same squarish shape, and the face has a similar type of fleshiness, while the chest and shoulders of the figure are larger and more rounded than on a comparable Northern Wei figure. Though the body sits rather stiffly upright, the sculptors showed a modest interest in naturalistic description of drapery. In all these things, the Sishun P O L I T I C S O F F I L I A L P I E T Y   |  83

Figure 4.6. Amitābha shrine of Li Fu, 658, Thousand Buddha Cliff, Shentong Monastery, Shandong. From Osvald Sirén, Chinese Sculpture, pl. 518.

Ward Maitreya is quite close in style to the Binyang South Buddha. It, too, could be mistaken for a work of the late Sui were it not for the inscribed date of 648.

Early Tang Sculpture at Shentong Monastery Despite the dearth of early Tang sculpture, two statues survive that are remarkably close in style to the Binyang South Buddha. This pair of Amitābhas is found at an early Tang site called Thousand Buddha Cliff (Qianfoya), about forty kilometers south of the modern city of Ji’nan, Shandong Province.34 A sixty-five-meter-long limestone cliff sits high above the ruined Shentong Monastery in the valley of the Jinyang River, which flows north from Mount Tai, carved with about 220 statues ranging in size from 84   |  P O L I T I C S O F F I L I A L P I E T Y

“seven or eight feet in height to only a foot or so.”35 There are forty-three dedicatory inscriptions, of which ten are dated, all within the seventh century.36 At the northern end of the site is a double-niche shrine, containing two seated figures (figure 4.6). The one on the left is 2.65 meters high, and next to its proper left shoulder on the back wall is the following inscription: “In the third year of the Xianqing era of the Great Tang Dynasty (658), the Pure and Faithful Buddhist disciple Fu, Prince of Zhao, acting prefect of Qingzhou, for the Cultured Emperor Taizong has reverently had made an image of Amitābha. I pray that the barbarians of the four quarters obey the (imperial) decrees, that family and state be peaceful and tranquil, and that all sentient beings in the Dharma realm ascend to the Way of the Buddha.”37

Figure 4.7. Shrine of Nanping princess, 657, Thousand Buddha Cliff, Shentong Monastery, Shandong. From Osvald Sirén, Chinese Sculpture, pl. 517.

The Prince of Zhao’s figure and its mate are similar to the Binyang South Buddha in both costume and sculptural style. The most striking detail of costume is the way the mantle is swagged up to the left shoulder and held by a clasp on all these statues. In terms of style, the prince’s Amitābha has the squarish head, slightly fleshy face, and benign expression of the Binyang South Buddha as well as the wide-shouldered torso. There is the same tentative exploration of volume in the chest and the attempt to have the drapery wrap the body enough to reveal something of its underlying form. The Prince of Zhao’s statue is dated by inscription to 658, and its similarities to the Binyang South Buddha further reinforce a date of 641 for that figure. The patron of these figures was also closely related to Li Tai. Li Fu (d. 670), Prince of Zhao, was Tai’s younger half-

brother.38 As his inscription reveals, Li Fu was serving as prefect of Qingzhou (modern Yidu, Shandong), which was only about 120 kilometers east of the Thousand Buddha Cliff site. Li Fu may have traveled to Shentong Monastery and the Thousand Buddha Cliff as a pilgrimage, but he might also have gone to visit his sister, the Nanping princess, as she and her husband were then living in Qizhou, the prefecture where the Thousand Buddha Cliff was situated. The princess’ husband, Liu Xuanyi, was serving as prefect of Qizhou.39 The Nanping princess and Liu Xuanyi also sponsored statues at the Thousand Buddha Cliff at the same time. In 657, the Nanping princess sponsored a small shrine south of Cave 6, at the southern end of the site (figure 4.7). The dedication reads: “In the second year of the Xianqing P O L I T I C S O F F I L I A L P I E T Y   |  85

era of the Great Tang dynasty (657), the Nanping Grand Princess, for the Cultured August Emperor Taizong, reverently made one image.”40 In this inscription, Nanping calls herself “Grand Princess” because her father had passed away in 649. She was no longer the daughter of the reigning emperor but the elder sister of one, and her title was altered to reflect this status. Her father was referred to by his posthumous epithet, Cultured August Emperor Taizong. That she dedicated a shrine to her father at all may indicate the emperor was indeed converted to Buddhism in the last year of his life by the great pilgrim Xuan­ zang (596 – 664).41 In the following year, Liu Xuanyi sponsored a shallow shrine, just eighty-five centimeters high, now designated Cave 4. A Maitreya Buddha figure seated with legs pendant and right hand raised in abhaya mudrā occupies a shrine of idiosyncratic design, its square opening flanked by columns made up of four layers of bundled lotuses, which support the spiral ends of the lintel above. To the right of the shrine, a single guardian stands with one arm and one knee raised in a pose of victory. To the left is one small lion, above which is inscribed the dedication: “On the fifteenth day of the ninth month of the third year of the Xianqing era of the Great Tang dynasty (October 16, 658), the Prefect of Qizhou, Supreme Pillar of State, Commandant-Escort, and Duke of Yuguo, Liu Xuanyi, reverently made (this shrine) and offered worship.”42 Liu Xuanyi was also a patron at Longmen. On the east wall of Binyang South is an Amitābha shrine one and a half meters high that he dedicated in 650.43 Another project he sponsored was rediscovered when the old Qing dynasty archways were removed from the façades of the Binyang trio in 1978.44 In Binyang South, just inside the north face of the entryway on the interior wall, is a muscular, seminude guardian figure, 2.7 meters tall, with an inscription high above his left shoulder that reads: “On the fifth day of the tenth month of the inaugural year of the Yonghui era (November 3, 650), the Prefect of Ruzhou, CommandantEscort, and Duke of Yuguo, Liu Xuanyi, reverently made this vajra guardian” (4F).45 The Nanping princess may also have been a patron at Longmen, and just as she and her husband both donated shrines at the Thousand Buddha Cliff of Shentong Monastery when he was posted to Qizhou, it is likely they both sponsored sculpture at Longmen when he was serving 86   |  P O L I T I C S O F F I L I A L P I E T Y

as prefect of Ruzhou, just fifty kilometers to the southeast, around 650. I propose the Nanping princess was the sponsor of the Qianxisi Grotto, and the beneficiary was her recently deceased father, Emperor Taizong. Qianxisi is the first grotto the visitor encounters after entering the Longmen precinct from the north end of the site, and it is impressively large. On the back wall is a colossal seated Buddha, 7.8 meters in height, flanked by disciples, attendant bodhisattvas, and guardians (figure 4.8). The Buddha has a rounded head with large features and a prominent triple-ringed neck. The shoulders and chest are broad and swelling, far more so than on the Binyang South Buddha, and this greater sense of naturalism suggests it was produced a few years later, around 650 or so. It is very similar in style to the Buddha sponsored by the Nanping princess in Shandong in 657. The figures even wear the same type of costume: a one-shoulder robe, tied at the waist, over which a simple mantle is drawn up over the figure’s left shoulder and down over the right.

The Outcome of the Struggle Let me return to Binyang South, where no matter what Li Tai was actually responsible for, he produced a spectacular finale to the project in 641 with his inscription. The calligraphy was done by Chu Suiliang (596 – 658), who had just come to prominence at court, having been recommended by Wei Zheng to replace the late Yu Shinan (558 – 638) as the calligraphy connoisseur to the emperor (see figure 9.1 below).46 That he employed his father’s leading memorialist as author and his father’s personal calligraphy tutor as transcriber strongly suggests Li Tai intended to impress the reader with the imperial air of his inscription and to create an impression of the inevitability of his succession. In 636, when Emperor Taizong sent his sons and brothers out to serve in the provinces (probably to keep them from conspiring against him), only one was given special permission not to take up his post: Li Tai.47 Even though Tai was not the heir apparent but the second son of Emperor Taizong and Empress Zhangsun, he was encouraged by his father to set up an Institute of Literary Attendants at his residence and recruit literati to staff it, although this institution is traditionally found only in the establishment of the heir to the throne. Indeed, it was the act of setting up such an institute that had triggered the succession struggle

Figure 4.8. Buddha, west wall, Qianxisi Grotto. From Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo (1980), pl. 127.

between Emperor Taizong and his own elder brother not twenty years before. The emperor showed Tai many special favors, such as allowing him to ride in a small cart within the palatine city, since his corpulence made it difficult for him to walk, and in 640, the emperor made a visit to Tai’s residence in Chang’an, afterward canceling that year’s taxes on the citizens of his ward and granting gifts of silk to the officials in Tai’s retinue. The emperor began to support Tai on a grander scale than the heir apparent, and he even proposed that Tai move into the palatine city, though this idea was scotched by Wei Zheng. Over the same period, the heir apparent’s behavior increasingly alienated his father.48 According to the dynastic

histories, Li Chengqian was a bright child who grew into a young man addicted to music and sensual pleasures. At court, he acted the part of the filial and loyal son, but it was said that in private he spoke of his father with contempt, and relations between the two were not improved when his affair with a beautiful singing boy was discovered and his father had the boy killed. Chengqian raised a shrine to the dead youth, where he often sacrificed and wept, and gave illness as an excuse for not attending court, while hundreds of musicians played day and night, so loudly that the music could be heard beyond the walls of his palace. The struggle polarized the court. Both young men actively drew people to their cause, and the court officials and members of the royal family were all enlisted in one camp or the other. Public opinion mattered a great deal in the contest between the two young men, and visible expressions of filial piety were an important part of the battle. After his wife’s death, the emperor returned to Luoyang, which had been his loyal military base during the wars that established the Tang. Li Tai likely accompanied his father to Luoyang in 637, when he may have become aware of the grottoes of Longmen and conceived a plan to make a very public display of filial piety there.49 The prince was too clever to focus it on the unbelieving, even anti-Buddhist, emperor himself, but chose a person very dear to the emperor’s heart. Apparently, the project was a success. Emperor Taizong went on a hunting expedition to Yique at the end of 641.50 Quite likely he visited the grotto dedicated to his late wife there, intended as a proof of Li Tai’s filial piety and a demonstration of his moral qualifications to replace his brother as heir apparent. The incumbent, by contrast, was going from bad to worse.51 After the death of his amoureux, Li Chengqian began to affect Turkish clothes and braid his hair in the barbarian manner. Within his palace, he built a kind of Turkish encampment to live in, where he uttered wild threats about what atrocities he would commit when he was made emperor. Finally, he plotted with one of the emperor’s brothers to make an assault on the imperial palace and usurp the throne. In 643, one of the conspirators confessed the plot, and Chengqian was degraded to commoner status and exiled to faraway Qianzhou in the south, where he died two years later. Cen Wenben and others were in favor of making Li Tai the new heir apparent, but his uncle Zhangsun Wuji (ca. P O L I T I C S O F F I L I A L P I E T Y   |  87

600 – 659) was in favor of his other nephew, Li Zhi, the third son of the late empress Zhangsun.52 When Li Tai heard the emperor was considering making Li Zhi the new heir apparent, he insinuated that Zhi had been a part of Chengqian’s plot against their father. When the emperor was told of this, he saw that Tai was like him in every way, even willing to eliminate his brothers to reach the throne. This the emperor could not bear. Tai was removed from his official posts, his aristocratic title was reduced, and he was sent far away to the southeast of the capital to live in Yunxiang District on the River Han. Li Zhi was appointed heir apparent. Emperor Taizong died on July 10, 649, and Li Zhi became the third emperor of the Tang dynasty. As his father had hoped, the new ruler did not take revenge on his brother. Instead, the young Emperor Gaozong kept Li Tai

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in distant Yunxiang, granting him a princely establishment, complete with a retinue of officials, chariots, robes, and special foods. Li Tai died there in 652, at the age of thirty-five. Many years later, probably in the 670s, Li Tai’s widow returned to Longmen to sponsor a small grotto.53 Yan Wan was the eldest daughter of Yan Lide (d. 656), the eminent imperial architect who supervised the construction of the mausolea of Xianling and Zhaoling.54 Her grotto was excavated not far south of the Great Vairocana Image Shrine, which was sponsored by Emperor Gaozong (see chapter 6). Perhaps her shrine was so situated as an expression of loyalty to her merciful brother-in-law. Evidently, she believed Longmen to be a place of peace, for after she died in the town where her son was officially posted, her coffin was transported back to Luoyang, and she was buried just north of Longmen.

Five    Cīnasthāna Preserves the Dharma All those who devote themselves to making images of the Buddha before my Dharma is extinguished will be liberated at the first of Maitreya’s assemblies. — Foshuo dacheng zaoxiang gongde jing, Tang dynasty1

I

n the century between the evacuation of Luoyang in 534 and the recommencement of patronage under the Tang in 637, the iconography of Longmen altered dramatically. No Tang donor commissioned images of Vimalakīrti and Mañjuśrī, the “pensive prince,” or Śākyamuni and Prabhūtaratna. The number of conventional Śākyamuni statues dwindled from 50 dated examples made in the Northern Wei to only 11 made in the Tang. All 35 dated Maitreya figures produced under the Northern Wei are seated cross-ankled bodhisattvas, while the 15 dated examples from the early Tang are all seated pendant-legged Maitreya Buddhas. No images of Amitābha were sponsored during the Northern Wei, while 274 inscribed Amitābha Buddha figures were produced in the early Tang dynasty plus hundreds more that can be identified by iconography.2

The Decline of the Dharma The revolution in imagery at Longmen can be explained as a response to the events of the sixth century. Although Buddhism had strong imperial sponsors in the north and south who supported Indian translators such as Narendrayaśas (516 – 589), while more adherents were gained among the citizenry and Buddhist beliefs became deeply ingrained in the culture of China, it seems that Buddhist thinkers were affected more by the persecution of the faith by Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou, from 574 to 577, and the destruction of the Buddhist establishment in northwestern India by the Hephthalite invader Mihirakula (502 – 542) in the early sixth century.3 By the end of the sixth century, Chinese Buddhist intellectuals believed their religion had entered a period of decline,

and “a pervasive apocalyptic mood” prevailed throughout China.4 Despite the continued burgeoning of the faith, this dark tone persisted through the Sui dynasty and into the Tang. Chinese Buddhist intellectuals developed new beliefs in accord with this sense of impending doom. One of these was the history of the decline of the Dharma.5 Various schemes and prophecies were outlined in indigenous Chinese scriptures and polemical religious writings, based on disparate creative interpretations of Indian sūtras and prophetic texts.6 Although schemes of five periods were current, equally prevalent were histories of a decline in three periods. To describe one of these very generally, following the nirvān.a of Śākyamuni was the period of the True Dharma (zhengfa), during which the Dharma was extremely efficacious and believers could attain enlightenment by following the Buddha’s instruction. Next came the Semblance Dharma (xiangfa), in which Śākyamuni’s teachings began to lose their power, and though believers engaged in religious behavior, few were able to attain true enlightenment. Last, in the period of the Ending of the Dharma (mofa), the teachings of the Buddha are but a mere echo of what they once were, and the spiritual capacity of human beings is so degraded that the original teachings of Buddhism are of little help. By the end of this period, the Dharma of Śākyamuni will have disappeared. The first person on record to describe such a history of the decline of the Dharma was the monk Huisi (515 – 577), in a work completed in 558.7 Huisi gave the duration of the True Dharma as five hundred years, the Semblance Dharma as one thousand years, and the Ending of the Dharma as ten thousand years. By Huisi’s calculations, Śākyamuni entered nirvān.a in the year 1068 B.C.E., which

meant the Ending of the Dharma had begun more than a hundred years before, in 433 C.E. As one who had endured the warfare between the northern dynasties and repeated attempts on his life by rival monks, Huisi could scarcely have been surprised to find that the world had already entered the period when the Dharma would disappear. Daochuo (562 – 645) articulated a history of the decline of the Dharma, as well, but he also promoted a theory of suitable practices. Buddhism would pass through five periods of five hundred years each, and in each period, a particular religious activity would be most efficacious. Based on his belief that the nirvān.a of the Buddha took place in 949 B.C.E., Daochuo considered himself to be living in the fourth period, in which the most appropriate soteriological behavior was to construct monasteries and other religious artifacts, for penance and to gain merit.8 His student Shandao (613 – 681), whom we will meet in the next chapter as an imperial religious advisor, was renowned for just this kind of merit-making production of scriptures and icons, especially for transcribing the Amitābha Sūtra and painting murals of Amitābha’s Pure Land. The early Tang donors of Longmen did not accept the disappearance of Śākyamuni’s Dharma as a natural prelude to the advent of Maitreya, however, but as a catastrophe they were appointed to prevent. Kumārajīva (344 – 413) had written that “a sūtra says that in the end, there will be in the East a bodhisattva who protects the dharma,” and it would appear that many ordinary lay believers took upon themselves the task of that eastern bodhisattva.9 This protective response is evident in two ways at Longmen. Dedications by Tang donors put a special emphasis on the durability of their icons, especially their preservation through the destruction at the end of the age, and they sponsored copies of images they considered original Indian icons: the King Udayana Buddha, the Śākyamuni of Mahābodhi Monastery, and Amitābha and the Fifty Bo­ dhisattvas. Icons from the holy land were likely considered the most deserving of preservation.

A Lay Society Sponsors an Enduring Image A large Maitreya Buddha shrine in Binyang South Grotto, sponsored by a lay society from Luoyang called “The Old and Young of the Sishun Ward” in 648 (see figure 4.5), has a long inscription that is typical of early Tang dedications 90   |  c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a

in its language and its religious concerns.10 For this reason, I would like to look at it carefully. The first section is a rationale for the making of the statue, followed by a dedication that includes a description of Longmen and the Maitreya figure and claims a superior endurance for carving in stone over paintings and freestanding statues of precious materials. The third section is a restatement of the themes in the first section in verse, and at the end are the donors’ names. The inscription begins: Now we have heard, even though the Ultimate Truth is mysterious and subtle, surpassing the realm of words and images, and the True Body is lost in the distance, having emerged in a land too far away to see or hear, that the Able Man (Śākyamuni) descended into his traces (a physical body) and in accord with prior causes was advantageously made manifest. When (He with) the reddish(-gold) appearance was born in the West, then the pearl-strands of stars concealed their brilliance, and when the white horse galloped to the east, then the golden man appeared in (the emperor’s) dream.11 This caused the axles of the three vehicles to advance together and the gates of the Noble Eightfold Path to be opened all the way through, and the benefits (provided) to everyday life could be summarized in words. Before the conversion of the three-thousandfold (world system), the light of Buddha-truth was drawn (to inhabit the form of Śākyamuni). Then after the eighty(-four) thousand stūpas were filled (with Śākyamuni’s relics by King Aśoka), it returned to the quiescence of nirvān.a. What a pity that a Buddha-sun is so difficult to encounter, it has been compared to tossing (a mustard seed and hitting the point of) a needle. In the human realm, things are very changeable, so in accord with this, we carve stone (to make an unchangeable Buddha image). Why do this? Śākyamuni was manifest in the past, and though we may look for him anxiously, we cannot search back (and find him). Maitreya will descend in the future, and though we may bow our heads in expectancy, it is difficult to wait (for him to come). Living before or after (a Buddha) creates obstacles; going forward or backward, no one will encounter (a Buddha). All (living) memory of his words has perished — how deeply we sigh! (5A)

This seems a different sentiment from the Northern Wei “apology for image-making,” which defended against the possibility of sacrilege in representing the person of one who had passed into nirvān.a. Instead, the Sishun Ward inscription describes a series of historical events leading

from the person of Śākyamuni to themselves as contemporary believers. The dharmakāya assumed the human body of Śākyamuni, whose mind attained release through enlightenment and whose body died and was divided into relics. His teachings were then transmitted to China, where they gained believers. These believers, however, are marooned in a world that has never seen a Buddha and is unlikely to see one soon. The solution for those living in a world in which no Buddha is seen is to make an image of one. The dedication follows: “Now together with over a hundred others with the same intention, we first prayed that the imperial family be forever steadfast, lofty as the heavens in their enlightened rule. Next (we prayed) for the commencement of dawn over the dark paths, that hastening to the other shore, those in them may rise purified. To fulfill this (vow), at this mountain ridge, we reverently had made one Maitreya image shrine” (5B). The dedication to the imperial family is not unusual, particularly since this shrine was made inside Binyang South Grotto, which had just been rededicated to the late empress Zhangsun. What is different is the dedication to the relief of all beings reborn in “the dark paths,” which are the three undesirable realms of rebirth — as an animal, a hungry ghost, or a being in hell. In this, Tang believers differed from their predecessors. In the Northern Wei, donors prayed that their beneficiaries not be reborn in one of the three “evil destinies,” but they rarely gave any indication they believed anyone they knew had already been reborn there and required rescue.12 The next section describes the site of Longmen, beginning with a simple physical description of the limestone cliffs rising on either side of the Yi River but ending grandly with a reading of the site as an eastern relocalization of the sacred geography of Buddhist India. This device was used in the inscription for Binyang South Grotto, where Cen Wenben compared the cliffs at Longmen to the Himālayas and the Yi River to the River Nairañjanā, which flows past Bodhgayā. Surely the author of the Sishun Ward inscription was eager to harmonize with the majestic inscription outside the grotto, and he actually seems more apt in his choice of comparisons: The land rises in twin watchtowers, their walls reflecting the sun for a thousand yards. The stream below is clear and flowing, guided by the pair of peaks. Encircled by dense forest,

(Longmen) is close to the capital, resembling Gr.dhrakūt.a (Vulture Peak) in nearness to the royal city (Rājagr.ha) and the Jetavana to the capital of Śrāvastī. To contribute to this beautiful place, we commissioned inspired craftsmen to cut into (the cliff) and carve and engrave (a work) of complete subtlety and marvelousness. On the eighth day of the fourth month of the twenty-second year of the Zhenguan era of Great Tang (May 5, 648), we had it ornamented to complete it. (5C)

Next, the main icon is described. It represents Maitreya as the next Buddha, after he has been reborn on earth from the Tus.ita Heaven. The Maitreya scriptures predict he will do all the things that Śākyamuni did, including attaining enlightenment while in seated meditation under a sacred tree.13 The inscription continues: Thus, when this venerable image was first manifest, it was as if (Maitreya) had descended from his palace in Tus.ita, and when its marvelous laks.an.a were initially complete, it was as though he was under the bodhi tree. With an ūrnā like moon­ light and dark blue hair like mist crystallized, his lotus eyes seem to move, while his fruit(-red) lips appear to speak. Of those who offer worship at the feet of this Buddha and look up with reverence at this venerable face, none will fail to have their hair stand on end in awe and their hearts open in comprehension. This is what Indra and Brahmā took refuge in, what dragon kings and devas guard and protect. Those (icons) in reds and blues (i.e., paintings) are made brilliant in vain, for as soon as they appear, they are destroyed. Gold and jade (statues) may be precious, but it is easy for them to be scattered and lost. And so it is that because this mountain has been made solid, with the same endurance as heaven and earth, we have carved its stone into (an image of) purity — for how could these hills and valleys ever change? (5D)

The author maintains this grotto image will outlive paintings and freestanding images in precious materials, and the statue will endure because the cliffs at Longmen will endure, “for how could these hills and valleys ever change?” No Northern Wei donor concerned himself with the durability of the stone at Longmen or entertained notions of the earth changing. Apparently, this Tang writer had considered the possibility that something cataclysmic could happen to the world. c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a   |  91

The Eschatology of Lady Li

would be reborn in her next life in the Tus.ita Heaven to wait with Maitreya Bodhisattva for his advent on earth. In 683, the sixty-four-year-old Li Guanding sponsored a When Maitreya is reborn on earth to become the next small grotto for Emperor Gaozong (r. 649 – 683) and Em- Buddha, she will be reborn there as well, thus living in press Wu (624 – 705).14 Her late husband, Lu Kang, was a the time of a Tathāgata, which will greatly increase her high-ranking member of the nobility, while she was one of chances of attaining enlightenment. She hopes to attend the Lis of Longxi and an aristocrat in her own right.15 The one of Maitreya Buddha’s three assemblies under the calligraphy of her dedication is a fine imitation of the writ- Dragon Flower Tree, when all who hear his message will ing of Chu Suiliang, whose slender, flowing style was then attain enlightenment. By this means, she will “depart in vogue, practiced by such court favorites as Xue Ji (649 –  forever from the sea of suffering,” which may mean she 713).16 Although the text is anonymous, the literary struc- will become a Buddha or her soul will pass into nirvāture is quite formal, strictly adhering to four-character n.a.19 If she believed the promise given in the Tang scripand six-character lines of parallel prose. It begins: ture cited at the beginning of this chapter, her donation of a statue would ensure that she departed with the very On the thirtieth, a dinghai day, of the fourth month, in which first assembly. the first was a wuwu day, in the second year of the Yongchun After she leaves this earth for the last time, however, era, a guiwei year, of Great Tang (May 31, 683), the wife of the the “fires of the kalpa of destruction” will burn. Lady Li’s late Lord Lu, Grand Master of Imperial Entertainments with eschatology makes distant reference, I think, to ideas conSilver Seal and Blue Ribbon, Acting Left Assistant Director of cerning the evolution of the cosmos produced by the later the Department of State Affairs, Aide to the Commander in Indian exegetes. The most elaborate presents a scheme of Chief of the Superior Area Command of Yangzhou, and Duke cosmic oscillation in four kalpas, or eons of time. Durof Weijian, Lady Li, the Lady of [two effaced characters], reving the kalpa of destruction, the world as we know it is erently had made one Maitreya Buddha image assembly. progressively destroyed. This is followed by the kalpa of We commenced by carving the [fine/dark?] stone, thus to the duration of destruction, during which the universe is open this beautifully painted shrine. These marvelous traces entirely nonmanifest; the kalpa of renovation, in which are superior to carved sandalwood, and their ingenious workthe universe gradually reappears and is repopulated; and manship surpasses paintings on cloth. Following my heart, the kalpa of the duration of renovation, during which the I first prayed that my sights be on ascending to the Tus.ita universe remains manifest and filled with sentient life.20 Heaven, (from there) to follow the Buddha when he is reborn The world and its history, as we know it, have all existed on the earth, and that my thoughts be on dwelling at the during the kalpa of the duration of renovation, which is Dragon Flower Tree, (from there) to depart forever from the subdivided into twenty periods of increase and decrease.21 sea of suffering. The kalpa begins at the pinnacle of the first period of inEternally solid is this mountain of compassion. Though it be crease, when a golden-wheel cakravartin rules, the human brushed with a deva-garment (i.e., worn down over the centulife span is at its height of 84,000 years, people are 8,400 ries), it will be perpetually preserved, and though the fires of feet tall, and life is easy. Things then begin to deteriorate. the kalpa of destruction burn, it will not be extinguished.17 By the end of the period of decrease, the human life span Humbly I pray for the Celestial Emperor and Celestial Emhas been reduced to just ten years, and the human body press (Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu), who are sagahas shrunk to one foot in height. War, famine, and disease cious and divine. With the Wisdom-sun may they perpetuprevail. After an intense period of fighting, the period of ally shine, and by the Dharma-cloud may they be together decrease will end and a period of increase begins. shaded. In all the lands of the ten directions, may all sentient It was believed that the average span of life was one beings plant good (seeds of) causation, and may all arrive at hundred years during the time of Śākyamuni, which sugthe scene of blessing.18 (5E) gested the period of decrease had been well advanced Lady Li expressed a clear sense of the sequence of events in his day and was even more so by the time Buddhism she envisioned would take place after her death. First, she reached China. Perhaps people such as Lady Li considered 92   |  c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a

the incessant warfare of the sixth century to constitute the “Age of Fighting” at the end of the period of decrease, however, and that the period of increase had just begun. If so, it would explain why she felt Maitreya’s time was drawing closer. The scriptures prophesy that Maitreya will appear on earth when the period of increase has come to its height and a cakravartin rules.22 Lady Li prayed to be reborn in the Tus.ita Heaven to wait for that time in peace. She also prayed that when Maitreya descends, she will be reborn with him to gain enlightenment. Should all this come to pass, her soul would be liberated before the destruction of the world at the end of the present kalpa. At the end of the kalpa of the duration of renovation, the kalpa of destruction will commence, and the world will be destroyed by fire, wind, and water. These grand cosmic events are larger than the person or the teachings of any incarnate Buddha. Instead of accepting the notion that the truths of Buddhism were retained within the dharmakāya during the time when the universe was nonmanifest, to be revealed again when the earth was renewed, Chinese believers clung to their self-appointed role as guardian of the Dharma of Śākyamuni, fearing that a Dharma committed only to pieces of paper or to human memories had scant likelihood of surviving the destruction of the world. If Lady Li’s prayers were granted, her soul would already be gone from the earth by the time the kalpa of destruction arrived, but her statue — her image of the Dharma — would be left behind. How would her effort to preserve the Dharma fare? Lady Li believed she was having her statue created in “imperishable stone” in order to survive the “fires of the kalpa of destruction.” I suspect the Sishun Ward inscription was also referring to this world cataclysm when it asked, “How could these hills and valleys ever change?” That they planned for their statues to survive the kalpa of destruction, however, suggests that Chinese believers did not really think the world as they knew it would be destroyed, but more that it would be ravaged by fire, wind, and water. A statue in stone, especially one in a grotto, could be considered likely to survive a scourging by fire and wind, while a grotto carved high and deep in the cliff face, as was Lady Li’s, could be presumed to be secure against flood.

Preserving the Dharma in Stone Early Tang donors disparaged paintings and freestanding statues as ephemeral. The popular observation was that paintings were quick to decay, as pigments flaked or faded, cloth rotted, and the plastered walls of monastery buildings crumbled. Freestanding statues could be stolen, especially if they were made of precious materials, or they could be destroyed in a fire or flood.23 The Sishun Ward inscription says: “Those (icons) in reds and blues (i.e., painting) are made brilliant in vain, for as soon as they appear, they are destroyed. Gold and jade (statues) may be precious, but it is easy for them to be scattered and lost.” Instead, the donors of Longmen put their faith in the endurance of stone. A local official wrote: “Since I believe that [this] stone cannot be destroyed, while reds and blues (paintings) will grow dark, I have reverently had one Śākyamuni image shrine made in stone at Yique. . . . Though sand and dust (i.e., this world) may be transformed, the marvelous form (of this statue) will be forever preserved, and by carving (it in) this dark stone, it will be endlessly transmitted without decay” (5F).24   Faith in the endurance of stone was hardly unique to Buddhist believers at this time; many sixth-century epitaphs assert their capacity to survive because they are carved in stone.25 The donors of Longmen differ, however, in asserting that the cliffs themselves, along with everything carved into them, will survive. In his dedication, the high official Lu Zheng (737 – 800) put it simply: “Since the mountain will not decay, the image will also be preserved forever” (5G).26 These donors were not referring to slow processes such as erosion and exfoliation. They had in mind the cataclysmic oscillations of the universe, in particular, the far-distant yet inevitable kalpa of destruction. This is why both Lady Li and the Wang brothers, whom we meet below, had their grottoes placed high on the cliff. They believed the stone of Longmen would be proof against fire and wind, while a grotto placed high enough could escape the raging waters. Xu Qian, who wrote his own inscription, said of his statue and all the icons at Longmen: “Even though they be brushed with a deva-garment, these majestic laks.an.a will scarcely be destroyed, and though the fires of the kalpa of destruction will burn, how could this legion of images be extinguished?” (5H).27 This emphasis on the eternal preservation of images of c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a   |  93

the Dharma seems to be particular to Chinese Buddhist practice. There are hints that the preservation of statuary was related to notions of a declining Dharma in Indian belief, at least as reported by the seventh-century Chinese observer Xuanzang, although it may be that Xuanzang’s own beliefs influenced what he heard. At Bodhgayā, Xuanzang was told a prophecy about two statues of Avalokiteśvara that had been set up years before to demarcate the north and south boundaries of the Diamond Throne area where Śākyamuni gained enlightenment. Xuanzang said the elderly folk there believed that “as soon as the figures of this Bodhisattva sink in the ground and disappear, the law of Buddha will come to an end,” and he reported that “the figure at the south angle is now buried up to its breast.”28 This prophecy refers to the decline of the Dharma as measured by the disappearance of the statues, yet there seems to have been little Indian interest in making a statue that could survive the kalpa of destruction and endure eternally. Chinese Buddhist believers’ fixation on the eternal preservation of images of the Dharma seems related to the indigenous cult of immortality, in particular, the belief in the durability and preservative power of stone. The relationship between the afterlife and elaborately worked stone objects is seen in the earliest of Chinese cultures. The exquisite workmanship of the jade articles placed in elite tombs of the Liangzhu (ca. 3500 – 2000 B.C.E.) and Hongshan (ca. 4000 – 2500 B.C.E.) cultures of the Neolithic period clearly involved considerable expenditure of time and money. A religious purpose is obvious from their nonfunctional, enigmatic forms, such as the “pig-dragon” hoops, “hooked-cloud” ornaments, and horse-hoof-shaped tubes found in Hongshan Culture burials and the bi discs and cong tubes found in Liangzhu Culture tombs.29 Other symbols of life and rebirth found in these tombs suggest the association of jade with beliefs about eternal life in the underworld and nascent notions of immortality. This tradition culminated in the production of “jade suits” in the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E. – 220 C.E.), which were fitted onto the bodies of deceased members of the Han royal family in their tombs. Wu Hung has convincingly argued that these “suits” were actually one layer in a system of jade encasement believed to transform the body of the deceased into an immortal body of jade, so that the bodies of the Han royalty became eternal bodies of stone, intended 94   |  c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a

to survive for all time.30 It was in the Han dynasty that Buddhism entered China. Beliefs about the immortalizing power of stone for human bodies were readily transferred to images of the body of the Buddha, and stone statues of the Buddha were intended as eternal, immortal bodies for the Dharma. In the same way in which the “jade suits” were believed to block the operation of physical decay on the body, so the stone bodies of the Buddha were believed, by the early Tang, to be able to withstand the phases of destruction in the oscillation of the cosmos. Creating imperishable Buddha icons was paralleled by carving his words in stone. Beginning in the mid-sixth century, scriptures were carved at cave-shrine sites, such as Northern Xiangtangshan, in Hebei Province, and on mountainsides and in dry stone riverbeds.31 In 579, a lay society in Zou County, southern Shandong, engaged a monk calligrapher to write out a section of the Mahāsamnipāta Sūtra on a fifty-three-meter section of a granite slope carved to resemble a colossal relief stele.32 In 589, the monk Lingyu (518 – 605) established himself at the site of Baoshan, near Anyang, Henan Province, where he excavated the Dazhu­ sheng Grotto, carved with icons of Rocana, Amitābha, and Maitreya, along with a procession of twenty-four Indian patriarchs in low relief. The exterior walls he had engraved with Buddhanāma scriptures, for the penitential recitation of Buddha names, and some of the scriptures that formed the basis for Dharma decline theory, such as the Nirvān.a Sūtra and the Yuezangfen portion of the Mahāsamnipāta Sūtra.33 During the Daye era of Sui (605 – 617), the monk Jingwan began a project to engrave the entire Buddhist canon in stone at Fangshan, some seventy-five kilometers southwest of modern Beijing.34 According to Jingwan’s original plan “to protect the True Dharma,” “for the far distant time when there is no Buddhist Dharma,” the stones bearing the scriptures were sealed in nine caves cut in the cliff high above Yunju Monastery and buried in a chamber beneath its pagoda.35 Carving sūtras in grottoes and on stone slabs for interment had the same goal as sculpting stone statues within grottoes — that by the work of their hands, Chinese believers could make the Dharma survive.

Wang Xuance, Imperial Envoy to India In 1976, the archeologists of the Longmen Cultural Relics Management and Conservation Office found a previ-

Figure 5.1. The medieval Chinese traveler’s India

ously overlooked inscription in Binyang South Grotto, in the lower south corner of the west wall.36 The shrine is quite ruined and only parts of the inscription are still legible, but it can be reconstructed as follows: “Wang Xuance, [vowing first to aid the imperial house] and next for all sentient beings in the Dharma realm, reverently made one Maitreya image assembly, on the fifteenth day of the ninth month of the second year of the Linde era (October 29, 665)” (5I).37 Wang Xuance served as imperial envoy to India under Emperors Taizong and Gaozong. On his first mission, Wang was assistant envoy under Vice Minister of the Court of Imperial Regalia Li Yibiao.38 The delegation of twentytwo was dispatched by Emperor Taizong early in 643, to return with the Indian envoys sent to the Chinese court by the King of Magadha on a reciprocal diplomatic visit.39

By year’s end, the Chinese party reached Magadha, and in the first month of 645, they climbed Vulture Peak, where Li set up a stele engraved with his “Inscription on Ascending Mount Gr.dhrakūt.a.”40 The following month, they arrived at Mahābodhi Monastery in Bodhgayā, where they set up another stele, and they returned to China that year. On his second mission, from 647 to 648, Wang Xuance served as chief envoy. The friendly king of Magadha had passed away, however, and his usurping prime minister sent his troops to attack Wang and the Chinese delegation. Wang fled to the Tibetans, and with their help he defeated the usurper and brought him back in fetters to Chang’an, to the delight of Emperor Taizong. Wang was sent on his third mission by Emperor Gaozong, departing in 658 and traveling to India by way of Tibet and Nepal (figure 5.1).41 He was warmly received again at Mahābodhi Monastery c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a   |  95

in 660 and returned to China in 661 with a relic of the Buddha’s skull from Udyāna (modern northern Pakistan), which he presented to the emperor at court.42 His now-lost ten-volume memoir, titled Record of Journeys in Central India (Zhong Tianzhu xing ji), was presented to the throne along with three volumes of illustrations, probably drawn by Song Fazhi, the master craftsman who traveled with the first Tang delegation.43 Undoubtedly, many of his drawings depicted Indian Buddhist icons. Wang Xuance’s image at Longmen is no longer recognizable, but it might have been a replica of a statue from India. In the few historical materials on Wang that have come down to us, there are two records of his involvement with Indian sculpture. In one, he participated in the copying of a sacred Buddhist image in India, while in the other he was put in charge of recreating an Indian image in Luoyang. It was owing to the efforts of travelers such as Wang that Tang donors’ desire to preserve the most authentic expression of the Dharma by means of copies of Indian images could be realized.

The Śākyamuni Image of Mahābodhi Monastery, Bodhgayā Although Wang Xuance’s Record of Journeys in Central India is lost, information from it is preserved in certain Tang sources, especially Fayuan zhulin (The pearl grove of the Dharma garden), the encyclopedia of Buddhism compiled by Daoshi in 668. Here is found the record concerning the famous statue of Śākyamuni in Mahābodhi Monastery in Bodhgayā.44 Daoshi’s anecdote begins with a quotation from Wang Xuance’s book: In the Western Countries auspicious images are innumerable, yet I (here) set down (the story of) the image of the Mahābodhi tree as follows. . . . When the image of the deity on the Diamond Throne was originally to be built, a certain stranger came and spoke to the great congregation of monks, saying: “I have heard you have been seeking good artisans to make an image. My skill is such that I am able to make this image.” The great congregation answered him, saying: “What materials will you require?” He answered: “I will only need some incense, water, fuel for a lamp, oil, and moxa.” When these materials were ready, he said to the monks: “I must do my work with the doors closed. For the next six months, you 96   |  c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a

must be careful that no one opens the doors. Also you need not trouble to bring me any food or water.” Once the man entered, he did not come out again. But when there were only four days left before the six months would have passed, the great congregation of monks got into an uproar, some saying, “This pagoda is so narrow inside, he should have showed himself,” and “How could it be that he has never appeared after so many months?” Suspicious about what he was doing, they opened the doors to the pagoda. They did not see the artisan, but the image was finished. Only above the right breast there was a small place still incomplete. Later a god spoke from out of the sky and startled the great congregation, saying: “I am the Bodhisattva Maitreya.”45

The monks of Mahābodhi Monastery evidently told the same legend of their statue’s divine genesis to all Chinese pilgrims. It was also recorded by Xuanzang in his Da Tang xi you ji of 648, with one further telling detail.46 Xuanzang’s description of the statue as sitting cross-legged with the right hand extended downward identifies it as Śākyamuni reaching toward the earth, calling her to witness to end the temptation of Māra, just before he attained enlightenment. The next section is a paraphrase of Wang’s account of the Chinese delegation’s encounter with the statue: Ever since Maitreya personally made this image, all the religious and laymen had measured it for molds and copied it in drawings, but the Sacred Mutations are hard to fix, and no one had ever been able to copy them successfully. When Ambassador Wang arrived there, he begged of the congregation of monks to be able to do this. All the delegation entreated (the Bodhgayā monks) with the utmost sincerity and earnestness, and spent many days in circumambulation ceremonies, confessions, and repentance, while also explaining why they had come. Only then were they able to make a picture (of the image) whose resemblance was perfect. . . . Song Fazhi and the other artisans were ingenious enough to render completely the Sacred Visage and to copy the Sacred Countenance. When the picture arrived at the capital (Chang’an), religious and laymen vied with one another in copying it.

It is not clear if the pious demonstrations of the Chinese delegation convinced the Indian monks to allow a copy to be made or if their piety convinced the “Sacred Mutations” to allow themselves to be copied accurately, but the artisans’ strong desire to make a correct copy of the statue

re-created in Chang’an by command of the throne. Around 664, “the sculptor Song Fazhi was ordered to erect the armature for the Bodhi image in the Jiashou Palace.”48 Since this was recorded in the biography of Xuanzang, who brought a copy of the Mahābodhi Monastery Śākyamuni image back to China, and the sculptor was the same Song Fazhi who copied the image in 645, the “Bodhi image” made for the Jiashou Palace was probably a replica of the famous image from Mahābodhi Monastery. The description of the statue as beginning with an armature — a skeletal framework made of wood or bamboo — means the exterior of the figure was modeled in dry lacquer or clay, and although this perishable statue has probably long since disappeared, re-creations of this famous Indian image may still exist. In 695, the great pilgrim Yijing (635 – 713) brought back to Luoyang yet another copy of the “True Image of the Diamond Throne Buddha,” that is, the Mahābodhi Monastery statue.49 Professor Luo Shiping of the Central Arts Academy has argued that early Tang images of a crowned Buddha with its right hand in the earth-touching mudrā are replicas of this Indian statue.50 One of these is the large crowned and jeweled Buddha in Leigutai South Grotto, on the east side of Longmen, probably produced in the early eighth century based on Yijing’s copy (figure 5.2).51

The Maitreya Image of Jing’ai Monastery Figure 5.2. Seated Buddha, freestanding, Leigutai South Grotto, late seventh – early eighth c. Photo, the author, 1994.

is evident. Only a faithful copy could capture the efficacy of this icon. In what lay the statue’s great spiritual power? The scriptures say Maitreya attended Śākyamuni’s assemblies and spoke with him face to face.47 Hence, although it was certainly marvelous that the statue was produced by divine hands, its real power lay in the fact that it was an image made by one who had actually seen the Buddha. The icon made by Maitreya was an express image of the Dharma. When this perfect and hard-won copy of the portrait-icon arrived in Chang’an, it was seen as especially potent. No wonder Chinese believers strove to make their own copies. The image from Mahābodhi Monastery was evidently

Wang Xuance was also put in charge of re-creating an Indian icon. Zhang Yanyuan’s Lidai minghua ji of around 847 contains the other surviving anecdote concerning Wang Xuance and Buddhist statuary: Jing’ai Monastery (of Luoyang). Within the Buddha Hall was an image modeled in clay of Maitreya bodhisattva under the bodhisattva tree. The drawing of the bodhisattva image that Wang Xuance had obtained in the western regions was issued from the palace in the second year of the Linde era (665) and used as the model. (The craftsmen Zhang Shou and Song Chao did the modeling, Wang Xuance directed the work, and Li An pasted on the gold [leaf].) In the eastern bay was a Maitreya image. (It was modeled by Zhang Zhizang, who was the younger brother of Zhang Shou. It was finished by Chen Yongcheng.) In the western bay was a Maitreya image. (It was modeled by Dou Hongguo. The haloes and the transc ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a   |  97

formation-born beings [huasheng]52 on all three images were carved by Liu Shuang.)53

According to this record, in 665, the throne released a drawing by Song Fazhi from the Imperial Archives to serve as a model for a statue at Jing’ai Monastery. Wang Xuance was put in charge of the re-creation project, directing the work of the sculptors and the gilder. It is likely he was asked to do this because he had seen the original statue. Song Fazhi was not involved in this project, but perhaps the craftsman Song Chao cited here was his son. Two identifications are possible for the central statue in the Buddha Hall of Jing’ai Monastery. Although Zhang Yanyuan described “an image modeled in clay of Maitreya bodhisattva under the bodhisattva tree,” there is no such thing as a “bodhisattva tree.” If Zhang meant the bodhi tree, then the image could have been Śākyamuni gaining enlightenment under the bodhi tree, in which case, the phrase should be read instead as “the image (of Śākyamuni) under the bodhi tree modeled in clay by Maitreya bodhisattva.” Were this the case, the central statue in Jing’ai Monastery would have been a copy of the statue in Mahābodhi Monastery in Bodhgayā, which was believed to have been miraculously produced (and almost finished) by Maitreya bodhisattva. The statue was more likely Maitreya, as Zhang’s record states, although not Maitreya bodhisattva. Maitreya was always portrayed as a Buddha by Tang sculptors at Longmen and probably also in this image hall.54 As William Acker pointed out, Zhang likely referred to the figure as a bodhisattva because contemporaneous belief held that Maitreya was still waiting in the Tus.ita Heaven as a bodhisattva, even though the statue actually depicted Maitreya as a Buddha. If so, then what Zhang called the “bodhisatt­va tree” would have been the Dragon Flower Tree, under which Maitreya Buddha will preach to the three great assemblies. Finally, the identification of the main figure as Maitreya is confirmed by the designation of the figures in the east and west bays as Maitreya. An assembly of a Śākyamuni flanked by two Maitreyas is scarcely seen, but a program of three Maitreya figures is well attested at Longmen, Dunhuang, and elsewhere.55 It represents Maitreya Buddha Preaching to the Three Assemblies. The purpose of the statue is unknown, as is the donor 98   |  c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a

on whose behalf the throne released the drawing, although the donor was probably imperial. Jing’ai Monastery itself was sponsored by the heir apparent Li Hong (652 – 675), in 657, when he was five years old, on behalf of his parents, Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu.56 While to a modern reader it may seem precocious for a boy of five to conceive of such a thing, it should be noted that in medieval times it was not unusual for children to decide on the monastic life at six or seven years of age.57 Given his status as the heir apparent in this all-powerful family, the child’s wish to present a loving gift to his doting parents would have been carried out with all the resources of the realm. Indeed, the name of the monastery reveals such a purpose. The Sūtra of the Buddha of Measureless Life teaches that the appropriate behavior for family members is to show each other “reverence and love” (jing’ai).58 Reverence and Love (Jing’ai) Monastery was perfectly named as a public declaration of the boy’s filial devotion to his parents. The sponsor of the Maitreya figure, or the entire hall, was likely another imperial child, Li Xian (656 – 710), Prince of Zhou and future Emperor Zhongzong (r. 684, 705 – 710). In his discussion of the Maitreya hall, Zhang Yanyuan conflated it with the Jing’ai Monastery, which he mistakenly stated was established by “Emperor Zhongzong” for his mother, Empress Wu.59 In 665, “Emperor Zhongzong” was a prince of nine, but out of respect, no doubt, Zhang Yanyuan referred to Li Xian by his future imperial title. Probably Zhang meant that Li Xian had dedicated the Maitreya figure. His choice of Maitreya was likely influenced by his tutor Xuanzang’s devotion to that deity.60

The Maitreya of Wang Xuance As Wang’s Maitreya shrine at Longmen is ruined, it is impossible to say what it looked like or what relationship it bore to the statue at Jing’ai Monastery, also long since lost. If it was produced by the Longmen stone carvers without any special direction, it could have looked much like the Chinese-style Maitreya Buddhas produced for Lady Liu in 637 and the Sishun Ward in 648 (see figure 4.5).61 Wang had just supervised the reconstruction of an Indian image for the throne, however, and might have wished to have that image reproduced at Longmen. A clay statue in a wooden hall in a bustling city was quite vulnerable, so if

Wang shared the eschatological mind-set of his contemporaries, he might have chosen to have the image reproduced in “imperishable stone.” The Indian icon reproduced at Jing’ai Monastery might well have been the colossal Maitreya at Darēl. This famous statue of Maitreya Buddha was admired by Chinese pilgrims from the year 400 onward, since Darēl was on the route into northern India through the ancient kingdom of Udyāna (see figure 5.1). The colossal gilded sandalwood figure was estimated variously as eighty or a hundred feet in height (twenty-two to twenty-eight meters). Faxian (ca. 400), Fasheng (ca. 404), and Xuanzang (ca. 630) related similar versions of the legend in which an arhat transported a skilled artisan up to the Tus.ita Heaven to study Maitreya in detail. Back on earth, the artisan modeled an image of the deity that was perfect in all its laks.an.a. Wang Xuance might also have seen the Maitreya of Darēl, as the records say he brought back a relic of the Buddha’s skull from Udyāna. Part of the significance of the Maitreya of Darēl was its association with the spread of Buddhism to China. Fa­ xian reported that the monks of this monastery believed that when the Maitreya was made, monks from India then began to travel through the Darēl valley on their way to spread the Dharma to the east. Xuanzang also reported that “from the time of the execution of this image, the streams of the law began to flow eastward.”62 The fame of this colossus in China combined with its association with Buddhism coming to China made it unique. For this reason, I suspect this is the Maitreya image Song Fazhi copied in the “western regions,” which was reproduced in a hall at Jing’ai Monastery in Luoyang and even, perhaps, reproduced at Longmen by Wang Xuance.

“A Thousand Years after My Nirvān.a, You Will Be Found in China” Walking on the path along the cliff face from the Binyang trio courtyard southward, the modern visitor to Longmen may be startled by a series of unusual Buddha statues whose appearance is unmistakably Indian (figure 5.3). Each sits upright on a square seat, with legs pendant. The robe clings smoothly to the body, with only the hemline indicated and no drapery folds. The right shoulder is bare.

The head is oval, with a smooth cap of hair, and the lips are quite full, especially the lower lip. These figures appear to be Chinese imitations of a late-Gupta-period (ca. 320 –  647) Buddha figure from Sārnāth (figure 5.4).63 By the latest count of the Longmen Grottoes Research Academy, there are nearly one hundred of these figures, which are practically identical. All are about one meter in height and make the same version of the dharmacakra mudrā: the right hand is raised with the forefinger and thumb pressed together, while the left hand rests, palm up, on the leg, again with the forefinger and thumb pressed together.64 Most are found in open niches that measure about a meter and a half in all dimensions, with the great majority found in the area around Binyang South Grotto and the Jingshan Monastery Grotto (figure 5.5). Variations include throne backs etched into the back wall of the niche or the addition of attendant disciples and bodhisattvas.65 Happily, these mysterious figures are identified by inscription. The earliest dated figure is inscribed: “Monk [two illegible characters], for his late parents, reverently had made one King Udayana image. May the Dharma realm all share in this blessed deed. Fifteenth day of the tenth month of the sixth year of the Yonghui era (November 18, 655)” (5J).66 Despite the abbreviation used in the inscription, the image is not of King Udayana, but of Śākyamuni. Sometime after his enlightenment, Śākyamuni ascended to the Trayastrimśās Heaven to preach the Dharma to his mother, Queen Māyā, who had been reborn there. While he was away, however, his faithful follower, King Udayana of Kauśāmbī, began to suffer from the Buddha’s absence. According to the version told in the Record of the Buddha’s Journeying in India, the king determined to have an image made of Śākyamuni: In his longing for the World-Honored One, (King Udayana) asked the great disciple Mahā Maudgalyāyana to take thirtytwo skilled craftsmen and fragrant sandalwood up to the palaces of heaven, where they carved the thirty-two perfect attributes. (This done), they returned to the world and installed (the statue) in the original vihāra (in the Jetavana), where there had been no throne for the Buddha. Later, when the World-Honored One finally descended from heaven, the image emerged of itself, bowed its head . . . and stood humbly in attendance on Him. Thereupon the Lord deigned to pat its

c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a   |  99

Figure 5.3. King Udayana Buddha figures, Grotto 305 (above) and Grotto 306 (below). Photo, the author, 1996.

head and made for it a prophecy, saying: “A thousand years after My Nirvān.a, you will be found among the Eastern Xia (i.e., in China), where you will bring great benefits, far and wide, to men and gods.”67

The significance of this well-known legend was considerable. Not only did it justify image-making, especially the patronage of statuary by royalty, but it also established the existence of a “veritable icon” of the Buddha taken from life, which was perfectly produced by divine process.68 As such, it was an express image of the Dharma. Lastly, 100   |  c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a

Figure 5.4. Seated Buddha, sandstone, from Eastern India, possibly Sārnāth. Gupta period, fifth century. © Copyright the Trustees of the British Museum.

it embodied the transmission of the Dharma from India to China, even signifying that Śākyamuni intended Buddhism to be transmitted to the Chinese. Western scholars argue this legend provided scriptural authority for a cult of the statue of King Udayana that already existed in China by the fourth century.69 This earlier statuary type is exemplified by the late-tenth-century wooden statue in the Seiryō-ji, Kyoto, identified by documents inside it as a copy of “the King Udayana image” made by Chinese sculptors for the Japanese monk Chōnen (938 – 1016). The Seiryō-ji figure is a standing image with

Figure 5.5. Jingshan Monastery Grotto area: (305, 306, 308, 309, 312, 332, 335, 354, 356, 358, 379, 411, 429, 440) King Udayana Buddha shrines, (306) earliest dated King Udayana Buddha shrine, (331) Madame Han’s Grotto, (358) Wang Brothers Grotto, (403) Jingshan Monastery Grotto. Drawing adapted from Longmen shiku kukan bianhao tuce, ed. Longmen shiku yanjiusuo and Zhongyang meishu xueyuan meishushi xi, Xishan limian tu 3.

U-shaped drapery folds on the torso, whose style is Central Asian, with antecedents in Mathuran sculpture.70 It is dramatically different from the seated Sārnāth-style King Udayana figures at Longmen.71 The Longmen patrons were probably well versed in the legend of the statue’s making and were likely familiar with the Seiryō-ji type of image, since a very large early-seventh-century example stands prominently on the north wall of Binyang South (figure 5.6). Therefore, they must have deliberately chosen to copy a very different image for particular reasons. The King Udayana Buddha figures at Longmen are identical, indicating they were all copies of the same particular image, and several Japanese scholars have espoused the

idea that the Longmen figures are copies of a statue Xuanzang brought back to China in 645.72 Xuanzang returned with copies of seven statues from the West, including “one carved sandalwood Buddha image, a copy of the carved sandalwood icon that described the True (Image of the Buddha), which King Chu’ai (i.e., Udayana) of Kauśāmbī (had made because) he longed for the Tathāgata. The height (of the copy) from base to halo is two feet and nine inches (about eighty-six centimeters).”73 In his diary, Xuanzang reported that he did not find the King Udayana image in the Jetavana in Śrāvastī, which was supposedly its location according to scripture.74 Instead, arriving in Kauśāmbī, he saw “the Buddha figure carved of sandalwood . . . that was c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a   |  101

Points in favor of Xuanzang’s copy as the source include the brief period in which the Longmen statues were all produced. The earliest were made in 655, just ten years after Xuanzang’s return, and the last in 680, which corresponds to the short time Xuanzang and his disciples were prominent. On his return to China, Xuanzang was welcomed by Emperor Taizong and given a monastery in Chang’an and a staff to help carry out his vast translation project, but after Xuanzang’s death in 664, Emperor Gaozong abandoned support for his followers.76 The style of the figures also argues in favor of identification with Xuanzang’s copy. Kauśāmbī was only about one hundred kilometers west of Sārnāth, so it is likely a statue from Kauśāmbī would be in the late-Gupta Sārnāth style, as the figures at Longmen are. How Xuanzang’s King Udayana image could have arrived at Longmen can only be the subject of speculation. The copies of famous Indian images he brought back were displayed for public viewing in Hongfu Monastery in Chang’an, but Xuanzang was also summoned to Luo­ yang by Emperor Taizong shortly after his return, to brief the emperor on the “climate, products and customs of India.”77 Xuanzang’s native place was a town southeast of Luoyang, and he had been ordained in Jingtu Monastery in Luoyang, where his brother was a monk.78 If Xuanzang brought his copy of the King Udayana statue to Luoyang, it could have been copied by monastic associates or family members and by this route become the model for the Longmen figures. Figure 5.6. Standing Buddha, north wall, Binyang South Grotto, seventh century. From Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng, pl. 90.

made by King Udayana. From its divine attributes there arises a supernatural radiance, which from time to time shines forth. The rulers of various lands have sought to carry it off by force; but though many men have tried, they have not been able to move it. In the end they have made representations of it for worship, which are always called authentic; but if one wishes to speak of the original, it is this image here.”75 Clearly, Xuanzang believed strongly that the Kauśāmbī statue was the authentic image, which makes it likely to be the statue he copied and took back to China. 102   |  c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a

Related Patrons of the King Udayana Image High above the Binyang South Grotto façade, a small, cubic grotto containing a King Udayana Buddha figure was carved in 656.79 The inscribed dedication on the south wall reads: The wife of Xin Shizu, née Sun, knowing her body was not eternal, and her husband having predeceased her, on the fifteenth day of the fourth month of the inaugural year of the Xianqing era (May 14, 656), made a vow reverently to make a King Udayana image shrine. This had not come to pass when we heard that Mrs. Sun had passed away on the fourth day of the fifth month of that year (June 1). She is succeeded by her

dependents Cuan Xie, Xin Xin, Sun Xin, and others who have taken over (this project). Now it has come to pass. We pray for the deceased that their souls be reborn in the Pure Land, that they be cut off from the three obstructions, and we further pray that all sentient beings attain true enlightenment. (Hence, we have) engraved this record.80 (5K)

Mrs. Sun appears to have been part of a local group that sponsored King Udayana Buddha images. Cuan Xie, identified here as one of her dependents, is probably the Cuan Junxie who had a King Udayana Buddha image made for his late wife in 659.81 His statue is situated in a very long niche nearby that contained a row of nine King Udayana Buddhas made between 659 and 661 (Grotto 356 in figure 5.5).82 The dedications reveal that some were sponsored by Elder Daughter Li, Fourth Daughter An, Xu Qide and his wife Elder Daughter Cao, and Huangfu Wengang and his wife. Two more were sponsored by Second Daughter Gao for her late younger brother Gao Xuda and her whole family.83 The dedication by Second Daughter Gao is of particular interest for its possible connection to another nearby long row of connected niches containing thirteen King Udayana Buddha figures. One is inscribed: “Reverently made by Gao Shunda for his late wife.”84 Gao Shunda was probably the brother of Gao Xuda and Second Daughter Gao. Other donors in this row included three members of . the sangha: Fazang, who sponsored three figures; Mingru, who sponsored five; and Fasheng, who sponsored one.85 The latter two clerics also sponsored other King Udayana figures, and Fasheng also sponsored the other two statues in the grotto where a laywoman Li had a King Udayana Buddha and an Amitābha made for her late husband in 660.86 She may also be the Elder Daughter Li who sponsored the statue in the Cuan Junxie group in 659.87 Further, the cleric named Mingru not only sponsored the five figures in the Gao Shunda group, he or she also sponsored a King Udayana Buddha figure in a trio of niches carved directly below the Cuan Junxie group’s shrines. A tentative conclusion to draw from this web of connections is that a small group of related people donated most of these King Udayana Buddha figures. The twenty-nine discussed here were produced by only eighteen donors. This small coterie of people may have been especially interested in this figure because they had direct contact with

its model. They might have seen Xuanzang’s copy of the King Udayana statue if they were friends and relatives, or if they were lay congregants or monks of the Jingtu Monastery. The Abbot of Jingtu Monastery sponsored a statue at Longmen in 650.88 Perhaps some patrons of King Uda­ yana figures were also monks of Jingtu Monastery, such as the earliest donor of 655, a monk whose name is lost, or others such as Fasheng or Mingru.

The Wang Brothers Sponsor King Udayana and Amitābha Figures In the summer of 659, two brothers named Wang, who were former local civil officials, dedicated a small grotto about a meter and a half in all dimensions to benefit the souls of their late parents. The grotto was placed quite high on the cliff face, over thirty meters above the base of the cliff, in the highest register of shrines above the Jingshan Monastery Grotto. The dedication is partly ruined, but from what remains it seems their father was a military general, while their mother, whose surname was Li, held the title of Commandery Mistress of Yuyang, indicating she was a member of the imperial family. The younger brother, Wang Youfang, was the author of the inscription in fourcharacter verse, in which he revealed that the grotto was placed so high to preserve it through the floods of the kalpa of destruction: The numinous shrine reclines against the moon; a cassia palace suspended amidst the stars. Rising into the void to excavate the stone, [illegible character] the mountain ridge, a lofty chamber. The grotto is high and hidden in the earth, (safe from) waves agitating up to the heavens. Thus we followed by carving and engraving, in [illegible characters] year.89 (5L)

The remains of the two seated Buddha figures on the back wall have been identified as an Amitābha and a King Udayana Buddha.90 At first glance, this pairing seems unorthodox. The riddle is not solved by the dedication, since it neither identifies the figures nor directs prayers to any particular deity, but the answer may be found in the short scripture titled The Sūtra on the Production of Bud­ dha Images, a text thought to have been translated near the end of the Later Han that was popular in the Tang dyc ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a   |  103

nasty.91 Its subject is the favorable rebirths to be attained by anyone who produces an image of the Buddha. The scripture opens with the Buddha arriving in the country of Kauśāmbī, where he was met by King Udayana, who was then fourteen years old. The young king greeted and made obeisance to the Buddha, then said: “I want to produce an image of the Buddha to venerate and bequeath to later generations. What sorts of good fortune will I obtain thereby?”92 The Buddha replied, “I will teach you of the good fortune to be gained by one who produces an image of the Buddha.” He then enumerated all the wonderful rebirths to be expected, including rebirth with a handsome reddish-gold appearance, rebirth in the seventh Brahmā Heaven, rebirth in a rich and noble family, and rebirth as an emperor or cakravartin monarch. The donor of a statue will never be reborn in one of the evil destinies. The scripture ends with these lines: “The Buddha told the king: ‘To produce an image of the Buddha is a worthy deed, and the good fortune obtained thereby is, without exaggeration, such as I have explained.’ The king was pleased and bowed before the Buddha, touching his forehead to the Buddha’s feet. The king and all his ministers then bowed to the Buddha and took their leave. At the end of their long lives they were all reborn in the land of Amitābha Buddha.” This scripture, whose sole message is the good fortune to be obtained by sponsoring an image of the Buddha, agrees with the program of the Wang brothers’ grotto. The opening dialogue between Śākyamuni and King Udayana is represented by the grotto’s King Udayana Buddha figure, while the happy fate of the king and his ministers (and, by extension, any donor) at the end is to be reborn in the land of Amitābha. Since this program of sculpture literally embraces the entire scripture, the grotto functions to generate all the benefits listed in the scripture, which the Wang brothers transferred to the souls of their departed parents by inscription.93

Amitābha and the Fifty Bodhisattvas After passing several King Udayana figures in open shrines south of the Binyang courtyard, the visitor arrives at the portico in front of the Jingshan Monastery Stone Image Grotto. A large bodhisattva in high relief, over two meters high, stands against each side wall, while the façade of the grotto bears a pair of vigorously gesturing guardians 104   |  c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a

flanking the entryway. The very fine quality of the carving is immediately striking, especially the crisp detail of the jewelry strands and necklaces on the figures and the elaborate description of musculature, and the three-dimensionality of the guardians and their dramatic hip-shot posture show more naturalism than any sculpture seen so far at Longmen (figure 5.7). The exquisite quality of carving continues inside the grotto, whose walls are filled with figures, large and small. Against the west wall is a seated crosslegged Buddha figure, two and a half meters high, on an octagonal throne with two small crouching lions carved in the lotus petals at the base. The broken hands were in abhaya and varada mudrās. The present head is a clumsy replacement, but the original has a subtly modulated face with deeply set lips that dimple the cheeks, and the eyes are cast down in a meditative gaze, with a slight curve to the eyelids in imitation of the Gupta “reverse-curve” eye (figure 5.8).94 In his halo are seven Buddhas, presumably representing the Seven Buddhas of the Past, while flanking the nimbus are a pair of small standing worshiping bodhisattvas. On the inner edge of the south wall stands the large figure of Ānanda, with Kāśyapa facing him from the northern wall. Bracketing them are a pair of smaller worshiping monastics, who face inward toward the Buddha figure. On the north wall is a nun; on the south wall is a monk. These in turn are flanked by large standing bodhisattva figures, both with crude replacement heads.95 Next to them, right by the entryway, is a pair of lokapāla figures rendered in low relief. Each wears jeweled armor and short robes, stands on a pair of seated dwarf yaks.a figures, and brandishes a sword. Everything here suggests the main Buddha represents Śākyamuni except for the dozens of smaller, high-relief bodhisattva figures that surround it, seated in various postures on lotus seats that are connected by their stems to the larger figures of the standing bodhisattvas and the disciples (figure 5.9). The number of figures has been given variously.96 They are difficult to tally because some have been stolen and other similar small figures are mixed in with them, but by my count, there are eight figures on the back wall, seventeen on the north wall, fourteen on the south wall, and about a dozen on the east wall, for a total number of approximately fifty. This number is significant. It indicates the program of the grotto is Amitābha and the Fifty Bodhisattvas.

Figure 5.7. Guardian, façade of Jingshan Monastery Grotto. Photo, the author, 2004.

This program is not identified by its inscription, but the Chinese scholar Li Sisheng has found it compares closely with a grotto of 634 in Sichuan, where a similar arrangement of numerous small seated bodhisattva figures surrounding an Amitābha triad is found on the back wall (figure 5.10).97 Its dedicatory stele bears the title “The Record of Amitābha Buddha and the Fifty-Two Bodhi­sattvas.”98 The inscription begins as follows: The image of Amitābha and the Fifty Bodhisattvas is an auspicious image from the western regions. The tradition says, at Kukkutārāma Monastery in India, a bodhisattva possessed of the five supernatural powers went to the World of Joy and

Figure 5.8. Amitābha, west wall, Jingshan Monastery Grotto. Photo, ca. 1936. From Mizuno Seiichi and Nagahiro Toshio, Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 3. said to Amitābha Buddha, ‘World-Honored One, all sentient beings of the Sahā World pray to be reborn in the Pure Land, but without an image of the Buddha’s form, their prayers and entreaties lack a cause. Please let it fall and descend to that place.’ The Buddha said, ‘Before you leave here, it will be instantly manifested there.’ By the time the bodhisattva had returned (to the monastery), the image was already there. It consisted of one Buddha and fifty bodhisattvas, each seated on a lotus flower, (as if) on the leaves of a tree.99

There is no scriptural source for this story, and evidently this stele is the earliest extant record for this image, since it appears that monk Daoxuan’s (596 – 667) later record c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a   |  105

Figure 5.9. Seated bodhisattvas around monk worshiper, bodhisattva, and lokapāla, north wall, Jingshan Monastery Grotto. From Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen shiku zaoxiang quanji, v. 2, pl. 485.

of this story was actually taken from this inscription.100 When Xuanzang wrote about visiting Kukkutārāma Monastery, near Pāt.aliputra, he did not mention this story or any image of Amitābha and fifty bodhisattvas (although it seems unlikely Xuanzang would have done much to promote Amitābha worship). Thus one is tempted to consider the story an indigenous fabrication designed to substantiate a new type of Indian imagery coming into China by way of Sichuan. Although the Chinese style of the main Buddha figure in Jingshan Monastery Grotto is consonant with other central Buddha figures from the same time in the grot106   |  c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a

toes adjacent to it, the bodhisattvas do imitate Indian figural style in their graceful, swaying postures, the curving arms and legs, and especially the gently nodding head on several figures.101 Moreover, there is an interest in unusual postures that also recalls Indian art. A good example is the bodhisattva seated with his back to the viewer, an unusual pose for a Chinese figure, which is found not only on the south wall of the Jingshan Monastery grotto, but again on the south wall of the adjacent grotto, the Liang Wenxiong Grotto (no. 363), which borrows the “fifty bodhisattvas” imagery, even though the main Buddha on the back wall is a pendant-legged Maitreya Buddha figure.102 Two contemporary grottoes nearby, the Yuan Hongji Grotto (no. 362) and Grotto 394, also contain the Amitābha and Fifty Bodhisattvas program, but the carving is not as good and has little indication of an attempt at Indian style.103 A type of the Indian source for this program can be seen in the stele from Mohammed Nari, now in the Lahore Museum, probably produced in the fourth century (figure 5.11). John Huntington has argued that this Gandhāran stele represents Amitābha Buddha in Sukhāvatī, surrounded by twenty-five bodhisattvas and reborn beings.104 Whether that was the original subject matter of the stele or not, its composition and style do correspond well to the imagery depicted in the Jingshan Monastery Grotto. A large Buddha figure is seated in the center of the stele, on an upturned lotus-petal throne, while seated around him on lotus-flower bases are an array of figures of bo­ dhisattvas, donors, Buddhas, and reborn souls. The active variety of the postures and gestures is remarkable — some figures sit pensively, with chin in hand, or clasp their hands around one knee, while others reach upward or turn to the side and gesture. One bodhisattva is seen in a back three-quarter view. These are the same postures seen in the bodhisattva figures on the walls of the Jingshan Monastery Grotto, so even though the legend of the statue has no basis in scripture, the similarities in style between the bodhisattvas in the Jingshan Monastery Grotto and the stele from Mohammed Nari suggest the Chinese Amitābha and the Fifty Bodhisattvas imagery did derive from an Indian icon. Amitābha and the Fifty Bodhisattvas offered the same benefits to the Chinese believer as the King Udayana figure. Its story established its origin in India, it was probably copied from some Indian original, and it looked Indian in

Figure 5.10. Amitābha and the fifty-two bodhisatt­vas, Cave 3, Mount Wolong, Zi­ tong County, Sichuan. From Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 8: Sichuan, Chongqing, ed. Liu Changjiu, pl. 155.

style. Not only was it an image from the holy land, but it was also a divine image, generated by Amitābha himself and magically produced on earth. It was the express image of Amitābha. As the King Udayana image was considered to be the first image made of Śākyamuni, so this icon was considered the earliest image of Amitābha in his Pure Land. No other image of Amitābha could have greater efficacy, and no other could be as deserving of preservation.

Lady Wei as Patron of a Grotto and a Monastery Engraved on a planed stele-shaped area on the north face of the portico is the “Inscription and Preface for the Stone Image of Jingshan Monastery.”105 Jingshan Monastery stood in the east hills of Longmen, on the northern end. No archeological remains have been found to date, but its location was determined by the 1981 discovery of the tomb of a wealthy Sogdian man named An Pu (601 – 664) and his wife née He (622 – 704) in the northern part of the eastern hills. His epitaph states the tomb was located “east of

Jingshan Monastery, south of Luoyang, in the hills two li from the Yi River.”106 The monastery had already been in existence since at least 650.107 The poets Li Deyu (789 – 849) and Liu Cang ( jinshi 854) described its cassia trees and lofty towers in the mid-ninth century, but it probably did not survive the fall of the Tang.108 The inscription identifies Lady Wei, a consort of the late emperor Taizong, as the sponsor of the grotto and further suggests she was also a patron of Jingshan Monastery, but the author of the inscription was Li Xiaolun, who served as a secretarial aide to her son, Li Shen (d. 687), Prince of Ji, which suggests he was the sponsor of the inscription. It describes Lady Wei’s activities as a patron, often in unusual literary language, and though the preface begins with the typical rationale for image-making, note the unconventional opening reference to Queen Māyā giving birth to the Buddha: As for (Queen Māyā grasping) the silver branch to propagate the blessing, its consequence was (the Buddha’s) numinous resemblance appearing in the garden (purchased for him c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a   |  107

Figure 5.11. Stele from Mohammed Nari, fourth century. Lahore Museum. From Kurita Isao, Gandara bijutsu, v. 1, pl. 395.

from Prince Jeta by covering it in) gold (coins). His swordrain dispelled noxious vapors and let fly the flux of wisdom over worlds as numerous as the sands (of the Ganges). Since his form was hidden in the Grove of Cranes (at his nirvān.a, the trees burst into white blossom, resembling a flock of cranes), and his traces were hoarded at Chicken(foot) Mountain (where Kāśyapa holds his robe, waiting to give it to Maitreya), we fashion his sagacious image in pure gold and carve his auspicious visage in excellent jade. That his influence and his ways are not lost is because of this. (5M)

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Then Lady Wei is described in eulogistic language, which suggests she had already passed away, although that is not certain: Lady Wei, Great Consort of the Princedom of Ji, was from Jingzhao (Chang’an). Her chalice-vine manner contained a rich beauty, showering brilliance over the palace women. Her orchid appearance was steeped in elegance, succeeding the goodness of (the woman gathering) duckweed at the bend of the river.109 Her thoughts were concerned with red sand, pouring waves of true brilliance over the five swords. Her

spirit dwelt in white clouds, extending its marvelous action to the three pearls.110 As a result, she selected this beautiful metropolitan area in which to have this numinous image made. (5N)

Wei, while the second appears to be the type of sketch of the rise and transmission of Buddhism from India to China found in other early Tang inscriptions. It opens as follows:

Next, the writer describes the painted and gilded Buddha statue inside the grotto:

The inscription says: The two souls have already dispersed, but the body has not yet dissolved. (When) flora and fauna increase in number (i.e., are born), objects and their images come together. (In death,) affections are discarded at the marchmount, and memories float down the breeze. When in the end we are sunk in our [eternal?] home, what can illuminate the three immaterialities? When Mahāvīra (Śākyamuni) descended into his traces, the mysterious ford was thereby opened. The propitious stream was pure and flowing, and the auspicious mountain was cleft into spires. The youth of the Himālayas (the Buddha in a previous incarnation) fought to the victory, and the san. dalwood forest (the sangha) assisted his goodness. The Revelation of Meaning was proclaimed in the west, after which the marvelous Wheel (of the Law) rolled to the east. (5R)

Its substance is as brilliant as the colors of the coiled dragon; its resemblance duplicates (the original form of the Buddha) as the fabulous luan bird taking flight (is echoed by its shadow below). As the moon reunites with the river of the immortals, it divides over the red-blue brows (of the statue), making them gush with color. As the stars glide through the garden of the firmament, they wander over the violet pupils, making volant their brilliance. The absolute sincerity (of the donor) is completely expressed, and her flourishing meritorious achievement has been accomplished. (5O)

Following this are lines describing the donor, which may allude to Lady Wei entering a convent after the death of Emperor Taizong —  Like a transformed bird (an immortal who has taken the form of a crane), she has distinguished herself as one who has crossed the sea (to the islands of immortality). Like the tortoise hidden (inside its shell), she showed clearly the results of having drawn herself in from the dust. (5P)

 — after which the author praises the grotto and the site and asserts the durability of the ‘imperishable stone’ of Longmen: So brilliant is this lofty endeavor, it is hard to describe in words. Moreover, solid stone underlies its foundation, and an even bed of rime marks the place. The river freshens the verdure of the garden of paulownias, and the breeze carries the fragrance of the mountain of apricots. Although this place of purity displays a gilded (statue), one might worry that it is out of keeping with the [transformations] of the mulberry (fields) into the (blue Eastern) sea (and back again over eons), and so, following a great plan, this stone was carved with the confidence that it will endure for the period of time (it takes to empty) a city (one hundred yojanas square by extracting) a mustard seed (once every century). (5Q)

Following the preface is the inscription, in rhymed couplets. The opening couplet may tell of the death of Lady

The third stanza is a paean of praise for the spiritual purpose of the statuary inside Lady Wei’s grotto: What had been at the Place of the Glossy Leaves (the place of the bodhi tree, i.e., Bodhgayā), Cīnasthāna (China) now shelters.111 (For those) hoping for the image (of the Buddha), (here it is) completely pictured, and (those who) seek for the light will surely assemble here. It is a virtuous model, from which we may continually investigate subtle mysteries! If we should ever be unmindful of his attaining enlightenment, (we have but) to gaze reverently upon this visage to sigh! (5S)

The last two stanzas appear to describe other patronage by Lady Wei: Pearls and gems, she removed these baubles, and from her treasure of silver, exhausted her funds. In the grove, a pagoda was modeled, while beyond the clouds, the towers rose. The ūrnā looks down like the full moon; the eyelids are dazzling like lotuses opening. The smoke of incense rises in clouds, while Buddhist chanting shakes the earth. From the south, (pilgrims) are drawn down the Luanchuan (the Yi River), and from the north, they gallop in the royal chariots (from the palaces in Luoyang). (As they sail by), they turn and look intently at the myriad chambers, while (those c ī n a s t h ā n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a   |  109

traveling by land) halt in their journey (to donate money for) the four necessities of religious life. There the causes they have planted together will be nurtured, and scriptures will be opened that they may share in enlightenment. Like unto the sun, may (the Buddhist faith) eternally reign on high, and as are the mountains, may it be forever firm! (5T)

The activities described are those of a monastery: building pagodas and multistory halls, making statuary, chanting sūtras and burning incense, reading scriptures, and performing other merit-making activities, which suggests Lady Wei was a patron of Jingshan Monastery. This would explain the unusual presence of the large pair of monk and nun worshipers on the side walls of the grotto, who must be representatives of the monastery’s clerics.112 After the death of Emperor Taizong in 649, Lady Wei apparently retired to Jingshan Monastery or somewhere near it and devoted herself to a religious life. It is likely she had her grotto produced as an auxiliary image hall for Jingshan Monastery, and after her death, her son had a memorial inscription added.113 The unusual reference to Queen Māyā giving birth to the Buddha suggests the relationship of mother and son. Li Shen was also the patron of other Buddhist projects, including a stele bearing a section of the Visualization Sūtra, produced in 674, and a large shrine at the grotto site of Xuanwushan, in Hebei Province.114 No beneficiary of the Jingshan Monastery Grotto was named in the inscription, but Gong Dazhong has advanced the theory that Lady Wei had the grotto produced for her beloved daughter-in-law, Li Shen’s wife.115 Lady Lu died in 665, in Zezhou, at the age of thirty-five. Her epitaph states that when Lady Wei, in Luoyang, heard the news of her daughter-in-law’s death, she was very distressed. Psy-

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chologically, it would make sense that Lady Wei had the grotto produced for her late daughter-in-law, but there are at least two problems with this theory: Lady Lu is never mentioned in the inscription, and Lady Wei’s grotto was probably begun in the early 650s, when Lady Lu was still alive.116

The Dharma Preserved In the end, Tang Chinese believers were successful at the task they had set themselves, to preserve the Dharma in the East. Not only are many sūtras extant in the Chinese Buddhist canon that do not survive as Sanskrit originals, but Tang Buddhist intellectuals added to the body of the Dharma with the composition of indigenous scriptures.117 The scriptures carved in stone at Baoshan and Fangshan are still there, largely unchanged by time, now protected by the government.118 King Udayana’s image of Śākyamuni does not exist in India, if it ever did, but now dwells at Longmen, in the Seiryō-ji, and throughout East Asia. Amitābha and the Fifty Bodhisattvas images may once have been made in Gandhāra, but they are known only in China and Japan now.119 The gigantic gilded sandalwood Maitreya of Darēl disappeared long ago, and even in this century the annihilation of the Dharma in its homeland continues, with the deliberate destruction by rocket fire of the towering cliff-carved Buddhas of Bamiyan, in what was once Gandhāra.120 In China, by contrast, the colossal figures at cave-shrine sites throughout the country have been protected and restored by the government, while the Longmen Grottoes recently earned designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.121 Cīnasthāna continues to preserve the Dharma.

Six    Rouge and Powder Money Besides, in my devotion to the temple of my God I now give my personal treasures of gold and silver to the temple of my God, over and above everything I have provided. — King David, 1 Chronicles 29:3

F

or most tourists to Longmen, the highlight of their visit is seeing the colossal figures of the Great Vairocana Image Shrine (figure 6.1). As with any other effective theatrical experience, the shrine is situated so as to build up a sense of anticipation by delaying and controlling the experience of seeing it. The modern-day visitor enters the northern precinct of the Longmen cliffs from the north — which was quite likely the experience of anyone approaching by land from Luoyang during the Tang dynasty — and amidst the flocks of tourists from Japan, Europe, and elsewhere walks along the stone-paved pathway that runs between the river and the base of the cliff, then climbs several meters up the cliff face on the modern concrete stairs to pause at the solitary Qianxisi Grotto with its huge seated early Tang Buddha, and then continues south several meters to enter the deep Binyang courtyard with its arcade of three colossal entryways (see figure 4.1). Descending the stairs to a lower level of the cliff face, the visitor passes small grottoes containing King Udayana Buddhas and climbs up to the large Jingshan Monastery Grotto, with its finely carved bodhisattvas and guardians on the façade. Continuing to walk the path across the cliff face past yet more open shrines, the visitor arrives at the “Cliff-Carved Three Buddhas,” a seven-meter-high open niche containing several large unfinished figures that marks the end of the northern precinct. A couple hundred meters south, the grottoes of the southern precinct begin with the Paired Grottoes and other large early Tang grottoes, and farther on, famous Northern Wei shrines such as Cixiang’s Grotto and Lianhua Grotto, which are marked by placards, are surrounded by thousands of unmarked grottoes and shrines

that perforate the cliff wall like dark windows (see figure 7.1 below).

Meeting the Gaze After walking south the better part of a kilometer (figure 6.2), the visitor arrives at the stairs leading to the Vairocana shrine, which were restored to something like their original Tang dynasty design in 1991.1 The old stairs were zigzagged to allow an easier ascent up to the floor of the grotto, which is almost thirty meters above the base of the cliff, but that design ruined what had been an intentionally hidden and controlled view. Although the shrine has no façade to screen the statues, it is cut thirty-six meters deep into the cliff, so the sculpted figures on the back wall are not visible from the pathway at the base of the cliff. Now, the visitor begins the approach to the shrine by climbing a short flight of stairs set parallel to the cliff face and then turning ninety degrees to face a sheer wall cut into a two-story stairway to the shrine. Slowly ascending the precipitous steps, the visitor’s first sight over the top of the stairs is the majestic head of the central Buddha, whose eyes appear to fix the viewer’s in their gaze. As the visitor continues to climb, the body of the Buddha comes into view, and the standing disciples and bodhisattvas flanking him on the back wall appear. Looming to the right and the left are colossal guardians on the side walls of the shrine, who gesture and glare ferociously. At last, the visitor steps up onto the floor of the shrine to enter its space. In the center of the back wall is the seated figure of Vairocana Buddha, measuring over seventeen meters from the grotto floor to the tip of the halo (figure 6.3). The Vairocana

Figure 6.1. Great Vairocana Image Shrine, 676. Restored, 1971 – 1973. Photo, Jin Yini, 1999.

Figure 6.2. Longmen (3): (21) Putai Grotto, (22) Cleft Grotto, (23) Weizi Grotto, (24) Great Vairocana Image Shrine. Adapted from map in Ryūmon sekkutsu, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kao­ guxi, endpaper.

has a penetrating expression that represents samādhi, or “absorption,” a state of intense meditation. The symmetrical concentration of the face and the perfect immobility of the torso, draped entirely in a single robe, are heightened in their effect by the ruined state of the body. The stone of the front of the statue sheered off long ago, so the hands 112   |  r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y

and legs are no longer there to distract from the expression of the face.2 To the right of the Buddha stands the shattered figure of the older disciple Kāśyapa, while to the left is the youthful figure of Ānanda. Both are more than ten meters high. In each corner where the back and side walls meet stands an elaborately jeweled bodhisattva figure,

Figure 6.3. Vairocana, west wall, Great Vairocana Image Shrine. Photo, Jin Yini, 1999.

Figure 6.4. Bodhisattva, northwest corner, Great Vairocana Image Shrine. Photo, the author, 1994.

each over thirteen meters high (figure 6.4). As the main Buddha represents Vairocana, the bodhisattvas must be Samantabhadra and Mañjuśrī, though which one is which is no longer known.3 These five figures are contained in a huge shallow niche cut into the back wall of the grotto. The side walls were also cut into shallow niches, and at the inner edge stands a worshiper some six meters high who faces in toward the Buddha figure. Next to the worshiper, facing outward in defense of this Buddha-realm and all worshipers in it, stands a ten-meter-high lokapāla figure, in a pose of victory over a dwarf demonic nature deity, and a similarly large dvārapāla, who raises his arms in a martial gesture. The north-wall lokapāla holds up a

small pagoda on his right hand, which identifies him as Vaiśravan.a, guardian of the north. The lokapāla on the south wall has been ruined by the elements, but he was likely Virūdhaka, guardian of the south.

Controlling the View The control of visual effect in this shrine is not limited to governing the sight of the shrine. The proportions of the figures were also manipulated by the sculptors to counteract two different optical effects.4 One is the apparent distortion of colossal figures when seen from below. If the figures were of normal proportions, the heads would apr o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y   |  113

Figure 6.5. Vaiśravan.a and dvārapāla seen from the side, north wall, Great Vairocana Image Shrine. Photo, the author, 1996.

pear ridiculously small and distant. The ideal beauty of the bodhisattvas’ heads and their compassionate expressions convey the essential meaning of these salvic deities, so for the heads to be lost from view would render their identities void. A normally proportioned figure is seven heads high, but to counteract the effect of diminution, the sculptors made the bodhisattvas scarcely five heads high, shortening the bodies to bring the heads down to where the viewer can see their expressions. In a similar fashion, the upper torsos of the bodhisattva figures are disproportionately broad, in order to support the heads and to serve as a backdrop for the lavish and detailed jewelry and the beautiful plump hands held in vitarka mudrā (silent teaching). The Indian style of the jewelry and the mudrās signify the authenticity and efficacy of the icon and must be clearly readable.5 114   |  r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y

The other optical effect the sculptors countered was the tendency for relief sculptures to become contracted and unreadable when viewed from an oblique angle. The most obvious example of the sculptors altering the figures to compensate for this tendency is seen in the side wall lokapāla and dvārapāla figures. Looking directly at the north wall reveals that the figures have been intentionally broadened, with an almost grotesque wideness to the hips and shoulders (figure 6.5). Their left shoulders are higher and wider than their right, and the left side of their necks is extended rather weirdly. When the statues are seen from the front of the shrine at the oblique angle intended, however, the excessive width on the left sides of the figures evens out the visual effect of contraction, and the figures look quite normal (figure 6.6). A similar strategy was used on the bodhisattva figures as well. Looking at them di-

vas in the corners at about a twenty-five-degree angle, so that they appeared to be leaning gently toward her, while the guardians were seen at about a forty-five-degree angle, where their proportions would have contracted to a normal appearance and their glaring eyes would be focused slightly behind the pilgrim to defend her. To complete this imaginary Tang dynasty experience, we should envision the figures with their original coloration — golden necklaces set with jewels of bright blue and green, white skin, red lips, dark blue hair, and pupils quickened with black glass.6

Iconographic and Inscriptional Evidence

Figure 6.6. Vaiśravan.a and dvārapāla seen from intended angle, Great Vairocana Image Shrine. Photo, the author, 1994.

rectly, the viewer can tell the bodhisattvas are a little larger on the outside half of their bodies and seem to lean in that direction, yet when seen from the front of the shrine, the upper body seems to be moving slightly toward the viewer, and the overall effect is of the gentle sway of the tribhanga (“triple-bend,” or hip-shot) pose. The evidence of the sculpture suggests the intended view of the shrine was from the front, not far from the point where the visitor steps up onto the threshold. At this spot, the Tang dynasty visitor looked straight up into the face of the Buddha and directly ahead to the frontally presented figures of the disciples. She saw the bodhisatt­

The massive throne on which the main Buddha sits, though shattered, has an elaborate sculptural program that is still legible. The octagonal waist of the throne is set onto a wide pedestal bordered with lotus petals, and at each corner of the five visible faces stands a caryatid guardian figure in a triumphant pose on a pair of dwarf demon nature deities. Between the guardians, on each face of the waist is a lokapāla wearing armor, seated upon two dwarf demons. The seat of the throne above them is almost entirely broken away, yet a small section of the original carving remains, adjoining the back wall on the south side of the throne. Here one can still make out a few upturned lotus petals, and centered in each is a small seated Buddha figure (figure 6.7). It is likely the entire platform of the throne was carved as a multipetal lotus flower, each petal containing a seated Buddha figure. Traces of an early inscription remain on the south side of the throne, which was evidently ruined by the elements soon after it was made and later reengraved on the north side.7 The text must have been written after Emperor Gao­ zong’s death in 683, since it employs his posthumous title, but before it was reengraved around 723. It was not the dedication. Rather, it was a record of the making of the shrine, of the later establishment of the imperial Great Fengxian Monastery, by which name the shrine was known then as now, and the history of the monks who practiced there.8 The inscription begins by describing the shrine: On the sunny side of the Longmen hills, the Great Vairocana Image Shrine was established by the Celestial August Great Emperor Gaozong of Great Tang.9 The body of the Buddha, r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y   |  115

Figure 6.7. Buddhas on lotus petals, south face of throne, Great Vairocana Image Shrine. Photo, Jin Yini, 2004.

from halo to base, is eighty-five chi (25 meters) in height, while the two bodhisattvas are seventy chi (20 meters) in height, and Kāśyapa, Ānanda, the vajra (guardians, i.e., the dvārapālas) and the shenwang (the lokapālas) are each fifty chi (almost 15 meters) in height. On the first day of the fourth month of the third year of the Xianheng era, a renshen year (May 3, 672), the August Empress Wu aided (this project) with twenty thousand strings of her rouge and powder money. In obedience to an imperial decree, the clerics in charge were Meditation Master Shandao of Shiji Monastery and Dharma Master Huijian, abbot of Fahai Monastery, of the Western Capital.10 The commissioner in charge was Wei Ji, Chief Minister of the Court of the National Granaries, while the vice commissioner was Fan Xuanze, Supreme Pillar of State and Director of the Eastern Parks. The artisans were Li Junzan, Cheng Renwei, Yao Shiji, and others. This work of merit was completed on the thirtieth day of the twelfth month of the second year of the Shangyuan era, an yihai year (January 20, 676).11 (6A)

Although the inscription explicitly names the Buddha as Vairocana, it was composed at least seven years after the shrine’s completion, which makes the identification less than certain. Evidence to confirm it, however, is found in the remaining lotus petals on the southern edge of the 116   |  r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y

throne, which bear figures of seated Buddhas. Sofukawa Hiroshi, of the Institute for Research in Humanities at Kyoto University, has observed that the second chapter of the Fanwang jing describes a “thousand-petal, thousand-Buddha” Vairocana.12 Although the Fanwang jing (Scripture of Indra’s net) is introduced by Śākyamuni, its principal deity is Vairocana, with whom the Tathāgata Śākyamuni shares an interchangeable identity. Śākyamuni says: “I am now Vairocana, seated on a lotus-flower throne, and surrounding me on a thousand petals are manifest a thousand Śākyamunis. Each petal (also) holds ten billion lands, and each land a single Śākyamuni. Each sits under a bodhi tree, and in a single moment each attains enlightenment. Thus, these thousand and these ten billion are the original body of Vairocana, while the thousand and the ten billion Śākyamunis each receive countless sentient beings.”13 Although the Fanwang jing is a fifth-century indigenous scripture, it contains elements based on Indian scriptures, such as the Mahāparinirvān.a Sūtra, and it was considered authentic by Tang dynasty exegetes.14 Its vision of Vairocana as the original embodiment of the dharmakāya is shared by the Avatam˙saka Sūtra (Ch. Huayan jing, or Flower Ornament Scripture), which further illustrates the interrelatedness of Śākyamuni and

Vairocana with the metaphor of the jeweled net of Indra, in which the universe is compared to a vast net.15 At each knot is a jewel, which not only reflects the net as a whole, but also every other jewel in the net individually. All phenomena are like these jewels in that each phenomenon in the universe can be seen as reflecting the whole (a whole that has both unity and multiplicity) even as it preserves its own unique, yet not separate, identity.

The Problem of the Purpose Since the choice of Vairocana as the principal icon for a shrine was practically unprecedented at Longmen, it must have been highly significant to the donors, and yet the most prevalent theory at present ignores any religious meaning or function of a Vairocana figure per se and asserts that the purpose of the shrine was political.16 Despite the explicit statement that the emperor established the shrine and the empress aided the project with her personal funds, several scholars are convinced that the original sponsor was Empress Wu. Gong Dazhong, a scholar who worked at the Longmen Cultural Relics Management and Conservation Office in the 1970s, believed that “the creation of the Fengxian Monastery Shrine had Empress Wu, as the wielder of state authority, as its behind-thescenes backer.”17 He indicted her as “a great supporter of Buddhism, no matter the waste of money and manpower,” saying “she built monasteries, excavated cave-shrines, and made colossal sculptures as monuments to herself.”18 Convinced that the empress had the shrine made to her own political and religious glory, he offered the opinion that the Vairocana figure was her portrait. Contravening the traditional belief that all Buddhas and bodhisattvas are male, he said, the main figure was boldly given a feminine appearance.19 He noted that the Taiping princess was described as having “a square forehead and broad cheeks” and that the empress had always favored her daughter because the princess resembled her in appearance.20 Hence, the face of the empress was “almost exactly in accord with the appearance of the Vairocana. We might say the Vairocana is to some degree a portrayal of the image of Wu Zetian or, some might say, an effigy of her.” This notion was elaborated by other scholars in the 1980s. Li Yukun flatly stated the shrine was sponsored by Wu Zetian for political reasons, while Zhang Naizhu ar-

gued that she consciously used Buddhism, the Buddhist establishment, and Buddhist building projects to deify herself and that she began this career practically from the moment she was made empress in 655.21 Her self-representation as Vairocana in the 670s at Longmen was an early step in the religious and political scheme that culminated in her self-declaration as a golden-wheel cakravartin in 693 and then as the Benevolent One, or Maitreya, in 694. Okada Ken, of the Institute for Research in Humanities of Kyoto University, wrote that Empress Wu used the emperor’s name to issue the edict to produce the shrine and that her monetary contribution to the project was part of her plan to usurp political power.22 One voice to sound against this chorus is that of Wen Yucheng, who accepts the statement made in the inscription that the shrine was initiated by Emperor Gaozong.23 He further rebuts the idea that the Vairocana was a portrait of Empress Wu and that she was the “behind-the-scenes backer.” He notes first that the inscription clearly states Emperor Gaozong had the Vairocana shrine made, while Empress Wu merely helped pay for it, and second, that if this project had been begun soon after she was installed as empress, she would not have tested her husband’s faith in her by erecting images of herself. How and why would she turn a statue the emperor had made for posthumous merit into her “effigy?” Finally, Wen questions Gong Dazhong’s comparison of the description of the Taiping princess and her mother to the face of the Vairocana by noting that “a square forehead and broad cheeks” is one of the eighty traditional beautiful signs of the Buddha.24 This is not to say that Empress Wu would balk at any action that would accomplish her goals.25 It can scarcely be argued that after the death of her husband in 683, she kept her sons from ruling and held the upper bureaucracy in check through the use of spies, secret denunciations, and judicial murder. In 690, she did usurp the throne, inaugurating the Zhou dynasty (690 – 705), with herself in the role of emperor. Her self-aggrandizement continued to become more grandiose, culminating in the assumption of the titles of cakravartin and Maitreya. Yet, although from the start of her career she evinced the kind of amoral ambition necessary to control the throne in medieval times (the same kind that allowed Emperor Taizong to murder his brother with his own hands), the phases of her path to supreme power are distinct. Having originally been a conr o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y   |  117

cubine of Emperor Taizong, she began her ascent by reentering the palace as a concubine of Emperor Gaozong. She then framed, supplanted, and murdered Empress Wang and had her own son installed as heir apparent. She was elevated to empress in 655, and those who opposed her, such as Chu Suiliang and Zhangsun Wuji, were banished, to die in exile. In the realm of political theater, Empress Wu played the role of supporting her husband, while actually functioning as his equal, and from 655 to 683, her goals were to control the emperor by eliminating competing interests and to put herself on a par with him. Beginning in 664, court business was conducted with the empress seated behind the emperor, screened by a curtain, whence she issued orders. They were called the Two Sages.26 When the emperor ascended Mount Tai with male officials on the first day of 666 to perform the feng and shan sacrifices, in which he announced to heaven and earth the success of his reign, the empress led a parallel group of women to perform complementary rituals. When droughts and other calamities struck the nation in 670, she offered to resign her position in expiation, as a kind of substitute for the emperor. In 674, she issued a twelve-point memorial for reforms throughout the realm. In addition to condemning extravagance in the construction of palace buildings and wasteful use of corvée labor, she also advocated universal study of the Daoist classic Dao de jing.27 This last point was clearly intended to express support for the emperor’s personal beliefs and for the traditional connection between the royal house of Li and Daoism. As T. H. Barrett has said, “She had learned during the course of her marriage the art of reconciling family, state and church interests.”28 The behavior deemed appropriate for empresses was to use personal funds to provide “aid” for the emperor’s projects, not to initiate projects with government money. Empress Dowager Hu of the Northern Wei, for example, was criticized by her ministers for supporting her Buddhist projects with the state treasury. Conversely, an example of acceptable behavior was shown by Empress Xiao of the Sui dynasty. When Emperor Yang went to inspect the engraving of sūtras in stone at Fangshan, he was accompanied by Xiao Yu, the empress’ younger brother. Returning to the palace, “he told the empress about this work. The empress donated a thousand rolls of silk and 118   |  r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y

other wealth and materials in order to aid its completion, while Yu also donated five hundred rolls of silk. When all in court and countryside heard of this, they competed to offer donations, and thereby (Jing)wan gained what he needed to continue his work of merit.”29 Empress Wu’s mother, Lady Yang, was descended from a collateral branch of the Sui royal line, so although she and her daughter were not directly related to Empress Xiao, her behavior would still have stood as a kind of maternal example for them. Indeed, offering “aid” in support of the emperor’s projects is the rhetorical model that Empress Wu adhered to from 655 to 683. In 659, for example, Emperor Gaozong ordered the imperial commissioner Wang Changxin and the palace monk Zhizong to go to Famen Monastery in Fufeng to request that the finger-bone relic of the Buddha be brought to Luoyang. The following year, it was worshiped at the palace and paraded through the streets. Empress Wu is said to have had “gold inner-coffin and silver outer-coffin” reliquaries produced to house it.30 Now whether the idea to bring the relic to Luoyang was originally hers or the emperor’s, we cannot know. We can ascertain, however, the empress’ public posture concerning patronage, which was to support her husband in his projects and to use personal funds for her own projects. In 670, for example, when she sponsored the establishment of monasteries in honor of her late mother, she used her own funds.31 Is the Vairocana a portrait of Empress Wu? Ideally beautiful and majestic, its rounded face might seem “feminine,” even as its implacable expression could suggest the ruthless usurper. Glamorous as the idea might be that in looking on this seventh-century face we see the very features of the only woman to rule China in her own right, a colossal portrait seems to fit better the reputation for megalomania she earned at the end of her life and not the role she sought at the time the shrine was made. Every public act she performed while the emperor was alive was done in the rhetorical posture of aiding or supporting him. As there is no evidence the empress intended to usurp the throne in 672 or required the legitimizing aura of deification to maintain her place on it, as she apparently did in 694, the theory that the empress would have her features reproduced in the Vairocana statue is unconvincing.

The Choice of a Vairocana The inscription’s statement that Empress Wu paid for the completion of the shrine, however, is convincing, and there is much evidence that a Vairocana figure would have had a personal appeal. Kang Fazang (643 – 712), the great systematizer of Huayan thought and tireless writer of commentaries and treatises on the Avatam ˙ saka Sūtra, held a uniquely influential position with the empress.32 His great-grandfather and his grandfather both served as prime ministers in Sogdiana, whence the latter emigrated to serve at the court of China.33 Fazang’s father served Emperor Taizong, while his younger brother Kang Baozang was an official with a reputation for loyalty and filial piety. At the age of seventeen, Fazang set out to learn Buddhist teachings, and he studied for several years at a monastery on Mount Taibai in the Zhongnan Mountains southwest of Chang’an. Subsequently, he studied Huayan scripture with the master Zhiyan (600 – 668) in Chang’an. At Zhiyan’s death, Fazang was still a layman, though Zhiyan considered him learned enough to be his successor, and he remained so until 670, when Empress Wu’s pious mother passed away. Desirous of generating merit for Lady Yang’s posthumous benefit, the empress determined to have worthy men ordained to practice at the monastery she established at her mother’s former home. The emperor accepted the recommendation that Fazang be ordained, and he was established as the abbot of Taiyuan Monastery in Luoyang.34 So precipitate was his ordination that he did not possess the robes of a monk when he arrived, so the empress herself supplied him with five sets along with a personal letter. Fazang’s relationship with the empress continued to flourish over the years the shrine was produced. In 674, Empress Wu ordered ten senior monks in Chang’an to administer the highest ordination to him, and she granted him the honorific title Xianshou Guoshi, or “National Teacher Chief-in-Goodness.”35 At her order, he lectured on the Avatam ˙ saka Sūtra at the imperial Foshouji Monastery (the former Jing’ai Monastery) in Luoyang, and it was there that he and Śiks.ānanda later produced a new translation of the Avatam ˙ saka Sūtra during the Zhou dynasty, for which the empress wrote a preface.36 To the empress he delivered his famous statement of Huayan concepts, the

“Treatise on the Golden Lion,” so it seems quite possible that if he were consulted on the matter, he would advocate for the statue to represent Vairocana.37 The interpretations Fazang offered on the image of the jeweled net of Indra could have served the empress as a Buddhist ideology of rule, which might explain why a figure of Vairocana would appeal to her. He read the jeweled net as a symbol of the universal sovereignty of the cakra­ vartin. In a treatise titled “Cultivation of Contemplation of the Inner Meaning of the Huayan: The Ending of Delusion and Return to the Source,” Fazang wrote: “This refers to the precious jewel of the blessed universal monarch with a pure jewel net. That is to say, the essential nature of the jewel is penetratingly bright; the ten directions are equally illumined, as tasks are accomplished without thinking. Thoughts all acquiesce. Though manifesting extraordinary accomplishments, the mind is without cogitation.”38 Not only would the empress have been pleased to see herself as the cakravartin with the precious jewel and the jewel net, but also the description of extraordinary accomplishments produced “without thinking,” by a “mind without cogitation,” is so similar to Daoist ideas about inaction (wuwei) as the highest form of government that it would be hard to imagine it not appealing to a Chinese ruler. She would also likely have been attracted by the description of “self as principal” at the end of Fazang’s treatise: “Sixth is the contemplation of the net of Indra, where principal and satellites reflect one another. This means that with self as principal, one looks to others as satellites or companions; or else one thing or principle is taken as principal and all things or principles become satellites or companions; or one body is taken as principal and all bodies become satellites.”39

Rouge and Powder Money Empress Wu’s affiliation with Fazang and his development of Huayan thought may explain her choice, if indeed she made it, of a Vairocana figure, but it does not explain why she became involved in the project and had the shrine finished. I suspect the designation of the icon was secondary; what was primary was to demonstrate her power and effectiveness by donating a stunning sum. Just as Li Tai’s inscription boasted that he “poured out his r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y   |  119

heart to demonstrate his love of charity, and opening his treasury, he was liberal with tortoise shells and cowries,” and Song Jingfei confessed, “I have now parted with half my hairpins and girdles,” so the only fact stated in the Vairocana inscription concerning the empress was that she gave “twenty thousand strings of her rouge and powder money.” Seizing the opportunity to make a public display of ostentatious expenditure at the imperial cave-shrine site, in the rhetorical posture of supporting her husband, seems strikingly similar to her idea to sponsor gold and silver reliquaries for the Famen Monastery finger-bone just a few years before.

A Scenario for the Shrine I propose a scenario in which the Vairocana shrine was inaugurated by the emperor around 660 and completed by the empress from 672 to 676.40 In 660, the emperor and empress traveled to Bingzhou (modern Taiyuan, Shanxi Province). Wenshui District, south of Bingzhou, was Empress Wu’s home place, and when the imperial couple arrived in Bingzhou in the second month of 660, the empress gave a lavish banquet for all her relatives there.41 According to a record preserved in Daoshi’s Fayuan zhulin of 668, during this trip, the emperor and empress traveled west of Bingzhou to a mountain sanctuary called Tongzi Monastery. There they saw the colossal seated image said to be over 170 chi in height (about 50 meters).42 They also visited Kaihua Monastery in the valley to the north, which had a colossal image 200 chi in height (over 59 meters). There, the imperial couple offered worship before the statue. According to Daoshi: “They performed the rituals with reverence, and gazing up at the statue, they sighed at its rarity and extraordinariness. They made a great donation of precious jewels, expensive objects, and clothing, and the consorts, concubines, and women of the inner palaces each parted with her personal donation. The emperor ordered the vice magistrate Dou Gui to have the Holy Image refurbished and redecorated.”43 When the royal couple returned to Luoyang two months later, in my scenario, the emperor issued an order to commence the carving of a colossal Buddha shrine at Longmen, in response to the excitement engendered by his experience of the colossal statues in Bingzhou. I suspect the purpose was to effect his healing. The emperor suffered from chronic illness from at least 657 120   |  r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y

onward, and in 660, he experienced what modern scholars think was the first of a series of strokes.44 The emperor had previously supported merit-making building projects in pursuit of healing. In 656, he established the Buddhist Western Brilliance Monastery (Ximingsi) and the Daoist Eastern Brilliance Temple (Dongmingguan) in Chang’an for the recovery of the four-year-old heir apparent.45 He also turned to Indian healers for himself. Around 664, a Brahmin presented at court was sent back to India with a Chinese delegation to obtain “an herb of long life without aging.”46 So eager was the emperor to obtain it that when some time had passed, he dispatched the Chinese monk Xuanzhao, who had studied at monasteries in India for years and was fluent in Indian languages, to retrieve the drug. It is quite possible the figure was not a Vairocana when it was started but could have been intended as Śākyamuni, Amitābha, or even Yaoshi, the Buddha of Healing, any of which could have been suggested to the emperor by his clerical advisors, Shandao and Huijian. An inaugural date of 660 is also suggested by evidence at Longmen. Late in 659, the imperial court came to Luo­ yang, not to depart until early 662, and during this period several dedications were made at Longmen by persons connected with the court.47 All the inscribed intrusive shrines in 659 were produced by local people, but in 660, a shrine was sponsored by a eunuch palace receptionist, while in 661, one shrine was sponsored by the attending physician to the heir apparent and another by a eunuch official of the Office of Imperial Parks Products of the Court of National Granaries.48 In 662, a trio of officials who worked for the Prince of Zhou (Li Xian, the six-yearold future Emperor Zhongzong) dedicated an Amitābha shrine to “His Majesty the Emperor and all sentient beings.”49 After the departure of the court from Luoyang in early 662, patronage at Longmen promptly returned to the hands of the local population. An inaugural date of around 660 also fits with the vogue for re-creating Indian icons that swept Longmen at this time. Donors began to sponsor copies of the Sārnāth-style King Udayana Buddha in 655, while the first re-creation of the Gandhāra-style Amitābha and the Fifty Bodhisatt­ vas icon was produced in Lady Wei’s grotto around 660. It is likely the designs for all the figures in the Vairocana shrine at Longmen were derived from drawings or copies of statues brought from India and kept in the imperial

Figure 6.8. Gandhāran Buddha from Loriyān-Tangai, Calcutta Museum. From Kurita Isao, Gandara bijutsu, v. 1, pl. 334.

archives, but this seems especially probable for the Buddha, since several aspects are clearly derived from seated Buddha figures from Gandhāra, especially the fully covering robe, waving hair, and broad face. Comparing it to the Gandhāran Śākyamuni in seated meditation from Loriyān-Tangai, now in the Calcutta Museum (figure 6.8), we see the same manner of drapery, with a single robe covering the body and draped from the Buddha’s proper right shoulder over to the left. The Vairocana head is very similar also, in its large, broad proportions, wavy hair,

wide cheekbones, long eyes, and bowed lips. If nonelite patrons had already begun to copy Indian icons, when the imperial donors commissioned a design, why would they do any less? Just a few years later, the emperor may have given up on the project, and whatever work had begun on the Vairocana shrine ceased. He abandoned other ventures around this time. Several important literary compilations were produced under his guidance in the years between 656 and 663, including substantial works on statecraft, hisr o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y   |  121

tory, and literature, and he continued to support the great Buddhist scripture translation project under the direction of Xuanzang. After Xuanzang’s death in 664, however, the emperor stopped sponsoring his followers’ translation work, and his support for secular scholarship also ceased.50 Perhaps the emperor’s interest in creating a colossal assembly at Longmen failed at the same time he lost interest in other activities he had previously patronized.

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Then, in the fourth month of 672, the empress came to Longmen with her husband, who is reported to have gone hunting “south of the Luo River.”51 Seeing the derelict site, she determined to donate the vast sum of money needed to finish the shrine — “twenty thousand strings of her rouge and powder money” — and it was completed nearly four years later, in January of 676. One can scarcely imagine the splendor of the dedication ceremonies.

Seven    The Satellite Grottoes The net of Indra, where principal and satellites reflect one another. — Fazang1

S

everal of the largest and most opulently carved grottoes at Longmen were excavated during the years the Great Vairocana Image Shrine was produced. Clustered together, they are situated about 150 meters north of the imperial shrine, but they are not hidden high on the cliff face; rather, they stand at the base of the cliff, with their fine sculpture and elaborate programs on display (figure 7.1). The Paired Grottoes consist of one grotto containing a Buddhas of the Three Periods assembly and another with a Maitreya Buddha and the Thousand Buddhas of the Present Kalpa. Qingmingsi Grotto contains a seated Amitābha flanked by two standing bodhisattvas, while Huijian’s Grotto has a seated Maitreya Buddha with disciples, bodhisattvas, and guardians. Wanfo Grotto combines two seemingly unrelated programs: the Fifteen Thousand Buddhas and Amitābha and the Fifty-two Bodhisattvas. Though each grotto is unique, the donors were all related in some way to the imperial couple, and a history of their patronage reinforces the chronology for the making of the Great Vairocana Image Shrine described in the previous chapter (original sponsorship by the emperor around 660 and regeneration of the project by the empress in 672) and for the inauguration and dedication of the Great Fengxian Monastery by the emperor in 679 and 680.

The Paired Grottoes A beginning around 660 for the Vairocana shrine is reinforced by the evidence in the twin cave-shrines now called the Paired Grottoes. Sharing a broad portico over six meters wide, the double entrances were flanked by guardian figures, now missing or ruined (figure 7.2). Since the porch is only about two meters above the normal level of the Yi

River, these grottoes have been flooded many times over the centuries, and the surface details on the façade are worn smooth. Both grottoes are narrow and deep, extending about seven meters into the living rock. On the back wall of the northern chamber is a seated, cross-legged Buddha flanked by Ānanda and Kāśyapa, while against each side wall stand a bodhisattva, a Buddha, a bodhisattva, and a lokapāla (figure 7.3).2 This program should represent the Buddhas of the Three Periods, with Śākyamuni on the back wall as the Buddha of the present and the Buddhas of the past and future on the side walls. The southern grotto has a keyhole-shaped plan with a long, narrow front corridor whose walls are carved with nearly eight hundred small seated Buddhas in low relief representing the Thousand Buddhas of the Present Kalpa. One Buddha in the center of each wall is seated with legs pendant, to represent Maitreya, who will be the fifth Buddha of the Present Kalpa. At the back is a rounded rectangular chamber about two and a half meters wide, which contains a two-meter-high Maitreya Buddha figure seated on a square throne against the back wall, originally flanked by monk disciples and bodhisattvas (figure 7.4).3 The meaning of the Paired Grottoes imagery has been subject to speculation. Wen Yucheng suggested it was related to the Tiantai School, noting that the imagery of the Buddhas of the Three Periods, the Thousand Buddhas of the Present Kalpa, and Maitreya all come from the Lotus Sūtra, which was specially promoted by the Tiantai School during the Sui and Tang dynasties.4 He observed that Fengxue Kezhen (642 – 725), who would later be called the seventh patriarch of the Tiantai School, resided at White Horse Monastery in Luoyang. Problems with this theory include the lack of a known connection between Fengxue Kezhen and Longmen and the fact that interest in the Lotus Sūtra

Figure 7.1. Longmen (2): (11) Paired Grottoes, North, (12) Paired Grottoes, South, (13) Cai Daniang Grotto, (14) Wanfo Grotto, (15) Qingmingsi Grotto, (16) Huijian’s Grotto, (17) Bianzhou Grotto, (18) Cixiang’s Grotto, (19) Laolong Grotto, (20) Lianhua Grotto. Adapted from map in Ryūmon sekkutsu, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, endpaper.

Figure 7.2. Satellite grottoes to Great Vairocana Image Shrine: (521) Paired Grottoes, North, (522) Paired Grottoes, South, (543) Wanfo Grotto, (557) Qingmingsi Grotto, (565) Huijian’s Grotto. Drawing adapted from Longmen shiku kukan bianhao tuce, ed. Longmen shiku yanjiusuo and Zhongyang meishu xueyuan meishushi xi, Xishan limian tu 7.

Figure 7.3. Paired Grottoes, North. Photo, the author, 1996.

Figure 7.4. Paired Grottoes, South. Photo, the author, 1994.

was not confined to one group. Zhang Naizhu, by contrast, suggests the Paired Grottoes were sponsored by Empress Wu and that the subject matter of the two grottoes taken together expresses the idea that Maitreya is of equal importance to Śākyamuni.5 He believes the Śākyamuni was made for Emperor Gaozong and the Maitreya for Empress Wu, in accord with the empress’ other activities designed to equate herself with her husband, such as the unprecedented parallel rituals at Mount Tai in 665. One problem with this interpretation is that it ignores the belief in the spiritual function of statuary grottoes to generate karmic merit. Tang people did not believe icons were simply public monuments, and no medieval donor would sponsor a statuary grotto merely to his or her own glory. What public acclaim is achieved comes in terms of a reputation, usually for filial piety, earned by spending an exorbitant amount of money and effort on producing icons in order to generate karmic merit to be transferred to the deceased parent, the emperor, or another worthy beneficiary in a parental role. This is evident not only in claims such as Li Tai’s that producing a shrine to repay his mother’s kindness showed that he was “pure and filial,” but also in the very names given to the imperial monasteries dedicated to parents, such as Reverence and Love Monastery (Jing’aisi), Compassion and Kindness Monastery (Ciensi), and Honoring the Ancestors Monastery (Feng­xiansi), which broadcast the filial piety of the donor child. The similarities in the size of the statues, the type of drapery, details of jewelry, and the gestures of the hands reveal that the Paired Grottoes were executed at the same time, but since the dedicatory inscription does not survive, the chronology for these two grottoes can only be determined by stylistic analysis and evidence from intrusive shrines. The earliest dated one is a half-meter-high Amitābha triad placed prominently on the façade between the entrances in early 674, which would suggest the grottoes were completed sometime around then, but according to Wen Yucheng’s detailed archeological report, they were actually finished earlier.6 He believes the earliest intrusive shrines are found in the north grotto, and it was finished first. Though undated, their similarities to small shrines dated to 666 in Binyang South and in Lianhua Grotto and to others dated to 669 suggest a range from 666 to 670 for the earliest additions. Since it would have taken several 126   |  s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s

years to finish grottoes this large, Wen thinks the Paired Grottoes were begun around 661 to 664 and completed sometime between 666 and 668. With regard to their donor, Wen wrote of the grottoes: “They are larger than the Jingshan Monastery Grotto, which was excavated by Lady Wei, the mother of Li Shen, Prince of Ji, and it was a more extensive project than the main-wall pentad in Binyang South that Li Tai had carved for his late mother, the Wende empress, which makes it clear that the donor of the Paired Grottoes was certainly no ordinary person.”7 By association with Li Shen and Li Tai, Wen seems to suggest the donor was a royal prince. A pair of grottoes is naturally reminiscent of the only other pair at the site: the Binyang grottoes, which were dedicated by the teenaged Emperor Xuanwu for his late father and mother. Moreover, the program of Binyang Central was the Buddhas of the Three Periods. Given such a precedent, a pair of large grottoes containing Buddhas of the Three Periods imagery is strongly suggestive of a prince’s dedication to his parents, and I propose that the patron of the Paired Grottoes was Li Xian, Prince of Zhou. The beneficiaries would have been his parents, Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu. The boy’s presence at Longmen to inaugurate a project shortly after 660 is suggested by an intrusive shrine added to the north wall of Binyang South in 662. The inscription for this Amitābha shrine reads as follows: “On the twentieth day of the first month of the second year of the Longshuo era (February 13, 662), Liu Yuanli of the Revenue Section of the Establishment of the Prince of Zhou, Wang Jifu of the Personnel Evaluation Section, and Zheng Xingyan of the War Section reverently made one Amitābha image shrine. We pray for Your Majesty the Emperor and all sentient beings that they may obtain this blessing” (7A).8 These officials of the Prince of Zhou were likely at Longmen as part of his retinue in 662, at which time they took the opportunity to create their own small shrine. Another inscription that suggests the prince’s involvement is the dedication to Huijian’s Grotto of 673, in which the prince is mentioned by name. Sofukawa Hiroshi has pointed out that while the usual formula in dedicatory inscriptions was “to the emperor, the empress, the heir apparent, and all the princes,” Huijian listed just two

princes: the heir apparent and the Prince of Zhou.9 The heir apparent in 673 was Li Hong, the first son of Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu (the emperor’s fifth son), while the Prince of Zhou was Li Xian, the emperor’s seventh son and the second or third son of Empress Wu.10 In my opinion, Huijian made this unusual reference to the Prince of Zhou because the boy was the sponsor of the Paired Grottoes, situated just a few yards away from Huijian’s grotto. Li Xian was particularly likely to have been a donor at Longmen. His official position was metropolitan governor of Luozhou, so he had a special connection with Luoyang and its environs.11 Xuanzang served as his religious tutor for the first eight years of his life, at his mother’s special request, and the boy had been pledged to enter the monastic order.12 He remained a patron of Buddhism all his life, and when he finally reascended the throne in 705 at the age of forty-nine, he continued his mother’s patronage of the Huayan scholars Fazang and Śiks.ānanda, and he carried out a number of pious acts, including taking the bodhi­ sattva precepts and making a visit to Xiangshan Monastery at Longmen in the year of his accession.13 As a donor, he seemed to have an affinity for his tutor’s special deity, for he appears to have been the patron of the Maitreya figure made for the Jing’ai Monastery in Luoyang in 665. If the grottoes were his donation, the iconography might be interpreted as follows: the Buddhas of the Three Periods had a long-standing association with imperial patronage and may well still have symbolized the idea of the succession to the throne in Tang times. Since Maitreya will be next in the succession of the Buddhas of our kalpa, so the program of the two grottoes in total may have comprised a prayer for the eternal continuation of the Tang imperial line.

Huijian’s Grotto Another grotto likely begun around the same time was sponsored by one of the clerical advisors for the Vairocana shrine. As the floor of Huijian’s Grotto is about two meters above the pathway at the base of the cliff and there is now no porch or walkway in front of it to herald its presence, the visitor walking south on the path is surprised by the sudden appearance, slightly above eye level, of an open grotto containing a large Maitreya figure seated with legs pendant on a square throne (figure 7.5). Its face is wide and

full, with crisply cut “reverse curve” eyes gazing downward, in the state of samādhi, over a long, high-ridged nose and deeply set bowed lips. This visage bears an unmistakable resemblance to the face of the Vairocana. Flanking the three-meter-high Maitreya on the low altar against the back wall were disciple figures (the one on the right is missing), and at the corners of the altar stand two attendant bodhisattvas, with exquisitely carved tasseled necklaces, elaborately woven strands of jewels, and scarves complexly knotted around jade discs.14 The side walls once held guardians and lokapālas, but these have been eliminated by wind and water over the centuries, and only their haloes remain etched in the walls. The program was originally a nine-figure assembly like that of the Vairocana shrine. The back of the throne is topped by an arch formed of scallops punctuated with lotus flowers, and along each side is a kneeling caryatid figure holding up an orb, above which is a hybrid beast, or vyālaka, rearing on its hind legs. At the upper corners are makara heads, with curling snouts raised and mouths open wide. Unaware that ma­ karas were derived from needle-nosed crocodiles in India, the Chinese sculptors gave them the tusks and trunks of elephants. In the top panels of the throne and above them, flanking the halo, are two sets of discs representing the sun and the moon. The origin of this throne décor is found in seated Buddha figures from Sārnāth, such as the famous late-fifth-century First Sermon, now in the Museum of Archaeology, Sārnāth, which has vyālakas surmounted by makaras carved at the sides of the seated Buddha (figure 7.6).15 The Sārnāth throne was first used on the Sārnāthstyle King Udayana figures here, but the large Maitreya Buddhas that were produced later in Longhua Monastery Grotto and Leigutai Central Grotto also have them.16 Only these two types of pendant-legged Buddha figures have the Sārnāth throne. It is unclear what special meaning it had to Tang patrons, but perhaps its principal attraction was its unmistakably Indian flavor. On the south wall of the grotto is the dedicatory inscription, which reads: On the seventh day of the eleventh month of the fourth year of the Xianheng era of the Great Tang (December 20, 673), monk Huijian of Fahai Monastery in the Western Capital, for

s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s   |  127

Figure 7.5. Maitreya, Huijian’s Grotto, 673. From Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, pl. 88.

Figure 7.6. Throne back, Huijian’s Grotto, and throne back from The First Sermon, Museum of Archaeology, Sārnāth. Drawings from Longmen shiku yanjiusuo, “Longmen 565 hao ku (Huijian dong) diaocha jianbao,” fig. 3, and Li Sisheng, “Yi Fo wushi pusa he pusa zhuang Fo,” fig. 7.

the August Emperor, the August Empress, the Heir Apparent, and the Prince of Zhou, reverently dedicates a Maitreya image shrine, with two bodhisattvas and pairs of shenwang (i.e., lokapālas and dvārapālas), to complete this meritorious accomplishment. I humbly pray for the imperial enterprise a flourishing of sageliness without limit and, for the heir apparent and all the princes, blessings extending for ten thousand generations.17 (7B)

At the time Huijian’s grotto was dedicated, he was actually the abbot of Fahai Monastery, which was located in the Buzheng Ward of Chang’an District, west of the Street of the Vermilion Bird Gate, the central north-south thoroughfare.18 Although he was not a Palace Chapel monk, he must have served as a religious advisor to the emperor, if not the empress, since he is credited as an advisor for the Vairocana project in its inscription. Some scholars consider Huijian’s choice of Maitreya for the icon in his shrine an attempt to curry favor with Empress Wu.19 I regard this as anachronistic, since although the empress added the epithet Benevolent One, or Maitreya, to her title

for the span of a few months in late 694 and early 695, nothing suggests the empress identified with Maitreya in the 670s. Further, I agree with Antonino Forte’s view that she never did have any particular affinity for Maitreya but may have been advised by the monks of the Palace Chapel to take the title as a way to accrue to herself the popular messianic associations with the name of Maitreya.20 When the only evident result of doing so was the inauspicious burning of her Mingtang complex, she quickly dropped the name, while retaining the title of cakravartin, which was much more central to the legitimating ideology of the Commentary on the “Great Cloud Sūtra,” in which the notion of a female cakravartin ruling over a Buddhist utopia was promoted.21 Moreover, the making of Maitreya Buddha figures at Longmen long predated the patronage of the empress. Maitreya Buddha shrines were sponsored in 637 by Lady Liu and in 648 by the Sishun Ward, both of which are too early to have had anything to do with Empress Wu. Others were made after she became empress, such as Liang Wenxiong’s Grotto, a medium-sized shrine datable to the early 660s, but Liang was apparently related on s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s   |  129

his mother’s side to Lady Wei, the concubine of Emperor Taizong who sponsored the Jingshan Monastery Grotto.22 In short, there are no Maitreya shrines at Longmen that can be proven to have anything to do with the empress or her later self-identification with Maitreya. This is not to say that Huijian was averse to association with the throne, however. The imitation of the assembly of nine figures in the Great Vairocana Image Shrine and particularly the replication of the Vairocana’s features in the face of his Maitreya were likely intended to associate his grotto with the imperial shrine. A metropolitan abbot such as Huijian would scarcely have allowed such mimicry if it were likely to give offense to his patrons.

The Qingmingsi Grotto The Qingmingsi Grotto sits between Huijian’s Grotto and the Paired Grottoes at the base of the cliff. While no dedication remains, evidence in the grotto suggests the donor was an important person from Chang’an with an allegiance to Pure Land worship. A substantial cube 2.8 meters deep, 2.3 meters wide, and 2.45 meters high, the grotto is entered through a shallow courtyard and a short entrance corridor. The main sculptural program is extremely simple, consisting of a seated cross-legged Buddha on the back wall flanked by two standing bodhisattvas, one of whom holds a kundikā water vase and willow branch, the traditional attributes of the Save-from-Suffering Guanyin (figure 7.7).23 Although the heads of the figures are now missing, the high quality of the carving is still evident, particularly in the realistically rendered drapery. There is absolutely no controversy on the identity of the icons. Lacking attendant disciple figures and a Seven-Buddha halo, the Buddha must be Amitābha and the bodhisattvas Avalokiteśvara (as the Save-from-Suffering Guanyin) and Mahāsthāmaprāpta, his principal attendants according to Pure Land scripture. Not only is the grotto’s main program composed of Pure Land imagery, but most of the added shrines are as well.24 In addition to the Amitābha of 675 donated by the layman Wang Renke and nine other Amitābha shrines, carved in relief on the south wall of the courtyard is a large pagoda, with an Amitābha assembly in the bottom story, donated by a laywoman.25 All the other dated intrusive shrines of the 670s contain figures of Guanyin, and there are seven 130   |  s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s

later or undated inscribed images of Save-from-Suffering Guanyin.26 Some are joined with figures of Amitābha, while others are coupled with Yaoshi (the Buddha of Healing) and Dizang bodhisattva, who was worshiped as a guide through the paths of rebirth and prayed to for healing.27 Like Guanyin, Yaoshi and Dizang can be appealed to for help in the human realm and for rescue in the others.28 Half these dedications are by women, and since neither they nor any of the male sponsors cite official titles, the patronage of the added shrines appears to be entirely nonelite, which seems appropriate for “the single gate of the Pure Land, that is wide open (for everybody).”29 Other early intrusive shrines were added by donors from Chang’an. On the upper left of the grotto façade is a stele-shaped inscription listing the names of twentynine donors from Chang’an, which appears to dedicate the large intrusive shrine to its left, completed in 675.30 Given the prominence of this shrine, this group of men from Chang’an might have been connected to the original sponsor of the Qingmingsi Grotto. Seven other dedications, produced from 678 to 690, were added to this grotto by men and women who also identify themselves as Chang’an citizens. Another early intrusive shrine was dedicated by a nun who was likely also from Chang’an. Nun Bazheng sponsored a pair of standing figures in the entryway, inscribed simply with the date of 678 and her name, nun Bazheng of Qingming Convent.31 This nun sponsored a total of three shrines at Longmen, including one in the neighboring Wanfo Grotto and another in the old Huoshao Grotto.32 Qingming Convent is not recorded in the standard sources on the history of Chang’an and Luoyang, but another nun from Qingming Convent, named Huijing, dedicated an Amitābha figure in 681, also in Wanfo Grotto.33 The fact that two different nuns from this same convent produced multiple commissions might suggest Qingming Convent was in Luoyang; however, a clay brick excavated in Xi’an, stamped with a Buddha figure on the obverse and an inscription on the reverse, implies otherwise.34 The inscription reads: “The good karma (clay image) of nun Bazheng, Abbess of Qingming Convent, of the Great Tang, (dedicated to) all sentient beings.” These stamped bricks with Buddha figures and inscriptions were known as “good karma clay” images because they were molded from clay mixed with the ashes of a monk or nun cremated after

Sūtra one hundred thousand times and to have painted more than two hundred Pure Land frescoes. These activities accorded with his teacher Tanluan’s dictum that constructing monasteries and other religious artifacts was the correct religious activity for the present period, and it was said of Shandao that “whenever he noticed a temple or pagoda in bad condition, he never neglected to repair it.”37 The Qingmingsi Grotto is unusual in having an Amitābha as its main image, and it is crowded with later Pure Land shrines, several offered by citizens of Chang’an. The grotto is directly adjacent to the grotto sponsored by Huijian, which is the same size and quality and was produced around the same time. It could very well be Shandao’s commission.

Reflecting the Empress

Figure 7.7. Save-from-Suffering Guanyin, north wall, Qing­ mingsi Grotto. From Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4, Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng, pl. 132.

death.35 It would appear this brick found in Xi’an was produced from the ashes of nun Bazheng, which suggests that she died in Chang’an, probably at the convent of which she was abbess. If Bazheng was indeed a prominent cleric who lived in Chang’an, that suggests the donor of Qingmingsi Grotto was one also. Although Bazheng’s Qingming Convent gave its name to this grotto, she was not its original donor. I propose that it was the other clerical advisor for the Vairocana shrine: monk Shandao, who lived at Shiji Monastery in Chang’an.36 Shandao was not only a tireless promoter of devotion to Amitābha, but also he was said to have copied the Amitābha

Evidence at Longmen also supports the theory that Empress Wu became involved in the Vairocana project only in 672, when she gave her “rouge and powder money.” She is cited in an inscription for the first time in 673, in the dedication of an Amitābha shrine by one Niu Yide.38 In 666, when he held the post of Scribe of the Eastern Tower, Niu dedicated a shrine to “the emperor, the heir apparent, and all the princes,” but in 673, sometime after he had been promoted to Vice Director for Palace Buildings, his inscription for another shrine read: “in offering to the emperor, the empress, the heir apparent, and all the princes and imperial relatives by marriage.”39 Quite likely a man serving as Vice Director of Palace Buildings would have played a significant role in the production of the Great Vairocana Image Shrine. He may have attended the empress when she went out to Longmen in 672, which may be when his modest shrine was begun. The second shrine finished in 673 to be dedicated to the empress as well as the emperor was made by the renowned general Xue Rengui. As the hero of the battle to capture Pyongyang in 668, Xue was placed in charge of the Andong Protectorate established there after the fall of the Korean state of Koguryo. Then, in 670, Tibetan armies captured Kucha and Karashahr on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin in Central Asia, and the Chinese were forced to give up control of the Silk Road and the Central Asian territories west of Turfan. To counter this new threat, Xue was dispatched as commander in chief of the Tang forces to subdue the Tibetans, but the Chinese s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s   |  131

armies were routed, with extensive losses, and Xue barely escaped with his life. He was returned to the capital in fetters but was spared death and dismissal.40 At Longmen, he made the following dedication: “Xue Rengui, for the emperor and empress, reverently dedicates an Amitābha image and two bodhisattvas. May all sentient beings in this Dharma realm share in this blessing. Made in the fifth month of the fourth year of the Xianheng era (May – June, 673)” (7C).41 Xue’s inclusion of the empress in his dedication suggests he was responding to her contribution to the Vairocana shrine, and he too could have been in an imperial party that went out to the site in 672, which may have prompted him to sponsor a shrine for the royal couple. From this moment on, listing the empress as the second beneficiary in elite dedications at Longmen became standard. After the emperor died in 683, the empress dowager was often listed as the first beneficiary, ahead of her son, the nominal ruler, and after she usurped the throne in 690, she was generally listed first, as “Sage and Divine August Emperor.”42   A grotto that was likely produced in response to the empress’ appearance at Longmen is Zhou Yuanzhi’s Grotto, which lies about thirty meters south of the Vairocana shrine, at the same height on the cliff face. About one and a half meters in each dimension, the grotto once held a seated Buddha and two standing attendants on the back wall altar, which are now gone.43 The altar façade bears a cintāman.i jewel on a pagoda-shaped support, flanked by two worshipers and six children sitting or standing on lotus flowers, who probably represent souls being reborn in the western paradise. On the south wall is engraved the “Text of the Amitābha Image,” the dedicatory inscription for the main program, which is quite long, especially for a grotto of this modest size. After an opening section extolling belief in Amitābha, the inscription announces the patrons and purpose of the grotto: The disciple Zhou Yuanzhi, a Court Gentleman for Manifesting Rightness, and the others all expectantly hoping to pass over (the sea of suffering) to the shore of the Dharma now join in making a vow (to be reborn in the paradise in) the West. We all rely upon the forty-eight great vows (of Amitābha) so that we may congregate in that assembly (in his Pure Land of Sukhāvatī). Now, the dark paths are illuminated by a mirror, as the Wisdom-sun is supported in the lofty sky, and the 132   |  s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s

way to enlightenment has reopened that the six senses may be cleansed in the good sea. Finally, to enrich this great enterprise (the imperial rule), we think of our responsibilities constantly and profoundly. To exhaust our ritual duty as officials, we have portrayed the True Visage, and to extend filial piety and humaneness, we have depicted the Pure Land. In offering to the Celestial Emperor, Celestial Empress, heir apparent, all the princes, all the monks of distant kalpas, and seven generations of ancestors, we reverently made a shrine (containing) a stone image of Amitābha. . . . We make use of this act of merit to protect and bless the imperial throne, and may the dead and the living together take refuge in the sea of blessings. . . . This act of merit was completed on the eighth day of the twelfth month of the second year of the Shangyuan era of the Great Tang (December 29, 675).44 (7D)

Zhou Yuanzhi’s inscription is unusual in explicitly stating that it was the government official’s Confucian duty to generate karmic merit for the throne through a Buddhist project. In a novel interpretation of the Confucian dictum that “the gentleman expresses himself through ritual,” Zhou asserted that the Confucian virtues of ritual duty (li), filial piety (xiao), and humaneness (ren) could be exercised through the dedication of Buddhist merit to the imperial family (Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu took the titles of Celestial Emperor and Celestial Empress in the eighth month of 674).45 This intent to bless the royal family and the fact that Zhou Yuanzhi’s Grotto was dedicated just twenty-two days before the Great Vairocana Image Shrine strongly suggest this grotto was also produced in response to the imperial project.

Wanfo Grotto The last grotto started in the mid-670s is Wanfo Grotto, which sits between the Paired Grottoes and Huijian’s Grotto, about eight or ten meters above the pathway at the base of the cliff. Diagonal grooves and large beam holes cut into the side walls indicate the forecourt once had a constructed roof of timber and tile, and although the modern stairway is made of concrete, it likely replicates an original staircase of wood. The façade was elaborately carved with huge figures around which are packed dozens of intrusive shrines added even before the grotto was dedicated. Each side wall once bore a seated lion in relief, about two me-

Figure 7.8. North wall forecourt, Wanfo Grotto, 680. Photo, 1910, glass negative. Charles Lang Freer Papers, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the Estate of Charles Lang Freer. Photographer: Utai, pl. 101.

ters high, and flanking the entryway are giant muscular guardian figures, wearing only a dhoti, a necklace, and a double rope of jewels falling from the shoulders.46 The walls of the forecourt and the façade are filled with representations of nuns and with shrines donated by nuns.

Although many were pilfered in the 1920s and 1930s, at least a dozen niches on the north wall of the forecourt held images of nuns (figure 7.8). Some contain a single figure, but others hold a pair, with a larger figure in front of a smaller figure. While these have been identified as a monk s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s   |  133

Figure 7.9. South wall forecourt, Wanfo Grotto. Xuzhou nun Zhenzhi’s Save-from-Suffering Guanyin, 681, is at center right. Photo, 1910, glass negative. Charles Lang Freer Papers, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the Estate of Charles Lang Freer. Photographer: Utai, pl. 106.

and a nun by their respective sizes, I wonder if they were not meant as two nuns, such as an elder and a novice.47 Titles used in the inscriptions for these images, such as stha­ viras (monastic elders) and zhu (abbot or abbess), are gender neutral, so while we may have a socially conditioned 134   |  s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s

tendency to read an inscription as by “Shanxiang, abbot of Yongyao Monastery,” for example, it is entirely likely that Shanxiang was the abbess of Yongyao Convent.48 Several intrusive shrines were commissioned by nuns here as well, far more than at any other grotto.49 The largest

and most beautiful of these on the façade contains an elaborately jeweled Save-from-Suffering Guanyin in a graceful tribhanga pose, dangling a kundikā water vase from his left hand and holding up a willow branch in his right, dedicated by a nun from nearby Xuzhou in late May of 681 (figure 7.9).50 Some nuns made their donations around the time the grotto was dedicated, in late 680, while others donated the following year, around the time of the birthday of the Buddha, traditionally the eighth day of the fourth month, which fell on May 1 in 681, according to the Western calendar.51 This suggests Longmen was a pilgrimage site during this particular holy day and that this grotto was considered a desirable site for patronage by the nuns who had come to Longmen from other districts in Henan Province, such as Xuzhou and Tangzhou, and from the Qingming Convent, which was probably in Chang’an.52

A Palace Chapel Nun as Donor The prevalence of nun patronage at this grotto may be explained by an inscription carved in large characters at the top of the north jamb, which a visitor could easily read as she entered the grotto: “Śraman.a Zhiyun, in offering to the Celestial Emperor, the Celestial Empress, the heir apparent, and all the princes, reverently makes one shrine of fifteen thousand honorable images” (7E).53 Here Zhiyun simply identified herself as a śraman.a, or “monastic,” but we know she was actually a nun at the Palace Chapel in Chang’an because of an inscription in the burial cave of another nun named Huideng (650 – 731), a relative of Empress Wu, that reveals that as a teenager Huideng had been called to court by the empress to serve as a disciple of the Palace Chapel nun Zhiyun.54 Thus, Zhiyun was a nun at the Palace Chapel from at least 665 onward, and the empress was fond enough of Zhiyun to make her the teacher of her young relative. Considering that Zhiyun served in the palace, she could have initiated her project only when the imperial court was in Luoyang, and given the fact that she refers to the imperial couple as “Celestial Emperor” and “Celestial Empress,” it was likely in the period when the court was in Luoyang from late 674 into early 676. Since it lacks a date, I interpret Zhiyun’s inscription as a kind of inaugural announcement. It might have been carved in January of 676, when the imperial party went out to Longmen to dedicate the Vairocana shrine,

since the empress would have been attended by her Palace Chapel nuns at such an event.

The Fifteen Thousand Buddhas Wanfo Grotto matches Zhiyun’s description in that it is a single vast chamber (“one shrine”), approximately six meters in each direction, and on the side walls are the “fifteen thousand honorable images,” or Buddhas, carved in rows from floor to ceiling (figure 7.10). According to the Longmen Grottoes Research Academy, the north wall has 7,361 figures, while the south wall bears 7,929.55 The total count of 15,290 figures reveals that, although the grotto is now called Wanfo, or “Ten Thousand Buddhas,” which is a secular term signifying “innumerable Buddhas,” actually the program was the Fifteen Thousand Buddhas. As Sofukawa has pointed out, this iconography is specifically identified in a grotto excavated in the eastern hills at Longmen a decade later, although this grotto’s original program is also now obscured by its popular name, Leigutai Central Grotto.56 Over its entrance are carved large characters reading “Great Fifteen-Thousand-Buddha Shrine.” As with Wanfo Grotto, it has a complex program, including a large Maitreya assembly on the main wall and a procession of twenty-five Indian patriarchs in relief in the lower register of the main and side walls, in addition to the thousands of small seated Buddhas in relief covering the upper walls and the ceiling, which are identified by inscription. A cartouche in the ceiling is inscribed “all Buddhas of Above,” while around the top of the side walls are others with “all Buddhas of the South,” “all Buddhas of the Southeast,” and so on, with one for each of the ten directions of the Buddhist cosmos. These Buddhas of all directions are the Fifteen Thousand Buddhas. Sofukawa found a scriptural basis for this iconography in the twelve-chapter version of the Sūtra of Buddha Names as Expounded by the Buddha (Foshuo foming jing), translated in Luoyang by Bodhiruci (d. 535) during the late Northern Wei.57 This sūtra opens with Śākyamuni promising salvation to the assembled host if they chant the names of all the past, present, and future Buddhas of all the directions. Although it contains only 11,093 Buddha and bodhisattva names, beginning with Aks.obya, Buddha of the East, surviving noncanonical versions of it now in the Stein collection of Dunhuang manuscripts are titled s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s   |  135

gram, with a large seated Buddha at the center of a field of small relief Buddhas, is also found in an early Tang shrine in Guyang Grotto, which contains a King Udayana figure surrounded by the Thousand Buddhas, while at the nearby cave-shrine site of Gongxian, about fifty kilometers east of Luoyang, is a shrine dated to the Qianfeng era (666 – 668) in which a monk named Sicha dedicated a King Udayana figure centered between rows of relief depictions of the Thousand Buddhas.59 Sicha’s inscription quotes from the section of the Foshuo foming jing in which Śākyamuni preaches salvation in chanting the names of all the Buddhas.60 Since the hands of the King Udayana figures are in the dharmacakra mudrā, the gesture of preaching, this program should represent Śākyamuni preaching the Foshuo foming jing, with the myriad small relief Buddha figures portraying the Buddhas named in the sūtra. The purpose of the Buddhanāma scriptures was for the penitential recitation of the names of all the Buddhas, and Sofukawa has suggested that carving the fifteen thousand Buddhas produced the same karmic effect as chanting their names.61 As a gift to the imperial family, the amount of merit generated by this imperishable, hence perpetual, chanting of names must have been deemed great.

Amitābha and the Fifty-Two Bodhisattvas

Figure 7.10. Fifteen Thousand Buddhas and King Udayana Buddha figure, south wall, Wanfo Grotto. Photo, the author, 1994.

Sūtra of the Names of the Fifteen Thousand Buddhas (Wan wu qian foming jing). This group is also seen in the SevenRoster Buddhanāma, written by Xinxing (540 – 594) in the late sixth century, as “Aks.obya, Buddha of the East, and the Fifteen Thousand Buddhas.”58 By comparison with these scriptural sources and the inscribed cartouches in Leigutai Central Grotto, Sofukawa believes the fifteen thousand Buddhas represented in the Wanfo Grotto were intended to represent all the Buddhas of the ten directions and of the past, present, and future. High in the center of each side wall is a niche containing a King Udayana Śākyamuni figure. This type of pro136   |  s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s

The huge and elaborately carved main-wall program must have required several years’ work and considerable expense, and one wonders who Zhiyun must have been in lay life to afford such a thing. In high relief on the back (west) wall, the central Buddha figure is an imposing 5.65 meters tall, seated on a lotus-base, octagonal pedestal throne (figure 7.11). Ānanda, in añjali mudrā to the Buddha’s proper right, is 3.4 meters tall, as is Kāśyapa, while the bodhisattvas in each corner are about 3.6 meters tall. On the Buddha’s proper left, the Save-from-Suffering Guanyin holds a kundikā vase in his lowered left hand, while the right drapes a willow branch over the right shoulder. In the other corner, Mahāsthāmaprāpta holds a lotus pod before his chest in his left hand, while his lowered right hand once held a large fan, now broken. Not only their broad necklaces with pendant rows of ornaments and double strands of jewels descending from the shoulders and knotted over the belly, but also the scarves that fall from the shoulders to swag across the upper legs and again

Figure 7.11. Amitābha assembly, west wall, Wanfo Grotto. Photo, the author, 1994.

at the knees are remarkably similar to the costumes of the bodhisattvas in the Vairocana shrine. The composition of the back wall is unusual in having two different sets of worshipers in addition to the typical complement of paired disciple and bodhisattva figures. One set of small kneeling figures is at the base of the Buddha’s nimbus. The worshiper on the Buddha’s proper left wears the kās.āya of a śraman.a and has hands pressed together in añjali mudrā, while the opposite figure is dressed as a bodhisattva, with a necklace across the chest and scarves draped over the belly, holding a censer or an offering. Flanking the disciples is another matching pair of worshipers, about two meters high, turned in three-quarter view toward the Buddha. Both wear the full-length voluminous robes and “cloud-toed” shoes of women of the Tang court. The heads of the figures are now

shattered, but in old photographs of Wanfo Grotto taken in the 1920s, they were still intact, revealing full faces with the calm, aristocratic expression and elaborately dressed hair of court women (figure 7.12). Above the main Buddha, the upper wall is filled with bodhisattva figures seated in a variety of open poses, on lotus bases joined by lotus stems (figure 7.13). There are twentyeight bodhisattvas north of the Buddha and twenty-four to the south, for a total of fifty-two, which reveals that the program is actually the Indian icon Amitābha and the Fifty-Two Bodhisattvas. There is a further suggestion that this Amitābha image may also have been intended as a representation of Amitābha’s paradise of Sukhāvatī, since the two small bust-length figures set in hemispheres, flanking the tip of the nimbus, probably represent souls being reborn from lotus buds there.62 s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s   |  137

Figure 7.12. Court lady worshiper between disciple and bodhisattva, Wanfo Grotto. Photo, © H. Iwata, Peking, ca. 1920s. AAAUM slides #44,884. Courtesy of the Asian Art Archives, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Looking up into the ceiling, the viewer sees the customary lotus flower carved into the center of the ceiling, surrounded by relief figures of flying apsarasas, but here the lotus is encircled with a flat band bearing an inscription in very large characters, which can be read by someone standing inside the doorway, looking toward the main Buddha on the back wall, without having to move around. It begins at about the “seven o’clock” position and runs counterclockwise to the “two o’clock” position, where it breaks off (due to a natural fissure in the rock) and then takes up again at the “ten o’clock” position. It reads: “Director Yao Shenbiao and Meditation Master (Zhi)yun of 138   |  s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s

the Palace Chapel completed the Fifteen Thousand Honorable Images Shrine on the thirtieth day of the eleventh month of the inaugural year of the Yonglong era of the Great Tang (December 26, 680)” (7F).63 Zhiyun’s previously unnamed cosponsor, Yao Shenbiao, is something of a mystery. If the title “Director” is the Director for the Palace Buildings, a position named in 662, then that would mean Yao was a male official in the court bureaucracy.64 Gong Dazhong, however, considered “Director” a title for a female palace official, which I accept.65 Moreover, as Sofukawa noted, all titles altered in 662 were changed back in 670. Hence, in 680, there was no

Figure 7.13. Amitābha and the fifty-two bodhisattvas, upper west wall, Wanfo Grotto. Photo, the author, 2004.

such title within the male-staffed bureaucracy. More important, since Zhiyun was a nun, the only socially appropriate cosponsor would have been another woman.66 As a nun of the Palace Chapel, Zhiyun would have been well acquainted with the women of the palace bureaucracy.

Two Programs in One Grotto Another mystery of the dedication is why it identifies the grotto’s program as the Fifteen Thousand Buddhas and makes no mention of the Amitābha and the fifty-two bo­ dhisattvas on the main wall. It appears the donors pro-

duced two different merit-generating projects for two different sets of beneficiaries, one named and one not. One project was the Fifteen Thousand Buddhas, a program consistent with grottoes dedicated on behalf of the imperial family, which tend to feature imagery that represents all the Buddhas of space and time, such as Vairocana or the Buddhas of the Three Periods. It was based on scripture and dedicated by text to the royal family, by individuals who cite their names and official titles. The “Indian” Amitābha image, by contrast, with its added “rebirth in paradise” imagery, is an expression of popular belief in rebirth in Sukhāvatī that relies as much on the perceived s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s   |  139

efficacy of “original, Indian” icons as it does on the specific dictates of Pure Land scriptures. This second project relies on visual imagery to make its statement, and it uses the language of representational imagery to depict the donors making a dedication to a different group of beneficiaries. In my view, the beneficiaries of the Amitābha scene are represented in the form of the two court women worshipers. Women were a special class within the hierarchy of Buddhism, and educated women were quite aware of both the freedom the Buddhist monastic institution allowed them in terms of thought and learning as well as the inferior status they were accorded with regard to enlightenment and rebirth. As Song Jingfei wrote of herself, “My poor karma from former incarnations has left my fortune shallow and dirty, so I was born in Jambudvīpa and received the form of a woman.”67 As a result, some women determined to produce and transfer merit to all womankind. The nun Cixiang wrote: “I have had stone carved to realize the true (image) and engraved this act of merit. . . . May it extend unto the thrice-obedient (i.e., all women).”68 In this same spirit, Yao Shenbiao and Zhiyun appear to have dedicated the Pure Land scene to womankind, represented in the only guise acceptable to them, as ladies of the court. Not only were the beneficiaries depicted pictorially, but Zhiyun and Yao Shenbiao also portrayed themselves as donors by means of imagery. I propose they are represented as the two kneeling worshipers at the base of the Buddha’s nimbus: the nun Zhiyun as the śraman.a and the court woman Yao Shenbiao as the bodhisattva.

The Great Fengxian Monastery In 679, three years after the completion of the Vairocana shrine, the emperor ordered the construction of the Great Fengxian Monastery, and I propose that certain shrines were sponsored as a result. The site of this monastery, just south of the western cliffs, has been identified and excavated recently by a joint Chinese-Italian team of archeologists.69 The second part of the inscription on the Vairocana throne relates its origins, and the emphasis on the monks who served there suggests it was written by one of their own. It says: On the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the inaugural year of the Tiaolu era, a jimao year (September 25, 679), in 140   |  s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s

obedience to an imperial decree, to the south of the Great Image was established the Great Fengxian Monastery. Two groups of seven eminent monks who were equally perfect in the practice (of good conduct) and the understanding (of sacred texts) were chosen and summoned to form the (monastic) foundation. Only those who were vigilant in observing the religious rules and who excelled in monastic discipline were named abbot. On the fifteenth day of the first month of the second year (of the Tiaolu era, February 20, 680), the Great Emperor wrote out the plaque (for the front gate of the monastery). From first to last, sixteen monks have been specially ordained here and all of them maintained the prohibitions and practices with purity and their priestly duties with vigilance. Fearing that as the years stretched on, the fragrant record (of their virtues) would no longer be handed down, we have engraved this eulogy so that it may be bequeathed through eternal kalpas. (7G)

Although the inscription never states why the monastery was built, its purpose is revealed in its name. As Antonino Forte has shown, the name “Fengxian” is not Buddhist but comes from the Book of Documents, where the phrase Feng xian si xiao can be translated “When honoring your ancestors, think how you can prove your filial piety.”70 In a Buddhist context, “honoring ancestors” would mean the shrine was produced for the generation of merit for the donor’s late parents. In Forte’s opinion, it was “very probable that the Feng-hsien Monastery in Lungmen had from its start the same function as a ‘Buddhist ancestral temple’ of the Wu family.”71 The evidence does not support this idea, however, since not only is Empress Wu not connected with the monastery in the inscription, but the shrines established for her late mother were named Taiyuan Monastery, after the Wu family’s place of enfeoffment. The lack of any geographical or other specific marker in the monastery’s name means it could only refer to the imperial line. Wen Yucheng believes the emperor intended it for post­ humous merit for his late father, Emperor Taizong, noting that 679 was the thirtieth anniversary of his death, with which I agree.72 The emperor had previously made public demonstrations of filial piety through merit-making projects. In 648, he established Great Compassion and Kindness Monastery (Da Ciensi) in Chang’an for the posthumous karmic benefit of his late mother, Empress Zhang-

sun, who died in 636, while in 656, he established a Daoist temple called Sovereign Heaven Temple (Haotian Guan) in memory of his late father.73 No record exists, however, of any Buddhist monastery having been established for Emperor Taizong, so perhaps the emperor intended Honoring the Ancestors Monastery for his father, as the mate to the one in Chang’an for his mother.74

Xuanzhao, Monastic Envoy to India One of the shrines that came into being because of the imperial monastery is a small Guanyin shrine on the façade of Wanfo Grotto, at the edge of the doorway, dedicated by one of the emperor’s monastic envoys not long after the completion of the Fengxiansi: “On the fifteenth day of the seventh month of a gengchen year, the second year of the Tiaolu era of the Great Tang (August 14, 680), Xuanzhao reverently made one Guanshiyin bodhisattva image, praying for the rescue of all sentient beings of this Dharma realm who through transmigration, sins, and obstructions now live in distress, that they may all attain to their cessation” (7H).75 Xuanzhao studied Indian languages at the imperial Da Xingshan Monastery in Chang’an during the reign of Emperor Taizong, and sometime around 647, he was sent to Tibet to escort the Wencheng princess, who was married to the Tibetan king Srong-btsan-sgam-po, on a journey to Northern India.76 Xuanzhao then took up residence and studied for years at Nālandā Monastery, just north of Rājagr.ha. He also passed several summers at Mahābodhi Monastery in Bodhgayā, staying in India around fourteen years in all. After the imperial envoy Wang Xuance reported on Xuanzhao’s achievements, Emperor Gaozong sent Wang back to India to retrieve Xuanzhao for service at court, and he arrived in Luoyang at the beginning of 665. He was then ordered by Emperor Gaozong to go back to India to retrieve the Brahmin who had promised the emperor the “herb of longevity.” Xuanzhao eventually died in India, but he must have been in China around 680, on the evidence of his dedication at Longmen.

The Yulanpen Festival Xuanzhao’s shrine was dedicated on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, that is, on the day of the Yulanpen Fes-

tival. After the monks end their summer retreat, people at all levels of society bring bowls of food and other offerings . to the monasteries on this day. These gifts to the sangha were made to generate karmic merit for deceased ancestors for seven generations back, with the particular goal of releasing those in the three undesirable realms of rebirth. The sending of the yulan bowls to the monasteries was a festive event, with the offerings borne along in processions of musicians singing and drumming and believers carrying banners and flowers. The Yulanpen Festival day was a very popular date for the dedication of merit-producing shrines at Longmen, second only to the eighth day of the fourth month, when the birthday of the Buddha was celebrated. In the late Sui dynasty, on the Yulanpen Festival day of 616, a local man dedicated two shrines on the north wall of Binyang South Grotto for the souls of his two deceased sons.77 This suggests ceremonies were being performed at Longmen then, perhaps at the old Northern Wei Xiangshan Monastery.78 A number of inscriptions dated to the festival day in the year 666 strongly suggest the Yulanpen Festival was taking place at Longmen in the Tang, perhaps at the Jingshan Monastery.79 The government regularly sponsored the Yulanpen Festival at major monasteries in the capital, for the blessing of the realm, and government officials and musicians were dispatched to deliver the yulan bowls prepared by the throne to the monks.80 The services included a communal banquet and prayers and offerings made before statues of Buddhist deities. In 692, for example, Empress Wu sent out yulan bowls from the palace at Luoyang to imperially sponsored monasteries in the city. The event in this particular year was recorded because of the beautiful rhapsody written by Yang Jiong to commemorate it, but it was evidently an annual occurrence.81 The ancestral orientation of the festival is shown in the description of its celebration in 768 by Emperor Daizong (r. 762 – 779).82 After having the spirit tablets of the previous emperors brought to the Palace Chapel, the emperor offered lavish yulan bowls and prayers to them. Draped in pennants and “dragon parasols,” the spirit tablets were then delivered to a host of officials waiting at the palace gate, who accompanied them on a tour of the city’s Buddhist monasteries and Daoist temples. The procession next passed through the city walls out to Zhangjing Monastery, which had been s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s   |  141

established the year before in honor of the emperor’s late mother, the Zhangjing empress. This part of the ceremony was for the particular benefit of his mother, since she could not be, as a woman, included in the ancestral ceremonies in the palace. Of this event, it was recorded: “In the seventh month, (the emperor) sent special yulan bowls to Zhangjing Monastery, which had recently been completed. To supplement (his repayment of) the unbounded kindness (that his mother had bestowed on him), he decreed that all of the officials go to the monastery in a procession with incense.”83 Xuanzhao served the royal house as monastic envoy, so he may have been at Longmen on the Yulanpen Festival day of 680 in order to accompany an official procession of yulan bowls from the palace in Luoyang out to the newly finished imperial Great Fengxian Monastery. From a Buddhist perspective, the soul of Emperor Taizong required a great deal of spiritual intervention. He had the blood of his brothers on his hands, not to mention the karmic responsibility for the deaths of the soldiers who fought in the armies that established the Tang.84 His pious son, comparatively innocent of bloodshed, must surely have believed . his father needed the prayers of the sangha to keep him out of the hells. This may have been the reason Fengxian Monastery was built and why an imperial yulan bowl procession would be sent out from Luoyang to the monastery with Xuanzhao in an official role.

142   |  s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s

An Artisan’s Grotto Finally, not only did the existence of the imperial monastery create opportunities for patronage on festival days, but the craftsmen who built it also had a chance to become donors. Li Junzan is cited as one of the artisans responsible for the Great Vairocana Image Shrine, and five months after the Fengxian Monastery was completed, he dedicated a very small grotto about ten meters to the north of Zhou Yuanzhi’s Grotto.85 His inscription reads: “Li Junzan, [after?] constructing the Purple Cassia Palace, [in order that] safety and security may come to my family, reverently made a Guanyin bodhisattva on the thirtieth day of the sixth month of the second year of the Tiaolu era (July 31, 680)” (7I).86 Purple Cassia Palace was built in the summer of 679, and the Fengxian Monastery was “established” or instituted soon after, on September 25, 679, so my guess is that Li returned to Longmen to work on it after the palace was completed.87 While he was there that autumn, or perhaps on the day in February of 680 when the emperor wrote out the plaque for the monastery gate, this artisan sponsored the excavation of a small grotto for the benefit of his family, which was dedicated in July of that year.

Eight    Salvation for One The convergence of text and reader brings the literary work into existence, and this convergence can never be precisely pinpointed, but must always remain virtual, as it is not to be identified either with the reality of the text or with the individual disposition of the reader. — Wolfgang Iser1

A

fter the deaths of Empress Wu in 705 and Emperor Zhongzong in 710, there was a hiatus in imperial followers of Mahāyāna Buddhism and imperial sponsorship for Buddhist projects. Emperor Ruizong (r. 684 – 690, 710 – 712) and his son Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712 – 756) were adherents of Daoism, the religion favored by the Li family at the beginning of the Tang dynasty.2 The only type of Buddhism that interested Emperor Xuanzong was the Esoteric School, likely because its emphasis on identification with and invocation of deities through magical gestures (mudrās), chanted Sanskrit syllables (mantras and dhāran.īs), and procedures for meditation (sādhanas) was in some ways similar to Daoist practices. Among the famous Esoteric masters patronized by the emperor were the Chinese astronomer and mathematician Yixing (672 – 717), the Indian magician Vajrabodhi (670 – 741), and the great Indian translators Śubhākarasimha (637 – 735) and Amoghavajra (705 – 774).3 Despite his sponsorship of these individual clerics, Emperor Xuanzong was eager to curb the power of the Buddhist establishment. In 714, he placed a ban on the building of new monasteries and ordered that inspection and permission were necessary before replacing decrepit buildings at existing monasteries.4 In the 720s, the government began to register monastery lands and to compile a roster of all Buddhist monks and nuns, to establish their status and prevent ordinations by purchase. In 736, these functions were moved to the Court of State Ceremonial, the government bureau responsible for court receptions of foreign dignitaries, which lowered the status of Buddhism to a foreign faith.5

The Act of Merit by the Palace Domestic Service It is with some surprise, then, that we find a dedicatory inscription transcribed by Emperor Xuanzong on a large relief stele carved into the lower north wall of the Great Vairocana Image Shrine (figure 8.1). Although the stele face is cracked and worn, much of the inscription can still be discerned.6 A title in large regular-script characters reads “Stele of the Act of Merit by the Palace Domestic Service of the Great Tang.” The name of the author has been worn away, but the term “imperially transcribed” means the calligrapher was none other than the reigning emperor.7 Emperor Xuanzong was an accomplished calligrapher, as were his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, and the text is written in a fluid running script. The remains of the opening lines of the inscription appear to be a paean to the Buddha, followed by a list of donors that runs for thirteen columns and comprises, by my count, as many as 111 names.8 All were court eunuchs, high-ranking members of the Palace Domestic Service. The first was “General of the Palace Gate Guard of the Right, in charge of the affairs of the Palace Domestic Service, Supreme Pillar of State, and Dynasty-Founding Duke of Bohai Commandery, Palace Servitor Gao Lishi.” Gao Lishi (691 – 762) was the first eunuch in the Tang dynasty to attain a position of real power and the first for whom Emperor Taizong’s rule about eunuchs not being appointed to offices above rank 4 was broken.9 Gao’s titles were the highest possible: the post of General of the Palace Gate Guard of the Right, rank 3a1, indicated he was responsible for the defense of

Figure 8.1. North wall, lower terrace of Great Vairocana Image Shrine. Stele of the Act of Merit by the Palace Domestic Service of the Great Tang (A), Lady Niu’s Stele (B), Amitābhas dedicated by the Palace Domestic Service (C), Yang Sixu’s Grotto (1255). Drawing adapted from Longmen shiku kukan bianhao tuce, ed. Longmen shiku yanjiusuo and Zhongyang meishu xueyuan meishushi xi, futu 15.

the palace, while the statement that he was “in charge of the affairs of the Palace Domestic Service” meant he functioned as the head of the three thousand or more court eunuchs.10 His merit title Supreme Pillar of State was rank 2a, and his title of nobility, Dynasty-Founding Duke of Bohai Commandery, also ranked 2a and was the highest of such titles available to persons not of the imperial family. Palace Servitor was simply the title given all officially appointed eunuchs. The name of the next donor, who appeared to have been the General of the Palace Gate Guard of the Left, has been worn away, but he was likely either Liang Yishen or Li Shancai, both of whom served as the Acting General of the Palace Gate Guard of the Left around 724.11 The third donor’s name and titles do remain: “Grand Master for Splendid Happiness, Acting Palace Attendant of the Palace Domestic Service, Supreme Pillar of State, and Dynasty-Founding Duke of Hongnong Commandery, Palace Servitor Yang Sixu.” Yang Sixu (654 – 740) had been in charge of the Palace Domestic Service under Emperor Zhongzong, but even though he was no longer in that position, his rank remained high. Grand Master for Splendid Happiness was a rank-2b prestige title, and he held the same rank-2a merit title and title of nobility as 144   |  S A L VA T I O N F O R O N E

Gao Lishi. Following these three were the names of other high eunuch officials, in descending order of rank, men with rank-5 prestige titles who held offices such as Palace Eunuch Attendant-in-Ordinary, Eunuch Ceremonial Secretary, or director of one of the six palace services staffed by eunuchs. Listed after them are dozens of names of men without prestige titles, who served as Palace Receptionist or Palace Servitors within the six services: the Palace Treasury Service, the Menials Service, the Palace Gates Service, the Livery Service for the Empress, the Female Services, and the Inner Quarters Service.12 They were responsible for the imperial storehouses, palace slaves and laborers, the inner palace doors, the horses and carriages of the empress, the sericulture and other work of the palace women, and the establishment of the heir apparent, respectively.13 At the end of this great host of names is the dedication: “established in offering to the Divine and Martial August Emperor of the Opened Prime Era of the Great Tang.” The beneficiary was none other than the living monarch, Emperor Xuanzong.14 The body of the dedication is only partly legible, but enough remains to tell what the eunuchs dedicated to the emperor:

We prostrate ourselves in order that [even though we find ourselves?] together in this ending period of the Dharma,15 Samantabhadra’s supernatural power may still be encountered in the good scriptures, (which allow us to) think respectfully of the compassion of the Holy Lord, and assist in expounding the transformative power of the Benevolent King.16 Incense Mountain is silent, almost imaginary, yet one can smell the fragrance of the campaka flower (that is, the merit and virtue of the Buddha).17 The Himālayas goad our sense of reality, yet there is found the taste of clarified butter (that is, the perfect Buddha-truth).18 Even if the longevity of the Dharma be concealed, we trust that the four stūpas (where the Buddha was born, gained enlightenment, preached, and entered nirvān.a) will continue to be transmitted, and although the pure origin may be obscured, we see as not far away that (future) certainty (of rebirth in Sukhāvatī). By carving and engraving to make images, all people . . . By coloring and painting to depict forms, all will find refuge in the middle way. How much more so this revered mountain . . . virtuous stone will remain, and though it may pass through the fires of the kalpa of destruction, [it will not be destroyed?], and though it may undergo the calamity of destruction by wind, such will not reach it. Hence, this (act of merit) becomes an inexhaustible blessing. How could anything disturb it! Humbly we have ventured to use collectively our hearts engrossed (in the Buddha-truth) and together to create this Pure [Land]. . . . [To plant] good roots (whose fruit will be reaped later) by all sentient beings, reverently we have made nineteen entities of assemblies of the Measureless Life (Amitāyus) Buddha of the West. (8A)

The inscription opens with common sentiments voiced in other early Tang inscriptions: although the Dharma has entered the period of decline, it still has power for salvation, and even though India and Śākyamuni are far away in space and time, believers in China can still hold to the truth of his teachings. The donors assert their faith in the efficacy of icons to promote Buddhist belief and in the ability of the stone at Longmen to endure the destruction of the world at the end of the age, yet at the close of the dedication, the donors describe the icons they sponsored with the curious statement that they have made “nineteen entities” of assemblies of Measureless Life Buddhas (Amitāyus, or more commonly, Amitābha). This term “entities” (shi, usually translated as “affair” or “thing”) is highly unusual in the inscriptions at Longmen and must indicate an un-

usual circumstance. Whatever the eunuchs sponsored was something other than a typical trio of Amitābha flanked by bodhisattvas.

Forty-Eight Amitābhas Surrounding the original colossal figures of the Great Vairocana Image Shrine are dozens of slightly larger than life size (1.9 to 2 meters) standing Buddha figures, set in shallow niches that contain from one to five figures each (figure 8.2 and figure 6.5 above). Counting these figures is more difficult than might be imagined, but by my calculation, there are three niches and six figures on the south wall, six niches and fourteen figures on the west wall, and eleven niches and twenty-eight figures on the north wall, for a total of twenty-one niches containing forty-eight figures.19 It seems likely the term “nineteen entities” used in the inscription was an approximate description of the twenty-one niches. As for the forty-eight individual figures, based on the association with the forty-eight vows of Amitābha found in the Sūtra of the Buddha of Measure­ less Life, scholars generally accept that they constitute the Measureless Life Buddha project sponsored by the court eunuchs.20 The forty-eight Amitābha figures are considered hypostases of the forty-eight vows of Amitābha. The last four columns of the inscription are almost totally ruined, making the date difficult to decipher, even though it was given in two places. In the first, the inscription says, “This work of merit is now completed in dun zang zhi ci yue.” Yan Wenru interpreted this archaic phrase as follows. Dun zang means “in a cyclical wu year.” In the Kaiyuan era (713 – 742), there were two wu years: 718 (a wuwu year) and 730 (a gengwu year). Yan took ci yue as “the second month” so that the entire phrase reads “in the second month of a wu year.” In the second place where the date is given, all that remains is “the seventh day, a renxu day . . . in the Kaiyuan era.” By combining these two bits of partial information, a single year can be identified. In the year 730, the second month began with a bingchen cyclical day, which means that the seventh day was a renxu day. This corroborates 730 as the correct year.21 In the Western calendar, the seventh day of the second month equates to February 28, 730. The last lines of the inscription reveal that the palace eunuchs coordinated the project with the monks of the S A L VA T I O N F O R O N E   |  145

Figure 8.2. Amitābha figures, north wall, Great Vairocana Image Shrine. Photo, the author, 1999.

imperial monastery: “By special appointment . . . the official in charge was Grand Master for Proper Consultation, acting Palace Attendant of the Palace Domestic Service, Supreme Pillar of State, [Palace Servitor name]. . . . The monks in charge were śraman.a Daojie and śraman.a Wenji of the Great Fengxian Monastery” (8B). Since a high-ranking eunuch official and two monks from the imperial monastery shared responsibility for the project, it appears the Great Vairocana Image Shrine was still under the jurisdiction of the Great Fengxian Monastery in 730 and that the eunuchs required the cooperation, if not the permission, of the abbot to add their figures to the imperial assembly. Since it was an imperial shrine, perhaps they needed the emperor’s permission too. That they obtained it seems implicit in the fact that he wrote out their dedicatory inscription for them.

How the Eunuchs Got Permission: The Second Inscription We may wonder what event gave rise to the opportunity for the court eunuchs to sponsor this elaborate project. Something must have happened in the imperial domain to which they were allowed to respond, since “reciprocation” is the appropriate rhetorical posture of court eunuch donors, just as “aid” is the appropriate role for empresses as sponsors. Moreover, because of the emperor’s edict forbidding any new building, the eunuchs’ project would have to be done under the rubric of refurbishment. The answer seems to lie in a second inscription engraved on the throne of the Vairocana statue. As we know, the first inscription stated that Emperor Gaozong established the shrine, with Empress Wu “aiding” the project in 672 with twenty thousand strings of her “rouge and powder money,” and that it was completed in 676. The second inscription on the north face was written from left to right, in contravention of normal practice, which suggests there was something unusual about its content, and indeed, it consists of three separate documents, each composed at a different time by a different author, but all transcribed in the same hand and apparently engraved at once.22 The first document is a copy of the original inscription. The second is a rhyming paean of praise for the Vairocana statue, which tells of the refurbishment of the shrine by imperial order.23 Although

unsigned, it was probably written by monks of the Great Fengxian Monastery: None is superior to Buddha, for the Dharma world is his body. He condescended to take form to convert all beings and lowered himself into his traces to become like men. Where there is stimulus (from human need), he (responds by) manifesting himself; where there is no sin, he will draw close.24 Those in ignorance and error are forever separated from him; all one can rely upon is faith and (planting the seeds of) causality (in good works). In truth, it is thanks to our August (Emperor), who made the plan to beautify this entity, with its rare laks.an.a and vyañ­jana and majestic countenance without peer.25 Great in love, great in compassion; like the moon, like the sun. Gaze upward into his face and all filth is wiped away. Offer worship with sincerity and all prayers will be fulfilled. Since the True Religion flowed eastward, it has been over seven hundred years, yet of all the eminent shrines (made for) merit, this one is the greatest. From side to side (it measures) twelve zhang; from top to bottom, it is one hundred and forty chi.26 (8C)

The third document is an official letter sent by the District Defender of Henan (Luoyang) to Fengxian Monastery in 723, which reads as follows: By imperial command, Longhua Monastery is to join with and become Fengxian Monastery. Fifth day of the twelfth month of the tenth year of the Kaiyuan era (January 16, 723). Official letter from Henan District to Fengxian Monastery: The official letter: I have been informed by sealed missive of the aforementioned imperial edict. I have been requested to take a copy and forward it to the director (of the monastery) for him to carry it out. This official letter of mine, I communicate it officially to those in the monastery for their conformation. Now, that edict is the subject of this official letter. When you receive this official letter, you will follow that edict, and it is for this reason I have sent you this official letter. Official letter written by Shi Fanzong on the twelfth day of the twelfth month of the tenth year of the Kaiyuan era (January 23, 723). Signature of the District Defender.27 (8D)

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This document informed the monks that the emperor had decreed they were to move into the Longhua (Dragon Flower) Monastery complex. The imperially established Fengxian Monastery had priority over the nonimperial Longhua Monastery, which was compelled to cede its property and cease to exist.28 The order for Fengxian Monastery to take over Longhua Monastery came about a year after a flood devastated the area on February 23, 722.29 The emperor was in Luo­ yang at the time and was no doubt apprised of the disaster out at Longmen, since the flood of the Yi River had also displaced several thousand families in the Luoyang area.30 Apparently the ruin of the imperial monastery drew attention to the condition of the imperial shrine, which was, by this time, nearly fifty years old. It is likely the original paint and gilt had disappeared, and the statues were in need of refurbishment. Sofukawa Hiroshi has suggested that the eunuchs’ sponsorship of the forty-eight Amitābha figures was related to the refurbishment of the Vairocana shrine.31 In my view, the ruin of the monastery allowed the eunuchs to order the shrine renovated, which created a convenient screen for their own project. The sequence of dates also corroborates such a relationship. In 722, the Yi River flooded the Great Fengxian Monastery, and in 723, an imperial edict ordered its monks to take over Longhua Monastery. In 730, the eunuchs completed their addition of the forty-eight Amitābhas to the Vairocana shrine. Sometime between 723 and 730, the shrine was refurbished; the paean of praise was composed; and the old inscription, the paean, and the edict were engraved together on the north face of the throne.

Gao Lishi Although the monks of the imperial Fengxian Monastery credited the emperor with the order to refurbish the shrine, it seems quite likely to have been the work of Gao Lishi. According to his biographies in the dynastic histories, Gao received all memorials at court and made decisions on all cases that were not of major importance.32 Moreover, the eunuchs were in charge of merit-making Buddhist activities for the throne.33 Certainly the emperor was not ignorant of the project, since he wrote out the eunuchs’ dedicatory stele inscription. Transcribing their dedication was no evidence of faith in Buddhist teachings, 148   |  S A L VA T I O N F O R O N E

however, but a performance of calligraphy by the ruler in the traditional role of cultural exemplar and the act of a friend to the donors. Emperor Xuanzong had friendships with several court eunuchs, but his relationship with Gao Lishi was extremely close.34 Gao was especially solicitous of him when he was young, earning his special regard, and when the prince was made heir apparent, Gao was transferred to work in the Inner Quarters service, where he was in daily personal attendance on him. As Zhao Junping has observed, the dynastic histories overemphasize Gao’s loyalty to the emperor and filial piety toward his mother, to the exclusion of other less servile qualities.35 What the histories failed to record are the facts of his background and education that show Gao to have been a suitable friend and counselor for the emperor, rather than merely a devoted servant to whom the emperor delegated an unseemly degree of power. According to his recently excavated epitaph, three generations of Gao’s family had served the Tang in the far south, beginning with his great-grandfather Feng Ang, who was appointed commander in chief of Gaozhou.36 His grandfather and two great-uncles served as prefects of Panzhou, Gaozhou, and Enzhou, the coastal areas between modern-day southern Guangzhou and Hainan Island, and his father inherited the title of Prefect of Panzhou, as was the custom in the south. Disaster struck the clan sometime around 697, however, when a surveillance commissioner secretly lodged a charge against Gao’s father. Feng Junheng was apparently executed, the family was enslaved by the state, and the children were scattered. The local military commissioner had the youngest of the three sons castrated and sent as tribute to the throne. After the boy arrived at the palace, he was adopted by the eunuch official Gao Yanfu (660 – 724), whence his new family name.37 Given a literary education in the palace and trained in the martial arts, Gao proved to be a particularly fine marksman with the bow and arrow. In short, he was the kind of intelligent, educated, and vigorous young man who suited the young emperor’s temperament well. They were close in age, Emperor Xuanzong being but six years older, and the emperor had also known harsh treatment and the loss of his mother as a child, after Lady Dou was executed by Empress Wu in 693 and her children imprisoned.38 The official biographies of Gao Lishi also do not fully describe the nature of his relationship with Empress Wu.

According to Gao’s epitaph, the empress was extremely kind to the boy when he arrived at court. She made sure he regained his strength and placed him under the care of one of the palace women to be raised. She ordered his education, and she changed his personal name from Yuanyi to Lishi.39 The name Lishi, which means “guardian,” such as the figures who flank the entrance to Buddha shrines, suggests the boy was indoctrinated into the empress’ faith at this time and undoubtedly given to understand that his new role in life was to interpose his body between his “Buddha” — the emperor — and all danger. This acknowledgment of the empress in Gao’s epitaph was consonant with the strong filial feelings he expressed for the maternal women in his life. He offered obeisance to the wife of the eunuch who adopted him as if she were his mother, and when Gao’s biological mother was located in Panzhou many years later and sent to him at court in Chang’an, he attended to both ladies with every kindness. Surely this piety toward maternal figures extended to the memory of Empress Wu and her monuments. It is hard to imagine it would not have given Gao considerable satisfaction to have lavished money on her Vairocana shrine, both to refurbish it with gilt and paint and to add to it the grand project of forty-eight Amitābhas. Gao served the Tang ruler exactly as the empress wished. Soon after the prince was made emperor in 712, Gao was put in charge of the Palace Domestic Service. Over the next fifty years, he gave the emperor advice on countless occasions and more than once put his life at risk to defend him. Gao cut down the high officials Xiao Zhizhong and Cen Xi during the attempted coup of the Taiping princess in 713, in 752 he led the eunuch cavalry against the mutiny of Wang Hong, and during the retired emperor’s exile in Sichuan in the late 750s, Gao put down a rebellion among the troops.40 In civil affairs, he once persuaded the emperor not to allow the great statesman Zhang Yue (667 – 730) to be impeached, and he advised the emperor on the selection of the heir apparent.41 The emperor famously said, “With Lishi working for me, I can sleep soundly.”42 His importance to the emperor was not only known but accepted, for Gao was given a satellite burial at Tailing, the emperor’s mausoleum.43 Given this relationship, it is scarcely surprising that Gao would organize a project whose sole beneficiary was his lord.

Yang Sixu’s Grotto The court eunuchs’ donation of hypostases of the fortyeight vows of Amitābha is unique at Longmen. Before discussing its function, I would like to illustrate how it differs from two types of related projects: statuary grottoes sponsored individually by Gao Lishi and Yang Sixu, and other projects containing hypostases of Amitābha.44 On the north wall of the lower terrace of the Vairocana shrine, between the easternmost Amitābha niche and the Palace Domestic Service stele, is a medium-sized grotto now called Grotto 1255 (see figure 8.1).45 On the ruined façade are muscular, half-nude guardians flanking the doorway, standing on mountain rocks. The interior is empty, but each side-wall altar has a square depression that originally held the base for one of the two figures described in the dedicatory inscription. Centered over the entryway, the inscription was composed by an official of the Academy of Scholarly Worthies, and although the calligrapher is not credited, the running script is said to be that of the famous official and calligrapher Xu Hao (703 – 782).46 Though ruinous, enough remains to learn it was dedicated by Yang Sixu, now Duke of Guoguo. The author extols the power of the Dharma for salvation and offers an admiring tribute to Yang’s military prowess and filiality before asserting the durability of the images in stone and dedicating them to Yang’s late father and mother, with a “pure filial piety.”47 The date of the inscription is missing, except for the reign period of Kaiyuan, but an approximate date of 735 has been suggested.48 By this estimation, the grotto was produced shortly after the refurbishment of the Vairocana shrine and the completion of the forty-eight Amitābhas in 730. According to the inscription, the original program in­ side the grotto was one figure each of the bodhisattvas Dizang and Eleven-Headed Guanyin. Although this pair is unusual at Longmen, the combination of Dizang and a standard Guanyin was produced many times in the early Tang dynasty.49 The prayers attached to these images typically concern healing for the donor and karmic aid for the donor’s deceased relatives.50 Yang Sixu’s motive appeared to be the karmic rescue of his late parents, as suggested in the gāthā at the end of the inscription, which says that “only by these two supreme bodhisattvas can the great host of sentient beings attain deliverance” and that Yang “exhausted his strength in the depth of his pure filS A L VA T I O N F O R O N E   |  149

ial piety.”51 According to his epitaph, his filial piety was indeed of a high degree.52 His fifth-generation ancestor, one Su Mi, was sent to be an official in Hanoi, and from then on, the family was registered in Shicheng, Luozhou, which was near modern-day Lianjiang, Guangdong Province. Four generations of his paternal relations served as chieftains in Luozhou, down to his father, Su Li. As his youngest son, Yang Sixu was apparently young enough to be castrated and sent to court following whatever disaster overtook this southern family. At court, he was adopted by a eunuch official surnamed Yang, but after Yang Sixu had gained high position for his military service to the state, his father was granted the posthumous title of Prefect of Guozhou, his late mother was made Lady of Xuguo, and he had their graves moved to just outside Chang’an, close to his mansion in the Yishan Ward, so that he could visit and sweep their graves morning and night.

Yang Sixu and the Tower of Seven Treasures We can speculate on why Yang Sixu sponsored the unusual figure of Eleven-Headed Guanyin at this time.53 In 724, just before this grotto was produced, Yang was involved in the refurbishment of the Qibaotai, or Tower of Seven Treasures, in Chang’an. According to Yen Chüan-ying’s admirable reconstruction study of this lost monument, in 703 a consortium of Palace Chapel monks, high-ranking officials, and metropolitan elites donated bas-relief stone shrines as facing slabs for the central pillar of the Qibaotai, which Empress Wu ordered built on the grounds of Guangzhai Monastery, itself established in 677 after the discovery of buried Buddhist relics in the Guangzhai Ward, just east of the Taiji Palace in the northern part of the capital.54 Two subsidiary buildings were dedicated to the worship of Samantabhadra and Mañjuśrī, the principal bodhisattvas of the Avatam ˙ saka Sūtra, so Yen believes the main Buddha hall must have been for the worship of Vairocana.55 As she reconstructs it, the Qibaotai was a tall, octagonal tower with windows open to the four directions, which stood in the center of Guangzhai Monastery. Murals were painted on the interior walls by the most celebrated figure painters of the day, Yuchi Yiseng (ca. 650 – 710) and Wu Daozi (ca. 673 – 760), while in the center of the tower was a four-sided hollow pillar, each face set with three registers of stone panels carved with Buddha assemblies and 150   |  S A L VA T I O N F O R O N E

images of bodhisattvas. The panels on the sides depicted seated Buddhas, while each corner was composed of two standing Eleven-Headed Guanyin panels set at a ninetydegree angle. Their function is suggested by an event that occurred in 697. After a disastrous defeat of Tang forces by Khitan fighters in 696, Empress Wu requested her trusted cleric Fazang to set up an Eleven-Headed Guanyin altar for the chanting of dhāran.īs to prevent a Khitan invasion of Tang. The dhāran.īs chanted by Fazang were likely those found in the Sūtra of the Divine Dhāran.ī on the ElevenHeaded Avalokiteśvara Spoken by the Buddha, which had been translated into Chinese in the latter half of the sixth century.56 One of the ten rewards promised by this scripture is “being able to overcome all enemies.” When the Khitans were soon defeated by the Turks, the empress was overjoyed and proclaimed a new reign period called Divine Act of Merit.57 Based on the close historical precedent of the success of the Eleven-Headed Guanyin altar for the protection of the state, Yen argues the Eleven-Headed Guanyin figures of the Qibaotai functioned as guardian figures. Indeed, one of them was inscribed by the man in charge of the Qibaotai project, Degan (ca. 650 – 710), a bha­ danta monk of the Palace Chapel, saying, “In offering to the state, I reverently had made one figure of the ElevenHeaded Guanyin image, with the humble prayer that the imperium be forever stable and the longevity of the Sage (Empress Wu) be lengthened.”58 In 724, Yang Sixu and a group of twenty eunuch officials undertook to renovate the Qibaotai, with the merit to be “returned to” Emperor Xuanzong. Since their names were carved into the original stone panels, we know that some of them also participated in the forty-eight Amitābhas project of 730.59 Indeed, the two projects are strikingly similar: in both, a consortium of eunuch patrons refurbished a Huayan monument associated with Empress Wu and dedicated the merit to Emperor Xuanzong.60 Having just seen these Eleven-Headed Guanyin figures, Yang might have been inspired to sponsor a similar figure in his own grotto at Longmen.61 Even though the Eleven-Headed Guanyin was used in the capital for Esoteric rituals to safeguard the state, it was also suitable for the karmic rescue of deceased parents. Among the rewards listed in the Sūtra of the Divine Dhāran.ī on the Eleven-Headed Avalokiteśvara are “never falling into hell” and “being reborn in the land of the Buddha Amitāyus.”62 The association of the Eleven-

Headed Guanyin with the security of the state was appropriate for Yang, too. From their childhood, eunuchs were prevented from looking to their natural parents for protection and support. Their parent was the state, embodied in the person of the ruler. Yang first came to be appreciated by the throne for killing the general Li Duozuo during the rebellion of the heir apparent in 707, for which Emperor Zhongzong put him in charge of the Palace Domestic Service.63 Assassinations and military campaigns of colonization on behalf of the throne constituted the services for which Yang is remembered. For helping the future Emperor Xuanzong murder Empress Wei in 710, he was made General of the Palace Gate Guard of the Left.64 Then, during the early years of Xuanzong’s reign, Yang was sent on one campaign after another into the far south, the region that is now southern Guangxi and Guangdong provinces and northern Vietnam. Not incidentally, this was the area where Yang was born. The savage ferocity that he displayed against a succession of southern “rebel” forces was directed at his own people, in the service of the Son of Heaven. That he had chosen the state and the emperor as his parent was clear.

Gao Lishi as Donor Gao Lishi was not involved in the refurbishing of the Qibaotai in 724, but he may well have watched it being constructed. One of the original sponsors was a man named Gao Yangui, from Bohai, the Chinese name for the Korean state of Parhae (roughly modern Jilin Province, in southern Manchuria). It has been proposed that this Gao Yangui was a relative of Gao Yanfu, the eunuch official who adopted Gao Lishi after he arrived at court.65 Gao Lishi came to court in 697 and would have been twelve years old when the Qibaotai was completed in 703. As an adult, Gao took a personal interest in Buddhist art and was notorious as a sponsor of Buddhist projects.66 His epitaph states: “The magnanimousness of his generosity, the singularity of his abilities and achievements, his talent for selfless care for (the emperor), and the traces of his gifts of charity were those contained in the discourses (or, the Analects) of the honorable man and very much of the customs (or, the Odes) of the men of antiquity.”67 “Traces” is the same word used in many Longmen inscriptions to mean the body of the Buddha, either of flesh or of stone, so this might be

an allusion to the forty-eight Amitābhas at Longmen, although Gao also sponsored other ostentatious projects, such as a sumptuously decorated chapel he built next to the palace, where he engaged in “the practice of acts of merit,” and a Buddhist shrine in the Laiting Ward of Chang’an, described as having “precious towers and jeweled rooms, more expensive than the state could afford. When the bell was completed, Gao Lishi held a banquet for the lords and ministers. For each strike on the bell, he would donate a hundred thousand cash, so those sycophants who wished to please him struck the bell twenty times, though no one struck it fewer than ten.”68 Because the forty-eight Amitābhas were not done for Gao’s personal benefit, we should look for the grotto he ordered for himself. Immediately west of the eunuchs’ stele is a medium-sized grotto now designated Grotto 1250, whose façade exactly matches the stele in height and placement on the cliff face.69 The grotto is 2.55 meters wide and 2.25 meters deep, with a vaulted ceiling 2.74 meters high, making it rather larger than Yang Sixu’s grotto.70 On the low altar against the back wall stand three ruined figures (figure 8.3). Only their robes retain any detail, but the drapery is very similar to one of the types of robe seen on the forty-eight standing Amitābha figures, a distinctive design in which the hem of the fully covering robe hangs in a sharp point below the knees. Moreover, the figures are about 1.8 meters tall, close to the height of 1.9 or 2 meters for the forty-eight Amitābhas, all of which suggests they were produced at the same time. I propose this grotto was sponsored by Gao as his own project.

Three Standing Amitābhas The meaning of three standing Amitābha figures can be discerned from an earlier example, a shrine containing a trio of Amitābhas carved on the north wall of the forecourt of the Pure Land Hall sponsored by the Damask Silk Guild of Luoyang in 694 (figure 8.4). The trio is also standing, unaccompanied by attendant figures, with seven-Buddha haloes, and their hands are in abhaya and varada mudrās. They also wear fully covering robes that fall in V-shaped folds down the front. The overall program of the Pure Land Hall represents the process of rebirth in Sukhāvatī, and the three standing Amitābhas in the shrine represent the three possible manifestations of Amitābha to the dying S A L VA T I O N F O R O N E   |  151

Figure 8.3. Standing Buddhas, interior of Grotto 1250. Photo, the author, 1999.

believer on earth, which is the beginning of that process. In the Sūtra of the Buddha of Measureless Life, Śākyamuni describes three types of believers in Amitābha. Persons of “superior faith” are those who have entered the monastic life, while “persons of middling faith” are exclusively devoted to Amitābha and have dedicated toward being reborn in Sukhāvatī the merit earned by observing the eight precepts during the four periods of fast, by sponsoring pagodas and images, by giving food to the monks (as at the Yulanpen Festival), and by raising banners, lighting lamps, strewing flowers, and burning incense before icons. Persons of “inferior faith,” though they have done absolutely nothing in their lives to gain merit, have brought to mind Amitābha, “even if it is only for one moment of thought.” In accord with their level of belief, Amitābha will appear in one of three forms to believers on the point of death, in order to lead them away to rebirth in Sukhāvatī. To those of superior faith, the actual Amitābha will appear; to those of middling faith, he will manifest “an illusory body”; while those of inferior faith “will see this buddha in a dream.”71 I 152   |  S A L VA T I O N F O R O N E

propose the three Amitābha figures in the shrine represent these three manifestations of Amitābha.

The Twelve Buddhas of Light Not only does the set of forty-eight hypostases of Amitābha differ from the eunuch officials’ personal statuary grotto projects, but it also differs from a set of twelve, such as those carved on the façade of the Pure Land Hall. A row of twelve seated Buddhas was carved above the entryway as part of the original program and another set was carved on the two side walls of the forecourt as an intrusive project by a monk donor. They represent the Twelve Buddhas of Light, which are hypostases of the Twelve Names of the Buddha of Light, the epithets of Amitābha found in the Sūtra of the Buddha of Measureless Life. They represent the radiant light of Amitābha that now shines “over endless Buddha-fields” following the fulfillment of his forty-eight vows and the purification of his own “Land of Peace and Happiness” in the West. The forty-eight vows of

Figure 8.4. Trio of Amitābha figures, north wall forecourt, Pure Land Hall of the Northern Market Damask Silk Guild, 694. Photo, the author, 1999.

Amitābha and the Twelve Buddhas of Light are found in the same scripture, the first heralding the enlightenment of Amitābha and the creation of his Pure Land, the second representing its establishment. From the point of view of the eunuch donors, however, the forty-eight vows have a different purpose and function.

The Forty-Eight Vows Unlike the vows of Guanyin in the Lotus Sūtra, Amitābha’s forty-eight vows are not for the rescue of sentient beings in this life; rather, they are for better rebirths in the future, in particular, rebirth in his paradise of Sukhāvatī. The first vow pledges that there are no hells or realms of hungry ghosts or animals in Sukhāvatī, while the second promises that no believer reborn there will ever be reborn on earth in any of those three evil paths. The thirty-fifth vow is that no believer will have to be reborn as a woman. While these vows promise deliverance from bad rebirths, others emphasize the ease of being reborn in Sukhāvatī.

The eighteenth vow, which Luis Gómez calls the core vow in the interpretive tradition, says that anyone who can think of being reborn in Sukhāvatī for even ten moments will be reborn there.72 The nineteenth vow has also been important historically, since it promises that Amitābha will appear to the believer at the moment of his death, while the twentieth vow promises that any who fix their thoughts on rebirth in Sukhāvatī and direct all the merit they have earned toward rebirth there will achieve that goal. Several other vows describe the unlimited beauty and purity of Sukhāvatī and the supernatural powers and virtues of those reborn there, including the promise that they will attain enlightenment there.73 All these promises are for believers, but provision is also made for nonbelievers to hear the name of Amitābha and be inspired to call on him, for in the seventeenth vow, Amitābha promises that innumerable Buddhas will “in every way praise and proclaim my name.”

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Reading the Forty-Eight Amitābhas Gao Lishi likely intended the forty-eight Amitābhas for the salvation of his friend and benefactor the unbelieving Emperor Xuanzong. Although I consider this the purpose of the project, I wonder how these unusual figures were believed to function or if indeed we can know. In Wolfgang Iser’s essay called “The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach,” he describes a theory of reader response to literature that has considerable applicability to our understanding of how the content, or meaning, of a work of art is created within Chinese Buddhism. Iser wrote, “The work is more than the text, for the text only takes on life when it is realized,” by which he meant that reading a novel creates its meaning.74 Unlike a modern novel, however, a Buddhist icon can not only be read (as a text), it can also be viewed (as a material object) and worship can be offered before it (functioning as a repository of the dharmakāya and a device for the generation of karmic merit). Where Iser wrote, “Reading causes the literary work to unfold its inherently dynamic character,”75 we could say that with regard to Buddhist sculpture, it is reading, viewing, and worship that cause an icon to unfold its inherently dynamic character. To explore the spiritual function of the eunuchs’ project, let us examine it from the point of view of reader, viewer, and worshiper. To read this project as a text, we might begin by counting the figures, which produces a number that leads to a canonical text, the Sūtra of the Buddha of Measureless Life. With knowledge of that text, the reader understands the figures to function as embodiments of the forty-eight vows of Amitābha. The project’s other text is the dedicatory inscription, which informs the reader concerning the donors, the beneficiary, the iconography, the date, and the spiritual purpose of the project. The inscription is explicit about the spiritual function of the project, saying the donors have “created this Pure Land.” Within the context of a Pure Land, a place in which the vows of Amitābha have all been fulfilled and his blessings may be encountered, the statues were likely believed to embody all forty-eight vows and make them spiritually operative on behalf of the emperor as well as perpetually available to him. They comprise not only the vows about rebirth in Sukhāvatī and the appearance of Amitābha at the believer’s deathbed, but also the promise that unbelievers will be 154   |  S A L VA T I O N F O R O N E

able to hear the name of Amitābha and be brought to a desire to be reborn in Sukhāvatī. Collectively, they amount to a permanent prayer for the salvation of the emperor. Looking at it as a work of visual representation, a viewer could understand the Vairocana shrine rather differently after the addition of the Amitābha figures. Sponsored by Emperor Gaozong for his imperial ancestors, the colossal Vairocana was established in living memory as a representation of the emperor. Moreover, the shrine was complete in all its necessary figures and required no further work. In terms of design, the added Amitābha figures were not only unnecessary, but genuinely intrusive, especially where their niches cut into the original carving. Certain evidence, however, suggests they might have been created with the goal of a meaningful visual relationship to the main Buddha. The Vairocana is colossal and singular. From a traditional Chinese visual perspective, it could only represent the emperor. The Amitābhas are many, they are smaller, and they all stand stock still, undemonstrative and unobtrusive, some with their hands at their waists or their sides. Perhaps they were meant to represent the relationship of the court eunuchs, who are many and insignificant, to the colossal and unique figure of the emperor. One detail that reinforces this interpretation is the hand gestures of the Amitābhas. On standard Buddha icons, the hand gestures are mudrās that signify some action or message of the Buddha, but the gestures of many of the Amitābhas are not standard. While several hold their hands in recognizable abhaya and varada mudrās, others simply stand with one arm bent and the hand held at the waist (see figure 8.2 above). I suspect they are not mudrās at all. Rather, they could be the hand gestures of someone who is in waiting, such as a eunuch who attends his master. Anyone who offered worship in front of these figures would generate karmic merit. The worshiper would receive some certainly, but some would also go to the beneficiary, which the inscription names as the emperor. Since the emperor was not a believer, the merit could only be directed toward his salvation, which in this case, was probably simply construed as calling on the name of Amitābha. As long as the statues remain and worshipers generate merit, the merit transferred to the person of the emperor can only increase. Hence the probability of the emperor’s salvation grows greater the longer the statues stand there.

Figure 8.5. Amitābha, Grotto 105, ca. 700, Xumishan, Ningxia. From Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 5: Shaanxi, Ning­xia, ed. Han Wei and Chen Yuexin, pl. 217.

Although the roles of reader, viewer, and worshiper can be adopted in order to imagine meanings or functions for the project, reader-response theory does not take into account the existence of another actor beyond the reader, the author, and the work. For Buddhist sculpture, that actor (more a law than a person) is the karmic mechanism. If the role of “reader” is already filled by the karmic mechanism, then we would do well to ask, “Does Buddhist sculpture require a mortal reader?” Let us now reexamine the internal evidence of the project to consider the possibility that the eunuch donors did not believe a human reader was nec-

essary to the success of their project. Further, aspects of the work imply that no viewer or worshiper was needed either. The manner in which the forty-eight figures are dispersed throughout the Vairocana shrine makes them difficult to recognize as a particular grouping in the same way that grid patterns full of small Buddhas would instantly convey “the Thousand Buddhas.” Moreover, it is curious that the inscription never declares that forty-eight figures were made, nor does it refer to Amitābha’s vows. Neither the design nor the inscription seeks to inform a reader of what would seem to be the essential nature of the project. Who was the intended reader of the inscription? The emperor had already read it, and there is no indication he was present at any dedication ceremony where the inscription would be unveiled. Further, what reader were the eunuchs informing that they had converted the shrine into a Pure Land? We should consider the possibility that the only audience was the karmic mechanism, the conduit by which merit is transferred and credited. In terms of the spiritual efficacy of the project, perhaps it was only the karmic mechanism that needed to know that the shrine was now a Pure Land and that the beneficiary was the emperor.   From the perspective of the viewer, the arrangement of the added Amitābha figures is not attractive, nor does it add to the shrine in any aesthetic way. In fact, it ruins some of the existing carving and spoils the symmetry of the design, since most of the figures are on the north wall. Others are practically hidden, either behind the throne or too high on the west wall to see clearly. The Amitābhas do not relate, by gesture or posture, to the existing statues, as for example, by looking at or turning toward the colossal figures. They do not relate to them in any iconic way either. In the original shrine, for example, the disciples attend the Buddha on either side, and their smaller size and subordinate position are appropriate visual expressions of their relationship to the Buddha, as understood from the scriptures. The comparative size and position of the Amitābhas, by contrast, conveys no sense of relationship between them and the Vairocana, and indeed, Vairocana does not figure in the Sūtra of the Buddha of Measureless Life. Perhaps there was no design principle other than fitting the figures into available open spaces and no intention to integrate the Amitābhas into a Vairocana shrine, only to overlay the Huayan schema with a Pure Land. S A L VA T I O N F O R O N E   |  155

Perhaps the eunuchs had no romantic notion of their figures waiting in attendance on the colossal figure of the Vairocana-emperor, but instead, the figures were meant simply to be — placed at the shrine because that was the site the eunuchs had been permitted to refurbish — not to be viewed, alone or as part of the Vairocana assembly. Medieval Buddhists believed the making of icons generated a substantial amount of merit, so perhaps the eunuchs did not perceive any need for anyone to offer worship to their figures. It is possible they considered the amount of merit generated by the mere making of the statues to be more than sufficient for the purpose. We could even ask if these Amitābhas are meant to be worshiped as Buddhist icons. Though identified in the inscription as Amitābhas, the fact of having forty-eight means they must actually represent the forty-eight vows, rather than the unique being named Amitābha who rules over his Pure Land in the West. It is not immediately evident how a believer would offer worship to forty-eight figures scattered over three huge walls. Though they look like Buddha icons, they may not have functioned as Buddha icons. Perhaps they functioned simply as hypostases for the vows. In view of the notion of the statues’ functioning as the vows, we can reinterpret the curiously noncanonical hand gestures of the Amitābhas in terms of a spiritually active waiting for the emperor’s decision to call on Amitābha. In the Visualization Sūtra, Amitābha says to the dying believer, “I have come to welcome you and, with a thousand incarnate Buddhas, to offer you my hand.”76 In line with the three similar standing Amitābha figures in Cave 1250, which likely represent the three possible appearances of Amitābha to believers at the end of their lives, I propose that the manifest gestures of waiting made by some of the forty-eight Amitābha figures were intended

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to suggest an incipient gesture — the extended hands as a gesture of welcome that Amitābha will make upon greeting the dying believer. This gesture is not seen at Longmen, but it is depicted in a three-meter-high figure of Amitābha carved around 700 at the cave-shrine site of Xumishan, near Guyuan, Ningxia Province (figure 8.5).77 Standing without attendant figures, this Buddha has the same round head with finely waving hair as the forty-eight Amitābhas at Longmen and the same distinctive type of robe that comes to a V-shaped point between the lower legs. The Xumi­shan figure, however, opens its arms outward, its hands stretched forward in a gesture of welcome. The Guyuan area was well trafficked in Tang times, and this gesture of welcome would likely have been known by a contemporaneous audience in central China as well. Hence I propose that the anomalous gestures made by many of the forty-eight Amitābha figures would have suggested to early-eighth-century believers the welcoming gesture of the extended hands. The social and political reality of the relationship between servant and master, however, was such that the eunuchs probably dared not represent the Amitābha figures as actually welcoming the emperor on his deathbed to rebirth in Sukhāvatī. Such an overt act of proselytization made by having the figures’ arms outstretched would likely have been unacceptable to the beneficiary. Instead, the figures’ hands are represented in an attitude of waiting. The hypostases of the forty-eight vows were nothing less than a prayer by the eunuchs that the unbelieving emperor call on Amitābha and be reborn in his paradise in the West. If it took a lifetime for this prayer to be answered, they had made adequate provision, for the longer the statues stood waiting, the greater the chance that the gesture of welcome would be made toward the emperor by Amitābha himself.

Epilogue: The Later Life of the Site

T

he donors of Longmen ceased sponsoring statuary grottoes over a thousand years ago, but the site itself has survived to the present day, perceived and treated very differently by various types of visitors over the centuries. This epilogue presents the later life of Longmen broadly, from three perspectives, each illustrated by selected vignettes. From the perspective of religion, the monasteries of Longmen continued to be lively sites of Buddhist practice until sometime around the thirteenth century, while their hospitality made the hills of Xiangshan an attractive destination for landscape lovers and pleasure seekers. By Chinese intellectuals, Longmen was seen as a source of historical documents. In the Qing dynasty (1644 – 1911), Longmen was re­discovered by scholars as an archeological site, and its inscriptions were collected as ink rubbings and studied for their historical and calligraphic interest. Interpretation of the Longmen inscriptions as historical, philological, and artistic documents continues today. A third perspective was inaugurated by Western viewers. Beginning at the turn of the twentieth century, Longmen attracted visitors from Japan and the West, and photographs of the statues published in the West caused them to be seen, for the first time, as art. Local stonecutters, eager to earn money from Chinese dealers and Western art collectors, looted the statuary through the 1930s. After the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949, the government made it a priority to restore the grottoes and promote Longmen as a site for tourism.

The Later Life of Longmen’s Monasteries In the winter of 755, the general An Lushan turned the Tang armies under his command against the dynasty, and they moved quickly from his headquarters in the north to take the Eastern Capital. The rebel troops laid waste to

Luoyang, then marched to the west and seized Chang’an, driving Emperor Xuanzong into exile. From that moment onward, patronage at Longmen practically ceased. A few small shrines were added here and there, but no more grottoes were produced, and no elite donors commissioned any substantial projects. Longmen’s function as a site for the sponsorship of shrines and icons for merit came to an end, but the life of its monasteries continued until the Mongol conquest of China in the thirteenth century. As a young man, the poet Du Fu (712 – 770) traveled to Longmen, where he spent the night at the imperial Feng­ xian Monastery, just south of the western cliffs. “Roaming Fengxian Monastery at Longmen” was written in 736. Included in his evocation of the numinous qualities of the place is a reference to the limestone cliffs, or “watchtowers,” that gave the site its original name of Yique, or Watchtowers on the Yi. His wish to engage in quiet sitting all night for self-reflection is a touching presage to the events of twenty years later, when the horrors of the An Lushan Rebellion did indeed cause Du Fu to look deeply into the human heart and, in his later poetry, to reflect with melancholy on what he saw there. After roaming the grounds of the monastery, I spent the night within its confines. The shadowy valley emitted sounds from within, while the moonlit forest cast clear shadows. The heavenly watchtowers reached to the constellations, and as I lay among the clouds, my robes grew cold. I wanted to stay awake until I heard the morning bell, for doing so can make a man examine himself deeply.1

In 829, the poet Bai Juyi (772 – 846) was appointed to a position in the Eastern Capital and came to live in Luo­ yang. The following year he was promoted to serve as governor of Henan. He spent the remaining years of his life in

Luoyang, often going out to Longmen to stay at Xiangshan Monastery in the eastern hills. As a devout Buddhist, he was pained by the decrepit state of the hundred-year-old monastery, but as the following record of repair indicates, he was given a gift that enabled him to sponsor its refurbishment. Bai Juyi’s love for the place is evident in this record, and accordingly, after his death in Luoyang in 846, he was buried next to the pagoda of monk Ruman (b. 752) at Xiangshan Monastery. Record of the Repair of Xiangshan Monastery Of all the scenery in the environs of Luoyang, Longmen has the best, and of all the scenic spots to visit among the ten monasteries of Longmen, the best is Xiangshan Monastery. Yet Xiangshan Monastery was for a long time in ruins. Its towers and pavilions were broken and tumbled down, its (images of) Buddhas and disciples cruelly exposed. What was painful to gentlemen pained me too, and what was disgraceful to the Buddha’s followers was a disgrace to me as well. When I was put in charge of the Eastern Capital, since it is in my nature to enjoy leisure excursions, as soon as I came here, with my sons and friends, I explored all the numinous traces and beautiful scenery out here. Every time I came to this monastery, I prayed with a sad heart that it would be restored. It has been seven or eight years since I had the good fortune to be made master of this area, but it was only this autumn that I could make good on my first intention and fulfill that prayer. It appeared to be fate that this result should be realized. Alas! When I was young, the late minister of state Yuan Weizhi and I formed a friendship for life, with profound feelings that were predestined by cause and effect. In the autumn of last year, when Weizhi was going to be buried, I was entrusted with composing the text of his tomb epitaph. After I had finished it, his father, Mr. Yuan, sent his slaves to bring me a horse saddle made of silk brocade and silverplate with a jade belly band, which was worth about sixty or seventy thousand (cash), as a gift to thank me for the epitaph. As I thought about how our lives were now separated, though I could never have refused to write the epitaph, I could not accept this gift. So it went back and forth a couple of times between Qin and Luo, until in the end there was no alternative (but to keep it), and so I donated it to this monastery. After I asked the wise monk Qingxian to manage it, he appointed some competent men to make all the arrangements (for the refurbishment). They started with the pavilion in 158   |  e p i l o g u e

front of the monastery, the bridge that leads up to the monastery, and the seven-bay covered walkway that leads from the bridge, then they went on to the stone tower and the six-bay covered walkway that leads to the stone tower, then on to the eleven-bay great hall on the east that holds the Buddha shrines, then next to the hall for guests on the south, which has seven rooms of different sizes. Everything that had fallen was set aright, everything missing was replaced, tumble-down walls were built back up, and every leak was patched. The work with tile molds and trowels was very fine, and the decorations in red earth and white clay were well made. Although it seemed like it was refurbished in just a day, it took more than three months to complete. This is just like when the leader on the bad road, out of pity (for his followers), guided them to the Magic City (that he had just conjured up).2 Now the shrines and images are no longer in danger of being cracked or broken by heat and moisture, and the monks of the monastery have a safe place to dwell and practice. Now visitors can rest here, and viewers have something worth seeing! The prospect of the cliffs on the pass, the view of the dragon pool, the springs and rocks of Incense Mountain, the breeze and the moon from (the monastery’s) stone tower, all these were made new for those who come here. Now gentlemen and Buddha’s followers are freed from any reason for pain or disgrace. The virtuous monk Qingxian, Weizhi, and I were friends in our previous lives, and we know this because of the power of our vow of friendship. Thinking with gratitude of times then and now, with great joy I say these words of praise: all these benefits (to the monastery) are counted as merit, and this merit we return to Weizhi that it may extinguish his former life and recommend him for blessings in his next life. In response, I say: Alas! Thanks to this merit, how do we know but what in another time we will not meet Weizhi in another existence on this earth? Because of the vow and the actions taken here, how do we know that we will not travel again together to this monastery in another life? As I say these words, my tears are flowing! Recorded by Bai Juyi of Taiyuan, Governor of Henan, on the first day of the eighth month of the sixth year of the Taihe era of Tang (832).3

In the Tang dynasty, it was the custom of the fashionable elite young people of Luoyang to go out for parties at Longmen on Qingming Festival day in the spring, to picnic in the eastern hills, listen to music, write poetry, and

roam along the paths between the monasteries. A piece of light verse describing this scene, titled “Rhapsody on Longmen,” was written by Lu Jing, who served as district defender of Henan during the Tang.4 A few lines are translated here: Twenty li south of the gates of the capital, the paired watchtowers so lofty flank the River Yi. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  The youth and maidens of Luoyang love Qingming time, and they’ve heard it’s more enjoyable at Longmen. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  Keys open the iron gates and brazen locks, and jeweled horses and perfumed carriages emerge from the city. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . Through the valleys and the hills, they roam through all the scenic spots; their fragrant boats decked out in reds and greens. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . Look southward, and grasses and trees screen the countryside in spring, gaze to the north, and towers and terraces rise halfway to the sky. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . Hearing old tunes played on marvelous pipes and a multitude of strings, new poems are written in colored inks on flowered paper. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . Though Wangzi Jin and Fuqiu Bo in days of yore welcomed “feathered guests” at the Yi River, how could it be like this morning’s banquet along the fragrant paths?5 And even when Li Yuanli and Guo Linzong sailed the Luo River in immortals’ boats in olden times, how could that be likened to the assembly in the meditation halls today?6 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . Grottoes of stone, images of gold, half-hidden, halfseen — we gaze at them from a distance. The river below, the hills above, climb here or play here once — you’ll never go home!

In 855, the Japanese monk Enchin (814 – 891) made a pilgrimage to Longmen. Enchin was an important cleric of the Tendai School, who succeeded Ennin (793 – 864) as

abbot of Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei near Kyoto. The purpose of his visit was to offer worship at the pagoda housing the relics of the great Indian translator Śubhākarasim ˙ ha (637 – 735), which was built in the hills north of the western cliffs in 739. In 758, the famous Tang general Guo Ziyi (697 – 781) requested that a monastery be built around the pagoda of Śubhākarasim ˙ ha. Called Guanghua Monastery, it was a site for the burial of other Tang clerics of the Esoteric School into the tenth century. In the record of his journeys through China between 853 and 858, Enchin wrote: “Stepping through snow and sinking up to our knees, we went to Guanghua Monastery on the western side of the Yi River at Longmen, of the Eastern Capital, where we offered ritual obeisance to the relic pagoda of Tripit.aka Śubhākarasim ˙ ha. Śraman.a Daoyuan wrote a “Stele of the Tripit.aka Monk,” which we transmitted back with us to Japan.”7 The pagoda of Śubhākarasim ˙ ha was still a place of pilgrimage in the eleventh century. In the spring of 1011, in response to a drought that gripped the land, Emperor Zhenzong (r. 998 – 1022) went to Longmen to have incense and prayers for rain offered at his pagoda, invoking the Esoteric master’s legendary magical ability to bring rain.8 The emperor wrote out a “Eulogy for Longmen,” which was carved into a grotto on the eastern side.9 It opens with a brief essay extolling the beauty of the site, its proximity to the ancient royal capital, and “the venerable image(s) of Mahāvīra,” which may have been a reference to the colossal Vairocana, the image most readily visible from the east side of the river. Evidently, his journey to Longmen made the emperor aware of the dilapidated state of the site because he ordered the repair of the statuary in 1015. According to the thirteenth-century chronicle Fozu tongji: “At the Longmen Hills of the Western Capital, the Buddhas in the stone shrines had been abandoned and in a ruinous state for many years, so the emperor commanded the monk Xiyan to supply artisans to repair and decorate a total of 17,339 figures.”10 It seems this was the last time the statuary at Longmen was repaired by imperial order. Even before the fall of the Northern Song government in 1127, the Luoyang area had come under the control of the Jin dynasty (1115 – 1234). The poems of several Jin writers, such as Yuan Haowen (1190 – 1257), reveal that the Baoying and Qianxi monasteries still functioned, but certain lines suggest the statuary had been left to the elements: e p i l o g u e   |  159

The middle of the mountain streams with water, never dry; the heads of the Buddhas are dripping, soaked and green (with moss).11

In the fourteenth century, the Muslim poet Sadula (Sa Tianxi, ca. 1300 – 1380), who served in the Mongol government of the Yuan dynasty (1279 – 1368), traveled to Longmen. Perhaps his religious abhorrence of idols caused Sadula to exaggerate the dereliction of the site, but his description likely had some truth in it: About eight miles south of Luoyang are two mountains facing each other, sheer cliffs with rock walls, called Dragon Gate. The Yi River flows out between them northward into the Luo River. . . . Along both river banks, men in the past bored into the rock to make large caves and small shrines no fewer than one thousand in number. They sculpted out of the rock sacred images of various Buddhas, bodhisattvas, mahasattvas, arhats, indestructibles, heavenly kings, and Dharma-protecting gods. There are full-length statues and busts projecting from the cliff. The large ones are some sixteen feet tall; the smallest ones are but slightly more than an inch. Those seated cross-legged, standing, and in attendance are also no fewer than ten thousand in number. But all of these stone statues were damaged long ago. They have been defaced by people. Some have heads broken off; some have lost their bodies; their noses, ears, hands, and feet are missing, either partially or completely. The gold and jade ornaments have been scraped off; few are completely intact. In the past, there were eight temples; not one remains today. . . . There are many stone steles. Most are lying on the ground; only one or two remain standing. The inscriptions, all sayings of Buddha, were obliterated and cannot be read. I had no time to determine their origin. From observing their design, it would seem that they were not produced in a single period. The cost of such efforts must be unknown millions. Undoubtedly, the largest sculptures must have been commissioned by sovereigns; the next size must have been by princes, dukes, and other members of the aristocracy; and the next size must have been commissioned by wealthy persons in order for them to have been created. Although I am ignorant of Buddhist books, I have heard that Śākyamuni was a sage from the western regions who was born in a royal palace, the crown prince of a country. He abandoned his noble status and took up a humble life, forsaking his grand residence for a lowly abode, abandoning 160   |  e p i l o g u e

elegant beauty for unadorned clothes, disliking the rich and attractive while preferring the plain and simple. His mind was totally devoid of desires, so how could he have wanted to waste other people’s wealth, exhaust their energies, chisel and carve into the structure of mountains, mutilate their Primal Energy, and take senseless rocks, decorate them with gold, and paint them in colors in order to frighten people?12

By the early twentieth century, the state of dissolution was such that not only were the statues in disrepair, but the moral condition of the few remaining monks, who may have been Buddhist or Daoist, was utterly abased. According to Chavannes, the monks had turned the grottoes into opium dens, and his student Spuyt wrote that they had to step over the bodies of the drug users in order to inspect the grottoes.13

The Inscriptions of Longmen as Epigraphy Longmen was rediscovered and admired by scholars of the Northern Song dynasty (960 – 1127) not for its Buddhist statuary, but for its inscriptions. Much as the study of early ritual bronze vessels was taken up in the eleventh century because of the inscriptions cast into them, it was the presence of the dedications carved at Longmen that made the site worthy of interest to the literati. The statesman and litterateur Ouyang Xiu (1007 – 1072) was the first person on record to have collected an ink rubbing of one.14 As a young man, he was posted to Luoyang, where he served under the metropolitan governor from 1031 to 1034. As the governor was less interested in administration than in hosting literary parties and viewing scenery in the local mountains with the talented young poets who served as his junior officers, Ouyang was free to make pleasure trips throughout the region.15 In his poetry, he fondly recalled staying at the Xiangshan and Guanghua monasteries of Longmen with friends.16 Although Ouyang frequented monasteries and even had respect for certain learned monks, he was opposed to Buddhism.17 Hence, when it came to his study of epigraphy, of the one thousand ink rubbings of engraved inscriptions that Ouyang collected, only one was taken from Longmen: the 641 dedication of Binyang South Grotto (figure 9.1). Ouyang’s aversion to Buddhism was likely overcome in this singular case because the inscription was composed by the eminent official Cen Wenben

and transcribed by Chu Suiliang, the upright official who was considered one of the Four Great Masters of Early Tang in calligraphy. On this ink rubbing, Ouyang wrote: To the right is the Record of the Three Grottoes, written by the vice director of the Secretariat, Cen Wenben, and transcribed by the imperial diarist, Chu Suiliang, in the Tang dynasty. The characters and brushstrokes are particularly unusual and grand. At the Longmen Mountains in Henan, where the hills press in on the Yi River, both sides are quite admirable. The eastern hills are popularly known as Xiangshan (Incense Mountain), while the western hills are called Longmen (The Dragon Gate). At the Longmen Mountains, the stone of the cliff face has been carved into hundreds and hundreds of Buddha images, large and small, produced in the Latter Wei and Tang dynasties. The images of the Three Grottoes are the largest. They were made by Tai, Prince of Wei, for Empress Zhangsun.18

Ouyang’s comments reveal some misunderstandings. He misattributed all three Binyang grottoes to the sponsorship of Li Tai, probably because Tai’s inscription was carved on the Northern Wei stele that stands between Binyang Central and Binyang South, a mistake the great Sinologist Chavannes was to repeat nearly nine hundred years later.19 Further, his description of the statues in the three Binyang grottoes as the largest at Longmen makes one wonder how closely he observed the grottoes! In addition, his praise for a work of Tang dynasty calligraphy is indicative of the Song dynasty taste for the canonical. When the study of epigraphy revived in the Qing dynasty, later epigraphers and calligraphy amateurs admired the unorthodox writing from the northern dynasties instead. Gu Yanwu (1613 – 1682) was evidently the first Qing dynasty epigrapher to note the inscriptions of Longmen, in his Records of Epigraphical Writings. One he described simply as a dedication in regular script dated to the sixth year of the Wuping era of the Northern Qi dynasty (575), carved in a grid. This information is enough to identify it, however, since the only inscription of 575 set in a grid is the one sponsored by the lay society headed by monk Daoxing, which was carved into the north door jamb of Yaofang Grotto.20 Gu apparently believed that Empress Dowager Hu was responsible for the inauguration of the site by donating a dozen or more grottoes, thereby setting a dubious example for foolish people of later times. His

Figure 9.1. Chu Suiliang, The Stele for the Yique Buddha Shrine, 641, ink rubbing, detail. From Zhongguo shufa quanji (Beijing: Rongbaozhai, 1991 – ), v. 22, color pl. 1.

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disdain for Buddhism, women donors, and female rulers is evident in his record, which reads as follows: Twenty-five li southwest of Luoyang are the hills of Yique, also known as Longmen. The Zuozhuan refers to them as Quesai (Duke Zhao, year 20). The two hills face each other, with the Yi River emerging from between them. Springs emerge from openings in the stone and flow downward into the Yi River. In ancient times, this was one of the Sanctified Capital’s famous scenic places. Empress Dowager Hu of the Latter Wei was devoted to the Buddha, and she had the cliff excavated to make grottoes inside which were carved Buddha images. The largest of these was over ten feet high, and there were more than ten of these grottoes. Later people followed her in having them made, and though practically all of them are worn down, the carving of Buddha images has not ceased even now. Most of the ignorant folk who consider the carving of a Buddha to be a work of merit that will result in the reciprocation of blessings are women. I once went there and had a look around, though I did not see everything. The calligraphy of this inscription of 575 is unusual, and it is set in a grid like a chessboard. Half of it has already been worn away. Most inscriptions here were by Tang people, dating from the Zongzhang era (668 – 670) to the reign periods of Empress Wu (690 – 705). Hence, we know that during the time of the three dynasties of Northern Wei, Northern Qi, and Tang, there was always a female ruler who made these things for worship and adornment.21

Huang Yi (1744 – 1802) was one of many scholars involved in the new intellectual trend called kaozheng, or “evidential research through textual analysis,” in which archeology and epigraphy were central disciplines.22 When Huang served as an official in Shandong in 1786, he supervised the excavation of the Han dynasty Wu family shrines, small buildings composed of stone slabs carved with narrative reliefs representing Confucian exemplars, mythical beings, and traditional mortuary scenes. In the autumn of 1797, Huang toured Henan Province looking for ancient stone monuments and inscriptions to study. He collected over four hundred ink rubbings of inscriptions and documented his experiences in a diary called Visiting Stone Steles in the Mount Song–Luo River Area. In the diary, Huang described his activities at Longmen.23

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Although it contains some errors of fact, his description of the site and how the ink rubbings were made reveals an eighteenth-century approach to the site: On the twenty-first, Qiusheng, Xugu, Qiaoxin, and I left through the southern suburbs (of Luoyang) and crossed the Luo River. . . . Then we visited the Binyang Grottoes at Longmen, and we looked at all the Buddha images, which were majestic and extensive. Many had inscriptions next to them. On the cliff face outside the grottoes were the Qi dynasty Elders of Luozhou Buddha Stele and the Tang dynasty Record of the Three Shrines by Cen Wenben. A monk told me the Record of the Three Shrines used to have Chu Suiliang’s signature on it, but that piece of stone had shattered and fallen off. In the old days, it was kept in the monastery, but it has since been lost. The old monk Xiecao had seen it. We had a meal in a small pavilion that faced the river, looking toward Xiangshan, which looked like a painting. After eating, we followed the mountain southward, and the grottoes carved into the cliff could scarcely be numbered. We climbed up to Laojun (Gu­ yang) Grotto and looked at all the inscriptions from the Wei and Qi dynasties. An old hermit named Woodcutter Wang lived in the grotto. He said he was ninety-three. Some say he is an immortal, but Scholar Jiang was the only one to pay him reverence. By then, the sun was already setting, so we did not go over to Xiangshan but returned. On the twenty-third, Qiusheng and Xugu went ahead of me back to Yan(shi), while I spent the night at Longmen Village. I supervised the artisans who were making ink rubbings of all the inscriptions. Many of the Buddha grottoes were at the midpoint of the mountainside. Xugu wanted to climb up to the highest one, the Nine-Bay Hall (the Great Vairocana Image Shrine), to see the inscription for Lady Niu’s image shrine written by Zhang Jiuling (673 – 740), but his strength gave out, and he could not make it. I eventually climbed up there. The Great Vairocana Buddha image is eight zhang, five chi in height. The vast, open stone terrace was the foundation for the Tang Fengxian Monastery. In the tenth year of the Dali era (775), the Stele for the Great Vairocana Image was made. The Stele of the Act of Merit by the Palace Domestic Service, the Record of the Image Shrine of Lady Niu, the ruined Stele for the Duke of Guoguo (Yang Sixu) and the inscription by Ding Yu of the Song dynasty are all carved into the cliff there.24

Figure 9.2. Wei Lingzang’s inscription, ink rubbing, detail. From Longmen ershipin: Bei Wei beike zaoxiang juzhen, fig. 95.

On the twenty-fourth, we crossed the Yi River to visit Xiangshan Monastery.25 At the peak, we gazed back at Longmen Mountain. The stone cliffs were precipitous, and the carved Buddhas were like a forest. The Great Vairocana Buddha image was seated in the middle of the mountain, as was Jingxiang Monastery (Cliff-Carved Three Buddhas?), which has no ancient inscriptions. On the twenty-fifth, I supervised the artisans making ink rubbings of the Longmen inscriptions. The mountain monk Guhan, who was skilled at making rubbings, also came to help us. This monk knew that in the ceiling of the Yique Grotto were some small shrines with inscriptions from the Kaiyuan era (713 – 741). Climbing up like a monkey, he was able to do them in one sheet. Although we could not even see

the encomium written by Qiu Yue and transcribed by (Wei) Lishe (in 715), this monk was still able to get to it.26 On the twenty-sixth, we wanted to travel on but were stopped by rain. The paper the artisans had brought to make rubbings with had gotten damp from the rain, so I dried it by the fire. We were able to get all the inscriptions on Xiangshan, including the inscriptions by Dang Ye and Xin Bi, who were men of the Tang.27 All we missed was one inscription from the Dazu era (701). In the ceiling of one grotto at Longmen (Wanfo Grotto), one can see the words “Yonglong era of the Great Tang” written in large characters in a circle. There are inscriptions all over the ceiling of Laojun (Guyang) Grotto, but the wooden scaffolding was so high and dangerous we were unable to take any rubbings. All we could do was to sigh.

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We stayed at Longmen for six days and made over three hundred ink rubbings of steles.

Following the rediscovery of the inscriptions of Longmen, the calligraphy of the Northern Wei dedications began to be admired in aesthetic terms. The appreciation of the “evidential research” scholars for engraved writings as pristine historical documents appeared also to loosen the hold that the southern dynasties style of calligraphy, as epitomized by the brush writing of Wang Xizhi (307 – 365), had exercised on the practice of calligraphy for the last millennium, and carved characters from the Han and the northern dynasties began to be seen as attractive in their own right, as a legitimate part of the history of Chinese calligraphy and as a source for creative reinterpretation by calligraphers in the Qing. During the Qianlong and Jia­ qing periods (1736 – 1820), ink rubbings of the four longest Northern Wei inscriptions in Guyang Grotto were collected and circulated; some of these are now in the Beijing Library.28 They were the dedications for the shrines of Sun Qiusheng; Duke of Shiping; Yang Dayan; and Wei Lingzang (figure 9.2). The earliest record of their appreciation as calligraphy is found in A Pair of Oars for the Boat of Art, a volume of collected essays and art criticism of the epigraphy scholar Bao Shichen (1775 – 1855). In 1819, the same year that Bao traveled in Shandong Province looking for northern stele inscriptions, he wrote about some Northern Wei inscriptions, including three from Longmen: “Though the Paean for Zhang Gongqing (Zhang Menglong); the (Stele for) Jia Shijun (Jia Sibo); and the dedicatory inscriptions of Wei Lingzang, Yang Dayan, and the Duke of Shiping are each unique, they all derive from the (third-century) Stele for Kong Xian and take its dragonlike majesty and tigerlike awesomeness as their model.”29 When Yan Delin served as governor of Henan, he had ink rubbings made of the inscriptions in Guyang Grotto and Cixiang’s Grotto. Those he considered of the highest aesthetic quality he canonized as the Ten Works of Longmen in an inscription that he had carved on the south wall of Guyang Grotto itself in 1870. The inscription reads: In the second month of the ninth year of the Tongzhi era of the Great Qing (1870), Delin of Yanshan offered sacrifices and made an announcement to the mountains, the river, and the Buddhas in the grottoes, then set up great timbers, raising scaffolding up high (in the grotto) to make ink rubbings of 164   |  e p i l o g u e

the Wei dedicatory inscriptions in Laojun (Guyang) Grotto. I have selected the best of them and designated them the “Ten Works of Longmen.” My colleague was the monk Liaoliang, and the makers of the ink rubbings were the monk Hainan and the commoner Yu Fengming.30 Grandson Bao (Gao Jiaofang’s shrine for her late grandson Yuan Bao) Great Consort Hou (Great Consort Hou’s shrine for her descendants, 503) Helanhan (Great Consort Hou’s shrine for her late husband Tabgatch Helüehan, 502) Cixiang (nun Cixiang’s dedication for Cave 660, 520) Yuan Xie (shrine by Yuan Xie, Prince of Anding, 517) Dajue (shrines by monk Daojiang, ca. 500 – 504) Niujue (Lady Yuchi’s shrine for her late son Niujue, 495) Gao Shu (the shrine by the lay society headed by Gao Shu, 502) Yuan Xiang (the Prince of Beihai’s shrine for his mother, Gao Jiaofang, and himself, 498) Earl of Yunyang (shrines by Zheng Changyou, Earl of Yunyang, 501)

Yan Delin must have deliberately excluded the four long inscriptions that had been collected since the mideighteenth century in order to compile his own unique list, while other scholars had a slightly different roster. The art collector and epigrapher Fang Ruo (d. after 1945) observed that the original Ten Works, ink rubbings of which had circulated for a long time, were the four long dedications from Guyang Grotto plus those by Lady Yuchi, Gao Shu, monk Huigan, monk Daojiang, Great Consort Hou, and nun Cixiang.31 The set he called the Twenty Works of Longmen consisted of Yan Delin’s list of ten works above, the four long inscriptions, and the following six from Gu­ yang Grotto: Xie Boda (before 499) Yifu (wife of Zhang Yuanzu, 496) Monk Huigan (502) Monk Fasheng (504) Yuan You, Prince of Qijun (517) King Udayana image (early Tang)

All but one of these inscriptions belong to the canonical group accepted today. Although Kang Youwei (1858 – 1927) considered the King Udayana inscription a poor work,

calling it a weed that needed to be dug out, it was Fang Ruo who recognized that the inscription was actually produced during the Tang and did not fit with the other inscriptions, which were Northern Wei.32 Fang proposed that the Ma Zhenbai inscription of 503 be substituted for the King Udayana inscription, and this revised list is the one that now holds sway as the canonical Twenty Works of Longmen.33 Although visitors cannot simply walk into the grottoes of Longmen and produce their own ink rubbings today, good-quality ink rubbings of the Twenty Works, the Fifty Works, and the Hundred Works have been photoreproduced in deluxe publications in China and Japan. Inexpensive printed reproductions of the Twenty Works are also widely available in copybook format, on sale in the art sections of most bookstores in China and in Chinese bookshops throughout the world.

The Reclamation of Longmen in the Twentieth Century According to Sadula’s fourteenth-century account, the statues of Longmen had already been vandalized by that time. The comprehensive theft of heads, hands, and figures to be sold on the international art market, however, occurred in the first third of the twentieth century. Stanley Abe has described the origins of this trade: Ironically, it was the publication of the Buddhist sculpture in the Guyang Cave that contributed to what must have been a lucrative enterprise involving local “agents” who would supply sculpture to middlemen for sale to art dealers in Beijing, Xi’an, and other cities — who in turn found buyers in foreign collectors, dealers and museum representatives. The scholarly work of sinologists such as Chavannes, Sirén, and others inadvertently provided photographic catalogs from which foreign buyers could choose works to pursue on the open market or in some cases “special order” — that is, indicate to their agents in China which pieces in situ they were interested in acquiring.34

Although the Nationalist government did not prevent the looting of the sculptures, in the mid-1930s, the National Commission for the Preservation of Antiquities determined to restore the site, although not much, if anything, was done.35 Only after the Communist Party gained control of the country in 1949 did the government begin to

rehabilitate the site in earnest. In 1953, the Longmen Caves Cultural Relics Management and Conservation Office was founded, and the restoration commenced with an initial site survey in 1954. In 1961, the grottoes were named in the first group of important cultural protection units by the national government. The following year, the site was more fully surveyed by Professor Yan Wenru of Beijing University. By 1965, the extent of the damage to the site had been carefully documented, and suggestions for the refurbishment of the site were solicited from Professors Liang Sicheng and Yang Tingbao and the engineer Chen Mingda. Many modern visitors assume the widespread damage to the site was caused during the Cultural Revolution (1966 – 1976), but the grottoes apparently passed through it without further harm. According to one recent account: “After the Cultural Revolution had begun, one day in June of 1966, the afternoon of the same day on which White Horse Monastery was smashed up, the municipal Party committee secretary Lü Yingji ordered the teachers and students of the Luoyang Agricultural Machinery Academy to station themselves at the Longmen Grottoes that very night, to protect them around the clock.”36 After the worst of the Cultural Revolution had passed, a consortium of government agencies began the refurbishment of the statues in the Great Vairocana Image Shrine. According to Wen Yucheng: In 1971, repairs and partial restoration work were carried out on the south wall lokapāla and dvārapāla figures and the figure of Kāśyapa by the Longmen Caves Cultural Relics Management and Conservation Office, the Henan Provincial Museum, and the Cultural Relics Protection Science and Technology Research Institute of the National Cultural Relics Bureau. In 1972, the north wall dvārapāla was reinforced. In 1973, a complete reinforcing and partial restoration was carried out on the Vairocana statue, with very good results that achieved the goal of “making the old as good as new.”37

These repairs involved the injection of epoxy resins and the insertion of iron rivets into the stone. After the work on the Great Vairocana Image Shrine statues was completed in 1974, the original V-shaped drainage channels in the rock above the shrine were restored. The Yique Buddha Shrine stele was repaired in 1975, and the Binyang grottoes and the Qianxisi Grotto were restored in 1976.38 Watere p i l o g u e   |  165

preventive shields have been created over many grottoes, and many statues were sprayed with organic silicon as a waterproofing measure. In the early 1980s, grottoes on the east side were repaired, and in the late 1980s, a system of walkways across the western cliff face was begun, to give visitors visual access to the higher grottoes, while spiked gates went up in front of all the entryways. Old Qing dynasty brick façades were removed from the fronts of the Guyang, Yaofang, and Binyang grottoes, revealing statuary and inscriptions long hidden. In the 1990s, the governments of Japan and Italy helped the restoration efforts with funds and expertise.

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After Longmen became a popular tourist destination for the local population, with hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, the authorities decided to make a bid for greater international recognition. In 1999, the itinerant souvenir vendors were banned, the price of admission went up steeply, and the huge concrete dragon that was the centerpiece of the amusement park just south of the cliffs was dynamited in a midnight ceremony that was broadcast live on local television. In November 2000, the Longmen Grottoes were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and granted over a million dollars toward further restoration.

Appendix: Chinese Texts of Longmen Inscriptions

1a A Single Image for the Duke of Shiping Were the Divine Traces [not] made manifest, then one could scarcely know where to find a master to which one could cling. Were images of the Countenance not displayed, then reverence for it would surely [wane]. That is why the True Visage [was revealed] to former ages, and the form He left behind has been transmitted to later generations. And so, in the time of the Great Dai (i.e., the Northern Wei dynasty), this work of merit was undertaken. Since the shadow (of the Buddha) has purified the deep current (of the Buddhist order), and he has had the good fortune to encounter this glorious epoch, monk Huicheng, resolved to give the greatest testimony to his sincerity, had a Stone Grotto [Monastery] made for the state, in this way to respond to the August (Emperor’s) grace and to give encouragement to future works (of the same kind). My father— the Duke of Shiping, Grand Master for Splendid Happiness, Regional Inspector of Luozhou, and Commissioned with Extraordinary Powers—passed away suddenly. Looking up at his kindly face, my whole being was overcome by sadness, and ominous birds (seemed) to fill the sky. As a result, for my late father, I have had made a single stone image. I pray that my late father’s spirit will fly over the three worlds, the five circuits (of cause and effect), and the ten stages (of the bodhisattva’s enlightenment). In the evening, may there be an illumination of mystery such that the myriad sentient beings may have enlightenment, and in the morning, may there be an echo of wisdom such that the universe will be awakened. May those of previous generations, my teachers in the san˙gha, my parents, and my dependent relatives, soar like the phoenix to the place of enlightenment and rise like the divine luan bird up to the Tusita ˙ Heaven. If they should awaken still fallen in this mortal realm, (may it be in the courtyard where) the three acacia trees flourish in splendor and the nine date trees spread out like clouds. May all living beings of the five realms of existence share in this prayer. Finished on the fourteenth day of the ninth month of the [twenty-]second year of the Taihe era. Calligraphy by Zhu Yizhang, text by Meng (Guang)da.

始平公像一區 夫靈蹤[ ]啟,則攀宗靡尋.容像不陳,則崇之必[ ].是 以真顏[ ]於上齡,遺形敷于下葉.暨于大代茲功厥作.

比丘慧成,自以影濯玄流,邀逢昌運,率渴誠心,為國造 石窟[寺].[ ]糸答皇恩,有資來業.父使持節,光[祿] 大夫,洛州刺史,始平公奄焉薨放.仰慈顏以摧躬[ ], 匪鳥在[天].遂為亡父造石像一區.願亡父神飛三[會] [五]周十地.[ ]玄照則萬[ ]斯明,震慧嚮則大千斯 [時].元世師[僧]父母眷屬鳳翥道場鸞腾兜率.若悟洛 人間三槐獨秀九棘雲敷.五有群生咸同斯願.太和[廿] 二年九月十四日訖.朱義章書,孟(廣)達文.

1b Image by the Society Members Society Leaders: Grand Master of Palace Leisure and Governor of Yingyang, Sun Daowu (and) General for Pacifying the Distant, Grand Master of Palace Leisure, Governor of Yingchuan and Magistrate of Ancheng, Wei Baidu. In the seventh year of the Taihe era of the Great Dai (483), Sun Qiusheng, Military Aide of Xincheng District, Liu Qizu, Military Aide of Xincheng District, and two hundred others reverently made one stone image. We pray that the imperial house forever flourish and the Three Jewels increase in brilliance. May those disciples offering this prayer bloom luxuriously like flowers in spring and come to be in the courtyard of the acacia trees that thrive in splendor. May the orchid (of the Dharma) diffuse its fragrance in this flourishing age, and may its golden light broadly illuminate this time of our Sage (Emperor). May our living relatives (enjoy) myriad blessings that gather around them like clouds and have red-wheeled carriages in great numbers. May the souls of our departed parents and other disciples, in future incarnations, vault up to the ninth heaven and their footsteps ascend the ten stages (of the bodhisattva’s path to enlightenment), and may all sentient beings in the five realms of existence share in this prayer. Text by Meng Guangda; calligraphy by Xiao Xianqing. (One hundred forty names of the society members are listed.) Finished on the twenty-seventh day of the fifth month, in which the first day was a wuzi day, in a renwu year, the third year of the Jingming era (July 17, 502).

邑子像 邑主中散大夫滎陽太守孫道務 寧遠將軍中散大夫穎川太守安城令衛白犢

大伐(¼代)太和七年新城縣功曹孫秋生新城縣功曹劉 起祖二百人等敬造石像一區.願國祚永隆三寶彌顯.有 願弟子等榮茂春葩庭槐獨秀.蘭條鼓馥於昌年,金暉誕 照於聖歲.現世眷屬萬福雲歸洙(¼朱)輪疊駕.元世父 母及弟子等來身神騰九空,迹登十地五道,群生咸同此 願.孟廣達文,蕭顯慶書.景明三年,歲在壬午,五月戊 子朔,廿七日造訖.

1c

S´a¯kyamuni Image Wei Lingzang Xue Fashao Whenever the Divine Traces have been widely encountered, they have always manifested the evidence of something brilliant and great, and wherever the profound work of merit has already spread, it has also shown acts rarely seen in our world. When, under the twin sala trees, there was a change in the light (in the world, when the Buddha passed into nirva¯na), the uni˙ verse held in its bosom the sorrow of being in the confusion of twilight, and when the Sun of Wisdom veiled its brilliance, all living beings held in their hearts the pain of thinking with regret of the Way. This is why the arhat (Maudgalya¯yana), pained by the insufficient support of the Three Vehicles, rose into the Heaven (of the Thirty-Three Gods) in order to carve an image (of the Buddha). Now (this custom) has come down to later generations, and thus this image was made. Wei Lingzang of Julu and Xue Fashao of Hedong, we two, seeking the favor of the brilliance from the (white curl of) hair (i.e., the u¯rna¯ between the Buddha’s eyebrows that emits light) illuminating the East and lacking the advantage of (the future Buddha Maitreya having descended from) the Tusita Heaven and (being reborn ˙ on earth in) Ketumati, we made bold to exhaust our families’ wealth to make one stone image such that none of the auxiliary figures have been omitted. We pray the imperial house may long flourish and the myriad regions render homage and bring tribute. We pray that (Wei Ling)zang and the others will stand like the three acacias on a solitary peak and flourish like the nine date trees in a magnificent garden. May their perfumed fruits multiply more and more, their thorny branches especially thrive, their entire families blossom gloriously, and their blessings flow over onto their descendants. After their lives have ended, may they fly to encounter the Thousand Holy Ones, their souls rise to the six supernatural powers (acquired by a Buddha), and their intellects embrace the three aspects of the omniscience (of a Buddha). In their existences in the generations to come and their relatives in their former lives, if they are released from the hundred obstacles, then may they, like the roc, perch in the Dragon Flower (Tree, to hear Maitreya preach on earth and thereby gain enlightenment), and if they are enlightened and freed from all rebirths, may they, like the 168

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phoenix, mount up to the bodhi tree. May the sentient beings in the five paths (of rebirth) all share in this felicity. Wei Lingzang, Military Aide of Luhun District.

釋迦像 魏靈藏 薛法紹 夫靈跡誕遘必表光大之迹,玄功既敷亦標希世之作.自 雙林改照,大千懷綴映之悲.慧日潜暉,唅生銜道慕之 痛.是以應真悼三乘之靡憑遂騰空以刊像.爰暨下代, 茲容厥作. 鉅鏕魏靈藏,河東薛法紹二人等,求豪光東照之資,闕 兜率翅頭之益,敢輒磬家財造石像一區,凡及衆形罔不 備列.願乾祚興延,萬方朝貢.願藏等挺三槐於孤峰,秀 九蕀於華菀.芳實再繁,荊條獨茂,合門榮葩,福流并 葉.命終之後,飛逢千聖,神颺六通,智周三達.曠世所 生元身眷屬捨百鄣,則鵬擊龍花,悟無生,則鳳昇道樹. 五道群生咸同斯慶.陸渾縣功曹魏靈藏.

1d Image by the Society Members [Record of an Image] Made for the August Emperor Xiaowen by Society Leader Yang Dayan of Chouchi If the Divine Brilliance had not been illuminated, the universe would have kept in its bosom the sadness of eternal night. If the [Sacred] Traces had not been encountered, perishable beings would have kept in their mouths (without expressing it) their repentance for deeds that hinder the truth. That is why the Tatha¯gata responded to all these causes in manifesting himself in his traces (his physical body). Thus through the following generations, images were produced, continuing down to our era of latter-day rulers, when this work of merit was made. Yang Dayan of Chouchi, Bulwark-General of the State, Zhige General [four effaced characters], Senior Rectifier of Liangzhou, enfeoffed as Dynasty-Founding Viscount of Ancheng District, received at birth an inheritance of dragon resplendence, as the offspring, following at a distance, of one who was in accord with celestial portent (his grandfather Yang Nandang). He was endowed in his youth with extraordinary qualities, and he surpassed the crowd (of his contemporaries) when he was first capped (on attaining the age of majority). Later, he drew down a reputation for humaneness such as had never been heard of before. When he stirred up his glory, he crushed a million (enemies) in the palm of his hand. When he thundered with his exceptional bravery, the nine regions of the empire were all frightened (into submission). When he stayed before the emperor to give him counsel, court and countryside were obedient to him. He cleared the royal route of the three obstacles that blocked it, and he swept the clouds and monsters from Heaven’s way. When the mess in the south was cleared

up, he reorganized the troops and returned to (Yi)que. The army encamped [one effaced character]. By the side of the road was Stone Grotto (Monastery). Contemplating the brilliant traces of the former August (Emperor), gazing upon the beautiful traces of the magnificent Holy (Buddha), he fixed his eyes upon (this sight) all through the night, and in tears, his emotions flowed. And so, for the August Emperor Xiaowen, he had a single stone image made such that none of the auxiliary figures have been omitted. He engraved stone to record this work of merit that it may be shown. Wu.

邑子像 邑主仇池楊大眼為孝文 皇帝造[像記]. 夫靈光弗曜,大千懷永夜之悲.[聖?]蹤不遘,葉生唅靡 道之懺.是以如來應群缘以顯迹,爰暨[下?][代?] [茲?]像遂著,降及後王,茲功厥作.輔國將軍,直閣將 軍[ ][ ][ ][ ],梁州大中正,安戎縣開國子,仇池楊大 眼,誕承龍耀之資,遠踵應符之胤.稟英奇於弱年,挺超 群於始冠.其[ ]也,垂仁聲於未聞.揮光也,摧百萬於 一掌.震英勇,則九宇咸駭.存侍納,則朝野必附.清王 衢於三紛,掃雲鯨於天路.南穢既澄,震旅歸闕.軍次 [ ]行,路逕石窟.覽先 皇之明蹤,睹盛聖之麗迹.矚目 徹霄,泫然流感.遂為孝文 皇帝造石像一區,凡及衆 形罔不備列.刊石記,功示之云爾.武

3a If there is not a spilling out of valuables to create an image, how can we be illuminated by those posthumous rays of light (from the Buddha)?

自非傾珍建像, 焉可熾彼遺光?

3b

act of sincerity may aid and benefit our society members’ spiritual leaders, parents, and seven generations of ancestors to take refuge in the truth.

人抽妙[財],敬造釋迦尊像一軀 ...以此微誠資益邑 人師僧父母七世歸真.

3e Then I parted with my money and property, to make a Measureless Life Buddha.

輒割資產造無量壽佛.

3f On the eighth day, a gengzi day, of the fourth month, in which the first was a guisi day, of the third year of the Xiao(chang) era of the Great Wei, a guiwei year (May 23, 527), Laywoman Song Jingfei, whose poor karma from former incarnations has left my fortune shallow and dirty, was born (on the continent of) Jambudvı¯pa and received the form of a woman. I relied on my late parents, who compassionately raised me with profound kindness, until I attained maturity. My insignificant self, looking respectfully upon their labor to raise me, but lacking the means to recompense them, has now parted with half my hairpins and girdles, and respectfully, for my late father and mother, has reverently had made one image of S´a¯kyamuni. With this bit of merit, I pray that my late father and mother may be reborn in the land of marvelous joy in the West, there to meet Buddha and hear the Dharma, then to see Maitreya manifest in the world. May all those with form share in this blessing.

Having experienced the border between life and obliteration, and understanding the divide between going and staying, we know the body is a floating cloud and our lives are like frost and dew. Therefore each of us has exhausted his family’s wealth to make one statue of Maitreya.

大魏孝(昌)三年歲次癸未,四月癸巳朔,八日庚子,清 信女宋景妃自惟先因果薄福缘淺漏,生於閻浮,受女人 形.賴亡父母慈育恩深得長.輕軀是以仰尋勗養之勞, 無以投報,今且自割釵帶之半,仰為亡考比敬造釋加像 一區.藉此微功,願令亡考比託生西方妙樂國土,值佛 聞法,見彌世勒.一切有形皆同斯福.

人體生滅之際,識去流之分,知身浮雲,余如霜露.故各 竭家財造彌勒像一區.

3g

3c Each one exhausted his own and his family’s valuables.

人各竭己家珍.

3d Everyone (in the society) released marvelous [wealth], reverently to have made one image of S´a¯kyamuni . . . that this slight

On the twenty-third day of the first month of the inaugural year of the Yonghui era of Great Tang (March 1, 650), the Pure and Faithful Woman Zhu Zhunian, approaching old age and having received an imperial grant of figured silk, now has had made one Amita¯bha shrine. Reverently, to repay (the imperial) kindness and largesse, I first (transfer the merit) to aid the emperor and next (transfer it) to all sentient beings. Together may they pass out of the gates of suffering and all ascend that other shore. appendix j

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大唐永徽元年正月廿三日,清信女朱主年垂老蒙[ ]敕 綵帛,今造阿彌陀像一龕.敬酬慈澤,[乃]上資皇帝下 拯群生.同出苦門咸登彼岸.

first day was a bingyin day, in the third year of the Zhengshi era, a bingxu year, of the Great Dai (April 27, 506).

I have asked the artisans to engrave stone to make this image of Maitreya.

清信女佛弟子,宮內作大監瓽法端不幸邁終,其以生資 集俟神圖.是以冗從僕射長秋承祀允為造釋迦像一區 并二菩薩.願端值生妙樂國土.又願 皇化層隆,大魏 彌歷引祑千基福鍾萬代.唯大代正始三年歲次丙戌,三 月丙寅朔,十九日訖.

請工鏤石造此彌勒像一區.

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3h

3i Chen Yun, the wife of Li Changshou, Superior Grand Master of the Palace, General for the Pacification of the South, Southern Area Commander in Chief, and Dynasty-Founding Duke of Qingshui District, who in the past was not the legal wife, for the house of Li and in reverence to the good wife (Li’s late wife), makes known her intention that she (the late wife) be released into enlightenment. Thus I have parted with the family wealth to have made one S´a¯kyamuni image shrine. I vow that the favor my lord received from the August Emperor Gao (Emperor Xiaowen) be remembered. Further, I pray for myself, my late son, my grandson in the army, and all those living that they have peace. May the holy saints protect and aid us so my family members have security and tranquility and their lives ascend to heaven’s level, and may those to come all agree with this prayer. This record prepared on the thirteenth day of the sixth month of the third year of the Yong’an era (July 23, 530).

是以太中大夫,平南將軍,南面大都督,清水縣開國公 李長壽妻陳暈宿因莫遇嫡為李室敬善內敷志[ ]超悟. 割捨家財造釋迦像一堪.願夫主高[皇]帝主寵念.又願 己身,亡息,征孫[ ]任,所生者,使[ ]子平康.聖賢祐 助,家眷安寧,命齊天等,行來[ ][ ],一切從願.永安三 年六月十三日 飾銘記.

3j The Pure and Faithful Woman and Buddhist Disciple, Palace Director Dang Faduan, was not fortunate enough to die in old age, but she had gathered her life’s earnings in anticipation of this inspired plan (to sponsor a shrine). For this reason, Si Yun, the Supervisor of the Entourage in the Court of the Women’s Chambers, for (her) has had made one image of S´a¯kyamuni with two bodhisattvas. I pray that Duan be reborn directly in the land of marvelous bliss. I further pray that the imperial influence be increasingly magnified, the Great Wei abound in successions and draw a sequence of a thousand reigns, and blessings be garnered for myriad generations. Completed on the nineteenth day of the third month, in which the 170

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On the twenty-fifth day of the fourth month of the second year of the Yongping era, a jichou year (May 29, 509), nuns Fawen and Falong, awakened (to the fact that this is) not an eternal world, deeply expressed our sincere vow, and parted with and exhausted our private wealth, each for herself, reverently to have made a single Maitreya image. We pray it may cause all who pass by and see it to be saturated with the moisture of the Dharma rain and all who offer worship to it to share in unsurpassed joy. At the three sermons under the Dragon Flower (Tree), we pray we may take our place in the stream (of those who achieve enlightenment). May all sentient beings universally share this blessing.

永平二年歲次巳丑,四月廿五日,比丘尼法文,法隆等, 覺非常世,深發誠願,割竭私財,各為己身,敬造彌勒像 一軀.願使過見者普沾法雨之潤,禮拜者同无上之樂. 龍華三唱,願在流次.一切衆生,普同斯福.

3l Now I follow with my meager funds . . . and with sincerity I have had one image made.

今率貧資 ...謹造像一區.

3m From this world of Jambudvı¯pa, I was blessed to be able to take refuge in the Three Jewels, (so with my) begging bowl leftovers, I have had a Maitreya made and Seven Buddhas with two bodhisattvas such that their appearances are complete, and I take this slight blessing and extend it universally to all sentient beings.

自彼[閻]浮,慶蒙三寶之皈依,鉢餘造彌勒像一區并七 佛二菩薩,衆容俱具,以此微福普及一切含生.

3n Record of a single grotto made by the bhiksunı¯ Cixiang Hui˙ zheng on the twenty-first day of the third month of the third year of the Shengui era of Great Wei (April 24, 520).

Though it is the case that spiritual enlightenment is vast and profound, and the incorporeal is true and far-reaching, it is traces that establish the Way, their sublimity expressing an unvarying model. Without them, how could we know how to symbolize and praise its profound principles? For this reason, we revere and thirst for the Dharma ford. Though this reflection (of the Buddha) image is constructed small, the forms of blessings (it engenders) will be extensive. As I have been born in this troublesome body, I pray I may vault to a realm without obstacles (to enlightenment), where I will receive the favor of immersion and the enrichment of all beings in the Dharma realm. I have had stone carved to realize the true (image) and engraved this act of merit (to last) eighty(-four) thousand (years). May it extend unto the thrice-obedient, and may they dare to share in this blessing.

大魏神龜三年三月廿一日比丘尼慈香慧政造窟一區 記.e夫零(¼靈)覺弘虛,非體真邃,其跡道建,崇日 (¼曠)表常範.無乃標美幽宗.是以仰渴法津.應像營 微福形且遙.生托煩躬,願騰無碍之境,逮及恩含閏 (¼涵潤),法界[ ]衆[ ]澤. (¼坎)石成真,刊功八万. 延及三從,敢同斯福.

3o In the [three illegible characters] year, the seventh month, the [illegible character]teenth day, the Pure and Faithful Woman and Buddhist disciple Hu Zhi[illegible character], Consort of the Prince [of Qinghe, reverently] made one [S´a¯kyamuni] image. I pray that the state [will prosper] without limit and there be security and peace within the four seas [and that all sentient beings have] eternal joy. Yuan Shanjian serves the Buddha. Yuan Jingsun serves the Buddha. [Yuan?] Zhonghua serves the Buddha.

[ ][ ][ ]年七月十[ ][日],[清]信女佛弟[子][清] [河]王妃,胡智[ ],[敬]造[釋迦]像一區.願國[ ]無 疆,四海安寧,[含?][生?]常樂. 元善見侍佛 元敬愻侍佛 [元?]仲華侍佛

3p The nuns of Zhongming Convent, Daoyang, Daoji, and Daobao, relying on the vaipulya (Maha¯ya¯na teaching) to follow the Way, vowed to make the Thousand Buddhas of the Present Kalpa. Further we pray (on behalf of) Minister of Works Huangfu Du and Lady Chen, Lady Xiong, Lady Jian, Lady Liu, and all the concubines and the Consort of the Prince of Beihai, ne´e Fan, that reverently, for the emperor and the empress dow-

ager, all teachers of distant kalpas, seven generations of ancestors, living parents, living dependents, Dharma realms of all directions, and those born in the path of the heavens, in rebirth after rebirth, generation after generation, may they serve the Thousand Buddhas of the Present Kalpa, and whether they have a mind for good or for evil, at the three assemblies of Maitreya, we pray they may ascend at the head of the first group and at once become Buddhas. Completed on the thirteenth day of the eighth month of the inaugural year of the Xiaochang era of the Great Wei (September 15, 525).

中明寺比丘尼道揚,道積,道保依方等行道,願造玄 (¼賢)劫千佛.但越(¼願)司空公皇甫度及陳夫,兄夫 貴,鑒夫人,柳夫人諸貴人等北海王妃樊,仰為皇帝階 下,皇太后,曠劫諸師,七世父母,所生父母,見在眷屬, 十方法界,天道衆生,生生世世,侍玄劫千佛,發善惡 心,彌勒三會,願登初首,一時成佛.大魏孝昌元年八月 十三日訖.

4a The Stele for the Yique Buddha Shrine Nevertheless, when the merit (of the Buddha) attained to perfection beneath the tree of enlightenment, this was not the commencement of the refinement of gold (the final product of the alchemist). When the traces (of the Buddha) disappeared under the steadfast grove (of sa¯la trees, when he attained nirva¯na), how could this be the end signified by the breaking ˙ of a record tally? When his merit attained perfection, there followed beneficent rules written to transmit his precepts (i.e., the scriptures were written). When his traces disappeared, we made use of the divine countenance to represent his excellence (i.e., icons were produced). Thus, gold and jade (statues) were carved to enlarge his transformative power in Kapilavastu (capital of the state ruled by the S´a¯kya clan), and the reds and blues (i.e., painting) are employed to manifest his goodness in Cı¯nastha¯na (China). Ever unceasing! The power of their expediency is unsurpassed! Ever majestic! The significance of their fecundity is great!

伊闕佛龕之碑 然則,功成道樹,非練金之初.跡滅堅林,豈斷籌之未. 功既成,俟奧典而垂範.跡既滅,假靈儀而圖妙.是以載 雕金玉闡其化於迦維,載飾丹青發其善於震旦.繩繩 乎!方便之力至矣!巍巍乎!饒益之義大矣!

4b The Cultured and Virtuous Empress had a Way higher than the star Xuanyuan and a Virtue that poured out over the earth. Her kind saintliness was manifested without limits; her gentle clarity reached to the heavens. (The collapse of Mount) Shalu mulappendix j

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tiplied her blessings. (The daughter of the Prince of) Tushan issued (her) an auspicious omen. She helped the family and the state, inheriting the good renown (of the mother of the emperor) and assisting the imperial enterprise. She practiced well the feminine skills, and, as principal wife, she collaborated with the emperor in his rule. In seeking out worthy men (for office), she demonstrated (an intelligence) as bright as the two orbs (of the sun and moon), and in reaching out to the people, she was commended for a virtue that was generous and capable of supporting them (like the earth). Her loyal plans were manifest in the quarters of the palace, while her filial respect was displayed in the sacrifices to the ancestors. Such was the influence exercised by her utter sincerity that she rendered the dark moon clear in the heavens. Such was the extent of her gentleness that she could dispel the troubles and confusions of the world. Her heart was always engaged (in helping with) the sorrows and toil (of others). Her conduct was ever thrifty and moderate. The education she received from her mother’s womb was classical, and she was thoroughly crowned by the Three Dynasties. The governance of the women’s quarters was orderly, and the palace women were more splendid than in the time of the two nan. Disdaining embellishments of brocade and embroidery, she was comfortable in plain silk. Scorning jewelry of pearl and jade, it was her intent never to wear valuable ornaments. The nine generations of her relatives were thereby increased in their closeness, and the myriad states were thereby able to attain the Way. She had studied a great many drawings and writings, and she took pleasure in the arts and literature. She meditated on the purity and calm extolled by Huangdi and Laozi, and she had a deep knowledge of the vast (doctrine) of the Book of Odes and the Book of History. The abundance of the virtues she established matched in extent the heavens and the earth, and the elegance of the words she established equaled in brilliance the five planets. On the strength of the causes she planted all along in her previous existences, in this (lifetime), they bore fruit— the spirit of the woman on the bank of the River Wei (the wife of King Wen of Zhou) descended on her that she might understand the Four Noble Truths in order to be cut off from future rebirths, and the traces of (the Han imperial concubine of) Zhaoyang responded to her that she might gallop with the three vehicles in order to be saved from the bonds of existence. Therefore, throughout the land, she showed (support for) the monasteries, covering them in gold as Sudatta did with (Prince Jeta’s) Grove, and (from) high in the air, she scattered flowers, where they leaped into appearance as at the stu¯pa of Prabhu¯taratna. Her sincerity in highly esteeming the four dhya¯na (heavens) (made us) take lightly Queen Mallika¯ (the pious wife of King Prasenajit of Kosala), and her entering deeply into the eightfold canon (made us) regard slightingly Queen S´rı¯ma¯la¯ (the learned daughter of King Prasenajit and Queen Mallika¯). 172

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How could we suffice it to say that, as one whose heart was prepared to be given (in marriage) to depend as an ornament (to her husband’s rule), she surpassed the two women of the River Gui (the daughters of the legendary ruler Yao, who were loyal to their husband Shun), and as one who undertook to offer sacrifices to the ancestors to hand down substantial offspring, she was superior to the four consorts of Gaoxin (the wives of the legendary ruler Ku, each of whom bore an illustrious son)?

文德皇后道高軒曜,德酌坤儀.淑聖表於無疆.柔明極 於光大.沙麓蕃祉.塗山發祥.來翼家邦.嗣徽而贊王 業.聿修陰教.正位而葉帝圖.求賢顯重輪之明.逮下彰 厚載之德.忠謀著於房闥.孝敬申於宗祀.至誠所感清 朏魄於上.至柔所被蕩震騰於下.心繫憂勤.行歸儉約. 胎教克明,本枝冠於三代.閫政攸攸,宮掖光於二南.陋 錦繪之華,身安大帛,賤珠玉之寶,志絕名當.九族所以 增睦,萬邦所以至道.宏覽圖籍,雅如藝文.酌黄老之清 靜.窮詩書之溥摶.立德之茂,合大两儀.立言文美,齊 明五緯.加以宿殖遠因是成果.降神渭涘明四諦,以契 無生.應蹟昭陽馳三車以濟有結.故綿區表剎,布金猶 須達之園.排空散花,踴現同多寶之塔.諒以高視四禪, 俯輕末利.深入八藏,顧蔑勝鬘.豈止釐降揚蕤軼有媯 之二女,載祀騰實越高辛之四妃而已哉!

4c He made an extensive search to find the ford (that would allow him) to acknowledge the kindness (of his mother). He reviewed all locations in order to choose the region where the divine influences are concentrated. He considered that, among all the sovereigns who have established a state, those who had a grand plan ruled from the Central Region (Henan Province). He further considered that the thousand Buddhas who have taken form could not have attained enlightenment in a borderland. It is this region of the three rivers (Yi, Luo, and Huang) that is truly where the six directions of space are gathered together. The royal city (of Luoyang) was established in a strong strategic position, for this was the site where (the Prince of) Qufu (the Duke of Zhou) planned to set up the tripods. The pass on the Yi River (Longmen) is encircled by countryside, for it was opened by Wenming (the legendary Great Yu) to channel the waters that were submerging the hills. Its lofty arches rise as high as the sky, its mountains so precipitous that light cannot reach into them. Its deep forests attract hermits; its grottoes store (statues of) gold. The mists born in the verdant valley are arrayed as canopies over the rock chambers (of its grottoes), while the colored clouds spreading over the red peaks lie like banners on the pine gates (of its monasteries). The majestic base (of these mountains) confronts Mount Song and resembles the Snowy Peaks (the Hima¯layas). The current

(of the Yi River) flows into the Virtuous River (the Yellow River) and resembles the River Nairan˜jana¯ (that flows past Bodhgaya¯). Certainly this place is as famous among the religious as among the laity, a favorite spot as much for men as for divinities.

established this Buddhist work in order to reciprocate the kindness of (his mother’s) upbringing. Generously, (Li Tai) constructed this field of blessing in order to aid the cause of bodhi. If this is not one who is pure and filial, to whom can he be compared?

博求報恩之津.歷選集靈之域.以為百王建國,圖大,必 揆於中州.千尊托生,成道,不[ ]於邊地.惟此三川寔 總六合.王成設險,曲阜營定鼎之基.伊關帶坰,文命辟 襄陵之[ ].穹隆極天,崢嶸無景.幽林招隱,洞穴藏金. 雲生翠谷橫石室而成蓋,霞舒丹巘臨松門而建標.崇基 拒於嵩山,依希雪嶺[ ].流注於德水,仿佛連河.斯固 真俗之名區,人祗之絕境也.

王乃罄心而弘喜捨,開藏而散龜貝.楚般竭其思,宋墨 騁其奇.疏絕壁於玉繩之表而靈龕星列.雕[ ]石於金 波之外而尊容月舉.或仍舊而增嚴,或維新而極妙.白 豪流照,掩蓮花之質.紺髮揚暉,分檀林之侣.是故近瞻 寶相,儼若全身.遠鑒神光,湛如留影.嗤鏤玉之為劣, 鄙刻檀之未工,杲杲焉,逾日輪之麗長漠,峨峨焉,邁金 山之映巨壑.耆闍在目,那竭可想.寶花降祥,蔽五雲之 色.天樂振響,奪萬籟之音.是以睹法身之妙而八難自 宛,聞大覺之風而六天可陟.非正直者,其孰能與於此 也? 善建佛事以報鞠育之慈.廣修福田以資菩提之業. 非純孝者,其孰能與於此也?

4d The prince then poured out his heart to demonstrate his love of charity, and opening his treasury, he was liberal with tortoise shells and cowries. (Lu) Ban, in the state of Chu, expended his ingenuity, even as (Mo) Di, in the state of Song, gave free rein to his cleverness. Dividing the sheer walls to the outer edge of the (constellation) Jade Cord, the sacred shrines are ranged like stars. Carved in the [dark?] stone beyond the moonlight, the venerable visage rises like the moon. Where the old remained, (Li Tai) added to its magnificence; where the new was made, it reached the utmost in marvelousness. The flow of brilliance from the white tuft (the u¯rna¯ between the Buddha’s eyes) eclipses the beauty of the lotus flower. The spread of light from his dark blue hair distinguishes his sandalwood grove (monastery) companions. This is why, when one looks closely at the precious special marks (laksana), (the statue) is as majes˙ ˙ tic as if the entire person of the Buddha (were present). When one sees from afar its divine light, it is as clear as his shadow left behind (in the cave at Nagaraha¯ra). (Creating) derision for the inferior quality of carved jade and scorn for the imperfect art of engraved sandalwood, (this Buddha image) is brilliant as the sun, surpassing the solar orb resplendent in the Long River (the Milky Way), and lofty as a mountain, exceeding the golden Mount (Sumeru) shining on the Great Valley (the oceans). Grdhraku¯ta lies before your eyes; Nagaraha¯ra can be ˙ ˙ imagined. Precious flowers rain down auspicious blessings, hiding the colors of the five clouds. Heavenly musicians strike up their music, competing with the sound of the myriad pipes (of nature). Thus it is that gazing on the marvels of (this image made to house) the dharmaka¯ya, the eight difficult (conditions under which to see a Buddha) are ended, and hearing the sound of the supreme enlightenment (of scriptures chanted in this grotto), the six devalokas (the heavens above Mount Sumeru) may be ascended. If this is not (an image of) He who is correct and straight, to what can it be compared? Benevolently, (Li Tai)

4e On the tenth day of the third month of the fifteenth year of the Zhenguan era (April 25, 641), the Yuzhang princess reverently had made one image shrine, praying for peace and security for herself and for all sentient beings. The princess’ wet-nurse Sa prays for herself and her son. Jiang Xiuzi and five other people also share in the making of the image shrine. May all sentient beings attain to true enlightenment.

大唐貞觀十五年三月十日,豫章公主敬造像一塔,願己 身平安并為一切含識. 公主妳薩為己身并兒.蔣修子 等五人亦同造像一塔.及一切含識共登正覺.

4f On the fifth day of the tenth month of the inaugural year of the Yonghui era (November 3, 650), the Prefect of Ruzhou, Commandant-Escort, and Duke of Yuguo, Liu Xuanyi, reverently made this vajra guardian.

永徽元年十月五日,汝州刺史駙馬都尉渝國公劉玄意 敬造金剛力士.

5a Stele of the Maitreya Image The Old and Young of Sishun Ward, Henan District, Luozhou, universally for the Dharma realm, reverently made one Maitreya image shrine, below this stele, close by to the east. Now we have heard, even though the Ultimate Truth is mysterious and subtle, surpassing the realm of words and images, and the True Body is lost in the distance, having emerged in a land too far away to see or hear, that the Able Man (S´a¯kya-

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muni) descended into his traces (a physical body) and in accord with prior causes was advantageously made manifest. When (He with) the reddish(-gold) appearance was born in the West, then the pearl-strands of stars concealed their brilliance, and when the white horse galloped to the east, then the golden man appeared in (the emperor’s) dream. This caused the axles of the three vehicles to advance together and the gates of the Noble Eightfold Path to be opened all the way through, and the benefits (provided) to everyday life could be summarized in words. Before the conversion of the three-thousandfold (world system), the light of Buddha-truth was drawn (to inhabit the form of (S´a¯kyamuni). Then after the eighty(-four) thousand stu¯pas were filled (with S´a¯kyamuni’s relics by King As´oka), it returned to the quiescence of nirva¯na. ˙ What a pity that a Buddha-sun is so difficult to encounter, it has been compared to tossing (a mustard seed and hitting the point of) a needle. In the human realm, things are very changeable, so in accord with this, we carve stone (to make an unchangeable Buddha image). Why do this? S´a¯kyamuni was manifest in the past, and though we may look for him anxiously, we cannot search back (and find him). Maitreya will descend in the future, and though we may bow our heads in expectancy, it is difficult to wait (for him to come). Living before or after (a Buddha) creates obstacles; going forward or backward, no one will encounter (a Buddha). All (living) memory of his words has perished—how deeply we sigh!

彌勒像之碑 洛州河南縣思順坊老幼等普為法界敬造彌勒像一龕, 在此碑下近東. 蓋聞,至理玄微,超夫言象之域,真身眇邈,出乎希夷之 境,而能人降迹隨緣利現.紫狀西誕,則珠星奄輝,白馬 東馳,則金人入夢.是使三乘之軌齊騖,八正之門洞啟, 日用之益可略言焉.自化洽三千之前,道光汲引,塔盈 八萬之後,歸乎寂滅.悲夫佛日難遇,譬彼投針.人世易 遷,同茲斲石.何則? 釋迦現於既往,仰企踵而不追.彌 勒降於將來,俯翹足而難俟.居前後而成鄣,惟進退而 莫逢.言念是沉淪,喟然嘆息.

5b Now together with over a hundred others with the same intention, we first prayed that the imperial family be forever steadfast, lofty as the heavens in their enlightened rule. Next (we prayed) for the commencement of dawn over the dark paths, that hastening to the other shore, those in them may rise purified. To fulfill this (vow), at this mountain ridge, we reverently had made one Maitreya image shrine.

乃與同志百餘人等,上願 皇基永固,配穹天而垂拱.下使幽塗載曉,趣彼岸而清 昇.遂於茲嶺,敬造彌勒像龕一所. 174

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5c The land rises in twin watchtowers, their walls reflecting the sun for a thousand yards. The stream below is clear and flowing, guided by the pair of peaks. Encircled by dense forest, (Longmen) is close to the capital, resembling Grdhraku¯ta (Vul˙ ˙ ture Peak) in nearness to the royal city (Ra¯jagrha) and the ˙ Jetavana to the capital of S´ra¯vastı¯. To contribute to this beautiful place, we commissioned inspired craftsmen to cut into (the cliff) and carve and engrave (a work) of complete subtlety and marvelousness. On the eighth day of the fourth month of the twenty-second year of the Zhenguan era of Great Tang (May 5, 648), we had it ornamented to complete it.

地聳雙闕,壁映千尋.前岸清流,卻倚重岫.熒帶林薄, 密邇京華,似耆山之接王城,給園之依衛國也.既資勝 地,又屬神工疏鑿彫鐫備盡微妙.以大唐貞觀二十二年 四月八日莊嚴斯畢.

5d Thus, when this venerable image was first manifest, it was as if (Maitreya) had descended from his palace in Tusita, and when ˙ its marvelous laksana were initially complete, it was as though ˙ ˙ he was under the bodhi tree. With an u¯rna¯ like moonlight and dark blue hair like mist crystallized, his lotus eyes seem to move, while his fruit(-red) lips appear to speak. Of those who offer worship at the feet of this Buddha and look up with reverence at this venerable face, none will fail to have their hair stand on end in awe and their hearts open in comprehension. This is what Indra and Brahma¯ took refuge in, what dragon kings and devas guard and protect. Those (icons) in reds and blues (i.e., paintings) are made brilliant in vain, for as soon as they appear, they are destroyed. Gold and jade (statues) may be precious, but it is easy for them to be scattered and lost. And so it is that because this mountain has been made solid, with the same endurance as heaven and earth, we have carved its stone into (an image of) purity—for how could these hills and valleys ever change?

於[是],尊儀始著,似降兜率之宮,妙相初成,若在菩提 之樹.白豪月照,紺發烟凝,蓮目疑動,果脣似說.其有 禮[拜][佛]足膽仰尊顏者,莫不肅[然]毛豎,豁爾心 開.寔釋梵所歸依,龍天所衛護.彼丹青徒煥,旋見銷 毀.金玉雖珍,易以零落.豈若因山成固,同乾坤之可 久,刊石為貞,何陵[谷]之能貿?

5e On the thirtieth, a dinghai day, of the fourth month, in which the first was a wuwu day, in the second year of the Yongchun era, a guiwei year, of Great Tang (May 31, 683), the wife of the late Lord Lu, Grand Master of Imperial Entertainments with

Silver Seal and Blue Ribbon, Acting Left Assistant Director of the Department of State Affairs, Aide to the Commander in Chief of the Superior Area Command of Yangzhou, and Duke of Weijian, Lady Li, the Lady of [two effaced characters], reverently had made one Maitreya Buddha image assembly. We commenced by carving the [fine/dark?] stone, thus to open this beautifully painted shrine. These marvelous traces are superior to carved sandalwood, and their ingenious workmanship surpasses paintings on cloth. Following my heart, I first prayed that my sights be on ascending to the Tusita ˙ Heaven, (from there) to follow the Buddha when he is reborn on the earth, and that my thoughts be on dwelling at the Dragon Flower Tree, (from there) to depart forever from the sea of suffering. Eternally solid is this mountain of compassion. Though it be brushed with a deva-garment (i.e., worn down over the centuries), it will be perpetually preserved, and though the fires of the kalpa of destruction burn, it will not be extinguished. Humbly I pray for the Celestial Emperor and Celestial Empress (Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu), who are sagacious and divine. With the Wisdom-sun may they perpetually shine, and by the Dharma-cloud may they be together shaded. In all the lands of the ten directions, may all sentient beings plant good (seeds of) causation, and may all arrive at the scene of blessing.

大唐永淳二年歲次癸未四月戊午朔卅日丁亥,故銀青 光祿大夫,行尚書左丞楊州大都督府長史,魏簡公,廬 公妻[ ][ ]夫人李氏敬造彌勒尊像一鋪.載雕[ ]石,爰 敞花龕.妙跡冠於刻檀,奇工踰於畫疊.因心上願希昇 兜率之天,隨佛下生,思止龍華之樹,長離苦海.永固慈 山.天衣拂而恆存,劫火燃而不滅.伏願 天皇天后惟 睿惟神.與慧日而恆明,將法雲而並蔭.十方國土一切 衆生俱植善緣,咸臻景福.

5f Since I believe that [this] stone cannot be destroyed, while reds and blues (paintings) will grow dark, I have reverently had one S´a¯kyamuni image shrine made in stone at Yique. . . . Though sand and dust (i.e., this world) may be transformed, the marvelous form (of this statue) will be forever preserved, and by carving (it in) this dark stone, it will be endlessly transmitted without decay.

以為[ ]石無虧,丹青有昧,遂於伊闕敬作釋迦石像一 龕.沙塵可化,妙色常存,勒茲玄石,廣傳不朽.

5g Since the mountain will not decay, the image will also be preserved forever.

5h Even though they be brushed with a deva-garment, these majestic laksana will scarcely be destroyed, and though the fires of ˙ ˙ the kalpa of destruction will burn, how could this legion of images be extinguished?

仙衣縱拂,巍巍之相罕虧,劫火雖燃,種種之形詎滅?

5i Wang Xuance, [vowing first to aid the imperial house] and next for all sentient beings in the Dharma realm, reverently made one Maitreya image assembly, on the fifteenth day of the ninth month of the second year of the Linde era (October 29, 665).

王玄策[願?][上?][資?][皇?][基?][?][?],下及法界 [衆生]敬造[彌勒]像一鋪,麟德二年九月十五日.

5j Monk [two illegible characters], for his late parents, reverently had made one King Udayana image. May the Dharma realm all share in this blessed deed. Fifteenth day of the tenth month of the sixth year of the Yonghui era (November 18, 655).

比丘[ ][ ]為亡父母敬造[優填]王像一軀.法界共此福 德.永徽六年十月十五日.

5k The wife of Xin Shizu, ne´e Sun, knowing her body was not eternal, and her husband having predeceased her, on the fifteenth day of the fourth month of the inaugural year of the Xianqing era (May 14, 656), made a vow reverently to make a King Udayana image shrine. This had not come to pass when we heard that Mrs. Sun had passed away on the fourth day of the fifth month of that year (June 1). She is succeeded by her dependents Cuan Xie, Xin Xin, Sun Xin, and others who have taken over (this project). Now it has come to pass. We pray for the deceased that their souls be reborn in the Pure Land, that they be cut off from the three obstructions, and we further pray that all sentient beings attain true enlightenment. (Hence, we have) engraved this record.

莘師祖妻孫知身無常,夫主先亡以顯慶元年四月廿五 日發心敬造優填王像一龕.未及成就聞孫婆其年五月 四日身故.續後有眷屬爨協,莘信,孫信等撿校.今得成 就.願亡者靈化凈境,斷除三鄣,又願及一切含識俱登 正覺.鐫記.

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5l The numinous shrine reclines against the moon; a cassia palace suspended amidst the stars. Rising into the void to excavate the stone, [illegible character] the mountain ridge, a lofty chamber. The grotto is high and hidden in the earth, (safe from) waves agitating up to the heavens. Thus we followed by carving and engraving, in [illegible characters] year.

靈龕月偃,桂殿星懸.凌虛剗石,[ ]嶺飛軒.巖高隱地, 波澄倒天.一從刊勒,於[ ][ ]年.

5m Inscription and Preface for the Stone Image of the Jingshan Monastery. Written by Li Xiaolun, Court Gentleman of Manifest Virtue and Acting Secretarial Aide. As for (Queen Ma¯ya¯ grasping) the silver branch to propagate the blessing, its consequence was (the Buddha’s) numinous resemblance appearing in the garden (purchased for him from Prince Jeta by covering it in) gold (coins). His sword-rain dispelled noxious vapors and let fly the flux of wisdom over worlds as numerous as the sands (of the Ganges). Since his form was hidden in the Grove of Cranes (at his nirva¯na, the ˙ trees burst into white blossom, resembling a flock of cranes), and his traces were hoarded at Chicken(foot) Mountain (where Ka¯s´yapa holds his robe, waiting to give it to Maitreya), we fashion his sagacious image in pure gold and carve his auspicious visage in excellent jade. That his influence and his ways are not lost is because of this.

敬善寺石像銘 并序 宣德郎守記室參軍事李孝倫撰 若夫銀枝毓祉.締靈影於金園.劍雨銷氛,飛惠液於沙 界.自鶴林秘彩,雞山蘊迹.甄睿像於貞金,刊瑞容於芳 琬.風猷不墜,繄此賴焉.

5n Lady Wei, Great Consort of the Princedom of Ji, was from Jingzhao (Chang’an). Her chalice-vine manner contained a rich beauty, showering brilliance over the palace women. Her orchid appearance was steeped in elegance, succeeding the goodness of (the woman gathering) duckweed at the bend of the river. Her thoughts were concerned with red sand, pouring waves of true brilliance over the five swords. Her spirit dwelt in white clouds, extending its marvelous action to the three pearls. As a result, she selected this beautiful metropolitan area in which to have this numinous image made.

紀國太妃韋氏京兆人也.苕姿含綺,霏華椒掖.蘭儀湛 176

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秀,絹美蘋隈.而思惕紅沙,浪真輝於五劍.神栖縞霧, 延妙業於三珠.爰擇勝畿,聿修靈像.

5o Its substance is as brilliant as the colors of the coiled dragon; its resemblance duplicates (the original form of the Buddha) as the fabulous luan bird taking flight (is echoed by its shadow below). As the moon reunites with the river of the immortals, it divides over the red-blue brows (of the statue), making them gush with color. As the stars glide through the garden of the firmament, they wander over the violet pupils, making volant their brilliance. The absolute sincerity (of the donor) is completely expressed, and her flourishing meritorious achievement has been accomplished.

質融虬彩,影襲鸞騫.月逗仙河,分紫眉而汰色.星流天 菀,翊紺瞳而飛照.懇誠已罄,茂績其凝.

5p Like a transformed bird (an immortal who has taken the form of a crane), she has distinguished herself as one who has crossed the sea (to the islands of immortality). Like the tortoise hidden (inside its shell), she showed clearly the results of having drawn herself in from the dust.

化鳥旌越海之功.藏龜彰拔塵之果.

5q So brilliant is this lofty endeavor, it is hard to describe in words. Moreover, solid stone underlies its foundation, and an even bed of rime marks the place. The river freshens the verdure of the garden of paulownias, and the breeze carries the fragrance of the mountain of apricots. Although this place of purity displays a gilded (statue), one might worry that it is out of keeping with the [transformations] of the mulberry (fields) into the (blue Eastern) sea (and back again over eons), and so, following a great plan, this stone was carved with the confidence that it will endure for the period of time (it takes to empty) a city (one hundred yojanas square by extracting) a mustard seed (once every century).

昭昭峻業,難可名言者哉.加[以]凝石疏基,均霜表地. 川潔桐園之翠,風送杏巖之香.雖凈境開金,慮睽[ ]於 桑海.宏規籀石,諒終期於芥城.

5r The inscription says: The two souls have already dispersed, but the body has not yet dissolved. (When) flora and fauna increase in number

(i.e., are born), objects and their images come together. (In death,) affections are discarded at the marchmount, and memories float down the breeze. When in the end we are sunk in our [eternal?] home, what can illuminate the three immaterialities? When Maha¯vı¯ra (S´a¯kyamuni) descended into his traces, the mysterious ford was thereby opened. The propitious stream was pure and flowing, and the auspicious mountain was cleft into spires. The youth of the Hima¯layas (the Buddha in a previous incarnation) fought to the victory, and the sandalwood forest (the san˙gha) assisted his goodness. The Revelation of Meaning was proclaimed in the west, after which the marvelous Wheel (of the Law) rolled to the east.

其銘曰: 二靈已散,一體未融.動植滋夥,物象相蒙.情氛委岳, 識浪隨風.終淪[ ]住,孰亮三空.大雄降迹,玄津斯演. 瑞浦澄流,祥山闢巘.雪童戰勝,檀[林]翼善.了義西 宣,妙輪東轉.

5s What had been at the Place of the Glossy Leaves (the place of the bodhi tree, i.e., Bodhgaya¯), Cı¯nastha¯na (China) now shelters. (For those) hoping for the image (of the Buddha), (here it is) completely pictured, and (those who) seek for the light will surely assemble here. It is a virtuous model, from which we may continually investigate subtle mysteries! If we should ever be unmindful of his attaining enlightenment, (we have but) to gaze reverently upon this visage to sigh!

葉潤攸在,震區有庇.望影咸圖,尋光必萃.[粵]惟德 範,夙探微秘.詣道雖忘,瞻容乃喟.

5t Pearls and gems, she removed these baubles, and from her treasure of silver, exhausted her funds. In the grove, a pagoda was modeled, while beyond the clouds, the towers rose. The u¯rna¯ looks down like the full moon; the eyelids are dazzling like lotuses opening. The smoke of incense rises in clouds, while Buddhist chanting shakes the earth. From the south, (pilgrims) are drawn down the Luanchuan (the Yi River), and from the north, they gallop in the royal chariots (from the palaces in Luoyang). (As they sail by), they turn and look intently at the myriad chambers, while (those traveling by land) halt in their journey (to donate money for) the four necessities of religious life. There the causes they have planted together will be nurtured, and scriptures will be opened that they may share in enlightenment. Like unto the sun, may (the Buddhist faith) eternally reign on high, and as are the mountains, may it be forever firm!

珠瓔褫玩,銀藏傾財.林中寫塔,雲外崇臺.臨豪月滿, 映瞼蓮開.香烟起霧,梵響驚埃.南控鸞川,北馳春路. 萬室回矖,四依輟步.撫因共植,披[文]同悟.比日長 懸,隨山永固.

6a On the sunny side of the Longmen hills, the Great Vairocana Image Shrine was established by the Celestial August Great Emperor Gaozong of Great Tang. The body of the Buddha, from halo to base, is eighty-five chi (25 meters) in height, while the two bodhisattvas are seventy chi (20 meters) in height, and Ka¯s´yapa, A¯nanda, the vajra (guardians, i.e., the dva¯rapa¯las) and the shenwang (the lokapa¯las) are each fifty chi (almost 15 meters) in height. On the first day of the fourth month of the third year of the Xianheng era, a renshen year (May 3, 672), the August Empress Wu aided (this project) with twenty thousand strings of her rouge and powder money. In obedience to an imperial decree, the clerics in charge were Meditation Master Shandao of Shiji Monastery and Dharma Master Huijian, abbot of Fahai Monastery, of the Western Capital. The commissioner in charge was Wei Ji, Chief Minister of the Court of the National Granaries, while the vice commissioner was Fan Xuanze, Supreme Pillar of State and Director of the Eastern Parks. The artisans were Li Junzan, Cheng Renwei, Yao Shiji, and others. This work of merit was completed on the thirtieth day of the twelfth month of the second year of the Shangyuan era, an yihai year (January 20, 676).

龍門山之陽大盧舍那像龕者大唐高宗天皇大帝之所建 也.佛身通光座高八十五尺,二菩薩高七十尺,迦葉阿 難金剛神王各高五十尺.粵以咸亨三年壬申之歳四月 一日皇后武氏助脂粉錢二萬貫.奉敕檢校僧西京實際 寺善道禪師,法海寺主惠暕法師.大使司農寺卿韋機, 副使東面監上柱國樊玄則.支料匠李君瓚,成仁威,姚 師積等.至上元二年乙亥十二月卅日畢功.

7a On the twentieth day of the first month of the second year of the Longshuo era (February 13, 662), Liu Yuanli of the Revenue Section of the Establishment of the Prince of Zhou, Wang Jifu of the Personnel Evaluation Section and Zheng Xingyan of the War Section reverently made one Amita¯bha image shrine. We pray for Your Majesty the Emperor and all sentient beings that they may obtain this blessing.

龍朔二年正月廿日周王府戶曹劉元禮, 功曹王及福, 兵曹鄭行儼等敬造阿彌陀像一龕. 願為 皇帝階下一 切含生俱登斯福.

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7b

merit was completed on the eighth day of the twelfth month of the second year of the Shangyuan era of the Great Tang (December 29, 675).

On the seventh day of the eleventh month of the fourth year of the Xianheng era of the Great Tang (December 20, 673), monk Huijian of Fahai Monastery in the Western Capital, for the August Emperor, the August Empress, the heir apparent, and the Prince of Zhou, reverently dedicates a Maitreya image shrine, with two bodhisattvas and pairs of shenwang (i.e., lokapa¯las and dva¯rapa¯las), to complete this meritorious accomplishment. I humbly pray for the imperial enterprise a flourishing of sageliness without limit and, for the heir apparent and all the princes, blessings extending for ten thousand generations.

弟子宣義郎周遠志等並翹想馳於法浦.迺結願於西方. 僉憑六(=四)八之言,遂要盟於彼會.然即幽塗皎鏡承 慧日於堯天.覺路重開蕩六塵於舜海.既而沐茲鴻造想 荷恆深.罄臣禮而寫真容,申孝仁而圖凈域.奉為天皇, 天后,太子,諸王,遠劫師僧,七代父母敬造阿彌陀石像 一龕.用斯功德保祚 皇基,兼被幽明同歸福海.大唐 上元二年十二月八日功[畢].

大唐咸亨四年十一月七日西京海寺法僧惠簡奉為 皇 帝,皇后,太子,周王敬造彌勒像一龕,二菩薩神王等 並德成就.伏願皇業聖花無窮 殿下諸王福延萬伐 (¼代).

S´ramana Zhiyun, in offering to the Celestial Emperor, the Ce˙ lestial Empress, the heir apparent, and all the princes, reverently makes one shrine of fifteen thousand honorable images.

7c Xue Rengui, for the emperor and empress, reverently dedicates an Amita¯bha image and two bodhisattvas. May all sentient beings in this Dharma realm share in this blessing. Made in the fifth month of the fourth year of the Xianheng era (May– June, 673).

薛仁貴奉為皇帝,皇后敬造阿彌陀像一軀并二菩薩.普 共法界蒼生,同得此福.咸亨四年五月造.

7d The disciple Zhou Yuanzhi, a Court Gentleman for Manifesting Rightness, and the others all expectantly hoping to pass over (the sea of suffering) to the shore of the Dharma now join in making a vow (to be reborn in the paradise in) the West. We all rely upon the forty-eight great vows (of Amita¯bha) so that we may congregate in that assembly (in his Pure Land of Sukha¯vatı¯). Now, the dark paths are illuminated by a mirror, as the Wisdom-sun is supported in the lofty sky, and the way to enlightenment has reopened that the six senses may be cleansed in the good sea. Finally, to enrich this great enterprise (the imperial rule), we think of our responsibilities constantly and profoundly. To exhaust our ritual duty as officials, we have portrayed the True Visage, and to extend filial piety and humaneness, we have depicted the Pure Land. In offering to the Celestial Emperor, Celestial Empress, heir apparent, all the princes, all the monks of distant kalpas, and seven generations of ancestors, we reverently made a shrine (containing) a stone image of Amita¯bha. . . . We make use of this act of merit to protect and bless the imperial throne, and may the dead and the living together take refuge in the sea of blessings. . . . This act of 178

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7e

沙門智運奉為天皇,天后,太子,諸王敬造一萬五千尊 像一龕.

7f Director Yao Shenbiao and Meditation Master (Zhi)yun of the Palace Chapel completed the Fifteen Thousand Honorable Images Shrine on the thirtieth day of the eleventh month of the inaugural year of the Yonglong era of the Great Tang (December 26, 680).

大監姚神表,內道場運禪師,一萬五千尊像龕,大唐永 隆元年十一月卅日成.

7g On the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the inaugural year of the Tiaolu era, a jimao year (September 25, 679), in obedience to an imperial decree, to the south of the Great Image was established the Great Fengxian Monastery. Two groups of seven eminent monks who were equally perfect in the practice (of good conduct) and the understanding (of sacred texts) were chosen and summoned to form the (monastic) foundation. Only those who were vigilant in observing the religious rules and who excelled in monastic discipline were named abbot. On the fifteenth day of the first month of the second year (of the Tiaolu era, February 20, 680), the Great Emperor wrote out the plaque (for the front gate of the monastery). From first to last, sixteen monks have been specially ordained here and all of them maintained the prohibitions and practices with purity and their priestly duties with vigilance. Fearing that as the years stretched on, the fragrant record (of their virtues) would no longer be handed down, we have engraved this eulogy so that it may be bequeathed through eternal kalpas.

調露元年己卯八月十五日奉 敕於大像南置大奉先 寺.簡召高僧行解兼備者二七人闕即續填創基.住持範 法英律而為上首.至二年正月十五日 大帝書額.前 後別度僧一十六人,並戒行精勤住持為務.恐年代綿 邈,芳紀莫傳勒之頌銘庶貽永劫云爾.

7h On the fifteenth day of the seventh month of a gengchen year, the second year of the Tiaolu era of the Great Tang (August 14, 680), Xuanzhao reverently made one Guanshiyin bodhisattva image, praying for the rescue of all sentient beings of this Dharma realm who through transmigration, sins, and obstructions now live in distress, that they may all attain to their cessation.

大唐調露二年歲次庚辰七月十五日,玄照敬造觀世音 菩薩一區.願救法界蒼生無始罪鄣今生疾厄皆得消滅.

7i Li Junzan, [after?] constructing the Purple Cassia Palace, [in order that] safety and security may come to my family, reverently made a Guanyin bodhisattva on the thirtieth day of the sixth month of the second year of the Tiaolu era (July 31, 680).

李君瓚修紫桂宮[ ],[ ]平安至家敬造觀音菩薩,[調露 二]年六月卅日.

8a Stele of the Act of Merit by the Palace Domestic Service of the Great Tang . . . General of the Palace Gate Guard of the Right, in charge of the affairs of the Palace Domestic Service, Supreme Pillar of State, and Dynasty-Founding Duke of Bohai Commandery, Palace Servitor Gao Lishi . . . Grand Master for Splendid Happiness, Acting Palace Attendant of the Palace Domestic Service, Supreme Pillar of State, and Dynasty-Founding Duke of Hongnong Commandery, Palace Servitor Yang Sixu . . . . . . established in offering to the Divine and Martial August Emperor of the Opened Prime Era of the Great Tang. We prostrate ourselves in order that [even though we find ourselves?] together in this ending period of the Dharma, Samantabhadra’s supernatural power may still be encountered in the good scriptures, (which allow us to) think respectfully of the compassion of the Holy Lord, and assist in expounding the transformative power of the Benevolent King. Incense Mountain is silent, almost imaginary, yet one can smell the fragrance of the campaka flower (that is, the merit and virtue of the Buddha). The Hima¯layas goad our sense of reality, yet there is found the taste of clarified butter (that is, the perfect Buddha-truth). Even if

the longevity of the Dharma be concealed, we trust that the four stu¯pas (where the Buddha was born, gained enlightenment, preached, and entered nirva¯na) will continue to be trans˙ mitted, and although the pure origin may be obscured, we see as not far away that (future) certainty (of rebirth in Sukha¯vatı¯). By carving and engraving to make images, all people . . . By coloring and painting to depict forms, all will find refuge in the middle way. How much more so this revered mountain . . . virtuous stone will remain, and though it may pass through the fires of the kalpa of destruction, [it will not be destroyed?], and though it may undergo the calamity of destruction by wind, such will not reach it. Hence, this (act of merit) becomes an inexhaustible blessing. How could anything disturb it! Humbly we have ventured to use collectively our hearts engrossed (in the Buddha-truth) and together to create this Pure [Land]. . . . [To plant] good roots (whose fruit will be reaped later) by all sentient beings, reverently we have made nineteen entities of assemblies of the Measureless Life (Amita¯yus) Buddha of the West.

大唐內侍省功德之碑 ...右監門衛將軍,知[ ][ ]省事,上柱國,渤海郡開國 公,內供奉高力士 ... ...光祿大夫,行內侍省內侍,上柱國,弘農郡開國公, 內供奉楊思勗 ... ...奉為大唐開元神武皇帝[ ][ ]建.[ ][ ]子等伏以 [ ][ ][ ][ ]同茲末法,普賢神力尚遇令經,思崇聖主之 恩,翼闡仁王之化.香巖寂想唯聞瞻蔔之薰,雪岫馳誠 但為醍醐之味.以為[ ][ ][ ]掩法壽賴而猶傳四塔.雖 幽淨根賭而非遠斯固.剋雕成相皆人[ ][ ],綵畫圖形 盡歸中道.況崇山[ ][ ]貞石方留經火劫而[ ][ ]歷風 災而不至.則無盡之福.豈有動哉! 竊敢共運深心同開 淨[土][ ][ ]來之[ ][ ].[ ]衆[ ]之善根,敬造西方無 量壽佛一鋪一十九事.

8b By special appointment . . . the official in charge was Grand Master for Proper Consultation, acting Palace Attendant of the Palace Domestic Service, Supreme Pillar of State, [palace servitor name]. . . . The monks in charge were ´sramana Daojie and ´sramana Wenji of the Great Fengxian Monastery.˙ ˙

專 ...撿校官正議大夫, 行內侍省內侍, 上柱國 ...校 僧大奉先寺沙門道傑沙門文濟.

8c None is superior to Buddha, for the Dharma world is his body. He condescended to take form to convert all beings and lowered himself into his traces to become like men.

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Where there is stimulus (from human need), he (responds by) manifesting himself; where there is no sin, he will draw close. Those in ignorance and error are forever separated from him; all one can rely upon is faith and (planting the seeds of) causality (in good works). In truth, it is thanks to our August (Emperor), who made the plan to beautify this entity, with its rare laksana and vyan˜˙ ˙ jana and majestic countenance without peer. Great in love, great in compassion; like the moon, like the sun. Gaze upward into his face and all filth is wiped away. Offer worship with sincerity and all prayers will be fulfilled. Since the True Religion flowed eastward, it has been over seven hundred years, yet of all the eminent shrines (made for) merit, this one is the greatest. From side to side (it measures) twelve zhang; from top to bottom, it is one hundred and forty chi.

佛非有上,法界為身.垂形化物,俯迹同人.有感即現, 無罪乃親.愚迷永隔,唯憑信因.寔賴我 皇,圖茲麗 質.相好希有,鴻顏無匹.大慈大悲,如月如日.瞻容垢 盡,祈誠願畢.正教東流,七百餘載.大龕功德唯此為 最.縱橫兮十有二丈矣,上下兮百卌尺耳.

8d By imperial command, Longhua Monastery is to join with and become Fengxian Monastery. Fifth day of the twelfth month of the tenth year of the Kaiyuan era (January 16, 723). Official letter from Henan District to Fengxian Monastery: The official letter: I have been informed by sealed missive of the aforementioned imperial edict. I have been requested to take a copy and forward it to the director (of the monastery) for him to carry it out. This official letter of mine, I communicate it officially to those in the monastery for their conformation. Now, that edict is the subject of this official letter. When you receive this official letter, you will follow that edict, and it is for this reason I have sent you this official letter. Official letter written by Shi Fanzong on the twelfth day of the twelfth month of the tenth year of the Kaiyuan era (January 23, 723). Signature of the District Defender.

牒

敕旨龍花寺宜合作奉先寺 開元十年十二月五日. 河南縣 牒奉先寺: 牒被符奉 敕旨如右. 請錄白入司施行. 牒舉 者牒寺准狀者. 今以狀牒牒至准狀 故牒. 開元十年十二月十二日史樊宗牒尉 員狎

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Notes

Chapter 1: Emperor as Tathāgata 1. Wei Shou, Weishu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974) (hereafter Weishu), ch. 114, p. 3031. 2. The triad is generally considered to predate 505 because the Wang Shiping inscription of 505 is curved to fit along the outer edge of the bodhisattva’s lower scarves (see Liu Jinglong and Li Yukun, eds., Longmen shiku beike tiji huilu, 2 v. [Beijing: Zhongguo da baike quanshu chubanshe, 1998] [hereafter Tiji], no. 1852), while the Sun Daguang inscription of 506 (Tiji, no. 1856) is wedged in between the bodhisattva’s robe and the scarves. For a reproduction, see Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen ershipin: Bei Wei beike zaoxiang juzhen (Beijing: Zhongguo da baike quanshu chubanshe, 1997), pl. 7. 3. Scholars who also take this view include Ishimatsu Hinako, in “Ryūmon sekkutsu koyōdō zōzō kō,” Bukkyō geijutsu 248 (Jan. 2000): 13 – 51; and Wen Yucheng, in “Guyang dong yanjiu,” in Long­men shiku yanjiu lunwenxuan, ed. Longmen shiku yanjiusuo (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin meishu, 1993), pp. 143 – 212. Those with a different view include Katherine Tsiang (Jiang Renhe), in Jiang Renhe, “Zaoqi foxiang huoyan shiwen shenguang zhi yanbian ji Guyang dong qiyuan de yixie tanxiang” (Some thoughts on the origin of the Guyang cave and the evolution of flame patterns in early Buddhist nimbuses), in Longmen shiku yiqian wubai zhounian guoji xueshu taolunhui lunwenji, ed. Longmen shiku yanjiusuo (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1996), p. 218; and Stanley Abe, Ordinary Images (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), pp. 251 – 256. 4. Tiji, no. 1842. In my translations, brackets enclose words supplied for effaced characters and parentheses enclose words added to help the reader make sense of the meaning. Designations such as (1A) following the translations correspond to the texts, in Chinese and English, in the appendix. I am greatly indebted to the translation in Édouard Chavannes, Mission archéologique dans la Chine septentrionale, 2 v. (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1909, 1913, and 1915), v. 1, pt. 2, pp. 475 – 476, as well as that in Alexander Coburn Soper, Literary Evidence for Early Buddhist Art in China (Ascona: Artibus Asiae Publishers, 1959), pp. 135 – 136. 5. Soper, Literary Evidence, p. 138. 6. A. F. Price and Wong Mou-lam, trans., The Diamond Sutra

and the Sutra of Hui-neng (Boston: Shambhala, 1990), ch. 26, p. 47. 7. Adapted from Soper, Literary Evidence, p. 72. 8. The “problem” with worshiping the relics or an image of the Buddha, as Nancy Falk puts it, “arises precisely at this point, for, according to the teachings of much of the tradition, such a continued presence was impossible. The Buddha’s final achievement had been to remove himself totally and permanently from any involvement in the world.” See Nancy Falk, “To Gaze on Sacred Traces,” History of Religions 16, no. 4 (May 1977): 284. 9. For Robert Sharf’s translation into English, see Religions of China in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 261 – 267. 10. Soper, Literary Evidence, p. 119. 11. William R. B. Acker, Some T’ang and Pre-T’ang Texts on Chinese Painting, 2 v. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1954 – 1974), v. 1, p. 3. Earlier, Cao Pi (187 – 226) offered a moral and spiritual defense of literature: “Literature is no less noble an activity than the governing of a state; it is also a way to immortality” (Siu-kit Wong, Early Chinese Literary Criticism [Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Co., 1983], p. 21). This echoes the defense of poetry offered by the anonymous author of the preface to the Mao text of the Book of Odes: “Nothing rights what is wrong, nothing moves heaven and earth, nothing touches the gods and the spirits as much as poetry can” (ibid., p. 2). 12. Wen Yucheng, the former director of the Longmen Grottoes Research Institute, lists three records that call Guyang Grotto by the name Shikusi, or Stone Grotto Monastery (“Gu­ yang dong yanjiu,” p. 202). They are two inscriptions in Guyang Grotto itself, by General Yang Dayan and a lay society of 514 (Tiji, nos. 2023 and 2241), and chapter 5 of The Record of Monas­ teries in Luoyang. I agree the first two records refer to Guyang Grotto. As I propose in chapter 3, however, after 516, the name Shikusi referred to Empress Dowager Hu’s grotto. Thus, since The Record of Monasteries in Luoyang was written around 549, I think it does not refer to Guyang Grotto. 13. The truncated figures in the procession scene at the base of the prince’s shrine reveal that it was fitted, not very skillfully, above Lady Yuchi’s shrine. 14. Diana P. Rowan has convincingly identified this object as a small, hand-held fan in “Identifying a Bodhisattva Attribute:

Tracing the Long History of a Small Object,” Oriental Art 47 (2001), 1:31 – 36. 15. This identification is from Longmen shiku zhuangshi diaoke, ed. Li Wensheng (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, 1991), p. 68. 16. These plants are identified as pomegranates in Liu Jing­ long, Longmen ershipin: Bei Wei beike zaoxiang juzhen, no. 5 and no. 6. 17. Mizoguchi Saburo says the honeysuckle vine design is sometimes called the “palmette” pattern, which may represent the hemp palm “with its symbolic connotations of victory and triumphal glory.” See Seiroku Noma, Arts of Japan 1 (Tokyo: Weatherhill and Shibundo, 1973), p. 23. Thanks to my student Karen Mack for this reference. 18. I agree with the argument put forward in Yoshimura Rei, “Donyō gokutsu zōei shidai,” Bukkyō geijutsu 212 (1994): 26 – 29. 19. See Sun Xingyan, Huanyu fangbei lu (1802, Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguan, 1968), ch. 2, p. 24; and Wang Chang, Jin­ shi cuibian (1805, N.p.: N.p., 1921), ch. 27, p. 5a. Somewhat earlier, in the inscription to his 1797 painting of Guyang Grotto, Huang Yi read the date as 488 (see Zhongguo gudai shuhua tumu, 23 v. [Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1986 – 2000], v. 23, Jing 1 – 6030.22). 20. Gong Dazhong, Longmen shiku yishu (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1981), p. 212; Wen Yucheng, “Guyang dong yanjiu,” p. 197. 21. See the two ink rubbings said to be in the Beijing Library reproduced in Longmen ershipin (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1980), no. 3. One is an integral ink rubbing, with colophons dated to the Xianfeng era (1851 – 1862); the other is a “patchwork” edition made up of characters cut from several ink rubbings. The integral ink rubbing is also reproduced in Visible Traces: Rare Books and Special Collections from the National Library of China, edited and compiled by Philip K. Hu (New York: Queens Borough Public Library / Beijing: National Library of China, 2000), pp. 134 – 135, where the editor reads the character as nian, or “twenty.” 22. See Li Wensheng, in Longmen shiku, 2 v., ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1991 – 1992), v. 1, p. 276; Wen Yucheng, “Guyang dong yanjiu,” p. 197; Tiji, v. 1, p. 25. 23. Zhang Naizhu, “Longmen shiku Shipinggong xiangkan zao­ xiang niandai guankui,” Zhongyuan wenwu 1983.3: 91 – 93. The change in costume is generally attributed to the edict of 486 mandating Chinese official garb at court (Weishu, ch. 7 xia, p. 161). 24. Jiang, “Zaoqi foxiang huoyan shiwen shenguang zhi yanbian,” pp. 213 – 215. 25. See James O. Caswell, Written and Unwritten: A New His­ tory of the Buddhist Caves at Yungang (Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1988), p. 21, translated from Weishu, ch. 114, p. 3031. 26. Caswell believes they were intentionally carved in the 480s 182   |  n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 3 – 1 9

in an old-fashioned style to replicate the “Five Tanyao Grottoes” (Written and Unwritten, pp. 44 and 89). 27. Ibid., p. 27, after Sato Chisui, “The Character of Yün-kang Buddhism,” The Memoirs of Tōyō Bunkō 36 (1978): 39 – 83, esp. pp. 73 – 76. 28. For the first, see Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian, ed. Beijing tushuguan, 100 v. (Beijing: Zhong­ zhou guji chubanshe, 1989 – 1991), v. 3, p. 22; and, for the second, see Soper, Literary Evidence, p. 101. 29. For the former, the Zhao Shuangzhe shrine, see Wen Yu­ cheng, “Longmen beichao xiaokan de leixing, fenqi yu dongku painian,” in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, p. 212; Tiji, no. 1848. For the latter, the Gao Shu shrine, see Liu Jinglong, Longmen ershipin: Bei Wei beike zaoxiang juzhen, no. 12. 30. Jiang, “Zaoqi foxiang huoyan shiwen shenguang zhi yanbian,” p. 216. See also Katherine R. Tsiang, “Disjunctures of Time, Text, and Imagery in Reconstructions of the Guyang Cave at Longmen,” in Between Han and Tang: Religious Art and Archaeology in a Transformative Period, ed. Wu Hung (Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 2000), pp. 339 – 340. 31. For example, see Abe, Ordinary Images, pp. 125 and 135, figs. 3.15 and 3.23. 32. Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng (Chongqing: Chongqing chubanshe, 2001), pl. 17. 33. Weishu, ch. 22, pp. 587 – 589. 34. Ishimatsu, “Ryūmon sekkutsu koyōdō zōzō kō,” pp. 20 –  26. 35. Wen Yucheng catalogued several of these theories in his “Guyang dong yanjiu,” pp. 204 – 205. Ōmura Seigai proposed Yuan Xiuyi, Prince of Ruyin, as the Duke of Shiping. His grandson, Yuan Xiaoju, inherited the title of Duke of Shiping District during the Western Wei period (535 – 556), so Ōmura speculated his grandfather might have held this title, too (Shina bijutsu shi chōso hen [Tokyo: Bussho kankōkai zuzobu, 1915], p. 196). The problem with this theory is that Yuan Xiuyi was still alive at the end of the Taihe era and had not yet been made Regional Inspector of Luozhou (see Wang Chang, Jinshi cuibian, ch. 27, p. 5b). Tsukamoto Zenryū proposed Yuan Xu (449 – 507), who was Regional Inspector of Luozhou after 500 (Tsukamoto Zenryū, Shina bukkyōshi kenkyū: Hokugi hen [Tokyo: Kōbundo shobō, 1942]). This man, however, was not Duke of Shiping and lived long after 498. Nakata Yujiro suggested Jia Juan, who was Regional Inspector of Luozhou for five years before the move of the capital to Luoyang (Ryūmon zōzō daiki, ed. Nakata Yujiro [Tokyo: Chūō korōnsha, 1980]). Again, this man was still alive after 498 and did not have the title of Duke of Shiping. Gong Dazhong identified a man named Si Nixu, who had the title of Duke of Shiping (Gong Dazhong, Longmen shiku yishu, p. 213). See the epitaph of Si Nixu’s royal grandson Yuan Ning (464 – 524), in Han Wei Nanbeichao muzhi jishi, ed. Zhao Wanli

(Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1956), pl. 197. Si Nixu’s other titles are different, however, and he never was Regional Inspector of Luozhou. Jin Weinuo states that Huicheng was a cousin of Emperor Xiaowen but gives him no secular name (Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen baoguansuo [Beijing: Wenwu, 1961], p. 1). Both Katherine Tsiang and Lin Sishui have suggested that Feng Xi (d. 495) was the Duke of Shiping (Lin Sishui, Bei Wei shufa daolun [Taibei: Lin Wu Lengleng, 1972]; Jiang Renhe, “Zaoqi foxiang huoyan shiwen shenguang zhi yanbian,” p. 217; and Katherine R. Tsiang, “Changing Patterns of Divinity and Reform in the Late Northern Wei,” Art Bulletin 84 (June 2002), no. 2: 245, n. 72). Feng Xi was the elder brother of Empress Dowager Wenming (441 – 490), the regent for Emperor Xiaowen at the beginning of his reign. When the child took the throne in 471, many felt that Feng Xi’s influence as a maternal relative was too great, so he was sent south to serve as Regional Inspector of Luozhou in the 470s (Weishu, ch. 83 shang, p. 1819). Once there, he revealed a lack of talent for government and a superabundance of Buddhist piety, devoting himself to the building of Buddhist pagodas — seventy-two in all — and the copying of sūtras. Many of the monasteries and pagodas he sponsored in the area were built on high peaks, with considerable loss of life. When the monks he had gathered asked him to stop the work, he replied: “When this is complete, people will see only the pagoda. They will never know that men and oxen were killed.” Feng Xi died in 495 in the old capital. The most substantial problem with this theory is that he was never enfeoffed as Duke of Shiping. 36. Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben hui­ bian, v. 3, p. 35; also transcribed in Han Wei Nanbeichao muzhi jishi, pl. 115. 37. The Zhouli relates that these trees stood in the courtyard of the Zhou kings. Under the three acacias, the Three Dukes were positioned, and under the nine date trees to the right and left, the nobility and officials took their places. Thus “three acacias and nine date trees” is a metaphor for serving as an official at court. See Zhouli, Qiuguan, “Chaoshi,” in Shisan jing, 2 v. (Beijing: Beijing yanshan chubanshe, 1991), 1:483 – 484. 38. Zhongguo lishi ditu ji, ed. Tan Qixiang. 8 v. (Shanghai: Ditu chubanshe, 1982), v. 4, map 46 – 47 (3) 5. 39. Writing the character for Dai as fa appears to be a graphic variant at Longmen, which persisted into the Tang dynasty, as in Tiji, nos. 0670 and 0779. 40. I read zhu for “red,” instead of zhu for the Zhu River. Red wheels on a carriage indicated noble rank (see Zhongwen daci­ dian [Taibei: Zhonghua xueshuyuan, 1973], no. 14779.755). 41. Tiji, no. 2296; Chavannes, Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, pp. 479 – 481. 42. See Tsiang, “Disjunctures of Time”; and Yan Wenru and Chang Qing, Longmen shiku yanjiu, ed. Xu Ziqiang and Longmen shiku yanjiusuo (Beijing: Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 1995), p. 21.

43. According to her exhaustive research, the earliest extant Buddhist stone statuary from this area is dated to the year 500. She found two stone image steles dated to 500 as well as another dozen dated between 501 and 533, suggesting that Guyang Grotto initiated a tradition of Buddhist stone sculpture in the Luoyang area, beginning shortly after the completion of Huicheng’s shrine. See Ishimatsu Hinako, “Hokugi kanan no ikkō sanson zō,” Tōhō gakuhō 69 (1997): 247 – 286; and in Chinese, “Bei Wei Henan shidiao san zun xiang,” Zhongyuan wenwu 2000.4: 48 – 60. 44. This view is held by Wen Yucheng, Li Yukun, Long Hui, Mizuno Seiichi and Nagahiro Toshio, Yoshimura Rei, and Ishimatsu Hinako, according to Hyun-sook Jung Lee, “The Longmen Guyang Cave: Sculpture and Calligraphy of the Northern Wei (386 – 534)” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2005), p. 108. 45. Tiji, nos. 1137, 1842, and 2520. 46. Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen ershipin: Beike yu zaoxiang yishu (Beijing: China Esperanto Press, 1995), no. 1. 47. Ibid., no. 8. 48. Tiji, no. 2024; Chavannes, Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, pp. 487 – 489. 49. This is a reference to the story of the Buddha image of King Udayana, in which the arhat took artisans up to the Heaven of the Thirty-Three Gods, where Śākyamuni was preaching to his mother, to make an image of the Buddha for King Udayana, who longed for his presence. See Martha L. Carter, The Mystery of the Udayana Buddha (Naples: Istituto universitario orientale, 1990). 50. Chavannes notes that the acacia and the date tree are thorny (Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 488, n. 12). 51. Tabgatch Xun had the poor judgment to allow himself to be involved in plots against his father, who finally and reluctantly ordered his suicide in 497 (Weishu, ch. 22, pp. 587 – 589). 52. Abe, Ordinary Images, pp. 250 – 256. 53. Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kauguxi, v. 1, p. 212. 54. For the former, see Wen Yucheng, “Longmen beichao xiao­ kan de leixing, fenqi yu dongku painian,” in ibid., v. 1, p. 212; Tiji, no. 1848. For the latter, see Longmen ershipin: Bei Wei beike zaoxiang juzhen, no. 13; Tiji, no. 1846. 55. See also the drawing in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, p. 212, fig. 96. 56. The former is reproduced in Longmen ershipin: Bei Wei beike zaoxiang juzhen, fig. 167, and the latter in figs. 181 and 182. 57. Yoshimura Rei, “Nanchao tianren xiang dui Beichao yiji zhouwei zhuguo de chuanbo,” trans. Xie Jianming and Ruan Rongchun, Dongnan wenhua 1992.2:34 – 45. See also Yoshimura Rei, “Ryūmon koyōdō butsugan ni mirareru sōgon ishī no igi,” Bukkyō geijutsu 250 (May 2000): 13 – 52. 58. Nanjing bowuguan, “Jiangsu Danyang Huqiao, Jianshan liang zuo Nanchao muzang,” Wenwu 1980.2: 1 – 16. n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 9 – 2 5   |  183

59. See Audrey Spiro, Contemplating the Ancients: Aesthetic and Social Issues in Early Chinese Portraiture (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), p. 124; Audrey Spiro, “Shaping the Wind: Taste and Tradition in Fifth-Century South China,” Ars Orientalis 21 (1991): 95; and Machida Akira, “Nan Qi di ling kao,” trans. Lao Ji, Dongnan wenhua 2 (Oct. 1986): 43 – 63. I am indebted to Audrey Spiro for these references on the Southern Qi tombs. 60. See the Governor of Yizhou stele (ca. 155 C.E.) and the spirit road gates of Shen Fujun, illustrated in Ōmura, Shina bi­ jutsu shi chōso hen, pl. 178 and 180. 61. Tsiang, “Changing Patterns of Divinity and Reform,” pp. 234 – 235. 62. Alexander Soper, “South Chinese Influence on the Buddhist Art of the Six Dynasties Period,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 32 (1960): 79. 63. Tiji, no. 2023; Chavannes, Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, pp. 486 – 487. 64. The Di people lived in what is now Gansu and Sichuan provinces. Yang’s biography is in Weishu, ch. 73, pp. 1633 – 1636. 65. Wen Yucheng, in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, p. 211. See the biography of Pei Shuye, Weishu, ch. 71, p. 1565, and the biography of Yang Dayan, Weishu, ch. 73, p. 1634. 66. Weishu, ch. 71, p. 1567. 67. Wen Yucheng, “Guyang dong yanjiu,” p. 202. See Weishu, ch. 8, p. 197, and ch. 73, p. 1634. 68. Weishu, ch. 73, p. 1636. 69. Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen ershipin: Bei Wei beike zao­ xiang juzhen, no. 8. 70. Long Hui, “Xiaowendi yu Longmen shiku de kaizao,” in Longmen shiku yiqian wubai zhounian guoji xueshu taolunhui lun­wenji, ed. Longmen shiku yanjiusuo (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1996), p. 4. 71. I have yet to find this reference in that chapter. Perhaps the line in ch. 108.1 is meant: “When the Wei first dwelled in Youdu, they chiseled stone to make temples for ancestral worship northwest of the land of Wuluohou” (Weishu, ch. 108.1, p. 2738). 72. According to William Chu, “the teachings of the Buddha were often referred to as ‘traces of [the Buddha’s] footsteps or tracks’ ( pratipadā),” but I think it is clear that “teachings” would not be a correct translation here. See “Path,” in The Encyclopedia of Buddhism, ed. Robert E. Buswell, 2 v. (New York: Macmillan, 2004), v. 2, p. 635. 73. Wen Yucheng, “Guyang dong yanjiu,” p. 202; and Wen Yucheng, in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, p. 211. 74. In 480, 482, and 483; see Weishu, ch. 6, p. 130, and ch. 7, pp. 152 and 154. 75. Weishu, ch. 8, p. 198.

184   |  n o t e s t o pa g e s 2 5 – 3 3

Chapter 2: The Mechanics of a Karmic Gift of Sculpture 1. The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Socie­ ties, trans. Ian Cunnison (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1954), p. 34. 2. Laurence Sickman and Alexander Soper, The Art and Archi­ tecture of China, 3rd ed. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1968), pp. 97 and 101. 3. Ibid., pp. 98 – 99. 4. The human experience of a grotto’s program in space and time simultaneously illustrates Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of “chronotopic.” See, for example, “Aesthetic Visualizing of Time/ Space: The Chronotope,” in The Bahktin Reader, ed. Pam Morris (London: Edward Arnold, 1994), pp. 180 – 187; and Eugene Y. Wang, “Grotto-Shrine as Chronotope and the Working of Analogous Iconography: The Sixth-Century Sculptural Program in Cave 38 at Yungang in Perspective,” in Between Han and Tang: Religious Art and Archaeology in a Transformative Period, ed. Wu Hung (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2000), pp. 279 – 312. 5. The eunuch Bai Zheng was made director of the Palace Domestic Service in the latter part of the Taihe era (477 – 499). See Weishu, ch. 94, p. 2026. 6. Su Bai and James Caswell agree that contemporary evidence shows that in the late Northern Wei the name Lingyansi meant all of Yungang. See Caswell, Written and Unwritten, p. 110. 7. The eunuch Wang Zhi was made director of the Palace Domestic Service after a long career of devoted service to Emperor Xiaowen (Weishu, ch. 94, p. 2025). 8. Liu Teng’s biography is in Weishu, ch. 94, pp. 2027 – 2078. 9. Weishu, ch. 114, p. 3043. 10. One chi equated to 27.881 centimeters in the Northern Wei, as given in Yang Hongxun, “Guanyu Bei Wei Luoyang Yong­ ningsi ta fuyuan caotu de shuoming,” Wenwu 1992.9: 82. 11. For a summary of various earlier theories concerning which grottoes were sponsored by the emperor, see Alexander Soper, Literary Evidence for Early Buddhist Art in China (Ascona: Artibus Asiae, 1959), pp. 102 – 103. 12. Yang Xuanzhi, Luoyang qielan ji, in Fan Xiangyong, Luo­ yang qielan ji jiaozhu (Shanghai: Gudian wenxue chubanshe, 1958), ch. 5, p. 350. Binyang is a modern name. 13. Zhang Ruoyu, “Yique fokan zhi bei he Qianxisi, Binyang dong,” Wenwu 1980.1: 19 – 24. 14. Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, pp. 265 – 266. 15. The entry in The History of the Northern Wei is extremely terse: “On the jihai day (of the twelfth month of the first year of the Zhengshi era) (mid-January 505), (the emperor) temporarily graced Yique” (Weishu, ch. 8, p. 198). 16. Weishu, ch. 13, p. 335. 17. Weishu, ch. 8, p. 191; Weishu, ch. 83 shang, p. 1829.

18. The transition between the two reigns is thoroughly discussed in Jennifer Holmgren, “Princes and Favourites at the Court of Emperor Shih-tsung of Northern Wei, c. 500 – 510,” Journal of Oriental Studies 20, no. 2 (1982): 95 – 127. 19. Weishu, ch. 8, p. 193. 20. See W. J. F. Jenner, Memories of Loyang (493 – 534) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), p. 133; and Weishu, ch. 114, p. 3042. 21. Weishu, ch. 8, p. 209. 22. On Xuanwu and Ratnamati, see Tang Yongtong, Sui Tang fojiao shigao (Taibei: Foguang, 2001), p. 230. 23. Weishu, ch. 90, p. 1931, and ch. 114, p. 3040. 24. Fan Xiangyong, Loyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 3, p. 145. See also Jenner, Memories of Luoyang, p. 212. 25. Fan Xiangyong, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 3, p. 132; Jenner, Memories of Loyang, p. 207; A Record of Buddhist Mon­ asteries in Lo-yang, by Yang Hsüan-chih, translated by Yi-t’ung Wang (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 124. 26. Fan Xiangyong, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 1, p. 46; Jenner, Memories of Loyang, p. 166; A Record of Buddhist Monaster­ ies in Lo-yang, p. 46. 27. These are identified by the Chinese archeologists as Indra and Brahmā but without any iconographic substantiation (Long­ men shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, p. 265). My thanks go to David Efurd of Ohio State University for discussing this issue with me. 28. Wen Yucheng suggests these four figures may represent the four sons of Emperor Xiaowen (Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng, p. 8), based on the Singapore scholar Gu Zhengmei’s proposed identification of the six worshipers below the south wall window in Cave 8 at Yungang as the six sons of Emperor Xianwen (Gu Zhengmei, Guishuang fojiao zhengzhi chuantong yu dacheng fojiao [Taibei: Yunchen wenhua, 1993], ch. 8). The four Binyang figures have haloes, however, which signify divinity, not royalty, but the more usual identification as bodhisattva figures should perhaps be amended to figures of Brahmā with a bodhisattva, according to Lena Kim (personal communication, June 28, 2004). See Lena Kim, “Guanyu 6 shiji Zhongguo qi zun xiang zhong de luoji xiang zhi yanjiu,” trans. Hong Qilong, Dunhuang yanjiu 1998.2: 72 – 79 (originally published in Bukkyō geijutsu 219 [March 1995]: 40 – 55); and Xiang­ tangshan shiku: Liushi haiwai shike zaoxiang yanjiu, ed. Zhang Lintang and Sun Di (Beijing: Waiwen chubanshe, 2004), p. 50. 29. Wen Yucheng thinks Binyang South and Binyang Central were done in imitation of Caves 7 and 8, based on the similarity of their depiction of Vedic deities and guardian figures on the exterior and the general structure and iconographic program on the interior (Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, p. 8). Following Harrie Vanderstappen’s view that Caves 7 and 8 could have been constructed as early as the 430s, I believe Cao Yan’s (1147) statement about Yungang, “Hence, the Tongle Tem-

ple was begun under Emperor Mingyuan, Emperor Wencheng followed him by establishing the Lingyan and Huguo temples, while Tiangong temple was built under Xiaowen and Chongfu temple was completed by (the eunuch official) Qianer,” indicates that Caves 7 and 8 were sponsored by Emperor Mingyuan, Caves 16 – 20 were sponsored by Emperor Wencheng, and Caves 5 and 6 were donated by Emperor Xiaowen, while Caves 9 and 10 were commissioned by the eunuch official Qianer Qingshi. See Victor Mair, “Review of Written and Unwritten: A New History of the Buddhist Caves at Yungang,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 52 (June 1992): 345 – 361; and Harrie A. Vanderstappen, “Review of Written and Unwritten: A New History of the Buddhist Caves at Yungang,” Ars Orientalis 19 (1989): 125 – 127. This is a complex issue that I will treat more fully elsewhere. 30. As identified by Wen Yucheng in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, p. 215. 31. According to the Longmen Grottoes Research Academy, the head of the east bodhisattva from the south wall is now in the Osaka City Museum, while the head of the west bodhisattva from the south wall is in the Tokyo National Museum. See Longmen liusan diaoxiang ji / Lost Statues of Longmen Cave, ed. Longmen shiku yanjiusuo (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, 1993), pp. 32 and 36. The Osaka head and other sculptures from Longmen and other Chinese cave-shrine sites were exhibited at the Osaka City Museum in 1995. See Liu Xiaolu, “Dong­ying yizhu: Zhuangyan de qidao,” Shoucangjia 32 (1998), no. 6: 34 – 36. See also the catalogue of the exhibition of sculptures from Longmen Grottoes and the Fengxian Monastery site at the Miho Museum: Miho Museum, Ryūmon sekkutsu / Longmen Caves (Shigaken: Miho Museum, 2001). My thanks go to my colleague Sherry Fowler for kindly informing me about this exhibition. 32. This mudrā is also seen on the seated Buddha dated to 483 of the Southern Qi era unearthed in Chengdu, Sichuan, reproduced in Matsubara Saburō, Chūgoku bukkyō chokoku shiron (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1995), v. 1, pl. 68a. 33. Da ji yi shen zhou jing, in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō (Tokyo: Taishō issaikyō kankōkai, 1924 – 1932), v. 21, no. 1335, p. 568a. 34. Many scholars consider the core group to be Caves 18, 19, and 20, which were likely finished during the years between 460 and Emperor Xianwen’s visit in 467. See Yoshimura Rei, “Donyō gokutsu zōei shidai.” 35. Liu Huida, “Bei Wei shiku zhong de ‘san fo,’ ” Kaogu xue­ bao 1958.4: 91 – 101. It should be noted, however, that the Buddhas of the Three Periods had already been the subject of royal study in the early fifth century, and images representing them had already been produced in Grotto 169 at Binglingsi before 420. See Wen Yucheng, “Zhongguo zaoqi shikusi yanjiu de jidian sikao,” Dunhuang yanjiu 2000.2: 54 – 55. 36. Tanluan, “Lüe lun Anle Jingtu yi,” Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 47, no. 1957, p. 3a.

n o t e s t o pa g e s 3 3 – 3 8   |  185

37. Jinguangming jing, ch. 2, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 16, no. 663, p. 342a. 38. To speculate on a relationship between the two stories and the two imperial processions, perhaps the story featuring the self-sacrifice of a young man matched better with the male procession in the Northern Wei mind, while the one that culminated in Mandi pleading with Indra for her children would go best with the empress procession. Further, the story begins with the giving away of a white elephant, which viewers might associate with the white elephant entering the womb of Queen Māyā at the Buddha’s conception, even though it is not depicted here. 39. Emmy C. Bunker, “The Spirit Kings in Sixth Century Chinese Buddhist Sculpture,” Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America 18 (1964): 26 – 37. 40. In Laura Heyrman’s view, the spirit kings represent “the gods of the earth, the gods of the desire-world, and the gods of the material world” who were attracted to the house of Vimalakīrti (“The Meeting of Vimalakīrti and Mañjuśrī: Chinese Innovation in Buddhist Iconography” [Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1994], p. 194). Extending this interpretation, we could see the spirit kings and the Vimalakīrti panels as the lower and upper parts of a single composition and so read the east wall reliefs as the Vimalakīrti story framing the jātaka stories and the imperial processions. Such an interpretation would agree more with Judy Ho’s conclusion that the east wall reliefs as a whole were designed to illustrate the compassion of the bodhisattva and the bodhisattva ideal taught by Mahāyāna scriptures (Judy Chungwa Ho, “Tunhuang Cave 249: A Representation of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa” [Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1985], pp. 160 – 162). 41. According to Jin Shen, “Guanyu shenwang de tantao,” Dunhuang xue jikan 1995.1: 55 – 62, and Zhao Xiurong, “Bei Chao shiku zhong de shenwang xiang,” Dunhuang xue jikan 1995.1: 63 – 71, although Yin Guangming relates them to fifth-century miniature stūpas in “Shilun Bei Liang shi ta jizuo xiang yu shenwang,” Dunhuang yanjiu 1996.4: 8 – 21. 42. See Susan Bush, “Thunder Monsters, Auspicious Animals, and Floral Ornament in Early Sixth Century China,” Ars Orientalis 10 (1975): 19 – 33; and Susan Bush, “Thunder Monsters and Wind Spirits in Early Sixth Century China and the Epitaph Tablet of Lady Yüan,” Boston Museum Bulletin 72, no. 367 (1974): 25 – 54. 43. Shi Anchang, “Bei Wei Gou Jing muzhi ji wenshi kao,” Gugong bowuyuan yuankan 1998.2: 21 – 29; and Shi Anchang, “Bei Wei Feng Yong qi Yuan shi muzhi wenshi kao,” Gugong bo­ wuyuan yuankan 1997.2: 73 – 85. 44. Chang Qing proposes individual Buddhist scriptural sources for each spirit king. He equates them with the Eight Classes of Divinities (tianlong babu) in protective function and suggests an Eastern Jin influence, owing to the similarity between spirit kings and thunder monsters. See Chang Qing, “Beichao 186   |  n o t e s t o pa g e s 3 8 – 4 4

shiku shenwang diaoke shulüe,” Kaogu 1994.12: 1127 – 1141. In my opinion, these figures cannot be explained piecemeal from scripture because they are always portrayed in a set. 45. Chinese reports include Chu Shibing, “Gansu Jingyuan xin chu Dong Luoma liujin yin pan lüekao,” Wenwu 1990.5: 1 – 9; and Lin Meicun, “Zhongguo jingnei chutu daimingwen de Posi he Zhong Ya yinqi,” Wenwu 1997.9: 55 – 65. See also Nicholas Sims-Williams, as quoted in catalogue entry no. 115 by Judith A. Lerner in Annette L. Juliano and Judith A. Lerner, Monks and Merchants: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China (New York: Asia Society, 2001), pp. 321 – 322. The piece was also exhibited in “China: Dawn of a Golden Age” at the Metropolitan Museum, New York. 46. Laurence Sickman, “Mid-Western Perspective: Gallery Director Recalls Art Rescue — the True Story Refutes Chinese Propaganda,” Kansas City Star, Jan. 29, 1967. I am very grateful to Marilyn Gridley for kindly bringing this article to my attention and providing me with a copy. 47. Warren I. Cohen, East Asian Art and American Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), pp. 117 – 118. 48. The contract is reproduced in Gong Dazhong, Longmen shiku yishu, pp. 100 – 101. 49. Cohen, East Asian Art and American Culture, p. 119. 50. Gong Dazhong, Longmen shiku yishu, p. 101, n. 2. 51. The best reproduction of this section is Guan Baiyi, Yique shike tubiao (Kaifeng: Henan shengli bowuguan, 1935), pl. 13. 52. Gong Dazhong, Longmen shiku yishu, pp. 100 – 101. 53. Alexander Soper, “Imperial Cave-Chapels of the Northern Dynasties: Donors, Beneficiaries, Dates,” Artibus Asiae 28 (1966), no. 4: 248. 54. Longmen ershipin: Bei Wei beike zaoxiang juzhen, ed. Liu Jinglong, no. 17. 55. Lady Gao was one of three daughters of Gao Yang. They and his sons Gao Yan (d. 486) and Gao Zhao (d. 515) were all born in Korea. See Weishu, ch. 13, p. 335. 56. For the former, see E. B. Cowell, ed., The Jātaka, or Sto­ ries of the Buddha’s Former Births, 6 v. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1895 – 1907). The Viśvantara jātaka is no. 547, v. 6, pp. 246 – 305. The Mahāsattva jātaka is not found in the Pāli canon. For the Jātakamālā versions, see Once the Buddha Was a Monkey: Ārya Śūra’s Jātakamālā, trans. Peter Khoroche (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), where they are called “the Tigress” and “Viśvamtara.” 57. Taizi Xudana jing, in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 3, no. 171, pp. 418 – 424. According to Mizuno Seiichi and Nagahiro Toshio, the story is also in Liudu ji jing, ch. 2, and Pusa benyuan jing, ch. shang (Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, 3 v. [Tokyo: Zauhō kankōkai, 1941], v. 1, p. 21). 58. Mizuno and Nagahiro list them in Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 1, p. 24, n. 34. This version is from chapter 4 (“Sacrificing Oneself”) of the Sūtra of Golden Light, translated by Dhar-

maksema (385 – 433) (Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 16, no. 663, pp. 354 – 345). 59. One possible source for this iconography is the Persian rulers wearing crescent-moon crowns depicted on contemporary Sassanian (224 – 651) coins used along the Silk Road. Silver coins depicting the Sassanian kings Bahram V (r. 420 – 438), Peroz (r. 457 – 484), and Kavad I (r. 488 – 496, 499 – 531) are illustrated in Roman Ghirshman, Persian Art: The Parthian and Sassanian Dynasties, 249 B.C. – A.D. 651, trans. Stuart Gilbert and James Emmons (New York: Golden Press, 1962), figs. 317 – 319. Discovered in the foundation deposits of the pagoda at Dingxian were coins of the reign of Yazdgard I (r. 438 – 457) and Peroz (Michael Alram, “Coins and the Silk Road,” in Juliano and Lerner, Monks and Merchants, pp. 274 – 275). Another source has been suggested by Liu Yongzeng as in the depiction of royal figures in earlier jātaka illustrations, such as in the Deer Jātaka painted in the Northern Wei Cave 257 at Dunhuang (personal communication, Dunhuang Research Academy, July 14, 2004. See his “Cave 158 at Mogao and the Funeral Customs of Sogdians,” Dunhuang yanjiu 2004.2). 60. Taizi Xudana jing, in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 3, no. 171, p. 421. 61. Mizuno and Nagahiro, Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 1, p. 21. 62. Fan Xiangyong, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 5, p. 298. 63. Ibid., p. 300; see A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Loyang, pp. 232 – 234. 64. The panel depicting Mañjuśrī is basically whole (see Long­ men shiku diaoke, ed. Su Bai, Wen Yucheng, and Li Wensheng, Zhongguo meishu quanji, diaosu pian, 11 [Shanghai: Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, 1988], pl. 45), except for the loss of the heads and the figure of the monk Śāriputra, but the figure of Vimalakīrti has been stolen entirely. Formerly in a private collection in New York, it is now in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. For a reproduction, see Chang Qing, “Search and Research: The Provenance of Longmen Images in the Freer Collection,” Orientations 34, no. 5 (May 2003): fig. 12. 65. See the reproduction in Zhang Naizhu, Longmen fojiao zaoxiang, v. 6 of Fojiao meishu quanji (Taibei: Yishujia chubanshe, 1998), p. 67. 66. The goddess switched her female form with his male form and back again, in order to illustrate the doctrine of nonduality. See Burton Watson, trans., The Vimalakirti Sutra (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), pp. 86 – 91. 67. See Audrey Spiro, “Hybrid Vigor: Memory, Mimesis, and the Matching of Meanings in Fifth-Century Buddhist Art,” in Culture and Power in the Reconstitution of the Chinese Realm, 200 – 600, ed. Scott Pearce, Audrey Spiro, and Patricia Ebrey (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001), pp. 125 – 148. 68. See Robert Sharf, “Chinese Buddhism and the Cosmology

of Sympathetic Response,” in his Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002), pp. 77 – 133. 69. An example of this belief was stated by the fifth-century writer Wang Yan, who said, “In the West there are two images, a Śākyamuni and a Maitreya, that are as gloriously efficacious as if they were real; the reason being that they possess the proper body attributes” (Soper, Literary Evidence, p. 270). 70. A Northern Wei example is General Yang Dayan’s inscription in Guyang Grotto; a Tang example is the “Stele for the Yique Buddha Shrine” (Tiji, nos. 2023 and 0074). 71. The fact that there are no intrusive shrines in Binyang Central dated to the Northern Wei suggests it was off-limits to unofficial visitors. By contrast, Guyang Grotto was probably open to all, as is implied by the statement made for the shrine sponsored there by the nuns Fawen and Falong: “We pray it may cause all who pass by and see it to be saturated with the moisture of the Dharma rain and all who offer worship to it to share in unsurpassed joy” (Mizuno and Nagahiro, Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 2, no. 606). 72. This suggests the ruin of the gift caused by the removal of the imperial processions from the grotto. If the figures of the emperor and empress are separated from the Buddhas by thousands of miles, can the merit generated in the grotto still be transferred to them? This is not to mention the violence to the relief carvings themselves, which were shattered by their removal from the walls, and the destruction of the grotto’s program and content. 73. John S. Strong, “Merit: Buddhist Concepts,” in Encyclope­ dia of Religion, Mircea Eliade, editor in chief, 16 v. (New York: Macmillan, 1987), v. 9, p. 383. 74. Mauss, The Gift, p. 10. 75. Ilana Silber, “Modern Philanthropy: Reassessing the Viability of a Maussian Perspective,” in Marcel Mauss: A Cente­ nary Tribute, ed. Wendy James and N. J. Allen (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1998), p. 138. 76. See John S. Strong, “Rich Man, Poor Man, Bhikkhu, King: Quinquennial Festival and the Nature of Dāna,” in Ethics, Wealth, and Salvation: A Study in Buddhist Social Ethics, ed. Russell F. Sizemore and Donald K. Swearer (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1990), pp. 107 and 111; and Reiko Ohnuma, “Gift,” in Critical Terms for the Study of Bud­ dhism, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), pp. 115 – 116.

Chapter 3: The Rhetoric of Expenditure 1. Yang Xuanzhi, Luoyang qielan ji, in Fan Xiangyong, Luo­ yang qielan ji jiaozhu, preface, p. 1. For the sake of brevity, this translation is adapted from A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang, translated by Yi-t’ung Wang, p. 5, and Jacques Gern o t e s t o pa g e s 4 4 – 5 1   |  187

net, Buddhism in Chinese Society: An Economic History from the Fifth to the Tenth Centuries (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), p. 232; however, it should be noted that the last line actually reads: “People competed in replicating the appearance (of the Buddha) in the sky and contended in copying the shadow (of the Buddha) in the (cave in the) mountains (of Nagarahāra).” Yang refers to two famous Indian images of Śākyamuni: it was believed that Buddha sent Rāhula to manifest his appearance in the sky to convert the king of Khotan (see Fan, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 5, p. 271; A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Loyang, p. 221), and the shadow of the Buddha remained in the stone in a cave at Nagarahāra after he had vanquished a Nāga king (see Fan, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 5, p. 341; A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang, p. 244; Soper, Literary Evi­ dence, pp. 265 – 268). 2. Copying sūtras was one activity literate believers could do themselves, without having to pay an artisan. Thanks to the illiterate majority, however, there was a brisk trade in sūtra copying in small shops and homes in the neighborhoods around Buddhist monasteries, certainly by the Tang dynasty and perhaps earlier, as suggested by the many Wei period sūtras found in the sealed Cave 17 at Dunhuang. For example, see the reproductions of Wei scrolls in Dunhuang yishu shufa xuan (Lanzhou: Gansu renmin chubanshe, 1985), pp. 11 – 46. See Wang Yuanjun, “Tang Sūtra Scribes and Sūtra Calligraphy,” in Tangren shufa yu wen­ hua (Taibei: Dongda tushu gongsi, 1995), pp. 127 – 147. 3. The inscription is recorded in Tiji, no. 1741. 4. See Martin J. Powers, “Social Incentives for the Consumption of Funerary Art,” in Art and Political Expression in Early China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), pp. 136 – 141. 5. A good example is the 147 C.E. inscription on the west gate-pillar at the Wu Family shrines, in which “the filial son Wu Shigong and his younger brothers” announced the cost of the pillars as “150,000 cash.” See Recarving China’s Past, ed. Cary Y. Liu, Michael Nylan, and Anthony Barbieri-Low (Princeton: The Art Museum, 2005), no. 1.43 on p. 187. 6. In accord with the Longmen Grottoes Research Academy’s scale: large grottoes are those that measure over 350 centimeters in any one direction, small grottoes measure over one meter in any direction, and small shrines are smaller than one meter. See Longmen shiku diaoke, p. 19. 7. Tiji, no. 2024. 8. In Guyang Grotto, dated 520 (Tiji, no. 2322). See the translation by Édouard Chavannes in Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, pp. 504 – 505. 9. Tiji, no. 1165, dated 533. 10. Tiji, no. 1741, dated 575. 11. Adapted from Gernet, Buddhism in Chinese Society, p. 234, quoting Weishu, ch. 114, p. 3038. 12. Gernet, Buddhism in Chinese Society, pp. 271 and 276. 13. Kyoko Tokuno, “The Book of Resolving Doubts Concern188   |  n o t e s t o pa g e s 5 1 – 5 5

ing the Semblance Dharma,” in Buddhism in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 262. 14. In Guyang Grotto, dated 519 (Tiji, no. 2316). 15. Figure 202, identified as “Sculptured wall niche, Cave 13” (Sherman Lee, A History of Far Eastern Art, 5th ed. [New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994]). 16. Ibid., p. 159. 17. See the western half of the north wall in Liu Jinglong, ed., Lianhua dong: Longmen shiku di 712 ku / Lotus Cave: Cave 712 of Longmen Grottoes (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 2002), pl. 33, an ink rubbing on p. 126, and the chart on p. 178, where Song Jingfei’s shrine is labeled as 54. 18. The inscription literally reads “jian Mi shi le,” which I take to be a garbled version of “jian Mile chushi,” or “to see Maitreya manifest in the world,” that is, to be reborn when Maitreya bo­ dhisattva comes to earth to become the next Buddha and preach to three great assemblies. See Foxue dacidian, ed. Ding Fubao (1922, rpt. Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1991), p. 2764b. 19. Tiji, no. 1137. 20. An epitaph dated to 533 records the brief life of a married woman named Song Lingfei (513 – 533), who held the title of Lady of Guangping Commandery and was the eldest daughter of Song Wei (Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian, v. 5, pp. 177 – 178). Lingfei’s epitaph tells how she lost her father and mother at an early age, after which she took care of her younger sisters and then died, in Luoyang, at the age of twenty. I suspect that Song Jingfei was a younger sister of Song Lingfei by virtue of their rhyming names, their residence in Luoyang, the premature death of their parents, and their apparent wealth. For earlier plotting against Yuan Yi, Prince of Qinghe, Song Wei was “granted suicide” in 525, just two years before Song Jingfei’s inscription for her parents. In 527, the elder sister Lingfei would have been fourteen years old. 21. To cite a typical example, Empress Dowager Wenzhao was thirteen when she entered the palace women’s quarters as a concubine (see Weishu, ch. 13, p. 335). 22. The shrine, designated N16 on the north wall, is twentythree centimeters high, sixteen centimeters wide, and three centimeters deep. See Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, eds., Longmen shiku zonglu, 12 v. (Beijing: Zhongguo da baike quanshu chubanshe, 1999), v. 8, p. 68. 23. Zhu Zhunian sponsored this shrine N16 on the north wall, another similar one on the south wall (S28, in Liu and Yang, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 8, p. 74), and possibly a third, since the text of Tiji, no. 1715, is very similar to her two known dedications (Tiji, nos. 1679 and 1714) but is missing the patron’s name. The translation here is a combination of the texts of Tiji, no. 1679, which dedicates her shrine on the north wall, and no. 1714, which dedicates her shrine on the south wall. 24. See Cao Erqin, “Tang Chang’an de shangren yu shangye,”

in Tangshi luncong, ed. Shi Nianhai (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1987), v. 2, p. 128. 25. Tiji, no. 1840. 26. Tiji, v. 1, p. 60. 27. The two Northern Wei histories that mention Longmen, The History of the Northern Wei and The Record of Monasteries in Luoyang, both refer only to “Stone Grotto Monastery” and “Lingyan Monastery,” which we know were not regular monasteries but simply Guyang Grotto and Binyang Central Grotto, respectively. Although later records of repair for monasteries at Longmen state there were eight Northern Wei monasteries in the eastern hills at Longmen, there is no corroborating evidence in the Northern Wei inscriptions at Longmen (Tiji, v. 1, p. 81). The Longmen monastery names in the Longmen inscriptions are all from the Tang (see Tiji, v. 1, p. 38 and pp. 80 – 85). 28. Li Changshou’s story is told in the biography of his son, Li Yansun, in Linghu Defen, Zhoushu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), ch. 43, p. 773. 29. Within an undecorated arched niche, sixty-six centimeters high, a seated Buddha figure is flanked by disciples and bodhisattvas, under which are a group of three female worshipers with three female servants on the left side facing three male worshipers on the right (reproduced in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, pl. 100; and Liu and Yang, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 8, pl. 421). 30. Tiji, no. 1712. 31. Gong Dazhong found the title “director” in the description of the official roles for empresses and other women that opens the biographies of the empresses in Weishu, ch. 13, p. 321. See Gong Dazhong, Longmen shiku yishu, p. 152. 32. Tiji, no. 1855. 33. See Gregory Schopen, “What’s in a Name: The Religious Function of the Early Donative Inscriptions,” in Buddhist Monks and Business Matters (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004), pp. 382 – 394. 34. Mizuno and Nagahiro, Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 2, no. 606. 35. An old ink rubbing shows three figures of nuns to the left of the inscription and one to the right (Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian, v. 3, p. 125); the stolen figure and inscription are now in a private collection, according to Ishimatsu, “Ryūmon sekkutsu koyōdō zōzō kō,” fig. 41. 36. Tiji, no. 1850. Yuan Xiang’s Maitreya shrine is immediately above Lady Yuchi’s on the north wall of Guyang Grotto. 37. See Liu and Yang, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 9, p. 120, designated S205; Tiji, no. 2305. 38. Reading chongkuang for chongri because the character ri is positioned as if it were a left-hand radical, while the remainder of the character was never carved. 39. I use the transcription in Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen er­ shipin: Beike yu zaoxiang yishu, no. 20, in preference to Tiji, no.

934, and Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen ershipin: Bei Wei beike zao­ xiang juzhen, no. 20. See the translation by Chavannes in Mis­ sion archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 504. Chavannes translated kan gong ba wan as “le travail de sculpture (a couté) 80,000 (pieces de monnaie).” Much as I would like to agree, I see two problems. First, that would mean Cixiang’s small grotto cost one-tenth of the three huge Binyang grottoes, which seems too expensive. Second, the term ba wan, “eighty thousand,” is used in other Longmen inscriptions as an abbreviated term for “eighty-four thousand” (e.g., the Sishun Ward inscription of 648, Tiji, 0077). Eighty-four thousand is an Indian notion signifying the total number of units in a body, such as the eighty-four thousand atoms in a human being, so I must regretfully conclude that by “eighty thousand” Cixiang meant “eighty-four thousand years,” that is, forever. See the examples from the Huayan jing quoted in Foxue dacidian, v. 1, p. 141 xia. 40. The notion of the “five obstacles” is expressed in a number of other scriptures as well. See Shi Yongming, Fojiao de nüxing­ guan (Gaoxiong: Foguang, 1990), p. 93 and n. 2. See also Masatoshi Ueki, Gender Equality in Buddhism (New York: Peter Lang, 2001), ch. 6, “The ‘Three Types of Obedience’ and the ‘Five Obstacles’ for Women.” 41. Translation adapted from Burton Watson, The Lotus Sutra (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 188, with reference to Luis O. Gómez, The Land of Bliss: The Paradise of the Buddha of Measureless Light (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1996), p. 79. 42. For an example in Buddhist thought, see Foshuo Yuye nü jing, in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 2, no. 412, p. 864a, where the Buddha says the law of womankind is that she has three obstacles to attaining enlightenment as herself. These are that when she is small, her parents are the obstacle; when she is married, her husband and lord is the obstacle; and when she is old, her sons are the obstacle. For the Confucian statement that “an unmarried woman obeys her father, a married woman obeys her husband, and a widow obeys her son,” see Yili, Sangfu, ch. 11, in Shisan jing 1:611. 43. Watson, Vimalakirti Sutra, p. 92. 44. Ueki, Gender Equality in Buddhism, p. 73. The best-known case of a bodhisattva assuming a certain form appropriate for “the needs and capacities of those who call on him” is that of Guanyin in the Lotus Sūtra, who assumes no less than seven different feminine forms to help female believers. See Robert Ford Campany, “The Earliest Tales of the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin,” in Religions of China in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Prince­ ton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 83. 45. What remains of the inscription, Tiji, no. 2371, reads: “In the . . . year . . . Cixiang [Huizheng] had made a Maitreya image . . . for the emperor [and empress dowager?]. I pray that . . . world . . . parents . . . Buddha . . . all sentient beings . . . share this . . . [blessing] . . .” Her shrine is designated S70 n o t e s t o pa g e s 5 5 – 5 9   |  189

in Liu and Yang, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 9, p. 93 and pl. 58. At eighty-seven centimeters high, it is large and detailed, containing a cross-ankled Maitreya on a lion throne, flanked by two disciples and two bodhisattvas, and an inscription, flanked by five worshiper figures. 46. Weishu, ch. 113, p. 3043, literally says “the expenditure for this work of merit was 802,366” but gives no unit of what was spent. Alexander Soper supplied “work-days,” but Jacques Gernet had “cash” (Soper, Literary Evidence, p. 102; Gernet, Buddhism in Chinese Society, p. 15, n. 76). I agree with Caswell’s argument that since the Zhengshi Monastery record (see below) indicates cash, the figure in the record of the Binyang trio should also be for cash (Caswell, Written and Unwritten, p. 190, n. 7). 47. See Weishu, ch. 110, pp. 2852 and 2866. 48. My estimate may be conservative compared to late-Han practices. For example, in the year 158, a man named An Guo paid 27,000 cash for a carved stone funerary shrine, and a family in Qufu paid 50,000 cash for an engraved stone tomb, at a time when salaries of officials ranged from 1,300 to 6,000 per month. See Powers, Art and Political Expression in Early China, p. 134. 49. I derive this from Jenner’s estimate of their tax burden. See Jenner, Memories of Loyang, p. 122. 50. Fan Xiangyong, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 2, p. 99; adapted from Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang, pp. 90 – 91. 51. Gustavo Benavides, “Economy,” in Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 89. 52. See his biography in Weishu, ch. 67, p. 1499. 53. See his biography in ibid., ch. 66, p. 1473. 54. Yang Xuanzhi stated he only recorded the largest monasteries in Luoyang (Fan Xiangyong, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, preface, p. 2; Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang, p. 7). 55. Empress Dowager Hu’s biography is in Weishu, ch. 13, pp. 337 – 340. See the translation in Jennifer Holmgren, “Empress Dowager Ling of the Northern Wei and the T’o-pa Sinicization Question,” Papers on Far Eastern History 18 (1978): 160 – 170. 56. See the biography of Hu Fanghui in Weishu, ch. 52, p. 1149. 57. See the biography of Hu Guozhen in ibid., ch. 83 xia, p. 1833. 58. Weishu, ch. 13, p. 337; Holmgren, “Empress Dowager Ling,” pp. 160 and 163. 59. Weishu, ch. 108, pt. 4, p. 2806. 60. Jenner, Memories of Loyang, p. 66; Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1956), ch. 148, p. 4614. 61. Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 148, p. 4618. 62. Weishu, ch. 83 xia, p. 1833. 63. See the biography of Hu Guozhen in Li Yanshou, Beishi (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1936), ch. 80, p. 13a. 64. Weishu, ch. 83 xia, p. 1836. 190   |  n o t e s t o pa g e s 5 9 – 6 4

65. Ibid., ch. 114, p. 3042. 66. See ibid., ch. 114, pp. 3037 and 3039, for descriptions of the imperial activities at the Yongningsi in Pingcheng. 67. Fan Xiangyong, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 1, pp. 1 – 2; translation adapted from Jenner, Memories of Loyang, p. 148, and Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang, pp. 15 – 16. 68. Yang Hongxun, “Guanyu Bei Wei Luoyang Yongningsi ta fuyuan caotu de shuoming.” Yang Hongxun’s reconstruction drawing is also reproduced in Robert L. Thorp and Richard Vinograd, Chinese Art and Culture (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001), fig. 5-13. See also Su Bai, “Luoyang diqu Beichao shiku de chubu kaocha,” in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, pp. 236 – 239. 69. Weishu, ch. 91, p. 1972. 70. See Qian Guoxiang, “The Remaining Site and Artifacts of the Northern Wei Luoyang Period Yongningsi Temple,” in Miho Museum, Ryūmon sekkutsu, pp. 150 – 154. 71. Fan Xiangyong, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 1, p. 5; adapted from Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang, p. 20. 72. Fan Xiangyong, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 1, p. 46; adapted from Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang, p. 48. “Immortals palms” refers to the dishes for collecting dew held in the hands of statues of immortals. 73. Fan Xiangyong, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 2, p. 94; Rec­ord of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang, pp. 83 – 85. On these invented titles being considered presumptuous, see Weishu, ch. 94, p. 2027. 74. Fan Xiangyong, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 3, p. 140; Jenner, Memories of Loyang, p. 210; Record of Buddhist Monas­ teries in Lo-yang, p. 132. 75. Weishu, ch. 110, p. 2858. 76. Weishu, ch. 13, p. 338; translation adapted from Holmgren, “Empress Dowager Ling,” p. 165. 77. Holmgren, “Empress Dowager Ling,” p. 133 and n. 11; Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 149, pp. 4645 – 4646. 78. Weishu, ch. 9, p. 225. 79. Soper, “Imperial Cave-Chapels of the Northern Dynasties,” p. 247. 80. Ibid., p. 248. 81. Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 148, pp. 4628 – 4629. 82. The irony of Li Chong complaining about the expenditure of money for Buddhist projects is too much to let pass without comment. This is the same man who not only gave 200,000 cash for the Zhengshi Monastery but, through greed, injured himself in the silk giveaway ordered by the empress dowager at the eastern storehouse. Both he and Cui Guang never missed an opportunity to lecture on Confucian morality to the empress dowager, no doubt as a way to control this woman to whom they had given so much power. The record suggests she never heeded any of their memorials. 83. For the former view, see Li Wensheng, in Longmen shiku,

ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, p. 277; for the latter, see Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng, p. 15. Su Bai offered the perhaps contradictory observations that the carving on the back wall of the grotto was deliberately destroyed before the north and south walls could be finished, sometime before 522 (“Luoyang diqu Beichao shiku de chubu kaocha,” in Longmen shiku, v. 1, p. 227), but also that the intrusive shrine by Hu Zhi was shattered under the Western Wei dynasty when they took control of the Luoyang area from 538 to 543 (p. 229 and n. 21). 84. The inscriptions are recorded in Tiji, nos. 2591 – 2611. An ink rubbing of the figures and inscriptions is in Tiji, v. 2, p. 565, and the sculpture is reproduced in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, pl. 182. 85. Su Bai seems to hint at such an attribution: “The largest nearly-oval large-scale rectangular grotto at Longmen — Huoshao  — was likely begun at the start of Emperor Xiaoming’s reign. The Annals of Emperor Suzong in The History of the Northern Wei record that in the fourth month of the second year of the Xiping era (517 C.E.), on ‘the yimao day, the Empress Dowager graced the Stone Grotto Monastery at Yique and the same day returned to the Palace.’ It is possible it could have appeared under these conditions.” See “Luoyang diqu Beichao shiku de chubu kaocha,” in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue ka0guxi, v. 1, p. 227. 86. This description of the grotto is taken from Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kao­ guxi, v. 1, pp. 277 – 278. 87. Longmen shiku diaoke, ed. Su Bai, Wen Yucheng, and Li Wensheng, text p. 14 and catalogue p. 19 and pl. 57. For detailed photographs, see Wen Yucheng, “Longmen shiku zaoxiang de xin faxian,” Wenwu 1988, no. 4: 21 – 26, figs. 2 and 3; and Liu Jing­ long and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 10, pl. 244 and 246. 88. A good example, dated to 174, in the Freer Gallery is illustrated in Lee, A History of Far Eastern Art, pl. 92. 89. Those now in the Kaifeng Municipal Museum and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts are reproduced in Eugene Y. Wang, “Coffins and Confucianism: The Northern Wei Sarcophagus in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts,” Orientations 30, no. 6 (June 1999): 56 – 64, figs. 4a – b and 5. 90. Weishu, ch. 83 xia, pp. 1833 – 1834. 91. Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 149, pp. 4657 – 4658. 92. Tiji, nos. 2578, 2582, 2583, 2584, 2613, 2614, and 2615. 93. One was added in 532 (Tiji, no. 2616). 94. The Tiji transcription, no. 2580, does not account for all the illegible characters at the top of the ink rubbing shown; each full column should contain seven characters, not six. The shrine is designated W16 in Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 10, p. 40. Now ruined, it is 114 centimeters high, 80 centimeters wide, and 6 centimeters deep and contained a

seated Buddha, flanked by disciples, bodhisattvas, and guardians. The ceiling bears relief carvings of sixteen seated Buddhas, Mañjuśrī, disciples, and stories of the Buddha’s life. The inscription is below the shrine. 95. Weishu, ch. 12, p. 304. Tsukamoto Zenryū believed that Jingsun and Zhonghua were Shanjian’s younger brothers (Mi­ zuno and Nagahiro, Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 1, p. 172). 96. Weishu, ch. 12, p. 297. 97. Compare it to Putai Grotto and Weizi Grotto, contemporaneous grottoes with the same plan, which lack a complex program or similarly fine carving. 98. Tiji, no. 2628, in Grotto 1609. Other examples of long inscriptions written by famous literati include Li Tai’s 1,700character inscription by Cen Wenben (595 – 645) (Tiji, no. 74) and Lady Niu’s 600-character inscription by Zhang Jiuling (673 – 740) on the north wall of the lower terrace of the Great Vairocana Image Shrine (Tiji, no. 1634). 99. Weishu, ch. 69, pp. 1543 – 1544. See Sofukawa Hiroshi, “Ryūmon sekkutsu ni okeru hokuchō zōzō no sho mondai,” in Chūgoku chūsei no bunbutsu, ed. Tonami Mamoru (Kyoto: Kyōto daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkyūsho, 1993), p. 198. 100. Chavannes, Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 508. 101. Sofukawa, “Ryūmon sekkutsu ni okeru hokuchō zōzō no sho mondai,” pp. 198 – 199. 102. Huangfu Du’s career is described at the end of Hu Guozhen’s biography in Li Yanshou, Beishi, ch. 80, p. 13a – b. 103. This figure is now missing its head, which once bore a conical hairstyle, as the photographs of 1935 made by Mizuno and Nagahiro reveal. See Kim, “Guanyu 6 shiji Zhongguo qi zun xiang zhong de luoji xiang zhi yanjiu.” 104. This pose of the foot is not unique to this grotto. It also appears on the south wall Maitreya bodhisattva in Weizi Grotto (reproduced in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, pl. 89) and on the contemporaneous Maitreya bodhisattva long held in White Horse Monastery of Luoyang and now belonging to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (reproduced in Selected Masterpieces of Asian Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1992], pl. 27). 105. This is convincingly argued in Junghee Lee, “The Origins and Development of the Pensive Bodhisattva Images of Asia,” Artibus Asiae 53 (1993), no. 3/4: 311 – 357. For more freestanding Chinese examples, see Xu Rucong, “Pusa zhuang Shijia taizi xiang,” Shoucangjia 22 (April 1997): 41 – 43. 106. See the chart in Liu Jinglong, Lianhua dong, p. 179 (where it is no. 41 on the south wall), ink rubbings on pp. 163 – 164, photographs in pl. 141, and text on p. 189. 107. This account of the First Meditation is taken from Lee, “The Origins and Development of the Pensive Bodhisattva Images,” pp. 312 – 313. 108. Two more examples are on the north wall of Weizi Grotto, n o t e s t o pa g e s 6 4 – 6 9   |  191

reproduced in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, pl. 92 – 93. 109. Nicole de Bisscop, in The Buddha in the Dragon Gate: Buddhist Sculpture of the 5th – 9th Centuries from Longmen, China, ed. Jan Van Alphen (Antwerp: Etnografisch Museum, 2001), p. 186. 110. Gu Yanfang, “Huangfu Gong ku san bi kan xiang ji li fo tu kaoshi,” Dunhuang yanjiu 2001.4: 89. 111. A northerner said of the southern emperor, “He does not appear to have that elongated head [we associate with good breeding]” (Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang, p. 114). 112. Here I read fangdeng (from Sofukawa, “Ryūmon sekkutsu ni okeru hokuchō zōzō no sho mondai,” p. 199) instead of fang­ zhi (Tiji, no. 1133 transcription). For a reproduction of the Thousand Buddhas, see Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, pl. 49 – 50. The patron of Lianhua Grotto remains a mystery. Lianhua Grotto is about two-thirds the size of Huoshao Grotto but is similar in having a Śākyamuni pentad on the back wall and a deep rectangular space. Lianhua Grotto’s earliest intrusive shrine is dated to 521, so it may have been finished around the same time as Huoshao Grotto. The prominent placement of the Thousand Buddhas by the nuns of Zhongming Convent over the main figures in the grotto suggests the patron of the grotto was someone in the Huangfu or Hu clan, perhaps the empress dowager’s father Hu Guozhen or her sister, the Lady of Pingyi. 113. From Tiji, no. 1133, with reference to the ink rubbing reproduced in Sofukawa, “Ryūmon sekkutsu ni okeru hokuchō zōzō no sho mondai,” fig. 8.1. Lady Fan’s husband, Yuan Hao, who inherited the title Prince of Beihai from his father Yuan Xiang, was frequently on military campaign at this time, which may explain why his wife lived with the Huangfu clan (see Wei­ shu, ch. 21 shang, p. 564). 114. These may be nuns of Zhongming Convent, which Sofukawa suggests may have been patronized by the Huangfu clan (“Ryūmon sekkutsu ni okeru hokuchō zōzō no sho mondai,” p. 200). 115. Gu Yanfang, “Huangfu Gong ku san bi kan xiang ji li fo tu kaoshi,” p. 90. 116. Weishu, ch. 13, p. 340. 117. Gu Yanfang, “Guanyu Longmen Weizidong de jidian sikao,” Zhongyuan wenwu 2002.5: 78. 118. The following account is taken from Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 152, pp. 4737 – 4742. 119. Fan Xiangyong, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 1, p. 12; translation adapted from Jenner, Memories of Loyang, p. 162, and Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang, pp. 40 – 41. 120. Fan Xiangyong, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, preface, p. 2; translation adapted from Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Loyang, p. 6. 121. Wang Zhenguo, “Longmen shiku pohuai canji diaocha,” 192   |  n o t e s t o pa g e s 6 9 – 7 5

in Longmen liusan diaoxiang ji, p. 108, quoting from a manuscript by Guo Yutang called Luoyang guwu ji. The persecution is described in Xue Juzheng, Jiu Wudai shi (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1976), ch. 115, pp. 1529 – 1531. 122. Wang Zhenguo, in Longmen liusan diaoxiang ji, p. 108, with reference to Su Bai, “Luoyang diqu Beichao shiku de chubu kaocha,” in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, p. 229 and n. 21.

Chapter 4: The Politics of Filial Piety 1. Kyoko Tokuno, “The Book of Resolving Doubts Concerning the Semblance Dharma,” pp. 261 – 262. 2. Although the inscription is hardly legible today, it was still readable when it was recorded in Qinding Quan Tang wen, ed. Dong Gao (Taipei: Huiwen shuju, 1972), ch. 150, as Longmen shan san kan ji, or “Record of the Three Grottoes at Longmen Mountain.” I use here the transcription in Tiji, no. 0074. 3. This information is no longer on the stele but was recorded by Ouyang Xiu (1007 – 1072) in his Jigulu bawei (N.p.: San zhang wu zhao congshu, 1844), ch. 5, pp. 11b – 12a. For Cen Wenben’s biographies, see Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), ch. 70, pp. 2535 – 2539; and Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), ch. 102. Cen died at the age of fifty-one, faithfully following Emperor Taizong on a military campaign to conquer Korea. 4. Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 51, pp. 2164 – 2167 and Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 76, pp. 3470 – 3472. 5. According to Chavannes, Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 335, n. 9, Mount Shalu collapsed in 646 B.C.E. (as reported in The Spring and Autumn Annals, fourteenth year of Duke Xi). This event gave rise to a prediction that 645 years later, a woman of perfect virtues would appear. According to The History of the Former Han Dynasty, it was said this prediction had come true in the person of the wife of Emperor Yuan of Western Han (r. 6 B.C.E. – 1 C.E.), who was the aunt of the usurper Wang Mang (r. 9 – 23 C.E.). From this, the name Shalu came to evoke the idea of the prediction of a perfect woman. 6. According to Chavannes, Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 335, n. 10, the historian Sima Qian recorded that the legendary Great Yu of the Xia dynasty married a daughter of the Prince of Tushan. Hence “Tushan” also alludes to the notion of a virtuous woman. Tushan’s appearance on the lacquer screen found in the tomb of Sima Jinlong, datable to 484, indicates she was well known as a paragon of feminine virtue. My thanks to Audrey Spiro for this reference; see her “Creating Ancestors,” in Gu Kaizhi and the Admonitions Scroll, Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia, no. 21 (London: British Museum Press, 2003), p. 57, color plate 14. Perhaps most significantly to Li Tai, Tushan was the mother of Qi, who succeeded his father Yu on the throne of Xia. 7. According to Chavannes, Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2,

p. 335, n. 11, Ode 6 of the Daya section of the Book of Odes says the wife of King Wen of Zhou had the same fine reputation as his mother. 8. A reference to the line for the hexagram kun (earth) in the Book of Changes, “the earth is generous and capable of supporting living things.” Earth imagery was considered appropriate to the empress, as was heaven imagery for the emperor. 9. According to Chavannes, Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 336, n. 2, this alludes to the virtuous women celebrated in the first odes in the Zhou nan and Shao nan sections that commence the Book of Odes. They are also extolled in the Lun yu, ch. 17. See Shisan jing 2:2086. 10. Heaven gave the wife of King Wen of the Zhou dynasty to him on the bank of the River Wei. See Chavannes, Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 336, n. 5, citing the Book of Odes, Daya, Ode 6. Zhaoyang is the name of a palace the Han emperor Cheng (r. 32 – 6 B.C.E.) built for his concubine Zhao Hede. See Zhongwen dacidian, no. 14172.141, no. 2. 11. The first reference is to the story of Sudatta purchasing Prince Jeta’s grove for the Buddha by covering it in gold coins (Nirvān.a Sūtra, ch. 29). The second reference is to the spontaneous appearance of flowers when Prabhūtaratna’s stūpa manifested itself in the sky above Śākyamuni (Lotus Sūtra, ch. 11). Empress Zhangsun probably scattered flowers over portable statues from a palace gate above them, as the Northern Wei emperors were said to have done. See Weishu, ch. 114, p. 3032. 12. King Prasenajit and Queen Mallikā were believed to have been contemporaries of the Buddha, while the identity of their daughter is not so well established. See The Lion’s Roar of Queen Śrīmālā, trans. Alex Wayman and Hideko Wayman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), p. 3. She is the heroine of the well-known scripture The Lion’s Roar of Queen Śrīmālā, and the obvious point here is the comparison of Empress Zhangsun with these famous royal Indian women of the faith, to her advantage. 13. Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 194, p. 6123. Howard Wechsler interpreted this comment by Wei Zheng as meaning that Wei was pointing out that Xianling was smaller than Zhao­ ling as a criticism of Emperor Taizong’s lack of filial piety, but I think it was meant to redirect the emperor’s attention from his personal sorrow over the death of his wife to the business of the royal family, which was ruling the nation. See The Cambridge History of China, volume 3: Sui and T’ang China, 589 – 906, Part I, ed. Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), v. 3, p. 187. 14. This allusion to the fourth poem of the Odes of Wei was identified by Chavannes, Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 338, n. 10. 15. A “borderland” is a place where the Dharma is not encountered because sentient beings are spared from suffering. See Gómez, The Land of Bliss, p. 287.

16. Luoyang’s central location as the most appropriate site for the rule of China was articulated in the first century B.C.E.: “The rulers of the Three Dynasties of antiquity had all situated themselves between the (Yellow) River and the Luo (River).” See Sima Qian, Shiji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959), ch. 28, p. 1371. 17. Chavannes, Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 340, n. 2, describes how Lu Ban and Mo Di were famous for their ingenuity. A commentary to the Lüshi chunqiu tells how Lu Ban, in service to the king of Chu, attacked the ramparts of the capital of Song nine times with all the resources of his talents as a strategist. Mo Di was the tireless and clever defender. 18. Mizuno and Nagahiro, Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 1, p. 11. They followed the earlier theory put forward by Tadashi Sekino. 19. Though not the first to connect Li Tai’s inscription to the Binyang South Grotto, Zhang certainly made the most thorough argument. See his “Yique fokan zhi bei he Qianxisi, Binyang dong.” See also Wang Qufei, “Guanyu Longmen shiku de jizhong xin faxian ji qi youguan wenti,” Wenwu cankao ziliao 1955.2: 120 – 127. 20. In my article “Early Tang Imperial Patronage at Longmen,” Ars Orientalis 24 (1994): 65 – 81, I accepted Zhang Ruoyu’s theory that the project involved both grottoes, and it seemed to me that Li Tai had deliberately attempted to match the finishing of Binyang South to Binyang Central to make a pair of grottoes. As a result of more intensive study of the revised transcription of Li Tai’s inscription (Tiji, no. 0074), however, I no longer agree that Binyang Central was involved. 21. Also on the south wall is shrine S60, dedicated by the Huainan princess, a sister of Emperor Taizong (Tiji, no. 0183). The shrine is sixty-four centimeters high and contains a single standing bodhisattva. See Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Long­ men shiku zonglu, v. 1, p. 76 and pl. 441. 22. Tiji, no. 0076. 23. See Wen Yucheng, “Longmen Tang ku painian,” in Long­ men shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 175. 24. See Mizuno and Nagahiro, Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 1, pp. 27 – 28; Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen baoguansuo (Beijing: Wenwu, 1958), p. 3; Gong Dazhong, Longmen shiku yishu, pp. 122 – 123; Marylin M. Rhie, “Late Sui Buddhist Sculpture: A Chronology and Regional Analysis,” Archives of Asian Art 35 (1982): 33. 25. Wen Yucheng, “Longmen Tang ku painian,” in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kao­ guxi, v. 2, p. 176. 26. Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 194, p. 6120. 27. Xiuzi literally means “cultivator of sons,” so perhaps Jiang was the nanny for the princess or her children. 28. Tiji, no. 0149. Shrine S19 is 64 centimeters high, 50 centimeters wide, and 6 centimeters deep, containing a seated crossn o t e s t o pa g e s 7 5 – 8 3   |  193

legged Buddha flanked by two standing bodhisattvas, with the inscription below. The carving is fairly simple. See Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 1, p. 70 and pl. 397. 29. Tiji, no. 0151. Shrine S25 has the same composition as S19 but is a little smaller, at forty-three centimeters in height. See Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 1, pp. 71 – 72 and pl. 403. 30. Tiji, no. 0150. Lu’s is a modestly carved shrine, forty-four centimeters high, containing a seated cross-legged Buddha flanked by two standing bodhisattvas, designated S24. See Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 1, p. 71 and pl. 402. It is immediately to the west of S25, sponsored by Zhu Putou, wet-nurse for the children of the Yuzhang princess. Cen’s is Tiji, no. 0152, identified in Liu and Yang, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 1, pp. 72 – 73 and pl. 410 as a single shrine, S32, containing a seated cross-legged Buddha flanked by two standing bodhisattvas. 31. Tiji, no. 0077. The shrine is reproduced in Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 1, pl. 572; and Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng, pl. 95. 32. See the map of the outer city of Luoyang in Xu Song, Tang liang jing cheng fang kao (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), front matter. 33. As proof that Li Tai finished the main figures in Binyang South in 641, Okada Ken argues for the stylistic similarity of four shrines in Binyang South that he dates to 648: the Sishun Ward Shrine, the large standing “Udayana-type” Buddha and the large seated Buddha pentad on the north wall, and the gigantic shrine on the south wall. See Okada Ken, “Ryūmon sekkutsu sho-Tō sōzō ron — sono ichi,” Bukkyō geijutsu 171 (March 1987): 95 – 100. 34. On the sculpture at this site, see Sakai Takashi, “Shintsūji senbutsu gake no tōdai shoki zōzō ni tsuite,” Bukkyō geijutsu 159 (1985): 63 – 76. 35. See F. S. Drake, “The Shen-t’ung Monastery and the Beginning of Buddhism in Shantung,” Monumenta Serica 4 (1939 – 1940): 5. 36. Simenta yu Shentongsi, ed. Ji’nan shi bowuguan (Beijing: Wenwu, 1981), p. 11. 37. Ibid., p. 16. 38. See Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 76, pp. 2647 and 2665; Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 80, p. 3579. 39. On the Nanping princess, see Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 83, p. 3645. On Liu Xuanyi, see Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 58, p. 2313, and Xin Tang shu, ch. 90, p. 3768. Sponsorship of Buddhist projects while serving as the local prefect was not unusual for the children of Emperor Taizong. Li Zhen, Prince of Yue, sponsored a pagoda for an illustrious Buddhist master at Baoshan, near Anyang, Henan Province, in 647, while serving as prefect of Xiangzhou (see Ouchi Humio, “Hōzan reisenji sekkutsu tōmei no kenkyū [A Study of the Buddhist Pa194   |  n o t e s t o pa g e s 8 3 – 8 8

goda Inscriptions in the Baoshan Lingquansi Grottoes],” Tōhō gakuhō 69 (1997): 337). 40. Yan Wenru, Zhongguo shiku yishu zonglun (Tianjin: Tianjin guji chubanshe, 1987), p. 344. 41. On Taizong’s apparent conversion, see Stanley Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 26 – 27. 42. Yan Wenru, Zhongguo shiku yishu zonglun, pp. 343 – 344, n. 20. 43. Tiji, no. 0164, mistakenly cited as on the south wall. 44. See Li Wensheng, “Longmen shiku de xin faxian ji qita,” Wenwu 1980.1: 1 – 5. 45. Tiji, no. 0208. 46. His earliest extant work possesses an atypical angularity that may represent an early manner or an attempt to echo Northern Wei style. Chu’s characteristic fluid style is seen in his most famous work, the Preface to the Holy Teachings (Sheng jiao xu), composed by Emperor Taizong to introduce the translation activities of the great Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang. This stele of 653 can still be seen, set into the wall by the doorway to the Great Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi’an. For a reproduction of an ink rubbing, see Nakata Yujiro, Chinese Calligraphy (New York: Weatherhill/Tankosha, 1983), pl. 38. See Chu’s biographies in Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 80, pp. 2729 – 2739; Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 105, pp. 4025 – 4029. 47. Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 194, p. 6119. 48. See Chengqian’s biographies in Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 76, pp. 2648 – 2649; and Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 80, pp. 3564 – 3565. 49. The earliest Tang dynasty dedications at Longmen were made in 637, when the emperor returned to Luoyang for the first time. The earliest is Grotto 118, a large, shallow shrine carved at the base of the cliff face between Binyang North and Binyang Central grottoes, dedicated on the “Stele of the Buddha by the Elders of Luozhou City” (Tiji, no. 0048). An early-twentiethcentury photograph is reproduced in Tokiwa Daijō and Sekino Tadashi, Shina bukkyō shiseki, 6 v. text and 6 v. portfolios (Tokyo: Bukkyō shiseki kenkyūkai, 1926 – 1931), v. 2, pl. 55, no. 1, while modern photographs of the shrine and its inscription are found in Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 1, pl. 213 – 214. The other is a large Maitreya shrine in the “Cleft Grotto” (Poyao, Grotto 1069), dedicated by Great Consort Liu, a consort of Emperor Gaozu (r. 618 – 626) (reproduced in Long­ men shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, pl. 107). It is no. 82 in Liu and Yang, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 7, p. 9, and the inscription is given in Tiji, no. 1466. 50. Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 3, p. 53. 51. Ibid., ch. 76, pp. 2648 – 2649; Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 80, p. 3564. 52. Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 80, p. 3571. 53. Grotto 1499; Tiji, no. 2539. Now empty, the grotto is 110

centimeters high, 90 centimeters wide, and 80 centimeters deep. For reproductions of it and the inscription, see Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 10, pl. 131 – 132. For her epitaph, see Sofukawa Hiroshi, “Tangdai Longmen shiku zao­ xiang de yanjiu,” trans. Yen Chüan-ying, Yishuxue 8 (Sept. 1992): 101, n. 261. 54. Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 77, p. 2679.

Chapter 5: Cīnasthāna Preserves the Dharma 1. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 16, no. 694, p. 791a. 2. For these statistics, see the charts in Tiji, v. 1, pp. 68 – 70. Eight dated figures labeled Wuliangshou (Amitāyus) were made in Northern Wei, but none called Amituofo (Amitābha). At Longmen, any Tang Buddha with two bodhisattvas who lacks disciple figures is likely Amitābha with Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta. 3. Around the year 400, the pilgrim Faxian described the Buddhist establishment of the country of Udyāna (anciently northwest India, now northern Pakistan) as “very flourishing,” while Xuanzang described it, around 630, as “now generally waste and desolate.” See Samuel Beal, trans., Si-yu-ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World (London: Kegan Paul, 1884), pt. 1, pp. xxx – x xxi and p. 120. The translation of Lianhua mian jing by Narendrayaśas contained a description of Mihirakula’s persecution of Buddhism. See Jamie Hubbard, Absolute Delusion, Perfect Buddhahood: The Rise and Fall of a Chinese Heresy (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001), p. 62, n. 24; and Jan Nattier, Once Upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of De­ cline (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1991), pp. 111 – 117. 4. Hubbard, Absolute Delusion, p. 17. This apocalyptic mindset was much influenced by the messianic trend of contemporaneous Daoism. 5. See Nattier, Once Upon a Future Time, pp. 65 – 118. 6. See, for example, Jan Nattier, “A Prophecy of the Death of the Dharma,” in Buddhism in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 249 – 256; and Tokuno, “The Book of Resolving Doubts Concerning the Semblance Dharma.” 7. Nanyue Si Dachanshi li shi yuan wen, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, no. 1933, pp. 786b ff. Huiyuan (523 – 592), the Dilun School thinker, also wrote on the decline of the Dharma and agreed with Huisi’s dating of the three periods (Wuliangshou jing yi shu, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, no. 1745, p. 116a), and Jizang (549 – 623), a Sanlun school exegete, scoured the scriptures to collect all possible dating schemes for the decline of the Dharma (Zhong guan lun shu, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, no. 1824, p. 18a – c). 8. This is the timetable found in the Yue zang fen. See Hubbard, Absolute Delusion, p. 72, n. 52. 9. Hubbard, Absolute Delusion, p. 65.

10. Tiji, no. 0077. 11. The earliest records of these semilegendary events are found in the late Han Mouzi Li huo lun, the Preface to the Sūtra in Forty-two Sections, and the Scripture on Laozi Converting the Barbarians. Emperor Ming of the Han dynasty (r. 58 – 75) had a dream in which a golden man appeared, sixteen feet tall, flying in front of the palace. His body glowed with a brilliant light. The next day, the emperor asked his courtiers for an interpretation of this dream. One informed him that in India there was an enlightened being who flew through the air and whose body glowed with light. Foreigners called this deity Buddha. The emperor sent Zhang Qian and others as envoys to seek him. In later versions, such as Wang Yan’s late-fifth-century Ming xiang ji, the envoys, now headed by Cai Yin instead of the anachronistic Zhang Qian (2nd c. B.C.E.), returned with the Indian monks Kāśyapa . Mātanga and Dharmaratna, with scriptures and images borne on a white horse. The emperor set up White Horse Monastery in Luoyang to house them while they translated the scriptures. To believers, these stories signified the entrance of Buddhism into China. For a thorough discussion of the many versions, see Tang Yongtong, Han Wei Liang Jin Nanbeichao fojiao shi, 2 v. (Taibei: Foguang, 2001), v. 1, pp. 21 – 26. The “golden man” and “white horse” stories are conflated by Yang Xuanzhi in his Record of the Monasteries of Luoyang. See Fan Xiangyong, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, pp. 197 – 198, n. 2. The present inscription makes it clear that the conflated version was in the minds of early Tang believers. 12. One exception to this generalization is a dedication of 525 in which a nun prayed for the release of those “resting” in hell or reborn as hungry ghosts (Grotto 870, Tiji, no. 1333). 13. Maitreya is to attain enlightenment under the nāga tree, a fine point lost on believers such as the author of this inscription. See Padmanabh S. Jaini, “Stages in the Bodhisattva Career of the Tathāgata Maitreya” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, ed. Alan Sponberg and Helen Hardacre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 74. 14. Grotto 1049 is high up the cliff face directly over the entrance to the Zhao Keshi Grotto (no. 138). Its round-arch entryway is about a meter high, and the façade is visible in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kao­ guxi, v. 2, pl. 105. 15. Lady Li died later in 683. For her epitaph, see Beijing tushu­ guan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian, v. 17, p. 16. See also Li Yukun, “Longmen beike yanjiu,” in Longmen shiku yanjiu lunwenxuan, ed. Longmen shiku yanjiusuo, p. 215; Zhang Naizhu, “Cong Longmen zaoxiang shiji kan Wu Zetian yu Tangdai fojiao zhi guanxi,” Shijie zongjiao yanjiu 1989.1: 47; and Luoyang shi zhi, volume 15: Baimasi, Longmen shiku zhi, ed. Luoyang shi difang shizhi bianzuan weiyuanhui (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 1996), p. 247. 16. An ink rubbing is reproduced in Tiji, v. 2, p. 328. n o t e s t o pa g e s 8 9 – 9 2   |  195

17. The reference to the deva-garment is an allusion to the passage in the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Śāstra that says, “If a great stone, let it be one, two, or even forty li square, be brushed with a fine-weight deva-garment once in a hundred years until the stone be worn away, the kalpa would still be unfinished.” See Foxue dacidian, v. 1, 468 xia. 18. Tiji, no. 1443. The same sentiments are expressed in Tiji, no. 1467, for a Śākyamuni shrine sponsored by a group of brothers in 654. 19. For a survey of beliefs about being reborn with Maitreya, see Jan Nattier, “The Meanings of the Maitreya Myth,” in Mai­ treya, the Future Buddha, pp. 23 – 47. 20. This scheme comes from chapter 3 of the Abhidharmakośa śāstra, written by Vasubandhu around the fifth century. See Nattier, Once Upon a Future Time, pp. 15 – 16. 21. Nattier, “Meanings of the Maitreya Myth,” p. 27. 22. Ibid., p. 46, n. 60. 23. This sentiment concerning icons was the same with regard to the scriptures. Tang Yong, the Northern Qi sponsor of the stone-carved scriptures at Northern Xiangtangshan, wrote, “Since writing silk gets ruined and bamboo strips do not last long, while gold tablets are hard to find and vellum and paper are easy to destroy . . . I have engraved (the scriptures) upon this famous mountain” (Fangshan Yunjusi shijing [Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1978], p. 2). 24. Tiji, no. 1475. 25. See the epitaphs of Xing Wei (d. 514), Helian Ziyue (d. 573), and Fan Cui (d. 575), for example, transcribed in Han Wei Nanbeichao muzhi huibian, ed. Zhao Chao (Tianjin: Tianjin guji chubanshe, 1992), pp. 78, 463, 470. My thanks to Robert Harrist for bringing out this point with these examples in his The Landscape of Words: Stone Inscriptions from Early and Medieval China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007). 26. Tiji, no. 2830, dated 791. 27. Tiji, no. 1129, dated 696. 28. Beal, Si-yu-ki, v. 2, p. 116. 29. See Jessica Rawson, Mysteries of Ancient China: New Dis­ coveries from the Early Dynasties (London: British Museum Press, 1996). 30. Wu Hung, “The Prince of Jade Revisited: The Material Symbolism of Jade as Observed in Mancheng Tombs,” in Chi­ nese Jades, Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia, no. 18, ed. Rosemary E. Scott (London: Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, 1977), pp. 147 – 170. For another view, see Miranda Brown, “Did the Early Chinese Preserve Corpses? A Reconsideration of Elite Conceptions of Death,” Journal of East Asian Archaeology 4, nos. 1 – 4 (2003): 201 – 223. 31. See Katherine R. Tsiang, “Monumentalization of Buddhist Texts in the Northern Qi Dynasty: The Engravings of Sūtras in Stone at Xiangtangshan and Other Sites in the Sixth Century,”

196   |  n o t e s t o pa g e s 9 2 – 9 7

Artibus Asiae 56 (1996), no. 3/4: 253 – 254; Tiji, v. 1, pp. 35 – 36; and Fangshan Yunjusi shijing, p. 1. 32. See Robert E. Harrist, Jr., “The Virtual Stele on Tieshan and the Engraved Sūtras of Shandong Province,” Oriental Art 49, no. 4: 2 – 13. 33. See Tokiwa Daijō, “Sangaikyō no bodai toshite no Hōzanji,” Shīkyō kenkyū 4, no. 1 (1927): 25 – 56; and Ouchi Humio, “Hōzan reisenji sekkutsu tōmei no kenkyū.” 34. Fangshan Yunjusi shijing, p. 3. See also Lothar Ledderose, “Thunder Sound Cave,” in Between Han and Tang: Visual and Material Culture in a Transformative Period, ed. Wu Hung (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2003), pp. 235 – 265. 35. Fangshan Yunjusi shijing, pp. 2 – 3. 36. See Li Yukun, “Longmen shiku xin faxian Wang Xuance zaoxiang tiji,” Wenwu 1976.11: 94. 37. Tiji, no. 0145. Shrine W20 is 100 centimeters high, 50 centimeters wide, and 20 centimeters deep. The inscription is on the south side of the niche. See Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 1, p. 49. 38. This narrative is taken from Tiji, v. 1, pp. 55 – 56. 39. Feng Chengjun, “Wang Xuance shiji,” Qinghua xuebao 8, no. 1 (1932): 13. 40. The text of the inscription is preserved in Qinding Quan Tang wen, ch. 162. 41. This information comes from a cliff inscription in Chinese titled “Record of the Great Tang Envoys to India Leaving (China),” discovered in 1990 about five kilometers north of Gyi­ rong, Tibet, just seventy kilometers from the border with Nepal. See Huo Wei, “ ‘Da Tang Tianzhu shi chu ming’ ji qi xiangguan wenti de yanjiu,” Tōhō gakuhō 66 (1994): 253 – 270. 42. Feng Chengjun, “Wang Xuance shiji,” p. 10; Sun Xiushen, Wang Xuance shiji gouchen (Urumqi: Xinjiang renmin chubanshe, 1998), p. 279. 43. Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 46, p. 2016. The erstwhile existence of the three volumes of drawings is recorded by the ninth-century writer Zhang Yanyuan in Lidai minghua ji (Beijing: Jinghua chubanshe, 2000), ch. 3, section 5, p. 41. 44. Xuanzhao was said to have vowed it would be his life’s regret if he did not see the Mahābodhi Monastery image. When he got there, he circumambulated the Diamond Throne. See Yijing, Da Tang xiyou qiufa gaoseng zhuan, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 51, no. 2066, pp. 1 – 2. 45. Daoshi, Fayuan zhulin, ch. 29, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, no. 2122, pp. 502c – 503a. Translation adapted from Acker, Some T’ang and Pre-T’ang Texts, v. 1, pp. 337 – 342. 46. See Beal, Si-yu-ki, v. 2, pp. 120 – 121; and Acker, Some T’ang and Pre-T’ang Texts, v. 1, pp. 334 – 337. 47. In the Sūtra of the Buddha of Measureless Life, for example, Maitreya and Śākyamuni discuss the paradise of Amitābha. See Gómez, The Land of Bliss, pp. 217 – 219.

48. See Feng Chengjun, “Wang Xuance shiji,” p. 12, quoting chapter 10 of Da Tang Daciensi Sanzang Fashi zhuan. Xu Song recorded the existence of the Jiashou Palace but did not know its location. See Tang liang jing cheng fang kao, ch. 1, p. 7. 49. Zhipan, Fozu tongji, ch. 39. Yijing’s remains were interred in a pagoda on a high ridge north of Longmen. See Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kao­ guxi, v. 2, p. 232, quoting Song Gaoseng zhuan, ch. 1. 50. Luo Shiping, “Guangyuan Qianfoya Puti rui xiang kao,” Gugong xueshu jikan 9, no. 2: 117 – 138. This is in contrast to the view that this is an Esoteric Mahāvairocana figure. For a discussion of this issue, see Chang Qing, “Shi lun Longmen chu Tang mijiao diaoke,” Kaogu xuebao 2001.3: 354 – 356. Janice Leoshko notes that the Buddha in bhūmisparśa mudrā at the Mahābodhi Monastery does not appear in a jeweled form there until the eleventh century, but she does not dispute Xuanzang’s description of the statue he saw as jeweled. See Janice Leoshko, “Pilgrimage and the Evidence of Bodhgaya’s Images,” in Function and Meaning in Buddhist Art, ed. K. R. van Kooij and H. van der Veere (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1995), pp. 45 – 57. 51. This statue was displayed in the United States in the “China: Dawn of a Golden Age” exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in the winter of 2004 – 2005. Additionally, Luo demonstrates this type of icon was also reproduced in Sichuan. See Luo Shiping, “Sichuan Tangdai fojiao zaoxiang yu Chang’an yangshi,” Wenwu 2000.4: 53. 52. An example of this kind of “birth by transformation” (huasheng) is the future rebirth on earth of bodhisattvas now residing in the Tus.ita Heaven, probably represented around the statue in Jing’ai Monastery. 53. Translation adapted from Acker, Some T’ang and Pre-T’ang Texts, v. 1, pp. 307 – 310. 54. With the exception of the “transitional” (that is, commonly seen in Northern Qi sculpture) pendant-legged Maitreyas in bodhisattva costume in the Wu Shangxi grotto (Grotto 308) of 659 and another outside Binyang South Grotto. See Okada Ken, “Ryūmon sekkutsu sho-Tō sōzō ron — sono ni,” Bukkyō geijutsu 186 (Sept. 1989): 105 – 107, figs. 53 – 54, 58. 55. There is an early Tang grotto, ca. 650 – 674, at Longmen with a three Maitreyas program (Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 185) and a small early Tang shrine on the north wall of the Cleft Grotto with three Maitreya Buddhas. See the reproduction in Zhang Naizhu, Longmen fojiao zaoxiang, p. 159. I agree with Acker’s reading of the program, based on Matsumoto Eiichi’s study of several “Maitreya Pure Land scene” murals in Caves 117, 8, 74, and 12 at Dunhuang, in which he concluded they all represented Maitreya Buddha preaching on earth (Tonkō ga no kenkyū of 1937, quoted in Acker, Some T’ang and Pre-T’ang Texts, v. 1, pp. 347 – 350). In the Dunhuang murals, a large crowd

is centered on an enthroned figure of Maitreya, who makes the vitarka mudrā (thumb and forefinger touching), indicating he is preaching. In the background are mountain ranges and the city of Ketumatī, where Maitreya will be reborn on earth, and . in the foreground is King Śankha, the cakravartin under whose reign Maitreya will be born, and the house of Maitreya’s Brahmin parents. Some murals have cartouches identifying the subject matter, all of which are based on the Maitreya-vyākaran. a Sūtra, which describes Maitreya’s advent on earth. In one late Tang example, on the south wall of Cave 12, groups of men and women are depicted converting to Buddhism and taking the tonsure as Maitreya preaches, while in a series of panels below the main composition are scenes from the life of Maitreya on earth. See Dunhuang shiku yishu: Mogaoku di jiu ku, di yier ku, ed. Duan Wenjie (Nanjing: Jiangsu meishu chubanshe, 1994), pl. 132, 141 – 145. Acker made the further observation that Maitreya sits under a tree, often symbolized by a baldachin covered with blossoms, and that the murals also contain two seated Buddha figures flanking the main seated Maitreya image. Actually, in Cave 12, the two flanking figures are dressed as bodhisattvas, not Buddhas, but their pendant-legged posture is that of Maitreya Buddha. Acker concluded that each of the three enthroned figures represented Maitreya and that the subject was Maitreya Preaching to the Three Assemblies. Based on this identification from the Dunhuang murals, he suggested the Jing’ai Monastery program consisted of one central Maitreya seated under a tree flanked by two Maitreyas and was intended to represent Maitreya Preaching to the Three Assemblies (Some T’ang and PreT’ang Texts, v. 1, pp. 351 – 352). 56. Wang Pu (922 – 982), Tang hui yao (Taibei: Shijie shuju, 1968), ch. 48, p. 848. 57. See, for example, the biography of the nun Zhisheng (427 – 492), who decided on the religious life at the age of six, in Kathryn Ann Tsai, trans., Lives of the Nuns: Biographies of Chinese Buddhist Nuns from the Fourth to Sixth Centuries (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1994), p. 73. 58. See Foxue dacidian, v. 2, p. 2444a. 59. Acker, Some T’ang and Pre-T’ang Texts, v. 1, p. 307. 60. See Li Xian’s biography in Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 7, pp. 135 – 151. 61. The Maitreya shrine of Great Consort Liu, consort of the late emperor Gaozu (r. 618 – 626) and the mother of Li Yuanqing, Prince of Dao (b. ca. 620 – 664), was the first shrine carved in the “Cleft Grotto” (Podong, or Poyao, Grotto 1069), one of the large natural caves at Longmen. Situated prominently on the back wall, the seated Maitreya is nearly one meter high. See Long­ men shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, pl. 107; Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 7, p. 9, no. 82; Tiji, no. 1466. 62. For Faxian, see Beal, Si-yu-ki, v. 1, p. xxx; for Xuanzang,

n o t e s t o pa g e s 9 7 – 9 9   |  197

see ibid., v. 1, p. 134. See also Alexander Soper, Literary Evidence, pp. 268 – 270. 63. Marylin Rhie has written that “though the source of the style of these Buddhas may ultimately be the Sārnāth school, the particular details seem to be closer to the special interpretation of that school in the sculptures of Southeast Asia dating from ca. 6th – 7th century.” See Marylin M. Rhie, Interrelation­ ships between the Buddhist Art of China and the Art of India and Central Asia from 618 – 755 A.D. (Naples: Istituto universitario orientale, 1988), p. 42. 64. On most of the figures, the hands are ruined, but they remain readable on the figure in Grotto 440, dedicated to his late wife by Shen Bao (or Nang), reproduced in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 184, fig. 46 and pl. 50. 65. For the former, see Inamoto Yasuo, “Aikuō zō tōden kō — Chūgoku sho-Tōki o chūshin ni,” Tōhō gakuhō 69 (1997): 374 – 377. A good example of the latter is Grotto 332. See Okada Ken, “Ryūmon sekkutsu sho-Tō sōzō ron — sono ni,” fig. 52. 66. Tiji, no. 0338, in Grotto 306. 67. Translated by Faxian (active ca. 399 – 416) and the Western monk Buddhabhadra; adapted from Soper, Literary Evidence, p. 261. 68. See Latter Days of the Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism, 850 – 1850 (Lawrence, Kans.: Spencer Museum of Art / Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1994), cat no. 1, pp. 221 – 225. On page 222, please emend Marco Polo to Bole. 69. Carter, The Mystery of the Udayana Buddha; Caswell, Written and Unwritten, p. 41. 70. Gregory Henderson and Leon Hurvitz, “The Buddha of Seiryōji: New Finds and New Theory,” Artibus Asiae 19 (1956), no. 1: 5 – 55. 71. See the article by my student Hsieh Shihying, “Longmen shiku de Youtianwang zaoxiang — bie yu Riben Qingliangsi zhi Youtianwang zaoxiang,” Lishi wenwu 6, no. 2 (April 1996): 26 – 39. 72. Sofukawa Hiroshi, “Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,” pp. 193 – 194; Inamoto, “Aikuō zō tōden kō — Chūgoku sho-Tōki o chūshin ni,” pp. 362 – 368; Hida Romi, “Sho-Tō jidai ni okeru Aikuō zō,” Bijutsu shi 120 (April 1986): 81 – 94. 73. The list of statues Xuanzang brought back from the western regions is given in Da Tang Daciensi Sanzang Fashi zhuan, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 50, no. 2053, p. 252b – c. The height is calculated at 29.5 centimeters per chi (foot), as in Wan Guo­ ding, “Tang chi kao,” in Zhongguo gudai duliangheng lunwenji (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 1990), p. 119. 74. Xuanzang did see a statue in the ruins of the Jetavana, but it was called the statue that “King Prasenajit had fashioned at the time when the Buddha ascended into the Heaven of the Thirty-three to preach to His mother, on hearing of the sandalwood figure carved by King Udayana” (Soper, Literary Evidence, 198   |  n o t e s t o pa g e s 9 9 – 1 0 4

p. 262). The legend of King Prasenajit making a statue in gold to rival King Udayana’s is found in chapter 28 of the Ekottarāgama, translated in 384 – 385. See Hida, “Sho-Tō jidai ni okeru Aikuō zō,” 87; Soper, Literary Evidence, p. 259. 75. Soper, Literary Evidence, p. 262. 76. Alan Sponberg, “Hsüan-tsang,” in Encyclopedia of Reli­ gion, p. 481. 77. Stanley Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang, 24; Da Tang Daciensi Sanzang Fashi zhuan, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 50, no. 2053, p. 253a. Okada Ken insists that Xuanzang did not brief the emperor in Luoyang until 657, which was after the date of the first King Udayana statue, and he argues against Xuanzang’s copy as the source for the Longmen King Udayana statue. See Okada Ken, “The Longmen Caves in the Tang Dynasty,” in Miho Museum, Ryūmon sekkutsu, pp. 146 – 147. 78. Beal, Si-yu-ki, p. xviii. 79. Grotto 192. The King Udayana figure, ninety centimeters high, and the inscription are reproduced in Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 2, pl. 78 and 79. 80. Tiji, no. 0257. 81. Tiji, no. 0409. 82. The statues are reproduced in Liu Jinglong and Yang Chao­ jie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 2, pl. 410 – 416. 83. Tiji, nos. 0408 – 0416. 84. Tiji, no. 0253, in Grotto 176. 85. Tiji, nos. 0244 – 0256. This Fazang is likely Kang Fazang (643 – 712), the brilliant promoter of the Huayan doctrine, who served Empress Wu. The King Udayana figures in Grotto 176 are reproduced in Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 2, pl. 34 – 38. 86. Tiji, no. 0497. 87. Tiji, no. 0408. 88. An Amitābha in Laolong Grotto (Grotto 669), Tiji, no. 0995. He also sponsored a large, undated Maitreya Buddha shrine, nearly two meters in height, in Tangzi Grotto (no. 1192), which occupies the middle register of the south wall (Tiji, no. 1592). See Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 7, pl. 511 – 512. 89. Tiji, no. 0420, in Grotto 358. An ink rubbing is reproduced in Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian, v. 13, p. 110. 90. Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 184. See the reproduction of the west wall in Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 2, p. 73 and pl. 424. 91. See Robert H. Sharf, “The Scripture on the Production of Buddha Images,” p. 263. 92. Ibid., p. 265. 93. The Wang brothers’ grotto is not unique. Another example was sponsored in 660 (Tiji, no. 0497). 94. Stolen in the 1930s, it is now in the collection of the Osaka

City Museum. Reproduced in Osaka City Museum, Zui Tō no bijutsu (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1978), pl. 268. 95. What is believed to be one of the original bodhisattva heads is reproduced in Okada Ken, “Ryūmon sekkutsu sho-Tō sōzō ron — sono san,” Bukkyō geijutsu 196 (May 1991): fig. 32. 96. Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 3, p. 10, give a total of sixty-one, while Gu Yanfang and Li Wensheng counted thirteen on the north wall, sixteen on the east wall, and “over twenty” on the south wall (Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 258). Wen Yucheng gives a total of fifty in Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, p. 26. 97. Li Sisheng, “Yi Fo wushi pusa he pusa zhuang Fo,” Dun­ huang yanjiu 1991.2: 54. For a reproduction of Cave 3 at the Thousand Buddha Cliff of Mount Wolong, in Zitong County, Sichuan, see Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 8: Sichuan, Chongqing, ed. Liu Changjiu (Chongqing: Chongqing chubanshe, 1999), pl. 155. Another Tang dynasty re-creation of this icon has a more strikingly unified composition, as if it imitated a single sculpted object; it is on the north wall, Cave 1, Thousand Buddha Grottoes, Junxian, Henan Province (ibid., v. 6, pl. 74). 98. The total of fifty-two is reached when Amitābha’s two attendant bodhisattvas, Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta, are added. 99. The inscription was transcribed by Katsuki Genichiro in “Chūgoku ni okeru Amida sanzon gojū bosatsu zu no zuzō ni tsuite,” Bukkyō geijutsu 214 (1994): 68. I have translated it with reference to the very similar record in Daoxuan, Ji Shenzhou Sanbao Gantonglu, ch. 2 (Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 52, p. 421), as quoted in Sofukawa, “Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,” p. 229, n. 247. Daoxuan also describes a Northern Qi tradition of depicting this image in painting, but the emphasis on threedimensional poses in space in the Sichuan and Longmen examples suggests a different tradition in sculpture for this icon. 100. Katsuki, “Chūgoku ni okeru Amida sanzon gojū bosatsu zu no zuzō ni tsuite,” pp. 68 – 69. 101. A good comparison is the grotto of Madame Han (Grotto 331) a few meters to the north, which has a dedicatory inscription dated 661 (Tiji, no. 0387). See the reproduction in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kao­ guxi, v. 2, pl. 47. 102. Liang Wenxiong’s grotto was created on behalf of his parents, who are depicted in an attitude of worship on the side walls and identified by inscription (Tiji, nos. 439 – 440). His mother’s surname was Wei, which prompted Mizuno and Nagahiro to declare Liang Wenxiong a relative of Lady Wei. See Mizuno and Nagahiro, Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 1, p. 30. 103. Situated just north of the Jingshan Monastery Grotto, the Yuan Hongji Grotto is 2.2 meters high, 2.1 meters deep, and 2.5 meters wide and was certainly completed by the time Yuan Hongji, whose name has been given to this anonymous grotto,

added his intrusive Guanyin shrine above the entrance in 665. See Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Bei­jing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, pp. 183 – 184 and 188; and Okada, “Ryūmon sekkutsu sho-Tō sōzō ron — sono ni,” pp. 100 – 103. Grotto 394 is about ten meters above the Jingshan Monastery Grotto and is a horseshoe-shaped grotto 148 centimeters high, 160 centimeters wide, and 163 centimeters deep. The west wall bears the main Buddha on an octagonal lotus throne, while the bodhisattvas are carved beside the Buddha and on the side walls. See the reproductions in Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 3, pl. 51 – 53, and Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen shiku zao­ xiang quanji, 10 v. (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2002 – ), v. 2, pl. 458. The similarity of the sculpture to Madame Han’s Grotto of 661 suggests a date in the 660s. 104. John C. Huntington, “A Gandhāran Image of Amitāyus’ Sukhāvatī,” Annali dell’Istituto Orientale di Napoli 40 (n.s. 30, 1980), no. 4: 651 – 672. I am grateful to Joanna Williams for bringing this stele to my attention. 105. Tiji, no. 0465. 106. See Longmen shiku, v. 2, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, p. 230. 107. The earliest dedicatory inscription at Longmen to mention Jingshan Monastery is dated to 650 (Tiji, no. 0946). The other grotto self-identified with the Jingshan Monastery is Grotto 401, dated to 669. Its dedication is titled “Inscription with Preface for the Images of Amitābha Buddha and the Two Bodhisattvas Avalokiteśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta in the Stone Shrine of the Jingshan Monastery at Longmen.” This is a smaller grotto, high on the cliff face, almost directly above Lady Wei’s grotto. Its patron was the wife of a certain Lord Qian, and although the inscription is fairly ruined, it is evident that she, too, was an aristocrat (Tiji, no. 0464; Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 3, pl. 69 – 72). There is also an undated shrine sponsored by a śraman.a of Jingshan Monastery, one Tan­ xiang, which contains a seated pendant-legged Maitreya Buddha flanked by two disciples and two bodhisattvas. The shrine E3 is found on the east wall, on the north side of the door, of Binyang South Grotto and is very large, being 175 centimeters high and 135 centimeters wide. See Liu and Yang, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 1, p. 81 and pl. 597; and Tiji, no. 0235. 108. See Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 230; and Luoyang Longmen shi xuan, ed. Li Xianqi (Beijing: Zhongguo lüyou chubanshe, 1986), p. 51. 109. According to Chavannes, Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 362, n. 8, this is an allusion to the woman described in the Book of Odes, Guofeng section, 11, ode 4, line 1. 110. Chavannes considered the term “red sand” to refer to the Daoist alchemical use of cinnabar. He thought the first sentence indicated Daoism and the second indicated Buddhism (Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 362, n. 9 and 10). n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 0 4 – 1 0 9   |  199

111. This is one guess for the meaning of the term yerun, literally “leaves glossy.” The leaves of the bodhi tree are usually described as glossy and evergreen. The parallel prose of the text requires it to be read as a place-name, but I have been unable to find it in standard sources. Another possibility is to read the character ye as the Sanskrit pattra and take it as the author’s abbreviated reference to Pāt.aliputra, where Kukkutārāma Monastery was located. Then the phrase might be translated, “What adorned Pāt.aliputra (i.e., the image of Amitābha and the fifty bodhisattvas at Kukkutārāma Monastery near there), Cīnas­ thāna now shelters.” 112. Wen Yucheng believes they represent the donor (Long­ men shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 187). 113. Li Shen’s biographies are in Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 80, pp. 3577 – 3578; and Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 76, pp. 2664 – 2665. 114. For the stele, see Wen Yucheng, “Longmen suojian liang Tangshu zhong renwu zaoxiang gaishuo,” in Longmen shiku yi­ qian wubai zhounian guoji xueshu taolunhui lunwenji, p. 127. For the shrine, see Yan Wenru, Zhongguo shiku yishu zonglun, p. 41. 115. Gong Dazhong, Longmen shiku yishu, p. 128. 116. Based on the dates of nearby inscriptions, it seems Lady Wei’s grotto was probably begun in the early 650s and completed around 660. Her grotto and the one immediately adjoining it to the south, Grotto 404, are the largest grottoes in this area. From the outside, they appear to have been intended as a matched pair, since the façades and entryways are identical in size and shape. An intrusive shrine inscription in Grotto 404 is dated to 653, so these two grottoes were likely begun a little before that time. The two grottoes directly north of Lady Wei’s (Grottoes 365 and 366) have dates of 662 and 661, respectively. This suggests that Lady Wei’s grotto was finished around 660, making it possible then for other patrons to have shrines added close to hers. Further, an inscription elsewhere by one Wang Xingbao, Commandant of the Guards for the Prince of Ji, is dated to 660 (Tiji, no. 1426). If he was part of a royal group including the prince and his mother who came to Longmen to dedicate her grotto, this also suggests a date of completion around 660. 117. Some notable examples of the former include not only . the Lotus Sūtra, but also the Vimalakīrti Sūtra, Sūrangamasamādhi Sūtra, Mahāparinirvān.a Sūtra, the complete text of the Avatam ˙ saka Sūtra (see Thomas Cleary, Entry into the In­ conceivable: An Introduction to Hua-yen Buddhism [Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1983], p. 171), The Sūtra of Queen Śrīmālā Who Had the Lion’s Roar (see Diana Y. Paul, Women in Buddhism, 2nd ed. [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985], p. 290), and the Bhadra-kalpika Sūtra, Mahāmāyā Sūtra, Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, and Mahīśāsakā Vinaya (see Nattier, Once Upon a Future Time, p. 23, n. 30; p. 50, n. 61; p. 29, n. 4; p. 29, n. 5). 200   |  n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 0 9 – 1 1 4

118. Fangshan was designated a National Important Cultural Relics Protection Unit in 1961 (Fangshan Yunjusi shijing, p. 1). 119. This program is seen not only in Sichuan and at Longmen, but also in murals at Dunhuang, such as on the east wall of Cave 332. In Japan, Katsuki argues it is seen in Mural 6 of the Hōryū-ji Kondo in Nara (“Chūgoku ni okeru Amida sanzon gojū bosatsu zu no zuzō ni tsuite,” pp. 63 – 65). We might also note that the Amida statue in the Phoenix Hall of the Byōdō-in, Uji, is surrounded by fifty bodhisattva figures on the side walls. 120. According to Finbarr Barry Flood’s analysis, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the former Taliban government of Afghanistan was a political act directed against the West, not an instance of Islamic iconoclasm. See “Between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm, and the Museum,” The Art Bulletin 84, no. 4 (December 2002): 641 – 659. From a disinterested Buddhist perspective, however, the Taliban were merely bit players in the cosmic drama of the disappearance of the Dharma of Śākyamuni that must precede the advent of Maitreya. 121. See the announcement of November 2000 in “Longmen shiku shenbao Shijie Wenhua Yichan huode chenggong,” Zhongyuan wenwu 2001.1: 39.

Chapter 6: Rouge and Powder Money 1. Liu Jinglong, Fengxiansi (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1995), p. 17. 2. Judging from the angle of the arms, the proper right hand was held higher than the left, so the hands were not folded in the lap in dhyāna mudrā. They may have been in abhaya and varada mudrās, though I think it more likely they were in vitarka or dharmacakra mudrā, since the attendant bodhisattvas’ hands are in vitarka mudrā. 3. These are the two bodhisattvas featured most prominently in the Avatam ˙ saka Sūtra, which is centered on Vairocana. Zhang Naizhu identifies the south wall bodhisattva as Samantabhadra but gives no reason why (“Longmen shiku Da Lushena xiang kan kaocha baogao,” Dunhuang yanjiu 1999.2: 126). 4. This was first observed by Gong Dazhong (Longmen shiku yishu, pp. 146 – 147) and is discussed in Okada Ken, “Ryūmon sekkutsu sho-Tō sōzō ron — sono san,” pp. 115 – 116; and Ohashi Katsuaki, in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, pp. 238 – 239. 5. Denise Leidy offers a telling comparison between a set of jade plaques, with bronze and turquoise fittings, of mid–Tang dynasty manufacture and a necklace excavated from the tomb of the Sui dynasty princess Li Jingxun (d. 608), consisting of “twenty-eight gold beads inlaid with pearls, a multi-part clasp set with lapis lazuli, five stones en cabochon, and a pale blue stone pendant,” which she believes was likely made in northwest India, i.e., Gandhāra. See Denise Patry Leidy, “Avalokiteshvara in Sixth-Century China,” in The Flowering of a Foreign Faith:

New Studies in Chinese Buddhist Art, ed. Janet Baker (Mumbai: Marg Publications, 1998), p. 102, figures 2c and 2d. In a recent catalogue, the necklace is described as Sassanian Empire (The Glory of the Silk Road: Art from Ancient China, ed. Li Jian [Dayton, Ohio: The Dayton Art Institute, 2003], cat. 114), but the point remains the same: the necklaces worn by the Vairocana shrine bodhisattvas are not native Chinese style, but Western. 6. This color scheme was used for bodhisattvas in early Tang murals at Dunhuang, such as those in Cave 220. For reproductions, see Dunhuang shiku quanji, ed. Duan Wenjie, 10 v. (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2002), v. 2, pl. 108 – 109. On the glass remains found in the pupils of the Vairocana, see Liu Jinglong, Fengxiansi, p. 4. Zhang Naizhu reports that around the pupils of the south wall bodhisattva’s eyes were found some bits of a dark green mineral (“Longmen shiku Da Lushena xiang kan kaocha baogao,” p. 126). 7. The inscription on the north face is not visible at present, having been cemented over for its “protection.” See Antonino Forte, “Marginalia on the First International Symposium on Longmen Studies,” Studies in Central and East Asian Religions 7 (1994): 75 – 76. 8. Not only is the shrine commonly referred to as Fengxiansi today, but an inscription dedicating a nearby grotto in 683 refers to the shrine as Fengxian Monastery (Grotto 1371; Tiji, no. 1654), and since the donor was a eunuch palace official, he would hardly have called it by the wrong name. Because of the square holes punctuating the walls of the shrine to anchor the wooden beams of an architectural façade, many have thought the shrine was the Fengxian Monastery. The inscription itself (as discussed in the following chapter) says, however, that the monastery was built to the south of the cliffs. The architectural façade was added later, perhaps in the Northern Song (960 – 1127) or Jin dynasties (1115 – 1234). See Gong Dazhong, Longmen shiku yishu, p. 137; and Wen Yucheng, “Lüetan Longmen Fengxiansi de jige wenti,” Zhongyuan wenwu 1984.2: 57, which quotes the unpublished opinion of Cai Xuechang. Cai believed the distribution of the beam holes in the wall and the holes for columns cut in the floor of the shrine were consistent with Song architectural ideas; moreover, since the beam holes ruined the design of the sculpture, they would hardly have been cut during the Tang dynasty. As Wen points out, quoting Fozu tongji, the throne ordered the repair of statues at Longmen in 1015, which may be when the architectural façade was added to the Vairocana shrine. That the shrine was designed to exist without a roof or façade is also suggested by the 120-meter, V-shaped trench originally cut into the rock above the shrine, which served to shunt water away. See Gong, Longmen shiku yishu, p. 137; and Jing Luo, “Wenbo jianxun: Henan sheng” (On 1971 restoration of Fengxiansi), Wenwu 1972.3: 74 – 75. 9. Longmen was originally known as Yique, or the Watchtowers on the Yi, but from the mid-seventh century onward, it

was more often called Longmen, or the Dragon Gate. According to the early-ninth-century Yuanhe junxian tuzhi, when Emperor Yang of Sui (r. 604 – 617) traveled to Luoyang to consider it for his new capital, he climbed the Mang Mountains north of Luoyang and looked south toward the cliffs at Yique. Turning to his ministers, he said: “Is this not a Dragon Gate? What is the reason that since antiquity no one has built a capital here?” His official Su Wei replied: “It has not been unknown since antiquity. It was simply waiting for Your Majesty.” The emperor was pleased with this response and discussed situating his capital in Luoyang (Yan Wenru, “Longmen shiku mingming zhi youlai,” in Longmen shiku yanjiu lunwenxuan, p. 3). He soon issued an edict that the Eastern Capital be established at the confluence of the Yi and Luo rivers (Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 180, p. 5615), in accord with medieval notions of geomancy (fengshui). It was sited with its back to the Mang Mountains as a protective barrier to the north, while the waters of the Chan River flowed on the east, and the current of the Jian River ran on the west (ibid., ch. 180, p. 5618), to corral the qi, or cosmic “life-breath,” which flowed through the mountains and pooled at their base, so that its energy could quicken the city and its inhabitants. The city’s southern aspect was also intended to conform to Han dynasty notions of imperial city design, which mandated alignment on a north-south axis. The Sui-Tang city of Luoyang was intentionally built about nine kilometers west of the old Luoyang city walls of the Han and Northern Wei dynasties, specifically in order to line up the north-south axis of the city with the cliffs at Yique. This axis ran from the Yingtian Gate in the southern wall of the Palatine City southward through the Duan Gate in the Imperial City wall and the Dingding Gate in the outer city wall to the cliffs facing each other like gates across the River Yi. This perception is confirmed by certain inscriptions at Longmen that relate to the Dingding Gate, such as one for Grotto 1917, dated 697, which situates the grotto “facing north to the Ding Gate” (Tiji, no. 2730), while the Wei Muqian Family Shrine dedication of 717 places its grotto “in the suburbs of the Dingding Gate” (Tiji, no. 1399). By relocating the capital, the Dragon Gate became the first southern gateway on the northward approach to the imperial city, the city of “the dragon” — the emperor. See the map showing the axis from the Mang Mountains through Luoyang to Yique in Heng Chye Kiang, Cities of Aristocrats and Bureaucrats: The Development of Medieval Chinese Cityscapes (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1999), fig. 7. 10. The Shiji Monastery site was excavated recently. See Li Jian­chao, “Sui Tang Chang’an cheng Shijisi yizhi chutu wenwu,” Kaogu 1988.4. 11. Translation based on Tiji, no. 1635, with reference to Tiji, no. 1637; the annotations in Wen Yucheng, “ ‘He Luo shangdu Longmenshan zhi yang da Lushena xiangkan ji’ zhushi,” Zhong­ yuan wenwu 1984.3: 99 – 100; and the translation in Chavannes, Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, pp. 254 – 256. See also Okada n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 1 4 – 1 1 6   |  201

Ken, “Ryūmon sekkutsu sho-Tō sōzō ron — sono san,” pp. 118 –  119, n. 8. 12. Sofukawa, “Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,” pp. 214 – 215. 13. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 24, no. 1484, pp. 1003c – 1004a. 14. Paul Groner, “The Fan-wang ching and Monastic Discipline in Japanese Tendai: A Study of Annen’s Futsū jubosatsukai kōshaku,” in Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha, ed. Robert E. Buswell, Jr. (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1990), pp. 252 – 255. Many thanks to Kyoko Tokuno for this reference. 15. The translation of the Avatam ˙ saka Sūtra used in the 670s was the sixty-fascicle version made by Buddhabhadra (359 – 429). See Cleary, Entry into the Inconceivable, p. 171. 16. Other theories include Tanabe Saburosuke’s idea that the thousand-petal lotus throne indicates the figure is Vairocana, while the presence of Ānanda and Kāśyapa and the Seven Buddhas of the Past in the halo reveal that the figure is also Śākyamuni. Such a double deity would be the lord of this world and the controlling principle of the universe and, in Tanabe’s view, as an expression of state Buddhism, would represent the supreme political power held by the emperor and empress. See Tanabe Saburosuke, “Ryūmon sekkutsu hōsenji dō honzon, Rushanabutsu zō,” Kokka 1128 (1989): 43 – 46. There is also Lokesh Chandra’s idea that the Vairocana was created for the tantric protection of the nation after the military losses to the Tibetans in 670 and 671. See “The Role of Tantras in the Defence Strategy of T’ang China,” in Kusumañjali, 2 v., ed. M. S. Nagaraja Rao (Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, 1987), 1:53 – 59. See my article, “The Fengxiansi Shrine and Longmen in the 670s,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm 68 (1996): 325 – 392. 17. Gong Dazhong, Longmen shiku yishu, p. 141. 18. Ibid., p. 138. 19. Ibid., p. 141. 20. Ibid., p. 142, quoting from Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 204, p. 6466. 21. Li Yukun, “Cong Longmen zaoxiang mingji kan Tangdai fojiao,” Shijie zongjiao yanjiu 1985.3: 34 – 39; and Zhang Naizhu, “Cong Longmen zaoxiang shiji kan Wu Zetian yu Tangdai fojiao zhi guanxi.” 22. Okada, “Ryūmon sekkutsu sho-Tō sōzō ron — sono san,” pp. 107 – 108. 23. See Wen Yucheng, “Tang Gaozong li Dalushena xiangkan,” Zhongguo shi yanjiu 1985.2: 155 – 156; and Wen Yucheng, “Lüetan Longmen Fengxiansi de jige wenti,” p. 54. 24. Wen Yucheng, “Lüetan Longmen Fengxiansi de jige wenti,” p. 55, quoting Fayuan zhulin, ch. 9, zhanxiang bu. 25. The following summary of the empress’ career is based on Cambridge History of China, v. 3, pp. 244 – 273. 26. Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 201, p. 6343. 27. Cambridge History of China, v. 3, p. 268.

202   |  n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 1 6 – 1 1 9

28. T. H. Barrett, Taoism under the T’ang (London: Wellsweep Press, 1996), p. 39. 29. Fangshan Yunjusi shijing, p. 1, quoting from Tang Lin (7th c.), Ming bao ji (Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 51, no. 2082, p. 789). Tang Lin sponsored an Amitābha grotto at Longmen (Grotto 291; Tiji, no. 0381). 30. Li Faliang, Famensi zhi (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 2000), p. 331. 31. Antonino Forte, “Il ‘Monastero dei Grandi Chou’ a Loyang,” Annali dell’Istituto Orientale de Napoli, n.s. 23 (1973): 419, 425. 32. For a survey of Fazang’s writings, see Cleary, Entry into the Inconceivable, pp. 13 – 14. 33. See Yan Chaoyin, “Da Tang Da Jianfusi gu Dade Kang Fazang shi zhi bei” and Ch’oe Ch’iwon, “Tang Tae Ch’onboksa kosaju pon’gyong taedok Popchang hwasang chon,” in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 50, no. 2054, pp. 280 – 286. Annotated versions of these two texts appear in Fazang, Huayan Jin shizi zhang jiaoshi, ed. Fang Litian (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), pp. 172 – 190. 34. Some sources say Fazang served at the Western Taiyuan Monastery in Chang’an, but I agree with Yen Chüan-ying that it was the Eastern Taiyuan Monastery in Luoyang. See Yen Chüan-ying, “The Sculpture from the Tower of Seven Jewels: The Style, Patronage and Iconography of the Monument” (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1986), pp. 21 – 22. Wang Pu said the Taiyuan Monastery in Luoyang (also called the Fu­xian Monastery and Weiguo Monastery) was established in Lady Yang’s residence, which agrees with the statement in Fazang’s biography that the empress established the Taiyuan Monastery by donating her mother’s house. See Wang Pu, Tang hui yao, ch. 48, p. 848. 35. Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang, p. 46. “Chief in Goodness” is the title of book 12 of the Avatam ˙ saka Sūtra. See Thomas Cleary, trans., The Flower Ornament Scripture (Boston and London: Shambhala, 1993), p. 330. 36. Fazang, Huayanjing zhuanji, in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 51, no. 2073, p. 155a. The empress’ preface is found in Qinding Quan Tang wen, ch. 97, pp. 1001 – 1002. 37. However, the shrines he dedicated at Longmen earlier contained an Amitābha and several King Udayana images. The Amitābha pentad (forty-two centimeters high) with donor portraits on the west wall of Weizi Grotto is inscribed: “Fazang, for his parents, brothers and sisters, and also for Shengman, reverently had made one Amitābha shrine on the fifteenth day of the fourth month of the second year of the Qianfeng era (667)” (Tiji, no. 1521). Wen Yucheng believes Shengman was his wife. See his Zhongguo shiku yu wenhua yishu (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, 1993), p. 313. Fazang also dedicated three King Udayana figures above the Yique Buddha Shrine

Stele (Grotto 176; Tiji, nos. 0245, 0255, 0256) and as Kang Fazang joined with a group to dedicate two King Udayana shrines north of Laolong Grotto (Grottoes 676 – 677; Tiji, nos. 1120 – 1121). 38. Cleary, Entry into the Inconceivable, p. 163. 39. Ibid., p. 168. 40. The length of time required to produce the Vairocana shrine has been the subject of considerable speculation. Of various time frames, the shortest is the three years and nine months from the moment of Empress Wu’s donation of her “rouge and powder money” in 672 to the completion of the project on January 20, 676, as first expressed by the Buddhist historian Zhipan in 1269, who stated unequivocally that in 672 an order was issued to excavate a stone shrine at Longmen containing a Vairocana image eighty-five chi in height (Fozu tongji, ch. 39). Jin Weinuo, Wen Tingkuan, and Jing Luo, the first twentiethcentury Chinese experts to write on Longmen, agreed with this statement, although Professor Jin expressed astonishment that so large a project could have been completed in three years and nine months. See Jin Weinuo, introduction to Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen baoguanso (1961); Wen Tingkuan, “Woguo beibu de jichu shiku yishu,” Wenwu cankao ziliao 1955.1: 69 – 94; Jing Luo, “Wenbo jianxun: Henan sheng,” pp. 74 – 75. Mizuno and Nagahiro also held this view, which was followed by other Japanese scholars into the 1980s (Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 1, p. 141; Sofukawa, “Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,” 1:210; and Tanabe, “Ryūmon sekkutsu hōsenji dō honzon,” p. 43). Mizuno and Nagahiro advanced the theory that the Vairocana shrine was constructed on the original, abandoned site of the Binyang grottoes, since there must have been a large excavation left behind when the original site was deserted, and yet, a large half-excavated area of this kind does not exist at Longmen. Hence, it must have disappeared as the area was excavated deeper to produce the Vairocana image shrine. Okada Ken took issue with Mizuno and Nagahiro’s theory (“Ryūmon sekkutsu sho-Tō sōzō ron — sono san,” p. 105). Believing that the site of the Vairocana shrine could not have been the spot deemed too high for the Binyang grottoes, since the successfully completed Northern Wei Huangfu Grotto is at exactly the same height, he climbed up on the cliff face above the current location of the Binyang grottoes and found what he considers to be the traces of their original site. Even though the Vairocana shrine must have been created entirely in the Tang, then, he felt that three years and nine months would not have been adequate, and he proposed a theory that the project must have been begun around 671, by considering the number of inscribed intrusive shrines produced in certain years in correlation with events in Luoyang, especially the periodic arrival of the imperial court from Chang’an. First, he noted the dearth of inscriptions at Longmen in the early 670s. There are no inscriptions dated to 670, although Okada attrib­ utes that fact to the crushing effect of the nationwide drought

that peaked in that year. As a consequence of the famine conditions in the Guanzhong area, the imperial court did leave Chang’an for Luoyang in 671, which is when Okada believes the Vairocana project was begun. Only a dozen inscribed shrines were produced in the five years from 671 through 675, a remarkably low total compared with the two dozen produced in 668 and 669 alone. Okada considers this lack of inscribed shrines in the early 670s as evidence that a vast imperial project had commandeered all available workers. If the project were begun around 671, it would have taken about five years to complete. Another theory has been proposed by Ohashi Katsuaki (Long­ men shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 238). In a very close reading of the sequence of facts stated in the Vairocana shrine inscription, Ohashi observes that the wording suggests the empress made her donation to a project that was already under way in 672. The statement about her aiding the project follows so closely after the statement that the emperor established the shrine, however, that it suggests the shrine was not established very long before 672. Ohashi estimates the project was begun about five or six years before 672, so that the total length for the project would have been between eight and ten years. No justification for this estimation is given, but to extrapolate from his estimate of duration would mean the shrine was begun around 665 or 666, and indeed, the court was in Luoyang for most of 665. During this period, shrines were sponsored at Longmen by persons associated with the court, including Wang Xuance, the imperial envoy to India, and Feng Shiliang, a eunuch secretary to the empress (Tiji, nos. 0145 and 0141). After surveying the theories of Wen Tingkuan and others who argue for 672, Gong Dazhong’s theory of 655, and Li Yukun’s theory of pre-662, which has been disproved, Zhang Kaisheng, who is on the staff of the Henan Provincial Museum, offers his own theory of 666 as the inaugural date, based in part on the participation of Wei Ji. See Zhang, “Luoyang Longmen Fengxiansi Daxiangkan kaizao niandai qianshuo,” in Longmen shiku yiqian wubai zhounian guoji xueshu taolunhui lunwenji, ed. Longmen shiku yanjiusuo, pp. 151 – 156. An even longer period was proposed by Gong Dazhong, who felt that if the Northern Wei Binyang trio was worked on for eighteen years, with only one of them being finished, then surely the much larger Vairocana shrine would have taken as long or longer and was begun shortly after Wu Zetian was made empress in 655 (Gong, Longmen shiku yishu, pp. 134 – 135). This view is echoed in Wen Yucheng, “Tang Gaozong li Dalushena xiangkan,” p. 156. 41. Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 200, p. 6319. 42. These conversions use a Tang standard of 29.5 centimeters per chi. See Wan Guoding, “Tang chi kao,” p. 119. 43. Daoshi (d. 683), Fayuan zhulin (Rpt. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991), ch. 14, p. 117. 44. Cambridge History of China, v. 3, p. 255.

n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 1 9 – 1 2 0   |  203

45. Chang Qing, Binxian Dafosi zaoxiang yishu (Beijing: Xiandai chubanshe, 1998), p. 247, quoting Da Ciensi sanzang fashi zhuan with regard to the Ximingsi. On the Dongming guan, see Wang Pu, Tang hui yao, ch. 50, p. 869. Also see Barrett, Taoism under the T’ang, pp. 30 – 31. The Ximing Monastery site was excavated recently. See Zhongguo shekeyuan kaogusuo Tangcheng gongzuodui, “Tang Chang’an Ximingsi yizhi fajue jianbao,” Kaogu 1990.1. 46. See Tiji, v. 1, p. 56 – 57, quoting Cefu yuangui, ch. 46, and Yijing’s biography of Xuanzhao in Da Tang xiyou qiufa gaoseng zhuan. In the end, since no one could figure out what it was made of, the emperor did not take the drug. Edward Schafer recorded an anecdote about a “compounder of drugs” named Nārāyanasvāmin, who was brought to Gaozong’s court from Magadha by Wang Xuance in 648. See The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T’ang Exotics (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963), p. 50. The Indian claimed to be able to prepare the elixir of immortality, but when the emperor asked him to do so, it proved ineffective. 47. Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 200, pp. 6318 and 6329. 48. Tiji, nos. 1433, 0951, and 1038. 49. Tiji, no. 0092. 50. Cambridge History of China, v. 3, pp. 262 – 263. 51. Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 3, p. 70, reading jiaolie for jiaoqi.

Chapter 7: The Satellite Grottoes 1. Fazang, “Cultivation and Contemplation of the Inner Meaning of the Huayan,” in Cleary, Entry into the Inconceiv­ able,” p. 168. 2. Only the south wall lokapāla remains, the north wall figure having been stolen sometime before 1933. See Wen Yucheng, “Luo­ yang Longmen Shuangyao,” Kaogu xuebao 1988.1: 106, n. 4. 3. The bodhisattva that stood against the south wall was stolen in 1935 (ibid., p. 106, n. 3). 4. Ibid., p. 129. See also Wen Yucheng and Yang Shunxing, “Du ‘Fengxue qizu Qianfeng baiyun chanyuan ji’ bei hou,” Zhongyuan wenwu 1984.1: 35 – 38, 41. 5. Zhang Naizhu, “Cong Longmen zaoxiang shiji kan Wu Zetian yu Tangdai fojiao zhi guanxi,” p. 51. 6. Wen, “Luoyang Longmen Shuangyao,” pp. 125 – 127. 7. Ibid., p. 129. 8. Tiji, no. 0092. Shrine N114 is located at the floor level of the grotto. It is 52 centimeters high, 56 centimeters across, and 10 centimeters deep and contains a seated cross-legged Buddha flanked by two standing bodhisattvas, with the inscription to the east. See Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 1, p. 67 and pl. 589. 9. Sofukawa Hiroshi, “Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,” esp. pt. 1, p. 218. 204   |  n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 2 0 – 1 2 9

10. There are two views as to whether the emperor’s sixth son, Li Xian, was also Empress Wu’s second son. Twitchett and Wechsler state that Li Xian (Prince Zhanghuai) was her second son (Cambridge History of China, v. 3, pp. 270 – 271), but Sofukawa bases his argument that Huijian sycophantically prayed only for Li Hong and Li Xian (Prince of Zhou) on the belief that only Li Hong and the Prince of Zhou were her sons. Richard Guisso also states that Prince Zhanghuai was not her son. See R. W. L. Guisso, Wu Tse-t’ien and the Politics of Legitimation in T’ang China (Bellingham, Wash.: Western Washington University Press, 1978), p. 23. 11. See his biography in Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 7, pp. 135 – 151. 12. Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang, p. 48. 13. Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 7, p. 141; Weinstein, Bud­ dhism under the T’ang, pp. 48 – 49; Shi Xiaoyun, Tang Zhong­ zong, Tang Ruizong (Changchun: Jilin wenshi chubanshe, 1995), pp. 130 – 135. 14. Where a figure of Kāśyapa is expected on the right, there are only contemporaneous intrusive shrines, suggesting that something went wrong in the planning of the grotto that left inadequate space. Perhaps a freestanding image was placed there instead. See Longmen shiku yanjiusuo, “Longmen 565 hao ku (Huijian dong) diaocha jianbao,” Zhongyuan wenwu 2001.5: 12. 15. See the reproduction in Lee, A History of Far Eastern Art, pl. 148. 16. For extensive discussions of the transmission of the Sārnāth throne decorations, see Inamoto Yasuo, “Aikuō zō tō­den kō — Chūgoku sho-Tōki o chūshin ni,” Tōhō gakuhō 69 (1997): 357 – 457; and Li Sisheng, “Yi Fo wushi pusa he pusa zhuang Fo.” 17. Tiji, no. 0779, translating hai si fa as Fahai si. 18. Its name derived from the fact that in the early Sui dynasty, the residence of the Duke of Qinghai was turned into a monastery for a certain monk Fahai. See Longmen shiku yanjiusuo, “Longmen 565 hao ku (Huijian dong) diaocha jianbao,” p. 12, quoting the Song dynasty Chang’an zhi and the biography of Daoying in ch. 18 of Zanning, Song Gaosengzhuan. 19. Longmen shiku yanjiusuo, “Longmen 565 hao ku (Huijian dong) diaocha jianbao,” p. 13. Others consider the Moya sanfo (Cliff-Carved Three Buddhas) to have honored the empress. Wen Yucheng and Li Wensheng see the central Maitreya as a sycophantic reference to Empress Wu, started and abandoned by Xue Huaiyi, the burly drug vendor whom she ordained for service in the Palace Chapel and made abbot of White Horse Monastery, sometime between 690 and 695. See Longmen shiku diaoke, ed. Su Bai, Wen Yucheng, and Li Wensheng, p. 41, notes to pl. 123. 20. Antonino Forte, Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century (Naples: Istituto universitario orientale, 1976), pp. 136, 142, and 158.

21. On August 16, 690, ten bhadanta monks of the Palace Chapel in Luoyang presented a copy of the Great Cloud Sūtra to the empress with their new Commentary on the Meaning of the Prophecy about “Divine and August” in the Great Cloud Sūtra, which highlighted the prophecy in the sūtra that spoke of a female ruler who would be a cakravartin and a bodhisattva, ruling over a Buddhist utopia on the southern continent of Jam­budvīpa. It identified this figure as Empress Wu. See Forte, Political Pro­ paganda, pp. 52 and 183. 22. Mizuno and Nagahiro, Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 1, p. 30. 23. See Chün-fang Yü, Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokiteśvara (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 537, n. 15. 24. Sofukawa, “Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,” pt. 1, p. 220. 25. Tiji, no. 0759. 26. Tiji, nos. 0703, 0708, 0720, 0724, 0748, 0749, 0750, 0760, 0761, and 0763. 27. Examples include Tiji, no. 0718, in the early Tang Grotto 557; Tiji, no. 0674, in the early Tang Grotto 555; Tiji, no. 2563, in the early Tang Grotto 1508; and Tiji, no. 0659. 28. See, for example, Tiji, no. 2743. 29. Julian Pas, Visions of Sukhāvatī: Shan-Tao’s Commentary on the Kuan Wu-Liang-Shou-Fo Ching (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), p. 63. 30. Tiji, no. 0747. 31. Tiji, no. 0724. See the reproduction in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, pl. 85. The figure on the left is a Save-from-Suffering Guanyin, while the one on the right holds both hands out, grasping its scarves. This is considered by most scholars to be another figure of Guanyin, although it is more likely to be Yaoshi, the Buddha of Healing, by comparison to a very similar pair of figures in a Zhou dynasty (690 – 705) shrine on the west wall of Qingmingsi Grotto, which is identified by inscription as Yaoshi and Guanyin (Tiji, no. 0710). For a reproduction, see Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng, pl. 132. 32. Tiji, nos. 0589 and 2617. See also Tiji, v. 1, pp. 61 – 62. 33. Tiji, no. 0634. 34. Chen Zhi, “Xi’an chutu Sui Tang ni fo xiang tongkao,” Xiandai foxue 1963, no. 3. 35. For the definition of this term, see Zhongwen dacidian, no. 3975.245. Another of these bricks is reproduced in Matsubara Saburō, Chūgoku bukkyō chūkoku shiron, pl. 610c and d. One excavated in 1985 at the Da Cien Monastery in Xi’an is reproduced in Tō no jotei Sokuten Bukō to sono jidaiten: Kyūtei no eiga / Tang Dynasty Empress Wu and Her Times: The Glory of the Court (Tokyo: NHK Puromōshon, 1998), no. 107. 36. Wen Yucheng, Gu Yanfang, and Li Wensheng think the grotto was excavated from around 670 to 674 (Longmen shiku,

ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, pp. 186 and 261 – 262). Those who date it around 675 include Sofukawa, in “Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,” pt. 1, p. 222; and Okada Ken, in “Ryūmon sekkutsu sho-Tō sōzō ron  — sono san,” p. 102. 37. Pas, Visions of Sukhāvatī, p. 94. 38. Zhang Naizhu, “Cong Longmen zaoxiang shiji kan Wu Zetian yu Tangdai fojiao zhi guanxi,” pp. 42 – 44. 39. Tiji, no. 0032, in Binyang North Grotto. For his inscription of 666, see Tiji, no. 0095, in Binyang South Grotto. 40. Cambridge History of China, v. 3, pp. 285 – 286; and Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 201, pp. 6364 – 6365. 41. Mizuno and Nagahiro, Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, text 877. This inscription is said to have been in Lianhua Grotto but is now lost. See Wen Yucheng, “Longmen suojian liang Tangshu zhong renwu zaoxiang gaishuo,” p. 134. An ink rubbing is reproduced in Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian, v. 15, p. 194. 42. See Zhang Naizhu, “Cong Longmen zaoxiang shiji kan Wu Zetian yu Tangdai fojiao zhi guanxi,” pp. 48 – 50. 43. Grotto no. 1497. See Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 192. 44. Tiji, no. 2537. 45. Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 202, p. 6372. 46. The lion from the south wall is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, while its mate is on display in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. The missing dvārapāla head is in the Shanghai Museum. 47. See Li Yuzhen, Tangdai de biqiuni (Taibei: Taiwan xue­ sheng, 1989), p. 227, n. 99. I wonder if a monk and a nun represented in close physical proximity would have appeared unseemly to a Tang audience. 48. Shanxiang was head of the Yongyaosi (Tiji, no. 0615), which may well be the same convent as the Yongyaosi established by the Palace Chapel nun Huideng (Tiji, no. 1650). 49. The unusually high level of patronage by nuns at Wanfo Grotto is made evident by comparison with the Paired Grottoes, which were produced around the same time, where only one out of the fifty-four intrusive shrines was sponsored by a donor who explicitly identified herself as a nun (less than 2 percent), while in Wanfo Grotto at least fourteen of the eighty-nine intrusive shrines were donated by nuns (nearly 16 percent). 50. Tiji, no. 0635. 51. For the first, see Tiji, nos. 0581 and 0582. For the latter, see Mizuno and Nagahiro, Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, texts 882 and 883, neither of which is recorded in Tiji, perhaps because they were attached to images of nuns on the façade that were stolen after 1936. We know that nun Zhenwu of text 883 was at Wanfo Grotto, however, because of another short inscription on the façade that gives her name (Tiji, no. 0648). Also see Tiji, nos. 0631, 0635, 0632, and 0634, for which see also Li Yukun, “Longn o t e s t o pa g e s 1 2 9 – 1 3 5   |  205

men zakao,” Wenwu 1980.1: 29; an ink rubbing is reproduced in Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian, v. 16, p. 152. 52. Tiji, nos. 0635, 0637, and 0634. 53. Tiji, no. 0620. 54. Huideng’s burial cave (Grotto 1336) is south of the Vairocana shrine. The inscription (Tiji, no. 1650) was not recorded by Mizuno and Nagahiro but is discussed in Wen Yucheng, “Longmen suojian liang Tangshu zhong renwu zaoxiang gaishuo,” p. 131. See also Sofukawa, “Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,” pt. 1, p. 224. The “burial caves” at Longmen held cremated remains, not corpses, and should therefore properly be called cineraria. See Zhang Naizhu, “Longmen shiku Tangdai yiku de xin faxian jiqi wenhua yiyi de tantao,” Kaogu 1991.2: 160 – 169; and Li Wensheng, “Longmen shiku fojiao yizang xingshi de xin faxian,” Yishuxue 11 (1994): 7 – 18. 55. Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 3, pp. 72 and 74. I assume this number includes the thirty rows of figures around the lokapālas on the front interior walls. 56. Sofukawa, “Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,” pt. 1, pp. 225 – 226. 57. Ibid., 226. In an unpublished seminar paper, Ling-en Lu notes the initial contribution to this identification of Fifteen Thousand Buddhas and the Bodhiruci translation in the work of Kobayashi Taichiro, Yamatoe shiron (Osaka: Zenkoku shobo, 1946), ch. 5 (Lu, “The 15,000 Buddhas at Wanfo Grotto and Lei­ gutai Central Cave,” University of Kansas, 1997). 58. On the south wall of Binyang South Grotto is a small shrine containing five Buddha figures, under which are three brief inscriptions, including the following: “Wang Xinxing for [three illegible characters] and [three illegible characters] for their release, reverently had made one image.” (This shrine, S45, is mistakenly called S46 under the reproduction in Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 1, pl. 424. Wang Xin­ xing’s inscription is reproduced in Tiji, no. 0198, Yang Fuyin’s is no. 0190, and Yang Sengwei’s is no. 0158.) Several factors suggest this patron may have been Xinxing, the founder of the Three Levels teachings. His family name was Wang, and at the end of his life, he gave up the monastic precepts, although he continued to live as a monk. Further, Xinxing lived most of his life in Ye (near modern Anyang, Henan), the capital of the Eastern Wei and the Northern Qi dynasties, which lay about two hundred kilometers north of Luoyang. Ye was the city to which the residents of Luoyang were hastily removed in 534, so people in Ye were quite likely to know about the grottoes of Longmen. Lastly, Xinxing died during the early Sui dynasty, and Binyang South and Central are the only grottoes containing Sui dynasty inscriptions. Arguing against this, however, the dedication of three of the figures by a layman named Yang Sengwei was made in 644, so if the Wang Xinxing inscription was made around 644, he could not have been the founder of the Three Levels teachings. 206   |  n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 3 5 – 1 4 1

59. For the Guyang shrine, see Ryūmon Kyōken sekkutsu, ed. Kuno Takeshi and Sugiyama Jirō (Tokyo: Roppyo, 1982), pl. 118. For Sicha’s shrine on the façade of Cave 5, see Gongxian shiku si (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1989), p. 287, text 114, reproduced in pl. 251. 60. Hida Romi,”Sho-Tō jidai ni okeru Aikuō zō,” p. 91. 61. Sofukawa, “Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,” pt. 1, p. 227. 62. Gu Yanfang and Li Wensheng, “Longmen shiku zhuyao Tang ku zongxu,” in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 260. 63. Tiji, no. 0602. See the ink rubbing in Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian, v. 16, p. 137. 64. Li Yukun, “Longmen xukao,” Wenwu 1983.6: 32. 65. The basis for this idea is that the title Dajian appears in The History of the Northern Wei as an office in the female palace bureaucracy, and apparently it continued to be used in the Tang. See Gong Dazhong, Longmen shiku yishu, p. 152. On the organization of the palace women during the Tang, see Gao Shiyu, Tangdai funü (Xi’an: San Qin chubanshe, 1988), pp. 12 – 30. 66. Sofukawa, “Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,” pt. 1, pp. 223 – 225 and n. 225. 67. Tiji, no. 1137. 68. Liu Jinglong, Longmen ershipin: Beike yu zaoxiang yishu, no. 20. 69. This is probably the second site of the monastery. In 722, the Yi River flooded and ruined the original Fengxian Monastery (see chapter 8). The Longhua Monastery was ordered to “join with” the Fengxian Monastery, meaning that the Longhua Monastery became the Fengxian Monastery. My sincere thanks to Aurora Testa, a member of the excavation team, for giving me a copy of her detailed report, “Sculptures Unearthed at the Fengxiansi Monastery, Longmen,” Annali dell’Istituto Orien­ tale de Napoli 62 (2002): 125 – 166. Chinese reports and studies include Fengxiansi yizhi fajue gongzuodui, “Luoyang Longmen Fengxiansi yizhi fajue jianbao,” Zhongyuan wenwu 2001.2: 10 – 20; Fu Andun, “Longmen Da Fengxiansi de qiyuan ji diwei,” Zhongyuan wenwu 1997.2: 83 – 92; and Wen Yucheng, “Longmen Fengxiansi yizhi diaocha ji,” Kaogu yu wenwu 1986.2: 27 – 29. 70. Forte, Political Propaganda and Ideology in China, p. 97, n. 116. From Shujing, Shangshu, Taijia 2, in James Legge, trans., The Chinese Classics, 5 v. (Rpt. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960), v. 3, p. 208. 71. Forte, Political Propaganda and Ideology in China, p. 97, n. 116. 72. Longmen shiku diaoke, p. 21; Wen Yucheng, “Tang Gaozong li Dalushena xiangkan,” p. 156; Wen Yucheng, “Lüetan Longmen Fengxiansi de jige wenti,” p. 54. 73. On the Da Ciensi, see Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang, pp. 26 – 27. On the Haotian Guan, see Wang Pu, Tang hui yao, ch. 50, p. 869. T. H. Barrett considers the naming of

the Haotian Guan for Emperor Taizong to be a deliberate “step which united symbolically the Taoist church, the state cult and the family line” (Taoism under the T’ang, p. 30). 74. Wang Pu, Tang hui yao, ch. 48 gives a list of imperially sponsored Buddhist monasteries in the Tang. None are dedicated to Emperor Taizong. 75. Tiji, no. 0603. 76. This résumé of Xuanzhao’s career is taken from Yijing, Da Tang xiyou qiufa gaoseng zhuan, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 51, no. 2066, pp. 1 – 2. 77. Tiji, no. 0075. 78. According to the Song dynasty author Chen Zhensun, Xiangshan Monastery was established in 516, during the Northern Wei (quoted in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 218). 79. For example, an Amitābha shrine added to Lianhua Grotto by a court official (Tiji, no. 1179) and a corporate dedication of three Amitābhas by officials from Chang’an in Grotto 679 (Tiji, no. 1123, in Grotto 679). See Guan Baiyi, Yique shike tubiao, ink rubbing no. 70. 80. Stephen F. Teiser, The Ghost Festival in Medieval China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 66 and 68. 81. Ibid., pp. 71 – 72. 82. Ibid., pp. 79 – 82. 83. Ibid., p. 81 (translation adapted). 84. This moral culpability was felt by Emperor Taizong himself. In 630, he had seven monasteries established at the sites of his most important victories, dedicated to the soldiers who perished there. The edict said, “Virtuous monks should be invited to these temples, and with their help the departed souls should be saved.” See the translation of the record in Zhipan’s Fozu tongji in Jan Yün-hua, A Chronicle of Buddhism in China, 581 – 960 A.D. (Calcutta: Visva-Bharati Santiniketan, 1966), pp. 25 – 26. 85. On Li Junzan, see Li Yukun, “Longmen shiku lingshi,” Zhongyuan wenwu 1986.1: 118. 86. Tiji, no. 2536, in Grotto 1490. 87. Purple Cassia Palace was built west of the town of Minchi, which lay seventy-five kilometers west of Luoyang. See Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 202, p. 6390.

Chapter 8: Salvation for One 1. In Wolfgang Iser, The Implied Reader (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), p. 274. 2. Cambridge History of China, v. 3, p. 361. 3. Ibid., p. 412, from Chou I-liang, “Tantrism in China,” Har­ vard Journal of Asiatic Studies 8 (1945): 241 – 332. 4. Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 211, p. 6696. 5. Cambridge History of China, v. 3, p. 411. 6. Tiji, no. 1632. An ink rubbing is reproduced in v. 2, p. 377, but it is too small for legible reproduction here.

7. In this, I follow Mizuno and Nagahiro, Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 1, p. 76. Chavannes states that the inscription was composed and transcribed by the emperor, but the fact that the word zhuan (composed by) appears many spaces before the phrase “imperially transcribed” suggests that someone else, whose name is now missing, was the author. See Chavannes, Mission archéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 458. 8. The transcription in Tiji gives the total number of participants as 160, but Mizuno and Nagahiro (Ryūmon sekkutsu no kenkyū, v. 1, p. 76), Yan Wenru (“Longmen Fengxiansi san zao­ xiang beiming kaoshi,” in Longmen shiku yanjiu lunwenxuan, p. 21), and Wen Yucheng (Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, p. 38) all give the number as 106, which is closer to my estimate of 111 names at most. 9. On Emperor Taizong’s prohibition, see Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 210, p. 6686; and Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 184, p. 4754. Gao’s dates are usually given as 684 – 762, but his epitaph states that he died in 762 at seventy-three sui, not seventy-nine, as given in his biography. Compare Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 207, p. 5860, to Zhao Junping, “Tang ‘Gao Lishi muzhi’ juewei,” Shufa congkan 70 (2002), 2:18. 10. Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 210, p. 6686. 11. These men held this title, according to the list of eunuch donors in the inscription made during the refurbishment of the Qibaotai sculptures in 724. See Yen Chüan-ying, “Wu Zetian yu Tang Chang’an Qibaotai shidiao foxiang,” Yishuxue (Study of the Arts), 1 (1987): 61. 12. The inscription is so ruined that only the names of the Palace Treasury Service, the Menials Service, and the Palace Gates Service can be made out with certainty, but it seems likely that members of all six services would have been involved in this project. 13. See Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985), nos. 4173, 3012, 3495, 2253, 4227, and 4175. 14. This title was taken by Emperor Xuanzong on November 27, 713 (Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 5, p. 122). 15. This is one of the very rare (possibly unique) usages of the term mofa in the Longmen inscriptions. 16. In Amitābha’s twenty-second vow, in the Sūtra of the Bud­ dha of Measureless Life, he refers to Samantabhadra (whose name means ‘Universally Virtuous’) as the archetype of one undertaking the bodhisattva path to enlightenment. See Gómez, The Land of Bliss, p. 168. 17. Incense Mountain was a mythical mountain of Jambudvīpa, believed by the Chinese to be in the Kunlun Mountains. See Foxue dacidian, v. 2, p. 1611b. The overpowering scent of the cam­ paka flower is compared in the Vimalakīrti Sūtra to the overwhelming merit and virtue of the Buddha (ibid., p. 2815b). 18. The references to Incense Mountain and the Himālayas play on the theme of the relocalizing of holy Indian sites at Longn o t e s t o pa g e s 1 4 1 – 1 4 5   |  207

men. The eastern hills were called Xiangshan, or Incense Mountain, while the western cliffs were compared to the Himālayas in Cen Wenben’s inscription of 641. 19. Sofukawa Hiroshi counts a total of forty-nine figures. He says, “There are those who say there are forty-eight figures. However, according to old photographs (meaning Chavannes, Mis­ sion archéologique, pl. 225), to the east of the south-wall guardian figure, above the shrine with three Buddhas in it, there was one niche with a Buddha in it, which has been left out.” See “Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,” pt. 2, p. 126. Wen Yucheng says there are three to the south of the Vairocana, eleven on the north side, seven on the south wall, and twenty-seven on the north wall, for a total of forty-eight. See “Longmen suojian liang Tangshu zhong renwu zaoxiang gaishuo,” p. 136. 20. Sofukawa, “Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,” pt. 2, pp. 126 – 129; Wen Yucheng, “Longmen suojian liang Tangshu zhong renwu zaoxiang gaishuo,” pp. 135 – 136. 21. Yan Wenru, “Longmen Fengxiansi san zaoxiang bei-­ ming kaoshi,” pp. 22 – 23. Tiji, no. 1632, has mistranscribed “the seventh day” as “the seventh month.” Wen Yucheng (Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4, p. 38) and Chavannes (Mission ar­ chéologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 458) also have 730. 22. The inscription is currently cemented over, but an ink rubbing is reproduced in Ryūmon zōzō daiki, no. 49. 23. Wen Yucheng believes this means the statues were refurbished by Emperor Xuanzong (“He Luo shangdu,” pp. 99 – 100). 24. On the subject of stimulus and response in Buddhist belief, see Robert H. Sharf, Coming to Terms with Chinese Bud­ dhism, esp. pp. 120 – 122. 25. These are the thirty-two major marks and eighty minor signs on the body of the Buddha. 26. Using a Tang standard of 29.5 centimeters for one chi (ten chi make one zhang), 12 zhang equals a width of 35.4 meters, while 140 chi equals a height of 41.3 meters. See Wan Guoding, “Tang chi kao,” p. 119. Modern measurements of the shrine vary. Zhang Naizhu gives a width of 33.5 meters for the shrine and 49.38 meters as the height of the top of the shrine from the base of the cliff (“Longmen shiku Da Lushena xiang kan kaocha baogao,” p. 122). Liu and Yang give the dimensions of the shrine proper as 19.68 meters high, 38 meters wide, and 36 meters deep. See Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 8, p. 25. 27. I rely on the translation in Chavannes, Mission archéolo­ gique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 456. 28. Wen Yucheng, in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 221. There is only one mention of a Longhua Monastery in the inscriptions at Longmen. That was made in 533 at Yaofang Grotto, but it could have referred to one of the two Longhua monasteries established in Luoyang in the late Northern Wei (Tiji, v. 1, pp. 38 – 39). 29. According to the account in Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, Wuxing zhi, ch. 37, p. 1357: “The Yi River overflowed and de208   |  n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 4 5 – 1 4 9

stroyed the Tianzhu (India) and Fengxian monasteries at Longmen, south of the capital city, ruining everything up to the southeast corner of the city’s suburbs. The height of the water was over six feet . . . houses and trees were submerged.” 30. Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 5, p. 129; Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 212, p. 6749. 31. Sofukawa,”Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,” p. 128. 32. Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 184, p. 4757; Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 207, p. 5858. 33. They were put in charge specifically of the purchase of birds and animals to be used for the release of living creatures. See Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 184, p. 4757; and Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 207, p. 5858. 34. See Gao Lishi’s biography in Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 184, pp. 4757 – 4759, esp. p. 4757. 35. Zhao Junping, “Tang ‘Gao Lishi muzhi’ juewei,” p. 17. 36. Apparently, it was found or excavated illegally in Shaanxi Province and then “returned” to the Pucheng Cultural Relics Management Office. See Zhao Junping, “Tang ‘Gao Lishi muzhi’ juewei,” p. 16. See also the epitaph of Gao’s father, written by the eminent official Zhang Yue, likely at Gao Lishi’s request, after the death of his mother, née Mai (642 – 729), transcribed in Tangdai muzhi huibian xuji, ed. Zhou Shaoliang and Zhao Chao (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2001), Kaiyuan 092, p. 516. 37. On Gao Yanfu, see Du Wenyu, “Gao Lishi jiazu ji qi yuanliu,” Tang yanjiu 4 (1997): 175 – 197, esp. pp. 186 – 187. 38. Cambridge History of China, v. 3, p. 334. 39. Zhao Junping, “Tang ‘Gao Lishi muzhi’ juewei,” p. 16. 40. Ibid., p. 17. 41. Cambridge History of China, v. 3, pp. 389, 413. 42. Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 184, p. 4757; Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 207, p. 5858. 43. For the text of Gao Lishi’s Spirit Road Stele at Tailing, see Du, “Gao Lishi jiazu ji qi yuanliu,” pp. 175 – 176. 44. Eunuch sponsorship of single Amitābha statues is not unusual. Fifty percent of dated shrines from the early Tang contain an Amitābha figure, and of the ten eunuch dedications at Longmen where the image can be identified, either by iconography or by inscription, five are for Amitābhas. These are the eunuch ceremonial secretary Feng Shiliang’s large shrine in Binyang South Grotto, done in 665; three small shrines in Grotto 355, done in the 660s by low-ranking eunuchs (Tiji, nos. 0402, 0406, and 0403, comparing the last with Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 2, p. 70); and the small cave dedicated by the acting director of the Palace Gates Service Mo Guyin to the imperial family in 684, just north of Guyang Grotto. Tiji identifies it as Grotto 1430; Longmen shiku zonglu has Grotto 1437 (v. 8, p. 114, pl. 568). 45. Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 8, p. 19, pl. 121 – 124.

46. In the opinion of Yan Wenru (“Longmen Fengxiansi san zaoxiang beiming kaoshi,” p. 21), this Zhang could have been either Zhang Yue (667 – 730) or Zhang Jiuling (673 – 740), but Wen Yucheng argues that this Zhang’s rank-5 merit title was too low for him to have been either of those eminent men (“Longmen suojian liang Tangshu zhong renwu zaoxiang gaishuo,” p. 136). On the calligrapher, see ibid, p. 136, n. 129, quoting Zhu Jianxin, Jinshixue (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1940), pp. 274 – 275. The inscription is 50 centimeters high and 130 centimeters wide and was recorded in Wang Chang’s Jinshi cuibian, ch. 77. 47. Tiji, no. 1633. Yen Chüan-ying points out that this inscription is recorded in Quan Tang wen erroneously under the name of Xu, in ch. 959, p. 20 (“Wu Zetian yu Tang Chang’an Qibaotai,” p. 53, n. 73). 48. The Academy of Scholarly Worthies gained that name in 725 and Yang died in 740, but Wen Yucheng considers the grotto to have been completed by 735, based on the way the altars extend outside the grotto (Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 203). 49. Only one other is identified by inscription: Tiji, no. 1383, in Shiniuxi (Grotto 883), the natural crevice carved with Northern Wei and Tang dynasty shrines. Chün-fang Yü has written that “because of the similar savior role played by these two bodhisatt­ vas, Ti-tsang and Kuan-yin began to be linked together in ritual and art in the late T’ang,” but the evidence of Yang’s grotto suggests they were already linked by the early eighth century. See Yü, Kuan-yin, p. 323. At least eleven Dizang-Guanyin pairs are identified by inscription at Longmen, with many more produced that were not inscribed. See Chang Qing, “Longmen shiku Dizang pusa ji qi youguan wenti,” Zhongyuan wenwu 1993.4: 32. 50. See, for example, Tiji, no. 0718, in the early Tang Grotto 557, and Tiji, no. 0674, in the early Tang Grotto 555. 51. All that remains of the name of the first beneficiary is the character lie, which I take to be the first part of liekao, “my illustrious late father.” Next, it says, “my late mother, the Lady of . . . ” (Tiji, no. 1633). 52. His epitaph is transcribed in Tangdai muzhi huibian, ed. Zhou Shaoliang and Zhao Chao (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1992), pp. 1509 – 1510. 53. There is also an Eleven-Headed, Thousand-Armed Guanyin on the south wall of Grotto 571, above Huijian Grotto. The standing Guanyin figures on the main and north walls have the normal number of arms and heads. See Chang Qing, “Shi lun Longmen chu Tang mijiao diaoke,” p. 343. The head of an Eleven-Headed Guanyin from the Leigutai North Grotto, on the east side, is now in the Ohara Museum of Art, Kurashiki (reproduced in Miho Museum, Ryūmon sekkutsu, p. 65), which was part of an Esoteric program of three Buddhas carved around 692 (Li Wensheng, “Longmen Tangdai mizong zaoxiang,” Wenwu 1991.1: 64). 54. See also Chen Jinhua, “Śarīra and Scepter: Empress Wu’s

Political Use of Buddhist Relics,” Journal of the International As­ sociation of Buddhist Studies 25 (2002), nos. 1 – 2: 80 – 103. 55. Yen, “Wu Zetian yu Tang Chang’an Qibaotai,” p. 46. 56. Ibid., p. 54. 57. Yen, “Wu Zetian yu Tang Chang’an Qibaotai,” p. 45; Ch’oe Ch’iwon, “Tang Tae Ch’onboksa kosaju pon’gyong taedok Popchang hwasang chon,” Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, no. 2054, p. 283c; and Fazang, Huayan Jin shizi zhang jiaoshi, p. 182. 58. Yen, “Wu Zetian yu Tang Chang’an Qibaotai,” p. 57. The text is transcribed on p. 58. 59. They include not only Yang Sixu, but also Mo Shunzhi, Lin Chaoyin, and Li Shancai. 60. Not only might the Qibaotai have served for Tantric protection of the state, but Lokesh Chandra has offered the theory that the Great Vairocana Image Shrine was also established for the same reason. See Lokesh Chandra, “The Role of Tantras in the Defence Strategy of T’ang China.” 61. Yang’s tomb, excavated in 1958, suggests he had a particular affinity for sculpture; it contained a pair of warriors or eunuch guardsmen carved of marble, a material rarely used for tomb figures. One of these finely carved figures, forty centimeters high, is reproduced in color in The Glory of the Silk Road: Art from An­ cient China, cat. no. 94. Both are reproduced in China: Dawn of a Golden Age (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), cat. no. 203, and in Kaogu jinghua: Zhongguo shehui kexue yuan kaogu yanjiusuo jiansuo sishi nian jinian (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1993), pl. 252. 62. Yü, Kuan-yin, p. 54. 63. Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 184, p. 4755. According to Hucker (A Dictionary of Official Titles, no. 4141), the man who held the position of Palace Eunuch Attendant-in-ordinary was “the actual head of the Palace Domestic Service.” Yang’s biography is also the first in the section on eunuch officials in both Jiu Tang shu and Xin Tang shu. 64. Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 207, p. 5857. 65. Yan, “Wu Zetian yu Tang Chang’an Qibaotai,” p. 52, n. 62, in which she quotes Sugiyama Jirō, “Hōkeiji sekkoku kenkyū jo­setsu,” Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan kyō, no. 13 (1978): 241 –  291. 66. According to a ninth-century source, during Emperor Xuanzong’s reign, the governor of Yizhou, Sichuan, submitted a volume of painting designs to the throne, which the emperor later gave to Gao. See Luo Shiping, “Sichuan Tangdai fojiao zao­ xiang yu Chang’an yangshi,” p. 55, n. 38, quoting Duan Chengshi, Sitaji, ch. 2, entry for Yishan Ward. 67. Zhao Junping, “Tang ‘Gao Lishi muzhi’ juewei,” pp. 39 – 40. 68. Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 207, p. 5859. 69. Wen Yucheng, “Longmen shiku zaoxiang de xin faxian,” p. 24. 70. Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 8, p. 17, pl. 114. n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 4 9 – 1 5 1   |  209

71. Gómez, The Land of Bliss, pp. 187 – 188. 72. Ibid., p. 139. 73. Ibid., p. 167. 74. Iser, The Implied Reader, p. 274. 75. Ibid., p. 275. 76. Foshuo guan Wuliangshou fo jing, in Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, v. 12, no. 365, p. 345a. 77. According to her work on this site, my student Lisanne Pluth has argued for a date of around 700 for Cave 105 (Lisanne Pluth, “The Xumishan Grottoes and the Iconography of Tang Dynasty Dizang,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kansas, 2004).

Epilogue: The Later Life of the Site 1. Du Fu quanji (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1996), p. 2. See also Édouard Chavannes, “Le défilé de Long-men dans la province de Ho-nan,” Journal Asiatique, series 9, v. 20 (July –  August 1902): 154 – 155. 2. This is a reference to the story of the Magic City in the Lotus Sūtra. See The Lotus Sutra, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 135 – 136. 3. “Xiu Xiangshan ji,” in Bai Juyi ji, 4 v. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), v. 4, pp. 1441 – 1443. 4. Part of the treasure trove of manuscripts found in 1900 in the sealed Cave 17 at the Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang, “Longmen fu” is partially transcribed in Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, pp. 38 – 39. Another poem on this subject, written by a more famous Tang poet, Li Qiao (645 – 714), is transcribed in Luoyang Longmen shi xuan, ed. Li Xianqi (Beijing: Zhongguo lüyou chubanshe, 1986), pp. 1 – 2. 5. Wangzi Jin was a Later Han man who was famous for his ability to conjure phoenixes with his flute playing. He and Fuqiu Bo were friends who roamed around the Yi River and Luo River area together. See Zhongwen dacidian, no. 21295.33. 6. Li Ying (Yuanli) and Guo Tai (Linzong) were good friends who lived in the Luo River area during the Later Han period. One day when they were boating together, the other guests at the party remarked that they looked like a pair of immortals. See Zhongwen dacidian, nos. 14819.1765 and 40338.27. 7. See Ennin’s Diary: The Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law, trans. Edwin O. Reischauer (New York: Ronald Press, 1955), p. 3; and Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 229. 8. See the poem by the academician Song Xiang (996 – 1066) called “On the Offering of Prayers for Rain at the Pagoda of Śubhākarasim ˙ ha at Longmen,” in Luoyang Longmen shi xuan, pp. 57 – 58. According to his biography, Śubhākarasim ˙ ha magically produced rain to ease a drought at the request of the emperor’s representative, the chief eunuch Gao Lishi. See Zanning, Song Gaoseng zhuan (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1987), ch. 2, p. 21. 210   |  n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 5 2 – 1 6 4

9. Grotto 2211; Tiji, no. 2842. For an annotated version of the poem section, see Luoyang Longmen shi xuan, pp. 55 – 56. 10. See Wen Yucheng, “Lüetan Longmen Fengxiansi de jige wenti,” p. 57, quoting Zhipan, Fozu tongji, ch. 44, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, no. 2035, v. 49, p. 405c. 11. From “Longmen,” by Wei Boxiao, in Luoyang Longmen shi xuan, p. 106. 12. Translation modified slightly from Richard E. Strassberg, Inscribed Landscapes: Travel Writing from Imperial China (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1994), pp. 266 – 267. 13. See Antonino Forte, “Marginalia on the First International Symposium on Longmen Studies,” p. 73. 14. See the list of books containing entries on Longmen in Ryūmon zōzō daiki, pp. 119 – 121. 15. Ronald C. Egan, The Literary Works of Ou-yang Hsiu (1007 – 1072) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 3. 16. See the poems in Luoyang Longmen shi xuan, pp. 79 – 82. 17. James T. C. Liu, Ou-yang Hsiu: An Eleventh-Century NeoConfucianist (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967), pp. 165 – 166. 18. Ouyang Xiu, Jigulu bawei, ch. 5, pp. 11b – 12a. 19. See Audrey Spiro, “Forty Years On: Art History, Methodology, and How a Great Scholar Came to Make a Small Error,” Oriental Art 36 (1990), no. 3: 130 – 137; and Chavannes, “Le défilé de Long-men,” p. 146. 20. Tiji, no. 1741. 21. Gu Yanwu, Jinshi wenzi ji, ch. 2, pp. 17 – 18, in Shike shiliao xinbian (Taibei: Xinwenfeng, 1977), v. 12, p. 9219. 22. Qianshen Bai, Fu Shan’s World: The Transformation of Chinese Calligraphy in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003), p. 164. 23. Huang Yi, Song Luo fang bei riji, pp. 9 – 11, in Shike shiliao xinbian: di san ji, v. 29, pp. 601 – 602. 24. Tiji, nos. 1632, 1634, 1633, and 1639, respectively. 25. This would have been the present Xiangshan Monastery, which was rebuilt in 1708 by Tang Youzeng and sits opposite the grottoes on the western side, not the Tang dynasty complex known to Bai Juyi that stood at the southern end of the eastern hills. 26. Tiji, no. 1112, in Cave 670, above Laolong Grotto, written in 715. 27. Dang Ye’s grotto is Cave 2125 on the east side, Tiji, no. 2800, dated 772; Xin Bi’s inscription is Tiji no. 2823, dated 818, in Cave 2158. 28. Longmen ershi pin, pp. 7 and 14. 29. Bao Shichen, “Li xia bi tan,” in Zhu Jia, ed., Yizhou shu­angji shucheng (Taibei: Huazheng shuju, 1980), p. 38. Details of the Stele for Zhang Menglong, dated 522, are reproduced in Shodō zenshū, 3rd ed., 26 v. (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1966 – 1969), v. 6, pl. 24 – 29; details from the Stele for Jia Sibo (Jia Shijun), dated 519,

are reproduced in v. 6, pl. 22 – 23; and details from the Stele for the Enfeoffment of Kong Xian as Marquis of Zongsheng, dated 221, are reproduced in v. 3, pl. 59 – 60. 30. Tiji, no. 2337. 31. Fang Ruo and Wang Zhuanghong, Zeng bu Jiao bei sui bi (Shanghai: Shanghai shuhua chubanshe, 1981), p. 241. 32. Zhu Jia, ed., Guang Yizhou shuangji shuzheng (Hong Kong: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), ch. 19, p. 175. The King Udayana figure was produced from an abandoned Northern Wei shrine in the lowest register of Guyang Grotto, on the north wall beneath Wei Lingzang’s shrine. 33. See, for example, Liu Jinglong, Longmen ershipin: Beike yu zaoxiang yishu; and Longmen ershipin.

34. Abe, Ordinary Images, p. 191. 35. Gustav Ecke, “On a Wei Relief Represented in a Rubbing,” Monumenta Serica 2 (1936 – 1937): 205 – 207. My thanks go to my student Jason Steuber, assistant curator of early Chinese art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, for providing me with this reference. 36. Longmen liusan diaoxiang ji, p. 107. 37. Wen Yucheng, “Lüetan Longmen Fengxiansi de jige wenti,” p. 57. 38. Liu Jinglong, “The Preservation of the Longmen Caves,” in Miho Museum, Ryūmon sekkutsu, p. 156.

n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 6 4 – 1 6 5   |  211

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Index

Page numbers in italic refer to figures. Amitābha: belief in, 131, 156, 196n. 47; and the fifty (or fifty-two) bodhisattvas, 4, 90, 104–107, 107, 110, 120, 123, 136–140; images of, 89, 103, 105, 106, 120, 130, 131, 155, 156, 195n. 2 Amitābhas, forty-eight, 3, 4, 144, 145–151, 146 Amitābha shrines, 55, 84–86, 120, 123, 126, 130, 132, 169, 198n. 88, 199n. 197, 202nn. 29, 37, 207n. 79 Amitābhas, three, 151–152, 152, 153 Amitābhas, twelve, 152–153 Amitābha Sūtra, 90, 131 An Lushan, 1, 157 art: Buddhist view of, 5, 11, 31, 35, 49, 109, 126, 140, 154–156; Confucian view of, 11, 132 artisans, 1, 51, 55, 96, 116, 142, 170 Avalokiteśvara, 94, 130, 199n. 98 . Avatamsaka Sūtra, 34, 116, 119, 150, 200nn. 117, 3 Bactria, 40, 41 Bai Juyi, 157–158, 210n. 25 Bai Zheng (court eunuch), 31, 184n. 5 Bamiyan, 110 Baode Monastery, 29, 34 Bao Shichen, 164 Bazheng (abbess), 130–131 Binyang Central Grotto, 1, 2, 4–6, 31–50, 32, 33, 35–39, 41, 42, 46, 59, 60, 63, 64, 67, 68, 70, 75, 78–83, 161, 165–166 Binyang North Grotto, 32, 59, 60, 165–166 Binyang South Grotto, 3, 32, 55, 59, 60, 78–83, 80–82, 86, 91, 95, 101, 126, 160, 165–166 Bodhgayā, 77, 94, 95, 98, 109, 141, 171, 177 Bodhiruci, 34 Brahmā, 35, 68, 69, 91, 185nn. 27, 28 Buddhanāma scriptures, 94, 136 Buddhas of the Three Periods, 37, 38, 57, 59, 67–69, 123, 126, 127, 139, 185n. 35 Buddhism, schools of. See Chan school;

esoteric imagery; Huayan; Pure Land; Three Levels Teachings; Tiantai cakravartin, 58, 92, 93, 104, 117, 119, 129, 205n. 21 Cen Wenben, 75, 77, 79, 80, 83, 87–91, 160, 162, 191n. 98, 192n. 3 Changqiu Monastery, 60 Chan school, 3 Chen Yun (laywoman), 55, 56, 170 chongkuang (chongri), 189n. 38 Chu Suiliang, 86, 92, 117, 161, 161, 162, 194n. 46 Cixiang (nun), 9, 57–59, 164, 170, 189nn. 39, 45 Cixiang’s Grotto, 57–59, 58, 111, 164 Cliff-Carved Three Buddhas, 79, 111, 163, 204n. 19 cost of a grotto, 5, 59, 60 Cui Guang, 59, 60, 190n. 82 Cultural Revolution, 165 Dai, 183n. 39 dāna (giving), 5, 45, 49, 60 Dang Faduan (female palace official), 9, 56, 170 Daodejing, 118 Daoism, 76, 118, 119, 143, 160, 195n. 4, 199n. 110, 207n. 73 Daojiang (monk), 9, 164 Daosong (monk), 9, 57 Daoxing (monk), 51, 52, 161 Daoxuan, 105, 199n. 99 Daśabhūmika Sūtra, 34, 60 daughter of dragon king, 58 Dharma, 5; artifacts of, 4; decline of, 89, 94, 145, 195n. 7; Ending of the, 89, 90, 145, 179, 200n. 120; guardians of, 13. See also mofa; xiangfa; zhengfa dharmakāya, 5, 10, 11, 29, 49, 78, 91, 93, 116, 154, 171 Diamond Sūtra, 10 diminution, counteracting effects of, 37, 114 Director (Dajian), 189n. 31, 206n. 65

Dizang bodhisattva, 2, 130, 149, 209n. 49 Du Fu, 157 Dunhuang. See Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang dun zang zhi ci yue, 145 Du Yong’an (layman), 9, 53 Emperor Daizong of Tang, 141 Emperor Daowu of Northern Wei, 17, 19 Emperor Gaozong of Tang, 4, 88, 92, 95, 98, 102, 115–122, 126, 140, 147, 177, 178 Emperor He of Southern Qi, 25, 25 Emperor Mingyuan of Northern Wei, 17, 185n. 29 Emperor Shizong of Later Zhou, 73 Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei, 17 Emperor Taizong of Tang, 4, 75, 84, 86–88, 95, 102, 107, 110, 118, 119, 130, 140, 141, 143, 194n. 41 Emperor Wencheng of Northern Wei, 17, 185n. 29 Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou, 11, 89 Emperor Xianwen of Northern Wei, 17, 185n. 34 Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei, 4, 17, 21, 23–25, 27–29, 31–34, 43, 49, 56, 63, 70, 168–170, 185n. 29 Emperor Xuanwu of Northern Wei, 4, 29, 31–34, 38, 43, 44, 49, 50, 60, 63, 69, 75, 81, 126 Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, 143–144, 147–151, 154, 157, 208n. 23 Emperor Zhenzong of Song, 159 Empress Dowager Feng, 29, 34 Empress Dowager Hu, 4, 29, 43, 60–67, 71–72, 118, 161–162, 191n. 85 Empress Dowager Wenzhao (Lady Gao, mother of Emperor Xuanwu), 4, 31–33, 43, 44, 63, 186n. 55, 188n. 21 Empress Gao (wife of Emperor Xuanwu), 60–63 Empress Wu of Tang (Wu Zetian), 4, 92, 98, 116–122, 126, 129, 131, 132, 135, 140, 141, 143, 147–150, 162, 177, 178, 203n. 40, 205n. 21

Empress Zhangsun (the Wende empress), 75–76, 78, 82, 86, 91, 126, 140– 141, 161, 171–173 Enchin, 159 epigraphy, 160–165 esoteric: imagery, 2, 150; school, 3, 143, 150, 159 eunuch officials, 56, 61, 62, 143–144, 150; in charge of Buddhist projects, 31, 55, 56, 120, 143–156; as donors, 1, 5, 143–156, 179, 207n. 11, 208n. 44 expenditure: complaints about, 64, 117; rhetoric of, 4, 6, 51, 56, 120, 147; statements of, 32, 51, 52, 59, 77, 109, 116, 119–120, 188n. 5, 190n. 46 fa (graphic variant for Dai), 183n. 39 Faguo, 7, 17 Fahai Monastery, 127, 129 Fangshan (Yunju Monastery), 94, 110, 118 Fanwangjing, 116 Fasheng (Northern Wei monk), 8, 9, 12, 16, 16, 24, 25, 43, 55, 56, 164 Fasheng (Tang cleric), 103 Fawen and Falong (nuns), 9, 56, 57, 170, 187n. 71 Fayuan zhulin, 96, 120 Fazang (Kang Fazang), 103, 119, 127, 150, 198n. 85 Fengxian Monastery, 4, 115, 123, 126, 140–142, 147–148, 157, 162, 178–180, 201n. 8, 206n. 69 feng xian si xiao, 140 Fifteen Thousand Buddhas, 123, 135–136, 136, 139, 178, 206n. 57 filial piety, 5, 6, 51, 52, 76, 87, 126, 132, 140, 149, 150 First Meditation, 68–69, 70, 191n. 107 “five phases” theory, 48–49 Freer Gallery, 1, 2, 187n. 64, 191n. 88 Gao Chu (layman), 9, 12 Gao Lishi (eunuch official), 4, 143–144, 148–149, 151, 154, 179, 210n.8 Gao Shu (layman), 9, 16, 21, 24, 164, 182n. 29 Gongxian grottoes, 40, 136 “good karma clay images,” 130–131 Great Vairocana Image Shrine: frontis­ piece, 3–5, 111–122, 112–116, 123, 127, 130, 132, 137, 140, 143, 145, 154, 159, 162, 163, 165, 177 228   |  i n d e x

Guanyin, 130, 141, 142, 149, 153, 179; Eleven-Headed, 149–151, 209n. 53. See also Avalokiteśvara; Save-fromSuffering Guanyin guilds as donors, 1, 2, 151 Guyang Grotto, 2–4, 7, 8, 9, 9, 13, 15, 17, 18, 24, 28, 29, 43, 47, 52, 55–57, 59, 136, 162–166 Gu Yanwu, 162–163 hai si fa as error for Fahai si, 204n. 17 Heaven of the Thirty-Three Gods, 23, 168 Hou, Great Consort, 9, 16, 22, 24, 56, 57, 164 Huangfu Du (uncle of Empress Dowager Hu), 5, 61, 67–71, 171, 191n. 102 Huangfu Grotto, 67–71, 68, 69, 72, 73 Huangfu, Lady (mother of Empress Dowager Hu), 60, 62, 65 Huang Yi, 162–163, 182n. 19 Huayan, 3, 119, 150, 155 Hu Guozhen (father of Empress Dowager Hu), 60–62, 192n. 112 Huicheng (aristocrat-monk), 4, 7–8, 11– 13, 23, 24, 57, 167 Huicheng’s shrine, 9, 10, 13–14, 14, 16–17 Huigan (monk), 9, 16, 24, 164 Huijian (abbot), 4, 116, 120, 126–130, 177 Huijian’s Grotto, 123, 124, 126–130, 128, 129, 132 Huile (monk), 9, 56 Huoshao Grotto, 5, 64–67, 66, 71, 73–74, 130, 191n. 85 icons: Indian, 4, 96, 97, 99–107, 100, 108, 121, 127, 129, 137, 139–140; magical efficacy of, 28, 49; supernatural, 4, 99, 100, 102, 105, 107 illusions, optical, 14, 37, 48, 113–115 immortality imagery, 65–66, 94 immortals, 65, 77, 109, 162, 176, 190n. 72, 210n. 6 “imperially transcribed,” 207n. 7 India, 95; envoys to, 94–96, 141–142, 196n. 41; famous images from, 4, 96, 97, 102, 105, 120, 127, 137, 195n. 11, 197n. 50, 198nn. 73, 74; healers from, 120, 141, 204n. 46 Indra, 45, 48, 91, 116, 117, 119, 174, 185n. 27 jātaka tale: of Prince Mahāsattva, 39, 44, 48, 49; of Prince Sudāna, 39, 44, 45, 46,

48, 49; of Sumedha and the Dīpan.kara Buddha, 46 jewelry, Indian style of, 114, 200n. 5 ji (traces), 27–29 Jing’ai Monastery, 97–99, 119, 126, 127 Jingming Monastery, 34, 60 Jingshan Monastery, 107, 141, 199n. 107 Jingshan Monastery Grotto, 3, 101, 104– 111, 105, 106, 126, 130, 176, 200n. 116 Jinyong Citadel, 34, 62, 73 kalpa of destruction, 92–94, 145, 175, 179 kan gong ba wan (engraved this act of merit [to last] eighty[-four] thousand [years]), 189n. 39 Kang Youwei, 164 karma, 5. See also merit karmic benefit, 62, 142; function, 5, 34, 49; gift, 49, 50; machinery, 35, 155; rescue, 34, 130, 140, 142 King Father of the East, 65, 66 King Udayana, 99, 102, 104, 183n. 49, 211n. 32 King Udayana Buddha figures, 3–5, 33, 90, 99–104, 100–102, 110, 111, 120, 127, 136, 164, 175, 183n. 49, 202n. 37 Leigutai Central Grotto, 127, 135, 136 Leigutai South Grotto, 97, 97 Liang Wenxiong Grotto, 106, 129, 199n. 102 Lianhua Grotto, 52, 53, 54, 57, 68–70, 70, 71, 111, 126, 192n. 112 Li Chong, 59, 60, 63, 64, 190n. 82 liekao (my illustrious late father), 209n. 51 Li Fu, Prince of Zhao, 84–85 Li Guanding (laywoman), 92–93, 174 Li Hong, the heir apparent, 98, 127 Li Junzan (imperial artisan), 116, 142, 177, 179 Li Shen, Prince of Ji, 107, 110, 126 Li Tai, Prince of Wei, 3, 76–83, 86–88, 126, 161, 171 Liu, Lady (Great Consort of late Emperor Gaozu), 129, 194n. 49, 197n. 61 Liu Qizu (layman), 21, 167 Liu Teng, 31, 32, 60, 61, 66, 79 Liu Xuanyi (imperial son-in-law), 4, 85– 86, 171, 194n. 39 Li Xian, Prince of Zhou (Emperor Zhongzong of Tang), 4, 98, 120, 126, 129, 143, 204n. 10

Longhua Monastery, 127, 147, 148, 180, 208n. 28 looting, 2, 43, 56, 133, 157, 165, 187n. 72, 198n. 94 Lotus Sūtra, 37, 38, 58, 123–124, 153, 193n. 11, 200n. 117, 210n. 2 loyalty, 5, 6, 11, 21, 23, 24 Luoyang, 1, 3, 11, 16, 17, 21, 29, 34, 49, 60, 73, 74, 76, 77, 83, 87, 89, 102, 118–120, 127, 135, 141, 147, 148, 151, 157, 171, 193n. 16, 201n. 9 Magadha, 77, 95 Magic City, 158 Mahābodhi Monastery, 90, 95, 196n. 44, 197n. 50 Mahāparinirvān.a Sūtra, 116, 200n. 117 Mahāsamnipāta Sūtra, 94 Mahāsattva jātaka, 44, 186n. 56 Maijishan grottoes, 55 Maitreya, 23, 90, 92, 93, 96, 97, 117, 127, 129, 168, 169, 171, 195n. 13, 196n. 19 Maitreya bodhisattva: figures of, 17, 18, 46, 52, 55–57, 59, 68, 89, 169, 170, 187n. 69, 191n. 104, 197n. 55 Maitreya Buddha: figures of, 5, 83, 86, 89–91, 95, 98, 99, 123, 135, 194n. 49, 197nn. 55, 61, 198n. 88; Three Assemblies of, 53, 89, 92, 98, 171, 197n. 55 Mañjuśrī, 58, 113, 150 Maudgalyāyana, 23, 168 Ma Zhenbai (layman), 9, 12, 24, 165 Measureless Life Buddha (Wuliangshou), 53, 145, 179, 195n. 2 men as donors, 1, 51–53, 57, 59, 103, 150 Meng Guangda (text author), 20, 21, 23, 167 merit: acts of, 51, 53, 132, 143–145, 150, 151, 162, 167, 171, 179; making of, 5, 28, 49, 51, 52, 75, 78, 110, 118, 120, 126, 136, 139–141, 148, 154, 156; transfer of, 5, 19, 28, 29, 31, 49, 55, 126, 132, 136, 155 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2, 43, 48 Mihirakula, 89, 195n. 3 . Mingru (sangha donor), 103 mofa (Ending of the Dharma), 89, 207n. 15. See also Dharma, Ending of the; kalpa of destruction Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang, 5, 98, 135, 200n. 119, 210n. 4 money, 53, 63; personal valuables as, 51, 53, 118, 120, 158, 169–171, 177; private,

56, 57, 60, 63, 80, 111, 116–118, 170, 171; silk as, 55, 59, 63, 118, 169; state, 62, 63, 118 monks as donors, 1, 5, 56, 99, 103, 150 Moya sanfo. See Cliff-Carved Three Buddhas Mu Liang, 12 Muslim belief, 160 najie (nagas or Nagarahāra), 79 Nanping princess (daughter of Emperor Taizong), 4, 85–86, 194n. 39 Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2, 42, 43, 48, 205n. 46, 211n. 34 Nirvān.a Sūtra, 94 Niu Yide (male official), 131 nuns as donors, 1, 4, 5, 56–59, 130, 133–135, 138–140, 170, 171, 189n. 35, 192n. 112, 195n. 12, 205nn. 49, 51 offering of the bowl of food, 69, 71 Ouyang Xiu, 160–161, 192n. 3 Paired Grottoes (Shuangyao), 2, 111, 123– 127, 124, 125, 130, 132 Palace Chapel: monks of, 118, 119, 127, 150, 205n. 21; nuns of, 5, 135, 138, 139, 205n. 48 parents: as beneficiaries, 5, 33–34, 43, 65, 66, 77, 81, 142, 149–151, 199n. 102; posthumous transfer of merit to, 10, 19, 49, 52, 53, 62, 78, 140, 142, 149–150; state as, 151 “pensive prince” (siwei taizi), 68–69, 89 persecution of Buddhism, 11, 73, 192n. 121, 195n. 3 Pingcheng, 16, 17, 23, 29, 31 Prince of Beihai, 24, 56. See also Yuan Xiang Pure Land: belief, 3, 130, 153, 156; rebirth in, 103, 104, 153, 156, 169, 178; representations, 4, 90, 130–132, 140, 145, 152– 155, 178 Pure Land Hall of the Damask Silk Guild, 151–152 Qianxisi Grotto, 78, 86, 87, 111, 165 Qibaotai (Tower of Seven Treasures), 150, 151 Qingming Convent, 130–131 Qingming Festival, 5, 158–159 Qingmingsi Grotto, 3, 4, 123, 124, 130– 131, 131

qishe (gijjhas or Gr.dhrakūt. a), 79 Queen Mother of the West, 65–66 Ratnamati, 34 “rich burials,” 52 Śākyamuni, 10, 12, 13, 89, 90, 92, 94, 104, 109, 116, 135, 145, 160, 171, 176; images of, 10, 13, 17, 22, 29, 31, 52, 53, 55, 57, 62, 64, 89, 93, 99–104, 120, 169–171, 174, 187n. 69, 196n. 18; Indian images of, 90, 121, 188n. 1; Mahābodhi Monastery image of, 4, 90, 96–98, 196n. 44 Śākyamuni and Prabhūtaratna, 18, 67, 89, 193n. 11 Samantabhadra, 113, 145, 150, 179, 200n. 3, 207n. 16 Sanjiejiao. See Three Levels Teachings Satyasiddhi śāstra, 34 Save-from-Suffering Guanyin, 130, 135, 136, 205n. 31 sculptural devices, 37, 48, 113–115 Seiryō-ji, 100–101, 110 Seven Buddhas of the Past, 18, 68, 104, 170, 202n. 16 Seven Emperors of Northern Wei, 17–18 Shandao, 4, 90, 116, 120, 131, 177 Shaolin Monastery, 34 sheng (“sage” or “holy”), 27–29 Shentong Monastery, 84–86, 84, 85 Shen Yue, 10 shi (entities), 145 Shiping, Duke of (father of monk Hui­ cheng), 10, 19, 164, 167, 182n. 35 Sinicization, 2, 5, 44; policies of, 14, 16, 17, 24, 49; of style, 14, 25, 26 Sishun Ward of Luoyang (lay society), 55, 83–84, 83, 90–91, 93, 129, 173, 194n. 33 Si Yun (eunuch official), 56, 170 societies, lay, 1, 8, 12, 20, 21, 23, 51–53, 64, 168 Sogdian deities, 40–41 Song Jingfei (laywoman), 21, 54, 54, 55, 169, 188n. 20 Southern Qi dynasty, art of, 25–27, 49 spirit kings, 38–40, 49, 81, 186nn. 40, 44 Stone Grotto Monastery: Guyang Grotto, 11, 27, 168, 181n. 12, 189n. 27; Huoshao Grotto, 64, 181n. 12, 191n. 85 . Śubhākarasimha, 143, 159, 210n. 8 Sukhāvatī, 106, 132, 137, 139, 145, 151–153, 178, 179 i n d e x   |  229

Sun, Mrs. (laywoman), 102–103, 175 Sun Daowu (local governor), 20, 167 Sun Qiusheng (layman), 8, 9, 16, 20–24, 20, 164, 167 Sūtra of Buddha of Measureless Life, 145, 152–155, 196n. 47 Sūtra of Buddha Names, 135–136 Sūtra of the Divine Dhāran.ī on the Eleven-Headed Avalokiteśvara, 150 Sūtra of Golden Light, 38 Sūtra on the Production of Buddha Im­ ages, 11, 103–104 sympathetic resonance, 48–49 Tabgatch Huang, 17 Tabgatch Xun, 18, 24, 183n. 51 Taiyuan Monastery, 119, 140, 202n. 34 Tanluan, 38, 131 Tanyao, 17, 37, 38 Thousand Buddhas, 23, 37, 71, 77, 123, 136, 155, 156, 168, 171, 172, 192n. 112 Three Levels Teachings, 3, 206n. 58 “thrice-obedient,” 58 Tiantai, 123 Tus.ita Heaven, 19, 23, 68, 91, 92, 99, 167, 168, 174 Udyāna, 45, 96, 195n. 3 Vairocana, 116, 117, 139, 150, 155, 202n. 16; images of, 5, 111–122. See also Great Vairocana Image Shrine Vaiśravan.a, 113 Vimalakīrti, 46, 50, 59, 186n. 40, 187n. 64 Vimalakīrti and Mañjuśrī, 38–40, 45–48, 50, 57, 89 Vimalakīrti Sūtra, 34, 45, 50, 59, 60, 187n. 66, 200n. 117, 207n. 17 Visualization Sūtra, 110, 156 Viśvantara jātaka, 44, 186n. 56 vows, forty-eight, 132, 145, 149, 152, 156, 178 Wanfo Grotto, 3, 4, 123, 124, 130, 132–141, 133, 134, 136–139, 163

230   |  i n d e x

Wang Shiping (layman), 9, 181n. 2 Wang Xuance (imperial envoy), 94–99, 175, 203n. 40, 204n. 46 Wang Youfang (layman), 103 Wang Zhi (court eunuch), 31, 184n. 7 Wei, Great Consort (concubine of Emperor Taizong), 107–110, 130, 176, 199n. 102 Wei Baidu (local governor), 20–21, 167 Wei Ji (Wei Hongji, male official), 116, 177, 203n. 40 Wei Lingzang (layman), 8, 9, 12, 22, 22, 23, 52, 163, 164, 168 women as donors, 1, 4, 53–59, 66–67, 130, 162 wu years: gengwu year, 145; wuwu year, 145 xiangfa (Semblance Dharma), 75, 89 Xiangshan (Incense Mountain), 145, 157, 158, 161–163, 179, 208n. 18 Xiangshan Monastery, 127, 141, 158, 160, 163, 207n. 78, 210n. 25 Xiangtangshan grottoes, 40, 94 Xie Boda (layman), 9, 12, 16, 164 Xie He, 11 Xinxing (founder of Three Levels Teachings), 136, 206n. 58 Xiwangmu. See Queen Mother of the West Xuanwushan grottoes, 110 Xuanzang, 3, 86, 94, 96, 97, 99, 102–103, 106, 122, 127, 197nn. 50, 62, 198nn. 73, 74, 77 Xuanzhao (imperial envoy), 120, 141–142, 178, 196n. 44 Xue Fashao (layman), 22, 23, 52, 168 Xue Rengui (general), 131–132, 178 Xumishan grottoes, 155, 156 Yang Dayan (general), 8, 9, 12, 16, 24, 26–30, 27, 164, 168 Yang Sixu (eunuch official), 144, 149–151, 162, 179 Yan Wan (wife of Li Tai), 88

Yaofang Grotto, 2, 51, 55, 161, 166 Yaoguang Convent, 34, 60–62, 64 Yao Shenbiao (female palace official), 4, 138, 140, 178 Yaoshi, the Buddha of Healing, 120, 130, 205n. 31 Yifu, Wife (laywoman), 9, 12, 164 Yongning Pagoda, 60–64, 66, 72–73, 190n. 70 Yongyaosi, 205n. 48 Yuan Hongji Grotto, 106, 199n. 103 Yuan Shanjian, Emperor Xiaoming of Eastern Wei, 66, 170, 191n. 95 Yuan Xiang, Prince of Beihai, 9, 12, 16, 164, 171, 192n. 113 Yuan Xie, Prince of Anding, 9, 16, 164 Yuan Xu, Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei, 60–62, 71 Yuan Yan. See Shiping, Duke of Yuan You, Prince of Qijun, 9, 16, 164 Yuchi, Lady (wife of Mu Liang), 9, 12, 16, 55, 164 Yulanpen Festival, 141–142 Yungang grottoes, 2, 5, 7, 10, 14–17, 15, 23, 24, 31, 34, 38, 47, 47 Yuzhang princess, 4, 80, 82–83, 173 Zhao Ahuan (lay society leader), 9, 52 Zhaoling, 76, 88, 193n. 13 Zhao Shuangzhe (layman), 9, 24, 182n. 29 Zheng Changyou, Earl of Yunyang, 9, 16, 21, 164 zhengfa (True Dharma), 89 Zhengshi Monastery, 59, 60, 62 Zhiyun (Palace Chapel nun), 4, 135–136, 138, 140, 178 Zhongming Convent, 70, 171 Zhou Yuanzhi’s Grotto, 132, 142, 178 zhu (red), 183n. 40 zhu (Zhu River), 183n. 40 zhuan (“composed by”), 207n. 7 Zhu Yizhang (calligrapher), 20, 167 Zhu Zhunian (laywoman), 55, 188n. 23 zong (traces), 27–29

A bou t the Author Amy McNair, who received her doctorate in art history from the University of Chicago, is associate professor of Chinese art at the University of Kansas, where she has taught the history of early and medieval Chinese art since 1992. She is the author of The Upright Brush: Yan Zhenqing’s Calligraphy and Song Literati Politics, published by the University of Hawai‘i Press in 1998.

Production Notes for McNair | donors of longmen Cover and interior designed by April Leidig-Higgins Text in Minion, with display type in Minion Swash Composition by Copperline Book Services, Inc. Printing and binding by Thomson-Shore, Inc. Printed on 70# Fortune Matte, 556 ppi.