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Mount Wutai Visions of a Sacred Buddhist

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Mount Wutai Visions of a Sacred Buddhist © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. Introduction Traveling around the Buddhist sacred range of Mount Wutai 五臺山 in northern detail of fi g. 0.6 China in 2005 (fi g. 0.1), I used as my guide a scaled-down photocopy of a map from a museum in Helsinki (see fi g. 4.1).1 Th e map, a hand-colored print from a woodblock panel carved in 1846 by a Mongol lama residing at Mount Wutai’s Cifu Temple 慈福寺 (Benevolent Virtues Temple), is a panorama of some 150 sites in a mountain range fi lled with pilgrims, festivities, fl ora and fauna, and cloud-borne deities, accompanied by parallel inscriptions in Mongolian, Chinese, and Tibetan. Th e map led me not only to monasteries, villages, and other landmarks but also into lively conversations with groups of Tibetan monks traveling or residing on the mountain. Without fail, the monks’ eyes lit up when they saw the map. Despite never having seen the image before, they expressed reverence, delight, and the resolve to scrutinize its every detail (fi g. 0.2). It was clear they recognized in the map a kindred vision of the mountain as an important place for Tibetan Buddhism. Although this vision had been physically erased from the mountain itself after more than a century, the map pictorialized and materialized what the monks had learned through a rich textual and oral tradition that had attracted them to Mount Wutai in the fi rst place. Interspersing every corner of the map are depictions of miracle tales, saintly biographies, and ritual festivities that appeared familiar to the monks. Th e overwhelming demand for the map, as a way to “remember” what was no longer readily discernable on the mountain, prompted me to return the following summer to bring additional photocopies to the Tibetan monks residing at Mount Wutai. Soon thereafter, new footpaths formed to several remote and forgotten sites depicted on the map. Th e map from Helsinki was one among a rich trove of objects that were created by Inner Asians, including Manchus, Tibetans, Mongols, and Monguors,2 during the Qing 1 For general queries, contact [email protected] 38949_Chou FINAL_110617_cs6.indd 1 10/11/2017 4:54 PM © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. fi g. 0.1. View from Central dynasty (1644–1912), when the millennium-old Buddhist sacred mountain of north- Terrace, Mount Wutai, ern China was transformed into a vital center of Tibetan Buddhism. Owing much to Shanxi Province, China. Photograph by author, 2005. this history, the site continues to be one of the only places in China proper to attract large numbers of Tibetan pilgrims today. Th is book recovers the dynamic history of fi g. 0.2. Monks from Amdo, Eastern Tibet, examining Qing Mount Wutai through objects in multiple languages, genres, and media from this a map of Mount Wutai at the period. It examines the spatial, textual, and material means by which Inner Asian rulers Shifang Hall, Mount Wutai. Photograph by author, 2005. and monks reimagined the age-old tradition of the sacred mountain cult on their own terms. Examples include sculptural and architectural imitations of Mount Wutai’s iconic images and temples, translations of pilgrimage guidebooks, eulogistic portrayals of saintly fi gures, and panoramic mappings of the mountain. By examining these objects as instruments of devotion and as representations of identity and statecraft, I place them at the center of a pivotal but unacknowledged history of artistic and intellectual exchange between the diff erent religious, linguistic, and cultural traditions of China and Inner Asia. Mount Wutai explores the many ways in which the objects reshaped the site’s phys- ical environment and conceptual landscape, mediated new formulations of Buddhist history and geography, and redefi ned Inner Asia’s relations with China. Mount Wutai literally means “the Five-Terraced Mountains.” Located in the pres- ent-day Xin Prefecture (Xinzhou 忻州) of Shanxi province (map 1), it comprises a cluster of hills at the northern end of the Taihang 太行 mountain range, between Datong 大同 and Taiyuan 太原. Th e Yamen 雁門 Pass of the Great Wall lies not far to its north, which traditionally demarcated China’s northern frontier. A sprawl- ing expanse rather than a single peak, it is nonetheless referred to as a “mountain” for the historically unitary concept of the site. Th is area centers around its namesake, the fi ve terraces or plateaued summits, which are respectively referred to as the Northern, Eastern, Southern, Western, and Central Terraces. Th e exact precinct of Mount Wutai shifted over time, as did the designation of the fi ve terraces.3 Th e broader region within and beyond the fi ve terraces — referred to respectively as “inside” and “outside” the ter- races (tainei 臺內 and taiwai 臺外) — covers an area of around 1,100 square miles. It is home to some of the most important monasteries and well-preserved timber architec- ture in China.4 Th e central area inside the terraces alone, an area of roughly 130 square miles, still houses over one hundred temples today.5 Geologically speaking, the fl at tops of the terraces are physical features that demonstrate their age. Mount Wutai is one of the oldest lands to surface above water some 26 billion years ago, and possesses the highest altitude in northern China, with introduction 2 For general queries, contact [email protected] 38949_Chou FINAL_110617_cs6.indd 2 10/11/2017 4:54 PM © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. the highest peak (Northern Terrace) reaching over three thousand meters.6 Th e ele- vated terraces, perennially cold and wind-swept, are aptly described by the mountain’s more ancient name, Clear and Cool Mountains (Qingliang Shan 清凉山), which continues to be used as an alternative name for the site. Other earlier names, such as Purple Palace (Zifu 紫府), allude to Mount Wutai’s pre-Buddhist past as a place for immortals and spirits.7 In Tibetan, Mount Wutai is referred to both as Riwo Tsenga (Ri bo rtse lnga, the Mountain of Five Peaks) and as Riwo Dangsil (Ri bo dwangs bsil, the Mountain of Clear and Cool). Th e Tibetan nomenclature suggests a slight shift in meaning, where the topographically descriptive “terrace” is replaced with the more con- ventional “peak,” and where the “clear and cool” could also refer to the “pure and cool.” map 1. Qing China, circa RUSSIA 1820. Map by Chelsea Gross. map detail. Area around HEILONGJIANG Beijing. Urga JILIN Mount MONGOLIA Changbai XINJIANG Dunhuang SHENGJING Beijing Mount KOREA Wutai Yellow AMDO/ Mount Sea Mount TIBET QINGHAI Tai Kailash CHINA PROPER N Shigatse Lhasa E P A Chengdu Mount L Samye Monastery Mount Putuo B H Mount Jiuhua U TAN Emei Bodh Gaya BURMA N INDIA Bay of Sacred mountains South Bengal ANNAM China Sea 0300 600 1,200 km MONGOLIA Shenyang Dolonnuur SHENGJING Chengde Hohhot Baotou Xiangshan Datong Beijing Northern Yanmen Mount Heng Pass Mount Wutai Baoding Yellow Sea Taiyuan N CHINA PROPER Great Wall Sacred mountains Mount 0 75 150 300 km Tai introduction 3 For general queries, contact [email protected] 38949_Chou FINAL_110617_cs6.indd 3 10/11/2017 4:54 PM © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. Th ese subtle nuances are important, as Mount Wutai becomes conceptualized in Tibet as a “pure land” (Tibetan: zhing mchog), a paradise or celestial realm of a Buddhist deity. Th e Mongolian name is generally a transliteration of the Chinese (Utai Shan), although in offi cial accounts it is called Serüün Tunggalag Agula — literally, Cold and Clear Mountain.8 Reference to Mount Wutai in Manchu is likewise a direct transliter- ation rather than translation. For sake of simplicity, I refer to the site as Mount Wutai unless the specifi c discussion requires a use of one of its other names. Buddhist images and scriptures fi rst arrived in China in the second and third cen- turies from India via the network of trade routes on the Eurasian continent known as the Silk Road. It may be as early as the fi fth century that Mount Wutai was recog- nized as the earthly residence of the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, one of the most important deities of Mahāyāna Buddhism (“the Great Vehicle,” referring largely to the Buddhist traditions of East Asia and the Himalayas today) and a fi gure who is regarded as the embodiment of wisdom. From the sixth to the eighth centuries, accounts of visionary encounters with the deity at Mount Wutai, combined with scriptural authorities that prophesized Mañjuśrī’s presence there, legitimized the northern Chinese site as a new cultic center of Buddhism away from the religion’s origins in India.9 An element of this recentering is refl ected in the name of the earliest and most prominent summit in the range. It was called the Numinous Vulture Peak (Chinese: Lingjiu Feng 靈鷲峰) after the India site of the same name (Sanskrit: Gr·dhrakūt·a) where the Buddha gave many sermons.10 In time, this eastward move became both spatial and temporal.
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