A Record of the Tiantai Mountains By Benjamin Brose A Thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the Requirements for the degree of Master of Arts In Asian Studies In the Graduate Division Of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Jeffrey Riegel, Chair Professor Michael Nylan Professor Raoul Birnbaum Spring 2002 CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v ABREVIATIONS vi INTRODUCTION Natural History 1 Mythical Origins 6 The Arhats 10 Historical Origins 14 Overview 16 The Record of the Tiantai Mountains 19 Xu Lingfu 21 CHAPTER 1: THE EARLY LITERATURE OF THE TIANTAI MOUNTAINS (3RD-4TH centuries) Introduction: A Range of Words 24 Sources 26 Early Literati 28 Toponyms 32 Historical Revision: The Case of Ge Xuan (162-244) 34 The Case of Wang Ziqiao 42 CHAPTER 2: THE NATURE OF THE TIANTAI MOUNTAINS (5TH-6TH centuries) Introduction: Tiantai’s Sacred Ecology 46 The Bridges of Tiantai 47 Tan You (d. 396) 50 Water 57 Caves 62 Peaks 66 Record of the Tiantai Mountains © Ben Brose 2002 ii CHAPTER 3: THE PATRONAGE OF THE TIANTAI MOUNTAINS (6TH-8TH centuries) Introduction: The Construction of Tiantai’s Temples 70 Ge Xuan (164-244) 72 Zhiyi (538-597) 74 Sima Chengzhen (647-735) 83 A NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION 91 APPENDIX I: Record of the Tiantai Mountains (Tiantai shan ji) 93 APPENDIX II: Edible, Medicinal and Useful Plants of the Tiantai Mountains 123 BIBLIOGRAPHY 127 Record of the Tiantai Mountains © Ben Brose 2002 iii LIST OF ILUSTRATIONS Figures X.1 Bamboo Forest 18 1.1 Jade Terraces 38 1.2 Tongbai Basin 38 1.3 Tongbai Falls 39 1.4 Guoqing Valley 39 2.1 Golden Stream 58 2.2 Red Citadel 58 2.3 Stone Bridge 59 3.1 Folong Peak 75 3.2 Gaoming Temple 75 3.3 Zhiyi’s Tomb 76 3.4 Flower Peak Lake 76 Maps 1.a Song Woodblock (Left Side) 19 1.b Song Woodblock (Right Side) 20 1.c Topographical Map 21 Record of the Tiantai Mountains © Ben Brose 2002 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This paper benefited from the help and advice of many people. I would like to acknowledge the great deal of time and effort provided by my thesis committee. Professor Jeffrey Riegel chaired the committee. In addition to being instrumental to the translation phase of this project, he also provided detailed comments on all drafts. Professor Michael Nylan read and critiqued the translation and all drafts. Her help and support was particularly appreciated. Professor Raoul Birnbaum first introduced Chinese religious studies to me in 1994 and has played a major role in the theoretical development of this work. Professor David Johnson helped me through the initial bibliographic phases of this project. I would like to thank Bruce Williams and Jean Han at the East Asian Library for all their help and patience. Christian Wittern at the Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association sent me a pre-publication digital version of the Taishô edition of the Tiantai shan ji. Professor David McCraw shared a draft of his work on the Tiantai Mountains with me. I would also like to recognize the assistance of Professor Lewis Lancaster, Gary Flint, Sandra Wulf, Nelson Foster, and Jennifer Iby. I received more help from people in China than I could possibly detail. I single out the following for their overwhelming generosity: The monks at Huading Monastery 華頂寺 and Abbot Yun Tong 允通; the monks at Tatou Buddhist Academy 塔頭佛院; the director of Lower Fangguang Temple 下方光寺, Yue Zhen 月真; Professor Chen 陳老師 from Tiantai City. Special thanks are due to Chen Yifen 陳奕芬. This paper would not have been possible without generous financial awards from Group in Asian Studies (University of California, Berkeley), Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, and the Humanities Research Grant. All photographs and translations are mine unless otherwise noted. Record of the Tiantai Mountains © Ben Brose 2002 v ABBREVIATIONS FJRM Zhongguo Fojiao ren min da cidian 中國佛教人名大辭典 TBGB Tongbai guan bei 桐柏觀碑 TBSZ Tongbai shi zhi 桐柏史志 TTSJ Tiantai shan ji 天台山記 TTXZ Tiantai xian zhi 天台縣志 TWWS Tang wangwu shan zhong yan tai zheng yi xiansheng miao jie 唐王屋山中岩台正一先 生廟碣 YTTSF You Tiantai shan fu 游天台山賦 Record of the Tiantai Mountains © Ben Brose 2002 vi ON THE ROAD TO TIANTAI Wrapped, surrounded by ten thousand mountains Cut off, no place to go… Until you’re here, there’s no way to get here. Once you’re here, there’s no way to go. (Yuan Mei [1716-1798]; Translated by J.P. Seaton] In the mountains it’s cold. Always been cold, not just this year, Jagged scarps forever snowed in Woods in the dark ravines spitting mist. Grass is still sprouting at the end of June, Leaves begin to fall in early August. And here am I, high on mountains, Peering and peering, but I can’t even see the sky. (Han Shan [8th century]; Translated by Gary Snyder) Record of the Tiantai Mountains © Ben Brose 2002 vii INTRODUCTION Natural History Although Tiantai shan 天台山 is often translated “Heavenly Terrace Mountain”, it is more accurately rendered “Heavenly Terrace Range”. Tiantai is not a single mountain, like the sacred sites of Mount Emei or Jiuhua, but rather a vast territory of mountains and valleys. Modern Chinese local gazetteers (difang zhi 地方志) equate the Tiantai Range with the entire county of Tiantai. The county is located in the northeast of Zhejiang province and has an area of slightly more than 1420 square kilometers. The county seat, in the city of Tiantai, is located in the eastern portion of a long, triangular valley that bisects the county from east to west. The Three Maos River (San mao xi 三茅 溪) is the area’s main drainage and flows out through the northern most point of this valley. Mountains rise up abruptly on all sides of the Tiantai valley. To the south is a range that gradually grows in elevation before reaching the counties highest point at Great Thunder Mountain (Dalei shan 大雷山, 1229 meters). A smaller massif forms the western border of the county. Despite the fact that all of these mountains are sometimes identified as the Tiantai Mountains, it is the range in the northeast of the county that has been the center of religious activity for the past 1800 years. These mountains start to rise up just four kilometers to the north of Tiantai City and form a vast and complicated network of peaks and canyons. Flower Summit (Huading 華頂,1110 meters) is the highest point. The mountains extend northeast out of Tiantai County and into modern Record of the Tiantai Mountains © Ben Brose 2002 1 Xinchang 新昌 and Ninghai 寧海 counties1. There, the range is known as the Shan Mountains 剡山. The history of the Shan Mountains is as intriguing as that of Tiantai. Although the two areas are divided by administrative boundaries, in early times the Shan and Tiantai Mountains were not separated, as can be seen in a fourth century inscriptions2. The modern boundary between these two sites is neither geographically nor culturally distinct and the present focus on the more southerly Tiantai Range is merely one of convenience. The two ranges need to be understood in relation to each other and deserve to be studied together. The southern part of this long range of mountains, in the northeast of Tiantai County, is the subject of the present study. When reference is made to the Tiantai Mountains, Tiantai Range, or Tiantai shan in this essay, it is in reference to this area of Tiantai County to the exclusion of the counties’ southern and western mountains. I make this distinction following literary traditions, such as the Record of the Tiantai Mountains (Tiantai shan ji 天台山記; hereafter TTSJ), that clearly set the boundaries of the range within three directional gates. The Red Citadel Mountain (Chicheng shan 赤城山), which lies to the north of Tiantai city, is the southern gate of Tiantai. The Stone Citadel (Shicheng 石城) is the western gate and Incense Brazier Peak (Xianglu feng 香爐峰) in Shan County marks the northern boundary. The mountains terminate in the East China 1 In the Tang and before this area was known as Shan 剡 county, and the mountain range therefor bears the same name. In geologic and geographic terms, the two ranges of Tiantai and Shan are in part of a single northeast trending range that continues as far as the Zhou Shan Archipelago 舟山群島 and includes the famous Buddhist mountain of Putuo shan (see Putuo shan zhi 1995: 22-25; I thank David McCraw for bringing this to my attention). 2 The monk Zhi Dun 支遁 in a preface to an inscription speaks of Tiantai as one mountain within Shan County (see Chapter 1). Record of the Tiantai Mountains © Ben Brose 2002 2 Sea. With some exceptions, the great majority of historically important sites are found within this area. The Tiantai Mountains are sometimes referred to as the Paulownia-Cypress Mountains (Tongbai shan 桐柏山). A Tang stele at the site of Tongbai Belvedere 桐柏觀 has this to say about the two names: Tiantai and Tongbai: the Buddhists (Shi 釋) call it Tiantai, the Daoists (Zhen 真) call it Tongbai. These two [groups] take the same thing and call it by different names but both agree to call it mysterious (xuan 玄) and permeated with the Way (Dao 道). Since it is like this, how can it be that it is Tongbai and also not Tongbai? Because it is talked in this way, then what is not is what is, and that is simply not the way it should be.3 Fortunately, it is slightly less confusing than that! As mentioned above, Tongbai is the name that Daoists have used to refer to the mountains.