The Electronic Journal of East and Central Asian Religions

The electronic Journal of East and Central Asian Religions Volume 1 Autumn 2013 Contents Preface 4 Introduction 5 Friederike Assandri, Examples of Buddho–Daoist interaction: concepts of the af- terlife in early medieval epigraphic sources 1 Carmen Meinert, Buddhist Traces in Song Daoism: A Case From Thunder-Rite (Leifa) Daoism 39 Henrik H. Sørensen Looting the Pantheon: On the Daoist Appropriation of Bud- dhist Divinities and Saints 54 Cody Bahir, Buddhist Master Wuguang’s (1918–2000) Taiwanese web of the colo- nial, exilic and Han 81 Philip Garrett, Holy vows and realpolitik: Preliminary notes on Kōyasan’s early medieval kishōmon 94 Henrik H. Sørensen Buddho–Daoism in medieval and early pre-modern China: a report on recent findings concerning influences and shared religious practices 109 Research Articles eJECAR 1 (2013) Buddhist Traces in Song Daoism: A Case From Thunder-Rite (Leifa) Daoism Carmen Meinert Käte Hamburg Kolleg, Ruhr-Universität Bochum Topic FTER the turn of the first millennium the Chinese religious landscape had developed A to a degree that the production of hybrid Buddho-Daoist ritual texts was a rather widespread phenomenon. With the rise of a Daoist trend referred to as Thunder Rites (leifa 雷法), which matured during the mid- to late-Song 宋 Dynasty (960–1279) and did not solely pertain to any particular branch of Daoism, a new type of (often Buddho-Daoist) ritual practice had emerged, largely exorcistic in nature and that would eventually be incorporated into classical Daoist traditions.1 Practitioners of Thunder Rites were either members of the established Daoist orthodoxy or itinerant thaumaturges, referred to as ritual masters (fashi 法師).2 They had received powerful ritual techniques (fa 法) which, by using the potency of the thunder, aimed to correct the world’s calamitous powers to regain a state of balance or harmony. In the final years of the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127), from 1122 to 1126, it was the Daoist ritual master named Wang Wenqing (王文卿, 1093–1153) who functioned as the court preceptor of one of the most prominent Thunder Rite lineages, the Divine Empyrean (Shenxiao 神霄) teachings. Among his repertoire of ritual techniques were, unsurpris- ingly, also rainmaking rituals, namely ones that, as I will demonstrate, are examples of 1. For an overview of Daoist ritual transformations in Song dynasty see Skar, Lowell,“Ritual Movements, Deity Cults, and the Transformation of Daoism in Song and Yuan Times”, in Daoism Handbook, ed. Livia Kohn (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2000), 413–463. 2. For the development of the fashi as Daoist ritual master see Davis, Edward L., Society and the Supernat- ural in Song China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001), 33–34. DOI: 10.2218/ejecar.2013.1.735 40 Carmen Meinert such hybrid Buddho-Daoist productions. In fact, the weather in general was a paramount concern in early and medieval Chinese religion and thus religious professionals were ex- pected to perform therapeutic and apotropaic practices as well as demonstrating the at- tainment of supernatural powers through their rituals. Thus rainmaking rituals have a long history from the early Han religious and throughout the medieval Daoist and Bud- dhist world.3 Although the Daoist and Buddhist textual examples of rainmaking rituals dealt with in this short paper are merely a minor discovery, they might, nonetheless, contribute to understand the modes and degrees of appropriation of Esoteric Buddhist knowledge into Daoist Thunder Rites in the Song Dynasty. The main argument here with regard to Buddho-Daoist hybrid ritual texts is: By the early twelfth century elements of Esoteric Buddhism were fully embedded in the interstices of prevailing Daoist ritual practices, at least in the Thunder Rites, namely—and that is important—to a degree that they were almost rendered invisible! Before turning to the concrete textual examples, however, I will first briefly contextu- alise the historical background that allowed someone like the Daoist ritual master Wang Wenqing to leave impacts of his teachings at the highest imperial level, and second sketch the major shift that is visible in Song Daoism that allowed for Thunder Rites to emerge. Context The flourishing and lasting impact of religious trends in medieval China was, at least to a certain degree, depending on official or local, if not imperial support. As for the Song Dynasty an important shift in imperial patronage is noticeable, which was intimately in- terwoven with the fabric of statecraft and emperorship and which also had an immediate influence on imperial patronage of our Daoist ritual master Wang Wenqing. The early decades of the Song Dynasty saw a remarkable degree of imperial patronage of Buddhism, which, however, is in scholarship now partly understood as an instrument of civil policy: internally to demonstrate the Song court’s emphasis on literary learning as a modality for integrating the formerly divided country, and externally as a tool in diplomatic relations with neighbouring empires along the northern border.4 One important project in favour of Buddhism at the time was the establishment of the Institute for the Translation of Buddhist Scriptures (Yijing Yuan 譯經院) which operated for around a century (982— 1082) and allowed a large body of Esoteric Buddhist literature, including the latest ritual techniques, to be translated from Sanskrit into Chinese–with the assistance of Indian and 3. The following PhD thesis gives an excellent overview of the historical developments of rainmaking rituals and related topics in medieval Chinese religious history: Capitanio, Joshua,“Dragon Kings and Thunder Gods: Rainmaking, Magic, and Ritual in Medieval Chinese Religion” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2008). 4. Sen, Tansen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade. The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600–1400 (Hon- olulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003), 133. eJECAR 1 (2013) ISSN 2053–1079 DOI: 10.2218/ejecar.2013.1.735 Buddhist Traces in Song Daoism 41 Central Asian monk-scholars.5 However, Buddhist monks and texts became increasingly entangled in foreign affairs and turned into an instrument of diplomacy. This holds par- ticularly true for the time of the rising of the independent states of the powerful Khitan (Liao 遼, 916–1125) and Tangut (Xixia 西夏, 982–1227) tribes in the tenth century, both of whom endorsed Buddhism as a state religion, yet simultaneously continued to remain a major military threat to the Song court. And it was precisely this military threat at the northern borders of the Song Em- pire that eventually contributed to a decisive shift in the imperial religious patronage in favour of Daoism. The latter had already started with the Northern Song Emperor Zhenzong (真宗, r. 997–1022) who developed a sense of humiliation about the treaty of Shanyuan in 1005, which he had signed and which had ended warfare with the Khitan in the north, yet at the price of paying tribute to the Khitan. In the course of this event, in 1008 Zhenzong is said to have discovered a yellow silk scroll that had descended from the sky, the Heavenly Text (tianshu 天書), which announced heaven’s approval of his rule despite the problematic results of the Shanyuan treaty. The text was venerated in a suit- able Daoist temple complex and the whole affair eventually triggered the establishment of Daoist temples in each prefecture of the empire. Thus Emperor Zhenzong was at the centre of this Daoist renewal in the early years of the Song.6 Thereafter the Northern Song emperors’ support for Daoism remained unchanged. It reached its climax under the last emperor of the Northern Song, Emperor Huizong (徽宗, r. 1100–1126) who finished the task set by Zhenzong and finally installed Daoism again as the state religion in 1116. However, his mission was perhaps accomplished only through the assistance of his Daoist advisors at the time: firstly Lin Lingsu (林灵素, 1076?–1120), a ritual master of the Divine Empyrean Thunder Rites, helped to install Emperor Huizong himself as the reincarnation of a Daoist deity and thus also as a divine emperor, and sec- ondly our ritual master Wang Wenqing continued Lin’s work and remained Huizong’s Daoist councellor from 1122 until the latter’s abdication in 1126. With the support of both, Huizong attempted to promote the translocal integration of society through a religious medium during times of severe military threats: the establishment of a unified empire- wide hierarchical structure of Daoist institutions, based in the prefectures and centred in the capital with himself at the top of this Divine Empyrean order. Along the way Huizong turned Buddhist institutions and monastics into Daoist ones.7 Yet even these religious 5. Orzech, Charles D.,“Esoteric Buddhism under the Song: An Overview”, in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, ed. Charles D. Orzech, Henrik H. Sørensen, and Richard K. Payne (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2011), 425–426. 6. Cahill, Suzanne E.,“Taoism at the Sung Court: The Heavenly Text Affair”, in The Bulletin of Sung-Yuan Studies 16 (1980): 23–44. 7. For an overview of Huizong’s activities and the establishment of the Divine Empyrean order, cf. Chao, Shin-yi,“Huizong and the Divine Empyrean Palace Temple Network”, in Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China: The Politics of Culture and the Culture of Politics, ed. Patricia Buckley Ebrey and Maggie Bickford (Cambridge, London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006), 324–358; Strickmann, Michel,“The Thunder Rites of the Sung: Notes on the Shen-xiao Sect and the Southern School of Taoism”, in Tōhō shūkyō 46 (1975): eJECAR 1 (2013) ISSN 2053–1079 DOI: 10.2218/ejecar.2013.1.735 42 Carmen Meinert policies could not prevent the invasion of the Song capital by Jurchen tribes from the north and the ensuing huge loss of territory, with the result that Huizong eventually abdicated in 1126 on the recommendation of Wang Wenqing and continued as merely a divine or heavenly emperor.8 Thus for a short moment in history our ritual master Wang Wenqing stood at centre stage of the Song Empire and was able to have his expression of the Thunder Rite exorcistic rituals promoted through imperial patronage.

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