iii Buddhism in Central Asia I Patronage, Legitimation, Sacred Space, and Pilgrimage Edited by Carmen Meinert Henrik H. Sørensen LEIDEN | BOSTON ContentsContents v Contents Foreword VII Acknowledgments IX Illustrations and Tables x Abbreviations XV Notes on Contributors XVII XX Introduction—Piety, Power, and Place in Central and East Asian Buddhism 1 Carmen Meinert and Henrik H. Sørensen Part 1 Patronage and Legitimation 1 Who Is Legitimating Whom? On Justifying Buddhism’s Place in the Body Politic 15 Sem Vermeersch 2 Images of Patronage in Khotan 40 Erika Forte 3 Uyghur Legitimation and the Role of Buddhism 61 Yukiyo Kasai 4 Donors and Esoteric Buddhism in Dunhuang during the Reign of the Guiyijun 91 Henrik H. Sørensen 5 The Formation of Tangut Ideology: Buddhism and Confucianism 123 Kirill Solonin Part 2 Sacred Space and Pilgrimage 6 From Padmasambhava to Gö Tsangpa: Rethinking Religious Patronage in the Indian Himalayas between the 8th and 13th Centuries 151 Verena Widorn vi Contents 7 Sacred Space in Uyghur Buddhism 189 Jens Wilkens 8 Pilgrims in Old Uyghur Inscriptions: A Glimpse behind Their Records 204 Simone-Christiane Raschmann 9 Looking from the Periphery: Some Additional Thoughts on Yulin Cave 3 230 Max Deeg 10 Creation of Tantric Sacred Spaces in Eastern Central Asia 244 Contents v Carmen Meinert Preface vii Acknowledgments ix List of Figures, Maps and Tables x Abbreviations xv Notes on Contributors xvii Bibliography 273 Introduction 1 Piety, Power, and Place in Central and Index of Deities and Buddhas 310 East Asian Buddhism 1 Carmen Meinert and Henrik H. Sørensen 1 Index of Dynasties, Kingdoms, and Empires 311 Part 1 13 Patronage and Legitimation 13 Index of Personal Names 312 Chapter 1 15 Who Is Legitimating Whom? On Justifying Buddhism’s Place in the Body Politic 15 Sem Vermeersch 15 Index of Places 314 Chapter 2 40 Images of Patronage in Khotan 40 Index of Technical Terms 316 Erika Forte 40 Chapter 3 61 Index of Text Names 320 Uyghur Legitimation and the Role of Buddhism 61 Yukiyo Kasai 61 Chapter 4 91 Donors and Esoteric Buddhism in Dunhuang during the Reign of the Guiyijun 91 Henrik H. Sørensen 91 Chapter 5 123 The Formation of Tangut Ideology: Buddhism and Confucianism 123 Kirill Solonin 123 Part 2 149 Sacred Space and Pilgrimage 149 Chapter 6 151 From Padmasambhava to Gö Tsangpa: Rethinking Religious Patronage in the Indian Himalayas between the 8th and 13th Centuries 151 Verena Widorn 151 Chapter 7 189 Sacred Space in Uyghur Buddhism 189 Jens Wilkens 189 Chapter 8 204 Pilgrims in Old Uyghur Inscriptions: A Glimpse behind Their Records 204 Simone-Christiane Raschmann 204 Chapter 9 230 Looking from the Periphery: Some Additional Thoughts on Yulin Cave 3 230 Max Deeg 230 Chapter 10 244 Creation of Tantric Sacred Spaces in Eastern Central Asia 244 Carmen Meinert 244 Bibliography 273 Index of Deities and Buddhas 310 Index of Dynasties, Kingdoms, and Empires 311 Index of Personal Names 312 Index of Places 314 Index of Technical Terms 317 Index of Text Names 321 _full_alt_author_running_head (neem stramien B2 voor dit chapter en dubbelklik nul hierna en zet 2 auteursnamen neer op die plek met and): Mein- ert and Sørensen _full_articletitle_deel (kopregel rechts, vul hierna in): Looking from the Periphery: Thoughts on Yulin Cave 3 _full_article_language: en indien anders: engelse articletitle: 0 230 Deeg Chapter 9 Looking from the Periphery: Some Additional Thoughts on Yulin Cave 3 Max Deeg 1 Introduction This contribution was conceived and developed from an encounter with a sec- tion of the pictorial programme of Yulin Cave 3.1 More specifically, it focuses on the programme of the diptych at the left and right sides of the entrance of the famous Cave 3 at Yulin (榆林) in the Hexi (河西) region. Produced during the Tangut Empire (ca. 1038–1227, in Chinese sources, known as Xixia 西夏),2 it represents as its main subjects, the Bodhisattvas Samantabhadra on the left and Mañjuśrī on the right side, who are both directed at the door and thus fac- ing each other (figs. 9.1 and 9.2).3 Unlike the clearly recognisable main figures of the two paintings, the iconographical function of the various smaller central and peripheral elements does not seem to be completely coherent and conclu- sive. The paintings obviously do not refer to one single narrative programme, such as a major sūtra or legend, but seem to exist as a whole and particularly with all its peripheral details—some of which I will address and discuss here— a patchwork of different themes and topics added to the two central bodhisat- tvas, the meaningfulness of which the artist(s) probably was convinced when putting them together. Very possibly, the motifs, while originally coming from different sources, places and regions, were brought together in a local narrative context. When presenting my observations here—not as an art historian but as a textual scholar—I see my role as adding some comments on possible ways 1 In more concrete terms, the basis of this paper is a response which I gave to a paper by Michelle McCoy at the BuddhistRoad start-up conference at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, which resulted in the publication of the present volume. 2 The cave is easily accessible virtually through the website Digital Dunhuang 數字敦煌, “Yulin Grottoes Cave 003,” accessed October 5, 2018. <https://www.e-dunhuang.com/cave/ 10.0001/0001.0002.0003>. 3 In most attempts at interpreting these two paintings, the narrative frame/periphery has been neglected in favour of the stylistic features of the main figures in the two paintings, the Bodhisattvas Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra; see e.g. Lilla Russell-Smith, Uygur Patronage in Dunhuang: Regional Art Centres on the Northern Silk Road in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2005), 219–220. © max deeg, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004417731_011 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC 4.0 License. _full_alt_author_running_head (neem stramien B2 voor dit chapter en dubbelklik nul hierna en zet 2 auteursnamen neer op die plek met and): Mein- ert and Sørensen _full_articletitle_deel (kopregel rechts, vul hierna in): Looking from the Periphery: Thoughts on Yulin Cave 3 _full_article_language: en indien anders: engelse articletitle: 0 Looking from the Periphery: Thoughts on Yulin Cave 3 231 of interpreting some features of the paintings rather than explaining the full iconographic programme of the two, given my restricted knowledge of the pe- riod and discipline. I think that the pictorial content of the diptych, although not yet fully un- derstood, represents all aspects of the title of the conference and the present volume: 1. there clearly is sacred space; 2. there is pilgrimage in the form of the two peripheral figures Xuanzang (600/602–664, 玄奘) and Sudhana, discussed in my comments; and 3. there is patronage and legitimation through a newly invented or, rather, newly combined narrative (or narratives) around the establishment of sacred space of the Northern Mt. Wutai (Chin. Wutai shan 五台山) of the Tangut Empire.4 2 Tripiṭaka-Xuanzang and a Proto-Xiyou ji As a student of Buddhist textual and narrative traditions, I would like to add some rather spontaneous thoughts on the peripheral elements, which may help the art historian to contextualise the paintings in a new way. I will first focus on two rather peripheral scenes or figures and their possible meaning and function: Xuanzang, or Sanzang (三藏), i.e. Tripiṭaka (as he is addressed in the respective texts), in the left upper part, and the figure identified as­­ Sudhana in the right lower part of the Samantabhadra painting (figs. 9.3 and 9.4). In the more general context of both paintings, it seems possible that Xuanzang and Sudhana are featured in the diptych because they are, from a Sinitic Buddhist point of view, the ideal or idealised travellers or pilgrims; but it is as yet unknown why and in what function they may have been inserted into the composition. I will start with the small group of Xuanzang, the monkey and the horse (fig. 9.3). In its iconographic composition, the group clearly reflects a developmen- tal phase of the Xuanzang legend which was finally codified and popularised in the novel Xiyou ji 西遊記 [Record of the Journey to the West],5 composed 4 On Tangut Buddhism and Mt. Wutai, see Russell-Smith, Uygur Patronage in Dunhuang, 215– 221; Kirill Solonin, “Tangut Chan Buddhism and Guizang Zong-mi,” Zhonghua foxue xuebao 中華佛學學報 [Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal] 11 (1998): 365–424. 5 On the Xiyou ji and its complex history of antecedents, its development and research history, see Jaroslav Prušek, “The Narrators of Buddhist Scriptures and Religious Tales in the Sung Period,” Archiv Orientální 10.1–2 (1938): 375–389; Glen Dudbridge, “The Hundred-Chapter Hsi-Yu Chi and Its Early Versions,” Asia Major New Series 14.2 (1969): 141–191; Glen Dudbridge, 232 Deeg Figure 9.1 Samantabhadra. Yulin Cave 3, ca. 12th/13th c. © Mogao Grottoes, Dunhuang, Gansu, China during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644, 明) and attributed to Wu Cheng’en (ca. 1500–1582, 吳承恩). It clearly reflects the stage that the legend had reached at the time of the Song Dynasty (960–1279, 宋), from which it must have been transferred to a Tangut context. The existence of a still nameless proto-Sun Wukong (孫悟空), referred to as monkey-traveller (Chin. hou xingzhe 猴行者) (and the horse loaded with the sacred scriptures), is clearly indicated in the earliest sources of the story as, for example, the so-called Kōzan-ji-Xiyou ji 高山 寺-西遊記 [Record of the Journey to the West from the Kōzan Temple] which actually consists of two very similar texts, the Datang sanzang qujing shihua 大 The Hsi-yu chi: A Study of Antecedents to the Sixteenth-Century Chinese Novel (London, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970); and Victor Mair, “Suen-Wu-Kung = Hanumat?,” in: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan dierjie guoji hanxue huiyi lunwenji, Wenxuezu 2 中央研究院第二屆 國際漢學會議論文集文學組 2 Proceedings of the Second Inter natio nal Conference on Sinology, Section Literature (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, 1986), 659–752.