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Mirror of Morality
donors of longmen
McNair
University of
Hawaii Press
Faith,
Politics, and
Patronage
in Medieval
Chinese
Buddhist
Sculpture
donors of longmen
Amy McNair
Donors of Longmen
Donors of Longmen
Faith, Politics, and Patronage in
Medieval Chinese Buddhist Sculpture
Amy McNair
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
One
Emperor as Tathgata 7
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Notes 181
Bibliography 213
Index 237
List of Illustrations
| i l l u s t r a t i o n s
Acknowledgments
For financial support of this project, I gratefully acknowledge the award of a J.Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship
in the History of Art, in 19951996, and a Research Grant
from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a
Fellowship from the Howard Foundation, Brown University, both awarded in 20012002. With no less gratitude, I
acknowledge the General Research Fund of the University
of Kansas, the International Travel Fund of the KU Center for Research and the Kress Foundation Department
of Art History Faculty Travel Fund for assistance with
travel to Longmen in the summers of 1994, 1996, 1999, and
2004. I am also grateful for receiving the Vice Provost for
Research Book Subvention Award from the University of
Kansas in 2006.
My dear colleague Robert Harrist was kind enough to
read and comment on draft chapters of this book, and Joanna Williams directed me to sources in Indian sculpture.
For much-needed clarification on matters Buddhistic, I
thank the anonymous readers for the University of Hawaii
Press, and for help with Japanese materials, I am grateful
to Sherry Fowler. My greatest debt, however, is to Audrey
Spiro, who read practically every word of the much-toolong draft manuscript and whose good advice and enthusiasm came at just the right time. I also learned a great deal
from the fine work of the students in my graduate seminar
on Longmen in 1997: Michael Bass, Karil Kucera, Ling-en
Lu, Karen Mack, Bruce MacLaren, Theresa Shetler, Hans
Thomsen, Wang Hui, and Suhn Nyung Yi. It continues to
Introduction
statistical data derived from large numbers of dated intrusive shrines. Chang Qing produced fine studies of the iconography of the Pure Land Hall of the Damask Silk Guild
and of Yaofang Grotto and useful iconographical studies
on spirit kings, Dizang bodhisattva, and Esoteric imagery
at Longmen, while Liu Jinglong has written a thorough
survey of the Great Vairocana Image Shrine.
Scholars from Japan and the West have focused more
on issues of development of sculptural style posed by the
site, especially the issue of the Sinicization of style during the Northern Wei. Important articles by Yoshimura
Rei and Ishimatsu Hinako deal with the development of
style at Longmen in the Northern Wei, especially with
regard to the sculpture of Yungang and the art of the
southern dynasties (317589), and Alexander Soper and
Emma Bunker have argued for influences from the south
on both style and iconography during the late Northern
Wei. Recently, Katherine Tsiang has described how the
Sinicization of style formed a part of Emperor Xiaowens
political policies, while Stanley Abe has analyzed the assumption of the superiority and dominance of southern
Chinese culture on the part of modern scholars in Japan
and the West.
Ink rubbings of the inscriptions at Longmen have been
collected as art objects since the Qianlong period (1736
1795), and the Northern Wei inscriptions in Guyang Grotto
have been taken as sources for creative interpretation in
the stele studies (beixue) school of calligraphy from the
nineteenth century to the present. As the Northern Wei inscriptions also contain a wealth of variant characters, they
were studied by philologists in the late Qing (16441911).
Deeper delving into their content only began in the twentieth century. The inscriptions have been mined for revelations concerning the development of Buddhism in the
Northern Wei and Tang dynasties, notably in the work
of Tsukamoto Zenry and Li Yukun. Since many of the
inscriptions are dated, they have also been used to reconstruct the history of the site, though this is not always a
simple matter. As one example, various problems with the
dates of the earliest inscriptions in Guyang Grotto have
sparked considerable debate about the original date of the
grottoes, and theories have been proposed by Katherine
Tsiang, Zhang Naizhu, Liu Jinglong, Wen Yucheng, Sofukawa Hiroshi, and Long Hui. Li Yukun wrote several
articles relating to the religious and political content of
the inscriptions, while Yan Wenru deciphered the inscriptions relating to the Great Vairocana Image Shrine and the
forty-eight Amitbhas added to it. Sun Guanwen analyzed
the inscriptions according to various categories, such as
donor, beneficiary, and purpose.
In the West, the only work on patronage at Longmen was
Alexander Sopers 1960 article Imperial Cave-Chapels of
the Northern Dynasties: Donors, Beneficiaries, Dates, in
which he combined detailed information on the political
situation in the Northern Wei with what little was known
about Longmen then to offer his theory of the patronage
of the Binyang grottoes. No one had yet investigated the
donors of other major Northern Wei grottoes or the thirty
or so substantial Tang grottoes, including the Great Vairocana Image Shrine. When I was in graduate school at
the University of Chicago, participating in Father Harrie
Vanderstappens seminar on Chinese Buddhist sculpture
in 1983, I read Zhang Ruoyus groundbreaking 1980 article
on the completion of Binyang South Grotto. Zhang combined a very close reading of Li Tais dedicatory inscription with an analysis of the grottos program of sculpture
and knowledge of the political events of the time to argue
that Li Tais motivation lay in the politics of his campaign
to become heir apparent. Zhangs persuasive methodology
sparked my interest in the issue of patronage. As I pursued
further study of the donors of Longmen, I also relied on
Wen Yuchengs work on patronage in his lengthy articles
Research on Guyang Grotto and Survey of Statues at
Longmen by People Found in the Two Tang Histories.
It is abundantly evident from the contents of this book
that I could have written little of it without an unremitting reliance on the extraordinary body of scholarship on
Longmen produced by the great Sinologists, archeologists,
and art historians of Asia and the West. I owe a particular
debt to three substantial surveys of the Tang sculpture at
Longmen published between 1979 and 1991. The first was
Ding Mingyis article Periodization and Categorization
of the Tang Dynasty Sculpture at Longmen Grottoes, in
which he classified dated Buddha and bodhisattva figures
into seven stages of development by changes in such iconographic elements as robes, mudrs, and thrones, from
which he postulated three phases of activity at Longmen
in the early Tang and asserted that the schools of Buddhism represented there included Pure Land, Huayan,
Three Levels Teachings, Chan, and Esoteric. Sofukawa
| i n t r o d u c t i o n
| e m p e r o r a s t a t h g a t a
Grotto [Monastery] made for the state, in this way to respond to the August (Emperors) grace and to give encouragement to future works (of the same kind).
I interpret this as a claim by Huicheng to have sponsored
the excavation of the original grotto, which he calls Stone
Grotto Monastery.12 Huicheng says he made it for the
state, which suggests the grotto was produced at a time
when Huicheng believed the ruling family and the Wei
state needed spiritual support, such as when the capital was
being relocated, as it was from 493 to 495, which was a controversial and difficult undertaking. Huicheng also gave
two additional reasons why he sponsored the grotto. The
first was to respond to the august grace, or the physical presence of the emperor. In my view, this reveals that
Huicheng made the grotto as a loyalist, merit-generating
response to Emperor Xiaowens decision to come to Luo
yang and relocate the capital there. Huichengs second
reason was to give encouragement to future works (of
the same kind). Future works likely refers to the other
shrines in the top register of the grotto, which were sponsored by other patrons whom Huicheng was advising and
whom he wished, naturally enough, to encourage in seeing their projects through to completion.
Since Huicheng stated only that he sponsored the grotto
and a single shrine for his father, while giving encouragement to future works, the theory that he conceived the
program of the grotto to encompass all eight large Buddha
shrines is debatable. The eight large shrines do not match
in every detail, so it is possible they were produced one at
a time, in successive imitation of each other, and not designed as a group by a single patron. This seems unlikely,
however. The shrines match in overall design, in size, and
in their principal iconography, which suggests a complete plan devised at the beginning of the project, with
the shape of the niches and the size and posture of the
main Buddha figures sketched out together. Where they
do not match is in the peripheral areas: the backgrounds
of niches, the lintel carvings, and the inscriptions. Unfinished carvings in this grotto reveal that niches and lintels
were embellished last, while inscriptions were carved after
the shrines completion, if at all. Thus, it seems likely the
eight shrines were all sketched out and begun at the same
time, around 493 when the decision was made to move the
capital, even though they were finished at different times,
from 498 to around 504.
e m p e r o r a s t a t h g a t a | 11
side of his tall, narrow head is broken, but his crescentshaped eyes and triangular nose are still readable. The full
lips compressed into a gentle smile create a joyful expression, conveying the compassion of the Buddha as he contemplates the world he comes to enlighten.
The standing bodhisattvas to either side are 3.7 meters
tall and proportionately smaller than the Buddha (figure
1.6). They wear flowered and jeweled crowns, pendant
necklaces, long ropes of jewels, armbands, and bracelets.
Curling strands of hair fall over their shoulders, which are
covered by the flaring edges of long scarves that fall from
their shoulders to cross over their bellies, passing through
a circular jade ring. This manner of rendering the scarves
over the shoulders is considered to be Han Chinese in
mode, in contrast to the bare shoulders of the Central
Asian mode. A long flowing skirt, or dhoti, covers their
lower bodies in narrow folds that flare away from the body
and drape into stylized zigzag folds at the lower border to
display their bare feet. The inside hands of both figures
are now shattered, but it appears they were held against
the chest, possibly grasping a lotus bud. The outside hand
of the south wall bodhisattva holds a spade-shaped fan
inside of which is a half-length image of a person rising
from a lotus flower, which probably represented a believer
being reborn in paradise.14 The bodhisattva on the north
wall holds a kundik, the water vase for ritual ablutions.
Haloes are carved in low relief into the walls behind them,
with an inner band of lotus petals, a center band filled
with apsarasas (flying celestial beings), circumscribed by
strings of jewels, and an outer band of flames representing
radiant light.
In short, the west-wall triad figures are colossal, project
in high relief, and are elaborately detailed. The Buddha
figure is imposing, being significantly larger and taller
than the bodhisattvas. His majestic singularity makes
him seem imperial. The haloes and nimbuses are carved
in very low relief, and their decoration is linear and patterned, qualities that are hallmarks of Chinese sculptural
style. The costumes are also in the Chinese mode. Overall,
the main impression left with the viewer is of Chinesestyle, imperial-sized figures.
By contrast, the immediate effect of the large Buddha
shrines is more Central Asian: figures wear less drapery,
their limbs are more rounded, and the poses of the background figures are more open with a livelier sense of move-
ment. All but one of the kyamuni figures wear the Central Asian style of robe, that is, one shoulder covered and
the other bare, and the hem of the robe crosses diagonally
over the chest with the folds described in an arcing zigzag
line (the exception is N4). The cavernous backgrounds of
all the niches are alive with haloes filled with apsarasas,
flamboyant nimbuses, and ranks of monk disciples and
gandharvas (celestial musicians) elaborately carved in
raised lines.
Huichengs shrine itself is one of the most Central Asian
in feel, owing to the sharp undercutting, intricate detail,
and vivid sense of movement in the relief carvings of the
niche and its background (figure 1.7). The faade of the
platform on which the Buddha sits is carved with an al-
Figure 1.9. Large Buddha shrine, south wall, west side (Shrine
4), Cave 16, Yungang. From Mizuno Seiichi and Nagahiro
Toshio, Yn-kang (Unk sekkutsu): The Buddhist Cave-Temples
of the Fifth Century A.D. in North China, v. 11, pt. 2, pl. 91.
the character for two can still be read, but between them
the stone is broken away. Since the Great Peace era lasted
twenty-three years, the effaced character could have been
ten or twenty, making the date either the twelfth year
(488) or the twenty-second year (498). Turning to the epigraphy catalogues of the nineteenth century for early transcriptions, we find them divided over the reading of the
date. One school, starting with Sun Xingyan, whose Rec
ords of Visiting Steles throughout the Realm was published
in 1802, recorded the date as 488, while the other, beginning with Wang Chang, who published his Compilation of
e m p e r o r a s t a t h g a t a | 15
shrine was intended to represent the oldest ruler, Emperor Daowu, with the other shrines representing the other
rulers in between, in chronological order.
of the Capital Gates. This is not a definitive identification, however, since although Yuans title of nobility was
Duke of Shiping and he had the special designation Commissioned with Extraordinary Powers, his posthumous
prestige title was Superior Grand Master of the Palace,
not Grand Master for Splendid Happiness. Moreover, his
epitaph says nothing about being awarded the post of Regional Inspector of Luozhou. Nevertheless, it is intriguing
that Huichengs moving farewell to his father was written out in the ninth month of 498, three months after the
death of Yuan Yan.
Even without finding the Duke of Shiping, the search
for his identity reveals the depth of fascination with donors and beneficiaries and the value of the donors inscriptions at Longmen. The inscriptions are not simply
religious boilerplate but genuine artifacts of religious and
social practice that indicate what the donors thought important to tell their contemporaries, posterity, and the
karmic mechanism. Further, that the identity of the Duke
of Shiping cannot be established through the standard
dynastic histories reconfirms the importance of archeological documents, such as the dedicatory inscriptions
of Longmen and the epitaphs recovered from the aristocratic tombs in the Mang Mountains north of Luoyang.
Such texts contain information not found in the standard
histories written by Confucian-educated literati, which
routinely ignored or deprecated self-willed women, charismatic religious people, wealthy merchants, and court
eunuchs, and they relate information about people and
events that is uncorrupted by later editing or censorship.
Lastly, work on identifying such unknown donors and
beneficiaries as Huicheng and the Duke of Shiping is important as a corrective to the human tendency to ascribe
all impressive projects to the throne. Not every imperialsized statue was sponsored by the emperor.
Huichengs inscription concludes with a final benedic
tion:
In the evening, may there be an illumination of mystery such
that the myriad sentient beings may have enlightenment,
and in the morning, may there be an echo of wisdom such
that the universe will be awakened. May those of previous
.
generations, my teachers in the sangha, my parents, and my
dependent relatives, soar like the phoenix to the place of enlightenment and rise like the divine luan bird up to the Tu-
e m p e r o r a s t a t h g a t a | 19
At the end of the inscription a separate line reads: Finished on the fourteenth day of the ninth month of the
[twenty-]second year of the Taihe era. Calligraphy by Zhu
Yizhang, text by Meng (Guang)da. The great majority of
inscriptions at Longmen are anonymous, so the naming
of the calligrapher and the author is quite unusual and a
further indication the patron intended this shrine as an
artistic production of the highest aesthetic quality. Zhu
Yizhang, the expert calligrapher of this inscription, is otherwise lost to history, but Meng Guangda wrote a second
20 | e m p e r o r a s t a t h g a t a
inscription in Guyang Grotto, which dedicated S3, traditionally called the Sun Qiusheng shrine.
governor of Yingchuan. Yingyang was the closest commandery to the east of Luoyang, about seventy-five kilometers away, while Yingchuan was a local district seat,
about seventy-five kilometers southeast of Yingyang.38
The inscription reads:
In the seventh year of the Taihe era of the Great Dai (483),
Sun Qiusheng, Military Aide of Xincheng District, Liu Qizu,
Military Aide of Xincheng District, and two hundred others
reverently made one stone image.39 We pray that the imperial
house forever flourish and the Three Jewels increase in brilliance. May those disciples offering this prayer bloom luxuriously like flowers in spring and come to be in the courtyard
of the acacia trees that thrive in splendor. May the orchid (of
the Dharma) diffuse its fragrance in this flourishing age, and
may its golden light broadly illuminate this time of our Sage
(Emperor). May our living relatives (enjoy) myriad blessings
that gather around them like clouds and have red-wheeled
carriages in great numbers.40 May the souls of our departed
parents and other disciples, in future incarnations, vault up to
the ninth heaven and their footsteps ascend the ten stages (of
the bodhisattvas path to enlightenment), and may all sentient
beings in the five realms of existence share in this prayer. Text
by Meng Guangda; calligraphy by Xiao Xianqing. (One hundred forty names of the society members are listed.) Finished
on the twenty-seventh day of the fifth month, in which the
first day was a wuzi day, in a renwu year, the third year of the
Jingming era (July 17, 502).41 (1B)
of stone sculpture in the Luoyang area before 500, probably because of the lack of a significant elite population.43
The most likely explanation for this implausible date is
that the character for ten was accidentally omitted, and
the inaugural date was actually 493.44 One might think
that great care was taken with the accuracy of the inscriptions at Longmen, but in fact, errors are rife. Instances
where characters were accidentally left out in Northern
Wei inscriptions include the second character in the reign
period in Song Jingfeis inscription, the middle character
of Meng Guangdas name in Huichengs inscription, and
the name of the town where Zheng Changyou was governor.45 The year 493, when the emperor suddenly arrived in
Luoyang and announced the move of the capital, would
have been an auspicious time for local people of influence
to welcome the emperor with a public display of loyalty
and piety.
The official titles borne by Sun Qiusheng and Liu Qizu
also suggest why they were eager to demonstrate their loyalty to the emperor. A regularly appointed district military aide served as an adjutant in a military commanders
headquarters, which is a relatively low-ranking post, but
honorary titles of District Military Aide were bestowed
by the Northern Wei court on local men of wealth and
power to gain their allegiance.46 The Xincheng District
seat was located five kilometers south of the modern town
of Yichuan, just south of Longmen, which suggests Sun
and Liu were given this honorary title because they were
local men of importance whom the Northern Wei wished
to enlist in their cause. They were probably also wealthy,
and they may have been listed prominently in the inscription because they donated the largest amount of funds for
the project.
Occupying the lower three-fourths of the stele is the list
of the societys members, an examination of which reveals
that some were sponsors of other shrines in Guyang Grotto
and some were related to sponsors of other shrines. For
example, Gao Wenshao, Gao Tianbao, and Gao Zhenbao
also cosponsored a Buddha shrine dedicated by Gao Shu
and a group of thirty-two believers, which was completed
at the same time, in the fifth month of 502.47 Eight men of
the Wei clan also participated in the Sun Qiusheng shrine,
including a Wei Baier, who must have been a brother or
cousin of Wei Baidu, the governor of Yingchuan, while
e m p e r o r a s t a t h g a t a | 21
A Consortium of Donors
Several factors suggest that Huicheng, Sun Qiushengs lay
society, and Wei Lingzang donated in concert. First, their
dedications are similar in content, structure, and language, suggesting they asked Meng Guangda to write their
inscriptions corporately. Second, Wei Lingqiu, who participated in the Sun Qiusheng group shrine, was probably
closely related to Wei Lingzang. Third, the social status of
these donors probably worked symbiotically. Sun Qiusheng
and Wei Lingzang were local men important and wealthy
enough to be given titles by the court to secure their loyalty and support, and were probably already established in
the Luoyang area when the emperor determined to move
the capital in 493. As the son of a duke, Huicheng had the
high rank necessary to be granted permission to make and
dedicate a grotto to the state and the prestige to galvanize
a group of local donors. As a Buddhist monk, he also had
the spiritual authority to design the program of imagery.
He had probably lived in Pingcheng before the move of the
capital and likely saw the grottoes at Yungang. In fact, it is
hard to imagine why he would have had a grotto created
near Luoyang if he had not seen the grottoes at Yungang.
Lastly, these three may have been linked by motivation.
Emperor Xiaowens decision to move the capital to Luo
yang aroused feelings of betrayal among many Northern
e m p e r o r a s t a t h g a t a | 23
26 | e m p e r o r a s t a t h g a t a
(this sight) all through the night, and in tears, his emotions
flowed. And so, for the August Emperor Xiaowen, he had a
single stone image made such that none of the auxiliary figures have been omitted. He engraved stone to record this
work of merit that it may be shown.
28 | e m p e r o r a s t a t h g a t a
In this interpretation, sheng is read as meaning the emperor, and both phrases refer solely to Emperor Xiaowens
political exploits. The generals thoughts were of his glorious career under the late emperor and of the emperors ambitious designs for the empire. This is based on an understanding of the terms zong and ji as achievements rather
than as traces, as I have translated them. Zong and ji both
have the same range of meanings. From their fundamental meaning of footprint, by extension they mean footsteps, traces, external indications, or achievements.
One problem with this interpretation is that it ignores
the religious function of image worship entirely in favor
of a secularized reading of the generals project. Yang had
a very emotional response to the experience of seeing a
Buddha image, and he then determined to reciprocate by
sponsoring another Buddha image within the same grotto.
His shrine was not a monument to his own career or even
to the career of the late emperor; rather, it was an attempt
to act on his feelings for his beloved commander through
the posthumous generation of merit for him. The elite patrons of Longmen were often focused on the politics of
public sponsorship, it is true, but they also shared an unquestioning belief in the power of image worship to generate merit and in the magical efficacy of statues. Hence, I
cannot accept an interpretation that eliminates the power
medieval Chinese people ascribed to images in favor of
simple political calculation.
Another interpretation sees the inscription as ascribing
the sponsorship of the grotto to the emperor.70 In the
opinion of Long Hui, the word zong should be read literally, as footprints, and the entire first phrase should
mean that Emperor Xiaowen went out to Longmen in person to order the making of Guyang Grotto. Long states
that the Chapter on Buddhism and Daoism in the His
tory of the Northern Wei says, Each time an emperor ascended the throne, at a stone cliff near the capital, they
would make a stone grotto for the emperor and empress
and engrave Buddhist images.71 From this, he speculates
that the emperor sponsored the excavation of Guyang
Grotto near the new capital in accord with an old Tabgatch
custom, arguing that moving the capital would have been
seen as analogous to an emperor ascending the throne. He
argues further that since Emperor Xiaowen personally
took the ancestral spirit tablets from the imperial ances-
Emperor as Tathgata
I agree with Wen Yucheng that Yang Dayan was looking
at the colossal Buddha, but I do not believe he was addressing the issue of patronage or that his inscription can
support the notion that he referred to two emperors. Between the characters for former and August, the writer
left a space. Leaving a space before someones name is the
traditional way of showing respect for that person. In the
second phrase, no space was left between the words magnificent and sheng. The absence of this traditional sign of
respect in front of sheng strongly suggests the writer was
not referring to a ruler and that the term sheng should be
translated as Holy, meaning the Holy Buddha.
My theory is that Yang Dayan was speaking simultaneously of one emperor and one Buddha statue. He said,
Contemplating the brilliant traces (zong) of the former
August (Emperor), gazing upon the beautiful traces (ji)
of the magnificent Holy (sheng) (Buddha), I fixed my eyes
e m p e r o r a s t a t h g a t a | 29
30 | e m p e r o r a s t a t h g a t a
year of the Jingming era (500) through the sixth month of the
fourth year of the Zhengguang era (July 523), the expenditure
for this work of merit was 802,366 (cash).9
32 | m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e
Figure 2.2. Courtyard of the Binyang trio of grottoes: (104) Binyang North, (118) Elders of Luozhou shrine, 637, (140) Binyang
Central, (A) Stele for the Yique Buddha Shrine, 641, (159) Binyang South, (176, 192, 194) King Udayana Buddha shrines. Drawing
adapted from Longmen shiku kukan bianhao tuce, ed. Longmen shiku yanjiusuo and Zhongyang meishu xueyuan meishushi xi,
Xishan limian tu 3.
m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e | 33
young mans feelings for his late parents, but likely they
consisted not only of a traditional filial desire to recompense their gift of life to him, but also of a sense that their
souls, given the unfortunate manner of their deaths, were
in grave need of karmic rescue.
Like his father, Emperor Xuanwu had an intellectual
interest in Buddhist thought, though he was more active
as a public patron of Buddhism. While Emperor Xiaowen
had been a student of the Satyasiddhi stra (Cheng shi
lun) and was said to have been devoted to meditation, Emperor Xuanwu lectured annually on Buddhist scriptures
and commentaries in assemblies of learned monks.20 He
had a special interest in the Vimalakrti Stra, and it is recorded that in 509 the emperor summoned all the monks
and courtiers to the Shiqian Palace, where he expounded
upon the stra.21 The emperor welcomed the Indian monk
Bodhiruci to Luoyang in 508 and sponsored his activities
as a translator. Bodhiruci and his team produced translations of thirty-nine stras and commentaries, including
influential texts such as the Daabhmika-stra stra.
The emperor also sponsored a rival translation of this text,
done by the Indian monk Ratnamati, and the two translations were kept in separate halls in the palace, under
armed guard. He also ordered Ratnamati to expound on
the Avatamsaka Stra at court and commanded the Buddhist hermit Feng Liang to come to court to lecture on
Daabhmika-stra texts.22 When Feng refused, the emperor built him a monastery on nearby Mount Song as a
retreat, echoing his fathers order to build Shaolin Monastery on Mount Song for the Western monk Bhadra, whose
teachings he had revered.23
Emperor Xuanwu also funded an imperial Buddhist
monastery south of the city walls. Emperor Xiaowen had
sponsored Baode Monastery for the posthumous generation of merit for his regent, Empress Dowager Feng.24
Emperor Xuanwu began his reign with the building of
Jingming Monastery, for which no beneficiary is known.25
Emperor Xuanwu also sponsored Yaoguang Convent, situated in the western part of the city, between the central
Palatine City and the Jinyong Citadel in the citys northwest corner.26 By analogy to his grotto project, the emperor may have dedicated Jingming Monastery to his late
father and Yaoguang Convent to his beloved mother.
34 | m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e
channel for a door frame carved down the center. His four
arms brandish weapons as he stands in a bent-knee pose
of triumph on an earth spirit or dwarf yaks.a who holds
up his feet. The breastplate, belly plate, and shin guards
of his armor are carved with the faces of fanged deities,
elephants, and fierce beasts. Scarves swirl around him, suggesting a frenzy of motion. In the second register, above the
head of the viewer, are a standing bodhisattva and a figure
of Brahm, turning in toward the interior of the grotto and
making offerings toward the figures inside.28 A flying ap
saras fills the top register of each jamb.
Imitating the entrance to a monastery image hall, the
faade is the site of several functions. As at the entrance to
an image hall, a stele is inscribed with words to announce
the patronage and purpose of the shrine to mortal viewers and to the karmic machinery. The architectural function of the faade is to divide mundane space from sacred
space, and the disposition of the sculpted figures transitions the pilgrim from the outside inward. The guardian
figures face outside to protect the worshiper, who will be
rendered vulnerable by entering a sacred space of worship.
The worshiping bodhisattvas, Vedic gods, and apsarasas
at the top of the door jambs face in toward the Buddha
realm inside, directing the entry into sacred space, where
karmic merit can be generated. The sculptural elements
on the faade were also intended to recall the grottoes of
Yungang, thereby connecting this imperial project with
its illustrious predecessor at the old capital. Doorjambs
elaborately carved in registers, gigantic door guardians,
and multiarmed Vedic gods are found on the faades of
the earliest paired grottoes at Yungang, Caves 7 and 8.29
Entering the grotto, the visitor begins the second stage.
The interior measures 11.4 meters across and 9.85 meters
deep, and the wide rectangular floor is carved with a pathway leading from the doorway up the center of the grotto
to the altar on the back wall (figure 2.4). To each side are
two large lotuses, around which are swirling vines and
flowering vegetation. This design may have been intended
to suggest a carpet design or real plants in a pond. It certainly was intended to direct the visitors experience of the
grotto, leading him from the doorway straight to the main
Buddha figure and then back out along the same axis.
The ceiling is even more elaborate (figure 2.5). In the
m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e | 35
36 | m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e
that loop and cross at their knees. Robes cover both shoulders, over an under-robe tied at the waist. Each holds a
lotus bud in the upraised right hand and a small fan in the
lowered left hand. Their bare feet are widely spaced, while
their bodies taper upward, giving them a kind of triangular shape when seen from the front. As with the Buddha
figure and the disciples, the upper part of their bodies and
their heads are carved more forward than the lower part of
their bodies, so they lean outward from the wall over the
worshiper. This is a simple but effective device to bring the
heads and hands, the most expressive part of the figure,
closer to the viewer, counteracting the effect of diminution of the head and upper body caused by the height of
the figures.
On each side wall is a standing Buddha figure, flanked
by two attendant bodhisattvas, whose head, halo, and
nimbus match those of the seated Buddha on the main
wall.31 The program of the main statuary, then, is the
Buddhas of the Three Periods. The attendance of disciples
m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e | 37
38 | m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e
Figure 2.7. East wall reliefs, Binyang Central. Drawing from Mizuno Seiichi and Nagahiro Toshio, Rymon sekkutsu no kenky,
v. 1, figs. 18 and 19.
wears a lion-head helmet, and the dragon spirit king confronts a small dragon. The figure embracing a large bag as
his hair streams out behind him is the wind spirit king. No
inscriptions identify these figures, but Emma Bunker has
compared them to the spirit kings on an Eastern Wei stele
of 543 in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, on which
they are identified.39 On the south side, the figure with the
head of a rooster represents the bird spirit king, while the
elephant-headed figure next to it is the elephant spirit king
(see figure 2.10 below). Next is a flame-headed figure holding a flaming object, then a figure spitting pearls into his
hand, and finally one supporting a miniature landscape in
a dish. They are the fire, pearl, and mountain spirit kings.
m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e | 39
40 | m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e
Figure 2.9. Emperor procession, north and east walls, Binyang Central. Photo, ca. 1920. From Friedrich Perzyski, Von Chinas
Gttern: Reisen in China, pl. 28.
m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e | 41
42 | m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e
can see the difference in color between the heads and the
rest of the reconstructed mural. Gong Dazhong wrote that
when Beijing was taken by the Communists in 1949, pieces
of the emperor procession were found at Yue Bins house.50
Reassembly proved them to be the procession, minus the
heads.
As it is displayed in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
the empress procession constitutes about two-thirds of the
original composition, that is, only the section from the east
wall, comprising the first two royal ladies and their attendants. The third royal lady, her six attendants, and the two
servants with the large feather fans on the south wall were
not acquired by Sickman.51 Gong Dazhong wrote that the
pieces from the south wall were also found in Yue Bins
house and were returned to Longmen.52 By contrast, the
emperor procession represents the entire original composition, yet the manner in which the mural has been reconstituted and displayed in the Metropolitan Museum obscures the original construction. The entire length of the
mural has been flattened into a single plane, but old photographs make clear that the figures from the right edge to
the trees were on the east wall, while the figures from the
trees to the left end of the composition were on the north
wall. The trees were originally in the corner, serving as a
transitional device from the east wall to the north. The
way the heads angled toward each other across the corner
suggested separate but related groups, as if the sculptors
wanted to create a relationship between the two groups
on the two walls but also perhaps to suggest that they were
somehow different. The figures on the north wall are more
densely clustered from top to bottom, suggesting a crowd
of officials, not just a single file of worshipers.
Alexander Soper thought the imperial processions
represented the donor, Emperor Xuanwu, and his concubine Lady Hu, who became Empress Dowager Hu shortly
after his death in 515.53 Two reasons why this is unlikely
are given here, and I discuss the issue further in the following chapter. In the only Northern Wei procession at
Longmen where the participants are labeledthe large
Buddha shrine of 504 dedicated by monk Fasheng in Gu
yang Grottothe lay worshipers in the procession are
also the shrines beneficiaries.54 Based on this precedent,
the figures in the imperial processions are more likely to
be the intended beneficiaries, Emperor Xiaowen and Empress Dowager Wenzhao. The second reason relates to
m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e | 43
44 | m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e
m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e | 45
46 | m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e
at the right, and the goddess both face and gesture toward
Majur on the left.
The debate of Majur and Vimalakrti was as immediately recognizable as any single icon. In the Northern Wei,
this scene was invariably placed at the top of an arch, the
two figures facing each other. At Yungang, in Cave 6, for
example, the facing figures of Majur and Vimalakrti
are situated over the doorway, to be seen as the worshiper
exited (figure 2.12), while in the shrines in Guyang Grotto,
m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e | 47
shiper was on, she could run her eyes up the wall and read
the reliefs easily, without having to crane her neck and
peer at the images like a country bumpkin.
The sculptors also used certain devices in their carving to ensure the reliefs were readable by the natural light
filtering through the doorway. For example, the noses of
the figures in three-quarter view were carved frontally.
This intentional distortion is best observed in the emperor procession in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
where the panel is lit from above and the noses stand out
rather weirdly. By contrast, in the sculpture gallery of the
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the lighting of the empress
procession is set to imitate the shaft of light that came
through the open doorway to the left. Here the viewer can
observe the intended effect: the noses cast deeper shadows
across the faces, which prevents them from disappearing
and creates a fuller sense of three-dimensionality in the
faces. A second device is the use of undercutting to project
certain elements forward. For example, the layered petals
that make up the headdresses of the two royal ladies in
the empress procession are deeply undercut at the sides in
order to make each layer of the petals appear to be coming
forward toward the viewer. The sides of their cloud-toed
shoes are also rendered in this fashion, which creates a
sense of volume with effects of light and shadow.
Optical illusions were produced on a larger scale as well.
The relief panels on the left side actually wrap onto the
north wall, while the panels on the right side wrap onto
the south wall. The sculptors designed the imagery on
the north and south walls to pull the figures in the eastwall sections forward toward the viewer. In the Majur
panel, for instance, the two attendant bodhisattvas are
placed high on the north wall in a standing position, while
Majur is seated lower, on the east wall. Thanks to the
viewers mental understanding that things higher in the
composition should be read as behind things positioned
lower, Majur comes forward to sit in front of the
standing bodhisattvas. The Vimalakrti panel is particularly clever in this regard. Vimalakrti himself is depicted
on the east wall, but the bolster against which he leans is
on the south wall so that it appears to emerge from behind
him toward the viewer. The frame of the bed also extends
onto the south wall, with its curtains swinging onto the
south wall, further creating a three-dimensional setting.
The area behind the two women who attend him on the
48 | m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e
pathetic resonance, the closer an image is to the true appearance or nature of the thing depicted, the more likely the
spirit of the thing is to respond to and occupy the effigy.68
This accorded with contemporaneous Buddhist thought,
which held that just as the dharmakya had manifested
itself in the human form of kyamuni Buddha in the past,
now it manifested itself in man-made images of the Buddhas body. If the statue has a light-emitting rn, glowing
deep-blue hair, and radiant golden skin (as the scriptures
describe the Buddha), and if its inscription claims it manifests the thirty-two laks.ana on its body, the donor can feel
confident that her statue is sufficiently a Buddha body
for the dharmakya to manifest in the icon.69 These beliefs are expressed in the apology for image-making that
opens almost all of the substantial Northern Wei dedications at Longmen, and they explain why so many dedicatory inscriptions at Longmen assert the accuracy and
completeness of their image of the Buddha.70
In contrast to the ideal qualities Buddha figures had to
possess in order to get the response of the dharmakya,
in terms of the spiritual function of the grotto, it was important that the effigies of the emperor and empress be
realistic, which is why they are life-size, wear contemporary costume, and gesture convincingly. The purpose of
placing images of the late emperor Xiaowen and Dowager
Empress Wenzhao in the grotto was to identify them as
the sole beneficiaries to whom the merit generated there
was transferred. As such, their images should be as lifelike
as possible so that the merit would be transferred precisely
to them. The sculptors did everything they could to attain
this goal through sculptural means, but no doubt the final
effect of lifelikeness was realized with paint and gilding.
Were we able to see these figures as they were originally
decorated, the effect would have been quite convincing.
as if he had done so by listing their names in an inscription.72 Moreover, the act of transferring merit also earns
merit.73 It is even possible that medieval believers considered the sculpted images of the imperial couple to be making merit, since they were obviously depicted in the act of
offering worship. In sum, the grotto embodies as many
as five different avenues of merit generation: sponsoring
icons, charitable giving, transferring merit, worshiping
before icons, and perhaps even images of people offering
worship.
Equally, there is a portrait of the donor in the grotto, for
in Marcel Mauss memorable words: to give something
is to give a part of oneself.74 Ilana Silber has called this
sociological observation the deep intermingling of the
donors identity with the gift that is transferred.75 In my
opinion, the reliefs on the east wall were not only intended
to direct a karmic gift to the donors late parents, but also
to represent Emperor Xiaowen as a patron of Buddhism
and the emperor of all China, while depicting Emperor
Xuanwu himself as filial, wise, compassionate, and generous. Let us review the relief panels from the perspective
of self-representation and self-reward. In the traditional
caryatid role, the spirit kings represent the submission
of all other faiths to the Buddha and elevate Emperor
Xiaowen into a royal protector of the faith. Further, as
foreign images set beneath the imperial figures, they represent the traditional submission of foreign states to the
emperor of China. This positioned Emperor Xiaowen in
the never-realized role of the ruler of a reunified China,
the attainment of which was his purpose in adopting policies of Sinicization, relocating the capital to Luoyang, and
warring against the Southern Qi.
Giving (dna) is the greatest of all merit-making activities, and the greater the cost, the greater the merit.
The intended impression that the emperor had spared
no expense in his gift to his parents was suggested by the
ultimate acts of charity in the two jtaka tales, in which
Prince Mahsattva gave his body and Prince Sudna gave
all his possessions. These stories present a totality of Buddhist giving. Together they represent the two fundamental
types of giving (the gift of material goods and the gift of a
person) and the two acceptable motivations (to help others
and to attain Buddhahood).76 Again, however, this great
gift returns to the giver, since the comparison of Emperor
Xuanwus act of charity to his late parents with the great
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50 | m e c h a n i c s o f a k a r m i c g i f t o f s c u l p t u r e
Laymen Donors
Donations by laymen most readily reveal who the social
audience was for information about the expense of a shrine
because laymen had traditionally borne the burden of
public demonstration of filial piety, and this task seems to
have carried over into Buddhist practice as a motivation
for producing a shrine. In the Han dynasty, the desire to
make a public spectacle of filial piety resulted in the practice known as rich burials. The sons of prominent people
were expected to bankrupt themselves in producing the
most lavish possible funeral service and tomb for their
late parents since the amount the son spent was considered a tangible measure of his love and respect for them.
Attending the funeral service and viewing the contents of
the tomb were public events, and it was upon the public
response to the expenditure of the son that his reputation
would rest.4 The fine quality of the tomb and its expense
were described in the inscriptions carved on the pillars
and steles set up at the burial site.5 This traditional urge
to extol the quality and expense of the project was easily
expressed in Buddhist dedications.
Good examples of filial-son lay society donors are Wei
Lingzang and Xue Fashao, since their large Buddha shrine
in Guyang Grotto was probably the most expensive shrine
by a layman group in the Northern Wei (see figure 1.13
above). The niche is two and a half meters high, large
enough to be a good-sized small grotto on its own.6 Moreover, it is elaborately carved with large high-relief figures
and broad areas of low-relief decor, with a large dedicatory
stele that bore a lengthy inscription. Such a large amount
of skilled labor must have been very expensive. Wei Lingzang and Xue Fashao dedicated the merit from this large
shrine first to the imperial house, then to themselves and
to their families.7 Of their expenditure, they said: We
made bold to exhaust our families wealth to make one
stone image such that none of the auxiliary figures have
been omitted (1C).
The phrase, we exhausted our families wealth, occurs consistently in dedications by societies of laymen.
A lay society of thirty-five members, headed by their society leader Zhao Ahuan, said: Having experienced the
border between life and obliteration, and understanding
the divide between going and staying, we know the body
is a floating cloud and our lives are like frost and dew.
Therefore each of us has exhausted his familys wealth to
make one statue of Maitreya (3B).8 Another lay society of
more than twenty men said in their inscription in Lianhua Grotto, Each one exhausted his own and his familys
valuables (3C).9 In his inscription, monk Daoxing praised
the generosity of his lay societys members, saying, Everyone (in the society) released marvelous [wealth], reverently
to have made one image of kyamuni...that this slight
52 | r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e
Laywomen Donors
Individual laywoman donors spoke of giving their belongings to finance a shrine. The kyamuni shrine dedicated
by a laywoman named Song Jingfei is the most widely
known intrusive shrine at Longmen, thanks to its publication in Sherman Lees popular textbook A History of Far
Eastern Art.15 Lee chose this shrine of 527 to illustrate late
Northern Wei sculptural style, principally the cascade or
waterfall effect of the drapery in the robe spilling over the
Buddhas knees and down the front of the shrine.16 What
the textbook does not reveal is that the shrine is eighty
centimeters in height and is situated on the north wall of
Lianhua Grotto, to the lower right of the colossal attendant
bodhisattva (figure 3.1).17 The inscription is at the bottom
of the niche, just a few inches above the erosion that has
claimed the lower part of the grotto. It reads:
On the eighth day, a gengzi day, of the fourth month, in which
the first was a guisi day, of the third year of the Xiao(chang)
era of the Great Wei, a guiwei year (May 23, 527), Laywoman
Song Jingfei, whose poor karma from former incarnations
has left my fortune shallow and dirty, was born (on the continent of) Jambudvpa and received the form of a woman. I
relied on my late parents, who compassionately raised me
with profound kindness, until I attained maturity. My insignificant self, looking respectfully upon their labor to raise me,
but lacking the means to recompense them, has now parted
with half my hairpins and girdles, and respectfully, for my
late father and mother, has reverently had made one image of
kyamuni. With this bit of merit, I pray that my late father
and mother may be reborn in the land of marvelous joy in the
West, there to meet Buddha and hear the Dharma, then to see
Maitreya manifest in the world.18 May all those with form
share in this blessing.19 (3F)
Although her shrine is typical, Song Jingfeis inscription is unusual in discussing how she paid for it. I have
now parted with half my hairpins and girdles indicates
she had no money of her own and had to give some of
her personal possessions in order to finance the shrine,
and since she cites no husband, living or dead, she was
not a married woman with control over the household finances but a young woman from an aristocratic family
who had been orphaned before marriage and was using
what she had to produce this act of merit. That she had
r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e | 53
shrine in Binyang South Grotto and Lady Yuchis inscription in Guyang Grotto.25 The first states we commissioned inspired craftsmen (5C), while Lady Yuchi said,
I have asked the artisans to engrave stone to make this
image of Maitreya (3H). Although her statement could be
taken as a figure of speech, if taken at face value, it would
mean Lady Yuchi, or more likely her factotum, negotiated directly with the sculptors to have her shrine made.
Monk Fasheng, in his dedication at Maijishan, also said,
I humbly asked the good workmen.26 There is no indication that monks operated as go-betweens for patrons and
stoneworkers. One reason may be that no monks were
resident at Longmen before the Tang dynasty.27 The emperor did not go through clerical intermediaries either; his
orders for a grotto were carried out by the director of the
Palace Domestic Service, the court eunuch in charge of
imperial building projects.
Laywomen donors seem to describe their expenditure in accord with the size and quality of their projects.
Chen Yun, who was married to an important military official named Li Changshou (d. 535), sponsored a modest
kyamuni shrine on the upper part of the south wall of
Yaofang Grotto.28 The carving is rather shallow and not of
particularly high quality, and the shrine gives no indication of having been expensive.29 The truth of this is hinted
at in the inscription, which was carved to the left of the
shrine in a crudely planed area. The dedication reads:
Chen Yun, the wife of Li Changshou, Superior Grand Master of the Palace, General for the Pacification of the South,
Southern Area Commander in Chief, and Dynasty-Founding
Duke of Qingshui District, who in the past was not the legal
wife, for the house of Li and in reverence to the good wife (Lis
late wife), makes known her intention that she (the late wife)
be released into enlightenment. Thus I have parted with the
family wealth to have made one kyamuni image shrine. I
vow that the favor my lord received from the August Emperor
Gao (Emperor Xiaowen) be remembered.
Further, I pray for myself, my late son, my grandson in the
army, and all those living that they have peace. May the holy
saints protect and aid us so my family members have security
and tranquility and their lives ascend to heavens level, and
may those to come all agree with this prayer. This record prepared on the thirteenth day of the sixth month of the third
year of the Yongan era (July 23, 530).30 (3I)
r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e | 55
The eunuchs dedication says that Dang Faduan entrusted him with her lifes savings to have a shrine made at
Longmen. Is this hyperbole, or was the shrine that expensive? Her shrine is impressive in its size130 centimeters
high and 84 centimeters wideand it was placed in a very
visible spot above N1 (see figure 1.3). Although the large
seated Buddha figure in the center has been stolen, the
large standing attendant bodhisattvas are still there, and
there is considerable detail in the relief carvings, including the disciples and apsarasas in the ceiling of the shrine.
Compared to the shrine donated by Great Consort Hou
in 503, it has more detail and is actually somewhat larger
than the other shrine, which is 110 centimeters high. That
Dang could have produced a shrine larger and finer than
one made for a member of the royal family suggests a substantial expenditure of funds. I suspect that the information provided by Si Yun was not hyperbole and that Dang
did indeed spend her lifes savings for this shrine.
.
Sangha Donors
With regard to expenditure by members of the Buddhist
.
sangha, it would appear that Chinese monks and nuns, like
their counterparts in India, donated their private wealth
for sculpture.33 The Maitreya shrine dedicated by the nuns
Fawen and Falong in Guyang Grotto is inscribed:
On the twenty-fifth day of the fourth month of the second
year of the Yongping era, a jichou year (May 29, 509), nuns
Fawen and Falong, awakened (to the fact that this is) not an
eternal world, deeply expressed our sincere vow, and parted
with and exhausted our private wealth, each for herself, reverently to have made a single Maitreya image. We pray it
may cause all who pass by and see it to be saturated with the
moisture of the Dharma rain and all who offer worship to it
to share in unsurpassed joy. At the three sermons under the
Dragon Flower (Tree), we pray we may take our place in the
stream (of those who achieve enlightenment). May all sentient beings universally share this blessing.34 (3K)
Thus, it would seem that Fawen and Falong probably donated either as Dang Faduan did, giving everything they
had, or as Great Consort Hou did, from the riches of a
princely treasury. Even without this explicit reference to
private wealth, the evidence of Guyang Grotto alone
indicates some members of the Buddhist order had considerable funds at their disposal. Huicheng produced the
entire grotto, for example, while Fasheng sponsored a
large shrine (S2). Even those who seemed to play down
their wealth, however, are contradicted by the evidence of
their projects. Monk Huile wrote, Now I follow with my
meager funds...and with sincerity I have had one image
made (3L), yet his meager funds produced a shrine
as large as the one by his patron, the Prince of Beihai.36
Huiles inscription says the Prince of Beihai was instrumental in his conversion to Buddhism and that the prince
was mindful of him day and night, an intimacy that suggests Huile was a member of the princes household before
.
he entered the sangha. If so, then Huiles meager funds
were those of an aristocrat.
Another monk who alluded to his poverty may have
been more truthful. Monk Daosong of Taoquan Monastery in Qingzhou (in modern Shandong Province) sponsored a small shrine in 508 on the south wall of Guyang
Grotto.37 In his dedication below the shrine, he wrote,
From this world of Jambudvpa, I was blessed to be able
to take refuge in the Three Jewels, (so with my) begging
bowl leftovers, I have had a Maitreya made and Seven Buddhas with two bodhisattvas such that their appearances
are complete, and I take this slight blessing and extend it
universally to all sentient beings (3M). Daosongs statement that he came to Buddhism after having lived in the
world suggests he became a believer as an adult and may
have already possessed the financial means to travel to
Longmen and produce a shrine. His shrine is quite small,
wedged in below the draperies of the colossal bodhisattva
on the south wall, and at thirty-seven centimeters high, it
was not likely to have been very expensive, although the
inscription must have raised the price somewhat. Small
as his shrine is, however, it still cost something, and what
that reveals of his possession of personal money the pious
language in his inscription seems to excuse.
.
One member of the sangha who apparently felt no need
to disguise her wealth and status was the nun Cixiang. She
had a small grotto produced on her own (no. 660), sev-
women as a class. She may have believed that since she was
born in the form of a woman, she was uniquely positioned
to come to the spiritual rescue of the class of creatures to
which she belonged. This idea is embodied by the heroine
of the Vimalakrti Stra. After the goddess had bested the
monk riputra in debate by changing his form to hers and
back again, the sage Vimalakrti revealed to riputra that
the goddess not only was already an enlightened being but
that she had chosen to refrain from entering nirvn.a to
help sentient beings in the form of a woman. Vimalakrti
said: She has fulfilled all that she vowed, has accepted the
truth of birthlessness, and dwells in a state from which
she will never regress. Because of her original vow, she can
show herself anytime she wishes and teach and convert
living beings.43 In other words, the goddess was a bodhi
sattva, who could become a Buddha whenever she chose.
As a bodhisattva, she had chosen to inhabit a bodily form
in order to help relieve the sufferings of sentient beings,
and given her ability to choose any form she wanted, obviously it was her choice to assume a female body, which
would be especially efficacious in rendering aid to other
beings in female bodies.44 Hence, I suspect Cixiang also
identified with the goddess, since she used her female incarnation to help other women, in her case, dedicating the
merit from her grotto to all womankind.
Lest the modern reader consider Cixiang unconventional, however, it should be noted that she also sponsored
a Maitreya bodhisattva shrine on the south wall of Gu
yang Grotto with a typical dedication to the emperor, her
parents, and all sentient beings.45 Not only her selection
of the elite subject matter of the Buddhas of the Three Periods, but also her possession of the money to sponsor a
medium-sized intrusive shrine and a small grotto on her
own suggests that Cixiang was the daughter of an aristocratic clan or the royal family.
two monasteries for her late parents. I will argue that she
also sponsored a grotto at Longmen.
also cost nearly one million apiece, the total sum could
have been four million cash or more. Such an amount
could scarcely have come from her private funds.
As head of the realm, the empress dowager controlled
the silk and other commodities sent as tribute and taxes
that were stored in the capital. The History of the Northern
Wei stated: Since the power of the Wei was known far
and wide, the western regions and the eastern barbarians
sent their treasures as tribute, and they were plentiful in
the imperial storehouses. In the Shengui and Zhengguang
eras (518525), the imperial storehouses were full to overflowing. The empress dowager once ordered all the high
officials to carry off as much as they could.75 The last line
is a reference to a notorious incident that took place at the
eastern imperial storehouse:
Later (in 519), she visited the eastern storehouse with over one
hundred princesses, concubines, and others accompanying
her. There, she ordered all of them to take as much silk for
themselves as they could carry out. Many people took over
two hundred rolls. Everyone took at least a hundred rolls.
However, the Princess of Changle only took twenty rolls of
silk, which showed she was no different from anyone else and
could not get rewards without working for them. Everyone
praised her incorruptibility. Li Chong, the Duke of Chenliu,
and Yuan Yong, the Prince of Zhangwu, both fell over because they were carrying too much.76
For Li Chong to complain about Stone Grotto Monastery in the same breath as the Yongning Pagoda and the
Yaoguang Convent building means it was at the same level
of exorbitant expenditure in his mind and was likely an
equally large and expensive project.82 This Stone Grotto
Monastery must have been an entirely new cave-shrine,
not some carving added to a preexisting grotto, and if the
expense was comparable to ostentatious monastic buildings in the capital, this cave-shrine would have to have
been a spectacular presence at Longmen.
Huoshao Grotto
There is one Northern Wei grotto larger than Binyang Central. We do not know what it was called originally, but it is
64 | r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e
bronze mirrors placed in tombs.88 This kind of immortality imagery entered the Northern Wei artistic repertory
in a mortuary context also, and dragon-riding immortals
were depicted on Northern Wei sarcophagi placed in the
royal tombs constructed in the Mang Mountains, north
of Luoyang.89
As the unique appearance of the Queen Mother of the
West and the King Father of the East at Longmen, the imagery must have been highly significant to the donor. Since
these immortals are not part of the Buddhist pantheon but
belong to native Chinese mortuary belief, their presence
suggests the patron was a Han Chinese person who well
understood the funerary connotations of this imagery and
used it to signal that the project was dedicated to a deceased relative. In 517, the empress dowagers father was
still living, but her mother had died in 502. As soon as she
was made regent in 515, she granted her mother the posthumous title of Lady of Jingzhao Commandery and resettled ten households to maintain her tomb, while in 518, she
changed her mothers title to Grand Duchess of Qin and
enlarged the grounds of her tomb, setting up watchtowers,
steles, and columns in the manner of the spirit roads of
royal tombs.90 Lady Huangfu was granted a posthumous
epithet as if she had been an empress, and thirty households were moved to her tomb to provide maintenance and
r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e | 65
Figure 3.4. Queen Mother of the West and King Father of the East, faade, Huoshao Grotto. Photo, the author, 2004.
Huangfu Grotto
One last external factor to consider is Huangfu Grotto,
dedicated by Lady Huangfus brother, the empress dowagers uncle. Located just a dozen meters to the south of
Huoshao Grotto, the grotto is not on an imperial scale,
but it has a complex, coherent plan and detailed, exquisite
carving that is ostentatious, assumes the imperial manner, and promotes the empress dowagers maternal clan.97
A very large relief stele carved just south of the entryway
bears the longest dedication at Longmen, over two thousand characters in length. Long inscriptions were usually
written by famous literati, and this one is no exception.98
The stele is now almost entirely effaced except that, by a
happy twist of fate, the date of 527 and the name of the author are preserved. Yuan Fan (475528) was the most celebrated literatus of the Xiaochang era (525528), employed
in high positions at court for his learning and literary ability. He was much admired by Empress Dowager Hu, who
once toasted him during a banquet in Hualin Park, and it
has been suggested that her influence was used to get Yuan
Fan to write the Huangfu Grotto inscription.99
The name of the patron survives only in the ruined
heading, the last three columns of which read Stele of the
Stone Grotto of Defender in Chief Lord Huangfu. Chavannes was the first to identify this man as Huangfu Du (d.
528), maternal uncle of Empress Dowager Hu.100 Further,
Sofukawa Hiroshi reads two of the first three columns as
Palace Attendant of the Wei and Minister of Works,
Figure 3.6. Pensive prince with lotus flowers and worshiping Brahm, northwest corner, Huangfu Grotto, 527. From
Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen
Yucheng, pl. 75.
of the ox and the plowman, the young man further observed that as the soil was turned up, the exposed insects
were swiftly eaten by birds. Filled with pity for the misery
of living beings, the prince began to meditate under the
shade of a jambu tree. All day, while the sun crossed the
sky, the shade of the jambu tree miraculously held still, to
protect him from the burning rays of the sun. At the end
of the day, his father found him still under the tree, and
recognizing that a miracle had taken place, uddhodana
knelt in worship before his son.
In the matching scene in the upper right spandrel of the
shrine, a pensive Siddhrtha sits under a gingko tree next
to which is a vase holding a lotus plant with flowers (figure
3.8).108 Facing the seated prince is an aristocrat in a tall
cap, kneeling in front of the prince, making an offering of
a large bowl. Behind the nobleman stand three attendants.
The first, who wears Chinese robes, holds an umbrella over
the head of his master, while the other two, in northern
costume with trousers, hoist a huge feather fan and a large
axe. The offering of a bowl of food was an event related
to the second and final meditation of Siddhrtha.109 After
his long years as an ascetic, Siddhrtha decided to eat one
more meal to gain the strength necessary to enter the final
meditation that would result in his enlightenment. Two
merchants offered him a meal, but he could not accept it,
since it was not offered in a begging bowl. Next, the Four
Heavenly Kings offered him food, but he could not accept
four bowls, so he magically joined them into one. In this
representation in Lianhua Grotto, the Indian merchants
and the heavenly kings were replaced by the figure of a
Northern Wei aristocrat.
The Huangfu Grotto pensive prince figures have the
gingko tree and the vase of lotus flowers of the meditation
scenes in the Lianhua Grotto shrine, but they lack the worshiping emperor and aristocrats. I suggest that the missing
figure of the royal worshiper was filled by Huangfu Du
himself, as he came to worship in his grotto. In addition to
playing the imperial role in offering obeisance to the Buddhas of the Three Periods, as Emperor Xuanwu had done
in Binyang Central, playing the role of King uddhodana
as the Chinese emperor in offering worship before the
pensive prince figures would surely have appealed to
Huangfu Dus insatiable desire for self-aggrandizement.
As a further imitation of Binyang Central, worshiper
processions are carved under the two side wall niches.
r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e | 69
Under the south wall niche, three adult men holding lotus
flowers face the entrance of the grotto (figure 3.9). Walking behind the now-broken image of a monk, the leading male is the tallest, while the second figure is smaller,
and the third smaller yet. According to Gu Yanfang of the
Longmen Research Academy, the first figure represents
Huangfu Du, while the other two are the sons of the late
Huangfu Ji: Huangfu Zixi, whom Huangfu Du raised as
his own son, and Huangfu Yong.110 The long faces and
high cheekbones of these men are a different facial type
than the rounded youthful faces of the emperor and his
courtiers in the Binyang Central emperor procession, although likely no less idealized. Huangfu Du was probably
in his fifties in 527, so he would not have been represented
with the full face of the late Emperor Xiaowen, who died
at thirty-three, but rather with the more gaunt face of age.
The long head may be an idealized representation, however. To the people of the Northern Wei period, an elongated head was considered a sign of good health and sound
pedigree, so perhaps the sculptors blessed the patrons with
physiognomies they did not actually possess.111
70 | r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e
Monasteries in Ashes
After the empress dowager resumed the regency in 525,
it became clear to all that her only desire was to retain
power for herself.118 She surrounded herself with favorites,
while the emperors intimates, by contrast, were quickly
murdered. By 528, the emperor was a man of eighteen,
frustrated by his mothers illegal hold on power and her
r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e | 71
Figure 3.10.
Worshiper procession, north
wall, Huangfu
Grotto, 527. From
Zhongguo shiku
diaosu quanji, v.
4: Longmen, ed.
Wen Yucheng,
pl. 72.
entered Luoyang to strip the palaces of building materials, which were transported to build the Eastern Wei capital at Ye. In 538, the rebel general Hou Jing burned what
remained of the government buildings and residences of
Luoyang. Finally, even the Jinyong Citadel was destroyed
in the struggle between Eastern Wei (534550) and Western Wei (535556) forces.
In 547, when Yang Xuanzhi passed through Luoyang on
government business, he described it as follows:
The outer and inner city walls lay in ruins, palaces were
toppled, temples and monasteries were in ashes, and pagodas were no more than deserted graves. Walls were covered
with wild vines, and streets were dotted with thorny bushes.
Wild beasts lived under deserted stairways, and mountain
birds nested in courtyard trees. Wandering youngsters and
cowherds walked back and forth through the intersections
of the city, while farmers and ploughmen grew crops on the
grounds where palace towers once stood.120
74 | r h e t o r i c o f e x p e n d i t u r e
also contained a shrine donated by the mother of the puppet ruler of the opposing Eastern Wei, the Western Wei
troops may have smashed up all the statuary.122 Perhaps,
less dramatically, the carved surfaces of the grotto simply
exfoliated slowly over the centuries, quietly shattered by
the subtle expansion and contraction of the damp limestone. However it happened, the only legible remains of
the original program inside this chapel are the bare feet
of bodhisattvas.
vastu (capital of the state ruled by the kya clan), and the
reds and blues (i.e., painting) are employed to manifest his
goodness in Cnasthna (China). Ever unceasing! The power
of their expediency is unsurpassed! Ever majestic! The significance of their fecundity is great! (4A)
The Beneficiary
The inscription follows with a long paean to the virtues of
the late empress Zhangsun. The companion of Emperor
Taizongs youth, she was a learned woman with whom he
enjoyed discussing literature and history. Although Cen
Wenbens language is high-flown, his description of her
selfless character accords with the image given in her biographies in the Tang dynastic histories.4 The inscription
continues:
The Cultured and Virtuous Empress had a Way higher than
the star Xuanyuan and a Virtue that poured out over the
earth. Her kind saintliness was manifested without limits; her
gentle clarity reached to the heavens. (The collapse of Mount)
Shalu multiplied her blessings.5 (The daughter of the Prince
of) Tushan issued (her) an auspicious omen.6 She helped
the family and the state, inheriting the good renown (of the
mother of the emperor) and assisting the imperial enterprise.7
She practiced well the feminine skills, and, as principal wife,
she collaborated with the emperor in his rule. In seeking out
worthy men (for office), she demonstrated (an intelligence) as
bright as the two orbs (of the sun and moon), and in reaching
out to the people, she was commended for a virtue that was
The Donor
The next section of the inscription extols the attainments
of the sponsor. Despite reading one hundred chapters and
writing three essays every day, prince Li Tai (618652)
thought of his late mother continually, and the inscription
says he wished to show the pain in his heart in the same
way as the one who climbed the bare hill. This line alludes
Figure 4.1. Longmen (1): (1) Qianxisi, (2) Binyang North, (3) Binyang Central, (4) Stele for the Yique Buddha Shrine, (5) Binyang
South, (6) Grotto 305 in King Udayana Buddha shrine area, (7) Madame Hans Grotto (no. 331), (8) Jingshan Monastery Grotto
(no. 403), (9) Cliff-Carved Three Buddhas. Adapted from map in Rymon sekkutsu, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing
daxue kaoguxi, endpaper.
out in the Northern Wei, since the size, posture, and even
the mudrs are the same as those of the main Buddha in
Binyang Central, suggesting that a basic form created and
abandoned in the Northern Wei was too far advanced for
the later sculptors to alter in anything but the surface details (figure 4.4). As with the bodhisattvas, however, the
face lacks the Northern Wei smile, and the head is flatter
and squarer, with a nose and lips that are more naturalistically described than the cylindrical face and simple geometric facial features seen on the Binyang Central Buddha
82 | P O L I T I C S O F F I L I A L P I E T Y
Figure 4.6. Amitbha shrine of Li Fu, 658, Thousand Buddha Cliff, Shentong Monastery, Shandong. From Osvald Sirn, Chinese
Sculpture, pl. 518.
as prefect of Ruzhou, just fifty kilometers to the southeast, around 650. I propose the Nanping princess was the
sponsor of the Qianxisi Grotto, and the beneficiary was
her recently deceased father, Emperor Taizong. Qianxisi
is the first grotto the visitor encounters after entering the
Longmen precinct from the north end of the site, and it
is impressively large. On the back wall is a colossal seated
Buddha, 7.8 meters in height, flanked by disciples, attendant bodhisattvas, and guardians (figure 4.8). The Buddha
has a rounded head with large features and a prominent
triple-ringed neck. The shoulders and chest are broad and
swelling, far more so than on the Binyang South Buddha,
and this greater sense of naturalism suggests it was produced a few years later, around 650 or so. It is very similar
in style to the Buddha sponsored by the Nanping princess
in Shandong in 657. The figures even wear the same type of
costume: a one-shoulder robe, tied at the waist, over which
a simple mantle is drawn up over the figures left shoulder
and down over the right.
Figure 4.8. Buddha, west wall, Qianxisi Grotto. From Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo (1980), pl. 127.
88 | P O L I T I C S O F F I L I A L P I E T Y
in distant Yunxiang, granting him a princely establishment, complete with a retinue of officials, chariots, robes,
and special foods. Li Tai died there in 652, at the age of
thirty-five. Many years later, probably in the 670s, Li Tais
widow returned to Longmen to sponsor a small grotto.53
Yan Wan was the eldest daughter of Yan Lide (d. 656),
the eminent imperial architect who supervised the construction of the mausolea of Xianling and Zhaoling.54 Her
grotto was excavated not far south of the Great Vairocana
Image Shrine, which was sponsored by Emperor Gaozong
(see chapter 6). Perhaps her shrine was so situated as an
expression of loyalty to her merciful brother-in-law. Evidently, she believed Longmen to be a place of peace, for
after she died in the town where her son was officially
posted, her coffin was transported back to Luoyang, and
she was buried just north of Longmen.
and a pervasive apocalyptic mood prevailed throughout China.4 Despite the continued burgeoning of the faith,
this dark tone persisted through the Sui dynasty and into
the Tang.
Chinese Buddhist intellectuals developed new beliefs
in accord with this sense of impending doom. One of
these was the history of the decline of the Dharma.5 Various schemes and prophecies were outlined in indigenous
Chinese scriptures and polemical religious writings, based
on disparate creative interpretations of Indian stras and
prophetic texts.6 Although schemes of five periods were
current, equally prevalent were histories of a decline in
three periods. To describe one of these very generally, following the nirvn.a of kyamuni was the period of the
True Dharma (zhengfa), during which the Dharma was
extremely efficacious and believers could attain enlightenment by following the Buddhas instruction. Next came
the Semblance Dharma (xiangfa), in which kyamunis
teachings began to lose their power, and though believers engaged in religious behavior, few were able to attain
true enlightenment. Last, in the period of the Ending of
the Dharma (mofa), the teachings of the Buddha are but
a mere echo of what they once were, and the spiritual capacity of human beings is so degraded that the original
teachings of Buddhism are of little help. By the end of this
period, the Dharma of kyamuni will have disappeared.
The first person on record to describe such a history of
the decline of the Dharma was the monk Huisi (515577),
in a work completed in 558.7 Huisi gave the duration of
the True Dharma as five hundred years, the Semblance
Dharma as one thousand years, and the Ending of the
Dharma as ten thousand years. By Huisis calculations,
kyamuni entered nirvn.a in the year 1068 B.C.E., which
in its language and its religious concerns.10 For this reason, I would like to look at it carefully. The first section
is a rationale for the making of the statue, followed by a
dedication that includes a description of Longmen and
the Maitreya figure and claims a superior endurance for
carving in stone over paintings and freestanding statues
of precious materials. The third section is a restatement of
the themes in the first section in verse, and at the end are
the donors names. The inscription begins:
Now we have heard, even though the Ultimate Truth is mysterious and subtle, surpassing the realm of words and images,
and the True Body is lost in the distance, having emerged in a
land too far away to see or hear, that the Able Man (kyamuni)
descended into his traces (a physical body) and in accord with
prior causes was advantageously made manifest. When (He
with) the reddish(-gold) appearance was born in the West,
then the pearl-strands of stars concealed their brilliance, and
when the white horse galloped to the east, then the golden
man appeared in (the emperors) dream.11 This caused the
axles of the three vehicles to advance together and the gates
of the Noble Eightfold Path to be opened all the way through,
and the benefits (provided) to everyday life could be summarized in words. Before the conversion of the three-thousandfold (world system), the light of Buddha-truth was drawn (to
inhabit the form of kyamuni). Then after the eighty(-four)
thousand stpas were filled (with kyamunis relics by King
Aoka), it returned to the quiescence of nirvn.a.
What a pity that a Buddha-sun is so difficult to encounter,
it has been compared to tossing (a mustard seed and hitting
the point of) a needle. In the human realm, things are very
changeable, so in accord with this, we carve stone (to make an
unchangeable Buddha image). Why do this? kyamuni was
manifest in the past, and though we may look for him anxiously, we cannot search back (and find him). Maitreya will descend in the future, and though we may bow our heads in expectancy, it is difficult to wait (for him to come). Living before
or after (a Buddha) creates obstacles; going forward or backward, no one will encounter (a Buddha). All (living) memory
of his words has perishedhow deeply we sigh! (5A)
from the person of kyamuni to themselves as contemporary believers. The dharmakya assumed the human
body of kyamuni, whose mind attained release through
enlightenment and whose body died and was divided
into relics. His teachings were then transmitted to China,
where they gained believers. These believers, however, are
marooned in a world that has never seen a Buddha and is
unlikely to see one soon. The solution for those living in
a world in which no Buddha is seen is to make an image
of one.
The dedication follows: Now together with over a hundred others with the same intention, we first prayed that
the imperial family be forever steadfast, lofty as the heavens
in their enlightened rule. Next (we prayed) for the commencement of dawn over the dark paths, that hastening
to the other shore, those in them may rise purified. To fulfill this (vow), at this mountain ridge, we reverently had
made one Maitreya image shrine (5B). The dedication to
the imperial family is not unusual, particularly since this
shrine was made inside Binyang South Grotto, which had
just been rededicated to the late empress Zhangsun. What
is different is the dedication to the relief of all beings reborn
in the dark paths, which are the three undesirable realms
of rebirthas an animal, a hungry ghost, or a being in hell.
In this, Tang believers differed from their predecessors. In
the Northern Wei, donors prayed that their beneficiaries
not be reborn in one of the three evil destinies, but they
rarely gave any indication they believed anyone they knew
had already been reborn there and required rescue.12
The next section describes the site of Longmen, beginning with a simple physical description of the limestone
cliffs rising on either side of the Yi River but ending grandly
with a reading of the site as an eastern relocalization of the
sacred geography of Buddhist India. This device was used
in the inscription for Binyang South Grotto, where Cen
Wenben compared the cliffs at Longmen to the Himlayas
and the Yi River to the River Nairajan, which flows past
Bodhgay. Surely the author of the Sishun Ward inscription was eager to harmonize with the majestic inscription
outside the grotto, and he actually seems more apt in his
choice of comparisons:
The land rises in twin watchtowers, their walls reflecting the
sun for a thousand yards. The stream below is clear and flowing, guided by the pair of peaks. Encircled by dense forest,
The author maintains this grotto image will outlive paintings and freestanding images in precious materials, and
the statue will endure because the cliffs at Longmen
will endure, for how could these hills and valleys ever
change? No Northern Wei donor concerned himself with
the durability of the stone at Longmen or entertained notions of the earth changing. Apparently, this Tang writer
had considered the possibility that something cataclysmic
could happen to the world.
c n a s t h n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a | 91
must be careful that no one opens the doors. Also you need
not trouble to bring me any food or water. Once the man
entered, he did not come out again. But when there were only
four days left before the six months would have passed, the
great congregation of monks got into an uproar, some saying,
This pagoda is so narrow inside, he should have showed himself, and How could it be that he has never appeared after
so many months? Suspicious about what he was doing, they
opened the doors to the pagoda. They did not see the artisan,
but the image was finished. Only above the right breast there
was a small place still incomplete. Later a god spoke from out
of the sky and startled the great congregation, saying: I am
the Bodhisattva Maitreya.45
Wang Xuance was also put in charge of re-creating an Indian icon. Zhang Yanyuans Lidai minghua ji of around
847 contains the other surviving anecdote concerning
Wang Xuance and Buddhist statuary:
Jingai Monastery (of Luoyang). Within the Buddha Hall was
an image modeled in clay of Maitreya bodhisattva under the
bodhisattva tree. The drawing of the bodhisattva image that
Wang Xuance had obtained in the western regions was issued from the palace in the second year of the Linde era (665)
and used as the model. (The craftsmen Zhang Shou and Song
Chao did the modeling, Wang Xuance directed the work,
and Li An pasted on the gold [leaf].) In the eastern bay was
a Maitreya image. (It was modeled by Zhang Zhizang, who
was the younger brother of Zhang Shou. It was finished by
Chen Yongcheng.) In the western bay was a Maitreya image.
(It was modeled by Dou Hongguo. The haloes and the transc n a s t h n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a | 97
Wang shared the eschatological mind-set of his contemporaries, he might have chosen to have the image reproduced in imperishable stone.
The Indian icon reproduced at Jingai Monastery might
well have been the colossal Maitreya at Darl. This famous
statue of Maitreya Buddha was admired by Chinese pilgrims from the year 400 onward, since Darl was on the
route into northern India through the ancient kingdom
of Udyna (see figure 5.1). The colossal gilded sandalwood
figure was estimated variously as eighty or a hundred feet
in height (twenty-two to twenty-eight meters). Faxian (ca.
400), Fasheng (ca. 404), and Xuanzang (ca. 630) related
similar versions of the legend in which an arhat transported a skilled artisan up to the Tus.ita Heaven to study
Maitreya in detail. Back on earth, the artisan modeled an
image of the deity that was perfect in all its laks.an.a. Wang
Xuance might also have seen the Maitreya of Darl, as the
records say he brought back a relic of the Buddhas skull
from Udyna.
Part of the significance of the Maitreya of Darl was
its association with the spread of Buddhism to China. Fa
xian reported that the monks of this monastery believed
that when the Maitreya was made, monks from India then
began to travel through the Darl valley on their way to
spread the Dharma to the east. Xuanzang also reported
that from the time of the execution of this image, the
streams of the law began to flow eastward.62 The fame
of this colossus in China combined with its association
with Buddhism coming to China made it unique. For this
reason, I suspect this is the Maitreya image Song Fazhi
copied in the western regions, which was reproduced in
a hall at Jingai Monastery in Luoyang and even, perhaps,
reproduced at Longmen by Wang Xuance.
The head is oval, with a smooth cap of hair, and the lips
are quite full, especially the lower lip. These figures appear
to be Chinese imitations of a late-Gupta-period (ca. 320
647) Buddha figure from Srnth (figure 5.4).63
By the latest count of the Longmen Grottoes Research
Academy, there are nearly one hundred of these figures,
which are practically identical. All are about one meter
in height and make the same version of the dharmacakra
mudr: the right hand is raised with the forefinger and
thumb pressed together, while the left hand rests, palm up,
on the leg, again with the forefinger and thumb pressed
together.64 Most are found in open niches that measure
about a meter and a half in all dimensions, with the great
majority found in the area around Binyang South Grotto
and the Jingshan Monastery Grotto (figure 5.5). Variations
include throne backs etched into the back wall of the niche
or the addition of attendant disciples and bodhisattvas.65
Happily, these mysterious figures are identified by inscription. The earliest dated figure is inscribed: Monk [two
illegible characters], for his late parents, reverently had
made one King Udayana image. May the Dharma realm
all share in this blessed deed. Fifteenth day of the tenth
month of the sixth year of the Yonghui era (November 18,
655) (5J).66 Despite the abbreviation used in the inscription, the image is not of King Udayana, but of kyamuni.
Sometime after his enlightenment, kyamuni ascended
to the Trayastrims Heaven to preach the Dharma to his
mother, Queen My, who had been reborn there. While
he was away, however, his faithful follower, King Udayana
of Kaumb, began to suffer from the Buddhas absence.
According to the version told in the Record of the Buddhas
Journeying in India, the king determined to have an image
made of kyamuni:
In his longing for the World-Honored One, (King Udayana)
asked the great disciple Mah Maudgalyyana to take thirtytwo skilled craftsmen and fragrant sandalwood up to the
palaces of heaven, where they carved the thirty-two perfect
attributes. (This done), they returned to the world and installed (the statue) in the original vihra (in the Jetavana),
where there had been no throne for the Buddha. Later, when
the World-Honored One finally descended from heaven, the
image emerged of itself, bowed its head...and stood humbly
in attendance on Him. Thereupon the Lord deigned to pat its
c n a s t h n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a | 99
The significance of this well-known legend was considerable. Not only did it justify image-making, especially the
patronage of statuary by royalty, but it also established the
existence of a veritable icon of the Buddha taken from
life, which was perfectly produced by divine process.68
As such, it was an express image of the Dharma. Lastly,
100 | c n a s t h n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a
Figure 5.5. Jingshan Monastery Grotto area: (305, 306, 308, 309, 312, 332, 335, 354, 356, 358, 379, 411, 429, 440) King Udayana
Buddha shrines, (306) earliest dated King Udayana Buddha shrine, (331) Madame Hans Grotto, (358) Wang Brothers Grotto,
(403) Jingshan Monastery Grotto. Drawing adapted from Longmen shiku kukan bianhao tuce, ed. Longmen shiku yanjiusuo and
Zhongyang meishu xueyuan meishushi xi, Xishan limian tu 3.
U-shaped drapery folds on the torso, whose style is Central Asian, with antecedents in Mathuran sculpture.70 It is
dramatically different from the seated Srnth-style King
Udayana figures at Longmen.71 The Longmen patrons were
probably well versed in the legend of the statues making
and were likely familiar with the Seiry-ji type of image,
since a very large early-seventh-century example stands
prominently on the north wall of Binyang South (figure
5.6). Therefore, they must have deliberately chosen to copy
a very different image for particular reasons.
The King Udayana Buddha figures at Longmen are identical, indicating they were all copies of the same particular
image, and several Japanese scholars have espoused the
idea that the Longmen figures are copies of a statue Xuanzang brought back to China in 645.72 Xuanzang returned
with copies of seven statues from the West, including one
carved sandalwood Buddha image, a copy of the carved
sandalwood icon that described the True (Image of the
Buddha), which King Chuai (i.e., Udayana) of Kaumb
(had made because) he longed for the Tathgata. The height
(of the copy) from base to halo is two feet and nine inches
(about eighty-six centimeters).73 In his diary, Xuanzang
reported that he did not find the King Udayana image in
the Jetavana in rvast, which was supposedly its location
according to scripture.74 Instead, arriving in Kaumb, he
saw the Buddha figure carved of sandalwood...that was
c n a s t h n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a | 101
dependents Cuan Xie, Xin Xin, Sun Xin, and others who have
taken over (this project). Now it has come to pass. We pray
for the deceased that their souls be reborn in the Pure Land,
that they be cut off from the three obstructions, and we further pray that all sentient beings attain true enlightenment.
(Hence, we have) engraved this record.80 (5K)
toes adjacent to it, the bodhisattvas do imitate Indian figural style in their graceful, swaying postures, the curving
arms and legs, and especially the gently nodding head on
several figures.101 Moreover, there is an interest in unusual
postures that also recalls Indian art. A good example is the
bodhisattva seated with his back to the viewer, an unusual
pose for a Chinese figure, which is found not only on the
south wall of the Jingshan Monastery grotto, but again on
the south wall of the adjacent grotto, the Liang Wenxiong
Grotto (no. 363), which borrows the fifty bodhisattvas
imagery, even though the main Buddha on the back wall
is a pendant-legged Maitreya Buddha figure.102 Two contemporary grottoes nearby, the Yuan Hongji Grotto (no.
362) and Grotto 394, also contain the Amitbha and Fifty
Bodhisattvas program, but the carving is not as good and
has little indication of an attempt at Indian style.103
A type of the Indian source for this program can be
seen in the stele from Mohammed Nari, now in the Lahore
Museum, probably produced in the fourth century (figure
5.11). John Huntington has argued that this Gandhran
stele represents Amitbha Buddha in Sukhvat, surrounded by twenty-five bodhisattvas and reborn beings.104
Whether that was the original subject matter of the stele
or not, its composition and style do correspond well to
the imagery depicted in the Jingshan Monastery Grotto.
A large Buddha figure is seated in the center of the stele,
on an upturned lotus-petal throne, while seated around
him on lotus-flower bases are an array of figures of bo
dhisattvas, donors, Buddhas, and reborn souls. The active
variety of the postures and gestures is remarkablesome
figures sit pensively, with chin in hand, or clasp their
hands around one knee, while others reach upward or
turn to the side and gesture. One bodhisattva is seen in
a back three-quarter view. These are the same postures
seen in the bodhisattva figures on the walls of the Jingshan Monastery Grotto, so even though the legend of the
statue has no basis in scripture, the similarities in style between the bodhisattvas in the Jingshan Monastery Grotto
and the stele from Mohammed Nari suggest the Chinese
Amitbha and the Fifty Bodhisattvas imagery did derive
from an Indian icon.
Amitbha and the Fifty Bodhisattvas offered the same
benefits to the Chinese believer as the King Udayana figure. Its story established its origin in India, it was probably
copied from some Indian original, and it looked Indian in
Figure 5.10.
Amitbha and
the fifty-two
bodhisattvas,
Cave 3, Mount
Wolong, Zi
tong County,
Sichuan. From
Zhongguo shiku
diaosu quanji,
v. 8: Sichuan,
Chongqing, ed.
Liu Changjiu,
pl. 155.
style. Not only was it an image from the holy land, but it
was also a divine image, generated by Amitbha himself
and magically produced on earth. It was the express image
of Amitbha. As the King Udayana image was considered
to be the first image made of kyamuni, so this icon was
considered the earliest image of Amitbha in his Pure
Land. No other image of Amitbha could have greater efficacy, and no other could be as deserving of preservation.
from Prince Jeta by covering it in) gold (coins). His swordrain dispelled noxious vapors and let fly the flux of wisdom
over worlds as numerous as the sands (of the Ganges). Since
his form was hidden in the Grove of Cranes (at his nirvn.a,
the trees burst into white blossom, resembling a flock of cranes),
and his traces were hoarded at Chicken(foot) Mountain (where
Kyapa holds his robe, waiting to give it to Maitreya), we fashion his sagacious image in pure gold and carve his auspicious
visage in excellent jade. That his influence and his ways are not
lost is because of this. (5M)
108 | c n a s t h n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a
after which the author praises the grotto and the site
and asserts the durability of the imperishable stone of
Longmen:
So brilliant is this lofty endeavor, it is hard to describe in
words. Moreover, solid stone underlies its foundation, and an
even bed of rime marks the place. The river freshens the verdure of the garden of paulownias, and the breeze carries the
fragrance of the mountain of apricots. Although this place
of purity displays a gilded (statue), one might worry that it
is out of keeping with the [transformations] of the mulberry
(fields) into the (blue Eastern) sea (and back again over eons),
and so, following a great plan, this stone was carved with the
confidence that it will endure for the period of time (it takes
to empty) a city (one hundred yojanas square by extracting)
a mustard seed (once every century). (5Q)
Following the preface is the inscription, in rhymed couplets. The opening couplet may tell of the death of Lady
The third stanza is a paean of praise for the spiritual purpose of the statuary inside Lady Weis grotto:
What had been at the Place of the Glossy Leaves (the place
of the bodhi tree, i.e., Bodhgay), Cnasthna (China) now
shelters.111 (For those) hoping for the image (of the Buddha),
(here it is) completely pictured, and (those who) seek for the
light will surely assemble here. It is a virtuous model, from
which we may continually investigate subtle mysteries! If we
should ever be unmindful of his attaining enlightenment, (we
have but) to gaze reverently upon this visage to sigh! (5S)
The activities described are those of a monastery: building pagodas and multistory halls, making statuary, chanting stras and burning incense, reading scriptures, and
performing other merit-making activities, which suggests
Lady Wei was a patron of Jingshan Monastery. This would
explain the unusual presence of the large pair of monk and
nun worshipers on the side walls of the grotto, who must
be representatives of the monasterys clerics.112 After the
death of Emperor Taizong in 649, Lady Wei apparently
retired to Jingshan Monastery or somewhere near it and
devoted herself to a religious life. It is likely she had her
grotto produced as an auxiliary image hall for Jingshan
Monastery, and after her death, her son had a memorial
inscription added.113 The unusual reference to Queen
My giving birth to the Buddha suggests the relationship
of mother and son. Li Shen was also the patron of other
Buddhist projects, including a stele bearing a section of the
Visualization Stra, produced in 674, and a large shrine at
the grotto site of Xuanwushan, in Hebei Province.114 No
beneficiary of the Jingshan Monastery Grotto was named
in the inscription, but Gong Dazhong has advanced the
theory that Lady Wei had the grotto produced for her
beloved daughter-in-law, Li Shens wife.115 Lady Lu died
in 665, in Zezhou, at the age of thirty-five. Her epitaph
states that when Lady Wei, in Luoyang, heard the news of
her daughter-in-laws death, she was very distressed. Psy-
110 | c n a s t h n a p r e s e r v e s t h e d h a r m a
that perforate the cliff wall like dark windows (see figure
7.1 below).
Figure 6.1.
Great Vairocana
Image Shrine,
676. Restored,
19711973. Photo,
Jin Yini, 1999.
Figure 6.2.
Longmen (3): (21)
Putai Grotto, (22)
Cleft Grotto, (23)
Weizi Grotto, (24)
Great Vairocana
Image Shrine.
Adapted from
map in Rymon
sekkutsu, ed.
Longmen wenwu
baoguansuo and
Beijing daxue kao
guxi, endpaper.
Figure 6.5. Vairavan.a and dvrapla seen from the side, north wall, Great Vairocana Image Shrine. Photo, the author, 1996.
rectly, the viewer can tell the bodhisattvas are a little larger
on the outside half of their bodies and seem to lean in that
direction, yet when seen from the front of the shrine, the
upper body seems to be moving slightly toward the viewer,
and the overall effect is of the gentle sway of the tribhanga
(triple-bend, or hip-shot) pose.
The evidence of the sculpture suggests the intended
view of the shrine was from the front, not far from the
point where the visitor steps up onto the threshold. At
this spot, the Tang dynasty visitor looked straight up into
the face of the Buddha and directly ahead to the frontally
presented figures of the disciples. She saw the bodhisatt
cubine of Emperor Taizong, she began her ascent by reentering the palace as a concubine of Emperor Gaozong. She
then framed, supplanted, and murdered Empress Wang
and had her own son installed as heir apparent. She was
elevated to empress in 655, and those who opposed her,
such as Chu Suiliang and Zhangsun Wuji, were banished,
to die in exile.
In the realm of political theater, Empress Wu played the
role of supporting her husband, while actually functioning as his equal, and from 655 to 683, her goals were to
control the emperor by eliminating competing interests
and to put herself on a par with him. Beginning in 664,
court business was conducted with the empress seated
behind the emperor, screened by a curtain, whence she
issued orders. They were called the Two Sages.26 When the
emperor ascended Mount Tai with male officials on the
first day of 666 to perform the feng and shan sacrifices, in
which he announced to heaven and earth the success of his
reign, the empress led a parallel group of women to perform complementary rituals. When droughts and other
calamities struck the nation in 670, she offered to resign
her position in expiation, as a kind of substitute for the
emperor. In 674, she issued a twelve-point memorial for
reforms throughout the realm. In addition to condemning
extravagance in the construction of palace buildings and
wasteful use of corve labor, she also advocated universal
study of the Daoist classic Dao de jing.27 This last point was
clearly intended to express support for the emperors personal beliefs and for the traditional connection between
the royal house of Li and Daoism. As T.H.Barrett has said,
She had learned during the course of her marriage the art
of reconciling family, state and church interests.28
The behavior deemed appropriate for empresses was
to use personal funds to provide aid for the emperors
projects, not to initiate projects with government money.
Empress Dowager Hu of the Northern Wei, for example,
was criticized by her ministers for supporting her Buddhist projects with the state treasury. Conversely, an example of acceptable behavior was shown by Empress Xiao
of the Sui dynasty. When Emperor Yang went to inspect
the engraving of stras in stone at Fangshan, he was accompanied by Xiao Yu, the empress younger brother.
Returning to the palace, he told the empress about this
work. The empress donated a thousand rolls of silk and
118 | r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y
archives, but this seems especially probable for the Buddha, since several aspects are clearly derived from seated
Buddha figures from Gandhra, especially the fully covering robe, waving hair, and broad face. Comparing it to
the Gandhran kyamuni in seated meditation from
Loriyn-Tangai, now in the Calcutta Museum (figure 6.8),
we see the same manner of drapery, with a single robe
covering the body and draped from the Buddhas proper
right shoulder over to the left. The Vairocana head is very
similar also, in its large, broad proportions, wavy hair,
122 | r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y
Figure 7.1. Longmen (2): (11) Paired Grottoes, North, (12) Paired Grottoes, South, (13) Cai Daniang Grotto, (14) Wanfo Grotto, (15)
Qingmingsi Grotto, (16) Huijians Grotto, (17) Bianzhou Grotto, (18) Cixiangs Grotto, (19) Laolong Grotto, (20) Lianhua Grotto.
Adapted from map in Rymon sekkutsu, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, endpaper.
Figure 7.2. Satellite grottoes to Great Vairocana Image Shrine: (521) Paired Grottoes, North, (522) Paired Grottoes, South, (543)
Wanfo Grotto, (557) Qingmingsi Grotto, (565) Huijians Grotto. Drawing adapted from Longmen shiku kukan bianhao tuce, ed.
Longmen shiku yanjiusuo and Zhongyang meishu xueyuan meishushi xi, Xishan limian tu 7.
Huijians Grotto
Another grotto likely begun around the same time was
sponsored by one of the clerical advisors for the Vairocana
shrine. As the floor of Huijians Grotto is about two meters
above the pathway at the base of the cliff and there is now
no porch or walkway in front of it to herald its presence,
the visitor walking south on the path is surprised by the
sudden appearance, slightly above eye level, of an open
grotto containing a large Maitreya figure seated with legs
pendant on a square throne (figure 7.5). Its face is wide and
full, with crisply cut reverse curve eyes gazing downward, in the state of samdhi, over a long, high-ridged nose
and deeply set bowed lips. This visage bears an unmistakable resemblance to the face of the Vairocana.
Flanking the three-meter-high Maitreya on the low
altar against the back wall were disciple figures (the one
on the right is missing), and at the corners of the altar
stand two attendant bodhisattvas, with exquisitely carved
tasseled necklaces, elaborately woven strands of jewels,
and scarves complexly knotted around jade discs.14 The
side walls once held guardians and lokaplas, but these
have been eliminated by wind and water over the centuries, and only their haloes remain etched in the walls. The
program was originally a nine-figure assembly like that of
the Vairocana shrine.
The back of the throne is topped by an arch formed of
scallops punctuated with lotus flowers, and along each
side is a kneeling caryatid figure holding up an orb, above
which is a hybrid beast, or vylaka, rearing on its hind
legs. At the upper corners are makara heads, with curling
snouts raised and mouths open wide. Unaware that ma
karas were derived from needle-nosed crocodiles in India,
the Chinese sculptors gave them the tusks and trunks of
elephants. In the top panels of the throne and above them,
flanking the halo, are two sets of discs representing the
sun and the moon. The origin of this throne dcor is found
in seated Buddha figures from Srnth, such as the famous
late-fifth-century First Sermon, now in the Museum of Archaeology, Srnth, which has vylakas surmounted by
makaras carved at the sides of the seated Buddha (figure
7.6).15 The Srnth throne was first used on the Srnthstyle King Udayana figures here, but the large Maitreya
Buddhas that were produced later in Longhua Monastery
Grotto and Leigutai Central Grotto also have them.16 Only
these two types of pendant-legged Buddha figures have the
Srnth throne. It is unclear what special meaning it had
to Tang patrons, but perhaps its principal attraction was
its unmistakably Indian flavor.
On the south wall of the grotto is the dedicatory inscription, which reads:
On the seventh day of the eleventh month of the fourth year
of the Xianheng era of the Great Tang (December 20, 673),
monk Huijian of Fahai Monastery in the Western Capital, for
s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s | 127
the August Emperor, the August Empress, the Heir Apparent, and the Prince of Zhou, reverently dedicates a Maitreya
image shrine, with two bodhisattvas and pairs of shenwang
(i.e., lokaplas and dvraplas), to complete this meritorious
accomplishment. I humbly pray for the imperial enterprise a
flourishing of sageliness without limit and, for the heir apparent and all the princes, blessings extending for ten thousand
generations.17 (7B)
At the time Huijians grotto was dedicated, he was actually the abbot of Fahai Monastery, which was located in
the Buzheng Ward of Changan District, west of the Street
of the Vermilion Bird Gate, the central north-south thoroughfare.18 Although he was not a Palace Chapel monk,
he must have served as a religious advisor to the emperor,
if not the empress, since he is credited as an advisor for
the Vairocana project in its inscription. Some scholars
consider Huijians choice of Maitreya for the icon in his
shrine an attempt to curry favor with Empress Wu.19 I
regard this as anachronistic, since although the empress
added the epithet Benevolent One, or Maitreya, to her title
for the span of a few months in late 694 and early 695,
nothing suggests the empress identified with Maitreya in
the 670s. Further, I agree with Antonino Fortes view that
she never did have any particular affinity for Maitreya but
may have been advised by the monks of the Palace Chapel
to take the title as a way to accrue to herself the popular
messianic associations with the name of Maitreya.20 When
the only evident result of doing so was the inauspicious
burning of her Mingtang complex, she quickly dropped
the name, while retaining the title of cakravartin, which
was much more central to the legitimating ideology of the
Commentary on the Great Cloud Stra, in which the notion of a female cakravartin ruling over a Buddhist utopia
was promoted.21 Moreover, the making of Maitreya Buddha figures at Longmen long predated the patronage of the
empress. Maitreya Buddha shrines were sponsored in 637
by Lady Liu and in 648 by the Sishun Ward, both of which
are too early to have had anything to do with Empress
Wu. Others were made after she became empress, such
as Liang Wenxiongs Grotto, a medium-sized shrine datable to the early 660s, but Liang was apparently related on
s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s | 129
death.35 It would appear this brick found in Xian was produced from the ashes of nun Bazheng, which suggests that
she died in Changan, probably at the convent of which she
was abbess. If Bazheng was indeed a prominent cleric who
lived in Changan, that suggests the donor of Qingmingsi
Grotto was one also.
Although Bazhengs Qingming Convent gave its name
to this grotto, she was not its original donor. I propose that
it was the other clerical advisor for the Vairocana shrine:
monk Shandao, who lived at Shiji Monastery in Changan.36
Shandao was not only a tireless promoter of devotion to
Amitbha, but also he was said to have copied the Amitbha
Evidence at Longmen also supports the theory that Empress Wu became involved in the Vairocana project only
in 672, when she gave her rouge and powder money. She
is cited in an inscription for the first time in 673, in the
dedication of an Amitbha shrine by one Niu Yide.38 In
666, when he held the post of Scribe of the Eastern Tower,
Niu dedicated a shrine to the emperor, the heir apparent, and all the princes, but in 673, sometime after he had
been promoted to Vice Director for Palace Buildings, his
inscription for another shrine read: in offering to the emperor, the empress, the heir apparent, and all the princes
and imperial relatives by marriage.39 Quite likely a man
serving as Vice Director of Palace Buildings would have
played a significant role in the production of the Great
Vairocana Image Shrine. He may have attended the empress when she went out to Longmen in 672, which may
be when his modest shrine was begun.
The second shrine finished in 673 to be dedicated to
the empress as well as the emperor was made by the renowned general Xue Rengui. As the hero of the battle to
capture Pyongyang in 668, Xue was placed in charge of
the Andong Protectorate established there after the fall
of the Korean state of Koguryo. Then, in 670, Tibetan
armies captured Kucha and Karashahr on the northern
edge of the Tarim Basin in Central Asia, and the Chinese
were forced to give up control of the Silk Road and the
Central Asian territories west of Turfan. To counter this
new threat, Xue was dispatched as commander in chief of
the Tang forces to subdue the Tibetans, but the Chinese
s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s | 131
Zhou Yuanzhis inscription is unusual in explicitly stating that it was the government officials Confucian duty
to generate karmic merit for the throne through a Buddhist project. In a novel interpretation of the Confucian
dictum that the gentleman expresses himself through
ritual, Zhou asserted that the Confucian virtues of ritual
duty (li), filial piety (xiao), and humaneness (ren) could be
exercised through the dedication of Buddhist merit to the
imperial family (Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu took
the titles of Celestial Emperor and Celestial Empress in the
eighth month of 674).45 This intent to bless the royal family
and the fact that Zhou Yuanzhis Grotto was dedicated just
twenty-two days before the Great Vairocana Image Shrine
strongly suggest this grotto was also produced in response
to the imperial project.
Wanfo Grotto
The last grotto started in the mid-670s is Wanfo Grotto,
which sits between the Paired Grottoes and Huijians
Grotto, about eight or ten meters above the pathway at the
base of the cliff. Diagonal grooves and large beam holes cut
into the side walls indicate the forecourt once had a constructed roof of timber and tile, and although the modern
stairway is made of concrete, it likely replicates an original
staircase of wood. The faade was elaborately carved with
huge figures around which are packed dozens of intrusive
shrines added even before the grotto was dedicated. Each
side wall once bore a seated lion in relief, about two me-
and most beautiful of these on the faade contains an elaborately jeweled Save-from-Suffering Guanyin in a graceful tribhanga pose, dangling a kundik water vase from
his left hand and holding up a willow branch in his right,
dedicated by a nun from nearby Xuzhou in late May of 681
(figure 7.9).50 Some nuns made their donations around the
time the grotto was dedicated, in late 680, while others donated the following year, around the time of the birthday
of the Buddha, traditionally the eighth day of the fourth
month, which fell on May 1 in 681, according to the Western calendar.51 This suggests Longmen was a pilgrimage
site during this particular holy day and that this grotto
was considered a desirable site for patronage by the nuns
who had come to Longmen from other districts in Henan
Province, such as Xuzhou and Tangzhou, and from the
Qingming Convent, which was probably in Changan.52
Figure 7.11. Amitbha assembly, west wall, Wanfo Grotto. Photo, the author, 1994.
Looking up into the ceiling, the viewer sees the customary lotus flower carved into the center of the ceiling, surrounded by relief figures of flying apsarasas, but here the
lotus is encircled with a flat band bearing an inscription
in very large characters, which can be read by someone
standing inside the doorway, looking toward the main
Buddha on the back wall, without having to move around.
It begins at about the seven oclock position and runs
counterclockwise to the two oclock position, where it
breaks off (due to a natural fissure in the rock) and then
takes up again at the ten oclock position. It reads: Director Yao Shenbiao and Meditation Master (Zhi)yun of
138 | s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s
the Palace Chapel completed the Fifteen Thousand Honorable Images Shrine on the thirtieth day of the eleventh
month of the inaugural year of the Yonglong era of the
Great Tang (December 26, 680) (7F).63
Zhiyuns previously unnamed cosponsor, Yao Shenbiao, is something of a mystery. If the title Director is
the Director for the Palace Buildings, a position named in
662, then that would mean Yao was a male official in the
court bureaucracy.64 Gong Dazhong, however, considered
Director a title for a female palace official, which I accept.65 Moreover, as Sofukawa noted, all titles altered in
662 were changed back in 670. Hence, in 680, there was no
such title within the male-staffed bureaucracy. More important, since Zhiyun was a nun, the only socially appropriate cosponsor would have been another woman.66 As a
nun of the Palace Chapel, Zhiyun would have been well
acquainted with the women of the palace bureaucracy.
duced two different merit-generating projects for two different sets of beneficiaries, one named and one not. One
project was the Fifteen Thousand Buddhas, a program
consistent with grottoes dedicated on behalf of the imperial family, which tend to feature imagery that represents
all the Buddhas of space and time, such as Vairocana or
the Buddhas of the Three Periods. It was based on scripture and dedicated by text to the royal family, by individuals who cite their names and official titles. The Indian
Amitbha image, by contrast, with its added rebirth in
paradise imagery, is an expression of popular belief in
rebirth in Sukhvat that relies as much on the perceived
s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s | 139
Although the inscription never states why the monastery was built, its purpose is revealed in its name. As
Antonino Forte has shown, the name Fengxian is not
Buddhist but comes from the Book of Documents, where
the phrase Feng xian si xiao can be translated When
honoring your ancestors, think how you can prove your
filial piety.70 In a Buddhist context, honoring ancestors
would mean the shrine was produced for the generation of
merit for the donors late parents. In Fortes opinion, it was
very probable that the Feng-hsien Monastery in Lungmen had from its start the same function as a Buddhist
ancestral temple of the Wu family.71 The evidence does
not support this idea, however, since not only is Empress
Wu not connected with the monastery in the inscription, but the shrines established for her late mother were
named Taiyuan Monastery, after the Wu familys place of
enfeoffment. The lack of any geographical or other specific
marker in the monasterys name means it could only refer
to the imperial line.
Wen Yucheng believes the emperor intended it for post
humous merit for his late father, Emperor Taizong, noting
that 679 was the thirtieth anniversary of his death, with
which I agree.72 The emperor had previously made public demonstrations of filial piety through merit-making
projects. In 648, he established Great Compassion and
Kindness Monastery (Da Ciensi) in Changan for the posthumous karmic benefit of his late mother, Empress Zhang-
142 | s a t e l l i t e g r o t t o e s
An Artisans Grotto
Finally, not only did the existence of the imperial monastery create opportunities for patronage on festival days,
but the craftsmen who built it also had a chance to become donors. Li Junzan is cited as one of the artisans responsible for the Great Vairocana Image Shrine, and five
months after the Fengxian Monastery was completed,
he dedicated a very small grotto about ten meters to the
north of Zhou Yuanzhis Grotto.85 His inscription reads:
Li Junzan, [after?] constructing the Purple Cassia Palace,
[in order that] safety and security may come to my family,
reverently made a Guanyin bodhisattva on the thirtieth
day of the sixth month of the second year of the Tiaolu
era (July 31, 680) (7I).86 Purple Cassia Palace was built in
the summer of 679, and the Fengxian Monastery was established or instituted soon after, on September 25, 679,
so my guess is that Li returned to Longmen to work on it
after the palace was completed.87 While he was there that
autumn, or perhaps on the day in February of 680 when
the emperor wrote out the plaque for the monastery gate,
this artisan sponsored the excavation of a small grotto for
the benefit of his family, which was dedicated in July of
that year.
fter the deaths of Empress Wu in 705 and Emperor Zhongzong in 710, there was a hiatus
in imperial followers of Mahyna Buddhism
and imperial sponsorship for Buddhist projects. Emperor Ruizong (r. 684690, 710712) and his son
Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712756) were adherents of Daoism, the religion favored by the Li family at the beginning
of the Tang dynasty.2 The only type of Buddhism that
interested Emperor Xuanzong was the Esoteric School,
likely because its emphasis on identification with and
invocation of deities through magical gestures (mudrs),
chanted Sanskrit syllables (mantras and dhran.s), and
procedures for meditation (sdhanas) was in some ways
similar to Daoist practices. Among the famous Esoteric
masters patronized by the emperor were the Chinese astronomer and mathematician Yixing (672717), the Indian magician Vajrabodhi (670741), and the great Indian
translators ubhkarasimha (637735) and Amoghavajra
(705774).3 Despite his sponsorship of these individual
clerics, Emperor Xuanzong was eager to curb the power of
the Buddhist establishment. In 714, he placed a ban on the
building of new monasteries and ordered that inspection
and permission were necessary before replacing decrepit
buildings at existing monasteries.4 In the 720s, the government began to register monastery lands and to compile a
roster of all Buddhist monks and nuns, to establish their
status and prevent ordinations by purchase. In 736, these
functions were moved to the Court of State Ceremonial,
the government bureau responsible for court receptions of
foreign dignitaries, which lowered the status of Buddhism
to a foreign faith.5
We prostrate ourselves in order that [even though we find ourselves?] together in this ending period of the Dharma,15 Samantabhadras supernatural power may still be encountered
in the good scriptures, (which allow us to) think respectfully
of the compassion of the Holy Lord, and assist in expounding
the transformative power of the Benevolent King.16 Incense
Mountain is silent, almost imaginary, yet one can smell the
fragrance of the campaka flower (that is, the merit and virtue
of the Buddha).17 The Himlayas goad our sense of reality, yet
there is found the taste of clarified butter (that is, the perfect
Buddha-truth).18 Even if the longevity of the Dharma be concealed, we trust that the four stpas (where the Buddha was
born, gained enlightenment, preached, and entered nirvn.a)
will continue to be transmitted, and although the pure origin
may be obscured, we see as not far away that (future) certainty (of rebirth in Sukhvat). By carving and engraving to
make images, all people...By coloring and painting to depict
forms, all will find refuge in the middle way. How much more
so this revered mountain...virtuous stone will remain, and
though it may pass through the fires of the kalpa of destruction, [it will not be destroyed?], and though it may undergo
the calamity of destruction by wind, such will not reach it.
Hence, this (act of merit) becomes an inexhaustible blessing.
How could anything disturb it! Humbly we have ventured to
use collectively our hearts engrossed (in the Buddha-truth)
and together to create this Pure [Land]....[To plant] good
roots (whose fruit will be reaped later) by all sentient beings,
reverently we have made nineteen entities of assemblies of the
Measureless Life (Amityus) Buddha of the West. (8A)
Forty-Eight Amitbhas
Surrounding the original colossal figures of the Great
Vairocana Image Shrine are dozens of slightly larger than
life size (1.9 to 2 meters) standing Buddha figures, set in
shallow niches that contain from one to five figures each
(figure 8.2 and figure 6.5 above). Counting these figures is
more difficult than might be imagined, but by my calculation, there are three niches and six figures on the south
wall, six niches and fourteen figures on the west wall, and
eleven niches and twenty-eight figures on the north wall,
for a total of twenty-one niches containing forty-eight
figures.19 It seems likely the term nineteen entities used
in the inscription was an approximate description of the
twenty-one niches. As for the forty-eight individual figures, based on the association with the forty-eight vows
of Amitbha found in the Stra of the Buddha of Measure
less Life, scholars generally accept that they constitute the
Measureless Life Buddha project sponsored by the court
eunuchs.20 The forty-eight Amitbha figures are considered hypostases of the forty-eight vows of Amitbha.
The last four columns of the inscription are almost totally ruined, making the date difficult to decipher, even
though it was given in two places. In the first, the inscription says, This work of merit is now completed in
dun zang zhi ci yue. Yan Wenru interpreted this archaic
phrase as follows. Dun zang means in a cyclical wu year.
In the Kaiyuan era (713742), there were two wu years: 718
(a wuwu year) and 730 (a gengwu year). Yan took ci yue as
the second month so that the entire phrase reads in the
second month of a wu year. In the second place where the
date is given, all that remains is the seventh day, a renxu
day...in the Kaiyuan era. By combining these two bits of
partial information, a single year can be identified. In the
year 730, the second month began with a bingchen cyclical
day, which means that the seventh day was a renxu day.
This corroborates 730 as the correct year.21 In the Western
calendar, the seventh day of the second month equates to
February 28, 730.
The last lines of the inscription reveal that the palace
eunuchs coordinated the project with the monks of the
S A L VA T I O N F O R O N E | 145
imperial monastery: By special appointment...the official in charge was Grand Master for Proper Consultation,
acting Palace Attendant of the Palace Domestic Service,
Supreme Pillar of State, [Palace Servitor name]....The
monks in charge were raman.a Daojie and raman.a
Wenji of the Great Fengxian Monastery (8B). Since a
high-ranking eunuch official and two monks from the
imperial monastery shared responsibility for the project, it
appears the Great Vairocana Image Shrine was still under
the jurisdiction of the Great Fengxian Monastery in 730
and that the eunuchs required the cooperation, if not the
permission, of the abbot to add their figures to the imperial assembly. Since it was an imperial shrine, perhaps they
needed the emperors permission too. That they obtained
it seems implicit in the fact that he wrote out their dedicatory inscription for them.
The third document is an official letter sent by the District Defender of Henan (Luoyang) to Fengxian Monastery in 723, which reads as follows:
By imperial command, Longhua Monastery is to join with
and become Fengxian Monastery. Fifth day of the twelfth
month of the tenth year of the Kaiyuan era (January 16, 723).
Official letter from Henan District to Fengxian Monastery:
The official letter: I have been informed by sealed missive of
the aforementioned imperial edict. I have been requested to
take a copy and forward it to the director (of the monastery)
for him to carry it out. This official letter of mine, I communicate it officially to those in the monastery for their conformation. Now, that edict is the subject of this official letter. When
you receive this official letter, you will follow that edict, and it
is for this reason I have sent you this official letter.
Official letter written by Shi Fanzong on the twelfth day of
the twelfth month of the tenth year of the Kaiyuan era (January 23, 723). Signature of the District Defender.27 (8D)
S A L VA T I O N F O R O N E | 147
Gao Lishi
Although the monks of the imperial Fengxian Monastery credited the emperor with the order to refurbish the
shrine, it seems quite likely to have been the work of Gao
Lishi. According to his biographies in the dynastic histories, Gao received all memorials at court and made decisions on all cases that were not of major importance.32
Moreover, the eunuchs were in charge of merit-making
Buddhist activities for the throne.33 Certainly the emperor
was not ignorant of the project, since he wrote out the
eunuchs dedicatory stele inscription. Transcribing their
dedication was no evidence of faith in Buddhist teachings,
148 | S A L VA T I O N F O R O N E
Headed Guanyin with the security of the state was appropriate for Yang, too. From their childhood, eunuchs were
prevented from looking to their natural parents for protection and support. Their parent was the state, embodied in
the person of the ruler. Yang first came to be appreciated
by the throne for killing the general Li Duozuo during the
rebellion of the heir apparent in 707, for which Emperor
Zhongzong put him in charge of the Palace Domestic
Service.63 Assassinations and military campaigns of colonization on behalf of the throne constituted the services
for which Yang is remembered. For helping the future
Emperor Xuanzong murder Empress Wei in 710, he was
made General of the Palace Gate Guard of the Left.64 Then,
during the early years of Xuanzongs reign, Yang was sent
on one campaign after another into the far south, the region that is now southern Guangxi and Guangdong provinces and northern Vietnam. Not incidentally, this was
the area where Yang was born. The savage ferocity that he
displayed against a succession of southern rebel forces
was directed at his own people, in the service of the Son of
Heaven. That he had chosen the state and the emperor as
his parent was clear.
an allusion to the forty-eight Amitbhas at Longmen, although Gao also sponsored other ostentatious projects,
such as a sumptuously decorated chapel he built next to the
palace, where he engaged in the practice of acts of merit,
and a Buddhist shrine in the Laiting Ward of Changan,
described as having precious towers and jeweled rooms,
more expensive than the state could afford. When the bell
was completed, Gao Lishi held a banquet for the lords and
ministers. For each strike on the bell, he would donate a
hundred thousand cash, so those sycophants who wished
to please him struck the bell twenty times, though no one
struck it fewer than ten.68
Because the forty-eight Amitbhas were not done for
Gaos personal benefit, we should look for the grotto he
ordered for himself. Immediately west of the eunuchs
stele is a medium-sized grotto now designated Grotto
1250, whose faade exactly matches the stele in height and
placement on the cliff face.69 The grotto is 2.55 meters wide
and 2.25 meters deep, with a vaulted ceiling 2.74 meters
high, making it rather larger than Yang Sixus grotto.70
On the low altar against the back wall stand three ruined
figures (figure 8.3). Only their robes retain any detail, but
the drapery is very similar to one of the types of robe seen
on the forty-eight standing Amitbha figures, a distinctive
design in which the hem of the fully covering robe hangs
in a sharp point below the knees. Moreover, the figures are
about 1.8 meters tall, close to the height of 1.9 or 2 meters
for the forty-eight Amitbhas, all of which suggests they
were produced at the same time. I propose this grotto was
sponsored by Gao as his own project.
The eighteenth vow, which Luis Gmez calls the core vow
in the interpretive tradition, says that anyone who can
think of being reborn in Sukhvat for even ten moments
will be reborn there.72 The nineteenth vow has also been
important historically, since it promises that Amitbha
will appear to the believer at the moment of his death,
while the twentieth vow promises that any who fix their
thoughts on rebirth in Sukhvat and direct all the merit
they have earned toward rebirth there will achieve that
goal. Several other vows describe the unlimited beauty
and purity of Sukhvat and the supernatural powers and
virtues of those reborn there, including the promise that
they will attain enlightenment there.73 All these promises
are for believers, but provision is also made for nonbelievers to hear the name of Amitbha and be inspired to call
on him, for in the seventeenth vow, Amitbha promises
that innumerable Buddhas will in every way praise and
proclaim my name.
S A L VA T I O N F O R O N E | 153
able to hear the name of Amitbha and be brought to a desire to be reborn in Sukhvat. Collectively, they amount
to a permanent prayer for the salvation of the emperor.
Looking at it as a work of visual representation, a viewer
could understand the Vairocana shrine rather differently
after the addition of the Amitbha figures. Sponsored by
Emperor Gaozong for his imperial ancestors, the colossal
Vairocana was established in living memory as a representation of the emperor. Moreover, the shrine was complete in all its necessary figures and required no further
work. In terms of design, the added Amitbha figures were
not only unnecessary, but genuinely intrusive, especially
where their niches cut into the original carving. Certain
evidence, however, suggests they might have been created
with the goal of a meaningful visual relationship to the
main Buddha. The Vairocana is colossal and singular.
From a traditional Chinese visual perspective, it could
only represent the emperor. The Amitbhas are many,
they are smaller, and they all stand stock still, undemonstrative and unobtrusive, some with their hands at their
waists or their sides. Perhaps they were meant to represent the relationship of the court eunuchs, who are many
and insignificant, to the colossal and unique figure of the
emperor. One detail that reinforces this interpretation is
the hand gestures of the Amitbhas. On standard Buddha
icons, the hand gestures are mudrs that signify some action or message of the Buddha, but the gestures of many
of the Amitbhas are not standard. While several hold
their hands in recognizable abhaya and varada mudrs,
others simply stand with one arm bent and the hand held
at the waist (see figure 8.2 above). I suspect they are not
mudrs at all. Rather, they could be the hand gestures of
someone who is in waiting, such as a eunuch who attends
his master.
Anyone who offered worship in front of these figures
would generate karmic merit. The worshiper would receive
some certainly, but some would also go to the beneficiary,
which the inscription names as the emperor. Since the emperor was not a believer, the merit could only be directed
toward his salvation, which in this case, was probably simply construed as calling on the name of Amitbha. As long
as the statues remain and worshipers generate merit, the
merit transferred to the person of the emperor can only
increase. Hence the probability of the emperors salvation
grows greater the longer the statues stand there.
Figure 8.5. Amitbha, Grotto 105, ca. 700, Xumishan, Ningxia. From Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 5: Shaanxi,
Ningxia, ed. Han Wei and Chen Yuexin, pl. 217.
Perhaps the eunuchs had no romantic notion of their figures waiting in attendance on the colossal figure of the
Vairocana-emperor, but instead, the figures were meant
simply to beplaced at the shrine because that was the
site the eunuchs had been permitted to refurbishnot to
be viewed, alone or as part of the Vairocana assembly. Medieval Buddhists believed the making of icons generated a
substantial amount of merit, so perhaps the eunuchs did
not perceive any need for anyone to offer worship to their
figures. It is possible they considered the amount of merit
generated by the mere making of the statues to be more
than sufficient for the purpose.
We could even ask if these Amitbhas are meant to be
worshiped as Buddhist icons. Though identified in the inscription as Amitbhas, the fact of having forty-eight means
they must actually represent the forty-eight vows, rather
than the unique being named Amitbha who rules over his
Pure Land in the West. It is not immediately evident how a
believer would offer worship to forty-eight figures scattered
over three huge walls. Though they look like Buddha icons,
they may not have functioned as Buddha icons. Perhaps
they functioned simply as hypostases for the vows.
In view of the notion of the statues functioning as the
vows, we can reinterpret the curiously noncanonical hand
gestures of the Amitbhas in terms of a spiritually active
waiting for the emperors decision to call on Amitbha.
In the Visualization Stra, Amitbha says to the dying
believer, I have come to welcome you and, with a thousand incarnate Buddhas, to offer you my hand.76 In line
with the three similar standing Amitbha figures in Cave
1250, which likely represent the three possible appearances of Amitbha to believers at the end of their lives,
I propose that the manifest gestures of waiting made by
some of the forty-eight Amitbha figures were intended
156 | S A L VA T I O N F O R O N E
front of the monastery, the bridge that leads up to the monastery, and the seven-bay covered walkway that leads from the
bridge, then they went on to the stone tower and the six-bay
covered walkway that leads to the stone tower, then on to the
eleven-bay great hall on the east that holds the Buddha shrines,
then next to the hall for guests on the south, which has seven
rooms of different sizes. Everything that had fallen was set
aright, everything missing was replaced, tumble-down walls
were built back up, and every leak was patched. The work with
tile molds and trowels was very fine, and the decorations in
red earth and white clay were well made. Although it seemed
like it was refurbished in just a day, it took more than three
months to complete. This is just like when the leader on the
bad road, out of pity (for his followers), guided them to the
Magic City (that he had just conjured up).2
Now the shrines and images are no longer in danger of being
cracked or broken by heat and moisture, and the monks of the
monastery have a safe place to dwell and practice. Now visitors
can rest here, and viewers have something worth seeing! The
prospect of the cliffs on the pass, the view of the dragon pool,
the springs and rocks of Incense Mountain, the breeze and the
moon from (the monasterys) stone tower, all these were made
new for those who come here. Now gentlemen and Buddhas
followers are freed from any reason for pain or disgrace. The
virtuous monk Qingxian, Weizhi, and I were friends in our
previous lives, and we know this because of the power of our
vow of friendship. Thinking with gratitude of times then and
now, with great joy I say these words of praise: all these benefits (to the monastery) are counted as merit, and this merit
we return to Weizhi that it may extinguish his former life and
recommend him for blessings in his next life. In response, I
say: Alas! Thanks to this merit, how do we know but what in
another time we will not meet Weizhi in another existence
on this earth? Because of the vow and the actions taken here,
how do we know that we will not travel again together to this
monastery in another life? As I say these words, my tears are
flowing!
Recorded by Bai Juyi of Taiyuan, Governor of Henan, on
the first day of the eighth month of the sixth year of the Taihe
era of Tang (832).3
In the Tang dynasty, it was the custom of the fashionable elite young people of Luoyang to go out for parties at
Longmen on Qingming Festival day in the spring, to picnic in the eastern hills, listen to music, write poetry, and
abbot of Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei near Kyoto. The purpose of his visit was to offer worship at the pagoda housing
the relics of the great Indian translator ubhkarasim
ha
(637735), which was built in the hills north of the western cliffs in 739. In 758, the famous Tang general Guo Ziyi
(697781) requested that a monastery be built around the
pagoda of ubhkarasim
ha. Called Guanghua Monastery, it
was a site for the burial of other Tang clerics of the Esoteric
School into the tenth century. In the record of his journeys
through China between 853 and 858, Enchin wrote: Stepping through snow and sinking up to our knees, we went
to Guanghua Monastery on the western side of the Yi River
at Longmen, of the Eastern Capital, where we offered ritual
obeisance to the relic pagoda of Tripit.aka ubhkarasim
ha.
raman.a Daoyuan wrote a Stele of the Tripit.aka Monk,
which we transmitted back with us to Japan.7
The pagoda of ubhkarasim
ha was still a place of pilgrimage in the eleventh century. In the spring of 1011, in
response to a drought that gripped the land, Emperor
Zhenzong (r. 9981022) went to Longmen to have incense
and prayers for rain offered at his pagoda, invoking the
Esoteric masters legendary magical ability to bring rain.8
The emperor wrote out a Eulogy for Longmen, which
was carved into a grotto on the eastern side.9 It opens with
a brief essay extolling the beauty of the site, its proximity
to the ancient royal capital, and the venerable image(s)
of Mahvra, which may have been a reference to the colossal Vairocana, the image most readily visible from the
east side of the river. Evidently, his journey to Longmen
made the emperor aware of the dilapidated state of the site
because he ordered the repair of the statuary in 1015. According to the thirteenth-century chronicle Fozu tongji:
At the Longmen Hills of the Western Capital, the Buddhas in the stone shrines had been abandoned and in a
ruinous state for many years, so the emperor commanded
the monk Xiyan to supply artisans to repair and decorate
a total of 17,339 figures.10
It seems this was the last time the statuary at Longmen
was repaired by imperial order. Even before the fall of the
Northern Song government in 1127, the Luoyang area had
come under the control of the Jin dynasty (11151234).
The poems of several Jin writers, such as Yuan Haowen
(11901257), reveal that the Baoying and Qianxi monasteries still functioned, but certain lines suggest the statuary
had been left to the elements:
e p i l o g u e | 159
Figure 9.1. Chu Suiliang, The Stele for the Yique Buddha
Shrine, 641, ink rubbing, detail. From Zhongguo shufa quanji
(Beijing: Rongbaozhai, 1991), v. 22, color pl. 1.
e p i l o g u e | 161
Huang Yi (17441802) was one of many scholars involved in the new intellectual trend called kaozheng, or
evidential research through textual analysis, in which
archeology and epigraphy were central disciplines.22 When
Huang served as an official in Shandong in 1786, he supervised the excavation of the Han dynasty Wu family
shrines, small buildings composed of stone slabs carved
with narrative reliefs representing Confucian exemplars,
mythical beings, and traditional mortuary scenes. In the
autumn of 1797, Huang toured Henan Province looking
for ancient stone monuments and inscriptions to study.
He collected over four hundred ink rubbings of inscriptions and documented his experiences in a diary called
Visiting Stone Steles in the Mount SongLuo River Area.
In the diary, Huang described his activities at Longmen.23
162 | e p i l o g u e
e p i l o g u e | 163
We stayed at Longmen for six days and made over three hundred ink rubbings of steles.
Following the rediscovery of the inscriptions of Longmen, the calligraphy of the Northern Wei dedications
began to be admired in aesthetic terms. The appreciation
of the evidential research scholars for engraved writings
as pristine historical documents appeared also to loosen
the hold that the southern dynasties style of calligraphy, as
epitomized by the brush writing of Wang Xizhi (307365),
had exercised on the practice of calligraphy for the last
millennium, and carved characters from the Han and the
northern dynasties began to be seen as attractive in their
own right, as a legitimate part of the history of Chinese
calligraphy and as a source for creative reinterpretation
by calligraphers in the Qing. During the Qianlong and Jia
qing periods (17361820), ink rubbings of the four longest
Northern Wei inscriptions in Guyang Grotto were collected and circulated; some of these are now in the Beijing
Library.28 They were the dedications for the shrines of Sun
Qiusheng; Duke of Shiping; Yang Dayan; and Wei Lingzang (figure 9.2). The earliest record of their appreciation
as calligraphy is found in A Pair of Oars for the Boat of Art,
a volume of collected essays and art criticism of the epigraphy scholar Bao Shichen (17751855). In 1819, the same year
that Bao traveled in Shandong Province looking for northern stele inscriptions, he wrote about some Northern Wei
inscriptions, including three from Longmen: Though the
Paean for Zhang Gongqing (Zhang Menglong); the (Stele
for) Jia Shijun (Jia Sibo); and the dedicatory inscriptions
of Wei Lingzang, Yang Dayan, and the Duke of Shiping
are each unique, they all derive from the (third-century)
Stele for Kong Xian and take its dragonlike majesty and
tigerlike awesomeness as their model.29
When Yan Delin served as governor of Henan, he had
ink rubbings made of the inscriptions in Guyang Grotto
and Cixiangs Grotto. Those he considered of the highest
aesthetic quality he canonized as the Ten Works of Longmen in an inscription that he had carved on the south wall
of Guyang Grotto itself in 1870. The inscription reads:
In the second month of the ninth year of the Tongzhi era of
the Great Qing (1870), Delin of Yanshan offered sacrifices and
made an announcement to the mountains, the river, and the
Buddhas in the grottoes, then set up great timbers, raising
scaffolding up high (in the grotto) to make ink rubbings of
164 | e p i l o g u e
166 | e p i l o g u e
1a
A Single Image for the Duke of Shiping
Were the Divine Traces [not] made manifest, then one could
scarcely know where to find a master to which one could cling.
Were images of the Countenance not displayed, then reverence
for it would surely [wane]. That is why the True Visage [was
revealed] to former ages, and the form He left behind has been
transmitted to later generations. And so, in the time of the
Great Dai (i.e., the Northern Wei dynasty), this work of merit
was undertaken. Since the shadow (of the Buddha) has purified
the deep current (of the Buddhist order), and he has had the
good fortune to encounter this glorious epoch, monk Huicheng, resolved to give the greatest testimony to his sincerity,
had a Stone Grotto [Monastery] made for the state, in this way
to respond to the August (Emperors) grace and to give encouragement to future works (of the same kind). My father
the Duke of Shiping, Grand Master for Splendid Happiness,
Regional Inspector of Luozhou, and Commissioned with Extraordinary Powerspassed away suddenly. Looking up at his
kindly face, my whole being was overcome by sadness, and ominous birds (seemed) to fill the sky. As a result, for my late
father, I have had made a single stone image. I pray that my
late fathers spirit will fly over the three worlds, the five circuits
(of cause and effect), and the ten stages (of the bodhisattvas enlightenment). In the evening, may there be an illumination of
mystery such that the myriad sentient beings may have enlightenment, and in the morning, may there be an echo of wisdom
such that the universe will be awakened. May those of previous
generations, my teachers in the sangha, my parents, and my dependent relatives, soar like the phoenix to the place of enlightenment and rise like the divine luan bird up to the Tusita
[ ],.,[ ].
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1b
Image by the Society Members
Society Leaders: Grand Master of Palace Leisure and Governor
of Yingyang, Sun Daowu (and) General for Pacifying the Distant, Grand Master of Palace Leisure, Governor of Yingchuan
and Magistrate of Ancheng, Wei Baidu.
In the seventh year of the Taihe era of the Great Dai (483),
Sun Qiusheng, Military Aide of Xincheng District, Liu Qizu,
Military Aide of Xincheng District, and two hundred others
reverently made one stone image. We pray that the imperial
house forever flourish and the Three Jewels increase in brilliance. May those disciples offering this prayer bloom luxuriously like flowers in spring and come to be in the courtyard of
the acacia trees that thrive in splendor. May the orchid (of the
Dharma) diffuse its fragrance in this flourishing age, and may
its golden light broadly illuminate this time of our Sage (Emperor). May our living relatives (enjoy) myriad blessings that
gather around them like clouds and have red-wheeled carriages
in great numbers. May the souls of our departed parents and
other disciples, in future incarnations, vault up to the ninth
heaven and their footsteps ascend the ten stages (of the bodhisattvas path to enlightenment), and may all sentient beings in
the five realms of existence share in this prayer. Text by Meng
Guangda; calligraphy by Xiao Xianqing. (One hundred forty
names of the society members are listed.) Finished on the
twenty-seventh day of the fifth month, in which the first day
was a wuzi day, in a renwu year, the third year of the Jingming
era (July 17, 502).
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.,
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,,
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,.
1c
Sakyamuni Image
Wei Lingzang
Xue Fashao
Whenever the Divine Traces have been widely encountered,
they have always manifested the evidence of something brilliant
and great, and wherever the profound work of merit has already spread, it has also shown acts rarely seen in our world.
When, under the twin sala trees, there was a change in the light
(in the world, when the Buddha passed into nirvana), the uni
verse held in its bosom the sorrow of being in the confusion of
twilight, and when the Sun of Wisdom veiled its brilliance, all
living beings held in their hearts the pain of thinking with regret of the Way. This is why the arhat (Maudgalyayana), pained
by the insufficient support of the Three Vehicles, rose into the
Heaven (of the Thirty-Three Gods) in order to carve an image
(of the Buddha). Now (this custom) has come down to later
generations, and thus this image was made. Wei Lingzang of
Julu and Xue Fashao of Hedong, we two, seeking the favor of
the brilliance from the (white curl of) hair (i.e., the urna between the Buddhas eyebrows that emits light) illuminating the
East and lacking the advantage of (the future Buddha Maitreya
having descended from) the Tusita Heaven and (being reborn
appendix
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.
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,,
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1d
Image by the Society Members
[Record of an Image] Made for the August Emperor Xiaowen
by Society Leader Yang Dayan of Chouchi
If the Divine Brilliance had not been illuminated, the universe
would have kept in its bosom the sadness of eternal night.
If the [Sacred] Traces had not been encountered, perishable
beings would have kept in their mouths (without expressing it)
their repentance for deeds that hinder the truth. That is why
the Tathagata responded to all these causes in manifesting himself in his traces (his physical body). Thus through the following generations, images were produced, continuing down to
our era of latter-day rulers, when this work of merit was made.
Yang Dayan of Chouchi, Bulwark-General of the State, Zhige
General [four effaced characters], Senior Rectifier of Liangzhou, enfeoffed as Dynasty-Founding Viscount of Ancheng
District, received at birth an inheritance of dragon resplendence, as the offspring, following at a distance, of one who was
in accord with celestial portent (his grandfather Yang Nandang). He was endowed in his youth with extraordinary qualities, and he surpassed the crowd (of his contemporaries)
when he was first capped (on attaining the age of majority).
Later, he drew down a reputation for humaneness such as had
never been heard of before. When he stirred up his glory, he
crushed a million (enemies) in the palm of his hand. When he
thundered with his exceptional bravery, the nine regions of the
empire were all frightened (into submission). When he stayed
before the emperor to give him counsel, court and countryside
were obedient to him. He cleared the royal route of the three
obstacles that blocked it, and he swept the clouds and monsters
from Heavens way. When the mess in the south was cleared
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3a
If there is not a spilling out of valuables to create an image,
how can we be illuminated by those posthumous rays of light
(from the Buddha)?
, ?
3b
act of sincerity may aid and benefit our society members spiritual leaders, parents, and seven generations of ancestors to take
refuge in the truth.
[], ...
.
3e
Then I parted with my money and property, to make a Measureless Life Buddha.
3f
On the eighth day, a gengzi day, of the fourth month, in which
the first was a guisi day, of the third year of the Xiao(chang) era
of the Great Wei, a guiwei year (May 23, 527), Laywoman Song
Jingfei, whose poor karma from former incarnations has left
my fortune shallow and dirty, was born (on the continent of)
Jambudvpa and received the form of a woman. I relied on my
late parents, who compassionately raised me with profound
kindness, until I attained maturity. My insignificant self, looking respectfully upon their labor to raise me, but lacking the
means to recompense them, has now parted with half my
hairpins and girdles, and respectfully, for my late father and
mother, has reverently had made one image of Sakyamuni.
With this bit of merit, I pray that my late father and mother
may be reborn in the land of marvelous joy in the West, there
to meet Buddha and hear the Dharma, then to see Maitreya
manifest in the world. May all those with form share in this
blessing.
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3g
3c
Each one exhausted his own and his familys valuables.
3d
Everyone (in the society) released marvelous [wealth], reverently to have made one image of Sakyamuni . . . that this slight
169
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first day was a bingyin day, in the third year of the Zhengshi
era, a bingxu year, of the Great Dai (April 27, 506).
,,
.
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3k
3h
3i
Chen Yun, the wife of Li Changshou, Superior Grand Master
of the Palace, General for the Pacification of the South, Southern Area Commander in Chief, and Dynasty-Founding Duke
of Qingshui District, who in the past was not the legal wife, for
the house of Li and in reverence to the good wife (Lis late
wife), makes known her intention that she (the late wife) be
released into enlightenment. Thus I have parted with the family
wealth to have made one Sakyamuni image shrine. I vow that
the favor my lord received from the August Emperor Gao (Emperor Xiaowen) be remembered. Further, I pray for myself, my
late son, my grandson in the army, and all those living that
they have peace. May the holy saints protect and aid us so my
family members have security and tranquility and their lives
ascend to heavens level, and may those to come all agree
with this prayer. This record prepared on the thirteenth day of
the sixth month of the third year of the Yongan era (July 23,
530).
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.
3j
The Pure and Faithful Woman and Buddhist Disciple, Palace
Director Dang Faduan, was not fortunate enough to die in old
age, but she had gathered her lifes earnings in anticipation of
this inspired plan (to sponsor a shrine). For this reason, Si
Yun, the Supervisor of the Entourage in the Court of the
Womens Chambers, for (her) has had made one image of
Sakyamuni with two bodhisattvas. I pray that Duan be reborn
directly in the land of marvelous bliss. I further pray that the
imperial influence be increasingly magnified, the Great Wei
abound in successions and draw a sequence of a thousand
reigns, and blessings be garnered for myriad generations. Completed on the nineteenth day of the third month, in which the
170
appendix
,,,,
,,,,
.,.
,.,.
3l
Now I follow with my meager funds . . . and with sincerity I
have had one image made.
....
3m
From this world of Jambudvpa, I was blessed to be able to take
refuge in the Three Jewels, (so with my) begging bowl leftovers,
I have had a Maitreya made and Seven Buddhas with two
bodhisattvas such that their appearances are complete, and I
take this slight blessing and extend it universally to all sentient
beings.
[],,
,,.
3n
Record of a single grotto made by the bhiksun Cixiang Hui
zheng on the twenty-first day of the third month of the third
year of the Shengui era of Great Wei (April 24, 520).
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3o
In the [three illegible characters] year, the seventh month, the
[illegible character]teenth day, the Pure and Faithful Woman
and Buddhist disciple Hu Zhi[illegible character], Consort of
the Prince [of Qinghe, reverently] made one [Sakyamuni] image. I pray that the state [will prosper] without limit and there
be security and peace within the four seas [and that all sentient
beings have] eternal joy.
Yuan Shanjian serves the Buddha.
Yuan Jingsun serves the Buddha.
[Yuan?] Zhonghua serves the Buddha.
[ ][ ][ ][ ][],[][][]
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,,[?][?].
[?]
3p
The nuns of Zhongming Convent, Daoyang, Daoji, and Daobao, relying on the vaipulya (Mahayana teaching) to follow the
Way, vowed to make the Thousand Buddhas of the Present
Kalpa. Further we pray (on behalf of) Minister of Works
Huangfu Du and Lady Chen, Lady Xiong, Lady Jian, Lady Liu,
and all the concubines and the Consort of the Prince of Beihai,
nee Fan, that reverently, for the emperor and the empress dow-
ager, all teachers of distant kalpas, seven generations of ancestors, living parents, living dependents, Dharma realms of all
directions, and those born in the path of the heavens, in rebirth
after rebirth, generation after generation, may they serve the
Thousand Buddhas of the Present Kalpa, and whether they
have a mind for good or for evil, at the three assemblies of
Maitreya, we pray they may ascend at the head of the first
group and at once become Buddhas. Completed on the thirteenth day of the eighth month of the inaugural year of the
Xiaochang era of the Great Wei (September 15, 525).
,,,
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.
4a
The Stele for the Yique Buddha Shrine
Nevertheless, when the merit (of the Buddha) attained to perfection beneath the tree of enlightenment, this was not the
commencement of the refinement of gold (the final product of
the alchemist). When the traces (of the Buddha) disappeared
under the steadfast grove (of sala trees, when he attained
nirvana), how could this be the end signified by the breaking
of a record tally? When his merit attained perfection, there followed beneficent rules written to transmit his precepts (i.e.,
the scriptures were written). When his traces disappeared, we
made use of the divine countenance to represent his excellence
(i.e., icons were produced). Thus, gold and jade (statues) were
carved to enlarge his transformative power in Kapilavastu (capital of the state ruled by the Sakya clan), and the reds and blues
(i.e., painting) are employed to manifest his goodness in Cnasthana (China). Ever unceasing! The power of their expediency
is unsurpassed! Ever majestic! The significance of their fecundity is great!
,,.,.
,.,.
,.
!!!!
4b
The Cultured and Virtuous Empress had a Way higher than the
star Xuanyuan and a Virtue that poured out over the earth. Her
kind saintliness was manifested without limits; her gentle clarity reached to the heavens. (The collapse of Mount) Shalu mulappendix j
171
appendix
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4c
He made an extensive search to find the ford (that would
allow him) to acknowledge the kindness (of his mother). He
reviewed all locations in order to choose the region where the
divine influences are concentrated. He considered that, among
all the sovereigns who have established a state, those who had
a grand plan ruled from the Central Region (Henan Province).
He further considered that the thousand Buddhas who have
taken form could not have attained enlightenment in a borderland. It is this region of the three rivers (Yi, Luo, and Huang)
that is truly where the six directions of space are gathered together. The royal city (of Luoyang) was established in a strong
strategic position, for this was the site where (the Prince of)
Qufu (the Duke of Zhou) planned to set up the tripods. The
pass on the Yi River (Longmen) is encircled by countryside,
for it was opened by Wenming (the legendary Great Yu) to
channel the waters that were submerging the hills. Its lofty
arches rise as high as the sky, its mountains so precipitous that
light cannot reach into them. Its deep forests attract hermits; its
grottoes store (statues of) gold. The mists born in the verdant
valley are arrayed as canopies over the rock chambers (of its
grottoes), while the colored clouds spreading over the red
peaks lie like banners on the pine gates (of its monasteries).
The majestic base (of these mountains) confronts Mount Song
and resembles the Snowy Peaks (the Himalayas). The current
(of the Yi River) flows into the Virtuous River (the Yellow
River) and resembles the River Nairanjana (that flows past
Bodhgaya). Certainly this place is as famous among the religious as among the laity, a favorite spot as much for men as
for divinities.
established this Buddhist work in order to reciprocate the kindness of (his mothers) upbringing. Generously, (Li Tai) constructed this field of blessing in order to aid the cause of bodhi.
If this is not one who is pure and filial, to whom can he be
compared?
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4d
The prince then poured out his heart to demonstrate his love
of charity, and opening his treasury, he was liberal with tortoise
shells and cowries. (Lu) Ban, in the state of Chu, expended his
ingenuity, even as (Mo) Di, in the state of Song, gave free rein
to his cleverness. Dividing the sheer walls to the outer edge of
the (constellation) Jade Cord, the sacred shrines are ranged
like stars. Carved in the [dark?] stone beyond the moonlight,
the venerable visage rises like the moon. Where the old
remained, (Li Tai) added to its magnificence; where the new
was made, it reached the utmost in marvelousness. The flow of
brilliance from the white tuft (the urna between the Buddhas
eyes) eclipses the beauty of the lotus flower. The spread of light
from his dark blue hair distinguishes his sandalwood grove
(monastery) companions. This is why, when one looks closely
at the precious special marks (laksana), (the statue) is as majes
tic as if the entire person of the Buddha (were present). When
one sees from afar its divine light, it is as clear as his shadow
left behind (in the cave at Nagarahara). (Creating) derision for
the inferior quality of carved jade and scorn for the imperfect
art of engraved sandalwood, (this Buddha image) is brilliant as
the sun, surpassing the solar orb resplendent in the Long River
(the Milky Way), and lofty as a mountain, exceeding the
golden Mount (Sumeru) shining on the Great Valley (the
oceans). Grdhrakuta lies before your eyes; Nagarahara can be
imagined.
Precious flowers rain down auspicious blessings, hiding the
colors of the five clouds. Heavenly musicians strike up their
music, competing with the sound of the myriad pipes (of nature). Thus it is that gazing on the marvels of (this image made
to house) the dharmakaya, the eight difficult (conditions under
which to see a Buddha) are ended, and hearing the sound
of the supreme enlightenment (of scriptures chanted in this
grotto), the six devalokas (the heavens above Mount Sumeru)
may be ascended. If this is not (an image of) He who is correct
and straight, to what can it be compared? Benevolently, (Li Tai)
4e
On the tenth day of the third month of the fifteenth year of the
Zhenguan era (April 25, 641), the Yuzhang princess reverently
had made one image shrine, praying for peace and security for
herself and for all sentient beings. The princess wet-nurse Sa
prays for herself and her son. Jiang Xiuzi and five other people
also share in the making of the image shrine. May all sentient
beings attain to true enlightenment.
,,
. .
..
4f
On the fifth day of the tenth month of the inaugural year of
the Yonghui era (November 3, 650), the Prefect of Ruzhou,
Commandant-Escort, and Duke of Yuguo, Liu Xuanyi, reverently made this vajra guardian.
,
.
5a
Stele of the Maitreya Image
The Old and Young of Sishun Ward, Henan District, Luozhou,
universally for the Dharma realm, reverently made one Maitreya image shrine, below this stele, close by to the east.
Now we have heard, even though the Ultimate Truth is mysterious and subtle, surpassing the realm of words and images,
and the True Body is lost in the distance, having emerged in a
land too far away to see or hear, that the Able Man (Sakya-
appendix
173
muni) descended into his traces (a physical body) and in accord with prior causes was advantageously made manifest.
When (He with) the reddish(-gold) appearance was born in
the West, then the pearl-strands of stars concealed their brilliance, and when the white horse galloped to the east, then the
golden man appeared in (the emperors) dream. This caused
the axles of the three vehicles to advance together and the gates
of the Noble Eightfold Path to be opened all the way through,
and the benefits (provided) to everyday life could be summarized in words. Before the conversion of the three-thousandfold (world system), the light of Buddha-truth was drawn (to
inhabit the form of (Sakyamuni). Then after the eighty(-four)
thousand stupas were filled (with Sakyamunis relics by King
Asoka), it returned to the quiescence of nirvana.
,
.
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5b
Now together with over a hundred others with the same intention, we first prayed that the imperial family be forever steadfast, lofty as the heavens in their enlightened rule. Next (we
prayed) for the commencement of dawn over the dark paths,
that hastening to the other shore, those in them may rise purified. To fulfill this (vow), at this mountain ridge, we reverently
had made one Maitreya image shrine.
,
,.,
.,.
174
appendix
5c
The land rises in twin watchtowers, their walls reflecting the
sun for a thousand yards. The stream below is clear and flowing, guided by the pair of peaks. Encircled by dense forest,
(Longmen) is close to the capital, resembling Grdhrakuta (Vul
Jetavana to the capital of Sravast. To contribute to this beautiful place, we commissioned inspired craftsmen to cut into (the
cliff) and carve and engrave (a work) of complete subtlety and
marvelousness. On the eighth day of the fourth month of the
twenty-second year of the Zhenguan era of Great Tang (May 5,
648), we had it ornamented to complete it.
,.,.,
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.
5d
Thus, when this venerable image was first manifest, it was as if
(Maitreya) had descended from his palace in Tusita, and when
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5e
On the thirtieth, a dinghai day, of the fourth month, in which
the first was a wuwu day, in the second year of the Yongchun
era, a guiwei year, of Great Tang (May 31, 683), the wife of the
late Lord Lu, Grand Master of Imperial Entertainments with
,
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5f
Since I believe that [this] stone cannot be destroyed, while reds
and blues (paintings) will grow dark, I have reverently had one
Sakyamuni image shrine made in stone at Yique. . . . Though
sand and dust (i.e., this world) may be transformed, the marvelous form (of this statue) will be forever preserved, and by
carving (it in) this dark stone, it will be endlessly transmitted
without decay.
[ ],,
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5g
Since the mountain will not decay, the image will also be preserved forever.
5h
Even though they be brushed with a deva-garment, these majestic laksana will scarcely be destroyed, and though the fires of
the kalpa of destruction will burn, how could this legion of
images be extinguished?
,,,?
5i
Wang Xuance, [vowing first to aid the imperial house] and
next for all sentient beings in the Dharma realm, reverently
made one Maitreya image assembly, on the fifteenth day of the
ninth month of the second year of the Linde era (October 29,
665).
[?][?][?][?][?][?][?],
[][],.
5j
Monk [two illegible characters], for his late parents, reverently
had made one King Udayana image. May the Dharma realm
all share in this blessed deed. Fifteenth day of the tenth month
of the sixth year of the Yonghui era (November 18, 655).
[ ][ ][].
..
5k
The wife of Xin Shizu, nee Sun, knowing her body was not
eternal, and her husband having predeceased her, on the fifteenth day of the fourth month of the inaugural year of the
Xianqing era (May 14, 656), made a vow reverently to make a
King Udayana image shrine. This had not come to pass when
we heard that Mrs. Sun had passed away on the fourth day of
the fifth month of that year (June 1). She is succeeded by her
dependents Cuan Xie, Xin Xin, Sun Xin, and others who have
taken over (this project). Now it has come to pass. We pray for
the deceased that their souls be reborn in the Pure Land, that
they be cut off from the three obstructions, and we further
pray that all sentient beings attain true enlightenment. (Hence,
we have) engraved this record.
,
.
.,,.
.,,
..
,.
appendix
175
5l
The numinous shrine reclines against the moon;
a cassia palace suspended amidst the stars.
Rising into the void to excavate the stone,
[illegible character] the mountain ridge, a lofty chamber.
The grotto is high and hidden in the earth,
(safe from) waves agitating up to the heavens.
Thus we followed by carving and engraving,
in [illegible characters] year.
,.,[ ].,
.,[ ][ ].
5m
Inscription and Preface for the Stone Image of the Jingshan
Monastery. Written by Li Xiaolun, Court Gentleman of Manifest Virtue and Acting Secretarial Aide.
As for (Queen Maya grasping) the silver branch to propagate
the blessing, its consequence was (the Buddhas) numinous
resemblance appearing in the garden (purchased for him
from Prince Jeta by covering it in) gold (coins). His sword-rain
dispelled noxious vapors and let fly the flux of wisdom over
worlds as numerous as the sands (of the Ganges). Since his
form was hidden in the Grove of Cranes (at his nirvana, the
..,
.,.,
.,.
5n
Lady Wei, Great Consort of the Princedom of Ji, was from
Jingzhao (Changan). Her chalice-vine manner contained a
rich beauty, showering brilliance over the palace women. Her
orchid appearance was steeped in elegance, succeeding the
goodness of (the woman gathering) duckweed at the bend of
the river. Her thoughts were concerned with red sand, pouring
waves of true brilliance over the five swords. Her spirit dwelt in
white clouds, extending its marvelous action to the three
pearls. As a result, she selected this beautiful metropolitan area
in which to have this numinous image made.
.,.
176
appendix
,.,.,
.,.
5o
Its substance is as brilliant as the colors of the coiled dragon; its
resemblance duplicates (the original form of the Buddha) as
the fabulous luan bird taking flight (is echoed by its shadow
below). As the moon reunites with the river of the immortals,
it divides over the red-blue brows (of the statue), making them
gush with color. As the stars glide through the garden of the
firmament, they wander over the violet pupils, making volant
their brilliance. The absolute sincerity (of the donor) is completely expressed, and her flourishing meritorious achievement
has been accomplished.
,.,.
,.,.
5p
Like a transformed bird (an immortal who has taken the form
of a crane), she has distinguished herself as one who has
crossed the sea (to the islands of immortality). Like the tortoise
hidden (inside its shell), she showed clearly the results of having drawn herself in from the dust.
..
5q
So brilliant is this lofty endeavor, it is hard to describe in
words. Moreover, solid stone underlies its foundation, and an
even bed of rime marks the place. The river freshens the verdure of the garden of paulownias, and the breeze carries the
fragrance of the mountain of apricots. Although this place of
purity displays a gilded (statue), one might worry that it is out
of keeping with the [transformations] of the mulberry (fields)
into the (blue Eastern) sea (and back again over eons), and so,
following a great plan, this stone was carved with the confidence that it will endure for the period of time (it takes to
empty) a city (one hundred yojanas square by extracting) a
mustard seed (once every century).
,.[],.
,.,[ ]
.,.
5r
The inscription says:
The two souls have already dispersed, but the body has
not yet dissolved. (When) flora and fauna increase in number
(i.e., are born), objects and their images come together. (In
death,) affections are discarded at the marchmount, and memories float down the breeze. When in the end we are sunk in
our [eternal?] home, what can illuminate the three immaterialities?
When Mahavra (Sakyamuni) descended into his traces, the
mysterious ford was thereby opened. The propitious stream
was pure and flowing, and the auspicious mountain was cleft
into spires. The youth of the Himalayas (the Buddha in a previous incarnation) fought to the victory, and the sandalwood
forest (the sangha) assisted his goodness. The Revelation of
Meaning was proclaimed in the west, after which the marvelous Wheel (of the Law) rolled to the east.
:
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5s
What had been at the Place of the Glossy Leaves (the place of
the bodhi tree, i.e., Bodhgaya), Cnasthana (China) now shelters. (For those) hoping for the image (of the Buddha), (here it
is) completely pictured, and (those who) seek for the light will
surely assemble here. It is a virtuous model, from which we
may continually investigate subtle mysteries! If we should ever
be unmindful of his attaining enlightenment, (we have but) to
gaze reverently upon this visage to sigh!
,.,.[]
,.,.
5t
Pearls and gems, she removed these baubles, and from her
treasure of silver, exhausted her funds. In the grove, a pagoda
was modeled, while beyond the clouds, the towers rose. The
urna looks down like the full moon; the eyelids are dazzling
like lotuses opening. The smoke of incense rises in clouds,
while Buddhist chanting shakes the earth.
From the south, (pilgrims) are drawn down the Luanchuan
(the Yi River), and from the north, they gallop in the royal
chariots (from the palaces in Luoyang). (As they sail by), they
turn and look intently at the myriad chambers, while (those
traveling by land) halt in their journey (to donate money for)
the four necessities of religious life. There the causes they have
planted together will be nurtured, and scriptures will be
opened that they may share in enlightenment. Like unto the
sun, may (the Buddhist faith) eternally reign on high, and as
are the mountains, may it be forever firm!
,.,.,
.,.,.
,.,[].
,.
6a
On the sunny side of the Longmen hills, the Great Vairocana
Image Shrine was established by the Celestial August Great
Emperor Gaozong of Great Tang. The body of the Buddha,
from halo to base, is eighty-five chi (25 meters) in height, while
the two bodhisattvas are seventy chi (20 meters) in height, and
Kasyapa, Ananda, the vajra (guardians, i.e., the dvarapalas) and
the shenwang (the lokapalas) are each fifty chi (almost 15
meters) in height. On the first day of the fourth month of the
third year of the Xianheng era, a renshen year (May 3, 672), the
August Empress Wu aided (this project) with twenty thousand
strings of her rouge and powder money. In obedience to an
imperial decree, the clerics in charge were Meditation Master
Shandao of Shiji Monastery and Dharma Master Huijian, abbot
of Fahai Monastery, of the Western Capital. The commissioner
in charge was Wei Ji, Chief Minister of the Court of the National Granaries, while the vice commissioner was Fan Xuanze,
Supreme Pillar of State and Director of the Eastern Parks. The
artisans were Li Junzan, Cheng Renwei, Yao Shiji, and others.
This work of merit was completed on the thirtieth day of the
twelfth month of the second year of the Shangyuan era, an
yihai year (January 20, 676).
.,,
.
.
,.,
.,,
..
7a
On the twentieth day of the first month of the second year of
the Longshuo era (February 13, 662), Liu Yuanli of the Revenue
Section of the Establishment of the Prince of Zhou, Wang Jifu
of the Personnel Evaluation Section and Zheng Xingyan of the
War Section reverently made one Amitabha image shrine. We
pray for Your Majesty the Emperor and all sentient beings that
they may obtain this blessing.
, ,
.
.
appendix j
177
7b
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7c
Xue Rengui, for the emperor and empress, reverently dedicates
an Amitabha image and two bodhisattvas. May all sentient
beings in this Dharma realm share in this blessing. Made in
the fifth month of the fourth year of the Xianheng era (May
June, 673).
,.
,..
7d
The disciple Zhou Yuanzhi, a Court Gentleman for Manifesting Rightness, and the others all expectantly hoping to pass
over (the sea of suffering) to the shore of the Dharma now join
in making a vow (to be reborn in the paradise in) the West. We
all rely upon the forty-eight great vows (of Amitabha) so that
we may congregate in that assembly (in his Pure Land of
Sukhavat). Now, the dark paths are illuminated by a mirror,
as the Wisdom-sun is supported in the lofty sky, and the way
to enlightenment has reopened that the six senses may be
cleansed in the good sea. Finally, to enrich this great enterprise
(the imperial rule), we think of our responsibilities constantly
and profoundly. To exhaust our ritual duty as officials, we
have portrayed the True Visage, and to extend filial piety and
humaneness, we have depicted the Pure Land. In offering to
the Celestial Emperor, Celestial Empress, heir apparent, all the
princes, all the monks of distant kalpas, and seven generations
of ancestors, we reverently made a shrine (containing) a stone
image of Amitabha. . . . We make use of this act of merit to protect and bless the imperial throne, and may the dead and the
living together take refuge in the sea of blessings. . . . This act of
178
appendix
7e
,,,
.
7f
Director Yao Shenbiao and Meditation Master (Zhi)yun of the
Palace Chapel completed the Fifteen Thousand Honorable
Images Shrine on the thirtieth day of the eleventh month of
the inaugural year of the Yonglong era of the Great Tang (December 26, 680).
,,,
.
7g
On the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the inaugural year
of the Tiaolu era, a jimao year (September 25, 679), in obedience to an imperial decree, to the south of the Great Image
was established the Great Fengxian Monastery. Two groups of
seven eminent monks who were equally perfect in the practice
(of good conduct) and the understanding (of sacred texts)
were chosen and summoned to form the (monastic) foundation. Only those who were vigilant in observing the religious
rules and who excelled in monastic discipline were named abbot. On the fifteenth day of the first month of the second year
(of the Tiaolu era, February 20, 680), the Great Emperor wrote
out the plaque (for the front gate of the monastery). From first
to last, sixteen monks have been specially ordained here and all
of them maintained the prohibitions and practices with purity
and their priestly duties with vigilance. Fearing that as the years
stretched on, the fragrant record (of their virtues) would no
longer be handed down, we have engraved this eulogy so that
it may be bequeathed through eternal kalpas.
..
.
.
,.
,.
7h
On the fifteenth day of the seventh month of a gengchen year,
the second year of the Tiaolu era of the Great Tang (August 14,
680), Xuanzhao reverently made one Guanshiyin bodhisattva
image, praying for the rescue of all sentient beings of this
Dharma realm who through transmigration, sins, and obstructions now live in distress, that they may all attain to their cessation.
,
..
7i
Li Junzan, [after?] constructing the Purple Cassia Palace, [in
order that] safety and security may come to my family, reverently made a Guanyin bodhisattva on the thirtieth day of the
sixth month of the second year of the Tiaolu era (July 31, 680).
[ ],[ ],[
].
8a
Stele of the Act of Merit by the Palace Domestic Service of the
Great Tang
. . . General of the Palace Gate Guard of the Right, in charge of
the affairs of the Palace Domestic Service, Supreme Pillar of
State, and Dynasty-Founding Duke of Bohai Commandery,
Palace Servitor Gao Lishi . . . Grand Master for Splendid Happiness, Acting Palace Attendant of the Palace Domestic Service,
Supreme Pillar of State, and Dynasty-Founding Duke of Hongnong Commandery, Palace Servitor Yang Sixu . . .
. . . established in offering to the Divine and Martial August
Emperor of the Opened Prime Era of the Great Tang. We prostrate ourselves in order that [even though we find ourselves?]
together in this ending period of the Dharma, Samantabhadras
supernatural power may still be encountered in the good scriptures, (which allow us to) think respectfully of the compassion
of the Holy Lord, and assist in expounding the transformative
power of the Benevolent King. Incense Mountain is silent, almost imaginary, yet one can smell the fragrance of the campaka flower (that is, the merit and virtue of the Buddha). The
Himalayas goad our sense of reality, yet there is found the taste
of clarified butter (that is, the perfect Buddha-truth). Even if
...,[ ][ ],,
, ...
...,,,,
...
...[ ][ ].[ ][ ]
[ ][ ][ ][ ],,
,.,
.[ ][ ][ ].
.[ ][ ],
.[ ][ ][ ][ ]
..!
[][ ][ ][ ][ ].[ ][ ],
.
8b
By special appointment . . . the official in charge was Grand
Master for Proper Consultation, acting Palace Attendant of the
Palace Domestic Service, Supreme Pillar of State, [palace servitor name]. . . . The monks in charge were sramana Daojie and
sramana Wenji of the Great Fengxian Monastery.
..., , ...
.
8c
None is superior to Buddha, for the Dharma world is his body.
He condescended to take form to convert all beings and lowered himself into his traces to become like men.
appendix j
179
,.,.,
.,. ,
.,.,.
,.,.
.,.
8d
By imperial command, Longhua Monastery is to join with and
become Fengxian Monastery. Fifth day of the twelfth month of
the tenth year of the Kaiyuan era (January 16, 723).
Official letter from Henan District to Fengxian Monastery:
The official letter: I have been informed by sealed missive of
the aforementioned imperial edict. I have been requested to
take a copy and forward it to the director (of the monastery)
for him to carry it out. This official letter of mine, I communicate it officially to those in the monastery for their conformation. Now, that edict is the subject of this official letter. When
you receive this official letter, you will follow that edict, and it
is for this reason I have sent you this official letter.
Official letter written by Shi Fanzong on the twelfth day of
the twelfth month of the tenth year of the Kaiyuan era (January
23, 723). Signature of the District Defender.
. .
.
.
180
appendix
Notes
(Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1956), pl. 197. Si Nixus other titles are
different, however, and he never was Regional Inspector of Luozhou. Jin Weinuo states that Huicheng was a cousin of Emperor
Xiaowen but gives him no secular name (Longmen shiku, ed.
Longmen baoguansuo [Beijing: Wenwu, 1961], p. 1).
Both Katherine Tsiang and Lin Sishui have suggested that
Feng Xi (d. 495) was the Duke of Shiping (Lin Sishui, Bei Wei
shufa daolun [Taibei: Lin Wu Lengleng, 1972]; Jiang Renhe,
Zaoqi foxiang huoyan shiwen shenguang zhi yanbian, p.
217; and Katherine R. Tsiang, Changing Patterns of Divinity
and Reform in the Late Northern Wei, Art Bulletin 84 (June
2002), no. 2: 245, n. 72). Feng Xi was the elder brother of Empress
Dowager Wenming (441490), the regent for Emperor Xiaowen
at the beginning of his reign. When the child took the throne
in 471, many felt that Feng Xis influence as a maternal relative
was too great, so he was sent south to serve as Regional Inspector of Luozhou in the 470s (Weishu, ch. 83 shang, p. 1819). Once
there, he revealed a lack of talent for government and a superabundance of Buddhist piety, devoting himself to the building
of Buddhist pagodasseventy-two in alland the copying of
stras. Many of the monasteries and pagodas he sponsored in
the area were built on high peaks, with considerable loss of life.
When the monks he had gathered asked him to stop the work, he
replied: When this is complete, people will see only the pagoda.
They will never know that men and oxen were killed. Feng Xi
died in 495 in the old capital. The most substantial problem with
this theory is that he was never enfeoffed as Duke of Shiping.
36. Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben hui
bian, v. 3, p. 35; also transcribed in Han Wei Nanbeichao muzhi
jishi, pl. 115.
37. The Zhouli relates that these trees stood in the courtyard of
the Zhou kings. Under the three acacias, the Three Dukes were
positioned, and under the nine date trees to the right and left,
the nobility and officials took their places. Thus three acacias
and nine date trees is a metaphor for serving as an official at
court. See Zhouli, Qiuguan, Chaoshi, in Shisan jing, 2 v. (Beijing: Beijing yanshan chubanshe, 1991), 1:483484.
38. Zhongguo lishi ditu ji, ed. Tan Qixiang. 8 v. (Shanghai:
Ditu chubanshe, 1982), v. 4, map 4647 (3) 5.
39. Writing the character for Dai as fa appears to be a graphic
variant at Longmen, which persisted into the Tang dynasty, as
in Tiji, nos. 0670 and 0779.
40. I read zhu for red, instead of zhu for the Zhu River. Red
wheels on a carriage indicated noble rank (see Zhongwen daci
dian [Taibei: Zhonghua xueshuyuan, 1973], no. 14779.755).
41. Tiji, no. 2296; Chavannes, Mission archologique, v. 1, pt.
2, pp. 479481.
42. See Tsiang, Disjunctures of Time; and Yan Wenru and
Chang Qing, Longmen shiku yanjiu, ed. Xu Ziqiang and Longmen shiku yanjiusuo (Beijing: Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 1995),
p. 21.
184 | n o t e s t o pa g e s 2 5 3 3
18. The transition between the two reigns is thoroughly discussed in Jennifer Holmgren, Princes and Favourites at the
Court of Emperor Shih-tsung of Northern Wei, c. 500510,
Journal of Oriental Studies 20, no. 2 (1982): 95127.
19. Weishu, ch. 8, p. 193.
20. See W.J.F.Jenner, Memories of Loyang (493534) (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1981), p. 133; and Weishu, ch. 114, p. 3042.
21. Weishu, ch. 8, p. 209.
22. On Xuanwu and Ratnamati, see Tang Yongtong, Sui Tang
fojiao shigao (Taibei: Foguang, 2001), p. 230.
23. Weishu, ch. 90, p. 1931, and ch. 114, p. 3040.
24. Fan Xiangyong, Loyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 3, p. 145. See
also Jenner, Memories of Luoyang, p. 212.
25. Fan Xiangyong, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 3, p. 132;
Jenner, Memories of Loyang, p. 207; A Record of Buddhist Mon
asteries in Lo-yang, by Yang Hsan-chih, translated by Yi-tung
Wang (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 124.
26. Fan Xiangyong, Luoyang qielan ji jiaozhu, ch. 1, p. 46; Jenner, Memories of Loyang, p. 166; A Record of Buddhist Monaster
ies in Lo-yang, p. 46.
27. These are identified by the Chinese archeologists as Indra
and Brahm but without any iconographic substantiation (Long
men shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue
kaoguxi, v. 1, p. 265). My thanks go to David Efurd of Ohio State
University for discussing this issue with me.
28. Wen Yucheng suggests these four figures may represent the
four sons of Emperor Xiaowen (Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji,
v. 4: Longmen, ed. Wen Yucheng, p. 8), based on the Singapore
scholar Gu Zhengmeis proposed identification of the six worshipers below the south wall window in Cave 8 at Yungang as the
six sons of Emperor Xianwen (Gu Zhengmei, Guishuang fojiao
zhengzhi chuantong yu dacheng fojiao [Taibei: Yunchen wenhua, 1993], ch. 8). The four Binyang figures have haloes, however,
which signify divinity, not royalty, but the more usual identification as bodhisattva figures should perhaps be amended to figures
of Brahm with a bodhisattva, according to Lena Kim (personal
communication, June 28, 2004). See Lena Kim, Guanyu 6 shiji
Zhongguo qi zun xiang zhong de luoji xiang zhi yanjiu, trans.
Hong Qilong, Dunhuang yanjiu 1998.2: 7279 (originally published in Bukky geijutsu 219 [March 1995]: 4055); and Xiang
tangshan shiku: Liushi haiwai shike zaoxiang yanjiu, ed. Zhang
Lintang and Sun Di (Beijing: Waiwen chubanshe, 2004), p. 50.
29. Wen Yucheng thinks Binyang South and Binyang Central
were done in imitation of Caves 7 and 8, based on the similarity
of their depiction of Vedic deities and guardian figures on the
exterior and the general structure and iconographic program
on the interior (Zhongguo shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4: Longmen,
p. 8). Following Harrie Vanderstappens view that Caves 7 and 8
could have been constructed as early as the 430s, I believe Cao
Yans (1147) statement about Yungang, Hence, the Tongle Tem-
n o t e s t o pa g e s 3 3 3 8 | 185
ing the Semblance Dharma, in Buddhism in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995),
p. 262.
14. In Guyang Grotto, dated 519 (Tiji, no. 2316).
15. Figure 202, identified as Sculptured wall niche, Cave 13
(Sherman Lee, A History of Far Eastern Art, 5th ed. [New York:
Harry N. Abrams, 1994]).
16. Ibid., p. 159.
17. See the western half of the north wall in Liu Jinglong, ed.,
Lianhua dong: Longmen shiku di 712 ku/Lotus Cave: Cave 712
of Longmen Grottoes (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 2002), pl. 33,
an ink rubbing on p. 126, and the chart on p. 178, where Song
Jingfeis shrine is labeled as 54.
18. The inscription literally reads jian Mi shi le, which I take
to be a garbled version of jian Mile chushi, or to see Maitreya
manifest in the world, that is, to be reborn when Maitreya bo
dhisattva comes to earth to become the next Buddha and preach
to three great assemblies. See Foxue dacidian, ed. Ding Fubao
(1922, rpt. Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1991), p. 2764b.
19. Tiji, no. 1137.
20. An epitaph dated to 533 records the brief life of a married woman named Song Lingfei (513533), who held the title of
Lady of Guangping Commandery and was the eldest daughter
of Song Wei (Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben
huibian, v. 5, pp. 177178). Lingfeis epitaph tells how she lost her
father and mother at an early age, after which she took care of her
younger sisters and then died, in Luoyang, at the age of twenty.
I suspect that Song Jingfei was a younger sister of Song Lingfei
by virtue of their rhyming names, their residence in Luoyang,
the premature death of their parents, and their apparent wealth.
For earlier plotting against Yuan Yi, Prince of Qinghe, Song Wei
was granted suicide in 525, just two years before Song Jingfeis
inscription for her parents. In 527, the elder sister Lingfei would
have been fourteen years old.
21. To cite a typical example, Empress Dowager Wenzhao was
thirteen when she entered the palace womens quarters as a concubine (see Weishu, ch. 13, p. 335).
22. The shrine, designated N16 on the north wall, is twentythree centimeters high, sixteen centimeters wide, and three centimeters deep. See Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, eds., Longmen
shiku zonglu, 12 v. (Beijing: Zhongguo da baike quanshu chubanshe, 1999), v. 8, p. 68.
23. Zhu Zhunian sponsored this shrine N16 on the north wall,
another similar one on the south wall (S28, in Liu and Yang,
Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 8, p. 74), and possibly a third, since the
text of Tiji, no. 1715, is very similar to her two known dedications (Tiji, nos. 1679 and 1714) but is missing the patrons name.
The translation here is a combination of the texts of Tiji, no.
1679, which dedicates her shrine on the north wall, and no. 1714,
which dedicates her shrine on the south wall.
24. See Cao Erqin, Tang Changan de shangren yu shangye,
in Tangshi luncong, ed. Shi Nianhai (Xian: Shaanxi renmin chubanshe, 1987), v. 2, p. 128.
25. Tiji, no. 1840.
26. Tiji, v. 1, p. 60.
27. The two Northern Wei histories that mention Longmen,
The History of the Northern Wei and The Record of Monasteries
in Luoyang, both refer only to Stone Grotto Monastery and
Lingyan Monastery, which we know were not regular monasteries but simply Guyang Grotto and Binyang Central Grotto,
respectively. Although later records of repair for monasteries at
Longmen state there were eight Northern Wei monasteries in
the eastern hills at Longmen, there is no corroborating evidence
in the Northern Wei inscriptions at Longmen (Tiji, v. 1, p. 81).
The Longmen monastery names in the Longmen inscriptions
are all from the Tang (see Tiji, v. 1, p. 38 and pp. 8085).
28. Li Changshous story is told in the biography of his son, Li
Yansun, in Linghu Defen, Zhoushu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
1974), ch. 43, p. 773.
29. Within an undecorated arched niche, sixty-six centimeters
high, a seated Buddha figure is flanked by disciples and bodhisattvas, under which are a group of three female worshipers with
three female servants on the left side facing three male worshipers on the right (reproduced in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen
wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, pl. 100; and
Liu and Yang, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 8, pl. 421).
30. Tiji, no. 1712.
31. Gong Dazhong found the title director in the description
of the official roles for empresses and other women that opens
the biographies of the empresses in Weishu, ch. 13, p. 321. See
Gong Dazhong, Longmen shiku yishu, p. 152.
32. Tiji, no. 1855.
33. See Gregory Schopen, Whats in a Name: The Religious
Function of the Early Donative Inscriptions, in Buddhist Monks
and Business Matters (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
2004), pp. 382394.
34. Mizuno and Nagahiro, Rymon sekkutsu no kenky, v. 2,
no. 606.
35. An old ink rubbing shows three figures of nuns to the left
of the inscription and one to the right (Beijing tushuguan cang
Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian, v. 3, p. 125); the stolen figure and inscription are now in a private collection, according to
Ishimatsu, Rymon sekkutsu koyd zz k, fig. 41.
36. Tiji, no. 1850. Yuan Xiangs Maitreya shrine is immediately
above Lady Yuchis on the north wall of Guyang Grotto.
37. See Liu and Yang, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 9, p. 120, designated S205; Tiji, no. 2305.
38. Reading chongkuang for chongri because the character ri is
positioned as if it were a left-hand radical, while the remainder
of the character was never carved.
39. I use the transcription in Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen er
shipin: Beike yu zaoxiang yishu, no. 20, in preference to Tiji, no.
934, and Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen ershipin: Bei Wei beike zao
xiang juzhen, no. 20. See the translation by Chavannes in Mis
sion archologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 504. Chavannes translated kan
gong ba wan as le travail de sculpture (a cout) 80,000 (pieces
de monnaie). Much as I would like to agree, I see two problems.
First, that would mean Cixiangs small grotto cost one-tenth of
the three huge Binyang grottoes, which seems too expensive.
Second, the term ba wan, eighty thousand, is used in other
Longmen inscriptions as an abbreviated term for eighty-four
thousand (e.g., the Sishun Ward inscription of 648, Tiji, 0077).
Eighty-four thousand is an Indian notion signifying the total
number of units in a body, such as the eighty-four thousand
atoms in a human being, so I must regretfully conclude that by
eighty thousand Cixiang meant eighty-four thousand years,
that is, forever. See the examples from the Huayan jing quoted
in Foxue dacidian, v. 1, p. 141 xia.
40. The notion of the five obstacles is expressed in a number
of other scriptures as well. See Shi Yongming, Fojiao de nxing
guan (Gaoxiong: Foguang, 1990), p. 93 and n. 2. See also Masatoshi Ueki, Gender Equality in Buddhism (New York: Peter
Lang, 2001), ch. 6, The Three Types of Obedience and the Five
Obstacles for Women.
41. Translation adapted from Burton Watson, The Lotus Sutra
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 188, with reference to Luis O. Gmez, The Land of Bliss: The Paradise of the
Buddha of Measureless Light (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1996), p. 79.
42. For an example in Buddhist thought, see Foshuo Yuye n
jing, in Taish shinsh daizky, v. 2, no. 412, p. 864a, where the
Buddha says the law of womankind is that she has three obstacles to attaining enlightenment as herself. These are that when
she is small, her parents are the obstacle; when she is married,
her husband and lord is the obstacle; and when she is old, her
sons are the obstacle. For the Confucian statement that an unmarried woman obeys her father, a married woman obeys her
husband, and a widow obeys her son, see Yili, Sangfu, ch. 11, in
Shisan jing 1:611.
43. Watson, Vimalakirti Sutra, p. 92.
44. Ueki, Gender Equality in Buddhism, p. 73. The best-known
case of a bodhisattva assuming a certain form appropriate for
the needs and capacities of those who call on him is that of
Guanyin in the Lotus Stra, who assumes no less than seven different feminine forms to help female believers. See Robert Ford
Campany, The Earliest Tales of the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin,
in Religions of China in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Prince
ton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 83.
45. What remains of the inscription, Tiji, no. 2371, reads:
In the...year...Cixiang [Huizheng] had made a Maitreya image...for the emperor [and empress dowager?]. I
pray that...world...parents...Buddha...all sentient beings...share this...[blessing]... Her shrine is designated S70
n o t e s t o pa g e s 5 5 5 9 | 189
seated Buddha, flanked by disciples, bodhisattvas, and guardians. The ceiling bears relief carvings of sixteen seated Buddhas,
Majur, disciples, and stories of the Buddhas life. The inscription is below the shrine.
95. Weishu, ch. 12, p. 304. Tsukamoto Zenry believed that
Jingsun and Zhonghua were Shanjians younger brothers (Mi
zuno and Nagahiro, Rymon sekkutsu no kenky, v. 1, p. 172).
96. Weishu, ch. 12, p. 297.
97. Compare it to Putai Grotto and Weizi Grotto, contemporaneous grottoes with the same plan, which lack a complex
program or similarly fine carving.
98. Tiji, no. 2628, in Grotto 1609. Other examples of long
inscriptions written by famous literati include Li Tais 1,700character inscription by Cen Wenben (595645) (Tiji, no. 74)
and Lady Nius 600-character inscription by Zhang Jiuling
(673740) on the north wall of the lower terrace of the Great
Vairocana Image Shrine (Tiji, no. 1634).
99. Weishu, ch. 69, pp. 15431544. See Sofukawa Hiroshi,
Rymon sekkutsu ni okeru hokuch zz no sho mondai,
in Chgoku chsei no bunbutsu, ed. Tonami Mamoru (Kyoto:
Kyto daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkysho, 1993), p. 198.
100. Chavannes, Mission archologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 508.
101. Sofukawa, Rymon sekkutsu ni okeru hokuch zz no
sho mondai, pp. 198199.
102. Huangfu Dus career is described at the end of Hu Guozhens biography in Li Yanshou, Beishi, ch. 80, p. 13ab.
103. This figure is now missing its head, which once bore a
conical hairstyle, as the photographs of 1935 made by Mizuno
and Nagahiro reveal. See Kim, Guanyu 6 shiji Zhongguo qi zun
xiang zhong de luoji xiang zhi yanjiu.
104. This pose of the foot is not unique to this grotto. It also
appears on the south wall Maitreya bodhisattva in Weizi Grotto
(reproduced in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, pl. 89) and on the contemporaneous Maitreya bodhisattva long held in White Horse
Monastery of Luoyang and now belonging to the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston (reproduced in Selected Masterpieces of Asian
Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [Boston: Museum of Fine Arts,
1992], pl. 27).
105. This is convincingly argued in Junghee Lee, The Origins
and Development of the Pensive Bodhisattva Images of Asia,
Artibus Asiae 53 (1993), no. 3/4: 311357. For more freestanding
Chinese examples, see Xu Rucong, Pusa zhuang Shijia taizi
xiang, Shoucangjia 22 (April 1997): 4143.
106. See the chart in Liu Jinglong, Lianhua dong, p. 179 (where
it is no. 41 on the south wall), ink rubbings on pp. 163164, photographs in pl. 141, and text on p. 189.
107. This account of the First Meditation is taken from Lee,
The Origins and Development of the Pensive Bodhisattva Images, pp. 312313.
108. Two more examples are on the north wall of Weizi Grotto,
n o t e s t o pa g e s 6 4 6 9 | 191
in Longmen liusan diaoxiang ji, p. 108, quoting from a manuscript by Guo Yutang called Luoyang guwu ji. The persecution
is described in Xue Juzheng, Jiu Wudai shi (Beijing: Zhonghua
shuju, 1976), ch. 115, pp. 15291531.
122. Wang Zhenguo, in Longmen liusan diaoxiang ji, p. 108,
with reference to Su Bai, Luoyang diqu Beichao shiku de chubu
kaocha, in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo
and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 1, p. 229 and n. 21.
p. 335, n. 11, Ode 6 of the Daya section of the Book of Odes says
the wife of King Wen of Zhou had the same fine reputation as
his mother.
8. A reference to the line for the hexagram kun (earth) in the
Book of Changes, the earth is generous and capable of supporting living things. Earth imagery was considered appropriate to
the empress, as was heaven imagery for the emperor.
9. According to Chavannes, Mission archologique, v. 1, pt. 2,
p. 336, n. 2, this alludes to the virtuous women celebrated in the
first odes in the Zhou nan and Shao nan sections that commence
the Book of Odes. They are also extolled in the Lun yu, ch. 17. See
Shisan jing 2:2086.
10. Heaven gave the wife of King Wen of the Zhou dynasty
to him on the bank of the River Wei. See Chavannes, Mission
archologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 336, n. 5, citing the Book of Odes,
Daya, Ode 6. Zhaoyang is the name of a palace the Han emperor
Cheng (r. 326 B.C.E.) built for his concubine Zhao Hede. See
Zhongwen dacidian, no. 14172.141, no. 2.
11. The first reference is to the story of Sudatta purchasing
Prince Jetas grove for the Buddha by covering it in gold coins
(Nirvn.a Stra, ch. 29). The second reference is to the spontaneous appearance of flowers when Prabhtaratnas stpa manifested itself in the sky above kyamuni (Lotus Stra, ch. 11).
Empress Zhangsun probably scattered flowers over portable
statues from a palace gate above them, as the Northern Wei emperors were said to have done. See Weishu, ch. 114, p. 3032.
12. King Prasenajit and Queen Mallik were believed to have
been contemporaries of the Buddha, while the identity of their
daughter is not so well established. See The Lions Roar of Queen
rml, trans. Alex Wayman and Hideko Wayman (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1974), p. 3. She is the heroine of the
well-known scripture The Lions Roar of Queen rml, and
the obvious point here is the comparison of Empress Zhangsun with these famous royal Indian women of the faith, to her
advantage.
13. Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 194, p. 6123. Howard
Wechsler interpreted this comment by Wei Zheng as meaning
that Wei was pointing out that Xianling was smaller than Zhao
ling as a criticism of Emperor Taizongs lack of filial piety, but I
think it was meant to redirect the emperors attention from his
personal sorrow over the death of his wife to the business of the
royal family, which was ruling the nation. See The Cambridge
History of China, volume 3: Sui and Tang China, 589906, Part
I, ed. Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), v. 3, p. 187.
14. This allusion to the fourth poem of the Odes of Wei was
identified by Chavannes, Mission archologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 338,
n. 10.
15. A borderland is a place where the Dharma is not encountered because sentient beings are spared from suffering.
See Gmez, The Land of Bliss, p. 287.
196 | n o t e s t o pa g e s 9 2 9 7
Artibus Asiae 56 (1996), no. 3/4: 253254; Tiji, v. 1, pp. 3536; and
Fangshan Yunjusi shijing, p. 1.
32. See Robert E. Harrist, Jr., The Virtual Stele on Tieshan
and the Engraved Stras of Shandong Province, Oriental Art
49, no. 4: 213.
33. See Tokiwa Daij, Sangaiky no bodai toshite no Hzanji, Shky kenky 4, no. 1 (1927): 2556; and Ouchi Humio,
Hzan reisenji sekkutsu tmei no kenky.
34. Fangshan Yunjusi shijing, p. 3. See also Lothar Ledderose,
Thunder Sound Cave, in Between Han and Tang: Visual and
Material Culture in a Transformative Period, ed. Wu Hung (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2003), pp. 235265.
35. Fangshan Yunjusi shijing, pp. 23.
36. See Li Yukun, Longmen shiku xin faxian Wang Xuance
zaoxiang tiji, Wenwu 1976.11: 94.
37. Tiji, no. 0145. Shrine W20 is 100 centimeters high, 50 centimeters wide, and 20 centimeters deep. The inscription is on
the south side of the niche. See Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie,
Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 1, p. 49.
38. This narrative is taken from Tiji, v. 1, pp. 5556.
39. Feng Chengjun, Wang Xuance shiji, Qinghua xuebao 8,
no. 1 (1932): 13.
40. The text of the inscription is preserved in Qinding Quan
Tang wen, ch. 162.
41. This information comes from a cliff inscription in Chinese titled Record of the Great Tang Envoys to India Leaving
(China), discovered in 1990 about five kilometers north of Gyi
rong, Tibet, just seventy kilometers from the border with Nepal.
See Huo Wei, Da Tang Tianzhu shi chu ming ji qi xiangguan
wenti de yanjiu, Th gakuh 66 (1994): 253270.
42. Feng Chengjun, Wang Xuance shiji, p. 10; Sun Xiushen,
Wang Xuance shiji gouchen (Urumqi: Xinjiang renmin chubanshe, 1998), p. 279.
43. Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 46, p. 2016. The erstwhile
existence of the three volumes of drawings is recorded by the
ninth-century writer Zhang Yanyuan in Lidai minghua ji (Beijing: Jinghua chubanshe, 2000), ch. 3, section 5, p. 41.
44. Xuanzhao was said to have vowed it would be his lifes regret if he did not see the Mahbodhi Monastery image. When he
got there, he circumambulated the Diamond Throne. See Yijing,
Da Tang xiyou qiufa gaoseng zhuan, Taish shinsh daizky, v.
51, no. 2066, pp. 12.
45. Daoshi, Fayuan zhulin, ch. 29, Taish shinsh daizky,
no. 2122, pp. 502c503a. Translation adapted from Acker, Some
Tang and Pre-Tang Texts, v. 1, pp. 337342.
46. See Beal, Si-yu-ki, v. 2, pp. 120121; and Acker, Some Tang
and Pre-Tang Texts, v. 1, pp. 334337.
47. In the Stra of the Buddha of Measureless Life, for example,
Maitreya and kyamuni discuss the paradise of Amitbha. See
Gmez, The Land of Bliss, pp. 217219.
n o t e s t o pa g e s 9 7 9 9 | 197
added his intrusive Guanyin shrine above the entrance in 665. See
Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing
daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, pp. 183184 and 188; and Okada, Rymon
sekkutsu sho-T sz ronsono ni, pp. 100103. Grotto 394 is
about ten meters above the Jingshan Monastery Grotto and is a
horseshoe-shaped grotto 148 centimeters high, 160 centimeters
wide, and 163 centimeters deep. The west wall bears the main
Buddha on an octagonal lotus throne, while the bodhisattvas
are carved beside the Buddha and on the side walls. See the reproductions in Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku
zonglu, v. 3, pl. 5153, and Liu Jinglong, ed., Longmen shiku zao
xiang quanji, 10 v. (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2002), v. 2, pl.
458. The similarity of the sculpture to Madame Hans Grotto of
661 suggests a date in the 660s.
104. John C. Huntington, A Gandhran Image of Amityus
Sukhvat, Annali dellIstituto Orientale di Napoli 40 (n.s. 30,
1980), no. 4: 651672. I am grateful to Joanna Williams for
bringing this stele to my attention.
105. Tiji, no. 0465.
106. See Longmen shiku, v. 2, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, p. 230.
107. The earliest dedicatory inscription at Longmen to mention Jingshan Monastery is dated to 650 (Tiji, no. 0946). The
other grotto self-identified with the Jingshan Monastery is
Grotto 401, dated to 669. Its dedication is titled Inscription with
Preface for the Images of Amitbha Buddha and the Two Bodhisattvas Avalokitevara and Mahsthmaprpta in the Stone
Shrine of the Jingshan Monastery at Longmen. This is a smaller
grotto, high on the cliff face, almost directly above Lady Weis
grotto. Its patron was the wife of a certain Lord Qian, and although the inscription is fairly ruined, it is evident that she, too,
was an aristocrat (Tiji, no. 0464; Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie,
Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 3, pl. 6972). There is also an undated
shrine sponsored by a raman.a of Jingshan Monastery, one Tan
xiang, which contains a seated pendant-legged Maitreya Buddha
flanked by two disciples and two bodhisattvas. The shrine E3 is
found on the east wall, on the north side of the door, of Binyang
South Grotto and is very large, being 175 centimeters high and
135 centimeters wide. See Liu and Yang, Longmen shiku zonglu,
v. 1, p. 81 and pl. 597; and Tiji, no. 0235.
108. See Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo
and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 230; and Luoyang Longmen
shi xuan, ed. Li Xianqi (Beijing: Zhongguo lyou chubanshe,
1986), p. 51.
109. According to Chavannes, Mission archologique, v. 1, pt.
2, p. 362, n. 8, this is an allusion to the woman described in the
Book of Odes, Guofeng section, 11, ode 4, line 1.
110. Chavannes considered the term red sand to refer to the
Daoist alchemical use of cinnabar. He thought the first sentence
indicated Daoism and the second indicated Buddhism (Mission
archologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 362, n. 9 and 10).
n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 0 4 1 0 9 | 199
111. This is one guess for the meaning of the term yerun, literally leaves glossy. The leaves of the bodhi tree are usually
described as glossy and evergreen. The parallel prose of the text
requires it to be read as a place-name, but I have been unable
to find it in standard sources. Another possibility is to read the
character ye as the Sanskrit pattra and take it as the authors
abbreviated reference to Pt.aliputra, where Kukkutrma Monastery was located. Then the phrase might be translated, What
adorned Pt.aliputra (i.e., the image of Amitbha and the fifty
bodhisattvas at Kukkutrma Monastery near there), Cnas
thna now shelters.
112. Wen Yucheng believes they represent the donor (Long
men shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue
kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 187).
113. Li Shens biographies are in Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin
Tang shu, ch. 80, pp. 35773578; and Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu,
ch. 76, pp. 26642665.
114. For the stele, see Wen Yucheng, Longmen suojian liang
Tangshu zhong renwu zaoxiang gaishuo, in Longmen shiku yi
qian wubai zhounian guoji xueshu taolunhui lunwenji, p. 127. For
the shrine, see Yan Wenru, Zhongguo shiku yishu zonglun, p. 41.
115. Gong Dazhong, Longmen shiku yishu, p. 128.
116. Based on the dates of nearby inscriptions, it seems Lady
Weis grotto was probably begun in the early 650s and completed
around 660. Her grotto and the one immediately adjoining it to
the south, Grotto 404, are the largest grottoes in this area. From
the outside, they appear to have been intended as a matched pair,
since the faades and entryways are identical in size and shape.
An intrusive shrine inscription in Grotto 404 is dated to 653, so
these two grottoes were likely begun a little before that time. The
two grottoes directly north of Lady Weis (Grottoes 365 and 366)
have dates of 662 and 661, respectively. This suggests that Lady
Weis grotto was finished around 660, making it possible then
for other patrons to have shrines added close to hers. Further, an
inscription elsewhere by one Wang Xingbao, Commandant of
the Guards for the Prince of Ji, is dated to 660 (Tiji, no. 1426). If
he was part of a royal group including the prince and his mother
who came to Longmen to dedicate her grotto, this also suggests
a date of completion around 660.
117. Some notable examples of the former include not only
.
the Lotus Stra, but also the Vimalakrti Stra, Srangamasamdhi Stra, Mahparinirvn.a Stra, the complete text of
the Avatam
saka Stra (see Thomas Cleary, Entry into the In
conceivable: An Introduction to Hua-yen Buddhism [Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 1983], p. 171), The Stra of Queen
rml Who Had the Lions Roar (see Diana Y. Paul, Women
in Buddhism, 2nd ed. [Berkeley: University of California Press,
1985], p. 290), and the Bhadra-kalpika Stra, Mahmy Stra,
Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, and Mahsak Vinaya (see Nattier,
Once Upon a Future Time, p. 23, n. 30; p. 50, n. 61; p. 29, n. 4; p.
29, n. 5).
200 | n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 0 9 1 1 4
New Studies in Chinese Buddhist Art, ed. Janet Baker (Mumbai: Marg Publications, 1998), p. 102, figures 2c and 2d. In a recent catalogue, the necklace is described as Sassanian Empire
(The Glory of the Silk Road: Art from Ancient China, ed. Li Jian
[Dayton, Ohio: The Dayton Art Institute, 2003], cat. 114), but the
point remains the same: the necklaces worn by the Vairocana
shrine bodhisattvas are not native Chinese style, but Western.
6. This color scheme was used for bodhisattvas in early Tang
murals at Dunhuang, such as those in Cave 220. For reproductions, see Dunhuang shiku quanji, ed. Duan Wenjie, 10 v. (Hong
Kong: Commercial Press, 2002), v. 2, pl. 108109. On the glass
remains found in the pupils of the Vairocana, see Liu Jinglong,
Fengxiansi, p. 4. Zhang Naizhu reports that around the pupils of
the south wall bodhisattvas eyes were found some bits of a dark
green mineral (Longmen shiku Da Lushena xiang kan kaocha
baogao, p. 126).
7. The inscription on the north face is not visible at present,
having been cemented over for its protection. See Antonino
Forte, Marginalia on the First International Symposium on
Longmen Studies, Studies in Central and East Asian Religions
7 (1994): 7576.
8. Not only is the shrine commonly referred to as Fengxiansi
today, but an inscription dedicating a nearby grotto in 683 refers to the shrine as Fengxian Monastery (Grotto 1371; Tiji, no.
1654), and since the donor was a eunuch palace official, he would
hardly have called it by the wrong name. Because of the square
holes punctuating the walls of the shrine to anchor the wooden
beams of an architectural faade, many have thought the shrine
was the Fengxian Monastery. The inscription itself (as discussed
in the following chapter) says, however, that the monastery was
built to the south of the cliffs. The architectural faade was
added later, perhaps in the Northern Song (9601127) or Jin dynasties (11151234). See Gong Dazhong, Longmen shiku yishu,
p. 137; and Wen Yucheng, Letan Longmen Fengxiansi de jige
wenti, Zhongyuan wenwu 1984.2: 57, which quotes the unpublished opinion of Cai Xuechang. Cai believed the distribution of
the beam holes in the wall and the holes for columns cut in the
floor of the shrine were consistent with Song architectural ideas;
moreover, since the beam holes ruined the design of the sculpture, they would hardly have been cut during the Tang dynasty.
As Wen points out, quoting Fozu tongji, the throne ordered the
repair of statues at Longmen in 1015, which may be when the
architectural faade was added to the Vairocana shrine. That
the shrine was designed to exist without a roof or faade is also
suggested by the 120-meter, V-shaped trench originally cut into
the rock above the shrine, which served to shunt water away.
See Gong, Longmen shiku yishu, p. 137; and Jing Luo, Wenbo
jianxun: Henan sheng (On 1971 restoration of Fengxiansi),
Wenwu 1972.3: 7475.
9. Longmen was originally known as Yique, or the Watchtowers on the Yi, but from the mid-seventh century onward, it
was more often called Longmen, or the Dragon Gate. According to the early-ninth-century Yuanhe junxian tuzhi, when Emperor Yang of Sui (r. 604617) traveled to Luoyang to consider
it for his new capital, he climbed the Mang Mountains north of
Luoyang and looked south toward the cliffs at Yique. Turning to
his ministers, he said: Is this not a Dragon Gate? What is the
reason that since antiquity no one has built a capital here? His
official Su Wei replied: It has not been unknown since antiquity. It was simply waiting for Your Majesty. The emperor was
pleased with this response and discussed situating his capital in
Luoyang (Yan Wenru, Longmen shiku mingming zhi youlai,
in Longmen shiku yanjiu lunwenxuan, p. 3). He soon issued an
edict that the Eastern Capital be established at the confluence
of the Yi and Luo rivers (Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 180, p.
5615), in accord with medieval notions of geomancy (fengshui).
It was sited with its back to the Mang Mountains as a protective
barrier to the north, while the waters of the Chan River flowed
on the east, and the current of the Jian River ran on the west
(ibid., ch. 180, p. 5618), to corral the qi, or cosmic life-breath,
which flowed through the mountains and pooled at their base,
so that its energy could quicken the city and its inhabitants. The
citys southern aspect was also intended to conform to Han dynasty notions of imperial city design, which mandated alignment on a north-south axis. The Sui-Tang city of Luoyang was
intentionally built about nine kilometers west of the old Luoyang
city walls of the Han and Northern Wei dynasties, specifically
in order to line up the north-south axis of the city with the cliffs
at Yique. This axis ran from the Yingtian Gate in the southern
wall of the Palatine City southward through the Duan Gate in
the Imperial City wall and the Dingding Gate in the outer city
wall to the cliffs facing each other like gates across the River Yi.
This perception is confirmed by certain inscriptions at Longmen
that relate to the Dingding Gate, such as one for Grotto 1917,
dated 697, which situates the grotto facing north to the Ding
Gate (Tiji, no. 2730), while the Wei Muqian Family Shrine dedication of 717 places its grotto in the suburbs of the Dingding
Gate (Tiji, no. 1399). By relocating the capital, the Dragon Gate
became the first southern gateway on the northward approach
to the imperial city, the city of the dragonthe emperor. See
the map showing the axis from the Mang Mountains through
Luoyang to Yique in Heng Chye Kiang, Cities of Aristocrats and
Bureaucrats: The Development of Medieval Chinese Cityscapes
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999), fig. 7.
10. The Shiji Monastery site was excavated recently. See Li
Jianchao, Sui Tang Changan cheng Shijisi yizhi chutu wenwu,
Kaogu 1988.4.
11. Translation based on Tiji, no. 1635, with reference to Tiji,
no. 1637; the annotations in Wen Yucheng, He Luo shangdu
Longmenshan zhi yang da Lushena xiangkan ji zhushi, Zhong
yuan wenwu 1984.3: 99100; and the translation in Chavannes,
Mission archologique, v. 1, pt. 2, pp. 254256. See also Okada
n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 1 4 1 1 6 | 201
202 | n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 1 6 1 1 9
Stele (Grotto 176; Tiji, nos. 0245, 0255, 0256) and as Kang Fazang
joined with a group to dedicate two King Udayana shrines north
of Laolong Grotto (Grottoes 676677; Tiji, nos. 11201121).
38. Cleary, Entry into the Inconceivable, p. 163.
39. Ibid., p. 168.
40. The length of time required to produce the Vairocana
shrine has been the subject of considerable speculation. Of various time frames, the shortest is the three years and nine months
from the moment of Empress Wus donation of her rouge
and powder money in 672 to the completion of the project on
January 20, 676, as first expressed by the Buddhist historian
Zhipan in 1269, who stated unequivocally that in 672 an order
was issued to excavate a stone shrine at Longmen containing a
Vairocana image eighty-five chi in height (Fozu tongji, ch. 39).
Jin Weinuo, Wen Tingkuan, and Jing Luo, the first twentiethcentury Chinese experts to write on Longmen, agreed with this
statement, although Professor Jin expressed astonishment that
so large a project could have been completed in three years and
nine months. See Jin Weinuo, introduction to Longmen shiku,
ed. Longmen baoguanso (1961); Wen Tingkuan, Woguo beibu
de jichu shiku yishu, Wenwu cankao ziliao 1955.1: 6994; Jing
Luo, Wenbo jianxun: Henan sheng, pp. 7475. Mizuno and
Nagahiro also held this view, which was followed by other Japanese scholars into the 1980s (Rymon sekkutsu no kenky, v. 1,
p. 141; Sofukawa, Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,
1:210; and Tanabe, Rymon sekkutsu hsenji d honzon, p. 43).
Mizuno and Nagahiro advanced the theory that the Vairocana
shrine was constructed on the original, abandoned site of the
Binyang grottoes, since there must have been a large excavation left behind when the original site was deserted, and yet, a
large half-excavated area of this kind does not exist at Longmen.
Hence, it must have disappeared as the area was excavated deeper
to produce the Vairocana image shrine. Okada Ken took issue
with Mizuno and Nagahiros theory (Rymon sekkutsu sho-T
sz ronsono san, p. 105). Believing that the site of the Vairocana shrine could not have been the spot deemed too high for
the Binyang grottoes, since the successfully completed Northern
Wei Huangfu Grotto is at exactly the same height, he climbed
up on the cliff face above the current location of the Binyang
grottoes and found what he considers to be the traces of their
original site. Even though the Vairocana shrine must have been
created entirely in the Tang, then, he felt that three years and
nine months would not have been adequate, and he proposed
a theory that the project must have been begun around 671, by
considering the number of inscribed intrusive shrines produced
in certain years in correlation with events in Luoyang, especially
the periodic arrival of the imperial court from Changan. First,
he noted the dearth of inscriptions at Longmen in the early 670s.
There are no inscriptions dated to 670, although Okada attrib
utes that fact to the crushing effect of the nationwide drought
that peaked in that year. As a consequence of the famine conditions in the Guanzhong area, the imperial court did leave
Changan for Luoyang in 671, which is when Okada believes the
Vairocana project was begun. Only a dozen inscribed shrines
were produced in the five years from 671 through 675, a remarkably low total compared with the two dozen produced in 668
and 669 alone. Okada considers this lack of inscribed shrines
in the early 670s as evidence that a vast imperial project had
commandeered all available workers. If the project were begun
around 671, it would have taken about five years to complete.
Another theory has been proposed by Ohashi Katsuaki (Long
men shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue
kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 238). In a very close reading of the sequence of
facts stated in the Vairocana shrine inscription, Ohashi observes
that the wording suggests the empress made her donation to a
project that was already under way in 672. The statement about
her aiding the project follows so closely after the statement that
the emperor established the shrine, however, that it suggests the
shrine was not established very long before 672. Ohashi estimates the project was begun about five or six years before 672,
so that the total length for the project would have been between
eight and ten years. No justification for this estimation is given,
but to extrapolate from his estimate of duration would mean the
shrine was begun around 665 or 666, and indeed, the court was
in Luoyang for most of 665. During this period, shrines were
sponsored at Longmen by persons associated with the court,
including Wang Xuance, the imperial envoy to India, and Feng
Shiliang, a eunuch secretary to the empress (Tiji, nos. 0145 and
0141). After surveying the theories of Wen Tingkuan and others who argue for 672, Gong Dazhongs theory of 655, and Li
Yukuns theory of pre-662, which has been disproved, Zhang
Kaisheng, who is on the staff of the Henan Provincial Museum,
offers his own theory of 666 as the inaugural date, based in part
on the participation of Wei Ji. See Zhang, Luoyang Longmen
Fengxiansi Daxiangkan kaizao niandai qianshuo, in Longmen
shiku yiqian wubai zhounian guoji xueshu taolunhui lunwenji,
ed. Longmen shiku yanjiusuo, pp. 151156. An even longer period was proposed by Gong Dazhong, who felt that if the Northern Wei Binyang trio was worked on for eighteen years, with
only one of them being finished, then surely the much larger
Vairocana shrine would have taken as long or longer and was
begun shortly after Wu Zetian was made empress in 655 (Gong,
Longmen shiku yishu, pp. 134135). This view is echoed in Wen
Yucheng, Tang Gaozong li Dalushena xiangkan, p. 156.
41. Sima Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 200, p. 6319.
42. These conversions use a Tang standard of 29.5 centimeters
per chi. See Wan Guoding, Tang chi kao, p. 119.
43. Daoshi (d. 683), Fayuan zhulin (Rpt. Shanghai: Shanghai
guji chubanshe, 1991), ch. 14, p. 117.
44. Cambridge History of China, v. 3, p. 255.
n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 1 9 1 2 0 | 203
59. For the Guyang shrine, see Rymon Kyken sekkutsu, ed.
Kuno Takeshi and Sugiyama Jir (Tokyo: Roppyo, 1982), pl. 118.
For Sichas shrine on the faade of Cave 5, see Gongxian shiku si
(Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1989), p. 287, text 114, reproduced
in pl. 251.
60. Hida Romi,Sho-T jidai ni okeru Aiku z, p. 91.
61. Sofukawa, Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,
pt. 1, p. 227.
62. Gu Yanfang and Li Wensheng, Longmen shiku zhuyao
Tang ku zongxu, in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 260.
63. Tiji, no. 0602. See the ink rubbing in Beijing tushuguan
cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian, v. 16, p. 137.
64. Li Yukun, Longmen xukao, Wenwu 1983.6: 32.
65. The basis for this idea is that the title Dajian appears in
The History of the Northern Wei as an office in the female palace
bureaucracy, and apparently it continued to be used in the Tang.
See Gong Dazhong, Longmen shiku yishu, p. 152. On the organization of the palace women during the Tang, see Gao Shiyu,
Tangdai fun (Xian: San Qin chubanshe, 1988), pp. 1230.
66. Sofukawa, Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,
pt. 1, pp. 223225 and n. 225.
67. Tiji, no. 1137.
68. Liu Jinglong, Longmen ershipin: Beike yu zaoxiang yishu,
no. 20.
69. This is probably the second site of the monastery. In 722,
the Yi River flooded and ruined the original Fengxian Monastery (see chapter 8). The Longhua Monastery was ordered to
join with the Fengxian Monastery, meaning that the Longhua
Monastery became the Fengxian Monastery. My sincere thanks
to Aurora Testa, a member of the excavation team, for giving
me a copy of her detailed report, Sculptures Unearthed at the
Fengxiansi Monastery, Longmen, Annali dellIstituto Orien
tale de Napoli 62 (2002): 125166. Chinese reports and studies
include Fengxiansi yizhi fajue gongzuodui, Luoyang Longmen Fengxiansi yizhi fajue jianbao, Zhongyuan wenwu 2001.2:
1020; Fu Andun, Longmen Da Fengxiansi de qiyuan ji diwei,
Zhongyuan wenwu 1997.2: 8392; and Wen Yucheng, Longmen
Fengxiansi yizhi diaocha ji, Kaogu yu wenwu 1986.2: 2729.
70. Forte, Political Propaganda and Ideology in China, p. 97, n.
116. From Shujing, Shangshu, Taijia 2, in James Legge, trans., The
Chinese Classics, 5 v. (Rpt. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University
Press, 1960), v. 3, p. 208.
71. Forte, Political Propaganda and Ideology in China, p. 97,
n. 116.
72. Longmen shiku diaoke, p. 21; Wen Yucheng, Tang Gaozong
li Dalushena xiangkan, p. 156; Wen Yucheng, Letan Longmen
Fengxiansi de jige wenti, p. 54.
73. On the Da Ciensi, see Weinstein, Buddhism under the
Tang, pp. 2627. On the Haotian Guan, see Wang Pu, Tang
hui yao, ch. 50, p. 869. T.H.Barrett considers the naming of
men. The eastern hills were called Xiangshan, or Incense Mountain, while the western cliffs were compared to the Himlayas in
Cen Wenbens inscription of 641.
19. Sofukawa Hiroshi counts a total of forty-nine figures. He
says, There are those who say there are forty-eight figures. However, according to old photographs (meaning Chavannes, Mis
sion archologique, pl. 225), to the east of the south-wall guardian
figure, above the shrine with three Buddhas in it, there was one
niche with a Buddha in it, which has been left out. See Tangdai
Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu, pt. 2, p. 126. Wen Yucheng
says there are three to the south of the Vairocana, eleven on the
north side, seven on the south wall, and twenty-seven on the
north wall, for a total of forty-eight. See Longmen suojian liang
Tangshu zhong renwu zaoxiang gaishuo, p. 136.
20. Sofukawa, Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu, pt. 2, pp. 126129; Wen Yucheng, Longmen suojian liang
Tangshu zhong renwu zaoxiang gaishuo, pp. 135136.
21. Yan Wenru, Longmen Fengxiansi san zaoxiang bei-
ming kaoshi, pp. 2223. Tiji, no. 1632, has mistranscribed the
seventh day as the seventh month. Wen Yucheng (Zhongguo
shiku diaosu quanji, v. 4, p. 38) and Chavannes (Mission ar
chologique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 458) also have 730.
22. The inscription is currently cemented over, but an ink rubbing is reproduced in Rymon zz daiki, no. 49.
23. Wen Yucheng believes this means the statues were refurbished by Emperor Xuanzong (He Luo shangdu, pp. 99100).
24. On the subject of stimulus and response in Buddhist belief, see Robert H. Sharf, Coming to Terms with Chinese Bud
dhism, esp. pp. 120122.
25. These are the thirty-two major marks and eighty minor
signs on the body of the Buddha.
26. Using a Tang standard of 29.5 centimeters for one chi (ten
chi make one zhang), 12 zhang equals a width of 35.4 meters, while
140 chi equals a height of 41.3 meters. See Wan Guoding, Tang
chi kao, p. 119. Modern measurements of the shrine vary. Zhang
Naizhu gives a width of 33.5 meters for the shrine and 49.38 meters as the height of the top of the shrine from the base of the
cliff (Longmen shiku Da Lushena xiang kan kaocha baogao,
p. 122). Liu and Yang give the dimensions of the shrine proper as
19.68 meters high, 38 meters wide, and 36 meters deep. See Liu
Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 8, p. 25.
27. I rely on the translation in Chavannes, Mission archolo
gique, v. 1, pt. 2, p. 456.
28. Wen Yucheng, in Longmen shiku, ed. Longmen wenwu
baoguansuo and Beijing daxue kaoguxi, v. 2, p. 221. There is
only one mention of a Longhua Monastery in the inscriptions at
Longmen. That was made in 533 at Yaofang Grotto, but it could
have referred to one of the two Longhua monasteries established
in Luoyang in the late Northern Wei (Tiji, v. 1, pp. 3839).
29. According to the account in Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu,
Wuxing zhi, ch. 37, p. 1357: The Yi River overflowed and de208 | n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 4 5 1 4 9
stroyed the Tianzhu (India) and Fengxian monasteries at Longmen, south of the capital city, ruining everything up to the
southeast corner of the citys suburbs. The height of the water
was over six feet...houses and trees were submerged.
30. Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 5, p. 129; Sima
Guang, Zizhi tongjian, ch. 212, p. 6749.
31. Sofukawa,Tangdai Longmen shiku zaoxiang de yanjiu,
p. 128.
32. Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 184, p. 4757; Ouyang Xiu and
Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 207, p. 5858.
33. They were put in charge specifically of the purchase of
birds and animals to be used for the release of living creatures.
See Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 184, p. 4757; and Ouyang Xiu
and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 207, p. 5858.
34. See Gao Lishis biography in Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch.
184, pp. 47574759, esp. p. 4757.
35. Zhao Junping, Tang Gao Lishi muzhi juewei, p. 17.
36. Apparently, it was found or excavated illegally in Shaanxi
Province and then returned to the Pucheng Cultural Relics
Management Office. See Zhao Junping, Tang Gao Lishi muzhi
juewei, p. 16. See also the epitaph of Gaos father, written by the
eminent official Zhang Yue, likely at Gao Lishis request, after the
death of his mother, ne Mai (642729), transcribed in Tangdai
muzhi huibian xuji, ed. Zhou Shaoliang and Zhao Chao (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2001), Kaiyuan 092, p. 516.
37. On Gao Yanfu, see Du Wenyu, Gao Lishi jiazu ji qi yuanliu, Tang yanjiu 4 (1997): 175197, esp. pp. 186187.
38. Cambridge History of China, v. 3, p. 334.
39. Zhao Junping, Tang Gao Lishi muzhi juewei, p. 16.
40. Ibid., p. 17.
41. Cambridge History of China, v. 3, pp. 389, 413.
42. Liu Xu et al., Jiu Tang shu, ch. 184, p. 4757; Ouyang Xiu and
Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, ch. 207, p. 5858.
43. For the text of Gao Lishis Spirit Road Stele at Tailing, see
Du, Gao Lishi jiazu ji qi yuanliu, pp. 175176.
44. Eunuch sponsorship of single Amitbha statues is not unusual. Fifty percent of dated shrines from the early Tang contain
an Amitbha figure, and of the ten eunuch dedications at Longmen where the image can be identified, either by iconography or
by inscription, five are for Amitbhas. These are the eunuch ceremonial secretary Feng Shiliangs large shrine in Binyang South
Grotto, done in 665; three small shrines in Grotto 355, done in
the 660s by low-ranking eunuchs (Tiji, nos. 0402, 0406, and
0403, comparing the last with Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie,
Longmen shiku zonglu, v. 2, p. 70); and the small cave dedicated
by the acting director of the Palace Gates Service Mo Guyin to
the imperial family in 684, just north of Guyang Grotto. Tiji
identifies it as Grotto 1430; Longmen shiku zonglu has Grotto
1437 (v. 8, p. 114, pl. 568).
45. Liu Jinglong and Yang Chaojie, Longmen shiku zonglu, v.
8, p. 19, pl. 121124.
are reproduced in v. 6, pl. 2223; and details from the Stele for
the Enfeoffment of Kong Xian as Marquis of Zongsheng, dated
221, are reproduced in v. 3, pl. 5960.
30. Tiji, no. 2337.
31. Fang Ruo and Wang Zhuanghong, Zeng bu Jiao bei sui bi
(Shanghai: Shanghai shuhua chubanshe, 1981), p. 241.
32. Zhu Jia, ed., Guang Yizhou shuangji shuzheng (Hong Kong:
Zhonghua shuju, 1979), ch. 19, p. 175. The King Udayana figure
was produced from an abandoned Northern Wei shrine in the
lowest register of Guyang Grotto, on the north wall beneath Wei
Lingzangs shrine.
33. See, for example, Liu Jinglong, Longmen ershipin: Beike yu
zaoxiang yishu; and Longmen ershipin.
n o t e s t o pa g e s 1 6 4 1 6 5 | 211
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Index
Empress Zhangsun (the Wende empress), 7576, 78, 82, 86, 91, 126, 140
141, 161, 171173
Enchin, 159
epigraphy, 160165
esoteric: imagery, 2, 150; school, 3, 143,
150, 159
eunuch officials, 56, 61, 62, 143144, 150;
in charge of Buddhist projects, 31,
55, 56, 120, 143156; as donors, 1, 5,
143156, 179, 207n. 11, 208n. 44
expenditure: complaints about, 64, 117;
rhetoric of, 4, 6, 51, 56, 120, 147; statements of, 32, 51, 52, 59, 77, 109, 116,
119120, 188n. 5, 190n. 46
fa (graphic variant for Dai), 183n. 39
Faguo, 7, 17
Fahai Monastery, 127, 129
Fangshan (Yunju Monastery), 94, 110,
118
Fanwangjing, 116
Fasheng (Northern Wei monk), 8, 9, 12,
16, 16, 24, 25, 43, 55, 56, 164
Fasheng (Tang cleric), 103
Fawen and Falong (nuns), 9, 56, 57, 170,
187n. 71
Fayuan zhulin, 96, 120
Fazang (Kang Fazang), 103, 119, 127, 150,
198n. 85
Fengxian Monastery, 4, 115, 123, 126,
140142, 147148, 157, 162, 178180,
201n. 8, 206n. 69
feng xian si xiao, 140
Fifteen Thousand Buddhas, 123, 135136,
136, 139, 178, 206n. 57
filial piety, 5, 6, 51, 52, 76, 87, 126, 132, 140,
149, 150
First Meditation, 6869, 70, 191n. 107
five phases theory, 4849
Freer Gallery, 1, 2, 187n. 64, 191n. 88
Gao Chu (layman), 9, 12
Gao Lishi (eunuch official), 4, 143144,
148149, 151, 154, 179, 210n.8
Gao Shu (layman), 9, 16, 21, 24, 164,
182n. 29
Gongxian grottoes, 40, 136
good karma clay images, 130131
Great Vairocana Image Shrine: frontis
piece, 35, 111122, 112116, 123, 127, 130,
132, 137, 140, 143, 145, 154, 159, 162, 163,
165, 177
228 | i n d e x
230 | i n d e x