GODDESS ON THE FRONTIER G O D D E S S ON THE FRONTIER Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Southwest China MEGAN BRYSON STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS STANFORD, CALIFORNIA Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2017 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bryson, Megan, author. Title: Goddess on the frontier : religion, ethnicity, and gender in southwest China / Megan Bryson. Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016012719| ISBN 9780804799546 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781503600454 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Baijie (Buddhist deity)—Cult—History. | Buddhist goddesses—China—Dali Baizu Zizhizhou—History. | Buddhism—China—Dali Baizu Zizhizhou—History. | Ethnicity—Religious aspects—Buddhism. | Bai (Chinese people)—Religion. | Dali Baizu Zizhizhou (China)—Religion. Classification: LCC BQ4890.B352 B78 2016 | DDC 299.5/112114—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016012719 Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in 10/14 Minion Pro For my parents, Randy Bryson and Julie Culbertson. CONTENTS List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Dali 1 1 Baijie’s Background: Religion and Representation in the Nanzhao and Dali Kingdoms 21 2 Holy Consort White Sister: Baijie Shengfei and Dali Buddhism 51 3 Little White Sister: Baijie Amei, Dragons, and Kingship in Ming Dali 83 4 Lady of Cypress Chastity: Baijie Furen in the Ming and Qing 107 5 Baijie the Benzhu: Village Religion in Contemporary Dali 137 Conclusion: Ethnicity and Gender in the Cult of the Goddess Baijie 169 List of Chinese Characters 175 List of Abbreviations 183 Notes 185 References 217 Index 235 ILLUSTRATIONS Map I.1. Current PRC 3 Map I.2. Modern Yunnan Province 4 Map 1.1. Nanzhao kingdom 25 Map 1.2. Dali kingdom 39 Map 1.3. Dali kingdom Buddhist sites 42 Map 5.1. Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture 156 Figure 1.1. Chan lineage, Fanxiang juan 49 Figure 2.1. Mahākāla and Fude Longnü, Fanxiang juan 56 Figure 2.2.k Ya ṣa God of Great Joy and Kāla of the Golden Bowl, Fanxiang juan 80 Figure 3.1. Baijie Amei, Linghui si 99 Figure 4.1. Baijie Furen and Husband, City of Virtue’s Source 125 Figure 5.1. Baijie statue, Deer Town 159 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As this project has taken shape over the past decade, many individuals and in- stitutions have offered support of various kinds throughout its different stages. During the year I spent in Dali in 2007–2008, the staff of the Dali xueyuan Ethnic Culture Research Center helped me plan and carry out fieldwork as well as textual studies. I am grateful to Cun Yunji, Yang Hongbin, Wang Wei, Na Zhangyuan, and Zhang Xilu for their hospitality and guidance, especially in the field. Yang Xiongduan in particular was a dear friend and research partner whose family welcomed me with open arms and delicious food. Without her help, conducting this research would have been far less fruitful and interesting. I would also like to thank Zhao Yinsong, Tian Huaiqing, and Li Gong at the Bai Culture Research Center for being so generous with their time and resources. I owe a big debt of gratitude to Hou Chong for having paved the way for this project with his excellent work on Buddhism in Dali. Hou Chong has also shown unfailing kindness and generosity in assisting with difficult manuscripts and sharing sources. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have benefited from his wisdom and compassion. After returning to Stanford following my time in Dali, I continued to de- velop this project in conversation with other students and professors. I’d like to thank the wonderful members of my cohort who read and commented on ear- lier versions of this project, especially Ben Brose, Se-Woong Koo, and Zh aohua Yang. Dominic Steavu, Brenda Falk, Chiew-hui Ho, and Jason Protass were also excellent conversation partners during this period. Of course, I am deeply grateful to Carl Bielefeldt and Bernard Faure for their guidance, as well as for giving me the freedom to pursue this project. Bernard’s work on deities has been an inspiration for my own work, and I am particularly thankful to him for steering me in this direction. At the end of my time at Stanford, I had the op- portunity to work with other mentors whose feedback helped to improve this project. Comments from Wendi Adamek, Paul Harrison, and Matt Sommer xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS helped tremendously as I revised the book. John McRae deserves special men- tion for providing insightful comments on early chapters and for taking time to discuss Buddhism in Dali with me; I wish he were here to see the book in print. At the University of Tennessee my colleagues in the Department of Reli- gious Studies have provided consistent support and helpful feedback as I turned the project into a book manuscript. I’d like to thank Rosalind H ackett, Rachelle Scott, Gilya Schmidt, Erin Darby, Mark Hulsether, Tina Shepardson, and Kelly Baker. Tina and Kelly in particular provided invaluable camaraderie and empa- thy during the long revision process. Colleagues in the faculty research seminar on Centers and Peripheries in East Asia also offered constructive comments on parts of this book, so many thanks are due to Noriko Horiguchi, Charles Sanft, Suzanne Wright, and Shellen Wu. I am also grateful to my wonderful students at the University of Tennessee, whose insightful comments and questions have helped me think about how to translate my research for a broader audience. Special thanks are due to Jenny Gavacs, Anne Fuzellier Jain, and everyone else I’ve had the pleasure to work with at Stanford University Press. Their feedback and guidance have made this a truly enjoyable process. Finally, and most important, are the people who have supported me through- out this revision process and in life in general. My parents, Randy Bryson and Julie Culbertson, have always been there for me as I moved to China and back and then around the United States as part of the itinerant academic lifestyle. I have been truly fortunate to have such a supportive family, including my brother Will, who has been a great sounding board as we each embarked on our careers. I’d like to end by thanking Dan Magilow for reading and commenting on parts of this book and for the encouragement, love, and support that helped me keep going with this project through difficult times. GODDESS ON THE FRONTIER INTRODUCTION Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Dali AUGUST 14, 2009, marked the beginning of the Torch Festival, and on that day a huge crowd gathered on the hilltop of the City of Virtue’s Source to cel- ebrate the grand opening of the new temple to Baijie Shengfei (Holy Consort of White Purity).1 A red banner hanging across the temple doors read, “Cer- emony Celebrating Eryuan County’s Renovation of the Holy Consort of White Purity Temple.” To the west of the temple, celebrants circumambulated a giant torch that would be ignited at sundown. Festooned with colorful streamers, flags, and pom-poms, the torch bore its own messages of celebration: red ban- ners exhorted the crowd to “joyfully observe the ethnic Torch Festival” and proclaimed that the torch was “erected by the Eryuan County People’s Govern- ment.” Dance troupes wearing brightly colored costumes performed routines while waiting for the official ceremony to begin. Everyone on the hilltop that day would have recognized Baijie as an eighth- century widow martyr who committed suicide rather than marry the man who killed her husband. According to Baijie’s legend, her husband ruled a small kingdom that had its capital in the City of Virtue’s Source. His fiery death at the hands of a rival ruler was the origin story for the Torch Festival. The celebrants interpreted Baijie’s title “Holy Consort” as a reference to her relationship with her husband. However, it originally referred to Baijie’s relationship to someone else: the wrathful god Mahākāla. In the earliest writings on Baijie Shengfei, from the twelfth century, she was not a widow martyr at all but a Buddhist dragon maiden. This book tells her story. 2 RELIGION, ETHNICITY, AND GENDER IN DALI The Goddesses Called Baijie Baijie Shengfei first appeared in Buddhist ritual texts and art of the Dali king- dom (937–1253) as the consort of Mahākāla, a form of the Indian god Śiva “con- verted” to protect the Buddhist teachings. By the fifteenth century, the name Baijie also referred to the mother of Duan Siping, founder of the Dali kingdom. According to her legend, she conceived the future ruler when a dragon dis- guised as a piece of wood floated into her foot while she bathed. This Baijie was enshrined in temples near the ancestral home of the Dali kingdom’s founder. The eighth-century widow martyr only came to be called Baijie during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). She, too, was enshrined in temples and worshipped as a goddess and moral exemplar. Today the Baijie revered as a tutelary village deity (known as benzhu in Dali) contains elements of all three of these forms. The name Baijie was initially written differently for the different figures that bore it: the Buddhist Baijie Shengfei means “Holy Consort White Sister”; Duan Siping’s mother was Baijie Amei, “Little White Sister”; and the widow martyr was known as Baijie Furen, “Lady Cypress Chastity.” As the three figures be- came intertwined, their names were also combined, and so today one com- monly finds the name of the Buddhist Baijie attached to a figure identified as the widow martyr by villagers.