Mount Wutai: Visions of a Sacred Buddhist Mountain 9780691191126

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Mount Wutai

Mount Wutai Visions of a Sacred Buddhist Mountain Wen-shing Chou

Princeton University Press Princeton and Oxford

Copyright © 2018 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR Portions of chapter 1 previously appeared in modified form in “Imperial Apparitions: Manchu Buddhism and the Cult of Mañjuśrī” by Wen-­shing Chou, Archives of Asian Art 65, nos. 1 and 2, 2015, 139–­179, © University of Hawai‘i. Portions of chapter 4 previously appeared in modified form in “Maps of Wutai Shan: Individuating the Sacred Landscape through Color” by Wen-­shing Chou, Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies no. 6, December 2011, © International Association of Tibetan Studies; and “Ineffable Paths: Mapping Wutaishan in Qing-­Dynasty China” by Wen-­shing Chou, Art Bulletin, March 2007, © CAA. press.princeton.edu Jacket illustrations: ( front) Gelöng Lhundrub, Panoramic View of Mount Wutai (detail), ca. 1846. Rubin Museum of Art, New York. C2004.29.1. (back) Rölpé Dorjé, 15th leaf, Rebirth Lineage Album of Rölpé Dorjé, Qing court, China, 18th century. Color on silk; quadrilingual verses inscribed with powdered gold on black ground ciqing paper. Individual leaf: 42 × 27.2 cm. Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin. Endpapers: Gelöng Lhundrub, Panoramic View of Mount Wutai (detail), ca. 1846. Woodblock print on linen, hand-colored. Woodblocks from the Cifu Temple, Mount Wutai. 118 × 165 cm. National Museum of Finland, Helsinki. All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Chou, Wen-­shing, author. Title: Mount Wutai : visions of a sacred Buddhist mountain / Wen-­shing Chou. Description: Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017013016 | ISBN 9780691178646 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Buddhist temples-­-­China-­-­Wutai Mountains. | Cultural landscapes-­­China-­-­Wutai Mountains. | Wutai Mountains (China)-­-­Symbolic representation. | Buddhism and culture. Classification: LCC BQ6345.W85 C49 2018 | DDC 294.3/435095117-­-­dc23 LC Record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017013016 British Library Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data is available Design by Yve Ludwig This book has been composed in Adobe Jenson Pro Printed on acid-­free paper. ∞ Printed in China 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my family

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction  1

1 Imperial Replicas  17

2 Miracles in Translation  51

3 Landscape and Lineage  79

4 Panoramic Maps  121

Coda  165

Appendixes 173 Notes 179 Bibliography 207 Index 223 Photo Credits  226

Acknowledgments

I express my gratitude for the hard work and generosity of so many who made this book possible. My graduate advisor, Patricia Berger, at the University of California, Berkeley, introduced me to the riches of Buddhist art; the breadth and depth of her scholarship inspired me to conceive this project. May the finished work be a small testament to what has been a most rewarding adventure that began under her supervision. I am also indebted to my other teachers: Gregory Levine read the dissertation that was the seed of this book with care and insight, Robert Sharf provided unfailing intellectual and practical advice along the way, and Raoul Birnbaum saw the many lives of the project with perceptive comments from start to finish. For the past decade, Isabelle Charleux has enriched this project with her wealth of knowledge and thoughtful reading. I also thank Wu Hung for setting me on the path of art history when I was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, and for sending me to Mount Wutai by suggesting that I look into it as a dissertation topic. Numerous institutions provided community, resources, and funding for the completion of this project. The University of California, Berkeley, History of Art Department, Institute for East Asian Studies, and Center for Chinese Studies; the Ittelson Dissertation fellowship from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), Washington, DC; and the Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Art, Kyoto, all funded the research and writing of my dissertation. My home institution of Hunter College, as well as the larger system it belongs to  —  ­the City University of New York (CUNY), awarded me with numerous grants for the research and publication of this book. I am especially grateful to my chair, Howard Singerman, and colleagues Nebahat Avcıoğlu, Emily Braun, and Cynthia Hahn for their guidance over the years;

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Lynda Klich and Tara Zanardi have my unending thanks for having read every chapter of this book with keen-­eyed comments and good cheer. My inquisitive students have made the task of balancing teaching and the writing of this book worthwhile. A year-­ long Mellon fellowship for assistant professors at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, NJ, afforded me the freedom to research the more adventurous part of this book and the time to complete the manuscript. Warm thanks are due to the entire community at IAS and in Princeton, especially to Nicola Di Cosmo and Susan Naquin for their mentorship. I also thank the Columbia University Seminars Publication Funds for defraying the cost of images and permissions. Friends and colleagues from around the world have opened many doors for me during my research. Luo Wenhua, Li Jianhong, Xie Jiesheng, Xiong Wenbin, Wei Wen, and Yang Hongjiao facilitated access to sites and collections in Beijing and Chengde. Lin Shih-­Hsuan informed me about materials in the Rare Book Library of the Palace Museum, Beijing, and arranged to view them with me. Ngawang Keldan and the staff at Shifang Hall gave me a home on Mount Wutai. At Larung Gar, Khenpo Sodargye and Khenpo Tsultrim Lodro gave their time and their texts. In Europe, Wang Ching-­ Ling arranged for me to study the collection of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin; Klaus Sagaster, Karl-­Heinz Everding, Hans Roth, Eva Seidel, Hartmut Walravens, and Michael Henss all helped me to track down difficult-­to-­find references. Zhang Yajing of the Palace Museum, Beijing; Chen Yunru of the National Palace Museum in Taipei; and Henriette Lavaulx-­Vrécourt of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin all went out of their way to arrange for photography of unpublished materials in their collections. Closer to home in New York and New Jersey, Gray Tuttle always availed me of resources and opportunities; Karl Debrezceny and Kristina Dy-Liacco have been the first responders to my research queries. Two wise and learned teachers, Chokyi Drolma and Kelsang Lhamo, patiently guided me through many Tibetan texts. Together with the late Gene Smith, they encouraged me to delve into a wealth of Tibetan sources. Tenzin Bhuchung provided the initial English translation of a Tibetan guide to Mount Wutai, forthcoming from Wisdom Publications, which became the focus of my study on literary translation. I am also grateful to many librarians for their patience, diligence, and intuition, especially Sharwu Lijia of the Sichuan Minorities University in Chengdu, Xianba, at the library of the Minorities Cultural Palace in Beijing; Marcia Tucker of IAS; Susan Meinheit of the Library of Congress; and Gowan Campbell at the Interlibrary Loan Office of Hunter College. The databases of the Tibetan Buddhist Research Center (TBRC) and the Himalayan Art Resources (HAR) have also been indispensable for this project. The better parts of this book result from conversations. I extend my thanks to the organizers and participants of the many seminars, workshops, conferences, and lectures where stimulating exchanges took place, and to my friends for showing me that writing does not have to be a lonely endeavor. Wendi Adamek, Ester Bianchi, Aurelia Campbell, Janet Chen, Johan Elverskog, Robert Gimello, Jonathan Gold, Jeehee Hong, Ellen Huang, Nancy Lin, Brenton Sullivan, and Peggy Wang all read and commented on portions of the manuscript in its various incarnations. For their questions, directions, and insights, I thank Susan Andrews, Sarah Bassett, Marcus Bingenheimer, Matthew Canepa, Jinhua Chen, Dora Ching, Patrick Geary, Margaret Graves, Jonathan Hay, Eric Huntington, Yu-­Chih Lai, Liao Chao-­Heng, Christian Luczanits, William Ma, Eric Ramirez-­Weaver, Alexander von Rospatt, Rebekah Rutkoff, Jerome acknowledgments

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Silbergeld, Stephen Teiser, and Dorothy Wong. Catherine Becker, Amanda Buster, Sonal Khullar, Jinah Kim, Ching-­Chih Lin, Filippo Marsili, Sujatha Meegama, Jenny Tsai, Orna Tsultem, and Catherine Wu have also provided much support and encouragement along the way. I give my heartfelt thanks to two anonymous reviewers for Princeton University Press. Their perceptive feedback proved indispensable for the revision of the manuscript. Stephen Frankel and Victoria Scott lent significant editorial help to parts of the manuscript. Cynthia Col prepared the index and Marcia Glass proofread the text. At Princeton University Press, I thank Michelle Komie, Hannah Zuckerman, Sara Lerner, and Steve Sears for expertly shepherding the book to its final form, and Jennifer Harris for her meticulous copyediting. My deepest gratitude goes to my family. My parents, Linna and Jen-­Chang Chou, have nurtured me with their boundless love for life. My in-­laws, Su-­Chen and Chaur-­ Gen Chen, always understood and accommodated my need to work during our precious time together. Both sets of parents have extended marvelous grandparental support. My sister, Sylvia Chou, and brother-­in-­law, Paul Portner, have been steady sources of counsel. Most of all, I am grateful to my husband, Wei-­Hung Chen, who ran our household and cared for our daughter with a dedication matched only by his precision, and to Beatrice, for being so spirited, patient, and gifted at long naps through it all. This book is about an enlightened place on earth, but in my everyday, Wei-­Hung and Beatrice have been the ones who bring me closer to the realm of the Clear and Cool.

acknowledgments

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Mount Wutai

Introduction

Traveling around the Buddhist sacred range of Mount Wutai 五臺山 in northern China in 2005 (fig. 0.1), I used as my guide a scaled-down photocopy of a map from a museum in Helsinki (see fig. 4.1).1 The map, a hand-colored print from a woodblock panel carved in 1846 by a Mongol lama residing at Mount Wutai’s Cifu Temple 慈福寺 (Benevolent Virtues Temple), is a panorama of some 150 sites in a mountain range filled with pilgrims, festivities, flora and fauna, and cloud-borne deities, accompanied by parallel inscriptions in Mongolian, Chinese, and Tibetan. The map led me not only to monasteries, villages, and other landmarks but also into lively conversations with groups of Tibetan monks traveling or residing on the mountain. Without fail, the monks’ eyes lit up when they saw the map. Despite never having seen the image before, they expressed reverence, delight, and the resolve to scrutinize its every detail (fig. 0.2). It was clear they recognized in the map a kindred vision of the mountain as an important place for Tibetan Buddhism. Although this vision had been physically erased from the mountain itself after more than a century, the map pictorialized and materialized what the monks had learned through a rich textual and oral tradition that had attracted them to Mount Wutai in the first place. Interspersing every corner of the map are depictions of miracle tales, saintly biographies, and ritual festivities that appeared familiar to the monks. The overwhelming demand for the map, as a way to “remember” what was no longer readily discernable on the mountain, prompted me to return the following summer to bring additional photocopies to the Tibetan monks residing at Mount Wutai. Soon thereafter, new footpaths formed to several remote and forgotten sites depicted on the map. The map from Helsinki was one among a rich trove of objects that were created by Inner Asians, including Manchus, Tibetans, Mongols, and Monguors,2 during the Qing

1

detail of fig. 0.6

fig. 0.1. View from Central Terrace, Mount Wutai, Shanxi Province, China. Photograph by author, 2005. fig. 0.2. Monks from Amdo, Eastern Tibet, examining a map of Mount Wutai at the Shifang Hall, Mount Wutai. Photograph by author, 2005.

dynasty (1644–1912), when the millennium-old Buddhist sacred mountain of northern China was transformed into a vital center of Tibetan Buddhism. Owing much to this history, the site continues to be one of the only places in China proper to attract large numbers of Tibetan pilgrims today. This book recovers the dynamic history of Qing Mount Wutai through objects in multiple languages, genres, and media from this period. It examines the spatial, textual, and material means by which Inner Asian rulers and monks reimagined the age-old tradition of the sacred mountain cult on their own terms. Examples include sculptural and architectural imitations of Mount Wutai’s iconic images and temples, translations of pilgrimage guidebooks, eulogistic portrayals of saintly figures, and panoramic mappings of the mountain. By examining these objects as instruments of devotion and as representations of identity and statecraft, I place them at the center of a pivotal but unacknowledged history of artistic and intellectual exchange between the different religious, linguistic, and cultural traditions of China and Inner Asia. Mount Wutai explores the many ways in which the objects reshaped the site’s physical environment and conceptual landscape, mediated new formulations of Buddhist history and geography, and redefined Inner Asia’s relations with China. Mount Wutai literally means “the Five-Terraced Mountains.” Located in the present-day Xin Prefecture (Xinzhou 忻州) of Shanxi province (map 1), it comprises a cluster of hills at the northern end of the Taihang 太行 mountain range, between Datong 大同 and Taiyuan 太原. The Yamen 雁門 Pass of the Great Wall lies not far to its north, which traditionally demarcated China’s northern frontier. A sprawling expanse rather than a single peak, it is nonetheless referred to as a “mountain” for the historically unitary concept of the site. This area centers around its namesake, the five terraces or plateaued summits, which are respectively referred to as the Northern, Eastern, Southern, Western, and Central Terraces. The exact precinct of Mount Wutai shifted over time, as did the designation of the five terraces.3 The broader region within and beyond the five terraces  —  referred to respectively as “inside” and “outside” the terraces (tainei 臺內 and taiwai 臺外)  —  covers an area of around 1,100 square miles. It is home to some of the most important monasteries and well-preserved timber architecture in China.4 The central area inside the terraces alone, an area of roughly 130 square miles, still houses over one hundred temples today.5 Geologically speaking, the flat tops of the terraces are physical features that demonstrate their age. Mount Wutai is one of the oldest lands to surface above water some 26 billion years ago, and possesses the highest altitude in northern China, with introduction

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the highest peak (Northern Terrace) reaching over three thousand meters.6 The elevated terraces, perennially cold and wind-swept, are aptly described by the mountain’s more ancient name, Clear and Cool Mountains (Qingliang Shan 清凉山), which continues to be used as an alternative name for the site. Other earlier names, such as Purple Palace (Zifu 紫府), allude to Mount Wutai’s pre-Buddhist past as a place for immortals and spirits.7 In Tibetan, Mount Wutai is referred to both as Riwo Tsenga (Ri bo rtse lnga, the Mountain of Five Peaks) and as Riwo Dangsil (Ri bo dwangs bsil, the Mountain of Clear and Cool). The Tibetan nomenclature suggests a slight shift in meaning, where the topographically descriptive “terrace” is replaced with the more conventional “peak,” and where the “clear and cool” could also refer to the “pure and cool.” RU S S I A

RU S S I A

Urga

HEILONGJIANG

Beijing

Changbai

MONGOLIA

XINJIANG

Mount Wutai Beijing Mount Tai TIBET Mount CHINAWutai PROPER Lhasa AMDO/ Shigatse Mount Chengdu QINGHAI Tai TIBET Samye Monastery Mount CHINA PROPER Mount Jiuhua BH U TAN Emei Lhasa Shigatse

KO R E A SHENGJING

Dunhuang

N

E

N

B U R Monastery MA Samye

BH

INDIA

Bodh Gaya INDIA

U TAN

Chengdu

KO R E A

Mount Putuo Mount Putuo

N

Sacred mountains

ANNAM

South China Sea

0

300 600

ANNAM

South China Sea

0

300 600

N

1,200 km

Sacred mountains

1,200 km

Shenyang

MONGOLIA

Dolonnuur

MONGOLIA

Baotou

Yellow Sea

Mount Jiuhua

Mount Emei

BURMA

Bay of Bengal Bay of Bengal

Baotou

Yellow Sea

AMDO/ QINGHAI

E

PA Bodh Gaya L

map detail. Area around Beijing.

JILIN SHENGJING Mount

Urga

Dunhuang

MountP A L Kailash

JILIN

Mount Changbai HEILONGJIANG MONGOLIA

XINJIANG

Mount Kailash

map 1. Qing China, circa 1820. Map by Chelsea Gross.

Dolonnuur

Shenyang SHENGJING

Chengde

Hohhot

Hohhot Yanmen Pass

Datong

SHENGJING

Chengde

Xiangshan

Beijing

Northern Mount Heng Xiangshan

Datong

Beijing

Yellow Sea

NorthernBaoding Mount Wutai Yanmen Mount Heng

Pass

Taiyuan

Mount Wutai

Taiyuan

Yellow Sea N

Baoding

CHINA PROPER C H I N A P R O P Mount ER Tai

Mount Tai

introduction

3

N

0 0

75 75

150 150

Great Wall Sacred mountains

300 km

Great Wall Sacred mountains

300 km

These subtle nuances are important, as Mount Wutai becomes conceptualized in Tibet as a “pure land” (Tibetan: zhing mchog), a paradise or celestial realm of a Buddhist deity. The Mongolian name is generally a transliteration of the Chinese (Utai Shan), although in official accounts it is called Serüün Tunggalag Agula  —  literally, Cold and Clear Mountain.8 Reference to Mount Wutai in Manchu is likewise a direct transliteration rather than translation. For sake of simplicity, I refer to the site as Mount Wutai unless the specific discussion requires a use of one of its other names. Buddhist images and scriptures first arrived in China in the second and third centuries from India via the network of trade routes on the Eurasian continent known as the Silk Road. It may be as early as the fifth century that Mount Wutai was recognized as the earthly residence of the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, one of the most important deities of Mahāyāna Buddhism (“the Great Vehicle,” referring largely to the Buddhist traditions of East Asia and the Himalayas today) and a figure who is regarded as the embodiment of wisdom. From the sixth to the eighth centuries, accounts of visionary encounters with the deity at Mount Wutai, combined with scriptural authorities that prophesized Mañjuśrī’s presence there, legitimized the northern Chinese site as a new cultic center of Buddhism away from the religion’s origins in India.9 An element of this recentering is reflected in the name of the earliest and most prominent summit in the range. It was called the Numinous Vulture Peak (Chinese: Lingjiu Feng 靈鷲峰) after the Indian site of the same name (Sanskrit: Gr·dhrakūt·a) where the Buddha gave many sermons.10 In time, this eastward move became both spatial and temporal. Mañjuśrī was articulated as a successor to the Buddha Śākyamuni after the latter passes into nirvana,11 and Mount Wutai the place in this world where the dharma continues to prevail.12 No other deity had been so firmly associated with a single site by different groups of Buddhists all over Asia from such an early period onward, and been so continuously venerated up to the present day. Mañjuśrī was, as he still is today, believed to appear to worthy pilgrims in marvelous and unexpected ways. His manifestations were assiduously recounted in texts and pictures that serve to affirm the scriptures, the past encounters, and the potential for future ones.13 Pilgrims subsequently went to Mount Wutai precisely in the hopes of gaining their own direct experiences of Mañjuśrī.14 The mountain’s claim for sacrality, in other words, rests chiefly on its promise of revelatory encounters in the present and future, rather than on the possession of relics or other physical traces of the historical Buddha.15 By the early eighth century, Mount Wutai rose to prominence as a center for monastic learning, royal patronage, and PanAsian international pilgrimage. The mountain that was once promoted by local monks and rulers as a substitute for Buddhist India became itself a site to be substituted. Surrogate “Mount Wutais” in far-flung places, such as the monumental wall paintings in the desert oasis of Dunhuang and temple replicas in Japan, bear witness to the ambition to simulate, and even to supersede, the original.16 The first well-documented Inner Asian presence at Mount Wutai took place during the Yuan 元 dynasty (1279–1368), when Mongol emperors invited Buddhist ritual masters from Tibet to the mountain.17 The Mongol rulers were reenacting what numerous rulers of reigning dynasties in China have done by enlisting Mañjuśrī as the protector of their nation and by seeking to reinforce legitimacy for their reign through an alignment with bodhisattva’s earthly abode.18 But unlike the earlier rulers, their preference for Tibetan Buddhism led to the establishment of Tibetan monasteries, the appointment of official Tibetan monks to preside over religious affairs of the mountain, and introduction

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the introduction of a new literary and visual culture to the mountain. The Sakyapa Lama Pakpa (Chos rgyal ’Phags pa; Chinese: Basiba 八思巴; 1235–1280), who was later appointed by Khubilai Khan (1215–1294, r. 1260–1294) as the Yuan imperial preceptor, spent three months on the mountain in 1257 en route to the imperial capital. His poetry of the mountain composed during his stay at Mount Wutai incorporated the mountain into the Tibetan Buddhist cosmography, astrology, and aesthetics.19 The Yuan imperial government ordered the construction of both Chinese and Tibetan monasteries, including the Great White Stupa by the Nepalese artist Anige 阿尼哥 (1245–1306).20 Its striking new Himalayan architectural form proclaims a distinct Mongol Yuan imperial authority. Towering over the entire Taihuai 臺懷 valley town between the five terraces, it remains the most iconic monument of the mountain today (fig. 0.3; and see appendix A, no. 57). The ensuing centuries witnessed a steady increase of Inner Asians on the mountain. But up until the seventeenth century, there was little exchange between the Tibetan and the Chinese canonical discourses of the mountain. The Mount Wutai that existed in Tibetan art and literature up until this time emphasized instead a primordial vision of the mountain, a vision preserved well into the later period. Examples can be found on the illuminated manuscripts of the White Beryl, a Tibetan astrological text authored by Regent Sanggyé Gyatso (1653–1705), and in the wall paintings of the Samye Monastery (figs. 0.4 and 0.5).21 Five symmetrically configured peaks, each topped with a manifestation of Mañjuśrī, preside over an enchanted Buddhist paradise filled with blossoming trees, frolicking animals, and gushing waterfalls impervious to temporal transformation. It was only during the Qing dynasty that the practice of writing and pictorializing the mountain became a full-fledged multilingual and multimedia endeavor.22 For the first time, Inner Asians were authoring the mountain’s canonical history and imagining Mañjuśrī’s presence from their own vantage points while engaging with the history and historiography of the mountain. The instigators were the Qing Manchu emperors23  —  having come to rule China from outside the Great Wall in northeast Asia, they fashioned themselves in the role of cakravartin (literally, wheel-turning king, referring to an Indian ideal of a universal and enlightened ruler who turns the wheels of law, whose reign brings peace and justice) and emanation of Mañjuśrī, a double assumption of religious kingship famously pictorialized in thangka paintings (Tibetanstyle hanging scrolls) featuring the Qianlong 乾隆 emperor (1711–1799, r. 1736–1795) as the wheel-turning bodhisattva emperor emanating out of his mountain abode (figs. 0.6 and 0.7).24 The Qing promoted the cult of Mount Wutai especially through introduction

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fig. 0.3. View of Taihuai village with the Great White Stupa. Photograph by author, 2009.

fig. 0.4. Mount Wutai in the Illustrated White Beryl Elemental Divination Manuscript, Central Tibet, mid-18th century. Pigment on cloth. Rubin Museum of Art, New York. C2015.7.4-6.

their sponsorship of Gelukpa institutions of the Dalai Lamas. The Shunzhi 順治 emperor (1638–1661, r. 1644–1661) established monasteries in the Gelukpa tradition at each of the important locations on the mountain and installed monks from Tibet and Mongolia in them.25 He also created the official appointment of Gelukpa “jasagh lamas” to preside over all (Chinese and Tibetan) Buddhist affairs at Mount Wutai, an administrative post that eventually became appointed directly by the Dalai Lamas from a pool of Gelukpa lamas trained in Central Tibet.26 Other important lamas, most notably the Mongour reincarnate lama Changkya Rölpé Dorjé (Lcang skya Rol pa’i rdo rje, 1717–1786; introduction

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hereafter, Rölpé Dorjé), who was the religious teacher and advisor of Qianlong, regularly retreated to Mount Wutai. Their presence attracted large followings. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the sheer number of Tibetan Buddhist monks and pilgrims from Tibet, Mongolia, as well as China proper had transformed the mountain into, in the words of the Jiaqing 嘉慶 emperor (1760–1820, r. 1796–1820), “China’s Tibet” (Chinese: Zhonghua weizang 中華衛藏; literally, China’s Ü-tsang).27 This liminality was further reflected in the taxation status of the land itself. The Gelukpa monasteries of Mount Wutai, which owned the entire Taihaui valley and more, were considered by Qing regulations to be an extension of Tibet and Mongolia in Shanxi province.28 As Mount Wutai became a vibrant center of economic trade and religious devotion for Manchus, Tibetans, and Mongols above all,29 it subsequently enjoyed its distinction in the expanding Qing empire as the only shared place of devotion among Chinese and Inner Asian Buddhists that was not monopolized by imperial patronage or that of any other group.30 Within China proper, Mount Wutai became well known, starting in the fifteenth century, as one of the four famous mountains (sida mingshan 四大名山), a quadriad of sacred sites each associated with a chief bodhisattva.31 None of the other three mountains, however, had been the site of prominent Tibetan Buddhist establishments.32 For the new influx of Inner Asians on Mount Wutai, who otherwise shared little affinity for Chinese language and history, the promise of encountering Mañjuśrī on the mountain, which had been largely sustained by accounts of past encounters in canonical Chinese writings and images, required a linguistic and cultural translation. The desire for unmediated access to Mañjuśrī led both the Manchu emperors and Inner Asian monks to reimagine the mountain in their languages and through the lenses of their own traditions. Their efforts  —  in the very different media of temples, icons, guidebooks, poetry, painting, and maps  —  also included collaborations with court officials, translators, artists, merchants, and lay pilgrims. Each attempt represents an interest in bridging the divide between the history and geography of the site and its Inner Asian imagination. The promise of a sound linguistic translation  —  at once preserving the truthfulness of the original language and rendering it intelligible to its intended audience in another language  —  however impossible to achieve, encapsulates in a metaphoric sense the Qing Inner Asian engagement with Mount Wutai. The case studies in the pages to follow treat the objects of translations as active agents of the process by which Inner Asians and their collaborators came to terms with and reinvented Mount Wutai; they speak of how the mountain was perceived by their makers and users, and how that introduction

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fig. 0.5. Mural of Mount Wutai, east-facing side of the outermost corridor, first floor of the main assembly hall, Samye Monastery, Central Tibet. Photograph by author, 2007. fig. 0.6. (overleaf left) The Mañjughosa Emperor, 18th ˙ century. Thangka. Ink and colors on silk. 111 × 64.7 cm. Formerly in the Trashi Lhünpo at Chengde. Palace Museum, Beijing. fig. 0.7. (overleaf right) The Mañjughosa Emperor, 18th ˙ century. Thangka. Ink and colors on silk. 113.5 × 64 cm. The Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Purchased by anonymous donor and with Museum funds, F2000.4.

perception was continuously asserted within different spheres. To be sure, the desire for scriptural, visual, and spatial translations underpins the history of Mount Wutai from the inception of its fame. Similarly, the closely related linguistic and material translations underlay almost every aspect of the Qing imperial self-fashioning, both within the Buddhist context and beyond it to the empire’s expanding global reach.33 Situated within these two larger histories, the Qing-period translation of Mount Wutai is in every way intensified by the overlapping interest in the process. Employing the concept of translation as a unifying lens through which to view the plethora of materials does not however unify the visions themselves. I show instead that the process of translation gave rise to a permeable conception of the mountain. When examined in relation to one another, the various objects exhibit a shared capacity to acknowledge histories and outlooks of the mountain other than the perspective expressed by the given object itself. In contrast to holy sites such as Jerusalem, which are defined by contested ownership of history and competitive claims of certain truths over others, Qing Mount Wutai presents a case of diverse yet mutually inclusive views. The concept of truth, in other words, appears to be broad and expansive. These objects were created within a religiopolitical pilgrimage cult for the purpose of proclaiming an authentic vision of the mountain, yet they maintain an openness to alternative vistas. Whether they recount the miraculous tales of medieval Chan (Zen) meditation masters at Mount Wutai or map a lineage of Indo-Tibetan deities onto the mountain landscape, for example, these objects portray a holy mountain whose efficacy is strengthened by the coexistence of multiple ways of seeing the mountain.34 Even though the long history of Mount Wutai is, like any other important religious site, rife with contested power dynamics, the fact that its fame from the beginning of its history is defined by divergent apparitions of a deity in unexpected forms lends a sense of openness to diverse perceptions of the mountain. The idea that Mañjuśrī can appear in any form on the mountain to guide sentient beings accords with the Pan-Mahāyāna Buddhist doctrine of skillful means (upāya), which argues that Buddhist teachings can be delivered by whatever means necessary, depending on the capacity of the hearer. The flexible expectation of Mañjuśrī’s appearance was subsequently amplified in the Inner Asian appropriation of a mountain. The Qing imperial projection of Buddhist kingship, the introduction of Tibetan tantric Buddhism’s vast iconographic pantheon of deity manifestations, its mandalic cosmologies of the sacred mountain as an abode for an assembly of deities, and an ontology that emphasizes the interconnection between place and being, as well as the mutual indistinguishability between deities and persons, teachers and disciples, all contributed to an inclusive mapping of deities, emanations, and past encounters with Mañjuśrī from Indo-Tibetan, Mongolian, Manchu, and Chinese Buddhist traditions. In guidebooks, praise poems, and hagiographies by Inner Asian authors, the varied manifestations of Mañjuśrī were explicated as the “literal interpretations” (drang don) under the doxographical scheme that a scriptural work can have two meanings, literal and definitive (nges don). What is implicit is the twotruths doctrine  —  the understanding of reality as having an ultimate truth (only to be perceived by the enlightened) and a corresponding ordinary one (as experienced by the unenlightened according to the person’s capacity). The bilevel understanding of meaning and reality was mobilized by the Qing Qianlong emperor in his replicas of the mountain, reformulated through the Tibetan-language translation of a Chinese gazetteer, visualized in the portrayal of figures who were considered Mañjuśrī’s worldly introduction

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incarnations, and propagated through widely disseminated pilgrimage maps. Through these different media of translation, the landscape of Mount Wutai came to subsume all beings, places, emanations, and encounters with Mañjuśrī. The objects of translation examined in this book mediate this all-encompassing conception of the mountain as a place for the manifold manifestations of Mañjuśrī. This book grew out of an attempt to grapple with the slippery yet expansive notion of a sacred site at an important juncture of cultural and religious transformation. There has been a surge of publications dedicated to Mount Wutai in the last few years, with the majority of them focusing on the first millennium of its Buddhist activities.35 Whether they trace the developments of the site itself, or its cult and copies across Asia, they largely view Mount Wutai, the original one anyway, as a paradigmatic Chinese mountain vis-à-vis Buddhist India, a site whose cult “Buddhicized” China as it “Sinicized” Buddhism.36 However, Mount Wutai’s location near the northern frontier of China proper meant it had existed for much of its history as a culturally and linguistically diverse site. By all available accounts, it was under the patronage of the non-Han Chinese rulers of the Northern Wei (386–534) that the mountain first became a Buddhist site.37 Under the sponsorship of many non-Han rulers of the Five Dynasties (907–960), Tangut Xixia 西夏 (1038–1227), Khitan Liao 遼 (907–1125), Jurchen Jin 金 (1115–1234), and Mongol Yuan 元 (1279–1368), Mount Wutai’s monasteries had continued to thrive even throughout periods of war and unrest.38 It is beyond the scope of this book to adequately account for the complexities of the preceding centuries. Nonetheless, by exploring the Inner Asian engagement with Mount Wutai in the Qing, my work aims to provide an alternative, decentered perspective of the mountain that can also create new paths of inquiry for Mount Wutai’s earlier history. Most indispensable to my study is Isabelle Charleux’s recent monograph, which reconstructs the on-the-ground experience of Mongol pilgrims from every walk of life  —  the social, economic, and religious motivations for their journeys and what they did and saw on their travels. Through scrupulous mining of wide-ranging sources, most notably her comprehensive field survey of donative stele inscriptions, Charleux revives a significant but hitherto little-known popular culture of pilgrimage and trade. It is this larger context that I draw from in my study of the production and circulation of individual objects. Unlike the approach taken by Charleux with regard to Mongols on Mount Wutai, my work does not attempt to explicate every experience of Inner Asian pilgrims at Mount Wutai, nor survey the long history of Tibetan Buddhism at Mount Wutai. Instead, I have chosen to focus on objects (and communities who made them) that bridged the divide between the site’s layered history and geography on the one hand, and its early modern Inner Asian Buddhist imagination on the other. Each act of reimagining the mountain represents an original synthesis of the two. As a result, my study considers the histories and historiographies of the preceding centuries through the lens of the Qing Inner Asian engagement, the same lens that also refracts the creativity of Qing imperial self-fashioning, the popular cult of miraculous images in the eighteenth century, the dexterity of Qing Gelukpa scholasticism, the temporal and spatial expansiveness of Tibetan Buddhist hagiography, and the pictorial density of nineteenth-century cartography. My study is equally indebted to a conference on Qing Mount Wutai organized by Gray Tuttle and Johan Elverskog and held at the Rubin Museum of Art in 2007.39 As many conference participants have demonstrated, the case of Qing Mount Wutai introduction

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challenges any easy definition of  “Chinese” or “Tibetan” Buddhism in extant discourse of Qing history.40 The Qing imperial promotion of Mount Wutai transcends the binary narratives of political instrumentation and religious aspiration, as well as static notions of any other ethnic and religious identity. This book begins with a response to this thread of inquiry by showing that the chief interest of the Manchu emperors, especially Qianlong, was to derive and formulate a tradition of imperial Buddhism through association with (and proximity to) Mount Wutai vis-à-vis his multicultural subjects. I argue that Qianlong’s appropriation of a millennium-old vision cult from diverse sources and traditions perfected, from the point of view of the emperor, a universal Manchu imperial mountain. In the context of the Qing court’s multifaceted and versatile employment of histories and traditions,41 Mount Wutai proved to be a site of enormous potential for the Qing reenactment of universal kingship. Yet the imperial vision had no monopoly on the mountain. My second claim is that the Qing rulers were not the sole agents of cultural and religious transformation in Mount Wutai and Inner Asia, as has been the tacit assumption behind many recent works that emphasize the technologies and taxonomies of Manchu statecraft.42 On the one hand, Mount Wutai served as an ideal ground for the manifestation of Buddhist kingship by the Manchu rulers; on the other hand, it was equally ideal as a site where the Buddhist Tibetans and Mongols could reinvent their own religious genealogies vis-à-vis the empire. This book demonstrates that the Inner Asian remaking of Mount Wutai was an ongoing, fluid, and collaborative process that involved the intersection of many narratives and visions. A cross-cultural study of Mount Wutai makes transparent that every notion, beginning with that of the sacred mountain, is contextual and dynamic. That the language of discourse  —  in this case, English  —  is also a translation, engages it in yet another kind of cross-cultural conversation. Ever since Émile Durkheim postulated a universal definition of the sacred (or the religious) as a collective transcendence of everyday life,43 and Mircea Eliade subsequently formulated a definition of the sacred mountain as a manifestation of the sacred in the ordinary,44 much work has been done to dissolve or problematize the dichotomous definition of the sacred vis-à-vis the profane,45 and to reveal instead “pluralistic” and “many-faceted” understandings of sacred sites.46 Especially useful have been localized definitions of pilgrimage and sacred geography through native narratives and terminologies in Chinese, Tibetan, and Japanese contexts. In them, the sacred mountain is perceived as a container for something powerful. It is also microcosmically and macrocosmically contingent on a network of other sites with correspondences to political geography.47 I come to the ongoing discussion about the nature of sacred mountains through an abundance of noncanonical sources in multiple media and genres from late imperial China. Beyond textual and ethnographic sources, this book shows that built-environment, sculptural, and visual objects reveal changing conceptions of the mountain through a material and formal language of their own. My approach is to interpret and analyze their diverse languages as particular instances and manifestations of the mountain; it is to study these objects’ varied spatial, visual, and verbal strategies as articulations of the cosmopolitan nature of this discourse. I have chosen materials that exemplify the creativity of transcultural engagements that were contingent upon a shared devotion to Mañjuśrī by Chinese and Inner Asian Buddhists, and that were therefore possible only at Mount Wutai. As a site-based study, this book participates in a growing interdisciplinary discussion about the multidimensional significance of space(s) and place(s).48 Place, whether it introduction

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is of a mountain or a city, is understood to encompass multiple temporalities and spatialities. It constitutes, as Eve Tuck and Marcia McKenzie put it, “sites of presence, futurity, imagination, power, and knowing.”49 My exploration of the multiple conceptions of Mount Wutai as well as the interdependence between place and person exemplifies this fluid understanding of place. Similarly, notions of the revelatory and the miraculous, and of the extraordinary vis-à-vis the ordinary, vary from one cultural context to another and from one medium or genre to another. By focusing on objects that embody the transitions and expansions of meaning of the preceding concepts, I view the sacred mountain as a dynamic and interactive process in the making, rather than as something that is static, concrete, or absolute.50 Centered on the notions and mechanisms of replication, literary translation, lineage, revelatory visions, and divine kingship, my study offers a new and accessible framework for the understanding of Buddhist sacred geography. Qing Mount Wutai is likely not the only site that can be characterized by an open notion of space. It provides instead a model for thinking about the spatialized instantiation of an inclusive idea of truth that can also be found elsewhere. Various modes of cumulative or inclusive practice proposed by scholars of East and South Asia have helped me formulate a model of plurality. Outside the Buddhist context, Prasenjit Duara’s definition of  “superscription” to refer to the appropriation, rather than erasure, of symbolic meaning by one group over another,51 modified by Paul Katz as “cogeneration” and “reverberation,”52 is one useful way to understand the fortifying nature of the layering of experiences and subjectivities. Sheldon Pollock’s use of the term “Sanskrit cosmopolis” to characterize the cohesiveness of a vast cultural domain provides yet another model for understanding the ways in which different groups from Tibet, Mongolia, and China proper related to a Pan-Gelukpa Buddhist narrative.53 Within Buddhist traditions, the premodern Japanese concept of honji suijaku 本地垂迹 (literally, “original ground and manifest traces”), in which native gods were identified as emanations of nonnative Buddhist ones, and vice versa, provides a well-articulated model for the incorporation of indigenous deities and practices into a new tradition, and indeed for the shifting form of appearance that is fundamental to the Buddhist perception of the world.54 Like the preceding concepts that emphasize the accretive and fluid nature of meaning, plural visions of the mountain remain just as they are  —  diverse, varied, and open. In China, Chün-fang Yü has reflected on the ecumenical notion of emanations of deities as an indication of their skillful means, particularly with respect to the different local manifestations of the bodhisattva Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara).55 In the case of Mañjuśrī at Mount Wutai, this flexible notion of emanation not only defines the conception of the Buddhist deity itself but also enhances the perceived authenticity of the deity’s residential abode on the mountain for its multilingual and multicultural pilgrims from Inner Asia. I argue that this spatialized, site-specific understanding of emanations thrived as a result of a new wave of Inner Asian tantric Buddhist translation of the mountain, in which all deities, emanations, and past encounters with Mañjuśrī were collectively present. The inclusiveness of multiple perspectives is both a historical reality and the most useful paradigm to use to access this history. The organization of this book reflects the plurality that underlies the very way the space of Mount Wutai was understood. Beginning with a consideration of the Qing courtly vision of Mount Wutai that instigated the Inner Asian transformation, chapter 1 examines the construction of three monasteries in and around Beijing during the eighteenth century. Commissioned by the Qianlong emperor, the monasteries were designed as “copies” of famous temples and miraculous icons introduction

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from Mount Wutai. The creative process of replication, or spatial translation, serves as a prism through which to see how Qianlong conceived of, mobilized, and re-created the mountain and its history of apparitions, and to what ends. Probing archival, visual, architectural, sculptural, epigraphic, travel, and cartographic evidence surrounding the making of these monasteries, I show that the design of these replicas in effect staged an apparition of Mañjuśrī in the emperor himself. Through the Indo-Tibetan tantric ritual language of transformation, Qianlong embodied the most highly celebrated apparition of Mañjuśrī at Mount Wutai  —  a miraculous icon of the deity that had followers throughout Inner and East Asia. The building of the three monasteries illustrates the gradual translation and transformation of Mount Wutai into a field of enlightened activities for the Qianlong emperor himself as Mañjuśrī, and an increasingly defined imperial Buddhist identity based on this understanding. This identity, realized through ritual, architectural, iconic, and conceptual translations of Mount Wutai, at once asserts the importance of the Qing empire within the larger Buddhist cosmology and reinforces the universal, all-encompassing nature of Qing Buddhist kingship. Qing imperial tours of Mount Wutai ended with Qianlong’s son the Jiaqing emperor in the early nineteenth century. With the waning of imperial support, monasteries of Mount Wutai found donors elsewhere. As wealth poured in from Inner Asia, especially Mongolia, Mount Wutai emerged as a thriving pilgrimage center for an unprecedentedly large number of Mongols, Monguors, Tibetans, Manchus, and Han Chinese, as well as foreign visitors from all sectors of society, fueling a large trade network linking Mongolia, Amdo (northeastern Tibet), Central Tibet, China proper, and Europe during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Chapter 2 addresses the flourishing of multilingual guidebooks during this period by examining the most authoritative Tibetan guidebook to Mount Wutai generated after the waning of imperial support at the end of the eighteenth century. Written by monk-scholars of the Tibetan Gelukpa sect residing on Mount Wutai and issued bilingually in Tibetan and Mongolian, the text is, as I have discovered, an adaptation of a Chinese mountain gazetteer (a literary subgenre that chronicles a locale) into a Tibetan pilgrimage guidebook. It demonstrates a great urgency to access, interpret, and transmit Mount Wutai’s Chinese-language history to a Tibetan- and Mongolian-reading audience. I trace both the unwitting and the deliberate transformations of the content, genre, and style of the Chinese source in the process of translation. This chapter asserts that past encounters with Mañjuśrī, whether by a Chan Buddhist master or an early Daoist deity, came to constitute an integral part of the Inner Asian understanding of the mountain. The result is a bridging of two textual traditions of Buddhist history and geography. The translation of terminologies reveals the instability of every category, beginning with the very notion of Mañjuśrī’s apparitions. By mapping the changing conceptions of the miraculous and the extraordinary, this chapter is as much about the expansion of Mount Wutai’s sacred geography as it is about the forging of new meanings and ideas in the process of translation. Saintly biography plays a central role in mediating conceptions of Mount Wutai. Chapter 3 explores visual and textual portrayals of the life and previous lives of the Beijing-based reincarnate lama Rölpé Dorjé, who spent virtually every summer of the last four decades of his life in retreat at Mount Wutai. Rölpé Dorjé was the most important religious master of the Qing empire. As the Buddhist teacher and advisor to Qianlong on liturgical and political affairs of Inner Asia, he served as the main ritual consultant in the building of the monasteries explored in chapter 1; as a polymath and introduction

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court translator par excellence whose tenure at Mount Wutai attracted a network of monk-pilgrims to the site, Rölpé Dorjé was also the initial author of the guidebook examined in chapter 2. The materials I examine in chapter 3 include both eulogistic depictions of his former incarnations as Indian and Tibetan scholars and narratives of events during his own lifetime. Significantly, they are interlinked with similar representations of the Qianlong emperor (as the thirteenth incarnation of Mañjuśrī) and the Sixth Panchen Lama Lozang Pelden Yeshé (Blo bzang dpal ldan ye shes, 1738–1780), the ˙ Gelukpa hierarch who visited Beijing in 1780 with Rölpé Dorjé as a chief liaison.56 In all of them, Mount Wutai is rendered as a foundation or support for a host of Indo-Tibetan protector deities as well as for reincarnation and transmission lineages stretching back to India via Tibet and Mongolia. It is at once a receptacle for the assembly of deities and a Buddhist paradise existing in contingent relations to other spaces. This paradoxically site- and person-specific, yet universal, quality of Mount Wutai anchored the simultaneity and interchangeability of the pantheon of figures, as well as the potential for a continuous expansion of a network of past, present, and future lives. The concept of Mount Wutai as an open and expansive space is nowhere more clearly materialized than in the creation and dissemination of its pilgrimage maps. Chapter 4 focuses on two multilingual map images (see fig. 4.9 and figs. 4.1 through 4.5) of Mount Wutai: a late eighteenth- to early nineteenth-century mural in the Inner Mongolia monastery of Badgar Choiling Süme, and the 1846 woodblock panel carved at Mount Wutai’s Cifu Temple. The first map still survives intact in its location in the monastery. The second map  —  thirty printed impressions and later imitations that I have been able to recover from various collections  —  was widely printed, handcolored, and then gifted or sold around the world. Both maps are layered images that encapsulate, on a single pictorial surface, the diverse visions and understandings of Mount Wutai. My analyses reveal that whereas the mural represents a constellation and a distillation of multiple visual worlds of early modern Mongolia, the woodblock panel (in its popular dissemination through printing, individuation through coloring, replication through tracing, and copying in other media) embodies the composite and collective nature by which “multiple mountains” continue to be generated. Through the study of these two maps, I also show that, embedded in every interpretation of the mountain, including those explored in earlier chapters, there is a dialogic tension between the ahistorical and the historical, the local and the imperial, the textual and the visual, the soteriological (as in the practice of the Buddhist path) and the political. This book is principally concerned with Mount Wutai as a site and a source for a thriving literary, visual, and material culture of translation in the Qing. I show that, far from serving solely as a place for the derivation of political power or economic opportunity, Mount Wutai provided Qing Inner Asians a space to reinvent their own history and identity vis-à-vis the empire. Yet this promise does not end with the fall of the Qing geopolitical structure. Since the mid-1980s, Mount Wutai has once again emerged as an important site of Tibetan Buddhism in eastern China in the wake of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). In spite of the very different political and religious realities, the mountain is once again at the center of cross-cultural and religious imagination. A pilgrimage to Mount Wutai in 1987 led by Khenpo Jikmé Püntsok (’Jigs med phun tshogs, 1933–2004), one of the most influential Buddhist teachers of the second half of the twentieth century in Tibet, is a case in point. I end with a consideration of this pilgrimage to demonstrate the revisionist potentials of Mount Wutai. introduction

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1 Imperial Replicas

Soon after they conquered China from north of the Great Wall, the Qing Manchu rulers received the appellation of “Mañjughos·a [Mañjuśrī] Emperor” by the Dalai and Panchen Lamas of Tibet.1 The Qing emperors beginning with Shunzhi all but ˙ embraced this appellation through extensive promotion of the cult of Mount Wutai. The association with Mount Wutai poised them in northern China to extend their sphere of influence among Buddhists in Inner Asia, especially vis-à-vis the newly powerful Dalai Lamas of Central Tibet, who were considered emanations of Avalokiteśvara (the embodiment of compassion), the other principle bodhisattva of Mahāyāna Buddhism residing at his earthly mountain abode of the Potala Palace. The pattern of the imperial promotion of Mount Wutai, however, resists the straightforward narrative that the Qing performed in the guise of Mañjuśrī-incarnates exclusively for an Inner Asian audience.2 As scholars have shown, the fact the Qing emperors devoted more attention to Chinese-language publications of Mount Wutai and an equally considerable donation toward Chinese Buddhist temples at the mountain require an explanation beyond the appeasement of their Inner Asian constituency.3 Shunzhi, Kangxi 康熙 (1654–1722, r. 1662–1722), and Qianlong each sponsored the production of a new edition of Mount Wutai’s Ming dynasty gazetteer. Wheareas Kangxi toured the mountain five times,4 Qianlong upped the ante by visiting the mountain six times and doubling the length of his own imperially commissioned gazetteer.5 By his own admission, Qianlong would have gone to Mount Wutai even more frequently, had it not been for consideration of his aging mother, for whom replica temples at Xiangshan 香山 (Fragrant Hill), the imperial park west of Beijing, were built as sites of surrogate pilgrimages. Kangxi and Qianlong’s personal predilections, religious and filial piety,

17

detail of fig. 1.15

were no doubt incentives, as witnessed by the sponsorship of familial rituals and their peripatetic inclinations. But those activities neither justify the extent of the very public display of their efforts nor explain the seeming discrepency between their support of Gelukpa Buddhism at Mount Wutai on the one hand, and of Chinese monasteries and publications on the other.6 Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the Qing imperial promotion of Mount Wutai is Qianlong’s transformation of the mountain on a different order  —  his “copies” or surrogates of Mount Wutai that have yet to receive a substantial investigation.7 Beginning in 1750, Qianlong commissioned the building of at least three monasteries in and around his court in Beijing that were to be “modeled after” ( fang 仿) originals at Mount Wutai: Baodi Monastery 寶諦寺 (Precious Truth Monastery) and Baoxiang Monastery 寶相寺 (Precious Form Monastery) located adjacent to each other at Xiangshan, and Shuxiang Monastery 殊像寺 (Monastery of Mañjuśrī’s Image) at the imperial summer retreat of Chengde 承德 (also known as Rehe or Jehol), 140 miles northeast of Beijing (see map 1). The three were among more than a dozen monasteries that were fully staffed by Manchu lamas reciting scriptures in the Manchu language (fig. 1.1). The so-called Manchu lamas were selected from the booi (Chinese: Baoyi 包衣) class of the Imperial Household Department.8 Booi, which means literally “household persons,” were dependent servants who staffed the Imperial Household Department, which managed the emperors’ personal affairs. The so-called Manchu lamas were thus Manchu-speaking people belonging to the court who were rarely ethnic Manchus.9 Of the three temples, the lattermost, at the very least, was also explicitly designed to house the Manchu Buddhist canon that was completed in 1790. Qianlong was the fourth Manchu emperor to rule from China proper, but the first to commission the Manchu translation of scriptures and the building of monasteries that mandated their ritual recitations.10 All but one of the Manchu monasteries had been destroyed by the early twentieth century,11 yet records of the building process mined from extant archival sources, maps, travelogues, and gazetteers provide a unique foray into how the spaces were conceived and utilized. Their multifaceted and

fig. 1.1. Manchu monasteries. Modified from Wang, “Qianlong yu Manzu lama siyuan.”

Name

Location

Year

Baodi Monastery 寶諦寺

Xiangshan 香山

 (th year of Qianlong)

Changling Monastery 長齡寺

Xiangshan 香山

Fanxiang Monastery 梵香寺

Xiangshan 香山

 (th year of Qianlong)

Shisheng Monastery 實勝寺

Xiangshan 香山

 (th year of Qianlong)

Dabao’en Yanshou Monastery 大報恩延壽寺

Qingyi Yuan 清漪園

 (th year of Qianlong)

Baoxiang Monastery 寶相寺

Xiangshan 香山

 (th year of Qianlong)

Fangyuan Monastery 方圓廟

Xiangshan 香山

 (th year of Qianlong)

Zhengjue Monastery 正覺寺

Yuanming Yuan 圓明園

 (th year of Qianlong)

Gongde Monastery 功德寺

Yuanming Yuan 圓明園

Shuxiang Monastery 殊像寺

Chengde 承德

 (th year of Qianlong)

Falun Monastery 法輪寺

Mukden/Shengjing 盛京

 (rd year of Qianlong)

Longfu Monastery 隆福寺

Eastern Mausoleum

 (th year of Qianlong)

Yongfu Monastery 永福寺

Western Mausoleum

 (nd year of Qianlong)

chapter one 18

multimedia construction and use, in turn, serve as a prism through which to see how, and to what end, Qianlong mobilized the cult of Mount Wutai. In art historical studies, the words “replica” and “copy” have come to denote a range of emulative acts that interpret more than they duplicate, emphasizing the generative and revelatory nature of the copy.12 Similarly, the issue of the replica for scholars of religion revolves around strategies of the transposition of a sacred center, often through ritual and miniaturation.13 For scholars in both fields, the process of replication renders transparent the selected appropriation of existing traditions, models, and historical genealogies.14 In both, replicas can be seen as metaphorical translations, faithful to the original in so far as they render legible in a different form the selectively perceived truth(s) of the original. At the same time, a formal replica can also defer and defy meaning,15 making them more akin to a linguistic “transliteration.” Artistic and religious practices of replication come together in the wide-ranging copying practices of the Qianlong emperor. The Qing was, as Patricia Berger demonstrates, a “culture of the copy,”16 in which interrelated notions of authenticity in Chinese connoisseurship, eighteenth-century philology, and (Chinese and Tibetan) Buddhism were all collectively mobilized and toward very different goals.17 In the case of Qianlong’s replicas of Mount Wutai, the series of building projects over the better part of his reign maps onto what I see as a trajectory of Qianlong’s increasingly crystallized interest in crafting a Manchu imperial Buddhist identity. Many of these activities came to rest on the repeated copying of a famed miraculous icon at Mount Wutai.18 Different from other true images that were revised, reordered, and reenshrined, Mount Wutai’s miraculous icon of Mañjuśrī can truly be claimed as the emperor’s own. I argue that Qianlong reenacted, and indeed “incarnated” through the visual and architectural language of tantric Buddhism, a celebrated apparition of Mañjuśrī that had diverse followings throughout Inner Asia, East Asia, and the Himalayas. By appropriating a millennium-old history of religious kinship and Pan-Asian legend of a miraculous icon at Mount Wutai, he both encompassed and effectively transcended all ethnic, sectarian, and linguistic affiliations of his constituents. Created away from the mountain, the replicas articulated the ritual, architectural, iconic, and conceptual centrality of the mountain for the Qing emperors better than the original. They also perfected, from the point of view of the emperor, a uniquely imperial Mount Wutai in the original mountain range. The replicated temple grounds were by extension the symbolic and ritual residence of the Mañjughosa emperors. Designed as receptacles for the the imperial copy of Mañjuśrī’s ˙ icon, consecrated by the recitation and safekeeping of Manchu scriptures and the translated scriptural canon, they accompanied an increasingly defined universal imperial Buddhist identity that was epitomized in the compilation of the Manchu canon. A monumental linguistic translation project, the Manchu canon was an enormous scholarly undertaking that is multidirectional and multifaceted, mirroring the complex spatial and visual translation of Mount Wutai. Through this double translation, Qianlong at once asserted the importance of the Qing empire within a larger Buddhist cosmology and reinforced the all-encompassing quality of his kingship.

Baodi Monastery Immediately after Qianlong returned from his 1750 pilgrimage to Mount Wutai with his mother and his guru Rölpé Dorjé, Qianlong told the latter about his aspiration imperial replicas 19

fig. 1.2. Bodhisattva’s Peak, Mount Wutai. From Sekino and Daijō, Shina bunka shiseki, vol. 1, pl. 92. fig. 1.3. Interior of the main hall (Great Mañjuśrī Hall) at Bodhisattva’s Peak, Mount Wutai. Photograph by author, 2004.

to build an exclusively Manchu Buddhist monastery, and put Rölpé Dorjé in charge of designing this new monastery.19 Named the Baodi Monastery, it was to be an imitation of Mount Wutai’s Monastery of the Bodhisattva’s Peak (Pusa Ding 菩薩頂; figs. 1.2 and 1.3). The choice of Bodhisattva’s Peak appeared straightforward. Located on the summit of Vulture Peak, the highest point in the Taihuai valley and also one of its most ancient, Bodhisattva’s Peak had been a site of replica since at least the Tang dynasty.20 Its fame was warranted by the possession of a light-emitting miraculous icon of Mañjuśrī. According to the legend, a reclusive sculptor of unknown origin named Ansheng 安生, after many failed attempts to complete a sculpture of Mañjuśrī without cracks, appealed to the bodhisattva and then succeeded in making a perfect image by modeling it after seventy-two manifestations of Mañjuśrī that accompanied him as he completed his work.21 This temple, known thereafter as the Zhenrong Cloister 真容院 (Cloister of True Appearance), became a conspicuous recipient of donations by emperors of successive dynasties. In murals of Mount Wutai from Dunhuang, for example, the Zhenrong Cloister most often occupies the center of the composition. When the Japanese monk Ennin (794–864) visited Mount Wutai, he was told that this image became the source for all other commissions of new icons throughout the mountain range, none of which can surpass the original.22 Even as the original icon had disappeared, and the temple’s name was changed to Bodhisattva’s Peak during the Ming Yongle 永樂 reign (1403–1424), stories of the miraculous image continued to be published in every imperial and nonimperial guidebook. In fact, the absence of the original image had in all likelihood served to enhance its allure, and contributed to the increasingly more elaborate narrative of its miraculous origin. Bodhisattva’s Peak became the chief Gelukpa monastery by the early Qing dynasty at the latest.23 It was extensively renovated into an official imperial establishment (with yellow-glazed tiles) to house the jasagh lamas of Mount Wutai and to include an imperial traveling palace (xinggong 行宮), as can be seen on the Cifu Monastery map and the imperial gazetteers (fig. 1.4, and see fig. 4.16).24 Kangxi, Qianlong, and Jiaqing all stayed there during their numerous visits to Mount Wutai. It was by far the largest Gelukpa Buddhist establishment on the mountain. During the Qianlong reign, Bodhisattva’s Peak housed approximately one-third of the three thousand lamas (of Tibetan, Mongol, Manchu, and Han ethnic markers) who were residing at Mount Wutai. chapter one

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As the undisputed center of worship and imperial sponsorship since the Tang dynasty, Bodhisattva’s Peak’s re-creation at Xiangshan not only served as a substitute for the original monastery but also evoked the entire mountain range of Mount Wutai.25 In the couplet inscribed on a pair of placards that hung at Baodi Monastery, Qianlong proclaimed the site to be a surrogate of Mount Wutai, which was a surrogate of India (by way of Vulture Peak), but much closer to his court than India or Mount Wutai.26 Qianlong’s choice of initiating a Manchu Buddhist monastery and housing it in a surrogate of Mount Wutai’s most conspicuously imperial as well as Gelukpa Buddhist temple, defined by the memory of a miraculous icon, seems more than appropriate. As a sacred mountain range in China with roots in Tibetan Buddhism, and as the field of enlightened activities for the deity of whom the Manchu emperors were considered incarnations, Mount Wutai was an obvious source and model for the inauguration of a new imperial Manchu monastic culture. The Baodi Monastery was completed in 1751, although by the end of 1750 two hundred Manchu lamas had already been chosen to study Buddhist scriptures in the Manchu language there.27 The Baodi Monastery subsequently became the headquarters for all Manchu monasteries in and around Beijing built throughout Qianlong’s reign. A court-appointed official residing at the Baodi Monastery oversaw all Manchu Buddhist affairs, analogous to the resident jasagh lamas of the Bodhisattva’s Peak who oversaw all Buddhist affairs at Mount Wutai. imperial replicas

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fig. 1.4. Detail of fig. 4.1.

fig. 1.5. Map of Eight Banners Brigade barracks and the Yihe Yuan Summer Palace (detail), after 1888. Pen and ink and watercolor. 97 × 172 cm. Library of Congress, Washington, DC. fig. 1.6. Stone gate at Baodi Monastery, Xiangshan, 1906– 1909. From Boerschmann, Chinesische Architektur, p. 267.

Yet how was the imitation carried out? No buildings from the Baodi Monastery are extant, and no stele inscriptions survive or have been recorded. But extant maps, gazetteers, and court records offer glimpses into some of the precise ways in which the conceptual transfer was realized in material terms. Beginning with the exterior, the imitation seems to be at least referenced in the exterior architecture. A map of the imperial summer garden Yihe Yuan 頤和園 and the surrounding area, which has been dated to after 1888, depicts the Baodi Monastery as having a stone gate at the entrance and steps leading up to it (fig. 1.5). Photographs from the beginning of the twentieth century show a surviving stone gate of the same design (fig. 1.6).28 It is a close kin to the contemporaneously erected stone gate at the Biyun Temple 碧雲寺 (Azure Cloud Temple) in Xiangshan (fig. 1.7), a Yuan-dynasty temple where Qianlong replicated a Tibetan-style Mahābodhi Temple in 1748.29 The steps clearly refer to Bodhisattva’s Peak’s iconic set of 108 steps, commissioned and inscribed by Qianlong’s grandfather the Kangxi emperor (fig. 1.8, and see fig. 1.4). However, here the uniform style, proportions, and texture of Qing imperial stone architecture replaced the original wooden construction at Mount Wutai. The replica monastery also appeared to be much larger than the original. According to a 1770 document in the financial accounts archive (zouxiao dang 奏效檔) of the Imperial Household Department, it had a five-bay main hall, a five-bay rear tower, and a nine-bay assembly hall.30 The complex at Bodhisattva’s Peak, by contrast, featured four halls on the central axis, three of which had only three bays.31 While it would have been difficult, if not completely impractical, to reproduce the exterior and layout of Bodhisattva’s Peak, records from palace workshops of the Imperial Household Department indicate that no effort was spared in reproducing the temple interiors. They detail an attempt to re-create, and also to revise, the ritual setting of Bodhisattva’s Peak. In April 1750, Qianlong ordered the measuring and modeling of two halls at Mount Wutai  —  the Great Mañjuśrī Hall at Bodhisattva’s Peak and the beamless hall (wuliang dian 無梁殿) at Xiantong Temple 顯通寺 (Clairvoyant Power Temple).32 In the case of the Great Mañjuśrī Hall, this included the drawings of all of the hall’s content  —  its Buddhist images and ritual implements, complete with all of its cloth hangings and streamers.33 It is worth noting that Bodhisattva’s Peak’s Mañjuśrī Hall is called a dugang 都剛, which is a Chinese transliteration of the Tibetan word dukhang (’du khang), a congregation hall within a monastery where monks gather for chapter one

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prayer recitations.34 The term refers to a hall that can accommodate a mass assembly in the Tibetan tradition. Since Manchu Buddhism was in large part the practice of Buddhism in the Manchu language following the Gelukpa tradition, the modeling of a Manchu monastery on a Tibetan assembly hall would have made perfect sense. As for the latter temple, the so-called beamless hall refers to a vaulted masonry hall that does not require the beams of a traditional post-and-beam construction. The term “beamless” in Chinese (wuliang 無梁) is a homophone for “immeasurable” (wuliang 無量), and these are the Chinese translations of the names for the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and the Buddha of Immeasurable Life (Sanskrit: Amitābha and Amitāyus).35 For this reason, beamless halls, which numbered only about a dozen in China and were considered to have non-Chinese origins, usually carry the connotation for longevity and were therefore often used for birthday celebrations. It is impossible to know whether the two models were consulted in combination for the creation of the Baodi Monastery, but in light of the fact that Qianlong’s second replica of Mount Wutai at Xiangshan was to be a beamless hall, this second model was most certainly a contended source for replication. Records of the weeks to follow suggest that the copying was done in earnest, with a principal concern for the proper setting for the ritual paraphernalia. Within the two-week period in the same month of April, Qianlong ordered the retrieval, repair, replication, and return of the following offerings and other ritual implements from and back to Bodhisattva’s Peak:36 Seven Treasures (qibao 七寶), Seven Royal Treasures (qizhen 七珍),37 Five Treasures (wubao 五寶), Eight Treasures (babao 八寶), offering tables, mandala offerings, offering bowls, Five Sense Offerings (wuyugong 五欲供), and Eight Offerings (bagong 八供).38 All of them were to be replicated twice: one set sent to the Baodi Monastery and the other brought back to Mount Wutai’s Bodhisattva’s Peak.39 The various sets of offerings, which would have been placed in front of the main icons, are standard offerings within Tibetan traditions that are absent in their Han Chinese counterparts, which would have featured only a much simpler set of Five Offerings (wugong 五供). Found throughout Qing imperial temples, these offerings were either produced at the court or given as gifts by high-ranking lamas visiting from Tibet and Mongolia.40 Equally important as their cultural and religious association to Tibetan Buddhism were their imperial connotations. The possession imperial replicas

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fig. 1.7. Stone gate at Biyun Temple, Xiangshan. Photograph by author, 2009. fig. 1.8. Steps leading up to Bodhisattva’s Peak, Mount Wutai, 1906. Boerschmann, Picturesque China, 109.

of the set of Seven Royal Treasures, for example, which originated in pre-Buddhist India, was one of the defining features of a cakravartin, an identity Qianlong heavily invoked.41 Workshop instructions for the making of the offerings detailed the material, color, pattern, precise type of enamels, frames, and stands of every offering object, such that it is possible to know what the sets produced for the Baodi Monastery and repaired and remade for Bodhisattva’s Peak would have looked like. They appear to have been very similar to a set now on display at the Palace Museum in Beijing (fig. 1.9). The insistence on repairing and reproducing a Tibetan Buddhist ritual setting is consistent with an all-consuming effort at rectifying and standardizing ritual and iconography at Qianlong’s court, in each case of which an Indo-Tibetan, rather than a Han Chinese, model was followed.42 These offerings were ubiquitous and nearly synonymous with Qianlong-era Buddhism, but what is striking is Qianlong’s insistence on replicating and repairing the particular sets of ritual offerings at Bodhisattva’s Peak. The numerous records of production undertaken within a period of three weeks indicate not only that the temple architecture and its interior furnishings were to be replicated wholesale but also that this replication process was an occasion to make the original more perfect, and the two sites more precisely and perfectly congruent. Like Qianlong’s replicas of Inner Asian temples, painting, and icons, every act of copying reinterprets and revises the original, such that “the original was also forced to live up to the expectations of the copy.”43 But unlike other acts of copying, here, the revision of the original was literal. As the first Manchu monastery to be built from the ground up, the Baodi Monastery relied on the precise transferring and perfecting of the ritual setting of Bodhisattva’s Peak to create a familiar, albeit distinctly imperial, Buddhist identity centered on the deity Mañjuśrī. The person behind the perfecting of this ritual setting was certainly Rölpé Dorjé, whose name appears throughout the archives whenever the repairing and replication required verification. As Qianlong’s guru and state preceptor, on whom he relied for all matters of ritual, iconographical, and iconometric authenticity, Rölpé Dorjé’s appointment to the design and institution of the Manchu monasteries made perfect sense. But the project of replicating Mount Wutai would have also struck a special chord with him. An ethnic Monguor born in the Amdo region, Rölpé Dorjé was brought to the Qing court as a young child in 1724 after the Qing military troops razed his home monastery of Gonlung (Dgon lung byams pa gling; Chinese: Youning Si 佑寧寺) during the suppression of the Lobsang Danjin Rebellion.44 He was subsequently raised and educated in the Qing court along with the prince who was to become the Qianlong emperor. He eventually became Qianlong’s personal spiritual advisor and was appointed national preceptor. Between his religious and diplomatic duties at court, Rölpé Dorjé found in Mount Wutai a place for solitude and spiritual practice. From 1750 onward, the Mongour lama who became a permanent Beijing resident was to spend virtually every summer until his death in 1786 at Mount Wutai, holding retreats, giving teachings, performing initiations, writing commentaries, and conducting scriptural translations.45 In the early years, he stayed at Bodhisattva’s Peak, and would therefore have been personally familiar with the temple structure, its iconic legend, and its ritual and liturgical program. Rölpé Dorjé’s Tibetan biographers also detail his visions of Mañjuśrī that guided and inspired his activities on the mountain, and ultimately affirmed his identity as Mañjuśrī’s emanation.46 The ways in which narratives of his communions with Mañjuśrī are embedded within a Tibetan hagiographical chapter one

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tradition is a topic to be discussed in chapter 3, but in the context of his role as a designer and supervisor for the newly instituted Manchu monasteries, they find a parallel in the story of Ansheng’s vision. Available sources don’t yet tell us what kind of liturgical programs were followed at Manchu monasteries like the Baodi Monastery and therefore how the perfect ritual setting was utilized. Yet what is clear is that the effort to transform and perfect the original continued. It shifted from the temple that once housed Mount Wutai’s most famous icon to the famed icon itself.

Baoxiang Monastery Qianlong’s third visit to Mount Wutai in 1761, and the second time with his mother, coincided with the empress-dowager’s seventieth birthday and Qianlong’s own fiftieth birthday.47 The pilgrims were greeted with appropriate fanfare, including the performance of a six-part drama presented in honor of the double birthday celebration.48 At the Shuxiang Temple 殊像寺 (Temple of Mañjuśrī’s Image; appendix A, no. 28), Qianlong was awestruck with the temple’s widely revered namesake image of Mañjuśrī on a lion, a sculpted figure that especially attracted pilgrims from Tibet and Mongolia and that still survives today in its repainted and restored form (fig. 1.10). Qianlong was moved to make at least two sketches of the image plus a lengthy inscription while en route back to Beijing.49 This was a rare gesture for an emperor who wrote voluminously but was hardly known for his own paintings.50 During Qianlong’s previous trips to Mount Wutai, he had ordered court officials Zhang Ruo’ai and Zhang Ruocheng to compose traditional landscape paintings of a snowy scene, on which he wrote lengthy colophons.51 They represent a conspicuous identification with the Chinese classical tradition of gentlemanly cultivation. By contrast, here his attention was turned toward the single icon and to capturing its true trace with his own hand. In many ways, the imperial replicas

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fig. 1.9. Seven Royal Treasures (top register) and Eight Treasures (bottom register) on display at Treasure Gallery, Palace Museum, Beijing. Photograph by author, 2015.

shift from the medium and genre of Chinese landscape painting to those of Buddhist sculpture indicates an idiomatic shift from one cultural domain to another.52 According to records from the Imperial Workshop for Carvings and Paintings, known as Ruyi Guan 如意舘 (Wish-fulfilling Studio), one of the sketches entered the imperial art collection and was subsequently remounted several times over the next several years. While the sketch does not appear to have survived, it subsequently became the basis for the building of an even larger temple next to the Baodi Monastery. Qianlong’s original sketch was, according to his instructions in the colophon of the sketch, enlarged and transferred onto a stone stele.53 In 1762, Qianlong ordered a sculpted replica of the image based on the engraving from the stele, and again asked Rölpé Dorjé to design a temple to house this image.54 The temple, which he named the Baoxiang Monastery, was built immediately adjacent to the Baodi Monastery on its western side (see arched building in fig. 1.5). It was completed in 1767, and the stone stele bearing the engraving was placed next to it (fig. 1.11).55 Steles are long-standing symbols of permanence and public authority in China; what has been carved into the lasting surface of the stone, and made visible to the viewers at the entrance of a building, projects a truth-effect that chapter one

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can be further replicated with rubbings. The gesture of transposing Qianlong’s sketch onto the surface of the stele therefore could be understood as a way to preserve it for posterity and as a model for future replication (even though it had already fallen by the early twentieth century). As with the Baodi Monastery, court documents suggests that as soon as construction was under way, Manchu lamas were selected from the booi class and placed there. As early as 1763, only one year after the building project began, the monastery had expanded to include the addition of sixty lamas.56 What about this image that so captivated Qianlong? The icon at the Shuxiang Temple featuring the image of Mañjuśrī on a lion has a complex genealogy. Located on the edge of the cluster of monasteries in the Taihuai village, the Shuxiang Temple was rebuilt in 1496 after structures from preceding dynasties were burned to the ground. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, it became a large, imperially sponsored monastery and underwent major renovations. Already a prominent pilgrimage destination and a recipient of imperial sponsorship, the Shuxiang Temple was frequently visited by the Kangxi emperor, who wrote numerous poems about the remarkable characteristics of the image ( faxiang zuiyi 法相最異) and made generous donations for its restoration.57 Even though the monastery had always been Chinese Buddhist in affiliation, rather than Tibetan Buddhist, it became so revered among the Tibetan and Mongol population that the Tumed Mongol prince Yeshé Döndrup (Ye shes don grub bstan pa’i rgyal mtshan, 1792–1855) authored a text on the history and environs of the Shuxiang Temple with the help of the eminent Tibetan Buddhist grammarian Ngawang Tendar of the Alasha banner (A lag sha Ngag dbang bstan dar, 1759–1831).58 This Mongolian language guidebook about the exalted image at the Shuxiang Temple was published and translated into Tibetan in 1813, attesting to the image’s popularity among Mongol and Tibetan pilgrims. It is recorded in Rölpé Dorjé’s biography that before he passed away at Mount Wutai in 1786, he led an assembly of prayers in front of a magnificent image of Mañjuśrī in a great hall, and was joined by the emperor. It is quite likely that the icon at the Shuxiang Temple was the very image mentioned.59 imperial replicas

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fig. 1.10. Mañjuśrī on a Lion, Great Mañjuśrī Hall, Shuxiang Temple, Mount Wutai. Photograph by author, 2009. fig. 1.11. Main Hall of Baoxiang Monastery. From Boerschmann, Chinesische Architektur, 46.

When the Russian diplomat Dmitri Pokotilov visited the Shuxiang Temple in 1903, he credited the monastery’s survival well into the twentieth century to the nonstop flow of donations from Mongol pilgrims at a time when donations for all other monasteries at Mount Wutai were dwindling, even though the Shuxiang Temple was never a Tibetan Buddhist monastery.60 This image of Mañjuśrī at the Shuxiang Temple (see fig. 1.10) can be dated to 1496, less than a decade after the main hall was erected (1489). In fact, what is referred to as an image here and in the imperial records probably has existed for most of its history, and exists in the current version, as a sculptural group, composed of a central figure of Mañjuśrī seated atop a lion dais, flanked by the figure of the Khotanese king as a liontamer (leading the lion by a leash), the youth Sudhana, the archetypal pilgrim who embarks on a quest for enlightenment after meeting Mañjuśrī (and whose journey is described in the Gandavyūha, the last chapter of the Avatam · saka Sūtra), and several ˙˙ other attendant figures.61 The iconography of Mañjuśrī riding on a lion and accompanied by a lion-tamer can be traced back to the lost sacred icon at Bodhisattva’s Peak/ the Zhenrong Cloister, the very temple that later became the model for Qianlong’s Baodi Monastery.62 Even though the original image from the Tang dynasty and its later versions are no longer extant, iconographic assemblies similar to what is found at Shuxiang Temple were popular in Dunhuang (fig. 1.12), Japan, and at Mount Wutai itself from as early as the tenth century, and made their way to the fifteenth-century iconographic pantheon of Gyantse Kumbum in Central Tibet (fig. 1.13).63 Surviving images from these places all show variations of the same iconography, with Mañjuśrī on a lion as the central deity, a Khotanese king as lion-tamer, and the youth Sudhana as an attendant disciple. Even though the iconographic origin of this sculptural group is still a matter of scholarly dispute, what is certain is its association with Mount Wutai; when and wherever it appeared, these Mañjuśrī figures harked back to and served as a synecdoche for the mountain. Not unlike the competition for relics in medieval Christian churches, monasteries within and beyond Mount Wutai competed for ownership of Mañjuśrī’s true appearance as manifested in the sculptural group in order to assert their centrality in the pilgrimage circuit. It appears that the Shuxiang Temple succeeded in its claim for the true appearance of the bodhisattva and maintained it from the Ming dynasty onward. In addition to the iconographic form, the sculptural group at the Shuxiang Temple also inherited its miraculous origin tale from that of the image at the Zhenrong Cloister. According to the widely recounted origin tale of the Shuxiang Temple, Mañjuśrī appeared in perfect form in the sky to a frustrated sculptor experiencing artist’s block.64 In one Mongolian and Tibetan account, when the deity instructed the sculptor to make an image in his likeness, the sculptor improvised by grabbing the nearest available dough in the monastery’s kitchen (it was nearly lunchtime) and molding it into the shape of the apparition’s head.65 The sculptor in another account, while holding up a piece of barley bread as an offering for the majestic apparition in the sky, received blessings from Mañjuśrī in the form of the bodhisattva’s perfectly shaped countenance in the bread, and subsequently completed the rest of the body to create a statue of exceptional beauty.66 Today, this image is still referred to as the “Buckwheat-dough-headed Mañjuśrī” in Tibetan and Mongolian sources (Tibetan: ’Jam dbyangs rtsam mgo; Mongolian: Gulir terigütü manzusiri).67 Sure enough, during the 1983 restoration, it was discovered that the head was really made from buckwheat, chapter one

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with clay fillings for holes created by resident mice.68 It is particularly interesting that this popular legend with “a grain of truth” is preserved in Mongolian and Tibetan languages, but is not included in Chinese-language texts, further attesting to the fact that the predominant populations venerating the image were Mongols and Tibetans during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even though the image’s perfect form, which artists can create only through divine or otherworldly intervention, is a common trope for sacred images, or for any work of high artistic merit, variations of the tale resonate most closely with that of the Tang dynasty Mañjuśrī on a lion made by the sculptor Ansheng, modeled after an apparition at the Zhenrong Cloister. In both tales of miraculous images from the Zhenrong Cloister and from the Shuxiang Temple, the bodhisattva comes to rescue the troubled artisan by manifesting his true form. Although the sculptural group at the Shuxiang Temple has a distinct local flavor reflecting the Tibetan Buddhist population at Mount Wutai during the later period, it can be considered a true substitute for the miraculous image from the Zhenrong Cloister story, made at a time when the image from the Zhenrong Cloister had long disappeared. In fact, it was erected right around the time the Tang dynasty Mañjuśrī disappeared from Zhenrong Cloister, during the Ming Dynasty (no later than 1482), and soon earned its renown as the only “true image” of Mañjuśrī in the Taihuai valley of Mount Wutai.69 For pilgrims, the sculptural group at the Shuxiang Temple therefore became a sort of replacement of the original one at Bodhisattva’s Peak, satisfying a thousand-year-old zeal for the bodhisattva’s true appearance. In the most authoritative Tibetan-language guidebook since the late-eighteenth century, to be discussed in chapter 2, many stories from Chinese-language gazetteers were abbreviated, whereas stories of the miraculous images of Mañjuśrī at Bodhisattva’s Peak and the Shuxiang Temple were reiterated in greater detail than was available in the Chinese source texts, apropos their power and significance for the Tibetan and Mongol populations, despite the fact that the Shuxiang Temple was not itself affiliated with Tibetan Buddhism. Qianlong’s court imperial replicas

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fig. 1.12. Mañjuśrī of Mount Wutai, Dunhuang, China, 10th century. The top part of the woodblock print shows Mañjuśrī seated on a lion with attendants, flanked by two inscribed cartouches, one on the right identifying him and one on the left with a dedication. The bottom part contains a prayer dedicated to Mañjuśrī of Mount Wutai. Printed ink on paper. 27.9 × 16.8 cm. The British Museum. 1919,0101,0.237. fig. 1.13. Mañjuśrī on a Lion with Five Attendants, 15th century. Main sculptural image in the 15th chapel, second floor of Gyantse Kumbum, Gyantse, Central Tibet. Photograph by author, 2007.

was no doubt cognizant of the distinction at the practiced level as well; in 1768, it was the Chinese ritual setting of Five Offerings, not the elaborate setting of a Sino-Tibetan Buddhist altar as recorded in the building of the Baodi Monastery, that was placed in the main hall of the main altar at its replica the Baoxiang Monastery.70

Pictorial Copies Qianlong would have been well aware of the power of the image of Mañjuśrī and its miraculous origins. Stele at the Baoxiang Monastery and the sculptural group based on Qianlong’s original sketch are either no longer extant or inaccessible (as the hall housing the sculptural group is currently in a veterans’ rehabilitation center contained within the walls of a military compound off-limits to the public), but two surviving paintings and one textile from the same series of replicas shed light on his interest in and manipulation of the apparition’s many lives. As soon as he returned to Beijing in 1761, he ordered court painter Ding Guanpeng 丁觀鵬 (active 1708–1771) to make a large painting based on his original sketch. Documents from the Imperial Workshop record several paintings ordered multiple times through the year 1761.71 Two of the paintings, along with one of Qianlong’s own sketches, as well as a closely related textile gifted by the mother of Qianlong’s trusted official, entered Bidian zhulin 秘殿珠林, Qianlong’s catalogue of religious art. The two paintings and the textile are now in the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei.72 Matching the inscription on one of them to documents from the Imperial Workshop, the two paintings can be dated to the fourth and twelfth months of the twenty-sixth year of Qianlong (that is, 1761), respectively (figs. 1.14 and 1.15).73 The earlier painting is made up of many small pieces of paper, suggesting that it might have acted as a preparatory painting for the second painting, which, as Ding notes in his colophon, took seven months to complete. The three monumental images are of similar dimensions, each measuring about 300 centimeters long and 150 centimeters wide. A single bodhisattva on a lion occupies the entire length of each composition in an unusual backgroundless void, filled only with small seals and inscriptions along the edges. Gone too are Mañjuśrī’s illustrious attendants, such as Sudhana and the Khotanese king, who had been an integral part of the miraculous image in replicas from Tibet to Japan. A detailed comparison of the two paintings reveals the many subtle, calculated adjustments that were made between the painting done in the fourth month and the painting completed in the twelfth month, suggesting that the second painting was indeed a correction or modified version of the first. To make matters more intriguing, the third monumental image (fig. 1.16), rendered in the medium of embroidery by the mother, wife, and granddaughters of the court official Qiu Yuexiu 裘曰脩 (1712–1773) as a gift to the emperor, entered the imperial collection (the catalogue of which Qiu was one of the compilers), and was based closely on the earlier of the two paintings, save perhaps for the feminization of the bodhisattva’s face.74 Through these small but profound changes in the portrayal of Mañjuśrī’s physiognomy and attire, Qianlong’s manipulation of a thousand-year-old lineage of iconic production becomes clear. A consistent transformation of the figure from an idealized Chinese bodhisattva to a “humanized” tantric initiate subtly forges a link between Mount Wutai’s famous icon and the emperor himself. While the earlier version (fig. 1.17) bears the rather round face and softly rounded chin of a bodhisattva figure in chapter one

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fig. 1.14. Ding Guanpeng, first painting of Mañjuśrī on a Lion, 1761. Hanging scroll. Ink and colors on paper. 297.3 × 159.1 cm. Palace Museum, Taipei.

fig. 1.15. Ding Guanpeng, second painting of Mañjuśrī on a Lion, 1761. Hanging scroll. Ink and colors on paper. 297.3 × 159.1 cm. Palace Museum, Taipei.

fig. 1.16. Mother of court official Qiu Yuexiu, Mañjuśrī on a Lion, 18th century. Hanging scroll. Embroidery. 354 × 150.3 cm. Palace Museum, Taipei.

Ming-dynasty Chinese Buddhist paintings, the later painting (fig. 1.18) shows Mañjuśrī with a somewhat angular, more elongated face, making him look more human, and the parallel curves just below the bodhisattva’s chin are replaced by a single curve of a leaner face with a protruding chin. Whereas Mañjuśrī’s eyelids in the earlier painting are more closed, ever-so-slightly and gently downcast, with pupils undistinguished from the irises, conveying the compassionate gaze for all sentient beings that can often be seen in earlier depictions of Chinese bodhisattvas, the eyelids in the later painting appear to be opened wider through the heightened contrast between the dark pupils and the lighter irises as well as the slight thickening of the upper eyelids. These modifications create the impression of an active human gaze, set off by a noticeably wider nose and thicker, more natural, and less shaped eyebrows. In the earlier painting, bizarre snakes of hair fan out symmetrically to either side of Mañjuśrī’s neck, while large-beaded earrings and strings of small pearls hanging down from his crown flare outward and flank a circle of stiff folds in the collar with equally unconvincing animation. This implausible but dramatic upper portion of the painting is reduced to stillness and simplicity in the second painting, where the strings of pearls curving outward are replaced by straight-hanging pendants of embroidered cloth, and the bodhisattva’s hair is now neatly tucked away behind an identical but smaller pair of earrings that also hang downward, in accordance with the law of gravity and the decorum of royalty. Other features also mark a clear shift from an idealized bodhisattva figure to a more “humanized” one. The Five Buddha crown in the first image looks like a crown worn by a deity or a priestly figure, often seen in depictions of Mañjuśrī from the Ming dynasty onward, and is likely a more straightforward depiction of the Shuxiang Temple image at the time. In contrast, the crown in the second image is formed of distinct flat panels receding back as it encircles the bodhisattva’s head, more in keeping with a crown worn by ritual specialists or practitioners during a Tibetan Buddhist tantric rite (fig. 1.19). Atop the crown in the second image, Mañjuśrī’s previously unadorned topknot is now imperial replicas

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fig. 1.17. Detail of fig. 1.14. fig. 1.18. Detail of fig. 1.15.

fig. 1.19. Ritual Crown with the Five Tathagata Buddhas, Tibet, late 14th–early 15th century. Opaque watercolor and gold on board. 19 × 11.2 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gift of Jeffrey Kossak, The Kronos Collections, 1985. Accession Number: 1985.391. fig. 1.20. Ceremonial costume for an imperial lama: beaded collar and apron. From Du, Yonghegong: Palace of Harmony, 221.

adorned with a small gold image of a seated Amitābha Buddha and encircled by colorful gems set within gold “flames.” Embroidered images of a seated Buddha Śākyamuni adorn two pendants that hang down from either side of the crown and over Mañjuśrī’s shoulders. The heavily cloaked bodhisattva in the first image undergoes a change of season in the second image by wearing what appears to be a diaphanous collar above an elaborate chest plate decorated with netted beads, precious stones, and small gold plaques featuring Buddha images. Whereas the beaded chest plate of the first bodhisattva features a single image of what appears to be Buddha Śākyamuni in an earth-touching gesture, the beaded chest plate of the second features twelve Buddhas, most visibly a cosmic Buddha Vairocana (with hands held in the dharmacakra mudra position) at the center of his netted chest plate. The modified Mañjuśrī is bedecked with Buddha images from head to toe  —  numerous golden Nirvana Buddhas in the crown, in the jeweled net, and on the petals of the lotus throne. Mañjuśrī’s lion, now positioned nearly sideways to reveal the length of its body, sports a matching collar and apron made of equally fine netted beads, jewels, and bells, though (appropriately) without Buddha images. Like the depiction of the ritual crown, these nets of beads and plaques resemble those that would have been worn by those undergoing important Tibetan Buddhist tantric rites. The depiction is nearly identical to a contemporaneous set preserved at the Yonghe Gong (Palace of Peace and Harmony) in Beijing (fig. 1.20).75 The pervasive appearance of multiple Buddhas on the second bodhisattva, just as on tantric Buddhist crowns and chest plates, visually reinforces the transformative capacity of tantric rituals to unite a human being with his Buddhahood. Yet other representational and iconographical changes from the first to the second painting bring the bodhisattva from an otherworldly space to that of the viewer, further enhancing the human-like quality of Ding’s second painting. Judging from the posture of the figure and the sculpture’s current appearance, it is most likely that Mañjuśrī balanced a ruyi scepter between his hands in the original sculpture, as he does now (see fig. 1.10). Mañjuśrī’s hands in Ding’s first painting are depicted in the same position, with fingers curved slightly inward, albeit without holding any implement. In Ding’s second painting, however, Mañjuśrī’s right arm and palm open up completely to abhaya mudra (gesture of fearlessness/protection), and his left arm is chapter one

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placed on his knee as though in a gesture of royal ease. The clarified mudra of the right hand as well as the palpable weight of the left hand resting on his knee convey a presence and immediacy that is accentuated by the change in the lion’s position. Again, possibly following the sculpted image at the Shuxiang Temple, the lion in Ding’s first painting stands with its head turned upward and to the left. In contrast to the dynamic upper part of the painting around the bodhisattva’s head and upper body discussed earlier, here the lion’s mane appears in orderly patterns, neatly combed on his back. His head is turned away from the viewer, and his legs stand on free-floating lotus blossoms, which demarcate a self-enclosed, otherworldly space. But in Ding’s second painting, the lion faces forward, its head and body are rotated clockwise to reveal a semiprofile view, and its paws are planted squarely on the ground. This perspective (combining frontal and semiprofile views), implausible for a three-dimensional form, asserts a pictorial independence from its sculptural origin. Unlike Ding’s first painting, in which the upper portion features more movement than the lower portion, the lower portion of his second painting becomes the active center of the composition: the bodhisattva’s foot, with the ankle now exposed, presses against a tilted lotus blossom on a vibrantly ornate saddle, while illusionistic ribbons, bells, feather ornament, hair, and flames all flutter in gusts of wind that do not affect the upper portion of the painting. Here, the lion’s frontal, animated, and grounded stance puts the bodhisattva’s calm but human and almost confrontational presence in-the-here-and-now right into the space of the viewer. All together, these modifications mark a substantial ontological shift  —  from the portrayal of the miraculous sculptural image of Mañjuśrī, with all of the earthly trappings and emotive transcendence of a Mahāyāna Chinese bodhisattva figure, to the intimation of divinity in a human body through ritual transformation. The idea that a person can be ritually transformed into a receptacle of the sacred is a hallmark of tantric Buddhism;76 that the person carries the trappings of royalty further marks the figure of a cakravartin. In the modifications of the original icon, Ding’s second painting therefore superimposes the esoteric, and specifically Tibetan, tradition of ritual transformation and an Indian ideal of Buddhist kingship onto a Chinese Buddhist icon with a popular Mongolian cult following, visually and metaphorically reenacting the bodhisattva’s hybrid identity through Indo-Tibetan, Mongolian, and Chinese iconography and history. In light of the fact that Qianlong himself had undergone Tibetan tantric initiation rituals (the implements from some of which are still extant), and the wealth of textual and visual materials produced at the Qing court that asserted his status as the cakravartin-bodhisattva incarnate, it would not be far-fetched to see Ding’s second painting as a portrayal of Qianlong himself.77 The vitality of ritual in Qing rulership has been at the center of recent scholarship. Angela Zito, in her study of the Grand Sacrifice  —  the most significant ceremonial occasion for the Qing emperors  —  showed how the performance of ritual texts make manifest the power of the heavens in human affairs and the power of the past in the present, and argued that the emperor, by donning a variety of ceremonial robes for example, embodied his constituencies.78 James Hevia analyzed Qing guest ceremonies and characterized rituals of inclusion (guest/host rituals) and transformation (initiation rituals) as ways to “encompass and include others in their own cosmologies.”79 The painting of a revered sculptural icon in the guise of an imperial tantric initiate reiterates the primacy of the ritual reenactment as a category in the physical and metaphysical imperial replicas

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articulation of Qianlong’s imperial identity, as does the wholesale replica of the ritual space of Bodhisattva’s Peak in the building of the Baodi Monastery. But what about Ding’s second painting that explicitly and exclusively establishes Qianlong’s identity? After all, the face of the figure in the painting does not look anything like that of Qianlong’s, as we have come to know so well from a plethora of Castiglionesque paintings of him. Considering Ding’s painted “copies” in light of their multiple origins going back to the Tang-dynasty sculpture at the Zhenrong Cloister, and memories of the miraculous original(s) that are kept alive in countless textual, visual, and oral iterations in the Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian languages, the selfreferentiality of Qianlong’s interventions becomes clear: if in this particular reenactment Ding Guanpeng played the role of the skilled artisan who helped make manifest the earthly form of Mañjuśrī, then Qianlong’s sketch is the mediating force  —  that is, the intervention of Mañjuśrī that prompted and guided the image-making process.80 In Ding Guanpeng’s paintings, Mañjuśrī is therefore not only the subject but also the agent of the depiction, and that agent is none other than Qianlong himself. Ding’s paintings thus take the appositional relationship between the emperor and the bodhisattva to a level of unprecedented specificity. Acting as a referent in the double sense of the word (one who refers and one who is referred), Qianlong implied a connection with Mañjuśrī beyond resemblance. The staging of himself as a new “apparition” of the Shuxiang Temple’s miraculous image, and a refashioning of the image as a royal tantric initiate  —  as in the case of Ding’s second painting  —  allowed Qianlong to embody the bodhisattva of Mount Wutai, and thereby also perfect it. Much like the reparation and replication of ritual offerings at Bodhisattva’s Peak, the copying of works modeled after Qianlong’s sketch was a reclaiming of the ownership of Mount Wutai. However, unlike the wholesale replica of a temple interior, this was a far more succinct assertion, one that reached the diverse pious constituencies of the Shuxiang Temple’s miraculous image. Forestalling any possibility that this nuanced substitution might go undetected, Ding’s unusually lengthy inscription on the second painting makes explicit that by “relying on the heavenly brush [of the emperor],” he was able to complete Mañjuśrī’s golden countenance. Ding then compares himself to the artisans who carved the Sandalwood Buddha commissioned by the Indian king Udāyana, but attributes the inadequacy of the final result to his own lack of insight.81 Here, Ding is referring to the legend of the creation of the first iconic image of the Buddha, in which King Udāyana commissioned his artisans to create a sandalwood image of the Buddha Śākyamuni while the latter is away in Trāyastrimśa heaven to preach to his mother.82 ˙ That Qianlong’s divine intervention is analogous to that of King Udāyana’s creation of the very first and the most famous miraculous image of Buddhism further sealed the identity of a Buddhist king. This identification may also explain why Mañjuśrī’s entourage was eliminated in Qianlong’s copies: in this new guise of emperor as bodhisattva, attendant figures from another time and place are no longer relevant. Furthermore, if in the eighth century Zhenrong Cloister became a locus of pilgrimage on account of a miraculous icon of Mañjuśrī, it stayed as the center of pilgrimage in the Qing despite the loss of its namesake icon. What need is there for an icon when the site is the very abode of the personal embodiment of the bodhisattva, the Mañjughos·a emperors? Qianlong’s series of enactments reveals not a simple assertion of his identity as Mañjuśrī vis-à-vis his Tibetan and Mongol constituents, but his role as a benevolent, universal Buddhist monarch over the vast domains of the image’s chapter one

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sway. By appropriating Mount Wutai’s most emblematic icon, Qianlong inserted himself in the place of both the apparition and the icon. If the implication of this transformation from an idealized bodhisattva to a humanized one is clear, who was responsible for it? Under whose command were all the subtle adjustments evident in Ding’s second painting completed? Was it based on a directive issued by Qianlong himself, or was it Ding’s own decision to depart from Qianlong’s sketch? Records from the Imperial Workshop indicate that Ding was asked to use several sources for his second painting, which took seven months to complete: two sketches by Qianlong, Ding’s earlier painting, and, most directly, a wax model of Mañjuśrī.83 While the exact nature of the collaboration is unknown, what is clear is that several extant two-dimensional and three-dimensional replicas all more closely conformed to one another than they do to Ding’s second painting. Ding’s second painting was a striking departure that is exclusively asserted through the twodimensional medium and particular format of the monumental painting. Ding’s inscription described Mañjuśrī’s countenance with phrases that evoke the imagistic metaphors of Chan Buddhism  —  “radiant with the subtle glow of wisdom, like the moon’s reflection on the river”84  —  suggesting that the true appearance of Mañjuśrī exists beyond the ordinary external physical appearance. Here, rather than relating the form of the sculptural image, Ding employs the metaphor for the skillful means of the bodhisattva to manifest to each viewer (as the moon seals each river). It follows that to make a true copy of an apparition, one must not only painstakingly copy the external features but must also discern the individual manifestation. In other words, true likeness in the Buddhist context has to go beyond the ordinary external appearance and to a realm of subjective perception. If Ding’s own confession of inadequacy in his inscription is more than the false modesty of an imperial subject, it indeed reverts the agency of this perception back to Qianlong’s sketch and to the emperor himself. Ding’s second painting of Qianlong’s impersonated divinity complicates what was originally an “imitation” ( fang), as it was called, of the sculptural image of Mañjuśrī at the Shuxiang Temple, and places it into the rank of “Qianlong-as-bodhisattva” paintings (see figs. 0.6 and 0.7).85 Among the best-known visual examples of Qianlong’s claims to bodhisattvahood, these paintings present the formal likeliness of Qianlong’s face (based on a subdued modeling technique of the Jesuit painters) against a depiction of him in the Tibetan Buddhist iconographic guise of the Mañjughosa emperor ˙ at the center of a host of deities and teachers in a mandalic formation. Ding’s painting conveys the emperor-as-bodhisattva identity through the subtle manipulation of a sacred icon, instead of through the juxtaposition between physiognomic likeness and pantheonic formation. Indeed, Ding’s second painting epitomized a different sort of integration that Berger has credited his copies of true images with  —  the integration of an archaic vision of the true image and the illusionistic presence of the icon immediate to its audience.86 The result is a “Qianlong-as-bodhisattva” image that stands at odds with the commonly perceived notion of the Mañjughosa emperor, built on a selec˙ tive use of evidence, that Qianlong’s identification with the Mañjuśrī was a project of self-fashioning that he performed primarily within the Indo-Tibetan esoteric Buddhist context.87 Contrary to this view, the multiplicity of sources in Qianlong’s appropriation of Mount Wutai’s numinous icon, and its purpose in the establishment of a Manchu monastery, reveals a more complex picture that goes beyond the appeasement of the empire’s particular ethnic constituencies: indeed, Qianlong’s self-fashioning as the imperial replicas

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Mañjuśrī of Mount Wutai was based on a bringing together of multiple visual and devotional traditions, under a single imperial domain, with a keen understanding of the tantric language of transformation.

The Architectural Copy If Ding’s revised second painting portrays Qianlong in the guise of a tantric initiate after the emperor’s own sketch of Mount Wutai’s celebrated icon, its translation onto the sculptural form and into the space of monastery appears to have completed this process even further. The main hall, named Pavilion of Rising Glory (Xuhua zhi ge 旭華之閣; see fig. 1.11), was constructed as a beamless hall, featuring a square plan with five arched openings on each of the four sides in the exterior, and most likely a circular plan with a vaulted dome in the interior. Its majestic double friezes of glazed green-and-yellow tiles below the eaves, visible from afar, still imparts a clear sense of architectural distinction. The brick barrel-arch construction of the Baoxiang Monastery was no doubt inspired by that of Mount Wutai’s own beamless hall at the Xiantong Temple, the dimensions of which Qianlong had requested back in 1750, but there is one important difference  —  a square plan instead of the narrow rectangular one at the Xiantong Temple. Was the Baoxiang Monastery a fuller realization of the Baodi Monastery, in that it fulfilled Qianlong’s wishes to re-create a beamless hall from Mount Wutai? How was this an improvement upon the original? As mentioned earlier, the Chinese term for “beamless” is a homophone of the word “immeasurable.” Beamless halls are thus often associated with the wish for longevity and are therefore appropriate for birthday celebrations. The Baoxiang Monastery’s 1767 stele confirms this purpose, explaining that Qianlong’s primary intention for re-creating the Shuxiang Temple at nearby Xiangshan was to save his elderly mother from the toil of journeys to Mount Wutai, which is in Shanxi province 200 miles southwest of Beijing.88 There have been many such surrogate Mount Wutais in the long history of pilgrimages to that mountain, but perhaps none before that had been built for a single person. As an act of filial piety toward the empress-dowager, this re-creation was effectively used as such, since Qianlong did not travel to Mount Wutai between his 1761 visit and 1781, four years after his mother had passed away. The use of the Baoxiang Monastery for birthday celebrations, as expressed on the 1767 stele, suggests the use of the temple in a personal and familial context, which also contributed to a strengthened sense of Manchu imperial kinship. However, filial piety was only one explicit concern. Qianlong launched into a lengthy explanation of the location of his newly created monastery in relation to Mount Wutai, here referred to by its alternative name the Clear and Cool Mountains. On specifically why this re-creation was both necessary and legitimate, the stele records: Mañjuśrī has long dwelled in this worldly realm, but has exclusively manifested and preached at the Clear and Cool [Mountains]. . . . Clear and Cool is located to the west of the capital, and Xiangshan is also to the west of the capital; in relation to Clear and Cool, Xiangshan is still positioned to its east; in relation to India, Clear and Cool and Xiangshan are both in the easterly direction. Therefore, how can one say these two mountains are not the same, or that they are different? . . . Mañjuśrī can be seen with the rise and fall of phenomena; he manifests and transforms without limit. . . . So, why

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would he insist on Clear and Cool as his field of enlightenment, and not know that Xiangshan can also be? . . . In the past, we have paid obeisance to Mañjuśrī at Wutai to pray for [his] blessings. But Clear and Cool is more than a thousand li away from the capital. Being carried in an imperial carriage, I have made it there only three times. But Xiangshan is only thirty li away from the capital, so we can go year after year. Therefore with the aspiration for the flourishing of the Buddhist faith for ten thousand years from this point on, the temple at Xiangshan was initially built.89

Qianlong, repeatedly acknowledging that Mañjuśrī is unbounded by place and form, is paradoxically invested in locating and relocating the tangible material body that can best serve as a receptacle for Mañjuśrī. In re-creating the image of Mañjuśrī from the Shuxiang Temple, Qianlong sought to re-create the entire temple, and by extension, to replicate the entire mountain range of Wutai in Xiangshan, just outside the capital, for ease of frequent veneration. The authenticity of the image, as a synecdoche for Mount Wutai, rests upon two seemingly contradictory claims: first, Mañjuśrī is unconfined by fixed notions of place and form; and, second, Mañjuśrī is rightfully in a specific place (Xiangshan), and precisely in a specific form (the image of Mañjuśrī at the Baoxiang Monastery) because of its specific location in relation to India and its status as a copy in relation to the original.90 It is precisely in the ambiguity caused by these two claims that Qianlong was able to derive his own identity as a Mañjuśrī-incarnate and Manchu Buddhist ruler. Carefully locating his court east of India, closer to Mount Wutai, and closer yet to replicas of them than the Dalai Lama in Lhasa, Qianlong asserted what had been only a tacit connection for previous Manchu rulers  —  that the successive Manchu emperors are the wheel-turning incarnates of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī. The inscriptions at the Baoxiang Monastery do not elaborate on this association, nor do they mention the establishment of a Manchu Buddhist monastery. But the structure of the main hall itself hints at the possibility that both Qianlong’s rhetorical wordplay that justified the Baoxiang Monastery’s efficacy and his bodhisattva-incarnate status were not only pictorialized but also animated in architectural terms. If Ding Guanpeng achieves the emperor-as-bodhisattva portrayal of Qianlong by depicting a royal tantric initiate in the guise of Mount Wutai’s celebrated icon of Mañjuśrī, at the Baoxiang Monastery, it is the architectural restaging of the sculpted image that imbues it with the same identity. A contemporaneous imperial gazetteer (chronicle) of Beijing specifies the structure of the main hall as square on the outside and round on the inside (waifang neiyuan 外方内圓).91 It is a characterization that references the Han- and Tang-dynasty Bright Halls and the Ming- and Qing-dynasty Temple of Heaven in traditional Chinese architecture. In both cases, the concentric square and circular building designs express the Confucian symbolisms of the Mandate of Heaven. Meanwhile, the specific building design and structure of Baoxiang Monastery’s main hall, with arched openings on each of the four sides in the exterior, finds precedence instead in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist mandalic architecture.92 Representations of mandalas in the Indo-Tibetan tradition, which are idealized models of the cosmos with a principal power or deity residing at its center, are often used for consecration rituals and meditative visualizations. When a temple is designed after a mandala, it implies the establishment of a ground for consecration.93 Regardless of how the sculpted image looked and whether the space indeed served ritual functions, the fact that a mandalic structure was built to house the imperial replicas

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sculpted replica of the Mañjuśrī on a lion traced by Qianlong’s hand underscores the symbolic potency of the newly re-created sculptural icon and space. Within the tantric framework, Mount Wutai itself, especially the five terraces, has long been considered to be the mandala in both Chinese and Tibetan traditions in the sense that it is a seat and a ritual altar for its principal deity (deities).94 Its replica in the form of a mandalic architecture also implies the re-creation of Mount Wutai itself. The combined reference to the Temple of Heaven and the Indo-Tibetan mandala, with Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī at its center, readily strengthened the idea of universal kingship. A tantric, mandalic reading of the space would have been the norm during the time of its construction. As noted earlier, the emperor engaged in many ritual initiations related to Mañjuśrī at Mount Wutai, and famously occupied the central position as Mañjuśrī in the aforementioned thangka paintings.95 During the same years that he constructed the Baodi and Baoxiang Monasteries, he built the Yuhua Pavilion 雨花閣 (Pavilion of Rainy Flowers) in the imperial palace as an initiation hall (1750) and Pule Monastery 普樂寺 (Monastery of Universal Joy, 1766–1767) in Chengde as a mandala of the Buddhist deity Samvara. They were also designed by Rölpé Dorjé, who gave ˙ Qianlong the tantric initiation into the mandala of Samvara back in 1745. Our knowl˙ edge of these various contemporaneous activities allows a degree of speculation about the little-known Baoxiang Monastery  —  that the architectural and sculptural design symbolically and ritually enhanced and reinforced Qianlong’s Mañjuśrī status.96 That the main icon of the Baoxiang Monastery became itself a model to be copied speaks to the role it played in the increasing perfection of this identity.

Shuxiang Monastery at Chengde In 1774, Qianlong began building a Manchu Buddhist monastery at Chengde, which he named after the original Shuxiang Temple at Mount Wutai. Completed in just one year, this architectural replica was designed from the beginning to facilitate the translation of the Manchu Buddhist scriptural canon, a monumental project that had commenced the year before.97 Its main building, aptly named the Huicheng Hall 會乘殿 (Hall of the Merging of Vehicles; figs. 1.21 and 1.22), was dedicated to Mañjuśrī and was designed to house the Manchu canon, which was finished in 1790.98 The Manchu canon was a monumental undertaking produced through a synthesis of scripture from Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian languages. It was in a sense a linguistic analogue to the Mount Wutai replicas. Though bearing the name and look of the Tibetan Kangyur, the Manchu canon was in fact an entirely new compilation based on a synthesis of Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian canons while following the structure of the Chinese Buddhist canon (the Tripitaka; literally, Three Baskets of Teachings).99 Likewise, it was ˙ through the close juxtaposition of Chinese and Tibetan iconographic and scriptural traditions, architectural styles, and ritual lexicons that a distinctly Manchu Buddhist culture (with mandatory Manchu-language recitation) was created. Qianlong, on his 1775 stele inscription commemorating the completion of the monastery, repeated the story behind the Baoxiang Monastery replica, and explains that although the image of Mañjuśrī was copied after the (copied) image from the Baoxiang Monastery, the halls and pavilions were “roughly based” on the original one at Mount Wutai. Couldn’t all three of them (Mount Wutai, Xiangshan, and Chengde), he asks, be considered the site of the bodhisattva’s apparition from the perspective of India? The remark suggests chapter one

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Qianlong was intentionally fusing and confusing the three locations through the act of copying both the copy and the original, until any distinction between the copy and the original is dissolved into obscurity.100 The result is an image of Qianlong-as-bodhisattva that, though produced as a copied copy, was as authentic as the original. Chengde’s Shuxiang Monastery was built on the northern slopes beyond the Summer Palace on the western side of the Potala (Putuo Zongcheng Temple 普陀宗 乘之廟, erected in 1771 as part of a birthday present to his eighty-year-old mother). The layout follows the central plan of a Han Chinese monastery: the gate, the hall of the Heavenly Kings, and a main prayer hall are laid out on a central axis, with chapels and monks’ quarters on both sides (fig. 1.23). The third building on the main axis, which is the main hall of the complex, is set at the top of a series of steps on a gently sloping hill. Comparing the layout of this Shuxiang Monastery with gazetteer depictions of the Shuxiang Temple at Mount Wutai, some have argued that it is indeed closely based on the original.101 In fact, the layout is no different from any centrally planned Chinese temple. The Han Chinese temple plan would have appeared conspicuous in light of the two Tibetan replicas that Qianlong built on that same hill before and after he built the Shuxiang Monastery  —  namely, the Potala and the Trashi Lhünpo (Xumi Fushou Temple 須彌福壽之廟, built in 1780 in honor of the Panchen). Anne Chayet specu˙ lated that since Mount Wutai was perhaps first and foremost “a Chinese sacred place” for Qianlong, his evocation of Mount Wutai in Chengde “had to be purely Chinese.”102 Chayet’s explanation overlooks the fluid ways in which cultures and traditions have been simultaneously evoked and juxtaposed in Qianlong’s series of replications. The Shuxiang Monastery’s hybridness is perhaps best reflected in the plan of the main hall the reflected of the ritual protocols of a Manchu Gelukpa monastery.103 The Huicheng Hall measures seven bays wide and five bays deep, and is designed as a prayer and gathering hall, with images at the far end (see fig. 1.22). The layout of the main prayer hall allows for a flexible use of space, with enough depth to function as a Tibetan Buddhist assembly hall (dukhang), where prayer gatherings are held (in this case, by resident Manchu lamas), and that of a Chinese-style hall, in which images usually occupy the central space. By comparison, the main hall of the original Shuxiang Temple at Mount Wutai is much smaller, measuring only five bays wide and three bays deep  —  just enough space to house the central image.104 The planning and design of these temples speak much more to their imperial replicas

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fig. 1.21. Ruins of the Shuxiang Monastery with Huicheng Hall at the far end, Chengde. Photograph by author, 2009. fig. 1.22. Interior of Huicheng Hall, Shuxiang Monastery, Chengde.

ritual and symbolic purpose as a mandalic architecture in the case of the Baoxiang Monastery and to their practical function as a place of monastic assembly in the case of the new Shuxiang Monastery. Just as was the case with the Baoxiang Monastery, copying the architecture was hardly necessary when a true image can be replicated. The image that was modeled after the Mañjuśrī of the Baoxiang Monastery was housed in an octagonal pavilion called Baoxiang Pavilion (Precious Form Pavilion) atop a hill behind the Shuxiang Monastery’s main building complex (fig. 1.24).105 An artificial mountain landscape with grottoes and meandering passages leads up to the Baoxiang Pavilion.106 The entire garden landscape is reminiscent of those found at Qing imperial gardens, while the miniature mountain landscape evokes the Mount Wutai range. Early photographs allow us to compare this replica of a replica with the original image at the Shuxiang Temple and with Ding’s paintings (see figs. 1.14 and 1.15).107 The Chengde Mañjuśrī is in almost exactly the same position as the figure in Ding’s earlier painting (fig. 1.25): the bodhisattva sits in a frontal position with his right knee pointing outward and foot tucked around the nape of the lion’s head, which is turned upward to the right; the lion’s feet, stubbier than the originals at Mount Wutai (evidently due

fig. 1.23. Idealized Plan of Shuxiang Monastery.

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to the transfer from a three-dimensional image to a two-dimensional one and back), are also planted on lotus blossoms. Even the flow of the bodhisattva’s garb and locks of hair follow the same contour. What is added are attendant figures beside the bodhisattva, which suggests that they were not part of what would have been copied from the array of original sources. We can therefore deduce that the sculpture was a rather careful three-dimensional replica of the replica at the Baoxiang Monastery, of the twodimensional replica by Ding, of the sketch by Qianlong, and of the original image. The imitation was not just a reproduction in name but also in a formal, material technique designed to transfer, over and over again, the true likeness of Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī/ Mañjuśrī-as-Qianlong, with each new copy reinforcing and enhancing the notion of the true form. As the defining foci of the recently instituted Manchu monasteries, these imperially mediated copies modeled after Mount Wutai’s numinous icon positioned Qianlong at the center of a newly established tradition that nevertheless traces itself back to one of Buddhism’s most illustrious bodhisattvas and his earthly realm. It should come as no surprise then that travelers to the Shuxiang Monastery at Chengde noted the similarity between the face of Mañjuśrī at Baoxiang Pavilion and that of the Qianlong emperor, despite the fact that a physiognomic affinity is not apparent in available photographs of the image.108 As suggested in Ding Guanpeng’s second painting, the way in which Qianlong asserted his bodhisattva-identity revealed a form of likeness that is defined through the concept of  “true trace” and the visual lexicons of a royal tantric initiate, rather than through the more familiar technique of modified chiaroscuro introduced by and demanded of the Jesuits in the Qing court. This identity was also reinforced through the popular local name for the Shuxiang Monastery imperial replicas

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fig. 1.24. Exterior of Baoxiang Pavilion, Shuxiang Monastery, Chengde, ca. 1933. From Sekino, Jehol, vol. 4, 11. fig. 1.25. Interior of Baoxiang Pavilion, Shuxiang Monastery, Chengde. From Sekino, Jehol, vol. 4, 14.

as Qianlong’s “family shrine,” housing objects, or indeed relics, from Qianlong’s childhood.109 Qianlong’s own inscriptions confirmed his increasing interest in advancing his bodhisattva identity for the promotion of Manchu Buddhism. Whereas the earlier inscriptions at Xiangshan, from 1767, stressed filial piety, Qianlong proclaimed for the first time in the Shuxiang Monastery’s commemorative stele in 1775 the urgent need for Manchu translations of Buddhist scriptures, and for those who would study and recite them in order to spread the teachings of the Buddha. Following his remarks on the propagation of the Manchu canon, Qianlong asked, “The Tibetan lamas call me an emanation of Mañjuśrī based on the near homophone of ‘Manchu’ and ‘Manju,’ but if it were really true that our names correspond to the reality, wouldn’t Mañjuśrī laugh at me for that?”110 A year later, he repeated this rhetorical question in a more affirmative tone on another tablet at the Shuxiang Monastery: The image of Wenshu 文殊 [Mañjuśrī] is nothing shu 殊 [extraordinary]. It’s magnificent as is. The two peaks [behind the Shuxiang Monastery and behind the Potala] stand side-by-side, not more than half a li away from each other. His dharma body can manifest as a young boy, or as a tall gentleman. The vermillion edict [from the Dalai Lama] has been overly enthusiastic in its praise [of me as a Mañjughos·a emperor]. Wouldn’t it be laughable if it were true?111

This refrain at the Shuxiang Monastery, which would have been seen only by close members of the court, is Qianlong’s closest written acknowledgment of himself as an emanation of Mañjuśrī of Mount Wutai in the Chinese language. It also made apparent that this self-identification was defined a counterpart to Avalokiteśvara. Directly adjacent to the Shuxiang Monastery is Qianlong’s replica of the Potala, which had been built just a few years earlier (in 1771) in homage to the Dalai Lamas, successive incarnations of whom are considered emanations of Avalokiteśvara. The various elements of Qianlong’s identification with Mañjuśrī show how pervasively Qianlong’s embodiment of Mount Wutai’s deity/apparition/icon had been understood and accepted by the time the Shuxiang Monastery was built. Consider, for a moment, what is known about the transformations of that celebrated image (fig. 1.26). Based on the miraculous tale of the eighth-century sculpted image of Mañjuśrī in the Zhenrong Cloister (the temple later renamed Bodhisattva’s Peak), a similar tale was established to account for the origin of the fifteenth-century image of Mañjuśrī in the Shuxiang Temple, also at Mount Wutai. The Qianlong emperor, soon after his pilgrimage to Mount Wutai in 1761, made a sketch based on the sculptural image of Mañjuśrī in the Shuxiang Temple, which was then transferred, in accordance with Qianlong’s instructions, onto a stone stele. That same year, he also commissioned court painter Ding Guanpeng to make a large painting from his sketch, which was enlarged to about a third the size of the original sketch, and several other paintings of Mañjuśrī; a wax model and a textile of the image were also made in conjunction with the paintings. Subsequent copies were based on all earlier models. The stone stele was erected in front of the Baoxiang Monastery in Xiangshan, completed in 1767, which housed a replica of the Mañjuśrī image that was based on three sources: the sketch, the stele, and Ding Guanpeng’s paintings. This Baoxiang Monastery copy of the Shuxiang Temple image subsequently became a source for a further copy, enshrined in an octagonal pavilion at Chengde’s Shuxiang Monastery that was named the Baoxiang Pavilion, a sculptural image that can be traced to the earlier of the two paintings of chapter one

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Embroidery by Women of the Qiu Household

Paintings by Ding Guanpeng

? Wax Model

? Image at Bodhisattva’s Peak, Mount Wutai

Image at Shuxiang Temple, Mount Wutai

?

?

?

Qianlong’s Sketch

Stele Engraving, Xiangshan

Image at Baoxiang Monastery, Xiangshan

Mañjuśrī by Ding Guanpeng. This secondary copy became the namesake of Chengde’s Shuxiang Monastery, and possibly the sculpture based on which the image in its main hall was copied. These copies, as well as the earlier acts of re-creating Mount Wutai in the Baodi Monastery, provide a partial view of what is probably a much more extensive project of replicating Mount Wutai. What they reveal is a fluid relationship between copy and original: each copy in its specific form and medium takes on a life of its own, and the process of replication makes something more true, and thus creates something new (in this case, an imperial Buddhist identity). Through a variety of generative acts of copying — whether the repairing and re-creation of sets of ritual objects, the mapping and planning of architectural spaces, the insertion of the imperial brush trace in the sketch of the sculptural image, the commitment of the copied form to the authoritative (and long-lasting) surface of a stone stele, the creative revision of its painted versions, or a repeated rhetorical act of achieving geographical equivalence — the Qianlong emperor enacted his identity as a Mañjuśrī-incarnate. The various two-dimensional and three-dimensional media, continuously imitating and informing subsequent replicas, collectively produced a lineage that not only re-created Mount Wutai closer to the capital but also enhanced, perfected, and resituated it around the ruler himself.

Image at Baoxiang Pavilion, Shuxiang Monastery, Chengde

fig. 1.26. Diagram showing chain of replicas.

The Emperor as Translator and Pilgrim The conscious alignment of Manchu imperial identity with Mount Wutai’s sacred history and power puts into perspective Qianlong’s subsequent activities in connection with the mountain range, such as the translation of Mañjuśrī-related texts into imperial replicas

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Manchu and a new edition of the Mount Wutai gazetteer. On his 1781 trip to Mount Wutai, the fourth of his six pilgrimages there, Qianlong copied a Chinese scriptural text, The Great Sage Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva’s Praise of the Dharma Body of the Buddha Liturgy,112 and translated it into Manchu. Rölpé Dorjé is said to have selected this text from the Chinese Buddhist canon, Chinese being the only language in which the text survived.113 The text was brought back to the capital, and in addition to its Manchu translation, it was later translated into Tibetan and Mongolian and incorporated into a quadrilingual edition.114 Qianlong, in a praise poem that he wrote while visiting the Baoxiang Monastery in 1782, commented on his own translation of the text into Manchu, and on his order that the printing house produce “gold-lettered quadrilingual editions” (jinshu siti 金書 四體) to be offered on Mount Wutai’s five peaks as well as at the Baoxiang Monastery in Xiangshan.115 In reality, many other copies were made, and their circulation was not limited to Mount Wutai and Xiangshan.116 There are also single-language translations of the text in Chinese, Mongolian, or Manchu. That this particular translation was carried out at Mount Wutai and by Qianlong himself suggests that the project’s primary importance lay in the Manchu emperor’s authority in reproducing and disseminating a previously untranslated text on Mañjuśrī. Qianlong’s role as a scriptural translator is yet another way to embody the wisdom deity. As the Manchu incarnation of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī making a pilgrimage to his sacred abode, Qianlong asserted his own agency in translating a scriptural homage to Mañjuśrī and disseminating it throughout the key Buddhist locations of his empire. Even with a very limited audience, the ultimate aim of Qianlong’s gesture was, as Pamela Crossley argues, “to make all true expression, in any language, the property of the emperor.”117 By doing so, he not only declared his authority in the making of Manchu Buddhism but also linked himself to Buddhism’s Indic origins. As he noted in the preface to his translations, this Mañjuśrī liturgy had never before been available in the languages of his Tibetan, Mongol, or Manchu constituents. Qianlong was thus the first to bring them this text  —  which was originally translated from the Sanskrit by Amoghavajra (705–774)  —  and thereby connect himself to early translators who were responsible for the transmission of Buddhism to China. As a site that was initially created to transplant Buddhist India to China, Mount Wutai itself became a source for translation and transplantation. Qianlong’s final major effort to seal the connection between himself and Mañjuśrī, and between Mount Wutai and the capital, reached a much wider audience than did his previous endeavors. The project began with Qianlong’s province-wide confiscation of all previous Mount Wutai gazetteers and their printing blocks in order to control the proliferation of  “erroneous” information.118 The motivation for this order was undoubtedly to maintain control over the history of the mountain range, and moreover, to make canonical his connection to it, much like Qianlong’s other projects of compiling Buddhist iconographic scriptural and literary canons, and catalogues of objects in his collection. That the Qing court took such a step to curtail the popular circulation of such publications also confirmed their popularity among tourists, pilgrims, and the like. Subsequently, Qianlong issued his own edition of the mountain gazetteer, the Imperial Gazetteer of the Clear and Cool Mountains (Qinding Qingliang shan zhi 欽定清 凉山志; hereafter, Imperial Gazetteer; see fig. 4.16) in 1785 (reprinted in 1811). Remarkably, Qianlong was the third of four Manchu emperors to have contributed to the publication of new mountain gazetteers of Mount Wutai within the span of one hundred and fifty years. A brief overview of the imperial productions helps chapter one

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to situate Qianlong’s work in context. They include a revised and updated edition of Zhencheng’s Gazetteer of the Clear and Cool Mountains (Qingliang shan zhi 清凉山志, printed in 1596; hereafter, Gazetteer) by the monk Zhencheng, issued in 1661, which was edited and prefaced by Awang Laozang 阿旺老藏 (1601–1687), Mount Wutai’s court appointed lama official overseeing all religious affairs at Mount Wutai (later known as Jasagh Lama) under the Shunzhi reign; New Gazetteer of Clear and Cool Mountains (hereafter, New Gazetteer; see fig. 2.2), by the third Jasagh Lama Laozang Danba 老 藏丹巴 (active late seventeenth and early eighteenth century) and reissued by Kangxi; the Imperial Gazetteer commissioned by Qianlong; and Jiaqing’s Magnificent Record of the Western Inspection Tour (hereafter, Magnificent Record), compiled by Peng Lin 彭齡, and printed in 1812.119 With each rewriting, the entries became increasingly lengthy and personalized. The New Gazetteer, written less than forty years after the Gazetteer, opens with transcriptions of nine steles that Kangxi erected in various monasteries and miraculous sites in Mount Wutai and a collection of poetry that he composed on the site. Qianlong’s Imperial Gazetteer doubled the number of colophons and included two new sections on inspection tours, records of rituals performed, and gift donations. The Jiaqing emperor created a detailed and monumental account of what became his only trip to Mount Wutai, the twelve-volume Magnificent Record, with woodblock prints of each major temple he visited as well as temples and towns en route to Mount Wutai. While the earlier gazetteers focused on historical information and the founding myths, legends, or origins of each temple, this information was gradually omitted in the later gazetteers except for entries about a few key temples, which were enlarged to accommodate the careful documentation of their frequent imperial renovation and expansion projects. With each new edition, the history of each temple was increasingly replaced by a description of the temple’s relative position and size, and certain details, such as the number of columns in each hall within the temple compound, the number of resident monks, the shape of a grotto, or the nature of imperial sponsorship, were documented with ever-greater thoroughness. Not only was the content of each site description lengthened in the gazetteers associated with each successive emperor, but each version also created a new kind of history in which contemporary imperial restorations took precedence over the inherited history of the site’s origin. Qianlong’s Imperial Gazetteer dramatically increased the focus on an imperialized presence. While it more than doubled the length and the number of volumes ( juan) of Kangxi’s New Gazetteer, it also reduced and eliminated much of the history of Mount Wutai to make room for lengthy descriptions of imperial restorations, steles, and Qianlong’s other writings about the mountain range. The new guidebook took on the perspective of one pilgrim  —  the emperor himself  —  and presented the mountain range as exclusively imperial. It solidified Qianlong’s connection to the site, not only through suggestions of his bodhisattva identity but also by publicizing his activities as one of the most devoted imperial sponsors. All but in name, the Imperial Gazetteer was a record of an imperial tour.120 Qianlong’s heavy-handed editing, revision, and translation of Mount Wutai’s history serve as a textual parallel to the series of replication projects explored in this chapter. Seen as part of the micro-universes that Qianlong created at Xiangshan and Chengde, the Mount Wutai replicas anchored the Manchu imperial identity within an India-centered cosmography; everything east of India was considered the domain of Mañjuśrī and therefore of Qianlong. The replicas that derived their imperial replicas

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power from the true image of the bodhisattva emperor functioned not only symbolically but also as the fundamental basis for the initiation of Manchu imperial Buddhist monasticism. The retracing of the steps of replication shows how Qianlong, by combining various architectural, artistic, ritual, conceptual, and semantic evocations of Mañjuśrī at Mount Wutai, created what he saw as a perfected and universal form of Buddhist teaching and practice around himself as the universal emperor, and in so doing re-created a more perfectly Manchu imperial Mount Wutai.

Rethinking Universal Emperorship As many scholars of Qing history and religion have shown, the Manchu rulers’ statecraft depended heavily on a retelling of their origins and identity, as well as those of the peoples over whom they sought to rule, projecting themselves as “the ultimate apotheosis of righteous rulers in the recurring cycles of history and myth.”121 It was under the Qianlong emperor that the Qing empire reached its greatest territorial extent and its height of power and prosperity. As the fourth Manchu emperor to rule from China proper, Qianlong inherited the identity-making enterprise from his forebears, yet a very different reality from each of them.122 Qianlong’s incarnation of the wheel-turning Mañjuśrī, alongside his zealous cultivation of an imperial Confucian persona, both of which matured through his long reign of sixty years (1736–1795), attest to his ability to embody the moral centers of all cultural and religious traditions under his domain and allowed him to recenter his imperium upon himself. Just as Qianlong rehearsed the early Qing ruler’s reenactment of the lama–patron relationship of the Yuan Mongols and the religious leaders of the Sakyapa sect of Tibetan Buddhism and re-created the palaces of the Dalai Lamas and Panchen Lamas in Chengde, his act of copying Mount ˙ Wutai recentered, reorganized, and reconfigured the past, such that his reenactments and reappropriations produced a new imperial cosmology. Qianlong’s replicas were eventually achieved through his reenactment of an embodiment of a sacred icon that was highly venerated across Pan-Buddhist Asia. His merging of himself with Mount Wutai’s most celebrated icon, which had ties to Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, and even Khotanese iconography, allowed the message he sought to convey to transcend all religious, cultural, and linguistic differences. Of paradoxical importance is that neither the images of Mañjuśrī on a lion Qian­ long commissioned and received nor the temples he built to enshrine the images were accessible to a wider public, and for that matter were not put on display for his multicultural subjects. Moreover, the Manchu monasteries’ institutional and architectural ephemerality meant an even smaller audience over time. A court record from the end of the thirty-fourth year of the Qianlong reign (1770), twenty years after the initial construction of the Baodi Monastery, the first Mount Wutai replica at Xiangshan, reported that the temple complex was in urgent need of repair.123 The fate of the Manchu canon, a monumental project second only to Qianlong’s massive compendium of Chinese literature, the Siku quanshu 四庫全書, was not dissimilar. Among the twelve sets that were printed, most were distributed to non-Manchu monasteries in key monastic establishment of the empire, where no one would have been able to read Manchu.124 Overall, Qianlong’s monumental efforts at shaping and preserving a distinct Manchu imperial Buddhist monastic and scriptural heritage was not sustained as imperial support of monasteries at Mount Wutai waned in the latter half of the Qing dynasty.125 chapter one

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By the early twentieth century, with the collapse of most of the edifices at Xiangshan, the Manchu monasteries fell into obscurity. But even this history of demise is instructive. Instead of reading it as evidence of Qianlong’s failed attempt to create a lasting impact, or attribute the short-lived institution to the inevitability of Sinicization, I argue that Qianlong’s aims were elsewhere (and elsewhen). The sophistication of these building projects showed that having undertaken the tasks of perfecting the teachings and practices of Buddhism in the form and language of Manchu Buddhism in his role as an emperor mattered more to him than the monasteries’ projected longevity within a historical timeframe. Far from serving as instruments of political or religious propaganda, Qianlong’s copies of Mount Wutai display the expansive temporality of a universal, wheel-turning Sino-Tibetan bodhisattva emperor, one whose political, religious, cultural, and artistic engagements were as much about the instrumental governance of his empire as they were aimed at the manifestation of an ideal of universal kingship, a role that Qianlong fully identified with throughout his long reign. The imperial promotion of Mount Wutai was to have long-lasting consequences on religious culture in the Qing empire: it played an important role in initiating a thriving Sino-Tibetan Buddhist pilgrimage culture at Mount Wutai, supported by visiting Mongols and Tibetans in the nineteenth century (despite the lack of imperial support), and laid the groundwork for the development of Mount Wutai as a center of Qing Gelukpa Buddhist scholasticism and a site of Tibetan Buddhist hagiographical traditions. The articulation of a Manchu imperial Mount Wutai, which synthesized the past and present in Chinese, Mongol, and Tibetan imaginations, set the stage for Tibetan Gelukpa Buddhism to flourish on the mountain.

imperial replicas

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chapter two

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2 Miracles in Translation

The Qing imperial patronage of Mount Wutai, once vital to the Manchu emperors’ self-fashioning and to their governance of a multiethnic empire, diminished in the nineteenth century as the administration was increasingly debilitated by internal rebellions and the Opium Wars. The Jiaqing emperor was the last of the Qing emperors to tour Mount Wutai, which he did once in 1811 (compared to Kangxi’s five and Qianlong’s six visits).1 Yet, precisely during this period when the Qing emperors could no longer afford to enact religiopolitical theater of imperial tours, wealth poured in to Mount Wutai from Inner Asia. As Isabelle Charleux demonstrated, the mountain emerged as a thriving pilgrimage center for an unprecedentedly large number of Mongols and an important trading post linking Amdo, Central Tibet, Mongolia, Central China, and Europe.2 At the beginning of the nineteenth century, as many as three thousand lamas from Mongolia and Tibet resided at the two dozen monasteries on the mountain. In the eyes of a late nineteenth-century Scottish missionary, the hordes of Mongols making the arduous journey to Mount Wutai appeared analogous to Jews and Muslims making pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Mecca.3 Mount Wutai’s thriving pilgrimage culture brings to the fore the issue of cross-cultural knowledge and perception. How did monks and lay pilgrims who did not speak or read Chinese comprehend, navigate, and venerate this millennium-old site? Among the literate sector of pilgrims, the desire to understand this site was best reflected in an efflorescence of multilingual literature about the mountain range during the Qing dynasty, including guides, pilgrimage records, and praise poems. As the only sacred mountain in China proper to receive a textual representation in Inner Asian languages before the twentieth century, Mount Wutai was the subject

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detail of fig. 2.2

fig. 2.1. Guide to the Clear and Cool Mountains, 90 folios. Library of the Minorities Cultural Palace, Beijing.

of a remarkable collection of Mongolian- and Tibetan-language guidebooks during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, in addition to the imperially sponsored Chinese-language gazetteers surveyed in chapter 1.4 The most authoritative yet anomalous among them was a work titled the Guide to the Clear and Cool Mountains: A Vision of Marvelous Sun Rays That Causes Lotuses of Devotion to Blossom (hereafter, Guide; fig. 2.1).5 The work was initiated in 1767 by Rölpé Dorjé, the Monguor polymath and reincarnate lama who was the imperial state preceptor and Qianlong’s religious teacher. As someone whose religious identity became inseparable from his tenure at Mount Wutai, Rölpé Dorjé was more poised to author the guidebook than anyone else, yet he left the work unfinished. The Guide was eventually completed and published by his disciples in 1831. Since the time of its publication, the Guide has continued to be the most frequently consulted Tibetan-language text by pilgrims, devotees, scholars, and the like.6 Among the many guidebooks composed in Tibetan and Mongolian until the present day, the most defining feature of the Guide is its close adherence to the Chinese source.7 Other Tibetan and Mongolian texts on Mount Wutai also contain descriptions of the mountain’s geography derived from local sources, but when it comes to enumerating miracle stories, personages and deities, prophecies or efficacious properties, which constitute the most important aspect of most Tibetan pilgrimage guides, they largely cite from within the Indo-Tibetan tradition.8 In contrast to those other Tibetan and Mongolian works, the Guide contains, almost exclusively so, verbatim translations of the miracles and biographies from the Chinese mountain gazetteers (shanzhi 山志). In chapter 1, I have already discussed the production of imperial gazetteers of Mount Wutai in relation to their promotion of a Qing imperial identity. But as a literary chapter two

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subgenre, the mountain gazetteer has a longer and nonimperial origin. Compiled and redacted by local elites from a plethora of local, historical, and religious sources about a sacred mountain, mountain gazetteers first burgeoned in sixteenth-century China. The gazetteers are a repository of local sites, personages, and numinous tales. Gazetteers of Mount Wutai contain not only a description of the history of each site and temple at the mountain, but also relevant stories of visionary encounters and other hagiographical accounts of famous masters affiliated with Chan, Huayan, Tiantai, and Vinaya schools and teachings of Chinese Buddhism, all of which have a long and deep history at Mount Wutai. The ways in which this palimpsestic literary, cultural, and religious history of the mountain is rearranged and translated in the Guide promise much insight into the question of how Tibetan and Mongol pilgrims, from a monastic and literary perspective, saw the mountain and its history. Take, for example, the translation of one of the frequently recorded types of stories that follow the genre known as the “encounter dialogue,” defined as records of purported exchanges between Buddhist teachers and disciples that feature “various types of logical disjunctions, inexplicable and iconoclastic pronouncements, gestures and physical demonstrations, and even assaultive behavior.”9 These stories are often designed to burst the illusion of fixed notions of piousness  —  to liberate someone who has been rendered “paralyzed and religiously impotent by his dependence on some predetermined religious position.”10 Encounter dialogues initially appeared in the Chan anthologies of discourse records (yulu 語錄) and lamp transmission records (chuandeng lu 傳燈錄) in the Song dynasty, and were later redacted into biographies of eminent monks that were in turn redacted into mountain gazetteers.11 Famed as a literary style and a primary mode of practice and discourse in Chan Buddhism starting in the eighth century, encounter dialogues have acquired many other performative dimensions over the course of the development in Chan Buddhism. As textual records, they authorize the transmission and enlightened status of the master in question;12 by the seventeenth century, encounter dialogues were publically performed as part of the theatrical demonstration of a Chan monk’s enlightened status during the ceremony of ascending the hall.13 These intentionally open tales, efficacious on account of their ambiguity, and ever-shifting with the changing context of their publication, thus make for an intriguing subject of translation. The process by which a Tibetan pilgrimage guidebook is composed through translations from a particular Chan Buddhist genre of medieval Chinese stories (on the limit of the discursive language), which had a contemporaneous currency in the praxis and legitimation of Chan Buddhism and had been redacted and collected in the post-sixteenth-century literary genre of mountain gazetteer, sheds light on the complexity of cross-cultural translation. The technical and precise, yet interpretive and original, work of selective translation and compilation reveals the place of Mount Wutai in the Tibetan literary world. While other media and genres of re-creation and presentation reflected the prominence of Indo-Tibetan assertions on and about the mountain, the Guide stands as a singularly involved endeavor on the part of Qing Gelukpa Buddhist monk scholars to come to terms with the mountain’s past and present through the translation of a Chinese textual tradition. It presents a rarely told chapter in the history of SinoTibetan religious exchange as seen from the vantage point of the Tibetan writers, when contemporaneous Chinese sources contained almost exclusively antagonistic and miracles in translation

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politicized portrayals of Tibetan Buddhism.14 At this time in the eighteenth century, the field of Tibetan religious literature had been and was still looking toward India as the source of the Buddhist tradition, while Buddhism in China, and especially the caricaturized Chan school, had often been considered an aberrant strain of Buddhism by canonical historiography.15 What were the reasons behind this Tibetan engagement with Chinese literary history at this juncture? As my analysis in this chapter shows, it is primarily believed that tales of Mañjuśrī’s myriad manifestations at Mount Wutai offer pilgrims access to the bodhisattva’s earthly residence. That is, even before they were translated, tales of miraculous encounters were considered above the conventions of a particular culture and the use of a specific language. They were, in other words, already transcultural and translingual. Miracle tales in gazetteers have been characterized as “testimonial literature,” whose aim was “not only to inform but to convince.”16 Similarly, in their capacity to persuade, tales of apparitions (xianying 顯應) or “numinous responses” (ganying 感應; literally, “stimulus-response”) associated with Mañjuśrī and his earthly residence, which dominated the layered historiography of Mount Wutai,17 were likewise seen as the most valuable evidence of the mountain’s sanctity to authors and readers of the Guide. Past encounters with Mañjuśrī and pilgrimage to Mount Wutai served as a chief means of knowing and accessing the mountain. When examined together with contemporaneous sources by a circle of Gelukpa scholars at the Qing, the Guide also offered a different kind of access  —  to the history of Buddhism in China. As a work of translation and synthesis that was clearly concerned with descriptions of Mañjuśrī’s apparitions and the location of his earthly paradise, the Guide is a window into the evolving, heterogeneous, and acceptably diverse readings of the revelatory vision of Mañjuśrī and the sanctity of a Buddhist holy mountain in both Chinese and Tibetan traditions. Tales of visionary encounters with Mañjuśrī and his earthly abode that were often ambiguous and paradoxical in their original Chinese contexts nevertheless found a ready audience in Tibetan- and Mongolian-language readers who were already steeped in the language of visions and manifestations.18 By devoting attention to the numinous tales of Mount Wutai and its holy beings, and leaving out others that are peripheral to this concern (such as imperial inscriptions, traveler’s poems, and Confucian official sponsorship), the authors of the Guide offered their readers access to past visions and insights experienced by eminent masters and luminaries in Chinese Buddhism, with the implicit promise of the readers’ own perception and cognition of Mount Wutai’s sanctity in the future. The Guide’s selective translation and the reframing of its Chinese source text demonstrate that stories of Mañjuśrī’s myriad apparitions constitute an important aspect of the Qing Inner Asian multimedia reinvention of Mount Wutai. At a moment when parts of Mongolia and Tibet were being brought into the fold of the empire for the first time in their history, this work contributed to the construction of a PanGelukpa, Tibetan Buddhist identity that could also encompass Chinese Buddhist history. From the point of view of the Tibetan writers, this narrative that is created through the shared veneration of Mañjuśrī at Mount Wutai promises a bridging of the divide between history of Mount Wutai and their own traditions. The translation process, as I will show, streamlined what original doctrinal positions or genre conventions there were and turned the narratives into something equally as soteriologically efficacious as stories of visionary encounters in their own traditions. chapter two

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The analysis in this chapter is made possible through my discovery that the Guide is derived from the translation and abridgement of a single Chinese text  —  the New Gazetteer  —  compiled by Mount Wutai’s incumbent Jasagh Lama Laozang Danba under the reign of Kangxi (fig. 2.2).19 As mentioned in chapter 1, it was the second of four imperially sponsored texts on Mount Wutai. This identification enables a transparent, line-by-line comparison of the two texts to see where the redactions, additions, and transformations occur in the Guide. On the whole, while some of the lengthier stories from the New Gazetteer were abbreviated in the Guide, content in every entry that pertains to the monastic and marvelous history of Mount Wutai is preserved in its original sequence of appearance. The location of numinous sites and temples, tales of the bodhisattva’s apparitions and teachings, hagiographical accounts of Buddhist masters in China throughout the dynasties, along with pre-Buddhist legends of immortals, were meticulously translated from the Chinese sources and introduced through an Indo-Tibetan tantric framework. Nonetheless, even in the process of verbatim translation, new meanings are generated through alternative or mistaken interpretations. For example, the personages of old Buddhist masters who serve as foils in Chanstyled stories about the illusory nature of perception become reelevated in the Tibetan guidebook, in which the masters almost always serve as figures of veneration and emulation. Overall, the Guide displays a careful, albeit sometimes mis-reinterpreted miracles in translation

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fig. 2.2. Map of Mount Wutai in Laozang Danba, New Gazetteer of Clear and Cool Mountains, 1701. Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

preservation of the content of the New Gazetteer on the one hand, and a deliberate reframing and reorganization of that content for its Tibetan-language readers on the other. It is chiefly through (1) the selection and reordering of chapters, (2) a reification of records of visionary encounters and hagiographical accounts, (3) the preframing and reframing of the content through the more familiar lens of an Indo-Tibetan cosmology, and (4) an appended personal eulogy penned by Rölpé Dorjé that the authors of the Guide rendered intelligible the content of its Chinese source to their Tibetan-reading audience, thereby providing the readers with unprecedented insight and access into a Chinese textual and religious world.

The Practice of Translation When considered within the context of the Qing court practice of translation, the careful rendition of a source text into another language may appear conventional at best. After all, as discussed in chapter 1, the practice of translation was paramount to the reigns of the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors, whose universal rule of their empire in large part rested upon their (or their administrations’) command over the languages of their conquered subjects.20 Politically significant, the accuracy of translation was of ever-greater concern from a soteriological perspective, where the transmission of Buddhist teachings was, as it had been through much of its history, contingent upon their correct semantic and/or phonetic delivery in the native language of the receiver. The most authoritative example of this is Rölpé Dorjé’s compilation of a quadrilingual encyclopedia of Sanskrit dhāranī-mantras, a monumental undertaking consisting of ˙ 10,402 dhāranī-mantras and 451 sutras.21 It is therefore not a coincidence that the per˙ son who began the writing of the Guide at the request of his disciples was Rölpé Dorjé, the polyglot and translator par excellence of eighteenth-century China. His prodigious career as a scholar and teacher in the Qing court was marked by an abiding interest in perfecting the art of translation. He was the driving force behind the translation of scriptures into Mongol, Manchu, Chinese, and Tibetan languages and the compilation of numerous multilingual dictionaries and scriptural canons.22 While the Guide’s attention to the precise details of a Chinese text was hardly surprising in light of the rigor of both Qing courtly and Gelukpa scholarly projects of translation, it was nonetheless an anomaly. For one, its direction of translation was unusual. Whereas scriptures and scriptural canon were systematically translated from Tibetan to Mongolian (Kangyur and Tengyur), as well as from Chinese to Manchu, rarely were texts translated from Chinese to Tibetan and Mongolian.23 Even less common is the translation of a geographic (rather than scriptural) genre of mountain gazetteers to the corresponding genre of pilgrimage guides, known as néshé (gnas bshad). The religious teachings, philosophical expositions, and sequence of historical events that had already become truncated, obscured, or, in the case of Mount Wutai, creatively revised, by virtue of the gazetteers’ history of repeated compilations and redactions, were now subjected to another interpretation and redaction in their selected translation into Tibetan. From the perspective of Tibetan Buddhist literary production, it is important to reiterate that India, not China, has always been viewed as the source. The fact is, no other Tibetan or Mongolian guide to Mount Wutai followed existing Chinese-language sources as closely and comprehensively, not to mention the Chinese-language mountain gazetteers themselves varied greatly from one compilation chapter two

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to another depending on the particular interest and agenda of each compiler.24 In other words, this rather strict adherence to a previous mountain gazetteer was virtually unprecedented either translingually or in textual recensions from within the same language. Within Rölpé Dorjé’s own oeuvre were two other pilgrimage guides to sites in Beijing  —  one to the White Stupa at the the Baita Monastery 白塔寺 (or Miaoyin Monastery 妙應寺) and another to the famed image of the Sandalwood Buddha housed in the Zhantan Monastery 旃檀寺  —  but neither were direct translations from a single Chinese source.25 By contrast, authors of the Guide adhered closely and singularly to a Chinese source text (albeit without calling or thinking of it as a translation) even when abundant descriptions of Mount Wutai in Tibetan language sources had been available since the thirteenth century. An examination of the collective authorship of the Guide shows that a concern for accuracy and authenticity led the authors to the Chinese source text.

Authorship According to his biographer Tuken, Rölpé Dorjé took up the task of compiling a guide to Mount Wutai at the request of his disciples, who were dissatisfied with the existing Tibetan version by Ritsé Ngapa Penden Drakpa (Ri tse lnga pa Dpal ldan grags pa [active eighteenth century?]), which was thought to be too brief and flawed by omissions.26 They also found it difficult to comprehend since it contained only inaccurate, literal translations from the Chinese sources. If the incompleteness and incomprehensibility of the earlier translation were what prompted the new compilation, the task of creating a faithful, complete, and intelligible guide was taken very seriously. In the six decades after Rölpé Dorjé initiated the project in 1767 and completed the first two chapters, the unfinished manuscript passed through the hands of several scholars and translators, including his disciples Lochen Ngawang Kelzang (Lo chen Ngag dbang bskal bzang), Drotsang Khentrül (Gro tshang Mkhan sprul), and a student of Drotsang Khentrül, and was eventually completed and edited by the prominent Mongol Lama Changlung (Lcang lung Ārya Pandita Ngag dbang blo bzang bstan ˙˙ pa’i rgyal mtshan, 1770–1845; hereafter, Changlung),27 who issued the text in both Tibetan and Mongolian languages in 1831 (see fig. 2.1).28 Kurtis Schaeffer has shown in his study of Tibetan-language praise poems about Mount Wutai that the authors formed a close-knit intellectual community.29 The completion and popular reception of the Guide by Rölpé Dorjé and his disciples reflect the bonds of this community. They represented not only a continued homage to the legacy of their teacher, but also the collective commitment and skills of a group of Gelukpa polyglots from Amdo and Mongolia who converged on Mount Wutai. The Guide consists of five chapters in 90 folios, and it includes a colophon written by Changlung. According to this colophon, Changlung also paid for the carving of the printing blocks at the monastery called the Lama Residence of Kündüling at Mount Wutai, referring probably to the Jifu Temple 集福寺 (Accumulated Virtues Temple; appendix A, no. 86), and subsequently transferred the blocks to the printing house at Songzhu Monastery 嵩祝寺 (Tibetan: Zung gru ze’i par khang) in Beijing, the residence of the Lcang skya Hutukhtus and a chief printing house of Tibetan and Mongolian language materials at the capital.30 Even though the writing and carving was completed locally at Mount Wutai, the decision to transfer the blocks to Beijing miracles in translation

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ultimately guaranteed its safekeeping and propagation. The production of the Guide was also described in a full biography of Changlung written by Gyelwang Chöjé Lozang Trinlé Namgyel (Rgyal dbang Chos rje Blo bzang ’phrin las rnam rgyal, ca. nineteenth century; hereafter, Gyelwang Chöjé). Gyelwang Chöjé discussed Rölpé Dorjé’s emendation of an earlier, faulty Tibetan translation of “a text made by the Kangxi emperor,” which no doubt refers to the New Gazetteer by Laozang Danba,31 a text that Kangxi had commissioned for Tibetan, Mongolian, and Manchu translations, and had issued together with the original Chinese text in a quadrilingual edition in 1701.32 Nowhere in the Guide itself do the authors explain the work’s relation to the New Gazetteer, but it does bear passing references to a “guidebook made by the emperor,” likely referring to the same text.33 The presence of a Tibetan translation of the New Gazetteer and the Guide’s close adherence to the New Gazetteer thus corroborated this description. Notably, there appear to be no similarities between the Tibetan version of the New Gazetteer and the Guide in content or style. The 1701 Tibetan translation of the New Gazetteer, which featured a word-for-word translation and transliterations of the Chinese text, the eighteenth-century equivalent of Google translation, was indeed difficult to comprehend and filled with syntactical errors. Equally awkward was its format; like the Mongolian and Manchu editions, it was carved on wooden blocks and presented in the stitched booklets typical of Chinese books since the Ming dynasty, rather than in the loose-leaf pecha format of Tibetan books that trace their origin to palm leaf manuscripts in India (fig. 2.3).34 Everything from the terms used and the transliterations of Chinese names to the format of the books differ from one Tibetan-language guide to the other.35 Therefore, the authors of the Guide seem to have relied only on the Chinese version of the text. The fig. 2.3. Laozang Danba, Tibetan version of the quadrilingual New Gazetteer of Clear and Cool Mountains, 1701. Wuying Dian Palace imprint. Rare Book Library of the National Palace Museum, Taipei.

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Tibetan translation of the New Gazetteer appeared to be above all a gesture of multilingualism performed by the emperor with little practical purpose or indeed use for guiding a pilgrimage. Although the Chinese version, and to a lesser degree the Mongolian version, became widely circulated beyond the court (as is evident from extant copies of both in major libraries around the world), the Tibetan-language edition (and almost certainly the Manchu-language edition) did not seem to have gone outside the imperial holdings, and the only known copy is now in the Rare Book Library of the National Palace Museum, Taipei.36 By contrast, the Guide represents a well-thought-out attempt at translating the vocabularies, phonetics, and syntax of the gazetteer. The choice of the New Gazetteer as a source reflected the scholarly and practical interests that Gelukpa monks had in the religious past of Mount Wutai as well as its imperial and Gelukpa-endorsed present. While the content of all Qing-dynasty gazetteers was based primarily on a Ming-dynasty gazetteer, each rewriting both expanded in overall length and abbreviated (or tweaked) the entries taken from the Ming text. Among them, the New Gazetteer was the most comprehensive. At the time Rölpé Dorjé initiated the writing of the Guide in 1767, the New Gazetteer would have been the most recent imperial gazetteer about Mount Wutai, although later compilers of the Guide could have had access to the later texts.37 A brief introduction to the textual genealogy of the New Gazetteer reveals that its contents were already the product of repeated adaptation and recontextualization before their selective translation into Tibetan.

Gazetteers of Mount Wutai The term “gazetteer” is the conventional translation for zhi 志 (or its variant 誌), which refers to a descriptive text about the history and geography of a local administrative unit, a topographical area, or an institution, compiled from texts belonging to different genres.38 Scholars attribute the emergence of gazetteers in the twelfth century (through the appearance of the name zhi in the title of books) to the rise of a gentry class that was increasingly interested in its local history.39 Topographical gazetteers emerged as the predominant form of local history, produced by various segments of the gentry class, rather than by court-commissioned specialists, and for local rather than state consumption. Significant portions of these texts would be devoted to biographies of local celebrities, bibliographies, and literary anthologies of poems, essays, and stele inscriptions dedicated to famous local spots.40 Topographical gazetteers, as they emerged during the Song dynasty, became a basis for the writing of local history in all subsequent dynasties. During the reign of the Ming Wanli 萬曆 emperor (r. 1572–1620), the rapid expansion of a localized gentry elite throughout China41 gave rise to the subgenre of mountain gazetteer, the most common type of topographical gazetteer and the predominant form of geographic knowledge and representation in the Ming and Qing dynasties.42 Usually religious in orientation (Buddhist or Daoist), it pre­sents, under organized headings in the texts, descriptions of local sites and temples, maps, biographies of eminent religious and lay persons, legends or miracle tales, essays, poems, and epigraphs, all of which are culled from local historical and administrative records as well as canonical religious sources. It was the gentry class’s growing interest in Buddhism that precipitated the efflorescence of Buddhist mountain gazetteers. The first topographical gazetteer of Mount Wutai that contains the term zhi in its title appears in the Wanli era, when gazetteer production surged throughout China.43 miracles in translation

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Subsequently, this text, the Gazetteer by the monk Zhencheng 鎮澄 (1546–1617), printed in 1596, became the basis for the many Mount Wutai gazetteers that appeared under court sponsorship during the Qing dynasty. The Gazetteer is divided into ten chapters: 1. Abode (huayu 化宇); 2. Deity (yuansheng 原聖); 3. Numinous Traces of the Five Peaks (wufeng lingji 五峯靈迹); 4. Excellent Sceneries of Monasteries (qielan shenggai 伽藍勝概); 5. Exemplary Conducts of Eminent Monks (gaoseng yixing 高僧懿行); 6. Bodhisattva’s Apparitions (Pusa xianying 菩薩顯應); 7. Royal Patronage (diwang chongjian 帝王崇建); 8. Outside Patronage of Famous Gentlemen (minggong waihu 名公外護); 9. Tales of Resonance and Penetration of Different People (yizhong gantong 異衆感通); 10. Praises and Inscriptions of Famous Gentlemen (minggong tiyong 名公題詠). The Gazetteer appeared similar in name, content, and organization to mountain gazetteers of other sites from the Ming, but its major sources were in fact records of the mountain that descended from the medieval Buddhist hagiographical tradition, consisting of stories in the life of eminent masters and individual episodes of Mañjuśrī’s apparitions to specific individuals. It drew heavily from a triad of pre-Ming texts about Mount Wutai that circulated together as early as the twelfth century:44 the seventh-century Ancient Record of the Clear and Cool Mountains (Gu Qingliang zhuan 古清凉傳) by Huixiang 慧祥; the Expanded Record of the Clear and Cool Mountains (Guang Qingliang zhuan; hereafter, Expanded Record), prefaced and compiled by Yanyi in 1060 c.e.; and Further Records of the Clear and Cool Mountains (Xu Qingliang zhuan 續清凉傳), by Zhang Shangying 張商英 (1043–1122) in the eleventh century based on his 1088 visit to Mount Wutai (date of printing unknown).45 All three works are labeled as zhuan, which most commonly corresponds to the term “biography.” As this title suggests, the content of these “biographies” of Mount Wutai emphasize human affairs as much as their Ming and Qing counterparts. In fact, they are chiefly compilations of miraculous encounters with Mañjuśrī. In this regard, even though the triad of texts had been composed around a single topographical location and are therefore referred to as “proto-gazetteers,”46 they are also a continuation of the genre of Buddhist hagiography. In his preface to the Gazetter, Zhencheng states his reason for the recompilation, citing that “although biographies (zhuan) [of Mount Wutai] have been repeatedly published, traces of the apparitions of Mañjuśrī and the spiritual resonances of upstanding men are evidently omitted in all the publications and have yet to be enumerated.”47 His justification for the recompilation confirms the singular focus on Mañjuśrī’s appearance in his Gazetteer. The aim for a complete and accurate detailing of Mañjuśrī’s manifestations and of the characteristics of his abode dominated virtually every subsequent recompilation of Mount Wutai gazetteers during the Qing dynasty. When Laozang Danba compiled his New Gazetteer, he kept the chapters and content of Zhencheng’s Gazetteer intact (with some minor renaming of the headings), but rearranged the content, added new materials, and reordered the chapters such that the chapter on “imperial patronage” would come earlier than the chapter on “eminent monks” (fig. 2.4). Laozang Danba also added to the chapter on “imperial patronage” Shunzhi and Kangxi’s activities on the mountain, and collected more “praises and inscriptions.” As mentioned earlier, the New Gazetteer was made into the first quadrilingual gazetteer of the empire at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Tibetan (see fig. 2.3), Mongolian, and Manchu versions, together with the original Chinese, were published in a single volume in 1701 by the imperial palace printing house at chapter two

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0. Imperial Preface, Stele, and Writings 御書匾額，御制碑文，御制詩 1. Abode 化宇

1. Prophecy and Recognition of the Place (Yid ches bskyed pa’i phyir rgyal bas lung bstan cing gnas sgo phye ba’i tshul)

2. Deity 原聖 3. Numinous Traces 靈蹟

2. Distinctive Features of This Sacred Land (Gnas kyi bkod pa’i khyad par bshad pa)

4. Monasteries 伽藍 3. Great Masters Who Visited This Sacred Place (Skyes chen dam pa du ma byon pa’i tshul)

5. Imperial Patronage 崇建 6. Bodhisattva’s Apparitions 顯應

4. Mañjuśrī’s Extraordinary Visionary Manifestations Granted to Devotees (Dad ldan rnams la ’phags pa’i snang ba khyad par can stsal ba’i tshul)

7. Outside Patrons 外護 8. Eminent Monks 高僧

5. Imperial Patronage (Chos rgyal rim byon rnams kyis bsnyen bkur ji ltar mdzad pa’i tshul)

9. Conditions and Resonance 緣感 10. Praises and Inscriptions 題詠

Wuying Dian 武英殿. In the Chinese version of this text, Kangxi’s preface, followed by imperial stele inscriptions and poetry are frontloaded onto the ten chapters.48 The preface praised the comprehensiveness of Laozang Danba’s work by remarking that a synoptic understanding of the mountain can be obtained “by holding the folios [of the New Gazetteer] alone.”49

Shifting Ontologies Both Zhencheng’s claim for a comprehensive representation of Mañjuśrī’s appearance in the preface of his Gazetteer and Kangxi’s praise that the New Gazetteer offers a synopsis of the mountain, must be qualified. Unstated are Zhencheng’s substantial alteration of the biographies and miracle tales contained in the triad of pre-twelfthcentury texts and Laozang Danba’s revisions of Zhencheng’s Gazetteer. Before turning to a comparison of the Guide with the New Gazetteer, it is first important to look at the evolution within the Chinese textual tradition itself. Susan Andrews’s study of the tales of conjured temples showed how much the Qing gazetteers departed from works from the preceding centuries,50 but less attention has been paid to Zhencheng’s creative license. Stories that cite the same textual source, personality, and plot would often receive a different ending that reflected a different understanding of the mountain, its miracles in translation

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fig. 2.4. Diagram showing the selection and reordering of chapters from the New Gazetteer to the Guide.

numinous inhabitants, and the nature of miraculous visions themselves. The changes deserve to be studied in detail in a separate analysis, but the changes I have observed, from the triad of pre-twelfth-century texts to Zhencheng’s Gazetteer, can be summarized as follows: (1) a reorientation of emphasis from the numinous quality of the site to the didactic demonstration of the law of cause and effect in tales of the unexpected and strange sightings of Mañjuśrī; (2) a markedly different attitude toward the role of local deities  —  as dharma protectors in the former and potentially malicious outsiders in the latter; and (3) perhaps most strikingly, a change in the ontological discourse of the mountain and its eminent masters. These are also the changes that anticipate yet another transformation in the translation into the Guide. Consider, for example, an episode from the life of the Vinaya master Daoxuan 道宣 (596–667). In his own writings, Daoxuan frequently established himself as a visionary intermediary who received instructions from gods and heavenly scriptures about otherwise invisible cosmologies.51 At a distance from the original time and place of the Buddha’s life, Daoxuan’s revelations were, as Koichi Shinohara puts it, strategies to “reconstitute Buddhist sites in China.”52 It is also this image of Daoxuan that appears in the eleventh-century Expanded Record compiled by Yanyi: According to the Huayan Compendium of Numinous Tales, the Vinaya master frequent comes to the central peak. When he saw a youth with unusual appearance, he asked him why. The youth said, “I am a deva. I have been sent by Indra to inspect the sacred realm.” The Vinaya master then asked, “I have read the chapter on the abode of the Bodhisattva in the Avatamsaka Sūtra. Mañjuśrī dwells in the Clear and Cool ˙ Mountains. Since I have come to the mountain range, I have yet to attain a sight [of the bodhisattva]. What is the reason for that?” The youth said, “Why does the master question? At the formation of the world, this earth is situated on top of a golden wheel. On the golden wheel are sharp spikes, one of which bore a small golden wheel. This wheel is located half way up the northern terrace. It is where Mañjuśrī’s Palace of the Seven Jewels is located. Groves of fruit trees fill the entire compound, surrounded by ten thousand bodhisattvas. On top of the northern terrace is a pond. Its name is the golden well. The great sage Mañjuśrī and all sagely entourage appear from it. It is interconnected with the Diamond Grotto. The domain of the Great Sage is no ordinary realm. Don’t you know, master?” Having finished his words, he disappeared. The Vinaya master exited the mountain to tell all of his relations about this.53

In this story, the deva divulges to Daoxuan the cosmology of the mountain, thereby affirmimg Daoxuan’s thaumaturgic authority to discern Mount Wutai’s sanctity. However, in the Zhencheng’s Gazetteer and all subsequent versions of gazetteers of Mount Wutai, including a precise translation in the Guide, the story gets turned on its head. While it begins the same way, and indeed cites from the same eighth-century source,54 the deva responds to Daoxuan’s question by challenging it in the first place: The master [Daoxuan] said, “According to the Avatamsaka Sutra, this mountain is the ˙ abode of Mañjuśrī. But the hills, trees, and grass I now see appear like the dwelling place for ordinary beings, is there really such thing as a sagely realm?” The deva youth replied, “The realm of the great sage is by nature not attainable for ordinary beings nor followers of the two vehicles. I am an ordinary being and you are a follower of the two vehicles. If one uses a contemplating mind to seek the inconceivable, the search will be

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in vain. Have you not heard that the same phenomenon will be perceived differently by three people? Just as the eyes of their karmic retribution are different, what they see will also be different. If the Clear and Cool Mountains that you see are in the color of emerald green, with terraces and hills filled with variegated jeweled trees with illuminating radiance that eliminates the slightest difference between day and night, this dwelling place of the bodhisattva is not within my reach.” Having finished his words, he disappeared.55

Whereas in the former, eleventh-century Expanded Record, Daoxuan acts as the visionary intermediary who was entrusted with spreading the unperceived truth about Mount Wutai to the less enlightened, in the latter, sixteenth-century Gazetteer, the story uses Daoxuan as a foil and his question as a framing device. When asked about the appearance of a sagely realm, the deva comments on the impossibility of unenlightened minds to perceive Mount Wutai’s true reality. He refers to himself as an ordinary being, and calls Daoxuan a follower of the “two [lesser] vehicles,” referring to the two kinds of practitioners (śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas) who, in contrast to a bodhisattva (who is a follower of the great vehicle, or Mahāyāna), are unable to pro­ gress toward Buddhahood due to their inability to eliminate habituated ways of thinking and knowing.56 The deva then attributes Daoxuan’s inability to discern Mañjuśrī’s inconceivable abode to his conceptual, “thinking mind.” He then reframes his response by borrowing Daoxuan’s own preconceived notions of a sacred mountain  —  that of a resplendently jeweled paradise that readers of Mount Wutai’s gazetteers are familiar with through countless similar descriptions of visions experienced by past masters. By saying that such an abode of the bodhisattva is not within his reach, the deva helps Daoxuan (that is, the reader) to understand that such binaries as those between the ordinary and the sacred do not exist beyond our perception. The sagely abode of Mañjuśrī may appear mundane or extraordinary, but neither have anything to do with the landscape itself. To see Daoxuan as trapped in his habituated conception of the visionary, and to relegate him to the lesser vehicles, is ironic in light of the fact that the historical figure of Daoxuan is otherwise well known for having expounded on the integration of the three vehicles.57 But there is a historical dimension to this shift: while Daoxuan and his followers might have needed to contest and confirm the location of Mount Wutai within a Buddhist cosmos in the Tang and the Song dynasties, by the Ming dynasty when Zhencheng was writing, such concerns for the authenticity of the site were already obviated. The shift here represents a prevailing scholarly critique of the adherence to the literal ideas of Mañjuśrī’s field of activities, or to any particular ideas about Mount Wutai at all. The ontology of the mountain shifted from something that can be cosmologically mapped through visionary revelations to one that is purely fabricated by one’s karmic conditions. Much can be made of this shift in light of the development of Chinese Buddhism. In one respect, it embodies what Steven Heine perceives as a tension between popular practice and scholarly perspective in Chan encounter dialogues of Mount Wutai.58 Heine shows how they demonstrate a sense of ambivalence between two levels of Chan discourse  —  “the ideal theory of iconoclasm and antisupernaturalism” and the “appeal of practices based on supernatural visions and numinous experiences.”59 As Robert Gimello’s study of the Confucian official Zhang Shangying’s pilgrimage record miracles in translation

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to Mount Wutai demonstrates, this dialectical tension is everywhere present in the writing of the Chan pilgrims themselves.60 Likewise, the deva points out Daoxuan’s subscription to a binary mode of thinking but does not deny the possibility of such a vision. Zhencheng’s tampering with a well-known received tradition might have frustrated the few post-Kaozheng (evidentiary scholarship) historians of Chinese religion who checked his stories against earlier versions, but to most of his readers and later recompilers, the work passed as the authoritative, canonical history of the mountain. Just what prompted Zhencheng to turn Daoxuan from a visionary into a naïve adherent of the lesser vehicles  —  a Tang representative of preoccupation with visionary details? To pursue the question of just what hermeneutical, philosophical, sectarian, or other concerns of Zhencheng’s time might have motivated his rewriting would further our understanding of Mount Wutai’s religious milieu during the Ming dynasty. While that is a separate topic of study, the Gazetteer’s historicity is pertinent to our understanding of the Guide. Zhencheng’s creative departure from his pre-twelfth-century sources serves as a reminder that, especially to historians mining for details about the past, the Guide is very much a product of the taste, sensibility, contested views, and philosophical outlook Ming and the Qing dynasties embodied in the genre of mountain gazetteers, on top of which its authors overlay their own interpretations. The Guide’s translation of Daoxuan’s story is a case in point. Even when the Tibetan translation adhered to Zhencheng’s story on a sentence-by-sentence level, the last sentence in the deva’s response is changed through an alternative interpretation of a personal pronoun from the second to the first person. The original Chinese word for the personal pronoun was mou 某, which could refer to the first, second, or third person depending on context. Based on the fact that Daoxuan initially inquired about what he was and was not seeing, the most accurate contextual understanding of the deva’s response is in the second person (that is, ruo mo suo jian 若某所見 is “if what you see”). In its Tibetan translation however, the deva switches the pronoun from “you” to “I,” and the conditional “if ” is removed. He says to Daoxuan: “I [emphasis mine] see the Clear and Cool Mountains illuminated by the radiance of lapis lazuli, foothills of the mountain ornamented by various jeweled trees whose radiance brightly illuminates the entire place without the slightest difference between day and night, and that land of the Venerable One is not a place within my domain.” Saying thus, he became invisible.61

Whereas in the Gazetteer, the deva refers back to Daoxuan’s preconceived notions of a sacred mountain (“if the . . . mountain you see is . . . filled with jeweled trees”) to help the reader understand that such binaries as those between the ordinary and the sacred don’t exist beyond our perception, in its translation into Tibetan in the Guide, the deva revealed to Daoxuan that he sees a bejeweled landscape. One way of understanding this interpretation of the passage, in which the deva sees but cannot reach Mount Wutai, is by virtue of his belonging to a class of beings in a different world. Thus, even though the deva is capable of perceiving a higher manifestation of reality, he could not dwell there. His disappearance implies that Daoxuan, an eminent Buddhist master meditating on the summit of Mount Wutai, was by contrast the rightful dweller of the mountain. The slight change in the Tibetan translation reverted Daoxuan’s role from that of a naïve foil back to that of an accomplished Buddhist master worthy of his chapter two

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abode of meditation. Many such changes from the Song to the Ming dynasty, from the Chinese to the Tibetan, reflect the myriad ontologies of a mountain range and of past masters, but this tendency to reify the visionary encounters of past masters and the exalted qualities of the mountain characterizes much of the subtle changes that take place in the Guide. The reification originates as much out of deference to the source text as it does a belief in the (salvific) efficacy of those past encounters.

Reordering Vision What specific portions of the New Gazetteer were kept intact in the Guide and why? How did the authors select, collect, arrange, and frame the New Gazetteer in their new work? The most significant departure was structural: chapters from the New Gazetteer were combined, rearranged, and omitted to reflect the functions, priorities, understandings, and outlooks of a Tibetan guidebook, while the content of those chapters that were combined and reordered remain largely intact (see fig. 2.4). The ten chapters of the New Gazetteer (and their rough equivalent in various versions and editions of Gazetteer from the Ming and Qing periods, all of which shared similar chapter headings) were rearranged and reduced to five chapters in the Guide: 1. Prophecy and Recognition of the Place (yid ches bskyed pa’i phyir rgyal bas lung bstan cing gnas sgo phye ba’i tshul); 2. Distinctive Features of This Sacred Land (gnas kyi bkod pa’i khyad par bshad pa); 3. Great Masters Who Visited This Sacred Place (skyes chen dam pa du ma byon pa’i tshul); 4. Mañjuśrī’s Extraordinary Visionary Manifestations Granted to Devotees (dad ldan rnams la ’phags pa’i snang ba khyad par can stsal ba’i tshul); 5. Imperial Patronage (chos rgyal rim byon rnams kyis bsnyen bkur ji ltar mdzad pa’i tshul). Under the last chapter, Changlung added a new “updated” section to include the patronage of the Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing, and Daoguang emperors. This reordering did not seem to follow any particular convention in Tibetan guidebooks to holy places, although a later Tibetan-language guidebook to Mount Wutai by Dznyana Shriman (Dznyā na shrī man, active mid-nineteenth century) followed the same order as the Guide,62 showing that perhaps the Guide established a convention to be followed by later Tibetan texts on Mount Wutai. While Dznyana Shriman’s guidebook did not include nearly as much detail in individual entries, it incorporated more accounts of contemporaneous Tibetan and Mongol visitors. Overall, the contents of eight out of ten chapters from the New Gazetteer are present in the Guide. They are reorganized such that “Eminent Monks” comes before “Imperial Sponsorship”; “Abode” and “Deity” are combined and summarized into one chapter called “Prophecy and Recognition of the Place”; “Numinous Traces” and “Monasteries” are combined into one chapter called “Distinctive Features of This Sacred Land”; and “Bodhisattva’s Apparitions” and “Conditions and Resonances” are combined into another chapter called “Mañjuśrī’s Extraordinary Visionary Manifestations Granted to Devotees.” A preface by the Kangxi emperor and transcriptions of imperially authored steles, placards, and writings appended to the beginning of the New Gazetteer, as well as two chapters on “Outside Patrons” and “Praises and Inscriptions,” were completely omitted from the Guide. Unlike the eight chapters from the New Gazetteer mentioned earlier that directly addressed scriptural prophecies, miracles, and saintly figures associated with Mount Wutai, imperial and literary writings and stories of Confucian and other miracles in translation

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non-Buddhist supporters of Mount Wutai appeared to lie too far outside the purview of a Tibetan-language guidebook to be included in the Guide. The distinctions perceived by the Chinese compilers and readers between the categories of abode and deity, sites and monasteries, tales of apparitions (focused on Mañjuśrī’s miraculous manifestation in earthly forms to teach worthy individuals), and karmic conditioning (focused on the law of cause and effect as well as on events that resulted from past karmic actions) were merged or dissolved in the Guide. A key difference here hinges on the way “extraordinary manifestation” was understood and represented. Whereas the corresponding Tibetan term nangwa (snang ba)  —  which is part of the Tibetan title of the Guide  —  emphasized the sensory experience of what one perceives, an appearance contingent upon one’s karmic aptitude, the corresponding Chinese categories of xianying 顯應 (the bodhisattva’s apparitions) or yuangan 緣感 (conditions and resonances) revolved around the concept of ganying 感應 (stimulusresponse). Deriving from an indigenous Chinese episteme in which things are related according to affinities and patterns of change (yinyang wuxing 陰陽五行), ganying was understood as the mechanism by which the devotees were able to elicit a response from Mañjuśrī based on the sincerity of their prayers and past deeds, which then set into motion Mañjuśrī’s miraculous apparition.63 In other words, it is karmic affinity with Mañjuśrī that allows a devotee a vision. Within this paradigm, whereas xianying focused on the manifestation of certain phenomena, yuangan designated a relationship between Mañjuśrī and his faithful supplicant, a key focus of the Gazetteer that did not appear to be as pronounced in the earlier, pre-twelfth-century triad of texts. While this distinction might have been obvious to the Chinese compilers, both categories would have been understood under the rubric of nangwa in the Tibetan. By combining the concepts of revelatory visions with karmic conditionings, writers of the Guide obscured the distinction between wondrous displays of a sacred site and cautionary morality tales of cause-and-effect. The category of nangwa is chiefly defined by the fact of the extraordinary manifestations, to anyone and at anytime. The implicit motivation for their translation is their salvific power  —  to learn about past manifestations is to affirm the promise of more encounters in the future.

Reifying Hagiography It is through a similarly efficacious lens that hagiographical tales of early masters are told. Chapter 3 on “Great Masters Who Visited This Sacred Place” (folios 24r–56r) and chapter 4 on “Mañjuśrī’s Extraordinary Visionary Manifestations Granted to Devotees” (folios 56r–82v) are the lengthiest chapters in the Guide. While chapter 3 consists of forty-nine chronologically arranged hagiographies, chapter 4 contains sixtytwo records of Mañjuśrī’s manifestations to different individuals. Both preserve the order and entries of the New Gazetteer, and together they constitute two-thirds of the entire text (fifty-nine out of ninety folios). One type of material that is conspicuously present in these two chapters is the aforementioned Chan encounter dialogue. Already collected in the Gazetteer under biographies of eminent monks and tales of the bodhisattva’s manifestation, the content of encounter dialogues are slightly revised and redacted in the New Gazetteer, and again selected and translated in the Guide in a way that points to a continued reification and resolution of originally ambiguous

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operations.64 Take, for example, those related to the famous iconoclastic Chan master Zhaozhou 趙州 (778–897). His biography in chapter 3 of the Guide includes only two of the seven encounter dialogues recorded in the New Gazetteer. Not coincidentally, the two are related to pilgrimages to Mount Wutai, whereas the rest are not. The first one reads, One day, when he [Zhaozhou] was about to leave for the Five-Peak Mountain, a monk spoke this verse: What mountain anywhere is not sacred? Why go to the Five-Peaked Mountain with a walking stick? Even if a lion with the golden mane manifests in the clouds, It is nothing special when seen with pure eye. When Chan Master asked what “pure eye” meant, the monk remained silent. After that, Chan Master took his luggage and left.65

To readers versed in Tibetan Buddhist literature, the term “pure eye” (dag pa’i mig) refers to the perception of an enlightened figure that is devoid of obscuration.66 Here, Zhaozhou questions the monk’s adherence to the concept of “pure eye,” a term that was translated from the similar but slightly different term “correct eye” (zhengyan 正眼) in Chinese. The story conforms to what John McRae characterizes as a “fundamental mismatch of intention between the students and the teachers” that is common to encounter dialogues.67 Such exchanges are designed to deflect dualistic and conceptual thinking and to catapult the student to a greater awareness of interdepedence. But with the story’s changed textual repository, from the eleventh-century Jingde Chuandeng lu 景德傳燈錄 ( Jingde Era Record of the Transmission of the Lamp) to a nineteenthcentury pilgrimage guide, new lines and meanings have been generated. The ending that Zhaozhou “took his luggage and left” was in both the New Gazetteer and the Guide, but it was neither in the Jingde Chuandeng lu nor in any other collection of text before its appearance in the Kangxi-era New Gazetteer.68 If Chan encounter dialogues are designed to be continuously operational riddles, this addition closes what was a more open-ended performance without this ending. That is, did Zhaozhou end up going to Mount Wutai or not? That Zhaozhou went to Mount Wutai anyway validated pilgrimage to Mount Wutai against the prevailing Chan critique of pilgrimage. Even though the Chinese text of the New Gazetteer Tibetan translation renders the Chinese text verbatim, and therefore the change began with the New Gazetteer, the Guide’s selection of the only two encounter dialogues of Zhaozhou related to the efficacy of pilgrimage to Mount Wutai from as many as seven in the New Gazetter further defined their purpose. A story that was originally open ended, and acceptably so in light of their expedience and didacticism within the Chinese Chan context, was now understood as an actual event with a resolute ending. This desire to reify the content of the Guide pervades the entire text of the Guide. Besides the careful attention to translation, the writers’ occasional insertions of their own commentaries show their concern for the authenticity of the materials they were translating. In one instance, the demand for veracity compelled the author(s) to provide a creative apology at the beginning of the chapter for stories that were originally elusive and semifictive within the Chinese context. Pondering why many of the biographies of eminent masters end in their disappearance, he writes:

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The [author of the Chinese] guidebook . . . did not possess knowledge of how the story of this master unfolded toward the end. Many such cases, in which the author could not relate the latter part of the lives of masters, are mentioned in the accounts that follow. This accords with the convention of how ordinary people perceive these great beings, most of whom frequented many other sacred places in that same lifetime.69

Rather than understanding the rhetoric of disappearance as a trope for miracle tales and encounter dialogues, the writer applies the notion of pure versus ordinary vision, suspecting that the masters had simply moved on to another place not visible to ordinary perception. Elsewhere, after a survey of numinous sites in chapter 2, the text sums up by listing the numbers of sacred sites around each peak provided in the New Gazetteer, and pointing out that many “have crumbled and disappeared, while new stupa temples have been built by emperors, ministers, and householders in places where the Sage Mañjuśrī revealed himself in form and speech to those with faith.”70 As a way of accounting for sites and buildings that might have already perished since the writing of the New Gazetteer, the author(s) points out a timeless way of reading its source material  —  that the past and the present are linked by the continuity of Mañjuśrī’s revelation, rather than through ephemeral sites or buildings.

New Matrices The examples of changes highlighted earlier reflected a way of reading rather than an intentional manipulation of the Chinese source. This attitude of deference was maintained throughout the text, save for several additions and corrections of factual errors made about eminent monks from Tibet.71 Yet one significant and deliberate addition in the Guide was the way in which the content of each chapter was preframed and reframed in order to introduce Mount Wutai within an Indo-Tibetan Buddhist cosmology that was distinct from indigenous Chinese and Chinese Buddhist cosmology. This began with the concept of what constitutes a holy site. The preface to the Guide, which followed a prayer and an homage to Mañjuśrī, opens with this statement: “In general, it is popularly known that there are five exceptional places in Jambudvīpa that are sacred and filled with empowerments known as chinlab (byin rlabs). In the center is Vajrāsana of India; in the east is the Five-Peaked Mountain of China; in the south is the Potala Mountain; in the west is Oddiyan, the land of the dakinis; and in the north is Shambhala, the realm of the Kalki kings.”72 Only after introducing these five sites of empowerment did Rölpé Dorjé (who authored chapters 1 and 2) also mention the existence of the Four Powerful Mountains and the Five Fierce Mountains73 within the Kingdom of Mahācina (Indian scriptural term for China)  —  referring to the four famous Buddhist mountains74 and the Five Marchmounts (Wuyue 五嶽), respectively.75 In contrast, whenever Mount Wutai’s location was mentioned in various Chinese gazetteers from the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was identified as the most important sacred mountain outside the pre-Buddhist Five Marchmounts system.76 Thus, instead of following the Chinese texts, which situated Mount Wutai within the territory of China, Rölpé Dorjé found it necessary to map out an entire system of sacred sites (Bodhimandas) centered on Bodh Gaya, a cosmography ˙˙ of sacred places that arose out of the early Indian Buddhist world system described in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāsyam, an extremely influential treatise that became chapter two

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one of the core texts in the Gelukpa monastic curriculum.77 This spatial geographic mapping contrasted with a temporal mapping of Mount Wutai in Chinese-language texts, which, by situating Mount Wutai outside the pre-Buddhist Five-Marchmount system, reiterated the history of Mañjuśrī’s arrival in (and Buddhist transmission to) China. While the preeminence of Mount Wutai in China and therefore within Chinese-language literature was indisputable, its place within the competitive networks of Tibetan sacred geography still needed to be asserted and reinforced within an IndoTibetan world system. While descriptions of the universe found in Abhidharmakośabhāsyam have been established since at least the sixth century in India78 and in China, and the association of Mount Wutai, Oddiyan, and the Potala with the directions already exists by the Mongol Yuan dynasty,79 only in the eighteenth century did this particular aggregate of five directional sacred sites on the Jambudvīpa seem to have become firmly established in Tibetan sacred geography, and the Guide remains one of the earlier datable references to it.80 This particular mapping of the sacred sites onto Jambudvīpa coincided with the advent of empirical world geography in the Qing court.81 It has remained so authoritative that many texts from that century onward mention it as though it had been instantiated in Tibet long before Rölpé Dorjé restated it in his introduction to the Guide, despite the fact that scholars have not been able to trace the formation of this sacred cosmography to a textual source prior to the eighteenth century. Existing on Jambudvīpa  —  the only island in the cosmological system known to humans  —  the five directional holy places were recognized as both supreme and within worldly reach. However, for many Tibetans and Mongols in the eighteenth century, Mount Wutai was in fact the only one of the five that clearly corresponds to an empirical, geographic location that was both accessible and culturally Buddhist. The location of Vajrāsana was not uncontested, and wherever it was believed to be in northern India, Buddhism had long declined in the region.82 The rest of them  —  Potala, Oddiyan, and Shambhala  —  as much as they were believed to be reachable for those with the karmic conditionings, had no singular set of empirical geographic coordinates. Rölpé Dorjé’s insertion of Mount Wutai into this particular India-centered cosmography, on which many of the holiest sites in Tibetan sacred geography were also mapped, placed Mount Wutai on a par with other sacred sites in Tibetan sacred geography; identified as the most exalted place east of Jambudvīpa, Mount Wutai became a synecdoche for China/ East Asia, and in turn, the Qing empire, within world geography.83 This preframing of Mount Wutai within an Indo-Tibetan cosmography effectively placed the mountain and its associated territories on the map, and thereby attracted its Tibetan and Mongolian readers to the mountain. After establishing Mount Wutai’s place within an Indo-Tibetan cosmology, it was equally important for Rölpé Dorjé to begin his chapter 1, “Prophecy and Recognition of the Place,” by evoking one of the most important tantric scriptural authority of prophecies, the Ārya Mañjuśrīmūlatantra.84 The teachings and practices of tantra were developed in India and separately transmitted to Tibet and China from the seventh century onward. In Tibet, it had been classified as a vehicle of the Buddha’s teachings that is to be distinguished from, and often considered superior to, that of the sutras. Transmitted from teacher to disciple, the late appearance of tantric teachings in places with an already vast Buddhist corpus of scriptures and praxis was justified by an alternative temporality  —  tantric teachings always traced back to the historical Buddha, even miracles in translation

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if they were not accessible to the majority of the people at the time. Even more so than the earlier sutras, tantric scriptures therefore had existed outside of linear, historical genealogy. While all the Chinese texts, from the earliest extant Ancient Record of the Clear and Cool Mountains to the later Ming and Qing gazetteers, including the New Gazetteer, cited the Avatamsaka Sūtra and the likely apocryphal Mañjuśrī Parinirvāna ˙ ˙ Sūtra as scriptural justifications for the authenticity of Mount Wutai as Mañjuśrī’s earthly abode, the Guide opened instead by authenticating its sacred nature through an abbreviated quotation from the Root Tantra of Mañjuśrī, the Ārya Mañjuśrīmūlatantra: In China and Greater China, Mañjuśrī will be thoroughly accomplished. . . .  The great heroic bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, the dazzlingly radiant one, Will personally appear in a youthful form In the regions of that land.85

The particular passages, drawn from a chapter on the prophecies concerning dharma kings in the Tibetan translation by Sakya Lodrö and Kumārakalaśa from the eleventh century,86 was probably the most frequently cited textual authority in various Tibetan works on China.87 This chapter on prophecies was missing in the Song-dynasty Chinese translation attributed to Kashmiri monk Tianxizai 天息災 (Devaśanti: ob. 1000),88 since direct assertions of Buddhist kingship as mentioned in the passage would likely not have gone over well in Song-dynasty China. Chinese language sources on Mount Wutai subsequently did not reference the text. Here, Rölpé Dorjé expediently edited and abridged the prophecy, leaving out the most significant section of the text on an enlightened ruler who will reign over the kingdom, in order to focus on affirming the sacred identity of Mount Wutai.89 He went on to explain that the first part of the prophecy reveals a special connection between China and Mañjuśrī, while the second part, about Mañjuśrī living in China in the form of a youth, corroborates the ancient Chinese sources, which also mentioned a youth with five topknots frequenting the Five-Peaked Mountain.90 Only after Mount Wutai had been sanctioned by the fulfillment of a tantric scriptural prophecy did Rölpé Dorjé go on to cite the Avatamsaka Sūtra and the Mañjuśrī Parinirvāna Sūtra, as well as other sutras that were ˙ ˙ extant in Chinese and Tibetan languages and that had already been included in the New Gazetteer. Through a tantric prophecy, chapter 1 of the Guide thus situated the emergence of Mount Wutai first and foremost within an Indo-Tibetan tantric temporality. Likewise, in chapter 2 on “Distinctive Features of This Sacred Land,” the familiar tantric scheme of the five-directional Buddhas (with Vairocana in the center) was inserted into the beginning and end of the section on numinous sites.91 Given Mount Wutai’s ready topographical association with the five directions, and the importance of esoteric teachings at Mount Wutai during the Tang dynasty, when the tantric deity Vairocana was already mentioned in relation to Mañjuśrī’s five-syllable mantra during the time of Amoghavajra (Chinese: Bukong Jingang 不空金剛; 705–774), it is surprising that this tantric scheme of the five directional Buddhas and their connection to the five terraces were not elaborated on in either the Gazetteer or the New Gazetteer.92 The earliest Tibetan understanding of Mount Wutai, since the thirteenth century, has been to view the five terraces in line with the symbolisms of the five directional Buddhas. Such

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conceptual and abstract understandings were in place long before the more substantial, on-the-ground knowledge of Mount Wutai became available. Rölpé Dorjé, who authored this chapter, saw a need to emphasize this cosmology that was absent in New Gazetteer, mentioning the assembly twice in the chapter. He wrote, According to the noble masters of the past, the five peaks symbolize the great Vairocana Buddha  —  the Sambhogakāya form of Mañjuśrī  —  whose perfectly purified five aggregates emanate as self-radiance of the five wisdoms in the aspect of the five-tathagata families. If we make an inference from this statement, it appears that the Central Mountain is Mañjuśrī’s body, the Eastern Mountain is his mind, the Southern Mountain is his quality, the Western Mountain is his speech, and the Northern Mountain is his activity. In other words, these mountains are respectively the holy places of the emanations of the five Buddha families: Vairocana, Aksobhya, ˙ Ratnasambhava, Amitābha, Amoghasiddhi.93 ˙

The second mention of the five-directional Buddhas included a reference to the earlier guidebook by Penden Drakpa, where the shape of each peak is compared to an auspicious animal and a corresponding stupa design.94 Positioned spatially onto an existing Tibetan sacred geography, temporally by the fulfillment of a Tibetan tantric prophecy, and symbolically by the directional scheme of the five Buddhas, Mañjuśrī’s field of activity was now fully mapped onto the matrices of Indo-Tibetan tantric cosmology.95 Through translation of the miracle stories and teachings as recorded in the New Gazetteer, their reframing within an Indo-Tibetan worldview, and emendation of the existing Chinese source, authors of the Guide made the dense textual history of Mount Wutai accessible for and intelligible to their Tibetan and Mongolian language readers for the very first time. Much of the content of the Guide’s careful rendering from the New Gazetteer consisted of pithy conversations between masters and disciples in the form of Chan encounter dialogues, and lengthy discussions on the nature of phenomena by Huayan masters. The wit and humor of Chan rhetoric and philosophical outlooks of Huayan Buddhism, as well as many other traditions and practices of Buddhism, were thus encased in Indo Tibetan-tantric cosmography, prophecy, and directional schema. This imposition of an Indo-Tibetan Buddhist structure onto original Chinese Buddhist material reflects a religious milieu (beyond Rölpé Dorjé and his immediate disciples) that was invested in the Chinese Buddhist history of Mount Wutai. As the abode of Mañjuśrī, it is one, if not the only, place within China that carried an affinity with the Tibetan Buddhist cultural and religious world through the long-standing tradition of Tibetan Buddhism on the mountain. For those pilgrims and faithful unfamiliar with Chinese history and geography, it was as though the rest of China’s vast territory could be mapped out using Mount Wutai as a recognizable coordinate. It is a place in-between  —  familiar to Indo-Tibetan sacred geography as the indisputable residence of one of its most highly revered deities and its many manifestations, yet authentically Chinese in history, memory, and location. Mount Wutai’s singular importance as a gateway to China was clearly evident in the study and evaluation of Chinese Buddhist history and philosophy alongside other world systems (Indian, Tibetan, Mongolian, and other Inner Asian traditions) by Gelukpa scholars working in and around the Qing court in the eighteenth century.

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The Qing Gelukpa Knowledge of the World Just as the Qing emperors sought to create a China’s Tibet at Mount Wutai for the Qing-centered Chinese-language world, “China” (Tibetan: rgya nag) is opened up for the Tibetan-language world through an increasing familiarity with Mount Wutai. The flourishing of Tibetan and Mongolian language gazetteers of Mount Wutai is a phenomenon that coincided with an increasing interest in world geography among Tibetan-language authors of the Qing court. A brief survey of the ways in which Chinese Buddhist history in general was reimagined and evaluated by Tibetan Buddhists (most of whom were Mongols and Mongours) working in and around the Qing court in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries helps to contextualize Mount Wutai’s singular importance as a gateway to China and the Guide’s key position in linking the Chinese Buddhist past and the Tibetan Buddhist present. The study and evaluation of Chinese Buddhist history and philosophy alongside other world systems  —  Indian, Tibetan, Mongolian, and other Inner Asian traditions  —  was undertaken by three major eighteenth-century figures: the Mongolian prince-translator Gömpojab (Tibetan: Mgon po skyabs; Chinese: Gongbu Chabu 工布查布; fl. 1692–1749), and the Amdo monk-scholars Sumpa Khenpo Yeshé Penjor (Sum pa Mkhan po Yes shes dpal ’byor, 1704–1776; hereafter, Sumpa Khenpo) and Tuken Lozang Chökyi Nyima (Thu’u Bkwan Blo bzang chos kyi nyi ma, 1737– 1802; hereafter, Tuken), who authored, respectively, of The History of Buddhism in China, The Auspicious Wish-fulfilling Tree, and The Crystal Mirror.96 While all three of these works can be seen as attempts to appropriate the history of Chinese Buddhism through an Indo-Tibetan lens, they represent quite different positions and approaches during the time Rölpé Dorjé was active. In The History of Buddhism in China, Gombojab views China as Mañjuśrī’s domain of conversion, in which all previous Chinese sages were understood as disguised emanations of Mañjuśrī and all former kings as Buddhist cakravartins.97 Sumpa Khenpo drew heavily from the work of Gombojab, although he observes the commonality of the Three Teachings rather than imposing Buddhist identifications on other rulers and teachings.98 In The Crystal Mirror, Tuken, the close student of Rölpé Dorjé and author of his biography, refutes the widespread Tibetan belief that past sages were Mañjuśrī’s emanations, or that they have any connection to Buddhism in general; indeed, although he affirms the Gelukpa (Ganden) tradition, he makes no attempt to reinterpret the earlier history of Chinese religions, Buddhist or pre-Buddhist, through the rhetoric of prophecies or emanations. Even as he repeatedly quotes from Ārya Mañjuśrīmūlatantra elsewhere in his monumental work, with regard to Chinese religions he abstains from any such prophesies.99 In this, Tuken was emulating the views of his teacher Rölpé Dorjé, who had studied contemporary Chinese Buddhism and already questioned the validity and existence of the way in which Chan Buddhism had long been misportrayed in Tibet.100 Tibetan authors’ views of Chinese religious and philosophical traditions represent a diversity of perspectives, and the complex fabric of the various Chinese textual traditions was certainly not unfamiliar to eighteenth-century Mongol and Monguor scholars working in and around the Qing court at the time Rölpé Dorjé began to compose the Guide. The philosophical consensus there was that those traditions were not only distinct from one another but that they also evolved independently of each chapter two

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other, even as the intellectual curiosity of many of those scholars drove them to compare and observe similarities across different traditions. What remains consistent time and again throughout these sources is what has already been acknowledged: the privileged place of Mount Wutai in China as the abode of Mañjuśrī, the bodhisattva par excellence. Given Mount Wutai’s unquestionably central position within Tibetan Buddhist cosmologies, a careful and thorough compilation of its guidebook seems only apropos. The authors of the Guide would have had access to the previously mentioned works; and, moreover, Tuken, in The Crystal Mirror, quotes his teacher Rölpé Dorjé’s praise poem about Mount Wutai, which suggests the very close relationship shared by the authors of the Guide and the Gelukpa scholars writing in and around the Qing court.

Tibetan Pilgrimage Guides The Tibetan literary genre that most closely describes the Guide is that of a pilgrimage guide to a holy place. The Guide conforms as much to this genre as it does to the Chinese genre of gazetteers, yet it contains a particular utilitarian dimension that is unique to a translation between the two genres. Just as gazetteers were the primary sources for geographic knowledge and representation in Ming and Qing China, guides to holy monasteries, mountains, and lakes formed the corpus of geographic literature in Tibet.101 In his pioneering 1965 study of Tibetan geography, Turrell Wylie distinguishes four overlapping types of religious geographic literature: register or karchak, guidebook or néshé, passport or lamyik, and global description or golé khajang. These categories are by no means fixed. The Guide is referred to interchangeably as a karchak or néshé in various texts. The Chinese character zhi 志 is carved on the margin of the cover page, following the convention that the Chinese word for “gazetteer” is equated with the Tibetan term karchak or néshé.102 As many have cautioned, the so-called Tibetan pilgrimage cannot be equated with travel guidebooks in the modern western usage of the term, because they were often neither written for pilgrims nor used for navigation. Instead, they were written as means to memorialize and legitimize the sanctity of a place, thereby attracting patronage and acquiring power.103 Rather than serving as instruments of physical orientation, they function variously as a eulogy of the site, a manual for the worship of the resident divinities, and to lead pilgrims to a more exalted dimension of the site that is otherwise invisible or inaccessible.104 The fact that the Guide was completed several decades after Rölpé Dorjé initiated the project  —  carved at a temple on Mount Wutai and transferred to a monastery in Beijing for safekeeping and to facilitate better propagation  —  suggests a locally based agenda of resident Gelukpa lamas wishing to promote their religious center of Mount Wutai and attract patronage.105 However, the Guide breaks down any implied binaries between patronage and pilgrimage, or between religious devotion on the one hand, and navigational utility on the other. Pilgrims were the main patrons of the mountain, and the practical function of the text would have been seen as necessary for those wishing to experience the blessings and vision of Mañjuśrī on the mountain, especially when the travelers are otherwise faced with a linguistic barrier.106 For Tibetan-reading pilgrims traveling from Tibet and Mongolia, the Guide has continued to serve as an indispensable textual guide to Mount Wutai up to the present day, with multiple modern typeset reprintings and translations that attest to its popularity.107 It miracles in translation

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was perhaps this practical aspect that dictated the way in which the content was selectively translated from the Chinese original. In each entry of the translation  —  whether that of a site, temple, person, or miracle story  —  the translated names and terms are followed by the original Chinese equivalents, showing their pronunciation in Tibetan transliteration. On the original impressions printed from the woodblocks placed at the printing house of the Songzhu Monastery, the transliterations are in a slightly smaller font to differentiate them from the main text.108 This method of translation would have been in keeping with the rules of translating religious materials that Rölpé Dorjé expounded upon in his preface to his bilingual Tibetan and Mongolian Dictionary, the Source of Wisdom,109 where he emphasized the importance of capturing sound when a perfect translation cannot be achieved. The combination of semantic and phonetic translation displays an attention to accuracy and authenticity.110 Each entry, following standard translation/transliteration practice, includes explanations of word origins in a format based closely on the New Gazetteer, and occasional insertions of the authors’ own commentaries. Given the array of connotations and layers of miraculous blessings that the various places discussed there had acquired throughout history, it is no surprise that the authors both translated them and preserved their original pronunciation. Pilgrims carrying the Guide could look up the names of places and people and how to pronounce them, enabling them to understand what and who these names are and, with the help of locals, to navigate the mountain range (by no means a straightforward matter), much the way travel guidebooks are used by travelers today. Even for those who had not and probably never would visit Mount Wutai, the inclusion of this information would give them a comprehensive knowledge of the place’s sacredness throughout its history according to the canonical tradition.111 What is omitted is the synoptic map of the mountain that appears at the beginning of the New Gazetteer to provide a practical geographic overview of the mountain (see fig. 2.2). The difference in the format of the two books (going from the vertical rectangular thread-bound book to the long horizontal format of the pecha, the traditional Tibetan loose-leaf book) and in the cartographic conventions of the various regions required a pictorial translation that could be accomplished only by highly skilled illustrators. The fact that the maps are missing in the translated work implies a strictly textual and literary authorship and audience. In the Chinese gazetteer tradition, map and site-based illustrations played a vital role in the comprehensive representations of sites since the Song dynasty, and took on an unprecedented importance since Qianlong’s imperial promotion of Mount Wutai.112 Their absence in the Guide as well as in other Tibetan and Mongol guides to Mount Wutai would increasingly stimulate the parallel production and circulation of pilgrimage maps, as will be discussed in chapter 4.113 To sum up, in the careful translation, reframing, and reorganization of the content of a Chinese gazetteer, the Guide reflected the depth of cultural and religious engagement by Tibetan Buddhist writers and pilgrims in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Mount Wutai. Through its production and widespread dissemination, writers of the Guide not only reinserted the most important transcultural sacred site of the Qing empire into the larger topography of Tibetan sacred sites but also introduced the substance of Buddhist teachings and history in China into a Gelukpa Buddhist worldview, underscoring the centrality of China within the sacred geography

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of Buddhism that was being revised and refined to reflect a new Qing-centered cosmology. The Mount Wutai portrayed in the Guide functioned as a unique point of entry to China for Tibetan- and Mongolian-reading pilgrims. In rendering the mountain’s sanctity intelligible to Tibetan readers unfamiliar with Chinese linguistic, literary, and religious traditions, within a scholarly culture that was and still is nonetheless highly interested in and aware of alternative forms and modes of knowledge production, these texts translated religious culture, genealogy, and cosmology. As a text produced during the height of the Gelukpa presence on the mountain by Rölpé Dorjé and his disciples, it exemplified the Qing Gelukpa writers’ genuine and critical engagement with the layered Chinese textual and religious history of Mount Wutai.114 This engagement filled a gap in Qing-Gelukpa scholarship by supplying knowledge of the history of China proper during a period when many parts of Mongolia and Tibet were recently incorporated into the Qing empire for the first time. By iterating Mount Wutai’s sacred history in Tibetan and Mongolian languages at this juncture of geopolitical transformation, the writers of the Guide thereby positioned themselves as liaisons between the Chinese and Indo-Tibetan Buddhist cultural worlds.

Eulogy Rölpé Dorjé’s most personal and original contribution to the Guide was not in the text itself, but a lengthy eulogy of Mount Wutai that he was asked to compose for the conclusion of the guidebook.115 The structure of this closing prayer roughly paralleled that of the main text: after several initial verses that pay homage to and proclaim Mañjuśrī as the resident deity of Mount Wutai according to scriptural prophecies, the poem described the wondrous sight and sound of the landscape, and then invokes the long line of Indian, Chinese, and Tibetan teachers who have graced the mountain range, either physically or as apparitions.116 It includes not only Kāśyapamātan·ga, Vimalakīrti, Dharmaratna,117 Buddhapāli, Chengguan 澄觀 (738–839), and Dushun 杜順 (557–640),118 all of whom were prominently featured in Chinese sources and in the Guide, but also such Indian and Tibetan philosophers as Nāgārjuna (ca. 150– ca. 250), Atiśa (982–1055?), Sakya Pandita (1182–1251), and Tsongkhapa (1357–1419). ˙˙ These Indo-Tibetan luminaries were not directly mentioned in the Chinese gazetteers, and were also subsequently absent in the Guide, but they were the most revered figures in the Tibetan and especially Gelukpa tradition, variously considered to have been emanations and/or students of Mañjuśrī. The authors did not insert into the guidebook itself important figures from the Indo-Tibetan pantheon associated with Mañjuśrī, likely because disciples of Rölpé Dorjé who completed the work did not wish to take the liberty to add anything to the text besides materials already related by or about their teacher, just as they sought to keep the Chinese text intact. However, in his closing poetic prayer, Rölpé Dorjé found the space to pay homage to a more complete panorama of sagely beings at Mount Wutai, explaining, The attributes of a great place like this are difficult for someone like myself to relate. Thus, I have relied, in the little I relate, on the genuine accounts of Chinese and Tibetan holy beings of the past.

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By “the little I relate,” Rölpé Dorjé presumably referred to what he had related in both the main body of the text and in his praise poem, alluding to the purpose of this undertaking: to relate as authentically as possible the numinous history of Mount Wutai. Toward the end of the eulogy, he reflected on his own lineage, learning, experience, and aspirations: Although I, Rölpé Dorjé, am [but] an elderly beggar-monk, who is caught up in the distracting appearances of this [world], and who has little prospect to realize completely pure dharma, having come to this hermitage now several times to practice the two stages of the Victor’s Oral Transmission [passed on from] the Master, Lozang [Tsongkhapa], I have made a few imprints [on my mind] through the contemplation of texts. Although direct experiential realization is hard to awaken I have gained some idea of how to integrate into my mind the meaning of the words of dharma I have studied in the past through the eloquent words of the Master Tsongkhapa, Mañjuśrī in essence, and the compassion of [my] father lamas, the immeasurably kind Ngawang Chokden and the rest. Bless me, [my] yidams and lamas, with your great compassion as I make prayers and aspirations over and over again, that my life may be spent here [in Mount Wutai] until the very end and that from this moment right now until [I am] enlightened, I will never be separated from this profound path and will realize its meaning without obstruction. Those of you yearning from the bottom of your hearts to realize the holy dharma cast off your obsession with the eight mundane concerns and, practicing with intensity in a place such as this, strive to attain permanent happiness in every way you can.119

Thus, Rölpé Dorjé stressed the spiritual intensity of Mount Wutai, attributed his achievements to his good fortune in coming there, and expressed his heartfelt wish to remain there for the rest of his life. As Kurtis Schaeffer has observed, the language of this poem and other poetry about Mount Wutai is primarily about envisioning the mountain.120 In invoking Mount Wutai’s past luminaries, and in acknowledging his lineage of teachers, from Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelukpa tradition, on down to his own teacher Ngawang Chokden (Ngag dbang mchog ldan, 1677–1751), Rölpé Dorjé encapsulated his knowledge of Mount Wutai’s eminent past and teachings passed down by previous masters, as well as his own religious learning and lineage, into a single dedicatory prayer. By articulating the “profound path” that he followed, he was able to integrate the Chinese past with the Tibetan and Mongol present in a timeless map of Mount Wutai’s visionary topography. The collaborative work of completing the Guide represented a collective homage to past encounters with Mañjuśrī and to their teacher Rölpé Dorjé, who initiated the project. It also reveals the paradigmatic importance of Mount Wutai for the transcultural identity of both Rölpé Dorjé and the network of teachers and students who chapter two

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congregated around him. Rölpé Dorjé’s own praise poem also encapsulates this vision of Mount Wutai as a topography of saints and spiritual ancestors, which mapped the mountain through a lineage of teachers. In both the Guide and the appended praise poem, Mount Wutai came to be defined by the occupancy of a lineage of holy beings. Chapter 3 turns to this crucial understanding of Mount Wutai as a receptacle for transmission and incarnation lineages, an understanding that is both visualized and texturalized in a wealth of hagiographical materials. Portraits of Rölpé Dorjé, which often set him and his lineage of teachers or preincarnations into the lush blue and green hills of a Buddhist paradise that is evocative of Mount Wutai, pictorialize this interdependent relationship between place and person.

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3 Landscape and Lineage

The last leaf of a Qing album features the Qing-Gelukpa polymath and state religious preceptor Changkya Rölpé Dorjé (1717–1786) in monk’s robes and a folded pandita ˙˙ hat of a Tibetan monastic scholar, sitting en face on a three-cushioned teaching throne with an ornamental backrest (fig. 3.1). With his right hand in a preaching gesture, enclosing the stem of a lotus blossom between the thumb and index finger, and a longevity vase in his left hand, Rölpé Dorjé is flanked on his right shoulder by a flaming sword (that severs ignorance) and on his left by a book (wisdom), attributes of the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī. At his feet is a table of religious implements, beneath which four monk-disciples gather with offerings in hand. Through the precise visual lexicon of Tibetan Buddhist iconography, every detail in these features and furnishings portrays at once the person of Rölpé Dorjé and an emanation of Mañjuśrī. This “by the book” quality of a codified idiom and iconographic language counters the startling immediacy of the physiognomy of a youthful man, aglow with the soft-brushed chiaroscuro characteristic of imperial portraiture at the Qianlong court. The attention to empirical rather than idealized features is marked by the rare painterly inclusion of Rölpé Dorjé’s signature lump on the right side of his face.1 This feature unmistakably identifies the historical Rölpé Dorjé, whereas the bearded and elongated face, as well as the figure’s attributes and accoutrements, recall portraits of Rölpé Dorjé’s disciple the Qianlong emperor, who was also considered an emanation of Mañjuśrī. The face and the overall composition bear a striking resemblance to several other depictions of Qianlong as an emanation of Mañjuśrī (see figs. 0.6 and 0.7), with the exception that Qianlong holds a wheel of law of the cakravartin. When viewed next to a comparable album leaf depicting Qianlong (fig. 3.2), the similarity appears to be deliberate.

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detail of fig. 3.1

fig. 3.1. (above) Rölpé Dorjé, 15th leaf, Rebirth Lineage Album of Rölpé Dorjé, Qing court, China, 18th century. Color on silk; quadrilingual verses inscribed with powdered gold on black ground ciqing paper. Individual leaf: 42 × 27.2 cm. Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin. fig. 3.2. (opposite top) The Qianlong Emperor, 13th leaf, Rebirth Lineage Album of Qianlong, Qing court, China, 18th century. Color on paper; quadrilingual verses inscribed with powdered gold black ground ciqing paper. Individual leaf: 40.5 × 31.8 cm. Palace Museum Library, Beijing. fig. 3.3. (opposite bottom) Mañjuśrī, 1st leaf, Rebirth Lineage Album of Qianlong, Qing court, China, 18th century. Color on paper; quadrilingual verses inscribed with powdered gold black ground ciqing paper. Individual leaf: 40.5 × 31.8 cm. Palace Museum Library, Beijing.

Together they forge a compelling visual conflation among Rölpé Dorjé, Mañjuśrī, and the Qianlong emperor.2 This multiplicity of identities is further given a spatial anchor. Rölpé Dorjé  —  both as Mañjuśrī and as a striking double of the Qianlong emperor  —  is surrounded by twelve figures, including Rölpé Dorjé’s guru the Seventh Dalai Lama (1708–1751), at the very top, and an entourage of tantric tutelary and protective deities (some with consorts), each framed by their own flaming aureoles, lotus pedestals, and cloud roundels.3 This assembly of self-enclosed figures hovers on the surface of the picture plane, while a lush backdrop of ravines and distant hills recedes into the horizon, evoking Rölpé Dorjé’s beloved Mount Wutai, where he spent thirty-five summers holding retreats, giving teachings, performing initiations, writing commentaries, and conducting translations of scriptures. Since the mountain is also considered to be Mañjuśrī’s earthly paradise and the source of imperial Buddhist legitimacy for the Manchu emperors (who had been seen and who fashioned themselves as wheel-turning incarnations of Mañjughosa, an alternative name for Mañjuśrī), these identity overlays of the central ˙ figure all cohere around their shared abode of Mount Wutai. The portrait of this eminent figure with his layered identities is also an effective portrayal of just what makes Mount Wutai sacred for Qing-Gelukpa monks  —  it is a ground for the activities of Mañjuśrī and his incarnations, as well as a residential abode for a pantheon of deities

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and holy beings associated with them. This mapping of saints and deities onto the mountain landscape articulates in visual terms Rölpé Dorjé’s layered identity and connection to Mount Wutai  —  the mutually defining being and place. The temporal and spatial perimeters of this ontology are amplified by the design of the Qing album. Rölpé Dorjé (see fig. 3.1) appears on the right half of the last leaf in a quadrilingually inscribed album that eulogizes him and his fourteen preceding incarnations; the album is one of at least three comparable and contemporaneous albums dedicated to a particular person’s preincarnation lineages.4 Together the three albums celebrate the lives-long connections of Rölpé Dorjé, the Qianlong emperor (as the thirteenth incarnation of Mañjuśrī, who is depicted in first leaf of the Qianlong album in fig. 3.3), and the Sixth Panchen Lama, an ally of the Qing court who was the most eminent and ˙ powerful Gelukpa Tibetan hierarch of his time (see fig. 3.12, later).5 At the invitation of the Qianlong emperor, the Sixth Panchen Lama traveled to the Qing court in 1780 from ˙ his home monastery in Trashi Lhünpo in the Tsang region of Tibet. The visit was chiefly mediated by Rölpé Dorjé (who was twenty-one years the Panchen Lama’s senior), and ˙ was cut short when the Panchen Lama contracted smallpox and died in Beijing a month ˙ and a half later. As a triumvirate at the center of Qing Sino-Tibetan religiopolitics, the three figures had all been connected to one another by bonds of friendship and teacherdiscipleship in their current and previous generations. Their eulogical portrayal in the Qing albums, virtually identical in medium, format, and dimensions, extended their previous lives’ interconnections all the way back to India and to the time of the Buddha (table 1). Through poetic verses and pictorial symmetry, the leaves of the albums identify the previous rebirths of the three figures as religious and political luminaries  —  kings, religious teachers, and translators  —  from Buddhist India through Tibet and Mongolia to Qing China over the span of more than a thousand years, revealing and affirming the three figures’ previous existences in relation to one another as priest and courtly patron, or as teacher and disciple. These closely connected past rebirths, in turn, explain the karmic depth of their present relations, and anticipate future ones to come.6 The albums are the unmistakable product of mid- to late eighteenth-century Beijing. Even though I have yet to locate a reference about who commissioned them and when, their content, form, and style, are closely associated with the Buddhist literary, visual, and material culture of the Qianlong court. The albums were likely produced in the imperial workshop, and, like eulogies of rebirth lineages created in other media, probably served as gifts or potential gifts for current holders of their respective incarnation lineages, including for Qianlong himself. On the cover of the Qianlong album is inscribed “Ten Thousand Years of Boundless Longevity” (萬壽無 疆), a common phrase of good wishes used for imperial birthday celebrations. In fact, it is on the very occasion of Qianlong’s seventieth birthday celebration at Chengde that the visiting Sixth Panchen Lama presented Qianlong with a praise poem of Qianlong’s ˙ rebirth lineage, titled The Song of the Fearless Five-Faced One.7 The same rebirth lineage is depicted in the Qianlong album.8 The lineage depicted in the album of the Panchen ˙ Lama follows that of the much-copied thangka set sent to the Qing court by the Sixth Panchen Lama, such as a set that arrived at the court in 1770 (see fig. 3.8, later). The ˙ Sixth Panchen Lama also composed a prayer for Rölpé Dorjé’s rebirth lineage, which ˙ became the authoritative text cited in Rölpé Dorjé’s biography, and also became the basis for the Rölpé Dorjé album.9 In short, the three albums had been closely linked with one another from the inception of the three figures’ rebirth lineages.10

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The Qianlong Emperor

Changkya Rölpé Dorjé

The Sixth Panchen Lama ˙

1. Mañjuśrī

1. Cunda

1. Subhūti

2. King Prasenajit

2. Śākyamitra

2. King Yaśas

3. Kusali Rinchen Zanpo

3. Darpana Ācārya ˙ 4. Lochen Kawa Peltsek (8th century)

3. Bhāvaviveka (ca. 500–ca. 578)

5. Dropukpa (1074–1134)

5. Gö Lotsāwa Khukpa Lhetsé (11th century)

4. King Buddhapaksa ˙ 5. Emperor Muni Tsenpo (r. ca. 797–799?) 6. Samayavajra

6. Sisiripa

7. Ngok Lotsāwa Lekpé Shérap (1018–1115)

7. Langri Tangpa Dorjé Senggé (1054–1123)

8. Mahāsiddha Darcharwa (ca. 12th–13th century)

8. Pakpa Lodrö Gyeltsen (1235–1280)

9. Khubilai Khan (1215–1294, r. 1260–1294) 10. Trichen Mönlam Pel (1414–1491) 11. Kyapchok Pelzang (b. 15th century) 12. Trichen Jinpa Gyatso (1629–1695) 13. Qianlong (1711–1799)

9. Lama Dampa Sönam Gyeltsen (1312–1375) 10. Jamchen Chöjé Śākya Yeshé (1354–1435) 11. Jétsün Chökyi Gyeltsen (1469–1544) 12. Khöntön Penjor Lhündrup (1561–1637) 13. Drakpa Özer (d. 1641) 14. Ngawang Lozang Chöden (1642–1714) 15. Rölpé Dorjé (1717–1786)

4. Abhayākaragupta (d. 1 125)

6. Sakya Pandita (1182–1251) ˙˙ 7. Yungtön Dorjé Pel (1284–1365) 8. First Panchen Khedrub Jé (1385–1438) ˙ 9. Second Panchen Sönam Choglang (1438–1505) ˙ 10. Third Panchen Lozang Dondrub (1505–1568) ˙ 11. Fourth Panchen Lozang Chökyi Gyaltsen ˙ (1569–1662) 12. Fifth Panchen Lozang Yeshé (1663–1737) ˙ 13. Sixth Panchen Pelden Yeshé (1737–1780) ˙

The textual and visual sources trace back to Trashi Lhünpo, but the format and design of the albums follows the painting and poetry arrangement of a classical Chinese album, with the exception that the calligraphic verses are not, or not only, in Chinese. Verse-inscriptions in the Qianlong and Rölpé Dorjé albums are written in four languages (Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Manchu), while the Panchen album ˙ is written in Tibetan only. The right side of each opened page of the albums contains a colored painting on silk or paper, and the facing page on the left bears a eulogistic verse written in gold on paper that is heavily varnished with a black ground known as ciqing 磁青 paper, a material and format reserved for Buddhist scriptural writing.11 The albums’ hybrid religious, historical, linguistic, and artistic vision situate them at the center of lively scholarly discourse on the nature of Buddhist kingship.12 The complex and dynamic layers of appropriations of the Indo-Tibetan model of the union of religion and state (Tibetan: chos srid zung ’brel or lugs gnyis) are materialized and pictorialized in the albums through an aestheticized narrative of how the Qing emperors and their Tibetan Buddhist advisors have, from the time and place of the Śākyamuni Buddha, been a part of a premier network of religious kings and scholars. Not unlike the conceptual place of Mount Wutai as an intermediary ground between China and Tibet, the albums mediate a synthesis of the Qing courtly and Tibetan Gelukpa Buddhist conceptions of history, time, and place. On the one hand, they are closely modeled on the genre of preincarnation-lineage thangka series that became prevalent in Tibet (and especially within the Gelukpa sect) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; on the other hand, they transform the medium, format, and pictorial and poetic content of the thangka series into a uniquely Sino-Tibetan endeavor. The Qing-Gelukpa Buddhist conceptions of place and personal identity both capitalize on and further deepen an already expansive understanding of the mountain as a site for Mañjuśrī’s myriad activities and manifestations. The interwoven view of the past relations between Rölpé Dorjé, Qianlong, and the Sixth Panchen have all been variously ˙ landscape and lineage

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table 1. List of figures in the Rebirth Lineages Albums of the Qing Court.

referenced and enforced through stele inscriptions, biographical writing, gift exchange, ritual performances, architectural replicas, and funerary commemorations.13 But of them all, the albums can be seen as the most systematic articulation of the depth of these karmic connections. The parallel and serial unfolding of the interrelated lives of the three figures in situ in a mountain landscape maps out an expansive spatial and temporal realm, one in which Mount Wutai played a consistently integral part. Collectively, the three albums emblemize the contingent identities of place and person that persist throughout all pictorial portrayals and textual narratives of Rölpé Dorjé. The host of deities and persons emplaced into Mount Wutai also comes to define the place itself. The very structure and content of portrayals of Rölpé Dorjé, both in these albums and in other related texts and images, constitute an essential yet overlooked dimension of how Mount Wutai was perceived by Inner Asian Gelukpas from the Qing dynasty onward. By recovering this vision of the mountain, this chapter brings to the fore the overarching importance of lineages and networks for the study of sacred geography. Often combining both iconic and narrative elements, various portrayals in the forms of the preceding albums and other related media, including thangka, sculpture, and printed text, were created during and after Rölpé Dorjé’s lifetime by Qing court artists as well as by his students throughout China, Mongolia, and Tibet. This body of hitherto-ignored materials offers much insight into how Mount Wutai has been seen by Gelukpa monk pilgrims in and outside the Qing court, whose devotion to the mountain originates from knowledge and memory of their teacher Rölpé Dorjé’s sustained physical presence on the mountain. Through representations of the life and previous lives of Rölpé Dorjé, the mountain comes to be seen not only as his residence and teaching but also as a dwelling place (Tibetan: rten; literally, “foundation” or “support”) for panoramas of protector deities, as well as for figures in the reincarnation and transmission lineages associated with him. Furthermore, a fuller and yet more expansive picture of Mount Wutai emerges when portrayals of Rölpé Dorjé are examined in connection with closely interrelated portrayals of the Qing emperor and other Gelukpa lamas such as the Panchen Lama. Consistently manifested in a ˙ variety of sources are the fluid simultaneity and interchangeability of the previously mentioned figures, calling to mind what Thich Nhat Hanh refers to as “interbeing.”14 The expansion of a network of past, present, and future lives is powerfully asserted throughout. By collectively inhabiting Mañjuśrī’s earthly paradise, this greater pantheon of characters comes to define and animate the mountain’s existing topography. As the earthly paradise that encompasses the cyclical and historical unfoldings of phenomena beginning in Buddhist India and extending to Tibet, Mongolia, and Beijing, the expansiveness of Mount Wutai can be fully comprehended only through a reading of the various mappings of pantheons and genealogies in connection with one another. This view of Mount Wutai as seen through the depictions of an important Qing Gelukpa master represents a different process of translation from those explored in the preceding chapters. Rather than deriving from a famed temple, icon, or text, it is a conception of the mountain that stems from the commemoration of an eminent teacher in residence. Regardless of the original source of veneration, all of these understandings belong to the larger Qing Inner Asian attempts to come to terms with Mount Wutai’s historical and geographic reality. Eulogical portrayals of Rölpé Dorjé’s life and previous lives, mapped onto Mount Wutai’s existing history and geography, became yet another viable way of closing the gap between the physical, mundane, and geographic reality of

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the mountain on the one hand, and an abstract, visionary, and timeless Mount Wutai on the other. This Gelukpa-lineage-centered vision is significant in light of the fact that the central figure of veneration here was also the supervisor of Qianlong’s replicas and the initial author of the Guide, respectively examined in the two preceding chapters. Rather than contradicting the earlier assertions, this vision of the mountain imparted by Rölpé Dorjé’s followers adds another layer to the numinous history of the mountain.

The Place of Hagiography Michel de Certeau’s time-honored observation about the triumph of place over time in medieval Christian hagiography has long forged a spatialized view of the narratives of the lives of saintly beings. De Certeau animates the act of writing and reading as a form of pilgrimage in and of itself, asserting that “the very itinerary of writing leads to the vision of the place: to read is to go and see.”15 His insight into the experience of writing and reading implies an important dialogical relationship between the physical site of pilgrimage and the site of hagiographical representations, a relationship that has been productively explored by scholars in the field of Buddhist studies ever since Indologist Alfred Foucher first noted the convergence of Buddhist biography and geography.16 Yet what remains missing is an attention toward the physical, material, and visual dimensions of Buddhist biographical representations. This chapter extends de Certeau’s analysis of textual hagiography toward albums, paintings, reliquaries, and other three-dimensional objects relating to Rölpé Dorjé’s life and previous lives. I refer to these objects that were variously produced within the overarching Gelukpa framework broadly as “hagiography” to describe the eulogistic and exemplary properties of the visual and textual narratives of an eminent Buddhist master’s life. Viewing Rölpé Dorjé’s multimedia hagiography as sites to be journeyed through in and of themselves, I show how the individual circumstance of the objects’ production and reception, as well as the particular features of their medium, format, material, pictorial, and textual compositions, all determine the ways in which they dialogically reference and shape the experience of pilgrimage to the site of Mount Wutai itself. Perhaps even more so than the textual culture de Certeau speaks of, the multimedia environment of Rölpé Dorjé’s hagiography accentuates the primacy of place over time. An exploration of the place of Rölpé Dorjé’s hagiography reveals a collection of dynamic and interconnected subjectivities. To recognize the fluid interchangeability of identity is to expand on and refine the current scholarly trend to move toward the “collective” in the study of both Christian and Buddhist hagiography.17 Here, the communities encompass figures across spatial and temporal divides. As unique products of eighteenth-century Qing-Gelukpa Buddhism, hagiography representations of Rölpé Dorjé and others emplace Mount Wutai as a site that encompasses interrelated transmission and incarnation lineages (from different sects of Tibetan Buddhism) and forge links between diverse dynasties and kingdoms, from Manchu-ruled China to Buddhist India, Tibet, and Mongolia. This mapping of a religiopolitical lineage claims an absolute yet historical presence of Tibetan Gelukpa Buddhism at Mount Wutai. Indeed, just as persons are interconnected and interchangeable entities (rehearsed in the Tibetan Buddhist textual and visual statements about the indistinguishability of lama and disciple from each other), so the place of Mount Wutai itself cannot be seen as a distinct place separate from a network of places. It is also through the mediation of

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hagiography that Mount Wutai becomes dynamically linked to other spaces  —  Beijing and Chengde as well as Tibet and India. Ultimately, a reconsideration of Mount Wutai in light of Rölpé Dorjé’s hagiography is also a reconsideration of the creation of his own religious identity. Deeply personal to Rölpé Dorjé and his circles of monks and patrons, this vision of the mountain reveals at the same time the expansive multidimensional and multifaceted Qing-Gelukpa conception of time, history, and place, one in which transmission and incarnation lineages are its architectonic skeleton. This cosmopolitical framework of lineages grounded in a hagiographic vision of Mount Wutai also mediated Qing Gelukpa notions of religious kingship, and the network of relations between the Qing emperors and the reincarnate lamas. The subject of a Tibetan Buddhist hagiography is typically an accomplished religious master who is venerated by later disciples, much as a saint would have been in the Christian context. Central to Buddhism is the fluid ontology of a saint.18 Related to the workings of karma (actions and their results), the saint is understood to be interconnected with other deities by way of emanation and/or incarnation.19 Just as the iconographic and physiognomic portrayal of Rölpé Dorjé both as Mañjuśrī and as the Qianlong emperor fluently communicates his multiple layers of identity in the eighteenth-century Qing court album (see fig. 3.1), so both the hagiographical traditions of Tibet and the Qing imperial Gelukpa commemorative context repeatedly depict and enact, through an array of textual, visual, and ritual means, the instability of their subject (in this case, Rölpé Dorjé) as an independent and autonomous historical entity. As an alternative to a biographical model that delineated the actions of individual beings, these materials and contexts present a complex network of close relationships and interchangeable identities between historical individuals, deity emanations, their teachers, and previous incarnations. This ontologically fluid aspect of Buddhist hagiography must have appealed to the Qing-Gelukpas, who were at the center of an empire that at once claimed a religious sovereignty over Tibet and Mongolia, and was spatially and temporally removed from their tradition’s Indo-Tibetan origins. Through a construction of interconnected genealogies of luminaries stretching back to India by way of Tibet and Mongolia, they assert a new center of Gelukpa Buddhism at the court. Within the paradigm of what might be understood as an “identity of sameness,” where various figures were considered manifestations of the same deity and even of each other, the association with place anchors what has been destabilized by the lack of autonomy and difference. Mount Wutai, in its ability to contain a myriad of apparitions and encompass the cyclical unfolding lives of saints, becomes a singular and stable locus of identity. Broadly speaking, a Tibetan hagiography consists of two main components or types of materials, both of which are important for the eighteenth century.20 A namtar (rnam thar; literally “[tales of ] complete liberation”), often translated as “spiritual biography,” primarily chronicles the events in the life of a religious master, while a trungrap (’khrungs rabs; literally “lineage of births,” also known as skyes rabs or sku phreng) focuses on the events and accomplishments of the previous incarnations of the master. A trungrap, such as those exemplified in the aforementioned albums, uses the accomplishments of the figure’s past lives to illuminate the life of the current incarnation. As Donald Lopez has observed with respect to the life stories of the historical Buddha Śākyamuni, whereas nineteenth-century European scholars were keen on discerning the deeds and events of the Buddha’s life, traditional biographies of the Buddha portrayed him through the lives of his previous incarnations, best known as jātaka tales.21 Indeed, in traditional

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Buddhist cultures before Western interest in the nineteenth century, it was the historical Buddha’s  “continuity with the Buddhas of epochs past, rather than his unique person and actions, that provided the foundation of his authority.”22 As a record of an incarnation lineage, a trungrap is modeled after the genre of the Buddha’s jātaka tales, and likewise establishes the karmic credentials of an individual over many lives, thereby complementing and explaining many aspects of the namtar. Trungrap differs from jātaka tales, however, in its emphasis on lineage and chronology. The namtar and the trungrap narratives are often contiguous and overlapping. A standard namtar of a religious master, for example, often begins with the succinct list of an illustrious trungrap lineage, in order to establish at a glance the past lives and accomplishments that culminated in the master’s rebirth in his or her current life. Such is the case with the two major namtar texts of Rölpé Dorjé that will be discussed here.23 Likewise, a trungrap text will often include detailed materials drawn from the namtar of each successive incarnation. A trungrap is established through an accretive process. Incarnation lineages are likely first compiled through a genre called lineage supplication prayers, or trungrap söldep (’khrungs rabs gsol ’debs).24 An eminent master would compose a prayer either to recall his or her own past lives at the request of a disciple or to glorify another person in his or her past lives.25 These prayer verses have a strong performative dimension. By extolling the virtues of an incarnate lama’s deeds in previous lives, these verses construct and affirm the legitimacy of the current incarnations, and prescribe their future through their past accomplishments. Such prayer verses were either expanded and woven into longer hagiographical narratives or taken from them. Each recognition of a past life may come with a ready series of past lives, which would then be “inherited” by the figure in question. A case in point is the trungrap literature surrounding Rölpé Dorjé that became especially abundant in the eighteenth century.26 Not only did his trungrap texts proliferate, they also became the most prevalent sources of his visual depictions, as compared with his namtar, which became well-known sources for the study of his life and the history of Qing-Gelukpa Buddhism, but was virtually never pictorialized.27 As has been pointed out, the identification of preincarnation lineage of the Changkyas began to surface only during Rölpé Dorjé’s lifetime, rather than earlier, during the life of the Second Changkya, Ngawang Lozang Chöden (Lcang skya Ngag dbang blo bzang chos ldan, 1642–1714; hereafter, Ngawang Chöden), the preeminent court teacher of Kangxi and Yongzheng emperors whose incarnation Rölpé Dorjé was recognized to be at the age of three.28 The Sixth Panchen Lama appeared ˙ to have been the first to give Rölpé Dorjé a lineage of preincarnations by recognizing Khöntön Penjor Lhündrup (’Khon ston dpal ’byor lhun grub, 1561–1637; hereafter, Khöntön), an important teacher of the Fifth Dalai Lama (1617–1682), as a preincarnation of Rölpé Dorjé. By doing so, he also adopted the existing trungrap of Khöntön, and created a more “complete,” or “personal,” lineage by adding additional rebirths of Indian Yamāntaka Yogi Darpana Ācārya and a Kadampa master (Langri Tangpa Dorjé ˙ Senggé, 1054–1123).29 Lists of Rölpé Dorjé’s preincarnations grew over the course of his lifetime to comprise more than twenty earlier luminaries,30 including two female preincarnations and the Tang-dynasty Chinese monk Xuanzang.31 My study encompasses a variety of objects that reiterate and commemorate the two halves of Rölpé Dorjé’s hagiography, his namtar and trungrap. An initial section examines Rölpé Dorjé’s textual namtar written by his disciple Tuken after Rölpé Dorjé’s death. The remainder of this chapter turns to an examination of court albums

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and related pictorial and three-dimensional works that center around his trungrap. Following a chronological arc, I examine materials that were made during his lifetime, for the occasion of his funerary commemoration, and after his death. This section culminates in a contextualization of the many well-known Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī thangka paintings within a visual culture of Qing-Gelukpa genealogies. These narrative genres, namtar and trungrap, the former exclusively textual and the latter predominantly visual, collectively illuminate the symbiotic process of the creation of a holy person and site. From Rölpé Dorjé’s namtar written by chief disciples, it becomes clear that by the end of his tenure at Mount Wutai, Rölpé Dorjé’s presence had become an original source of veneration, nostalgia, and inspiration for the emperor as well as for Rölpé Dorjé’s monk-disciples. Events surrounding Rölpé Dorjé’s time at Mount Wutai and the way it was subsequently remembered and commemorated by his disciples imbued the landscape with a renewed sense of immediacy for Qing-Gelukpa Buddhists, who saw Mount Wutai as a place to connect with their teacher and tradition.32 From Rölpé Dorjé’s trungrap albums and related works, which were often produced within the network of relations at the Qing court and during his lifetime, an image of Mount Wutai emerges as both a recurring and a historical ground for the transmission of teachings from Mañjuśrī and as the new center of Qing-Gelukpa Buddhism.

Namtar There are two detailed biographical works of Rölpé Dorjé. The first was written by Rölpé Dorjé’s younger brother Chuzang Ngawang Tupten Wangchuk (Chu bzang Ngag dbang thub bstan dbang phyug, 1725–1796) in 1787.33 The second is a longer, more well known and widely read text written by his disciple Tuken between 1792 and 1794.34 When cross-referenced with each other, these works provide an unusually vivid record of Rölpé Dorjé’s life and the events and personalities surrounding the religiopolitical center of the Qing court. In both texts, references to Mount Wutai appear throughout the texts. It is portrayed as the place of refuge (gnas dben pa) and solitude that Rölpé Dorjé himself had described in his praise poem to the mountain (discussed in chapter 2 of this volume).35 In Tuken’s work, two key chapters (chapters 18 and 24) coalesce around Rölpé Dorjé’s activities on the mountain. In them, Tuken devotes considerable attention to miraculous occurrences and visionary revelations. Through dreams and visions, a Gelukpa sectarian lineage of the transmission of teachings is inscribed onto Mount Wutai’s topography, which in turn shapes the identity of Rölpé Dorjé.36 Considering that Rölpé Dorjé’s primary purpose at Mount Wutai was to seek proximity to Mañjuśrī and to step away from courtly politics, it is only appropriate that his engagement with Mount Wutai’s resident deity was told in terms of dreams, visions, and revelations. But such descriptions are specific neither to Rölpé Dorjé nor to Mount Wutai. They are the focus of all namtar that fall under the category known as secret biography (gsang ba’i rnam thar), within a traditional trilevel division that includes outer (phyi’i rnam thar), inner (nang gi rnam thar), and secret biographies.37 In her study of the life stories of Gelukpa siddhas (accomplished practitioners), Janice Willis maps three Western elements of storytelling onto the trilevel division of namtar as strategies for their comprehension: the historical with the outer, the inspirational with the inner, and instructional with the secret.38 According to this classification, the primary purpose of recounting these dreams and visions is instructive. This didactic

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dimension is the one that Tuken wishes to highlight, too, when he speaks of the visions and revelations a skillful means (upāya) of teachers to impart to their students. The lines between history, inspiration, and instruction are nonetheless blurry. Within the Indo-Tibetan framework and repository of sources on Mount Wutai, records of dream and visionary travels can figure just as authoritatively as those of physical, historical pilgrimages. This allows for a vast understanding of sacred presence. Many luminaries from the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist tradition are believed to have appeared at Mount Wutai by magical means, and many continue to be seen there.39 The Sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso (1683–1706?), reputedly came to Mount Wutai and meditated in a cave there for many years, with the help of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, the Buddhist deity of compassion, in the guise of a young peasant girl, after official records of his death.40 Avalokiteśvara’s Cave (Guanyin Dong 觀音洞), the site of his meditation, remains one of the most important destinations for all pilgrims from Tibet today (appendix A, no. 65). Vimalamitra, the eighth-century Indian scholar of the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen) teachings, is said to have gone to Mount Wutai at the end of his thirteen-year stay in Tibet and to still dwell there in his “rainbow body” (’ja lus, the state of pure light that is evidence of his high level of spiritual attainment), having promised to remain for as long as teachings of the Buddha prevail.41 Dreams and visions equally dominate the Chinese Buddhist narrative of Mount Wutai. Even the Confucian scholar and statesman Zhang Shangying professed to have first visited the mountain in a dream.42 These examples highlight alternative understandings of the presence of past and present figures at Mount Wutai, and how nonphysical forms of travel are collectively acknowledged through miracle tales. At best, physical and historical travels seem incomplete in a world where dreams and visions are considered alternative forms of pilgrimage. Through dreams and visions, stories from Rölpé Dorjé’s namtar actively lay claim to a Gelukpa past and present on Mount Wutai, demarcating a space that had been and that remained dominated by Gelukpa protectors and teachers. That it stands in contrast to the Guide, a text initiated by Rölpé Dorjé that was derived from a Chinese language mountain gazetteer (examined in chapter 2 of this volume), indicates the diversity of perspectives that were affirmed and sought after. In chapter 18, Tuken’s recounting of a series of visionary outbursts begins with Rölpé Dorjé’s dream of an enormous and fearsome figure with locks of hair as white as conch shells. The figure requested Rölpé Dorjé to write a practice manual (bsnyen sgrub las gsum gyi yig cha) for Damchen Chögyel (Dam can chos rgyal, or Pledge-Holder Dharma King), the main protector deity of Gelukpa Buddhism, announcing that he was the protector Yamāntaka.43 Because Yamāntaka, literally “the conqueror of death,” is a wrathful form of Mañjuśrī, and Damchen Chögyel is also considered an emanation of Yamāntaka, this story indicates that Mañjuśrī had revealed who the true protector of Mount Wutai is. In this way, Rölpé Dorjé conveyed to Tuken that in his estimation the protector deity of Mount Wutai was the Gelukpa deity Damchen Chögyel, who more popularly manifested as the local deity or Naga King.44 Yamāntaka is believed to be able to appear in other manifestations as well, such as that of the white-bearded old man who came to Rölpé Dorjé in a dream the following year, pressing him to complete the text he had requested earlier, at which point Rölpé Dorjé instantly completed the text.45 In Rölpé Dorjé’s eulogy of Mount Wutai at the conclusion of the Guide, Yamāntaka is also evoked as the protector of the mountain range.46 A wrathful manifestation of Mañjuśrī, Yamāntaka also became a protector of

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Beijing, the Qing court city of the Mañjughosa emperors.47 This identification therefore ˙ further makes a linkage between Beijing and Mount Wutai, the two most important centers of the Qing Gelukpas in China proper. Rölpé Dorjé’s Collected Writings (Gsung ’bum) contain a textual prescription for a ritual offering to Mount Wutai’s local deities.48 The text does not specify who the local deities are, but invokes them in all the “rocky hills, forests, meadows, springs, wells, streets, and temples” of Mount Wutai. When read in conjunction with this text, Yamāntaka’s appearance in Rölpé Dorjé’s dream serves as an explanation of why it is important to propitiate all local deities, or at least local guises of Gelukpa deities. Immediately after narrating dreams of Yamāntaka, Tuken describes yet another dream of Rölpé Dorjé’s, in which he encountered a lama of magnificent physical stature wearing a pointed lama hat, seated on a throne, and handing a sword to him.49 Being familiar with this iconography of the founder of the Gelukpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, Rölpé Dorjé realized that the dream was an auspicious sign of Tsongkhapa’s blessing and protection (byin gyis brlabs pa’i mtshan). Tsongkhapa is said to have reformed Tibetan Buddhism through the “special methods” he received from Mañjuśrī.50 Over time, his status shifted from that of Mañjuśrī’s student to that of his student and incarnation.51 Even though Tsongkhapa famously declined an invitation from the Yongle emperor (1360–1424) to visit Mount Wutai and the court in Beijing, and dispatched his disciple Śākya Yeshé instead, Tuken’s account of Rölpé Dorjé’s auspicious dream nonetheless asserts that Tsongkhapa had indeed come to dwell at Mount Wutai. Tuken explains that although in actuality (don dngos gnas la) Tsongkhapa was no different from the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, he literally appears (drang don gdul bya’i snang ngor) as one who practices in various mountain retreats, vowed to become one with his guru deity, accumulated innumerable meritorious deeds, and never wavered in his study of major treatises.52 Moreover, it was through the combined diligence of these acts that Tsongkhapa attained his profound understanding of Mādhyamika, or the Middle Way, a central stream of thought in Mahāyāna Buddhism that goes back to the Indian monk-scholar Nāgārjuna and that emphasizes the emptiness of all phenomena.53 Within Tibetan traditions, Tsongkhapa remains one of the most prolific exponents of the Mādhyamika philosophy.54 According to Tuken, Rölpé Dorjé modeled himself after Tsongkhapa, and was known to have attained realization of the Mādhyamika at Mount Wutai. He composed what became an enormously influential song of realization known as “Recognizing My Mother,” demonstrating his understanding of emptiness, which he dedicated to the Buddha Śākyamuni, Nāgārjuna, his disciple Āryadeva (third century), and Tsongkhapa.55 Rölpé Dorjé’s realization of Mādhyamika at Mount Wutai, sealed by his composition of “Recognizing My Mother,” reaffirmed the mountain range as a site of Mañjuśrī’s extraordinary empower­ ment and of Rölpé Dorjé’s own connection to the lineage of teachers. Indeed, in his penultimate chapter, Tuken will extend the same bilevel explanation of Tsongkhapa’s identity to that of Rölpé Dorjé, whose proximity to Mañjuśrī, in terms of both the literal and the true meaning, are solidified at Mount Wutai. Meanwhile, Tuken proceeded to map Tsongkhapa onto the local geography of Mount Wutai through more detailed dreams in Rölpé Dorjé’s namtar. Rölpé Dorjé was said to have dedicated his meditation to Tsongkhapa, praying for a good rebirth in his own next life. In a dream that followed, he witnessed a monk from Amdo inside a stone mortar, uttering the words “I observed a vegetarian fast but indulged in funeral feasts”

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while his body was being pounded to pieces. Rölpé Dorjé used the stark imagery of this dream, Tuken explains, to remind his students that those who mix monastic abstinence with accumulating wealth will suffer the pain of the mortar and pestle in their next life. To explain this, Tuken cites Rölpé Dorjé citing a namtar of Tsongkhapa in which the master “appeared in the form of a monastic scholar, preaching sutras to disciples in the morning, and tantras to vajra-holders in the afternoon.” Tuken concludes that Tsongkhapa’s manifold display of emanations (sprul pa’i rnam rol) was indeed at Mount Wutai.56 With respect to Tsongkhapa’s exact whereabouts, Tuken adds an account of one of his own dreams, in which the Ganden Tripa Lodro Gyatso (Blo gros rya mtsho, 1682–1685), a protector of Tsongkhapa, remarked that portraits of Tsongkhapa currently did not resemble him. Tuken recounts that, puzzled by this dream, he asked Rölpé Dorjé where Tsongkhapa resided at Mount Wutai. Rölpé Dorjé replied, “Tsongkhapa does not have a fixed abode, but right now he is staying in a Chinese Buddhist temple called ‘Ching lang cho’u.’ ”57 This most likely refers to the Qingliang Bridge 清凉橋 (Monastery at the Bridge of Clear and Cool; appendix A, no. 45), which sat in a remote area on the southwestern side of the Central Terrace, between the Central and the Western Terraces. The temple, also known as Jixiang Monastery 吉祥寺, is famed for the apparition tale in which an elderly man (a manifestation of Mañjuśrī) guides the lost monk Biyun 碧雲 back to his monastery.58 This story was also told in a version in which it is the Kangxi emperor who is the lost protagonist.59 No similar story is mentioned in the Tibetan-language Guide, however, and the story of Tsongkhapa’s presence on Mount Wutai has not appeared in any other source to my knowledge. That Rölpé Dorjé disclosed the Gelukpa founder and master’s secluded presence in a remote Chinese Buddhist temple, quite separate from the many Tibetan Buddhist temples on the mountain that enjoyed imperial patronage and sumptuous donations, underscores the exclusive, if not secret, nature of Tuken’s claim, and implies a lineage (from Tsongkhapa to Rölpé Dorjé to Tuken) apprehensible only to the initiated few. Tuken deduces from Rölpé Dorjé’s reply that Rölpé Dorjé had seen an emanation of Tsongkhapa not only in his dreams, but also in person.60 He corroborates the various dreams and visions with citations that purport to be from Tsongkhapa’s own namtar. The passages he cites, however, do not appear in extant namtar texts of Tsongkhapa; in his namtar, starting with the one written by his disciple Tokden Jampel Gyatso (Rtog ldan ’Jam dpal rgya mtsho, 1356–1428), Mount Wutai is mentioned briefly toward the beginning, but only by way of its resident deity Mañjuśrī.61 In fact, Tsongkhapa’s presence at Mount Wutai is solidified and elaborated upon in the namtar of Tsongkhapa’s chief disciple Khedrup (Mkhas grub, 1385–1438), which was written by Khedrup’s own chief disciple Jétsün Chökyi Gyeltsen (Rje btsun chos kyi rgyal mtshan, 1469–1544; hereafter, Jétsün), and which is, it turns out, chiefly about Tsongkhapa. According to Jétsün, Tsongkhapa revealed to Khedrup in a vision that he was residing at Mount Wutai, where he preached to eight hundred thousand monks and vajra-holders (practitioners on the path to enlightenment) on Mādhyamaka and the Stages of the Path (lam rim) teachings in the morning, and on Cakrasamvara, Vajrabhairava, and Guhyasāmaja ˙ in the evening.62 Presumably, it was Jétsün’s namtar of Khedrup that Tuken was actually citing when he appears to cite Tsongkhapa’s own spiritual biography. Tsongkhapa’s belated “arrival” at Mount Wutai confirms Elijah Ary’s assessment of the formation of the Gelukpa lineage. In his recent study, Ary shows that what is commonly perceived within the tradition today as the standard lineage is, in effect,

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a much later historicization by disciples of Khedrup wishing to establish their own position in the lineage. As late as toward the end of the eighteenth century, the status of Khedrup as one of the primary disciples of Tsongkhapa (and of Tsongkhapa as one of the primary teachers of Khedrup) was still debated,63 revealing a transmission lineage created by disciples and not teachers. Genealogy is often a temporal inverse of the narrative itself, and this fact is also transparent in the continuous growth of trungrap, or rebirth lineages, such as traced in Nancy Lin’s recent study of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s trungrap.64 Hagiographical narratives, in this sense, are both agents and products of a history of contested lineages and authorities. By reinterpreting the teachings and life stories of their teachers and their teachers’ teachers, the writers in turn establish their own credibility and authenticity within the lineage.65 Tuken’s (and perhaps Rölpé Dorjé’s) conflation of biographical sources confirms the mutually defining relations between teachers and disciples.66 That biographical details of masters and disciples are confused or blurred into one another demonstrates that it is the lineage that is most basic to the transformation of a coherent identity for the individual. It is through the bond and transmission of teacher-disciple relationships, the imparting of insights  —  between Tsongkhapa and Khedrup, between Khedrup and Jétsün, and eventually between Rölpé Dorjé and Tuken  —  that Tsongkhapa finally comes to reside at Mount Wutai. Tsongkhapa’s hagiographic arrival (despite the fact that a historical visit never took place) is emblematic of the ways in which Mount Wutai emerged as a new center of Qing-Gelukpa Buddhism. First promoted by the Qing emperor, and later established by Rölpé Dorjé through his activities on the mountain, the Gelukpa presence is nevertheless traced back to Tsongkhapa and the Gelukpa protector deity Yamāntaka through the hagiographical writing. Their various guises at once reaffirm and newly reveal Mount Wutai to be a site for the reenactment of Gelukpa visions and a ground for the transmission of Gelukpa teachings. These insights are gained through Rölpé Dorjé’s frequent dreams and visions that he related to his close disciple(s). The secret oneiric and visionary revelations relayed by Tuken did not retain their original secrecy. By the nineteenth century, on the extremely popular pilgrimage maps of Mount Wutai examined in chapter 4, the lineage is visually remapped onto the mountain topography by a new wave of Mongol interest in this sectarian narrative. A larger-than-life-size thangka appliqué of  Tsongkhapa dated to 1805 through a letter sewn inside, now in the Newark Museum, was produced at Mount Wutai and offered at the Sudhana Cave (Tibetan: Nor bzang phug; Chinese: Shancai Dong 善財洞; appendix A, no. 95), a temple where Rölpé Dorjé stayed and that he had repaired from ruins of an older temple at the site (fig. 3.4).67 The thangka was commissioned by a noble lady from Mongolia on behalf of her brother, who was studying at the Drepung Monastery in Lhasa. The dedication of this image also speaks to the widely understood presence of Tsongkhapa. In the penultimate chapter (chapter 24) of the namtar  —  immediately after the chapter on Rölpé Dorjé’s death and memorial services  —  Tuken recounts the mystical circumstances under which Rölpé Dorjé composed the text that makes up this chapter in 1785, after a three-month solitary meditation at Mount Wutai.68 The text, which has been characterized as “the most esteemed and puzzling” work by Rölpé Dorjé, was kept hidden during his lifetime and published posthumously in this chapter of the namtar.69 By describing the circumstances under which Rölpé Dorjé had both received a teaching from Mañjuśrī and uttered it himself (as Mañjuśrī), and also by transcribing the

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master’s teaching titled The Reflection of the Rising Moon from the Ocean of Great Sleep, this last chapter explicitly states for the first time in the namtar Rölpé Dorjé’s true identity as Mañjuśrī. The same interconnection between Mañjuśrī and Tsongkhapa is effectively established between Mañjuśrī and Rölpé Dorjé. In Tuken’s own words, In the ultimate sense, our venerable master [Rölpé Dorjé] cannot be distinguished from Mañjuśrī, but in the literal sense, he appears as though he is receiving a luminous dream vision of Mañjuśrī’s emanation and many secret teachings.70

This chapter was omitted in the modern Chinese translation of Tuken’s text, as the translators deemed the chapter to be “too repetitive and tainted by religious color” to provide historical or biographical value to the reader.71 But as a work that provides didactic purpose (a life story to be emulated by readers) and a political agenda (a source about and by Gelukpa lamas working for the Qing Court), the final chapter makes a most significant argument  —  the affirmation of Rölpé Dorjé as an emanation of Mañjuśrī. This final assertion casts a new light into the entire namtar, reframing his teachings and life stories as the myriad expedient manifestations of Mount Wutai’s

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fig. 3.4. Large appliqué of Tsongkhapa, Mount Wutai, China, 1805. Newark Museum, Newark, NJ.

residential bodhisattva himself. Tuken asserts that although he experienced visions of Mañjuśrī and received teachings from him, these visionary encounters had only literal meaning (Tibetan: drang don), as an indication of his skillful means (upāya). According to definition or ultimate meaning (Tibetan: nges pa’i don), Rölpé Dorjé is one and the same as Mañjuśrī.72 Tuken’s authoritative textual account of Rölpé Dorjé’s life establishes the lineage of the transmission of teachings at Mount Wutai, and ultimately the equivalence between Rölpé Dorjé and Mañjuśrī. This assertion is hardly surprising in light of Rölpé Dorjé iconographic attributes as Mañjuśrī in images that I will now turn to for the rest of this chapter. Yet nowhere else in the text of the namtar itself (that nonetheless consistently refers to Qianlong as the Mañjughosa emperor) does Tuken make such an explicit claim for his own teacher. ˙ In Tuken’s account, dreams and visions are capable of revealing a more secret dimension of Mount Wutai as a Gelukpa space, yet they are framed as taking place on the ordinary level, and as being used as expedient, didactic tales that suggest an even more profound reality, beyond apparition and transmission. Most important, both of these levels of reality could be revealed and asserted only in the post-mortem space of the namtar. Narratives of dreams and visions in the namtar, as well as the transcription of teachings, are acts of inscription and revelation. They assert a lineage of transmission that is also capable of creating a new sense of the space of Mount Wutai for future reader-disciples.

Trungrap A wealth of images of Rölpé Dorjé focuses on another important lineage, the lineage of preincarnations, known as trungrap. The three albums with which I began this chapter were unique Qing court syntheses and reformulations of the multiple Tibetan genres of trungrap prayers, texts, prints, and thangka hangings. The albums were, as mentioned earlier, unique products of a lively culture of gift exchange. Marcel Mauss famously defined objects of gift relations as inalienable parts of persons who are engaged in a relationship of giving and receiving, thereby generating and regenerating the relationship between the giver and the recipient.73 The Qing court and the courts of the Tibetan hierarchs operated by all accounts on the exchange of gifts.74 And, among the wealth of objects and teachings given, there may be nothing quite as inalienable as an album that narrates the interconnected life stories of giver and recipient. Likely based on exisiting poems and thangkas that were gifts in the first place, the albums were created by and further re-created a web of relations. On multiple fronts, the albums embody the process of cultural translation that enabled them to mediate identities and relations between the Qing court and Tibetan Buddhist prelates: in terms of their form, from an oral and textual tradition to a visual and material genre, and from the format of Tibetan thangka hangings designed for a ceremonial space to that of a Chinese album designed for private viewing; and in terms of their content, from a strictly pictorial or monolingual to a multilingual evocation, and from a genealogical narrative that emphasizes linear trajectory to one that stresses layered interconnections. Besides the albums’ repeated textual and pictorial reference to Mount Wutai, these translations or transformations are themselves instructive of the process by which Mount Wutai came to be seen in the Tibetan Buddhist world as both a historical place and a Buddhist paradise unbounded by conventional specificities of time and space.

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During the seventeenth century, incarnation lineages prayers (trungrap söldep) developed into wall paintings and thangka series, the latter of which eventually became the pictorial basis for a host of Qing court-produced objects in different media.75 When the trungrap transformed from an oral and textual form into a pictorial one (often with the original supplications inscribed below the painting), a new array of interpretive possibilities emerged, and the presentation of the incarnation lineage began to take on a life of its own. Wall paintings and thangkas depict not only the figure of each successive incarnation, but also his teacher, tutelary and protector deities, network of relations, and events and places associated with their life. In other words, they turn what was primarily a supplicatory genre into a full-blown portrayal of the biography of each preincarnation, such that the trungrap becomes a trungrap-cum-namtar in its pictorialization. Formalized thangka sets first became especially prominent in the courts of the Dalai Lamas and Panchen Lamas, whose incarnation-lineage thangka series became ˙ well known not only through their public display in the central space of a monastery (for veneration by the congregation of monks and pilgrims), but also through their mass production and circulation. Prescribed to be arranged horizontally around a central thangka featuring the latest incarnation, the genealogy usually begins with the most privileged position to the right of the central figure, and, in an order of hierarchical importance, alternates between the right and the left of the central figure (fig. 3.5 shows a reconstruction of the prescribed sequence of incarnations of the Panchen ˙ Lama’s trungrap). The lineage of figures radiates outward in the sequence of the incarnations, all of whom are turned to face the central figure. Their relative positions within the horizontal panorama and vis-à-vis the central figure pictorialize both a diachronic lineage and a synchronic assembly.76 The thangka sets are still often the main images displayed below the large skylight that illuminates assembly halls in monasteries across Tibet, commanding a visual and pictorial narrative of the institution’s identity (fig. 3.6).77 Tibetan thangkas were first brought to the Qing court as objects of gift exchange. The seventeenth-century painter Chöying Gyatso78 designed a set of incarnation-lineage paintings of the Panchen Lamas. It is likely that based on his composition, a set of ˙ woodblocks was carved in the Nartang (Snar thang) Monastery near Trashi Lhünpo.79 Prints from the Nartang set (see fig. 3.10, later) and paintings based on their composition became an authoritative version of the Panchens’ incarnation-lineage paintings ˙ throughout Tibet, Mongolia, and China (see fig. 3.5, earlier, and figs. 3.8 and 3.13, later). Both the Sixth Panchen Lama and the Eighth Dalai Lama (1758–1804) sent ˙ sets of their own preincarnation-lineage thangka series to the Qing court, which are still in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing (see fig. 3.8, later).80 These sets were adopted at the palace workshop into a series of other Sino-Tibetan formats and media, including large-size painted thangkas (fig. 3.7), ink-engravings (moke 墨刻), textile embroideries, and albums.81 During the Sixth Panchen Lama’s visit to Beijing ˙ landscape and lineage

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fig. 3.5. Prescribed Sequence of Arrangement for Rebirth Lineage of the Panchen Lama. ˙ Set of thirteen thangkas. Tibetan, 19th century. Courtesy of the Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York. 70.2/ 1216; 70.2/ 1217; 70.2/ 1218; 70.2/ 1219; 70.2/ 1220; 70.2/ 1221; 70.2/ 1222; 70.2/ 1223; 70.2/ 1224; 70.2/ 1225; 70.2/ 1226; 70.2/ 1227; 70.2/ 1228

fig. 3.6. Main Assembly Hall at Palpung Monastery, Eastern Tibet. Photograph by author, 2009. fig. 3.7. Bhāvaviveka Converts a Nonbeliever to Buddhism, one of the Previous Incarnations of the Panchen Lama, ˙ 18th century. Color on cloth. 135.3 × 84.5 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. Gift of Natacha Rambova, 1959-156-1.

in 1780, these replicas adorned the walls of the various replicas of the Trashi Lhünpo Monastery that were built in honor of his visit.82 The adaptation was a two-way street. As Patricia Berger has shown, the images formed “part of the visual economy of exchange” between the Qing court and Trashi Lhünpo at many crucial moments in Sino-Tibetan history.83 Berger borrows the term “visual economy” from Deborah Poole’s study of the Andean image world, which examines the value of images and image-objects that accrues through “social processes of accumulation, possession, circulation, and exchange.”84 In the Sino-Tibetan context, the shifting valuations of objects are often deliberately calculated and calibrated through visual and material translations. Each painted, engraved, or embroidered Qing court copy of the preincarnation-lineage thangkas (which were sent from Tibet as presents to the Qing emperor) was a work of translation by the Qing court. These works of translation appropriated the original thangkas and transformed them into a more familiar idiom and valuation, which in turn make their way back to Tibet.85 The albums, in particular, are assertive of a new Qing courtly vision. Text-image albums have long been a preferred format of presentation in Chinese artistic and literary practice. An album’s small size facilitates an intimate contemplation of its poetry, calligraphy, and painting, and its serial format easily accommodates a complex set of compositions and ideas. The format is almost unprecedented, however, in the Tibetan religious and artistic world. The only other known albums in the Tibetan Buddhist context were created in and around the Qing court as meditative aids  —  that is, as “visual translations” for those who were new to the practice of visualization.86 The use of the album format here represents a novel reinvention of the trungrap genre from its pictorial basis in thangka series. This second translation in the presentation of the incarnation lineage  —  from a thangka series to a text-image album  —  thus transforms the presentation of a lineage from a public spectacle into a matter of private and personal engagement, from relatively mass-produced icons of devotion into a courtly object of refinement and delight. In addition, as an object of gift exchange and

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linguistic pronouncement not dissimilar in function and properties to the oral and textual supplications to a lineage, the text-image album transforms the performative capacity of such prayer verses, or lineage supplications (trungrap söldep).87 The shift of audience, viewing format, and function  —  from a largely public and communal display to the intimate proclamation of the lineages in question  —  was accompanied by a change in the pictorial composition. There are no extant thangka series depicting the preincarnation lineage of Rölpé Dorjé to my knowledge, but many thangka series of the Panchen Lama’s incarnation lineage, based on the Nartang block ˙ prints, do survive. Comparing the Nartang prints to the Panchen album produced in ˙ the Qing court, which was visibly based on the thangkas series sent to the Qing Court from Trashi Lhünpo (which was in turn based on the Nartang prints), one can observe a pointed shift of emphasis in the narrative. Whereas the thangka series highlights the extraordinary scholarly, meditative, and/or political prowess of each preincarnation of the Panchen, the albums articulate instead, through text and image, both the historic˙ ity of each figure and the karmic depth of the connections between these luminaries through their various incarnations over a span of more than a thousand years.

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fig. 3.8. King Yaśas, from a set of twelve previous incarnations of the Panchen ˙ received in 1770 by the Qing Court as a gift from the 6th Panchen, Tibet, 18th century. ˙ Color on cloth. 70 × 42 cm. Palace Museum, Beijing. From Wang, Gugong tangka tudian, 44. fig. 3.9. King Yaśas, right side, 2nd leaf, Rebirth Lineage Album of the 6th Panchen Lama, Qing court, ˙ China, 18th century. Color on silk. Ethnologiches Museum, Berlin.

From the Nartang compositions (fig. 3.8, and see figs. 3.10 and 3.13, later) to those of the Panchen album (fig. 3.9, and see figs. 3.11 and 3.12, later), the principal figure shrinks ˙ in size to accommodate the more pronounced and expanded architectural, landscape, and figurative elements, all of which refer to these interconnections. The crowded, whimsical, and otherworldly landscapes of the Nartang compositions, achieved through dramatically shaped clouds, flora and fauna, and a conspicuous avoidance of the horizon and empty space, are consistently transformed into expansive, orderly, and “informative” backgrounds adorned with uniformly sized clouds shaped like lingzhi mushrooms. As a result, the dreamscapes of the Nartang compositions are replaced in the album paintings by culturally and geographically referential architecture and landscape, such as the half-Chinese, half-Tibetan building characteristic of the replica of the Trashi Lhünpo at Chengde in the album painting featuring the Fifth Panchen Lozang Yeshé (Blo bzang ˙ Ye shes, 1663–1737; see fig. 3.11, later). Chöying Gyatso’s unfettered vision, as manifested in the Nartang block prints and the thangkas derived from them, is now anchored by a new sense of historical and geographical specificity in the Panchen album. ˙ This spatial anchoring is accompanied by a subtle but purposeful addition of figures. For example, in the leaf featuring the Fifth Panchen Lama (see fig. 3.11, later), ˙ to the upper right of Mañjuśrī, a small lama now appears. His right hand (probably originally meant to be shown in a preaching gesture) grasps part of the white offering scarf (kha btags) draped over the back of his throne  —  an unknown iconography that is presumably a missed translation on the part of the Chinese artist  —  while his left hand seems to hold the pages of a small pecha (loose-leaf book). The identity of this figure is still uncertain, but his pandita hat with double flaps signifies a learned master, and his ˙˙

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gestures and attributes match the iconographic description in extant paintings88 of the Second Changkya, Ngawang Chöden, mentioned earlier, who was an eminent teacher of both the Fifth and Sixth Panchen Lamas. ˙ Deliberate changes in the main figure  —  the Fifth Panchen  —  make the suggestion ˙ of the Second Changkya more intriguing. What is typically depicted as a rainbow of colored light rays (seen in black and white on the xylographic design in fig. 3.10) that connects the Fifth Panchen to Mañjuśrī in the Nartang composition  —  signifying his ˙ meditative pure vision (dag snang) of Mañjuśrī  —  has disappeared in the album painting (fig. 3.11). Without the thread of rainbow light, the Fifth Panchen now appears to ˙ be simply engaged in a discussion with Mañjuśrī, who in this Qing-Gelukpa courtly context refers to none other than the Qing emperor. If the small figure to the right of Mañjuśrī is in fact the Second Changkya, the album painting has transformed the depiction of a meditative experience into that of a visionary congress of the Second Changkya, the Fifth Panchen Lama, and the Qing Manchu emperor, anticipating their ˙ eventual meeting in the following generation. The shift from the continuously replicated, publicly displayed, collectively viewed thangkas to individually created and privately received albums seems to have facilitated the change in the narrative emphasis toward the selected makers’ and viewers’ interrelations. At the same time, this specific “documentary” use of the Tibetan genre of preincarnation lineage in the Qing court  —  to construct a history of relations  —  no doubt spurred the creation of the albums in the first place. That the changes in format and those in content went hand in hand only strengthened an overarching Mañjuśrī-centered perspective to legitimize the worldly and religious sovereignty of the Qing emperors.

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fig. 3.10 The 5th Panchen ˙ Lozang Yeshé. Woodblock print from the Nartang series of the Panchen Lama’s ˙ Rebirth Lineage. From Tucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls, 455. fig. 3.11. The 5th Panchen ˙ Lozang Yeshé, right side, 12th leaf, Rebirth Lineage Album of the 6th Panchen ˙ Lama, Qing court, China, 18th century. Color on silk. Ethnologiches Museum, Berlin.

fig. 3.12. The 6th Panchen ˙ Pelden Yeshé, 13th leaf, Rebirth Lineage Album of the 6th Panchen, Qing ˙ court, China, 18th century. Color on silk; Tibetan verses inscribed with powdered gold black ground ciqing paper. Individual leaf: 39 cm × 33 cm. Ethnologiches Museum, Berlin. fig. 3.13. The 6th Panchen ˙ Lama Pelden Yeshé, Tibetan, 19th century. Thangka. Ink and colors on cloth. 68.3 × 41.2 cm. Courtesy of the Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York. Purchased with Roland Koscherak fund, 70.2/1228.

In Toni Schmid’s 1964 study, she had already observed a gradual increase in the importance of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī in the development of the Nartang block prints.89 Where Mañjuśrī and his attributes were virtually absent in what Schmid refers to as the “original Tibetan conception” of the Panchen and Dalai Lamas, they appear with ˙ increasing frequency both in the later carving of the blocks for subsequent incarnations of the Panchen and Dalai Lamas and in the Qing court-produced series.90 The ˙ Panchen album most certainly completes this Mañjuśrīfying trajectory. In the last leaf ˙ featuring the Sixth Panchen Lama (fig. 3.12), his guru the Seventh Dalai Lama sits ˙ in the upper right-hand corner of the composition. The Seventh Dalai Lama holds a book in his left hand and makes a preaching gesture with his right hand. This is a departure from the Nartang block prints and other thangka representations derived from the Nartang set (fig. 3.13, for example), which consistently portray the Seventh Dalai Lama as holding the stem of a lotus in his right hand, referring to his identity as an emanation of Avalokiteśvara. The stem of the lotus still appears in the album of Rölpé Dorjé (see the topmost figure in fig. 3.1, as Rölpé Dorjé’s root lama) and in the iconographic pantheon he authored, but in other Qing court produced thangkas of the Sixth Panchen, the lotus is also missing (see, for example, ˙ fig. 3.22, later). The removal of the lotus stem from the figure’s right hand appears to deliberately dull the identity of the Seventh Dalai Lama as an incarnation of Avalokiteśvara. Meanwhile, the album’s addition of another figure  —  most likely Gyeltsap (Rgyal tshab, 1364–1432)  —  below the depiction of Tsongkhapa (just below the Seventh Dalai Lama, in fig. 3.12) onto the Nartang template is also intriguing. It displaces the primacy of Tsongkhapa’s disciple Khedrup, who is considered a preincarnation of the Panchen ˙ Lama. The increasing prominence of Mañjuśrī as a signifier of the Qing emperors

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corresponds to the shift of emphasis from an individual’s lifetimes of accomplishments to the lifetimes of interconnections instrumental to a Qing-centered retelling of history. Indeed, the most profound kinship among the three albums lies not in their format, medium, or inscriptions, but in the interconnections they proclaim between the previous lives of the Qianlong emperor, Rölpé Dorjé, the Panchen Lama, and the Dalai ˙ Lama’s previous incarnations. As a conceptually powerful framework through which to perceive relationships, the genealogies of these lives unfold in parallel sequence with both Chinese dynastic and Buddhist transmission lineages; yet the reincarnation lineage also bypasses other dynastic rulers to proceed from Khubilai Khan to the Qianlong emperor, and encompasses multiple transmission lineages by evoking as preincarnations various teachers, patrons, and practitioners from different periods, sects, and traditions of practice.91 In this respect, it surpasses both the dynastic and the dharmic transmission lineages that dominated the political and religious realm before the employment of the reincarnate lineage,92 mapping out a transtemporal, multi-incarnational network of relations and genealogies that claims political and religious heritage from, and therefore legitimacy across, Tibet, Mongolia, and the whole of the Buddhist world.

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fig. 3.14. Pakpa Lodrö Gyeltsen, right side, 8th leaf, Rebirth Lineage Album of Rölpé Dorjé, Qing court, China, 18th century. Color on silk. Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin. fig. 3.15. Khubilai Khan, right side, 9th leaf, Rebirth Lineage Album of Qianlong, Qing court, China, 18th century. Color on paper. Palace Museum Library, Beijing.

The format of the albums materialized this conceptually powerful framework of interconnected genealogies. They rendered the succession of lives and relations visible and official through a variety of pictorial and multilingual references that are discussed in the next section. As previously mentioned, whereas textual sources usually only enumerate the lineage itself and the accomplishment of the incarnation, painting compositions also illustrate the main figure’s teachers, tutelary and protector deities, patrons, and associated sites and places, adding many more layers of connection, overlap, and repetition to the lives of the figures. The repetition and variation of deities, persons, places, and calligraphic verses throughout and across the albums operate within a compelling temporal matrix  —  producing an effect of heightened tension between timelessness and historicity. In the Rölpé Dorjé album, his preincarnation, the Pakpa Lama, the nephew of Sakya Pandita (fig. 3.14), is seen preaching to his ˙˙ royal patron the Mongol emperor Khubilai Khan, whereas in the Qianlong album, whose most famous incarnation is Khubilai Khan, Pakpa is depicted above Khubilai as his root teacher (fig. 3.15). Khubilai is depicted differently in the two albums, in the former as a Mongol Khan holding a wheel of law, the symbol of a cakravartin, and in the latter as a divine Buddhist king virtually identical to depictions of previous Indian and Tibetan rulers in the same album. However, the fact that the identical set of teacher-discipleship appears in the two albums reinforces the recurrent karmic connection between Rölpé Dorjé and the Qianlong emperor in lifetime after lifetime. Similar cross-album connection abounds in the rest of the leaves, and includes other teacher-disciple relations, such as those between Sakya Pand ita and Mahāsiddha ˙˙ Darcharwa (1182–1251) (figs. 3.16 and 3.17).93

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Referential Landscapes The Rölpé Dorjé album further includes backgrounds depicting Chinese or Tibetan style architecture, or, in the case of the two leaves featuring the great eighth-century Tibetan translator Kawa Peltsek (Ska ba dpal brtsegs; fig. 3.18) at the Samye Monastery and the Pakpa Lama (see fig. 3.14, earlier), a mixture of the two that is specific to Qianlong’s constructions of the Outer Temples at the Qing imperial summer palace of Chengde (see also this mixture in the Panchen album leaf shown in fig. 3.11, earlier). As ˙ a site where the Qing emperors’ enacted their transcultural sovereignty for an audience of Chinese and Inner Asians, Chengde was, like Mount Wutai, a meeting ground for representatives of the diverse subjects of the Qing. But unlike the accretive architectural landscape of Mount Wutai, the temples of Chengde had been built from scratch by the Manchu emperors. In addition to re-creating the Tibetan monasteries of Samye, Trashi Lhünpo, and the Potala, and the Dzungar temple from Yili, Qianlong also built his own Manchu imperial monastery through a replica of Mount Wutai, as noted in chapter 1. The “anachronistic” depiction of Chengde’s signature architectural style of the Qianlong reign in the scenic backdrop of Kawa Peltsek and Pakpa’s portraits, as a way of referencing where the two masters lived and/or taught, is instructive. The transposition of the architecture and landscape of the Qianlong reign onto the background of past incarnations is a way of insisting on the cyclical quality of reincarnation time. It adds a temporal linkage to Qianlong’s spatial transpositions explored in chapter 1. Qianlong’s replica of Trashi Lhünpo at Chengde was not simply a matter of semblance to the original, but, as Berger has shown, a reiteration of a ritual precedent.94 Whereas the building of a Chengde’s Trashi Lhünpo referenced the construction and restoration of temples on the occasion of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s visit, the insertion of

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fig. 3.16. Sakya Pandita, ˙˙ right side, 6th leaf, Rebirth Lineage Album of the 6th Panchen Lama, Qing court, ˙ China, 18th century. Color on silk. Ethnologiches Museum, Berlin. fig. 3.17. Mahāsiddha Darcharwa with Sakya Pandita as root teacher ˙˙ above, right side, 8th leaf, Rebirth Lineage Album of the Qianlong emperor, Qing court, China, 18th century. Color on paper. Palace Museum Library, Beijing.

fig. 3.18. Kawa Peltsek, 4th leaf, Rebirth Lineage Album of Rölpé Dorjé, Qing court, China, 18th century. Color on silk; quadrilingual verses inscribed with powdered gold on black ground ciqing paper. Individual leaf: 42 × 27.2 cm. Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin.

its representation into the background landscape of a portrayal of the Pakpa Lama implied a future meeting  —  a “preiteration” of future relations. It was no coincidence that Rölpé Dorjé’s preincarnation Kawa Peltsek worked as one of the most prominent translators under the Tibetan emperor Muni Tsenpo, a previous incarnation of Qianlong, at the Samye Monastery, the architecture of which was replicated at Chengde. The depiction of Chengde in the place of Samye on the album leaf thus completes the equation between Rölpé Dorjé and Kawa Peltsek. Through the projection of a present onto the past to affirm a future (that is the present), the leaves of the album reiterated a recursive temporality via the constancy of their background landscapes and architecture. The Sino-Tibetan architecture of Chengde’s Outer Temples, together with the mountain landscape of Mañjuśrī’s earthly paradise, anchors the past lives in the Qing imperial-centered present. The recurring reference to Chengde, Mount Wutai, and Beijing itself (as seen in the album leaf depicting Changkya Ngawang Chöden), iterate a network of sites central to Qing Gelukpa Buddhism. Built into the composition and the viewing/reading experience of the album format, the cyclical nature of the incarnation lineage begs a reconsideration of just what kind of space is being evoked in the representation of the background landscape and architecture. The three albums, clearly by different hands, feature drastically different

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styles in the rendering of landscape and space. The Rölpé Dorjé album features a background landscape in the Chinese painting tradition that can be seen in many Qing court productions (see fig. 3.1). The Qianlong album, by contrast, presents clouds and cloud-topped green hills symmetrically balanced to reinforce the centrality of the main figure, a practice often observed in Qing court-produced Tibetan thangkas (from the Zhongzheng Hall 中正殿, or Hall of Central Uprightness; see figs. 3.2 and 3.3). The landscape of the Panchen album is rendered in yet another style, in which intense ˙ hues of the malachite and azurite pigments saturate the dramatically modeled landscape reminiscent of those found on copper-plate engravings of Jesuit court painter Giuseppe Castiglione (1688–1766). But any constancy of illusion gives way to rock formations in diverse palettes (see figs. 3.9, 3.11, 3.12, and 3.16, earlier). Just as the style of modeling reflects a taste for European renderings of dramatic light and shadows in eighteenth-century China, the saturated use of blue and green pigments evokes a long-standing penchant for Chinese blue-and-green landscape in Tibetan paintings.95 These stylistic distinctions in the three albums speak fittingly to the identity of the figure in question  —  Rölpé Dorjé as a homegrown Tibetan Buddhist lama in the court capital of Beijing, Qianlong as the emperor whose representation demands absolute frontal symmetry, and the Panchen as a Tibetan’s most eminent teacher allied with ˙ the cosmopolitan Manchu court in Beijing. Regardless, in all three albums the figures are framed by highly referential landscape paintings. The staging of the previous lives in the flora and fauna that evoke Mañjuśrī’s earthly paradise, facilitates the pictorial cross-referencing of each incarnation and interconnection, both serially within a lineage and laterally across the lineages. As an eternal backdrop for the cyclical unfolding and conflation of lives and events tracing back to Buddhist India, the landscape of the album paintings, sometimes generic and at other times topographical, expands and merges the sacred geography of Mount Wutai into other times and spaces. Mount Wutai is ubiquitous in paintings of Rölpé Dorjé, and indeed has been prescribed to appear on them. A manual titled The Method of Depicting the Incarnation Lineage of Changkya (hereafter, Method), written after 1794 by his disciple Changlung (who also completed the Guide discussed in chapter 2), specifies the exact placement of each thangka in relation to the central thangka, and spells out its iconography in such detail that it could still serve as a prescriptive text for new commissions today.96 It typifies the process by which these thangka series presumably would have been made, and suggests that indeed they were made. One extant thangka in the Philadelphia Museum of Art seems to correspond to the text’s prescription for Rölpé Dorjé (fig. 3.19), missing only a few details. Likely a part of a larger series of thangkas depicting the figures of his preincarnation lineage, the particular thangka scroll can be identified by many of its specific iconographies, including his hermitage of Éwam Gékhyil (Ewam dga’i ˙ ’khyil) at Mount Wutai in the background. The Method’s prescription for Rölpé Dorjé includes the following: The Vajra holder himself [Rölpé Dorjé] is wearing a pandita hat and a golden monk’s ˙˙ cloak. His right hand is holding a vajra and a drum (damaru), and his left hand is ringing a bell. His root teacher [the Seventh Dalai Lama] and his tutelary deity Cakrasamvara are shown in complete form. His protector deity is the six-armed ˙ Mahākāla. In the corner is his retreat house of Éwam Gékhyil located inside his monastic residence of Kuntu Dewa Tsal (Kun tu bde ba’i tshal) at Mount Wutai. In

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front of him are the king and prince with their entourage sent by gods who are paying homage to him. Seated beside him is his best student the Jasagh Lama Gelek Namkha (Dge legs nam mkha’).97

Besides the accurate rendering of Rölpé Dorjé’s attributes and implements, and the depiction of his root teacher the Seventh Dalai Lama at the top left of the composition, his protector deity at the bottom right, and his student in the lower-left corner, it is important to note that the prescription to depict Éwam Gékhyil seems to have been followed in the Philadelphia Museum thangka. The temple is depicted as a twostory, yellow-tiled building on the bank of a river. Éwam Gékhyil was located within Pule Grove 普樂院 (Universal Happiness Grove; appendix A, no. 83), or Kuntu Dewa Tsal, a retreat temple that Rölpé Dorjé had constructed above the Diamond Grotto (Tibetan: Rdo rje’i phug; Chinese: Jingang ku 金剛窟; appendix A, no. 87). The Diamond Grotto had been one of Mount Wutai’s most important and mysterious landmarks. It was where the seventh-century Kashmiri monk Buddhapāli met Mañjuśrī, and a Tibetan Buddhist monastery where Rölpé Dorjé had been residing before Pule Grove was constructed with funds from the imperial household. The whole complex, including the Pule Grove, the Diamond Grotto, and the temple of the famous warrior monk Wulang 五郎廟 (all of which were Gelukpa monasteries by the Qing), were destroyed in 1970.98 Even so, it is frequently mentioned in Rölpé Dorjé’s biographies and nineteenth- and twentieth-century travelers’ accounts, and appears in a rare rubbing of a stele from the temple itself. Rölpé Dorjé composed the inscription on this stele in 1781, which was erected the same year. Written in a standard script (kaishu 楷書) that uncannily mimics the moist and full-bodied calligraphic brush trace of Qianlong, the stele records the purpose of the temple’s construction and the imperial donation in a manner that evokes the imperial authority.99 The inscription reiterates the cosmic and historical importance of Mount Wutai as a site for the protection of the nation, and states that, by imperial command, Rölpé Dorjé has regularly come to Mount Wutai for the past twenty-some years (roughly 1761–1781) to study, meditate, and translate scriptures, residing there during the summer months to escape the density and heat in Beijing. As stated in the inscription, although Rölpé Dorjé initially stayed at other temples on the mountain (Bodhisattva’s Peak and the Azure Mountain Temple; appendix A, no. 88), in 1775 Pule Grove was constructed there by imperial command as a retreat temple for him, with its subsidiary quarters as accommodations for visiting Chinese and Tibetan monks.100 Travelers’ descriptions tell us that the monastic complex, which was adorned with yellow imperial tiles, included retreat quarters for Rölpé Dorjé, a sutra repository, and a cemetery behind the complex.101 The depiction of Éwam Gékhyil in the incarnation-lineage portrait of Rölpé Dorjé signals the importance of the retreat temple, and of Mount Wutai in general, to Rölpé Dorjé’s identity. Sites associated with Rölpé Dorjé became the important loci of veneration for Gelukpa pilgrims, and the Pule Grove was by far the most important of them all. Today, even though the site remains hidden in the hills behind an official military compound, pilgrims breach the wire fences to pay homage to the ruins of what was once a sizable imperially sponsored monastic complex. Besides the single painting from the Philadelphia Museum of Art (see fig. 3.19), there are no known thangka series that depict what Method prescribes. But the

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codified nature of the production of these paintings is corroborated by twenty-some extant thangkas102 from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These single-thangka portraits all depict a figure that can be identified as Rölpé Dorjé by their similar compositions and inscriptions. In them, Rölpé Dorjé is the central figure surrounded by one of two types of assemblies: (1) his guru, tutelary and protective deities, and sometimes disciples (fig. 3.20); and (2) his lineage of preincarnations (fig. 3.21).103 What these single-thangka paintings share with the Rölpé Dorjé album leaves and the thangka in Philadelphia is the depiction of peaks and ravines in the background that reference Mount Wutai. By the seventeenth century, landscape elements had become a norm in Tibetan paintings, owing to the widespread adaptation of Chinese landscape designs. Even so, in the paintings of Rölpé Dorjé, the mountain landscape is often an area of particular elaboration. Whether in the form of jeweled groves, jagged ravines, cascading waterfalls, or cloud-covered peaks, the landscape elements in these paintings allude doubly to an earthly mountain range and a Buddhist paradise. The many styles and inconsistencies in these landscapes demonstrate that it was not resemblance to the topography of Mount Wutai that the artists were interested in depicting, but the idea

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fig. 3.19. Portrait of a Lama, possibly Rölpé Dorjé, 19th century. Thangka. Colors on cloth. 74.9 × 49.2 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. Gift of Natacha Rambova, 1961-177-3.

fig. 3.20. Rölpé Dorjé, 18th–19th century. Thangka. Colors on cloth. 125 × 75 cm. State Museum of Oriental Art, Moscow. From Sergeeva, Sacred Images of Tibet. fig. 3.21. Rölpé Dorjé and His Rebirth Lineage, 18th century. Thangka. Ink on cloth. Painted surface: 81.5 × 53.5 cm; thangka: 140 × 77 cm. Formerly in the Collection of Eugen Pander. Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin.

of Mount Wutai as a mountainous earthly paradise where its resident deity and Rölpé Dorjé commune, and where the two are one and the same on the ultimate level of reality. Just as physical travel to Mount Wutai is regarded as only one among the many means of pilgrimage, so the physical topography of Mount Wutai may be only one way of referencing its mountain landscape. In other words, the idea of Mount Wutai is not bounded by its physical or geographical distinction, but defined in connection to other Buddhist paradises and in relation to Rölpé Dorjé. The mountain landscapes, while not evidently written into established iconographic prescriptions for portraits of Rölpé Dorjé, pervades paintings of him from various periods and places in Mongolia, Tibet, and Beijing. His tenure at Mount Wutai became an inseparable part of his identity as Rölpé Dorjé. Of the two types of assemblies by which Rölpé Dorjé is surrounded in singlethangka compositions (see figs. 3.20 and 3.21), the first depicts only a single incarnation of Rölpé Dorjé, whereas the second type is a synoptic version of the multithangka preincarnation series prescribed in the Method. In this second type, the preincarnation-lineage figures are arranged consecutively, from top to bottom, and alternating from left to right, in their respective positions vis-à-vis the central figure (see fig. 3.21). As the only extant example of a multipainting series of Rölpé Dorjé, the album of Rölpé Dorjé therefore uniquely brings together these two types of composition by including Rölpé Dorjé’s teaching lineage (guru, and tutelary and protective deities) on the final leaf, and his preincarnation lineage (each incarnation with his or her own guru, and tutelary and

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protective deities) on the preceding pages. At the same time, the album transforms the thangka series from a simultaneous, panoramic display of Rölpé Dorjé’s many previous manifestations, together with his religious lineage, into a serial and sequential unfolding of lives.

Multilingual Spaces This serialization of the lineage is also accompanied and annotated by the simultaneous display of a quadrilingual verse. The oral and textual genre of incarnation-lineage prayers now manifests in a quadrilingual display of the empire’s representative languages. The presentation of the verses recalls both rubbings of Chinese stele inscriptions and the practice of writing and painting in gold on indigo-dyed cloth in Buddhist scriptures and illuminations.104 More than any other medium in traditional China, stele inscriptions project authority and orthodoxy, as reiterated in the quadrilingual steles of the Qing, and in Qianlong’s inscribing onto a stele his own sketch-trace of a miraculous icon (see chapter 1); Buddhist-illuminated manuscripts convey the preciousness, sincerity, and expansiveness of the patron’s devotion. Their combined reference in the gold-on-black album inscriptions harnesses the truth-effects of both traditions, and turns them into a visual trope of the Qing imperium that now interprets and sanctions all of the figures’ previous lives depicted in the paintings. Quadrilingualism is a hallmark of the Qing, yet besides the practice of inscribing onto steles, producing placards and labels in the four languages, and the translation of scriptures, there are no other examples of quadrilingual album inscriptions to my knowledge. The closest example of a poetic verse in the four languages are various textile and ink-engraving representations of the Seven Past Buddhas, which were also adopted from a thangka set originally given to Qianlong by the Sixth Panchen Lama. ˙ By rendering everything in four languages, a quadrilingual album insists on the possibility of precise one-to-one linguistic correspondence for each respective languagebound inscription. In doing so, it reinvents the historical process and collapses the carefully constructed religious genealogy that it and the other albums portray. The album is thus a visual and linguistic manifestation of what Johan Elverskog has characterized as an “architectonic India-Tibet-Mongolia-Qing Buddhist narrative” by which the Mongol submitted to the Qing imperium.105 “Architectonic” is an apt term for a narrative that is primarily mapped out onto a spatial structure rather than temporal continuum. The same structure is materialized in the many monolithic prism-shaped quadrilingual steles of the Qing court, and underlies the basic principle of the Qing Buddhist-translation enterprise.106 By mobilizing the best possible translators, dictionaries, and translation theories, Qianlong’s “perfecting” of the translation process is also an erasure of difference, time, and history; it is the creation of a new structure of equivalence, compatibility, and interchangeability. This temporal and spatial reconfiguration is apparent in the experimentation with the layout of the albums’ quadrilingual inscriptions themselves. While both the Rölpé Dorjé and the Qianlong albums are written in four languages, the former arranges the inscriptions into four quarters (clockwise from the top left: Tibetan, Manchu, Chinese, and Mongolian; see fig. 3.1), whereas those in the latter proceed from top to bottom (in the order of Tibetan, Manchu, Mongolian, and Chinese; see figs. 3.2 and 3.3). The quadripartite division of the Rölpé Dorjé album allows for a more ambiguous and equalized

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relationship between the four languages than the Qianlong album, and its composition is visually analogous to the composition of the respective paintings on the opposing page, which, save for two frontal portraits, renders the figure in an off-centered position and turned to one side in a three-quarter profile view. By contrast, the top-to-bottom arrangement of the Qianlong album aligns with the frontal symmetry of every single one of Qianlong’s preincarnation portraits on the opposing page. The frontal symmetry of the portraits makes perfect sense in light of their identity as the emperor and his preincarnations, but it is again an invention within the genre of trungrap paintings, which, in their original arrangement as a thangka series or as a single-thangka painting, would render the preincarnations in a semiprofile view turned toward the central image of their latest incarnation (as seen in figs. 3.5 and 3.21). The Tibetan-ManchuMongolian-Chinese top-to-bottom sequence of the verse inscriptions of the Qianlong album does not, however, correspond to the “India-Tibet-Mongolia-Qing China” narrative of the reincarnation lineage. The positioning of the Manchu inscription second below the Tibetan presents a configuration of the languages that does not align with historical process, but favors a more Manchu-centered point of view, although the necessity of symmetry in the layout might have prevented it from being presented at the top register. This “obscuration” appears in numerous other places in the multilingual productions of the Qing court. In Qianlong’s preface to the Manchu Buddhist canon that he commissioned, for example, in order to justify his translation of the scriptures into Manchu, he comments on the fact that “Sanskrit scriptures were first translated into Tibetan, second into Chinese, and third into Mongolian.”107 The order, which does not accord with historical chronology, may imply a hierchy of authencity or accuracy.108 Whatever was meant by this sequence, the quadrilingual inscriptions, as well as the experimentation with their layout, become themselves a site for rehistoricization/ahistoricization  —  for reinforcing an eternal, universal Qing-Gelukpa narrative that derives its legitimacy from Mount Wutai. Despite the clarifying potential of rendering something four times in four different languages, the content of the verse inscriptions remains evocative rather than descriptive. Composed in ornate language (with alliteration at the beginning of each verse in the Manchu and artificial compound characters designed to transliterate Tibetan and Sanskrit in the Chinese), the inscriptions invoke the accomplishments of the incarnation depicted, both through references to Mañjuśrī and Mount Wutai. For example, the Chinese verse that accompanies the painting of Kawa Peltsek on the fourth leaf of the Rölpé Dorjé album reads (see fig. 3.18): Singly maintaining the excellent teaching and penetrating the wisdom, Completely equipped to dwell in the quiet realm of the clear and cool, Immeasurably spreading the words of the Buddha on every side: The bilingual translator Kawa Peltsek! 109

In the second line, the evocation of  “the realm of the clear and cool,” the alternative name for Mount Wutai, reminds readers that they are looking at different emanations of the same deity against variations of the one saintly mountain range.110 Just as the paintings on the opposing pages embed each figure in the flora and fauna of the recurring mountain landscape, so the inscriptions seem to suggest the presence of Mount Wutai in the earlier lives of Rölpé Dorjé and Qianlong. Whether the alliterated Manchu verse was meant to be recited aloud or simply read silently, like the

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content of trungrap söldep, they are primarily performative rather than historicizing. Their rhythmic and repetitive supplicatory speech transforms history and genealogy into a timeless and cyclical phenomenon, and by doing so situates the lineage of figures in the mountain landscape. The text-image juxtaposition of the albums allows readers to visualize competing and interwoven temporalities that are essential to the Qing-Gelukpa worldview. The presentation of the text asserts the universalizing multilingualisms and multiculturalisms of the Qing Qianlong reign, while its content affirms the authority and accomplishment of saintly figures depicted against a recurring backdrop of a timeless yet historically grounded landscape. Concurrently, the paintings’ portrayal of early Indian and Tibetan masters and kings insists on their cultural origins through their ethnically stereotypical facial features (as a hairy and dark-skinned Indian siddha, for example), bodily gestures (such as preaching, debating, or translating), attire (hats and robes associated with royalty, asceticism, and with distinct schools of Buddhist monasticism), architectural settings, and visionary attainments (indicating which deities and associated practices the master cultivated), even though they are all understood to be preincarnations of one and the same person. The serial unfolding of the narrative within the album format, beginning with the time of Śākyamuni in Buddhist India and proceeding through the main figures’ subsequent rebirths in Tibet and then China, displays a clear, linear chronology and movement through the previously mentioned architecture of transmission, while the recurring background landscape asserts the constancy of the unfolding chain of recurrent manifestations on the same paradisiacal ground of Mañjuśrī’s residence. Between timelessness and historicity is precisely where the Qing-Gelukpa conception of Mount Wutai lay. The mountain that had been a ground for historical encounters with Mañjuśrī in northeastern China ever since the transmission of Buddhism to China also became a new center of the Gelukpa Buddhist world under the patronage of the Mañjughosa emperors. And yet it is simultaneously ˙ a Buddhist paradise unbounded by ordinary conceptions of time and space. As discussed in chapter 1, this paradox was cited by Qianlong to assert the efficacy of his own replicas at Xiangshan and Chengde. In the albums, Mount Wutai also becomes linked to other periods and places through a retelling of previous lives in India and Tibet. The format, medium, and pictorial and narrative strategies of the albums all rep­resent a unique and new Qing-Gelukpa reformulation of the Tibetan genre of incarnationlineage prayers, and indeed of Buddhist kingship. The albums’ combined articulation of Indo-Tibetan reincarnation time and Chinese dynastic time emblematizes a QingGelukpa worldview that encompassed and defined the network of relations between the emperors and the reincarnate lamas. As individual objects, the albums narrate the story of unitary and linear genealogies, yet ones with a recursive temporality. As objects that were created in relation to one another, and designed for the purpose of gift exchange, it is reasonable to assume that all three albums were at one time in the possession of the same person(s). If true, the viewing of them side by side would complete their confirmation of the network of interconnected and interchangeable identities. The destabilization of the individual identity in the albums is counteracted by a recurring landscape of the mountain. A multidimensional unfolding of the interconnected lives and previous lives of Mañjuśrī’s historical emanations against the recurring backdrop of his residential abode consequently expanded the temporal and spatial boundaries of Mount Wutai.

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Shared Genealogies The interconnections, and often interchangeability of the figures depicted in the albums were also enacted through ritual and pilgrimage. In a telling episode detailed by both of Rölpé Dorjé’s biographers Tuken and Chuzang, for example, when the construction of the Pule Grove on Mount Wutai was finished in 1775, Rölpé Dorjé consecrated the main icon of Mañjuśrī with relics of the previous incarnations of the Panchen Lamas ˙ by inserting their remains into the consecratory chambers of the sculptural icon.111 Qing court documents dated to 1780 reveal that the Sixth Panchen Lama, whose stay in ˙ Beijing was cut short when he contracted smallpox and died there shortly after, had planned to go to Mount Wutai on his way back to Tibet the following year in order to coincide with the Qianlong emperor’s planned visit to the mountain. In a palace memorial, the Panchen had expressed his wish to “accompany the emperor in paying homage ˙ to Mañjuśrī.” The emperor duly granted him his request, and an itinerary was planned for him by the Ministry of Public Works in consultation with Rölpé Dorjé.112 Through the ritual consecration of images and the physical act of pilgrimages, a connection was thus forged not only between Rölpé Dorjé and the previous Panchen Lamas, but also ˙ between the Panchen Lamas, Mañjuśrī, and the Qianlong emperor. The same multilay˙ ered connections were reinforced through the production of the albums. The records of Rölpé Dorjé’s image consecration at Pule Grove echo an earlier account described in the namtar of Rölpé Dorjé’s previous incarnation, the Second Changkya Ngawang Chöden. In 1700, Qianlong’s grandfather the Kangxi emperor sent Ngawang Chöden to consecrate Mount Wutai with sculptural images of a triad of deities that Kangxi had commissioned and designed in his own likeness.113 The identity of the trinity, comprised of Mañjuśrī, Avalokiteśvara, and Samantabhadra, accords with the Chinese Buddhist cult of the Three Great Beings, rather than the more conventional Tibetan trinity of the Protectors of the Three Families  —  Mañjuśrī, Avalokiteśvara, and Vajrapani. Nonetheless, the images were consecrated with Tibetan treasure dhāranīs ˙ (efficacious ritual formulas) in a text composed by Ngawang Chöden, reflecting the hybrid practice of Qing Buddhism. Ngawang Chöden stayed for three months to perform rituals and teachings at Kangxi’s request, during which numerous miracles were recorded to have happened. In 1701, Kangxi issued the New Gazetteer (see chapter 2) in the four languages of the empire, a project that clearly followed the mission of Ngawang Chöden. Within the recursive cosmology of reincarnation, Ngawang Chöden’s brief but central involvement in Kangxi’s building and promotion of Mount Wutai implies that, as the Third Changkya, Rölpé Dorjé had simply returned to Mount Wutai. Many Qing court commemorations also emphasized the equal standing of the Sixth Panchen and Rölpé Dorjé from the perspective of the emperor. For example, ˙ a pair of imperial portraits of the Sixth Panchen Lama (fig. 3.22) and Rölpé Dorjé ˙ (fig. 3.23) in court robes are nearly identical in iconography, save for the implements on the tables in the foreground, which help to differentiate the two men along with their carefully rendered (posthumously) facial features. Qianlong commissioned portraits of the Sixth Panchen in 1780 and that of Rölpé Dorjé in 1787, both from the lama ˙ painters of Zhongzheng Hall. The two portraits were likely placed in the two opposite side halls of the Yuhua Pavilion. Set inside the Tibetan Buddhist chapel compound of the Forbidden Palace, the side halls were turned into memorial halls (yintang 影堂, or shadow halls), where sculptural and painted images of the two hierarchs were placed

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for veneration.114 In Berger’s insightful reading, the two portraits, together with the design of the two halls and the arrangements of their contents, were designed as mirror images of each other “to reinforce the concept of their brotherhood, united in death as members of a single Gelukpa family,” and “to map the outer and inner reaches of the Qing empire in symbolic, Buddhist terms.”115 In light of this carefully staged dyad, one might also observe the contrasting rendering of the background scenery in the posthumous portraits. Whereas the blue-and-green landscape in Rölpé Dorjé’s portrait features cloud-covered peaks and dramatic waterfalls between ridges evoking Mount Wutai, the Panchen Lama’s throne is set atop a plateau with a river running ˙ into the foreground on the right side of the painting. Nestled inside the distant jagged peaks on the right there is also a partially visible monastery that evokes both a Tibetan fortress-like structure and a Chinese tower, another potential reference to Chengde, the new courtly location of the replica of his home monastery of Tibet. Other rituals and commemorations produced by the imperial court also place them as equals,

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fig. 3.22. The 6th Panchen ˙ Lama, 1780. Thangka. Colors on cloth. 124 × 68 cm. Palace Museum, Beijing. fig. 3.23. Rölpé Dorjé, 1787. Thangka. Colors on cloth. 124 × 68 cm. Palace Museum, Beijing.

such as the nearly identical constructions of the funerary stupas in Beijing for the Sixth Panchen (fig. 3.24) and later at the Zhenhai Temple 鎮海寺 (Ocean-Taming ˙ Temple; appendix A, no. 29) in Mount Wutai for Rölpé Dorjé (fig. 3.25), a symmetry that Qianlong insisted on against Rölpé Dorjé’s explicit wish not to have a stupa built in his honor. The stupas, which were subsequently highly visible and visited loci of pilgrimage, became the most public material and visual embodiment of the two lamas. The mutually defining identities and relations between Qianlong and the two chief Tibetan Buddhist teachers are also expressed in the iconographic program of the memorial halls of Rölpé Dorjé and the Sixth Panchen at the Yuhua Pavilion. In addition ˙ to elaborate shrines of the two figures placed on the east and west end of the two halls, respectively, a sandalwood-encased shrine panel portraying Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī hangs along the northern wall of Rölpé Dorjé’s shadow hall (fig. 3.26). According to the Palace Display Inventory (chenshe dang 陳設檔),116 another such panel was also placed on the northern wall of the Sixth Panchen’s shadow hall.117 In the center of the panel is a ˙ nine-niched palace that enshrines a golden image of Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī in relief, set into a lush blue-and-green landscape underneath a sky of multicolored clouds.118 The entire panel contains 107 glass-covered niches. In the recess of each niche is a tsa tsa, or a painted clay image, of a deity, protector, teacher, or lineage-holder. This composite shrine panel is flanked by Qianlong’s calligraphic couplet on either side. Identical matching frames of intricate sandalwood carvings of the Eight Auspicious Signs (Astaman˙gala) ˙˙ enclose both the panel and the calligraphic couplet. In this multimedia display, the palace and mountain paradise of Mañjuśrī truly are the ultimate physical receptacle for his lineages and teaching. Shrine panels of Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī, conspicuously placed in the direction of center (north) in halls honoring Qianlong’s teachers, position Rölpé Dorjé and the Sixth Panchen vis-à-vis the Mañjuśrī-cakravartin, and reinforce the iden˙ tities and relations of the triad in perpetuity. Both the layout and the composition of the shrine panel recall at least seven thangkas of Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī (see figs. 0.6 and 0.7) as discussed in chapter 1, and another similar shrine of Qianlong with 95 niches (fig. 3.27).119 The composition fig. 3.24. Stone Stupa of the 6th Panchen Lama, Western ˙ Yellow Monastery, Beijing. Photograph by author, 2009. fig. 3.25. Stone Stupa of Rölpé Dorjé containing blessed salt (used to dry and preserve his mummified remains), Zhenhai Monastery, Mount Wutai. Photograph by author, 2006.

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of Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī thangkas are modeled after refuge-field painting (tshogs zhing).120 As maps of the transmission of religious teachings used in Tibetan Buddhist, and especially Gelukpa, liturgical and meditative practices, refuge-field paintings became popular in the eighteenth century (fig. 3.28, for an example). Whereas a refugefield painting features in its center either the historical Buddha Śākyamuni or Tsongkhapa, in the Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī thangkas, the emperor has inserted himself into the center.121 The dizzyingly panoramic and mandalic assemblies surrounding the Qianlong emperor help illuminate the structures of identity (identities) in the array of portraits examined in this chapter, and vice versa. Indeed, the network of lives is visualized with both synchronic and diachronic clarity in at least seven Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī thangkas produced by the Qing court. With different degrees of variation in the composition, they all situate Qianlong in the center of a pantheonic display of Buddhas, historical teachers, and tutelary and protector deities amidst a lush blue-and-green mountainous landscape. In all of them, the setting features a lotus pond at the foot of the throne, various landscape elements (peaks, ravines, jeweled groves), palatial structures, and multicolored clouds. This setting evokes Mount Wutai both as Mañjuśrī’s earthly paradise and as the newly revealed center of Gelukpa Buddhist teachings (as revealed in Rölpé Dorjé’s namtar). By appropriating the refuge-field paintings that had become popular in the Gelukpa tradition in eighteenth-century Tibet, Qianlong effectively inserted himself into the center of a pervasive and deep-seated cosmology and lineage. Using the native devotional and pictorial lexicon of Gelukpa Buddhism, he thus proclaimed his predominance over the

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fig. 3.26. Paradise of the Mañjughosa Emperor. ˙ Niched hanging shrine panel. Eastern Side Hall, Yuhua Pavilion (Pavilion of Rainy Flowers), Palace Museum, Beijing.

vast teachings and epistemic structure of Tibetan Buddhism. At least one Qianlongas-Mañjuśrī thangka is documented as having been well received by the monks at the Potala for the enthronement of the Eighth Dalai Lama (1758–1804) in 1762. It is clear that the thangka indeed “spoke” the right language to its intended audience.122 Yet refuge-field paintings are hardly the only visual referent in the densely layered Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī thangka images. In five of the seven extant thangkas (including figs. 0.6 and 0.7), a lotus-petal-shaped ring of figures around his throne back encloses Qianlong.123 These figures are not his previous incarnations, as one who is accustomed to the use of this visual convention would expect, but eminent teachers in the IndoTibetan tradition with whom Qianlong (and his previous incarnations) are connected. Similar figures are not arranged consecutively in a chain in extant refuge-field paintings of Tsongkhapa or the Buddha. At the top is Qianlong’s guru Rölpé Dorjé (as an emanation of Cakrasamvara rather than Mañjuśrī), below him is Tsongkhapa, and ˙ consecutively from top to bottom, alternating from the left to the right side of the thangkas (see fig. 0.6), are Gyeltsap, Khedrup (the First Panchen Lama), Asanga, ˙ ˙ Nagarjuna, Serling pa (Gser gling pa), Shantipa, Atiśa, Dromtön pa, Marpa, Milarepa,

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fig. 3.27. Paradise of the Mañjughosa Emperor, ca. ˙ 1777. Niched hanging shrine panel. 166 × 93 × 3.7 cm. Originally in the Cuishang Pavilion (Pavilion of Excellent Views), Ningshou Palace (Palace of Tranquility and Longevity), Palace Museum, Beijing. fig. 3.28. Refuge Field of Tsongkhapa. Ground mineral pigment, fine gold line on cotton. 101.60 × 67.31 cm. Rubin Museum of Art, New York. Acc. no. F1997.41.7.

Butön, Sakya Pandita, the Fourth Panchen Lama, the Fifth Dalai Lama, the Fifth ˙˙ ˙ Panchen Lama, the Seventh Dalai Lama, Rölpé Dorjé’s teacher Ngawang Chokden ˙ (not to be confused with the Second Changkya, Ngawang Chöden), and Chökyi Wangchuk. Most of them are the incarnations and preincarnations of the Panchen ˙ and Dalai Lamas or teachers of them. Many of the figures also appear as the root teacher at the top of leaves in the Qianlong’s trungrap album.124 It is this Gelukpa lineage of the hierarchs (comprised of teachers from different sects) that Qianlong now presides over. The multidimensionality of these Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī thangkas can thus only be fully appreciated in light of the various intersecting transmission and reincarnation genealogies and pantheons of deities depicted in thangka and album paintings. The Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī thangkas can be seen as a brilliant melding, on one pictorial surface, of the interwoven genealogies under Qianlong’s domain to promote an allencompassing vision of a sovereign. They include not only the transmission lineage of the Gelukpa teachings and initiations but also the interconnected rebirth lineages, as well as the pantheon of deities associated with Rölpé Dorjé and the Sixth Panchen Lama. ˙ As all the previous examples have shown, a concern for origin and genealogy pervades the visual culture of Qing-Gelukpa Buddhism, and in Qianlong’s reimagining and reclaiming of the past in general. In his role as the emperor of China, Qianlong followed the tradition of offering sacrifices to previous dynastic rulers that had begun as early as the Qin dynasty (221–206 b.c.e.). In contrast to previous emperors, however, Qianlong made offerings to as many as 186 rulers (as opposed to a list of only 16 emperors when the system of ritual veneration was first formalized in the fourteenth century).125 Qianlong’s long list is comprised of non-Han rulers as well as rulers of contested legitimacy who were otherwise cast out of the canonical Confucian lineage. This practice coincided with Qianlong’s establishment of the Nanxun Hall 南薰殿 (Hall of Southern Fragrance), which housed the portraits of dynastic rulers, both Han and non-Han Chinese. Qianlong’s “inclusive” veneration of previous dynastic rulers and collection of Nanxun portraits represent a singularly pantheonic approach to bringing the diverse histories and genealogies of rulership of the entire territorial extent of his empire under his fold.126 The visual language of the Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī thangkas belongs as coherently to the image world of dynastic and dharmic genealogies as it does to that of the paintings of the emperors’ various guises, in conjunction with which the thangkas have so often been discussed.127 Within this sphere, Qianlong, who is already understood as the Mañjughosa emperor ˙ of the present tense, now presides over the teachings of Buddhism in his guise as the Mañjuśrī-cakravartin, just as many past kings might have also been seen to do in the past. Likewise, what the various albums and thangkas display is a mountain paradise of Mañjuśrī replete with deities, teachers, and protectors across the temporal and spatial expanse of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.

Place and Person The aim of this chapter has been to consider hagiography as an important source for mediating Mount Wutai’s sacred geography. Another way to demonstrate the relationship is to look at the reverse  —  namely, the way that sacred geography becomes hagiography. Chapter 2 showed that Rölpé Dorjé’s eulogy of the mountain is focused

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chiefly on the saintly individuals who graced it. Tuken also composed a eulogy of Mount Wutai in 1784, two years before Rölpé Dorjé died. Written while Rölpé Dorjé was at Mount Wutai and Tuken was separated from his teacher in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia,128 Tuken’s praise of the mountain range, though written as a text about a holy mountain, is an elegiac praise of his teacher Rölpé Dorjé. He prefaces his eulogy of the famed mountain range by citing its historical and geographical connection to Tibet and Mongolia. After evoking the supreme omniscient deity of Tibet, the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, he addresses Avalokiteśvara’s incarnation the Third Dalai Lama, Sonam Gyatso (1543–1588), and then the bodhisattva’s next incarnation the Fourth Dalai Lama, Yonten Gyatso (1557–1587). Yonten Gyatso was born in Hohhot, where Tuken was writing from, southeast of which is the border with China, beyond which lies Mount Wutai. This chain of relations clarifies Mount Wutai’s spiritual and temporal geography. After locating Mount Wutai’s Bodhisattva’s Peak, the mountain’s best-known monastery under the Central Peak, Tuken zooms in on the Diamond Grotto, located 2 miles east of the Bodhisattva’s Peak. Tuken explains that this is precisely the cave entered by the Kashmiri monk Buddhapāli, and the holy place where his teacher Rölpé Dorjé is currently residing. What begins as a description of the famed abode of Mañjuśrī quickly turns into the backdrop for a praise of and prayer to Tuken’s teacher. Tuken expresses a profound reverence for the magnificent deeds of his teacher, his longing to be close to him, and his vow to also practice at Mount Wutai until reaching enlightenment himself in order to repay the kindness of his teacher. The praise poem in effect merges Rölpé Dorjé with Mount Wutai, and combines the desire to rely on his guru with that of being at Mount Wutai.129 Tuken’s seamless mapping of place and person, of the past and the present, parallels his narratives of Rölpé Dorjé’s tenure at Mount Wutai. Materials from the Tibetan hagiographical tradition and the Qing imperial commemorative context repeatedly point to the instability of an individual as an independent and autonomous historical entity. Qianlong and Rölpé Dorjé are both regarded as emanations of Mañjuśrī for different occasions. As teacher and disciple, they would also be viewed as indistinguishable in the same context. The pictorialization of the unfolding of the network of lives and previous lives reveals the dialectical tension between timelessness and historicity at Mount Wutai, producing both a political and a soteriological dimension to the understanding of Mañjuśrī’s earthly paradise; on the one hand, this view solidified the Qing imperial claim to a Pan-Buddhist sovereignty, and on the other, followers of Rölpé Dorjé would recognize the site not only as a place of their teacher, but of the Gelukpa lineage. The hagiographical texts, albums, and thangkas reified a religious lineage at Mount Wutai, redefining the landscape as both a primordial paradise and as a place capable of containing the particulars of history and memory, of the Gelukpa Buddhist spiritual lineage. A multidimensional spatial and temporal unfolding of Qianlong’s, Rölpé Dorjé’s, and the Sixth Panchen Lama’s ˙ lives into panoramas of protector deities and reincarnation lineages  —  as well as the expansion of a network of past, present, and future lives  —  are all contained within and anchored by the realm of Mount Wutai. By inhabiting Mañjuśrī’s earthly paradise, this pantheon of characters comes to animate the mountain’s topography. The next chapter traces how this concern for lineage, alongside the Qing imperial and Gelukpa literary legacies discussed in chapters 1 and 2, all became normative ways of thinking about the mountain through popular pilgrimage maps.

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4 Panoramic Maps

In 1846, a Khalkha Mongol lama named Lhundrub residing at Mount Wutai’s Cifu Temple 慈福寺 (Benevolent Virtues Temple; appendix A, no. 70) created a trilingual woodblock carving that features a panoramic map of Mount Wutai (known hereafter as the Cifu map). More than a century and a half later, its printed impressions and later imitations are found in collections across the world (figs. 4.1 through 4.8). These images, in turn, exemplify a widespread practice of visualizing Mount Wutai and circulating pictures of the mountain throughout Mongolia and Tibet in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Another surviving example of this phenomenon, created a few decades earlier than the Cifu Temple carving, is a wall painting at Badgar Choiling Süme (Chinese: Wudang Zhao 五當召; and in English: Monastery of the White Lotus, referred to hereafter as Badgar), the renowned Gelukpa Buddhist monastic university in Inner Mongolia (figs. 4.9 and 4.10 show an outline drawing of the mural). These pictures mediated the pilgrims’ access to Mount Wutai on and off the mountain. They shape and reflect perceptions and experiences of the site. Encapsulating in one sweeping panoramic vista the mountain’s layers of imperial, scholarly, and hagiographical history, the maps offer a more fluid and decentered view of the mountain than do any of the objects of study in the preceding chapters. The medium and materiality of the maps have much to do with their ability to convey the layered history of the mountain. My previous study has examined the pictorial diversity and flexibility of the Cifu prints.1 Building on the analyses of my earlier work, this chapter examines the contrasting means by which the Badgar mural and the Cifu prints were produced and received. I analyze the Badgar mural, which is stationary, site-specific, and a part of a larger mural program, as a distillation

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detail of fig. 4.4 fig. 4.1. (overleaf ) Gelöng Lhundrub, Panoramic View of Mount Wutai, ca. 1846. Woodblock print on linen, hand-colored. Woodblocks from the Cifu Temple, Mount Wutai. 118 × 165 cm. National Museum of Finland, Helsinki. fig. 4.2. (pages 124–125) Gelöng Lhundrub, Panoramic View of Mount Wutai, ca. 1846. Rubin Museum of Art, New York. C2004.29.1.

fig. 4.3. Gelöng Lhundrub, Panoramic View of Mount Wutai, ca. 1846. Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

fig. 4.4. Gelöng Lhundrub, Panoramic View of Mount Wutai, ca. 1846. Honolulu Museum of Art. Accession no. 3202.1.

fig. 4.5. Gelöng, Panoramic View of Mount Wutai, ca. 1846. Palace Museum, Taipei.

fig. 4.6. View of Mount Wutai, 1908. Ink and color on paper, mounted on horizontal scroll. National Library, Beijing. Photograph by author, 2005.

fig. 4.7. (right) Monasteries of the Wutai Mountains, second half of the 19th century. Color on canvas. 186.0 × 110.0 cm. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Inv. no. U-354. fig. 4.8. (below right) Mural of Mount Wutai, 1922–1924. South end of west wall, Eastern Sunlight Hall, White Palace of the Potala, Lhasa. fig. 4.9. (bottom) Mural of Mount Wutai, second story of the assembly hall (Tsogchin dugang), Badgar Choiling Süme, late 18th or early 19th century. Courtesy of Wang Leiyi. fig. 4.10. (opposite) Outline drawing and legend of the mural of Mount Wutai, Badgar. Drawing by Wang Leiyi.

37

1

38

28

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36

27 29

42

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26

34

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25 33

31 32

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5 45 9

23

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58 59

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22 48

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11 12

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55 54 50

13 14 51 15

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52

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Western Terrace 西台頂

25 White Stupa Temple 白塔寺

50 Guandi Temple 關帝廟

2

Clear and Cool Bridge 清涼橋

26

Longevity and Peace Temple 壽寧寺

51 Xiatiepu下鉄舖

3

Lion’s Den 獅子窩

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Jade Flower Pond 玉花池

52 Toad Rock 蛤蟆石

4

Bamboo Grove Temple 竹林寺

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Central Terrace 中台頂

53 Shangtiepu 上鉄舖

5

Clear and Cool Rock 清涼石

29 Tara Temple 達立可

54 Myriad Buddhas Pavilion 萬佛閣

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Ancient Clear and Cool 古清涼

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Bodhisattva’s Peak 菩薩頂

55 Terrace Foothill Temple 台麓寺

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Ancient Southern Terrace 古南台

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Clairvoyant Power Temple 顯通寺

56 Gushing Spring Temple 湧泉寺

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Golden Pavilion Temple 金閣寺

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Rāhula Temple 羅睺寺

57 Lu Family Hamlet 盧家莊

9

Ocean Assembly Hermitage 海会庵

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Purple Palace Temple 紫府廟

58 Great Wall 長城

10 Southern Terrace 南台頂

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Seven Buddhas Temple 七佛寺

59 Border Stele 交界碑

11 Golden Lamp Temple 金燈寺

35 Wulang Temple 五郎廟

12 Thousand Buddha Cave 千佛洞

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Marvelous Virtue Hermitage 妙德庵

13 Old Buddha Temple古佛寺

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Northern Terrace 北台頂

14 Front Stone Buddha 前石佛

38 Avataṃsaka Pass 華嚴嶺

15 Rear Stone Buddha 後石佛

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Universal Happiness Grove 普樂院

16 Huangtuzui Village 黃土嘴

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Eastern Terrace 東台頂

17 Western Hermitage Village 西庵村

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Pingzhang Temple 平章寺

18 Respite of the Worthy Temple 棲賢寺

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Diamond Grotto 金剛窟

19 Ocean Taming Temple 鎮海寺

43 Azure Mountain Temple 碧山寺

20 Complete Illumination Temple 圓照寺

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Conch Shell Peak 黛螺頂

21 Taihuai Street 台懷街

45

Ganhe Village 甘和村

22 White Head Hermitage 白頭庵

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Sudhana Cave 善才洞

23 Taihuai Imperial Traveling Palace

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Bright Moon Pond 明月池

台懷行宮 24 Temple of Mañjuśrī‘s Image 殊像寺

48 Water God Hall 水神堂 49 White Cloud Temple 白雲寺

60 Zhili Stele 直隸碑

of diverse pictorial traditions by means of which the Mount Wutai is incorporated into a specific genre of Gelukpa topographical paintings of holy sites. In comparison, I explore the portable and replicable, yet open and alterable, medium of woodblock printing and coloring of the block prints from the Cifu Temple as prime objects and an active force in the dissemination of knowledge about Mount Wutai. Each act of carving, printing, coloring, framing, copying, and circulating the map image reasserted a new appearance and identity of the mountain range. The heuristic opposition  —   between the Badgar mural as a site of convergence of multiple visual traditions and the Cifu prints as agents in the continuous reinvention of the mountain  —  affords a new way of accessing the history of the mountain; through an investigation of technique and materiality,2 I reconstruct the role of maps and their makers and users in the transformation of Mount Wutai. The collective and continuous process of visualizing Mount Wutai, in turn, informs much about its participants and their relationship to the mountain. Pilgrimage maps first attracted the attention of late nineteenth-century European and Japanese explorers, colonial surveyors, and missionaries, who saw local maps as native records of the places that they themselves were interested in mapping. This same interest in indigenous maps for their apparently empirical values  —  what they can reveal about a particular locale in a given moment in history  —  drove scholarly research through much of the twentieth century. In recent decades, cartographic historians have begun to treat maps as portrayals of geopolitical worldviews or projections of particular visions of society.3 I apply this approach toward the maps of Mount Wutai, analyzing them as visual and material receptacles and agents of the vast cultural and institutional forces of Qing Buddhism that continued to reinvent the sanctity of the mountain. Whereas colonialism and imperialist agendas have been the focus of much of the studies of maps of the early modern and modern period,4 my study emphasizes changes that were fueled by the translation of an alternative topography of revelatory visions and by new conditions of mobility that arose in the nineteenth century. Just as the visualization of a deeply entrenched network of preincarnation lineages and genealogies of teaching transmissions at Mount Wutai discussed in chapter 3 reified a Qing-Gelukpa-centered narrative of time, pilgrimage maps localized and indigenized the Indo-Tibetan origins of Gelukpa Buddhism in Mongolia and around the Qing court. By approaching the creation of maps as translation, and by narrating a history of exchange that has been missing in studies on cartography,5 my aim is to show that culture, region, and geography are not static categories that delimit and define the practice of cartography.6 They are instead dynamic vectors that continue to reconfigure boundaries and places. Each map thereby instantiates the mountain as it was perceived. As evidenced in the excitement upon viewing of the Cifu map by contemporary pilgrims from Tibet, they found a more pertinent and authentic vision of the mountain on the map than on the mountain. For them, the map is the mountain.

The Badgar Map The earlier map of Mount Wutai is located at the prominent Gelukpa monastery of Badgar in the region of the Ulaanchab league on its border with the Tumed Mongols in Inner Mongolia, about 40 miles from the city of Baotou (fig. 4.11 , see detail of map 1).7 Painted on the wall in the outdoor second-floor corridor above Badgar’s main assembly

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hall (Tsogchin dugang, initially constructed in 1757) in the early 1800s,8 when the population of the monastery was also at its largest, with well over one thousand monks, the murals were repainted many times over the years due to their outdoor location and frequent exposure to the elements.9 The mural of Mount Wutai exists within a large cycle depicting famous monastic centers, stretching 2 meters high and 22 meters long. This program begins with a painting of Badgar itself on the right-hand side of the entrance to the courtyard (fig. 4.12), and proceeds along the same wall, within one continuous wall and pictorial space, with Ganden, Sera, Jokhang, Potala, and Drepung (fig. 4.13). Continuing on the adjacent wall are Mount Wutai (see fig. 4.9), Sangphu

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fig. 4.11. View of the Badgar. fig. 4.12. Mural depicting the Badgar Monastery, second story of  Tsogchin dugang, Badgar. From Wang, Zangchuan fojiao, 188.

fig. 4.13. Details from the mural of famous monasteries depicting the Potala and the Jokhang, second story of assembly hall, Badgar. From Wang, Zangchuan fojiao, 188. fig. 4.14. The Potala Palace and the Main Monuments of Lhasa, Tibet or Inner Mongolia, 18th to early 19th century. Distemper on cloth. This painting shows nearly the same set of temples and monasteries as those included in the Badgar mural. Rubin Museum of Art, New York. C2009.4.

Neuthok, and the Tsankhung nunnery in Lhasa.10 It is striking that among the nine sites featured  —  Mount Wutai and Badgar, and seven monasteries located in and around Lhasa  —  all but Mount Wutai were uniformly depicted, following the style, mode, and disposition of Tibetan topographical paintings of holy monasteries. Those differences, as well as the noticeably different palette and binding medium with which the Mount Wutai mural is executed, reverberate with Mount Wutai’s singular geographic location in northeastern China. Whereas the eight other paintings in the mural program show a Lhasa-centered orientation in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Gelukpa Buddhist communities in Mongolia, the Mount Wutai mural represents the development of a much closer and more immediate source of veneration, sacred empowerment, and intellectual affiliation. Badgar was founded in mid-eighteenth century by Lubsang Danbi Jialsan (ca. 1696–1763), the first incarnation of what became an important incarnation line of the Duingkhor Bandida (literally, “learned teacher of Kālacakra”), after he returned from a decade-long period of study in Tibet.11 Its architectural design was said to have been based on paintings depicting the Trashi Lhünpo monastery that Lubsang Danbi Jialsan had brought back from Tibet. Badgar also modeled itself on great universities in central Tibet in terms of language and liturgy, while at the same time maintaining a strong connection to their patrons in the Qing court. The Kangxi emperor enlisted Lubsang Danbi Jialsan’s help for the translation of Kālacakra tantras from the Tibetan canon into Mongolian. Qianlong officially named and recognized Badgar in 1756 as Guangjue Monastery 廣覺寺 (Monastery of Vast Awakening) with a quadrilingual plaque bearing his own calligraphy. With imperial ties and connections throughout Mongolia, Badgar quickly became the largest monastic university in western Inner Mongolia,12 and subsequently also a popular pilgrimage destination for lay and monk pilgrims alike.13 Amid the political turmoil of the early twentieth century, it still maintained its tradition of rigorous academic training and monastic discipline even while under Japanese occupation.14 As a premier center for scholasticism in Inner Mongolia, Badgar defined itself in relation to the great Tibetan universities. The mural program thus placed Badgar into this important company. Just as the architecture and monastic program was founded on central Tibetan models, the mural depicting Badgar resembles its Tibetan counterparts in the same series, which were likely based on portable paintings of holy sites brought back from Tibet15 that circulated widely across the Pan-Gelukpa pilgrimage world (fig. 4.14).16 Its monastic architecture and groups of monks praying or debating are depicted in a way that is nearly identical to those seen in pictures of monasteries

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in Tibet. All nine sites depicted in the murals at Badgar are important centers or institutions within the Gelukpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The Gelukpa institution of the Dalai Lamas, supported by the Khoshud Mongols and later the Manchu emperors, had dominated the spread of Tibetan Buddhism to China and Mongolia since the seventeenth century. Instead of featuring images of large universities in Amdo (northeastern Tibet), such as Kumbum or Labrang, or important monasteries south and west of Lhasa such as Samye or Trashi Lhünpo (the monastery on which Badgar’s architecture was reputedly modeled), the mural shows seven sites that are all located in and around the city of Lhasa in Central Tibet, plus the two exceptions of Mount Wutai and Badgar itself. By being included among a larger series of famous Lhasan monasteries, and by subscribing to a tradition of representation practiced in Tibetan monasteries since the seventeenth century, Badgar and Mount Wutai were incorporated into a pilgrimage and scholastic geography of Gelukpa Tibetan Buddhism that is mainly clustered around Lhasa. No written source exists that explains the reasons behind the selection of sites, but this pictorial display of allegiance to Lhasa discloses an important geographic orientation, indicating the specific lineage and affiliations of the abbot as much as the temporal and spatial origins of the Gelukpa rise to power in central Tibet.

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fig. 4.15. Ceremonies, processions, and the display of two giant thangkas on the seventh day of the Lesser Prayer Festival (Tshogchö Ser) at the Potala Palace commemorating the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama (1682) and the completion of the Potala Palace (1694). Mural on the upper story of the Great Western Assembly Hall, 1695–1801. From Henss, The Cultural Monuments of Tibet, 116.

Topographical paintings of holy places first appeared on the walls of temples in seventeenth-century Lhasa. Their pictorial mode harks back to paintings of cosmology and hagiographical narratives, both of which have a much longer history in Buddhist art of the Himalayas and beyond. The subject matter of holy places is a relatively late addition to the Tibetan artistic and iconographic canon, closely tied to the geopolitical transformations of Central Tibet, in particular the rise to power of the Gelukpa sect in Central Tibet under the reign of the Fifth Dalai Lama (r. 1642–1682). Images of thriving temples, monastic universities, and ritual festivities portrayed a prosperous religious and political center, and also facilitated Lhasa’s rise as an international capital of a unified Tibet (fig. 4.15). At once reflecting the city’s growing international recognition and asserting Lhasa’s own self-conscious cultural and geographic identity vis-à-vis the world beyond, topographical paintings on the walls and corridors of monasteries in Central Tibet were reproduced in portable formats and became popularized during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries throughout the Gelukpa sphere of influence. In contrast to the seemingly atemporal iconographic pantheon of deities, topographical paintings emphasize history and empiricism. Scenes depicting famous monastic buildings and contemporaneous activities were novel in a pictorial tradition that had largely valued the truth-effects of received scriptures and prescribed iconographic templates, but it was precisely because of its novel mode of representation that the genre became a popular vehicle for the transmission and reception of Gelukpa Buddhism in Mongolia and at the Qing court. This new self-conscious genre of truth-representation was so persuasive in its time that it was used as the model for Qianlong’s architectural replicas of the Potala Palace and of the Trashi Lhünpo, Samye, and Tholing monasteries that were erected at the Qing imperial palaces, as well as the summer retreats of Chengde and Xiangshan.17 Because topographical paintings of famous monasteries never had the same ritual potency that iconic images of deities did, they did not appear together with the pantheon of deities painted on the interior walls of temples, which, along with the sculpted

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images, were understood to be material receptacles of (or supports for) deity ideations. These paintings of monasteries nevertheless became highly revered and sought-after objects on their own, as surrogates and souvenirs of the holy sites. Much like the depictions of Mount Wutai more than a millennium earlier, they were widely circulated and became the primary sources for wall paintings and architectural replicas. As both narrative and spatial-architectural depictions of historically specific places, they served as tangible, obtainable objects that Mongols and Qing court-centered Gelukpas used to create their own genealogies that trace back to Central Tibet.18 Beginning in the early modern period, diverse modes of representation coming from Mughal India, China, and the West all affirmed the external, perceptual, and lived world of places and things and sought to manifest it in art.19 The relatively new taste for this novel approach, which proliferated due to the increasing mobility of people and objects, made the famed Central Tibetan monasteries a popular subject: images of monasteries that were depicted with increasing empirical and historical specificity became widely circulated and copied within the Pan-Tibetan monastic world. By showing in vivid detail the bustling activities that took place inside the famous Lhasan monasteries, the mural attests to Badgar’s strong and intimate identifications with Tibet and to Lhasa itself. Just as the genre’s emergence in Tibet accompanied Lhasa’s rise to power, its appearance in Badgar and elsewhere in Mongolia reflects an endorsement of and identification with the Dalai Lama’s institution. The depiction of Badgar in the style of and contiguous to paintings of Lhasan temples represented the monastery’s intellectual affiliation and allegiance to Tibetan Buddhism. On the other hand, its depiction of Mount Wutai (see fig. 4.10)  —  which is not a monastery but a mountain  —  in a drastically different manner affirms Badgar’s connection to the Qing court in Beijing. The striking differences between the painting of Mount Wutai and those of the other sites in the series suggest not only different models but also different hands at work. The degree of attention paid to the precise architectural layout and physical appearance of buildings in this painting is not evident anywhere else in the larger mural series. Despite the damage to the painting since it was made two centuries ago, most of the details and its abundance of identifying cartouches in three languages are still legible.20 It is rendered in a much more subdued color scheme and on a surface prepared differently from that of others in the series.21 Its badly deteriorated state compared to the other paintings indicates the application of a different binding medium for the paint. The only way to make sense of the Mount Wutai painting is to see it as an amalgamation of pictorial traditions, including Qing imperial gazetteers, official administrative maps, Tibetan Buddhist deity iconography, and Chinese landscape painting. This unique hybrid is in turn incorporated into images of famed sites of Tibetan monastic learning from topographical paintings, which underscores Mount Wutai’s unique place within the world of Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism in Mongolia and beyond. The distinction between the Mount Wutai painting and those of other sites in the series goes beyond their different pictorial sources; it reflects Mount Wutai’s distinct position as a new monastic center under Qing imperial and subsequent Mongol patronage.22 That its picture shares a space and an audience with Tibetan topographical paintings of famed Buddhist monastic universities in Tibet indicates that Mount Wutai was regarded as belonging among those sites that are special to Buddhism in Mongolia and venerated for their distinguished status. Both geographically and culturally closer to

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Badgar than Lhasa, Mount Wutai is correspondingly rendered in a visually familiar mode. Its employment of visual sources from Chinese, Manchu, and Mongolian traditions and its distinctly detailed topographical and architectural descriptions result in an image of striking immediacy for its viewers. As a composite of several genres and types of pictorial productions, the painting most recognizably follows a layout of maps that, starting in the fifteenth century, were placed at the beginning of Mount Wutai gazetteers (see fig. 2.2). As discussed in chapter 2, maps and illustrations played a vital role in a gazetteer’s representation of a site’s topography. In the increasingly elaborate and imperial-centered productions of the Qing court in the eighteenth century, maps and illustrations began to grow in number and size to accommodate the predominant interest in up-to-date information about Mount Wutai, replacing the historical and miraculous accounts with empirical descriptions and images. Qing imperial cartographic and geographic texts were unmistakable sources for the Badgar map of Mount Wutai. In terms of its overall composition, the Badgar map stands as a much-enlarged version of maps in numerous gazetteers, imperial or otherwise. But its descriptions of each monastery display a level of detail found only in the individual illustrations of the significantly expanded imperial gazetteers produced during the Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns  —  namely, the Imperial Gazetteer and the Magnificent Record.23 The Imperial Gazetteer contains eight detailed illustrations of individual temples (fig. 4.16), and the Magnificent Record contains illustrations of twentyone sites (subsuming the former set of eight) within the vicinity of Mount Wutai.24 Sure enough, all of them are depicted on the Badgar map of Mount Wutai.25 In fact, these twenty-one sites found in the Magnificent Record constitute the majority of sites on the Badgar map rendered with large-scale, clearly defined monastic precincts:26 their central and side halls and stupas, as well as other architectural features, all closely follow the convention for depicting architectural plans used in the Imperial Gazetteer and Magnificent Record, whereas the other thirty-some sites on the Badgar map are demarcated with or represented by only small gates, chapels, pavilions, or stupas. The disparity between the ways that the two groups of sites are rendered points to the use of gazetteer illustrations as a primary visual source for the Badgar map. The reprinted editions of the Imperial Gazetteer and the Magnificent Record, issued in 1811 and 1812, respectively, would have been close contemporaries of the Badgar map.27 The number of bays, the style, and the layout of architecture depicted on the Badgar are all nearly the same as those illustrated in the Imperial Gazetteer and the Magnificent Record. Nevertheless, all three versions (Imperial Gazetteer, Magnificent Record, and the Badgar map) of the same monasteries differ slightly in their vantage point, indicating that the depictions had not been directly copied from one or the other but rather show identical building complexes around the turn of the century, employing the standard layout mode of representation used in gazetteer illustrations. Indeed, these formal dissimilarities suggest the popular circulation of a larger set of gazetteer illustrations and maps that were derived from imperial publications, which would normally have had a small print run and limited circulation outside the court. In Mongolia, where regular monks were forbidden to learn Chinese,28 it is even less likely than in the Chinesespeaking areas of the Qing empire for an imperial edition of a Chinese-language book to reach the hands of Mongol lamas. However, this same language barrier would have made a book about Mount Wutai with an abundance of illustrations, such as the Magnificent Record, much more appealing to those Chinese who were illiterate

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(the majority of people in Qing China), and those non-Chinese who were illiterate in Chinese (the majority of Mongols), than a strictly textual production.29 As noted in chapter 1, Qianlong ordered the confiscation of all extant Mount Wutai gazetteers and their blocks throughout the province at around 1785 to control the proliferation of what the court deemed to be erroneous materials. The necessity for such a heavyhanded approach to maintaining imperial authority over the history of the mountain range only reveals the popularity of non-government-sanctioned publications, but the order seems to have been effective up to that time. Aside from the publication of the Condensed Summary of the Gazetteer of the Clear and Cool Mountains,30 no other nonimperial sources from the eighteenth century have survived. Soon afterward, the new imperial edition seemed to have become a source for popular reprinting. Besides an edition dated to 1785 at the Library of Congress, which does include a colophon that refers to the reason for the recompilation,31 extant copies of the Imperial Gazetteer do not bear any colophons indicating that they were in fact carved and printed by the imperial printing press at the Wuying Dian; they are simply titled “imperial gazetteer,” which suggests that the text could have been reprinted or recarved by nonimperial printing houses, and reflects further the demand for such publications precisely because earlier, nonimperial versions had been confiscated. This resulted in a wide propagation of an imperial reordering of temple geography at Mount Wutai. A large trove of printed and painted maps and temple illustrations in the Chineselanguage register, all of which followed the imperial sources either directly or indirectly, clarifies the connection between the Badgar painting and the imperial gazetteers. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, within only the Chinese linguistic and cultural register, such books as The Complete Map of the Location of the Imperial Traveling Palaces in Mount Wutai (五臺山行宫坐落全圖); The Map of Scenic Landmarks of Mount Wutai (五臺山景點图); and The Map of Famous Sites at Mount Wutai (五臺山名 勝圖) were widely produced and circulated as travel guidebooks.32 All of these books also contain the same list of sites depicted in the Imperial Gazetteer and the Magnificent Record. In addition, many popular pilgrimage maps of Mount Wutai were produced in the nineteenth century under such titles as “Map of the Imperially Established

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fig. 4.16. Illustrations of the Northern Terrace and the Monastery of the Bodhisattva’s Peak, Imperial Gazetteer of the Clear and Cool Mountains, 1811. American Museum of Natural History, New York.

fig. 4.17. The Imperially Established Mount Wutai of the Clear and Cool Realm of Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, 1870. Woodblock print. 90 × 50 cm. National Library, Beijing. Photograph by author, 2005.

Mount Wutai of the Clear and Cool Realm of Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī” (勅建五臺山 文殊菩薩清涼勝境圖) (fig. 4.17). They show how imperial claims to Mount Wutai had become embraced and shared by all in the nineteenth century. Whether through the use of the phrase “imperially established” in the title or by the depiction of imperial traveling lodges (xinggong 行宮), presumably as sites of attraction, such traces of imperial patronage and of the emperor added prestige and authenticity to the publications. Similarly, rather than implying a direct connection to the two imperial texts and therefore to the Qing court, the Badgar painting’s careful delineation of “imperial” sites and subsequent reiteration of an imperial-centered perspective of Mount Wutai demonstrates the monopoly of imperially produced sources in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Another hallmark of Qing imperial production adopted in the Badgar map is the use of multilingual inscriptions.33 Most of the sixty-some cartouches contain an inscription in Mongolian at the left, Tibetan in the middle, and Chinese at the right. While the Tibetan inscription is a transliteration of the Chinese, the Mongolian is often rendered as translations of the sites’ names, reflecting the primary languages of

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Mongol pilgrims. For example, the famous Shuxiang Temple discussed in chapter 1 is inscribed in Mongolian as “Gulir terigütü manzusiri” (“Mañjuśrī with a head of flour”), alluding to the legend that the head of the sculptural image was fashioned out of dough after Mañjuśrī appeared to the sculptor during his lunch hour.34 The inscriptions render Mount Wutai as a familiar territory, equally accessible in both the Mongolian and the Chinese languages. The Badgar painting is also connected to administrative maps. Throughout the latter half of the Qing dynasty, the Lifan Yuan 理藩院 (Board for the Administration of Outlying Regions) commissioned survey maps of districts and banners for their official archive.35 The cartographic conventions they employ have much in common with the Badgar map of Mount Wutai. Some of these maps have monastic centers as their main subject of representation (fig. 4.18). The physical contours of the landscape seem to be organized around temple complexes, which were meticulously rendered with architectural precision. In addition, beside each landmark is a Mongolian inscription, coupled with a Chinese inscription written on a small, separate piece of paper affixed to the map. The Badgar painting also seems to imitate this convention by inserting its trilingual Chinese and Mongolian inscriptions into a neatly drawn rectangular box. Similarly, in a map of Mount Wutai from the late Qing period, depictions of major temples, routes, and waterways, complete with affixed cartouches, are seamlessly woven into the ethereal ink washes of a Chinese blue-and-green mountain landscape (fig. 4.19). The Badgar map, in rendering a mountain range filled with famed monasteries,

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fig. 4.18. Map of Aru Khorchin. Banner in Inner Mongolia, 1908. 132 × 73.5 cm. State Library, Berlin. fig. 4.19. Map showing the southern route to Mount Wutai, 1905. Ink and color on paper, mounted vertical scroll. 189 × 89 cm. National Library, Beijing. Photograph by author, 2005.

can be seen as a continuation of this cartographic convention in which landscape painting and topography is combined with detailed surveys of individual monasteries and identified by labels. Parallel to this integration of empirical devices in Qing cartographic materials, the Badgar map is imbued with manifestations of deities, extraordinary occurrences, and human activities not found in gazetteer maps, woodblock illustrations, and Qing imperial surveys. Flanking the very top of the map of Mount Wutai are images of two deity apparitions: the Tibetan yogi and saint par excellence Milarepa (ca. 1052–ca. 1135 c.e.) meditating in a cave at the upper left, and Mount Wutai’s resident deity, the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, riding on a lion at the top center. Each of these two saintly figures is recognizable in a self-contained cave and cloud roundel that floats above the pictorial surface of the rest of the mountain landscape. Below the visibly flat terraces, the map is filled with travelers on horses, pilgrims in the act of veneration, and disproportionately large flora and fauna. Gesticulating monks and visitors appear throughout most of the evenly laid out monastic precincts, while travelers can be seen climbing the remote mountain passes. Trees, flowers, and a few species of birds and mammals are depicted in the style of Chinese brush painting, in contrast to the uniform, measured outlines of architectural drawings and gazetteer maps. The looseness and irregular width of these brushstrokes are striking amid the even, ordered lines of buildings and ridges. Throughout the composition, gnarled branches and oversize birds and peonies executed in soft, pale ink washes tower over temples and shrines, inhabiting the mountain landscape like bizarre apparitions in their own right (fig. 4.20). More so than the layout and placement of individual sites and monasteries, the presence of human activities, animals, and flora and fauna authenticates the picture of Mount Wutai as Mañjuśrī’s abode, just as miraculous icons, tales of numinous apparitions, and saintly biographies discussed in the preceding chapters define Mount Wutai for the makers and users of each representation. The painting at Badgar is an image that has its origins in multiple visual worlds. Qing imperial gazetteers, popular and official cartography, iconic representations of divinity, playful narratives of human activities, and painterly elements of traditional Chinese landscape painting  —  all of these contributed toward a chimerical image that expresses the identities of the people who depicted and viewed Mount Wutai at Badgar fig. 4.20. Map of Mount Wutai (detail), Badgar. Photograph by author, 2009.

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at the turn of the nineteenth century. It aptly reflects the transcultural realities of the network of Mongol Gelukpa monks from various leagues of Inner and Outer Mongolia, who, painting images of their own monastery in the Chinese-inspired blue-and-green menri (sman bris)–style landscape of Central Tibet, nonetheless identified with Mount Wutai, and were connected with it, in more direct and immediate ways than they were with Central Tibet. The map’s employment of a Qing cartographic lexicon within a landscape of Chinese-style flora and fauna, together with trilingual labels and Tibetan Buddhist apparitions, reflects not only its hybrid character but also its legibility.

The Cifu Map This ability to appeal to and to be adopted by multiple audiences becomes the defining feature of the later map image of Mount Wutai in the medium of a woodblock carving. The assembled block panel measures a hefty 165 centimeters wide, 120 centimeters long, and approximately 8 centimeters thick. It shows celestial apparitions, historical narratives, and pilgrimage and ritual activities in a panorama of the 150-plus temples and landmarks. Each of the sites depicted is labeled with a bilingual inscription in Chinese and Tibetan, and a trilingual title  —  “The Panoramic Picture of the Sacred Realm of the Mountain of Five Terraces”  —  in Tibetan, Chinese, and Mongolian runs across the top register of the composition, and a trilingual donative inscription at the bottom of the composition details the purpose of the mapping project (see appendixes A and B).36 According to the donative inscription, the blocks were carved in 1846 at Mount Wutai by its resident Mongol lama (Mongolian: gelöng; Tibetan: dge slong, a fully ordained monk), Lhundrub (Tibetan: Lhun grub), from the Sengge department of the estate of the Jebtsündamba of Urga. A bilingual colophon in Mongolian and Chinese at the top of the print states that the blocks are to be preserved at its home temple located just behind the Bodhisattva’s Peak. The map image proliferated through many printed impressions.37 Up until the early twentieth century, prints were hand-colored, collected, and sold by artisans, pilgrims, and merchants around the globe.38 The Cifu Temple apparently distributed prints of the map as a unique and featured object of the temple to its benefactors in return for their donations.39 The accounts by various travelers of having seen and received this map, as well as almost twenty prints made from the same woodblock-panel that I have been able to locate in collections around the world,40 most of them in worn conditions showing signs of heavy use, suggest that the prints constitute the most heavily circulated map image of the mountain during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The more than a dozen colored prints all appear strikingly different from each other (see figs. 4.1 through 4.5).41 They differ in their schemes and styles of coloration, interpretation of sites, figures and narratives, and eventual display and usage. In contrast to the Badgar map from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, which incorporated earlier images and templates, the 1846 Cifu map became a frequent and often singular source for later images. The prints were evidently so well sought after and considered so authoritative that several new recarvings of that image, based on prints by others outside the Cifu Temple, were made. A recarving from 1874 omitted many Tibetan inscriptions, and updated the colophon in the upper-left corner, but otherwise retained as much of the information as was possible from the source print.42 Likewise, several later silk and wall paintings from the early twentieth century

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in Beijing, St. Petersburg, Lhasa, and Hamburg were based, in varying degrees, on the original Cifu woodblock set, each selectively retaining and leaving out content that was considered essential to the copier (see figs. 4.6 through 4.8).43 They all indicate the image’s wide circulation and its role as a prototype and model for depicting Mount Wutai during the late Qing dynasty. In comparison to the various colored versions of the same print impression, the later recarvings and painted copies, usually done by those who knew only Chinese, often omit the apparitions and the Tibetan inscriptions. This retranslation of the image back into a monolingual world reveals on the one hand the cultural divide between Chinese and Tibetan Buddhist communities, and on the other the versatility of the Cifu image and its ability to speak to its Chinese audience. The prints were produced, modified, viewed, used, and collected by a significantly larger and wider audience than any other textual or pictorial representation. In 2009, when I discovered that the original block-panel still survives in a discreet location, I was not surprised to learn that prints can still be made from it. The multiplicity of image worlds discerned in the Badgar map, now manifested in the medium of colored woodblock print, becomes itself the object of collective and continuous image-making. Its initial carver as well as a diverse group of anonymous colorers, viewers, users, and collectors all assert their vision of Mount Wutai through their participation in the production of the final image. This collaborative process diffuses the agency of a singular artist, maker, or instance of creation.44 As an object open to modification, it mirrors the open-ended nature of the reinvention of Mount Wutai, thereby enacting the most central paradox of Mount Wutai as both an earthly place and a Buddhist paradise (pure land). This paradox has been more famously rehearsed in Buddhist doctrinal debates and literary bravados. Whether it is the Qianlong emperor ruminating on the efficacy of his replicas of Mount Wutai, as discussed in chapter 1, or Chan masters debating the existence of the sacred mountain “out there” or in one’s mind, as in the encounter dialogues in gazetteers discussed in chapter 2, the status of the mountain has usually been considered a polemical issue only among the learned.45 But the multitude of Cifu prints that originate from the same block-panel is a material embodiment of the tension between the timelessness and historicity of sites and visions that exists at the core of every pilgrimage to Mount Wutai, elite or popular, monastic or lay. When examined alongside other mediums and genres that were employed to translate Mount Wutai, the prints’ fluid pictoriality and materiality appear uniquely capable of articulating a multileveled ontological status of Mount Wutai that was shared by all and not just discussed within the purview of the learned. Many surviving prints collectively visualize a mountain that is timeless, historical, and in a perpetual state of transformation. The Cifu map descends from a long tradition of picturing Mount Wutai all over the Buddhist world since the seventh century.46 However, what makes the map a particularly widespread source of influence is its originality. All internal evidence suggests that its mapping process had been based on the mapmaker Lama Lhundrub’s first-hand knowledge of the mountain range, not the copying of earlier models or a pictorialization of earlier textual sources. That is, unlike the Badgar map that was primarily informed by imperial gazetteers, or for that matter the tenth-century panoramic mural of Mogao Cave 61 in Dunhuang, which scholars have argued derives from earlier images and textual records,47 the Cifu map imparts an original vision of the mountain based on local, first-hand experience. Everything  —  from its careful empirical attention

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toward the number of bays and halls of temples, and the inclusion of otherwise littleknown hamlets and villages around the mountain, to the lively and often humorous depictions of popular pilgrimage activities and local lores (figs. 4.21 and 4.22)48  —   displays an intimate and conclusive knowledge of Mount Wutai’s various registers of perceivable physical and visionary reality. Its detailed description of each temple and strategic placement of sites and events all represent a unique new spatial reconfiguration of the mountain’s topography, one that reflects the personal, local, institutional, sectarian, and cultural perspective of the map’s carver himself. Many Daoist (non-Buddhist), Tibetan Buddhist (non-Han-Chinese), or simply nonreligious (out-of-the-way hamlets and villages) sites, which did not appear in Buddhist mountain gazetteers for their lack of proper religious affiliation or significance, appear in the Cifu map. Many appear with their residential deities, and, along with every other site depicted, are carefully labeled with a bilingual inscription in Chinese and Tibetan.49 The map’s inclusive view of the mountain contrasts sharply with “sanitized” portrayals of the mountain by Buddhist authorities and imperial officials.50 This quality that makes the map original and widely appealing also reflects the cosmopolitan identity of its carver Lhundrub. Through his comprehensive representation of the mountain’s numerous sites, events, divinities, and languages, Lhundrub asserts himself as both an authoritative local and a Gelukpa lama from Khalkha Mongolia. Indeed, the unusually diverse, widespread, and sustained reception history of this image invites a careful evaluation of its agency and that of its maker(s). My previous publication examined these prints in light of their capacity to reveal, confirm, and assert a true reality of Mañjuśrī’s abode across multiple dimensions: first, the delineation of geographic and social structures through contemporaneous cartographic conventions; second, an authority invested in the knowledge, experience, and representation of religious visions; third, the infinite replicability of Mañjuśrī’s abode mediated by the scripture-producing medium of woodblock printing, followed by the interpretive and individuating practice of hand-coloring; and finally, the numinous nature of the

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fig. 4.21. Detail of fig. 4.2, showing the local legend of the Kanxgi emperor shooting an arrow at a monk bathing with women, and later discovering the arrow in the back of Mañjuśrī. fig. 4.22. Detail of fig. 4.2, showing the favorite Mongol pilgrimage place of the Mother’s Womb Cave, where a pilgrim enters the narrow passage of the cave with the assistance of a monk “midwife” to be reborn and purified. The site is also associated with the Tibetan tantric deity of Vajrayoginī, pictured in the lower-right corner.

millennium-old tradition of picturing Mount Wutai to which this image belongs.51 I had argued that each of these can be seen as an attempt to assert, on the one hand, a timeless sanctity of the mountain, and on the other, the perpetual malleability of both the map object and the mountain topography. My ideas about the Cifu image have evolved since. I have come to see these dimensions of truth as interconnected parts of an image world where boundaries between the visionary and the empirical were permeable, if ever present. Architectural and figurative representations, be it the disproportionately large imperially sponsored yellow-tiled roofs of the monastery in the middle of the composition (see fig. 1.4), the annual Maitreya procession and cham dance that dominate the central portion of the map, or narrative images of the Kangxi emperor’s heroic activities on the mountain,52 were all a part of the mountain’s numinous landscape, affirming and corroborating with the cloud-borne deities of Mañjuśrī’s manifestations that are scattered across the entire map. Among the various ways of demarcating Mañjuśrī’s realm, it is the depictions of deities and miracles throughout the map that are most informative of the concerns of the people who participated in the map’s making. In what follows, my discussion focuses on depictions of Mañjuśrī’s manifestations and other miraculous occurrences. Although they are less often explored for their historicity, I argue that they reveal more than other types of depictions about the circumstances and identities of the map carver and the prints’ subsequent colorers. Nothing is known about Lhundrub apart from what is present in the carving itself. Even less is known about the place and time of the anonymous colorers who completed the prints in vastly different ways. However, their dynamic engagement in the mapmaking enterprise perpetuated a shared and open space through which their cosmopolitanism can also be delineated. Cloud-borne deities and luminaries appearing in their detailed iconographic forms command every corner of the Wutai mountain range. Emerging from elaborately carved billows of clouds that hover above the surface of the entire composition, these manifestations are set apart, in time and space, from the dense flora and fauna of the mountain. Their ubiquitous and iconic presence, easily distinguishable even in the least colored of prints, asserts to the viewer that the true appearance of Mount Wutai ultimately lies in the revelations of Mañjuśrī’s manifestations. It is also within the realm of emanations that lineage affiliations are most legibly established. Unlike at Badgar, where a tracing of the monastery’s own origins had been expressed through the depiction of Lhasa’s famed monasteries, on the Cifu map the lineage and affiliation to the Gelukpa sect are established through depictions of deity apparitions. At the top of the composition, the five terraces, the most prominent namesakes of the mountain, are symmetrically arranged on a parabolic curve and connected by a long string of clouds. Each terrace houses a large imperial temple (as indicated by the yellow roof in the Helsinki print in fig. 4.1, earlier) with an image of Mañjuśrī inside. Each temple is adorned with another cloud-borne deity of Mañjuśrī, each in a different iconographic form (fig. 4.23).53 As emanations of the same deity, these forms are distinctly different from the True Appearance icons of Chinese origin that captivated Qianlong and by which he synecdochically re-created Mount Wutai, as discussed in chapter 1. The five Mañjuśrī inside the terrace-top temples and the five Mañjuśrī hovering above the terraces are closely interlinked. Those inside the terrace-top temples represent five revelations of Mañjuśrī to Tsongkhapa when the former transmitted his teachings to the latter. The five figures that hover above each of the five temples are Tsongkhapa’s five

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apparitions (in the guises of Mañjuśrī) to his chief disciple Khedrup when the former, in turn, passed his teachings on to the latter after the former had passed away.54 Khedrup was posthumously recognized as the first Panchen Lama,55 whose reincar˙ nate lineage became the second most important one within the institution of the Dalai Lamas. Khedrup is seen, as he often does in depictions of these visions elsewhere, kneeling with a golden offering at the entrance to each of the five temples. Neither Tsongkhapa nor Khedrup had been to Mount Wutai in his lifetime, and the revelatory episodes depicted here would have taken place in Amdo and Central Tibet, where the two were respectively. However, as discussed in chapter 3, Tsongkhapa’s presence at Mount Wutai has already been established in Rölpé Dorjé’s namtar, or semisecret biography, as a way to affirm and legitimate Rölpé Dorjé and Tuken’s presence. The genre, medium, and audience of a namtar are all distinctly different from that of a popular pilgrimage map. What was transmitted and claimed to be secret knowledge in Tuken’s text is now visualized with such iconographic clarity and specificity that any viewer versed in the visual language of Tibetan Buddhism would recognize the Mañjuśrī-Tsongkhapa-Khedrup transmission chain atop the five terraces. Tsongkhapa’s visions of Mañjuśrī and Khedrup’s visions of Tsongkhapa became popular subjects of depiction in paintings and sculptures within the Gelukpa tradition in Tibet and Mongolia since the eighteenth century. That these two sets of revelatory visions became iconic imagery only centuries after their time demonstrates that hagiographies of the early Gelukpa masters played an instrumental role in this process of legitimization. The visionary episodes were frequently depicted either as a set of

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fig. 4.23. Details of fig. 4.2.

fig. 4.24. Tsongkhapa Appearing to Khedrup as the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, Tibet, 18th century. Thangka. Colors on cotton. 76.2 × 50.1 cm. The Avery Brundage Collection, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. fig. 4.25. Tsongkhapa Appearing to Khedrup as the Mahāsiddha DombiHeruka,Tibet, 18th century. Thangka. Colors on cotton. 75.6 × 50.1 cm. The Avery Brundage Collection, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.

five individual paintings (figs. 4.24 and 4.25, two surviving examples from the original set of five) or all within a single composition (fig. 4.26). They affirm the chain of transmission of teachings from Mañjuśrī and the role of visionary episodes within this tradition.56 These paintings define the subject (one who appears) as much as they do the object (receiver) of the apparition. In fact, the episode of Khedrup receiving a vision of Tsongkhapa riding on a white elephant became the definitive representation of Khedrup in the preincarnation lineage (trungrap) paintings of the Panchen ˙ Lamas, as discussed in chapter 3 (fig. 4.27). Portrayed in the semiprofile view that became known in earlier depictions of this apparition, with the characteristic posture of someone receiving a vision  —  kneeling with a golden offering in hand  —  Khedrup’s enlarged figure in the trungrap version now towers over the diminutive apparition of Tsongkhapa (at the upper left) and the protective deities Yamāntaka (top right) and Mahākāla (bottom left). Dressed in a radiant, gold-embroidered red robe, Khedrup replaces Tsongkhapa’s emanation as the principal figure of the composition. This composition most likely originates from the Nartang woodblock set in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, and has become the standard way of representing Khedrup in Panchen Lama’s lineage paintings, and remains so today. Through their pictorial rep˙ resentation and the subsequent incorporation into other aggregate compositions of iconographic images, these episodes were extracted from the linear narrative of the original texts to assert an independent identity of their own  —  as authentic and truthful representations of Khedrup, Tsongkhapa, and Mañjuśrī.

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Indeed, the nonspatial and atemporal quality of these iconographic forms permits their reinsertion into any time-space matrix. For the first time, Khedrup’s visions were mapped onto the five terraces of Mount Wutai and were paired with the five forms by which Mañjuśrī appeared to Tsongkhapa. The panoramic compression of multiple times and spaces in the Cifu map both inscribed the presence of the Gelukpa lineage on Mount Wutai, and affirmed the mountain’s central position in the history of the transmission of Gelukpa teachings. Their pictorialization on the five terraces claims presence in much the same way as does Rölpé Dorjé’s namtar text examined in chapter 3. In the case of Rölpé Dorjé’s namtar, this visionary transmission lineage ends with its author Tuken. But in the case of the Cifu map, an object that is considerably more open-ended, the terminus of this lineage, as my discussion of the coloring process in a later section of this chapter will show, is still subject to individuation. What is clear is the relationship between the lineage of visions and the carver of the woodblock-panel, the Khalkha Mongol lama Lhundrub. In the trilingual colophon at the bottom of the carving, Lhundrub identifies himself as a disciple of the Jebtsündamba of Urga, the spiritual and political leader of Outer Mongolia where his incarnation lineage was first and foremost. The Jebtsündambas’ preincarnation is traced back to the sixteenthcentury Tibetan Jonang scholar Tāranātha (1635–1723), whose name also appears beside a prominent stupa in the center of the Taihuai village depicted on the Cifu map (figs. 4.28 and 4.29). Since the first Jebtsündamba Khutugtu Zanabazar (1635–1723) was also a disciple of the Fourth Panchen Lama, in addition to being considered himself ˙

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fig 4.26. Tsongkapa’s Five Apparitions to Khedrup, Tibet, ca. 19th century. Thangka. Colors on cotton. 87 × 61.2 cm. Courtesy of the Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York. 70.0/ 6860 fig. 4.27. Tsongkhapa Appearing to Khedrup on an Elephant, Tibet, 19th century. Ink on cloth mounted on a hanging scroll. 69.8 × 42 cm. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

fig. 4.28. Detail of fig. 4.1. fig. 4.29. Detail of fig. 4.2.

an emanation of Mañjuśrī, Lhundrub’s identification with the Gelukpa MañjuśrīTsongkhapa-Khedrup lineage becomes well established on the map. Such an alignment of Tsongkhapa and Khedrup with Mount Wutai is also evoked in various extant paintings at the mountain. At the Cifu Temple itself, on the exterior of the Hall of Mañjuśrī (fig. 4.30), below the beams and above the doors, are nine painted panels in which the five visions of Khedrup are inserted into a larger pantheon and cosmology (fig. 4.31). Likely repainted over time, the original paintings nonetheless date to the nineteenth century. The nine panels are (from left to right): Green Tara’s paradise; Amitābha’s paradise; the five visions of Tsongkhapa by Khedrup as they appear in the biographies and on the Cifu map, all of which are set in a mountain landscape evocative of Mount Wutai; Avalokiteśvara’s paradise; and the Kingdom of Shambhala. This series of images, in which the five visions in a lush green mountain landscape are framed on either side by heavenly realms of Buddhas and bodhisattvas, presents a uniquely Tibetan Buddhist  —  and specifically Gelukpa  —  cosmography. The linking of visions of Mañjuśrī, Tsongkhapa, and Khedrup on the five terraces of Mount Wutai within other Buddhist paradises represents the incorporation of Mount Wutai into a Tibetan Buddhist cosmology through visions and revelations. Whereas the Badgar map incorporated Mount Wutai into the sacred geography of famed Gelukpa monasteries primarily because of its thriving temples and pilgrimage culture, here Mount Wutai is recognized as a Buddhist paradise through the visionary appearance of the founder and chief teacher of the Gelukpa lineage. In the last of the five visions chronologically narrated in Khedrup’s biographies, Tsongkhapa appeared to Khedrup “amid a massive fresh white cloud, dressed as he was prior to ordination” (the form that presides over the northern terrace of the Cifu map) to tell Khedrup that he was in fact going to teach at Mount Wutai.57 As discussed in chapter 3, more specific stories about Tsongkhapa’s secret presence at Mount Wutai began to circulate within the Gelukpa sect as late as the early nineteenth century, four centuries after he lived and died, and only a few decades before the time the map was carved. Although the Cifu map was not the first to assert Tsongkhapa’s presence on Mount Wutai, it places him on the mountain’s most sacred namesakes. The five terraces of Mount Wutai had long been associated with the five directional Buddhas as well as various forms of Mañjuśrī in both Chinese and Tibetan tantric Buddhism,

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as shown in chapter 2. Rather than depicting the apparition of any number of other figures who were commonly recognized as emanations of Mañjuśrī throughout the course of Buddhism in China and Tibet, the manifested forms here specify a particular Gelukpa lineage, from Mañjuśrī to Tsongkhapa, and from Tsongkhapa to Khedrup. The cloud-borne deities below the terraces clarify the continuation of this lineage into China and Mongolia. Each of the temples can be identified by its respective apparition looming above it (as in fig. 4.32). These figures include historical teachers as their tutelary and protector deities, all of whom are part of this transmission lineage. Many of these associations became well-known within the tradition, but do not show up in any textual records. For example, above Avalokiteśvara’s Cave is an image of a

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fig. 4.30. Mañjuśrī Hall, Cifu Temple, Mount Wutai. Photograph by author, 2005. fig. 4.31. Beam paintings on the exterior of Mañjuśrī Hall, Cifu Temple, Mount Wutai.

fig. 4.32. Detail of fig. 4.2. fig. 4.33. Detail of fig. 4.2.

seated monk in a red robe, emanating out of a six-armed Avalokiteśvara. This figure is identified as the Sixth Dalai Lama, who according to legend came to meditate at Mount Wutai after he had been dethroned (fig. 4.33).58 Although the existing biographies of the Sixth Dalai Lama do not record this story, most Tibetans accepted the story’s validity, and the site consequently became one of the places most highly revered by the Tibetans in Mount Wutai since at least the beginning of the twentieth century. Given that Tsongkhapa is considered to be the single most important figure within the Gelukpa tradition and on the map itself, it is more than appropriate that the Cifu map owes its creation to the carver’s unmediated encounter with Tsongkhapa. The story is related in a compilation of local legends published in print as recently as 2004, and now widely circulated in cyberspace.59 According to the story, a Mongol lama skilled in wood carving by the name of Yinban 銀班 plotted the murder of his younger brother, who was the front-runner for the post of the imperially appointed religious official on the mountain. The brother climbed up the steep steps to Dailuo Peak 黛螺頂 (ConchShell Peak; appendix A, no. 93) on the day of the annual cham festival, and just as the Mongol lama was about to push his brother off the edge of a steep cliff, he saw, instead of his brother’s face, the face of Tsongkhapa.60 He instantly fell to his knees and repented. As an act of expiation, he spent the next three months traversing the vast terrain of Mount Wutai and recording what he saw to make a comprehensive woodblock image of Mount Wutai, which took him two years to complete. The story, available only in Chinese as far as I know, explains that the phenomenon of assuming Tsongkhapa’s countenance is uniquely Tibetan Buddhist, and that a person must be of high spiritual attainment to appear as a temporary receptacle of Tsongkhapa.61 Whether the story has a historical basis or was later fabricated, it reveals a multifold desire to realize Mount Wutai visually. Nothing less than a visionary encounter and the need to repent from an intention to commit fratricide, it seems, accounts for the creation of an original work of tremendous skill, labor, and inside knowledge. On the one hand, the revelation of Tsongkhapa’s face spurred the lama to make a “comprehensive view” of Mount Wutai, marrying the Buddhist ideals of authenticity to cartographic notions of topographic accuracy, and his action resulted in the great reward of an ablution of his sin. On the other hand, the act of image making commemorates and reaffirms the maker’s own encounter with the omnipresent Mañjuśrī

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(in the form of Tsongkhapa). As someone who has “seen” Mañjuśrī’s emanation, the lama woodcarver asserts the power of vision to reveal Mañjuśrī’s true image to those uninitiated into the world of visions, evoking his own lineage of visions and visionaries, from Mañjuśrī’s revelation to Tsongkhapa, to Tsongkhapa’s revelations to Khedrup, to the carver’s own visions of Tsongkhapa. Seen in this light, the image of Mount Wutai manifests a dimension of the mountain beyond the physical existence of stelae, monasteries, pilgrims, and flora and fauna, one that is accessible only to the initiated. The discourse of visionary versus conventional experiences displayed in this chain of visual assertions underlies many aspects of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist practice. When a practitioner engages in a meditation practice called a sadhana, he or she attains an “exalted state” of reality by generating a vision of the Buddha realm.62 Although this visionary realm is not to be confused with the ultimate reality of the emptiness, it can be seen in turn as an aid to eventual awakening. This process is guided by sadhana texts, which are instruction manuals written by those who have perfected the practices themselves.63 The Cifu map, along with pilgrimage guidebooks such as the Guide discussed in chapter 2, parallels sadhana texts by serving both as proof of visions and mediating between the levels of experience. As an image of a place possessing a more exalted level of reality that may be experienced but cannot be captured through representations of any kind, the Cifu map can be regarded as a guide map for visionary encounters, providing a means of access from the ordinary to a more exalted reality. Understanding the pilgrimage map as a blueprint for visions further enables us to see the woodblock print itself as a prime object of revelation  —  an enactment and reinvention of Mount Wutai in a way that is not available elsewhere. Like hagiographical rewritings of early masters studied by Ary, the map can be read as a deliberate rewriting of the lineage of visions by the heir to this lineage. As a disciple of the Jebtsündamba of Urga, Lhundrub not only positioned himself and his resident temple as the heirs to this lineage but also situated Mount Wutai as the place where the teachings were transmitted, from Mañjuśrī down to his own revelation. The concern of the map’s maker with representations and reenactment of visions has been shown to be of equal importance in representations executed in other mediums explored in the preceding chapters. But the ways in which apparitions of divinities are both pictorialized and emplaced in the topographical landscape is unique to the map medium. Just as the episodes of visionary transmission punctuate and authenticate hagiographical narratives, by being transposed from their places of origin in Tibet onto Mount Wutai, they have also come to define its topography. By extension, narratives of the lives of spiritual masters have come to inhabit and demarcate a holy landscape, just as physical landmarks and ritual festivities do, even when the narratives took place elsewhere. Mount Wutai is governed on the ground by Gelukpa lamas, their monastic establishments, and ritual festivals, whereas in the realm above, an entire lineage of Mañjuśrī’s Sino-Tibetan-Mongolian emanations preside over the mountain range. The lineage of revelatory visions demarcates a topography that is legible to an audience versed in the iconography discussed earlier. A parallel system of textual inscription for each of the sites on the map lends access to a different audience who might not be literate in the language of iconography, but who can read Chinese and/ or Tibetan. In contrast to the depiction of cloud-borne apparitions, which are overwhelmingly Gelukpa in orientation, the depictions of sites, figures, and the bilingually inscribed labels contain non-Gelukpa, nonimperially sanctioned, and non-Buddhist

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sites that are in fact not recorded in extant imperial gazetteers, local records, or other Tibetan- and Mongolian-language guidebooks.64 For example, nine miao (temples or shrines) located in the lower portions of the map, and six grottoes, many bearing overt Daoist connotation, are not found in any previous gazetteers.65 Those sites that are included in the local records often appear with alternative words or simplified characters, reflecting the local, colloquial variant of the site names. Moreover, a few temples that are listed in the Imperial Gazetteer under the category of “monastic ruins” are also depicted in the Cifu map as no different from any other temple, and sometimes the steps leading up to them are trailed by pilgrims.66 As an image carved on woodblocks  —  the original medium of Buddhist scriptural production  —  the Cifu map shares with its scriptural counterpart a penchant for comprehensiveness by including and labeling as many sites as is physically possible on the blocks. The map’s more than 150 site labels demonstrate a concern for preserving and delivering Buddhist scriptural authenticity. Almost every site is identified by a Chinese inscription and its corresponding Tibetan transliteration, or vice versa, so that there is almost no attempt to translate the meaning of the name of each place from one language to another.67 The Tibetan-language inscription is written in uchen (dbu can), the upright block-style script designed for carving and used for printing scriptures. Many Chinese place-names carry semantic values that allude to the origins of the places, which, when transliterated, lose their original meaning.68 Some labels are inscribed directly onto the images of the walls of monasteries, as though they were depictions of the painted signs that still can be seen at Mount Wutai today, whereas others are hidden in or seemingly disguised as Wutai’s flora and fauna, making them very difficult to identify, let alone decipher. In short, the map reveals a comprehensive and precise identification system, committed to preserving pronunciation, but one that is almost impossible to read comprehensively. This apparent paradox in fact conforms with the Qing imperial model of translating Buddhist texts from this time as propounded by Rölpé Dorjé and practiced in his own compilation of the Guide (as discussed in chapter 2) and, to a certain extent, in the Badgar map. In the Cifu map, which was carved several decades later than the Guide, the transliteration practice had begun to go in the reverse direction, from Tibetan to Chinese. A site with a label such as “Gongbu Shan 公布山,” a Chinese transliteration of the Tibetan “Gonpori” (the Mahākāla Mountain, or Protector’s Mountain), exemplifies the Chinese adaptation of an originally Tibetan miracle that dates back to the thirteenth century (fig. 4.34).69 These labels signify that Mount Wutai’s past or origin is no longer entirely owned by the Chinese language. By and large, the two-way application of Rölpé Dorjé’s rule of translation as reflected in the Cifu woodblock inscriptions faithfully preserves Mount Wutai’s every miracle, thus further affirming the continuity of all revelations, whether Chinese or Tibetan. Thus, it is also not surprising that monks from Tibet visiting Mount Wutai nowadays express such amazement on seeing the Cifu map. Desiring to “know” Mount Wutai well, like Rölpé Dorjé’s disciples who requested that a Tibetan gazetteer be created, they have marveled at the unprecedented completeness of the Cifu map in documenting important miracles that do not appear in Chinese-language publications. Rölpé Dorjé and his disciples’ commitment to preserving the original pronunciation of the names of auspicious sites, as explained earlier, clarifies for the modern viewers the seemingly “meaningless” and semi-invisible labeling system for the map’s readers.

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Perhaps more than serving as instructive labels, the Chinese and Tibetan transliterations represent an effort to preserve and promote the authenticity of a place for its maker and viewers, while allowing audiences of both languages to possess equally true and complete knowledge of Mañjuśrī’s every conventional appearance at Mount Wutai throughout time.

A Center for Mongol Pilgrims The Cifu Temple was built in 1814 as a retreat by a retired jasagh lama from Bodhisattva’s Peak named Zuoba Longzhu 佐巴隆住 (also known as Nabuhai 纳不海) according to local sources.70 It was thus called the Meditation Quarter (Chinese: Chantang yuan 禪堂院; Tibetan: Bsam gtan gling), a name still used in many Tibetan sources. By the 1830s, the Cifu Temple had become a primary lodging center for the influx of Mongol lamas visiting Mount Wutai.71 The history of the Cifu Temple as a printing workshop has not survived in the few extant stele donor inscriptions that date to the 1920s to 1940s72 or in the more detailed mountain gazetteers that predate the Cifu Temple. The temple has not been home to Mongol lamas since the Sino-Japanese war of the 1930s, but its original structures and the detailed description of it on the map offer a glimpse into its once prominent position in the Taihuai valley.73 The architecture of the Cifu Temple indicates that it was an important and dynamic center of Tibetan Buddhist art and practice. The halls on the central axis have all remained intact. The central prayer hall is a two-story structure with a skylight that connects the first and second floors. The skylight is the architectural hallmark of Tibetan Buddhist prayer assembly halls (dukhang), providing sufficient ventilation and light for the daily rituals, but this design is rare at Mount Wutai (fig. 4.35).74 Perched on a hill in the rear quarter of the temple is another uniquely Tibetan Buddhist space  —  a freestanding shrine devoted to the most revered Tibetan saint, the poet and yogi Milarepa (fig. 4.36). The entrance of the shrine is decorated with intricate wooden carvings, a hallmark of Tibetan architecture. Inside is a grotto-like construction, designed to resemble the deep mountain caves in which Milarepa dwelled, which at some point had become a reliquary. It is filled with tsa tsas, molded clay images that contain reliefs of deities commonly deposited in Tibetan Buddhist funerary and

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fig. 4.34. Detail of fig. 4.2.

fig. 4.35. (top) Exterior of Mañjuśrī Hall, Cifu Temple, Mount Wutai. Photograph by author, 2005. fig. 4.36. (above left) Milarepa Shrine, Cifu Temple, Mount Wutai. Photograph by author, 2009. fig. 4.37. (above right) Circumambulatory path with votive carvings, Milarepa Shrine, Cifu Temple, Mount Wutai. Photograph by author, 2009.

commemorative stupas as a gesture of devotion. The entire shrine, though perched up against a rock, is encircled by a small walking path. Images with Tibetan Buddhist iconography carved into the rock along the route attest to the extensive use of this path for circumambulation (fig. 4.37), a bodily gesture of homage that is most common to the pilgrimage practice in Tibet but less typically used in Chinese traditions. Overall, the entire complex displays a complete transfer of Tibetan Buddhist artistic and ritual practices to Mount Wutai, confirming it as a lively center for Mongol Buddhists. The Cifu Temple was one of the only new monasteries depicted on the Cifu map amid an accumulation of ancient temples.75 It was physically located behind Bodhisattva’s Peak, but its presence on the map displaces the singularly central position of Bodhisattva’s Peak, which, as discussed in chapter 1, had served as the unchanging locus of pilgrimage and imperial sponsorship since at least the Tang dynasty. The Badgar map of Mount Wutai, completed just thirty years before the Cifu block-panel was made, still shows the decisively central location of Bodhisattva’s Peak. On the Cifu map, however, Bodhisattva’s Peak is counterbalanced by the Cifu Temple to the right of the central divide of the print, while manifestations of Tsongkhapa with his two main disciples Khedrup and Gyeltsap  —  the triad that later became recognized as the origins of Gelukpa Buddhism  —  loom above the temple as its visionary credentials

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(see fig. 4.32). This juxtaposition of the newly established Mongolian temple with Mount Wutai’s millennium-old locus of pilgrimage in the very center of the composition reconfigured the landscape of Mount Wutai by rendering indistinct the thousand years of history that separated the two temples. By placing the Cifu Temple in the center of the map, the mapmaker legitimated its permanent existence at Mount Wutai. As the site for the engraving and printing of Mount Wutai, the Cifu Temple assumed a new authority as the locus for the production of knowledge, which in turn reinforced the legitimacy of the map itself. Just as the Badgar map reflects its monastery’s reverential positioning of Mount Wutai among a network of esteemed Tibetan monastic universities, the Cifu blockpanel indicates the financial and technical sophistication of its maker and its temple. The skills and resources required for carving the woodblocks and for the continuous production of its prints corroborate the little-known history of Mount Wutai as a center for printing workshops.76 Numerous other woodblocks carved at Mount Wutai  —  all approximately the same size, with Mañjuśrī in the center and images of important temples scattered around the Wutai mountain range (see fig. 4.17)77  —  as well as the carving of Rölpé Dorjé’s Guide at the Jifu Temple examined in chapter 2, suggest that the carving and printing of texts and images were vital to the pilgrimage and religious culture at Mount Wutai.78 Some traces of the Cifu Temple’s printing workshop can also be found within the architectural complex itself. Vignettes that feature mountain scenery with monasteries and Tibetan style stupas are found on the wooden beams inside the Hall of Mañjuśrī. In many of these vignettes, the atypically thick black outlines on the contours of the landscape curiously resemble the hard edges of outlines in a woodblock print (fig. 4.38). The motifs of temples, mountain passes, and stupas are also similar to those on the woodblock map. This self-reference further asserts the temple’s authority in reproducing knowledge about Mount Wutai.

Printing and Coloring Printing, a technology originating in Buddhism’s effort to disseminate scripture, has always been considered the medium of choice for authentic duplication of Buddhist teachings in China.79 If the goal of making a map of Mount Wutai is to render effable an otherwise difficult to access true vision of Mañjuśrī’s worldly abode, no medium seems more suited to this goal than woodblock printing. The true reality of the mountain is preserved through its authentic impression and augmented by its infinite potential for proliferation and dissemination. The Cifu image perpetuates the truth of Mañjuśrī’s worldly abode, using the same medium that has preserved the teachings of the Buddha in China for more than a thousand years. The map’s remarkable global dissemination by colonial surveyors, foreign envoys, missionaries, and collectors, who acquired the prints for purposes other than the propagation of Buddhist teachings (ethnographic

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fig. 4.38. Paintings on beams inside the Mañjuśrī Hall, Cifu Temple, Mount Wutai. Photograph by author, 2009.

research, intelligence gathering, and so on), is no less a fulfillment of this original goal of printmaking. The adaptability, mobility, and legibility of the image made it an essential source for propagating Mount Wutai. The trilingual donative inscriptions in Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian attest to this point. Whereas each individual site on the map is inscribed only in Chinese and Tibetan, the title, colophon, and a lengthy inscription at the bottom of the print detailing the occasion and purpose of image making  —  a standard practice in Chinese traditions  —  expand into displays of multilingual fluency that is a hallmark of the Qing court. The inscription opens with quotations from the Chinese Avatamsaka Sutra and ˙ Mañjuśrī Precious Treasury of the Law Dhāranī Sutra, two of the earliest scriptural ref˙ erences to Mañjuśrī’s final residence in Mount Wutai.80 The contents of this first half of the inscription, identical in all three languages, are lifted directly from earlier textual records. The inscription then refers to the map image, though with some differences among the three versions. The Tibetan and Mongolian inscriptions stress the efficacy of coming into sensory contact with the map through “seeing, hearing, touching, and remembering” as means to receive the bodhisattva’s blessing,81 while the Chinese version identifies in detail the benefits of both seeing the map and of “peregrinating Wutai,” “listening and recounting the spiritual efficacy and wondrous dharma of the bodhisattva,” as well as the immeasurable merit that can be accrued by the printing the map. In Buddhism, the accrual of karmic merit is a primary rationale behind the making of images; merit accumulates as a result of image making as well as from carrying out other good deeds or acts or having good thoughts, and the accumulated merit contributes to a person’s growth toward spiritual liberation. In relation to the map, wondrous benefits are generated, not only for the image’s maker but also for its viewers, devotees, and printers. The Chinese inscription reads: Benefactors everywhere who make a pilgrimage to the sacred realm of Clear and Cool, and who view this map of the mountain in order to listen to and recount the spiritual efficacy and wondrous teachings of the bodhisattva, will in this life be free from all calamities and diseases, and enjoy boundless blessings, happiness and longevity. After this life, they will be reborn in a land of fortune. All these can be acquired by relying on the bodhisattva’s compassionate transformations. Therefore, the disciple of Jebtsündamba of Da Khüriye [Mongolia], the engraver, the fully ordained monk Longzhu [Lhundrub] from the Sengge aimag, made a great vow to carve this woodblock with his own hands in order to extend [the merit] to benefactors of the four directions. Should a person make the vow to print this image, they will accumulate immeasurable merit.

This passage states without ambiguity the efficacy of the picture’s capacity to stand in for the actual landscape, insofar as it is capable of evoking the miraculous properties of Mount Wutai, by replicating, for the benefit of a devotee, Mañjuśrī’s worldly abode. Much like the beneficial act of printing scripture, the duplication of a precise image of Mañjuśrī’s field of enlightenment also generates tremendous merit for all who are involved in its production and dissemination, and this process itself constitutes the veneration of a holy body or territory, parallel to, in the absence of, or in substitution for the original.82 If the carving and printing of the woodblocks are seen as acts that authentically reproduce Mount Wutai’s conglomeration of sites, persons, and miracles, the individuating process of hand-coloring each print subjects its authenticity to continued revisions

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and interpretations over the long course of its history of production. An openness to further individuations appears to have been part of the design of the medium and materiality of the woodblock carving, significantly complicating the notion of singular authorship (in this case, usually reputed to be the carver Lhundrub) as it closes the gap between its maker and viewer. That is, if the colorers were also viewers of the maps, their interpretations via coloring, by which the maps were completed, become the visible traces of just how they comprehended the mountain, in indeed as many different ways as there are colored versions. A comparison of two impressions from the same set of woodblocks  —  one from the Museum of Cultures in Helsinki (see fig. 4.1), and another one from the Rubin Museum of Art (see fig. 4.2)  —  reveals their different history of use and dissemination, and ultimately shows them to be two very different visions of Mount Wutai beheld by two different kinds of pilgrims. Whereas the landscape of Mount Wutai in the Rubin print, possibly acquired from central Tibet, is venerated as an eternal, scriptural, and idealized if not distant landscape, much like those seen in paintings of Tibetan hagiographical narratives, in the Helsinki print, Mount Wutai’s terrains are localized, lived, and familiar, representing a much closer cultural connection to the mountain and the original carving. The Helsinki print, which was purchased by a Finnish expedition in the so-called Beijing Shop in Urga (Ekh-Khüree, modern-day Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia), was probably also colored in Mongolia or manufactured in China for a Mongol audience.83 While nothing is known about the colorers themselves, the content and style of their coloration reflect two distinctive attitudes toward Mount Wutai, and many of the other surviving colored prints reveal further differences among Mount Wutai’s diverse groups of pilgrims. A detailed comparison demonstrates that the colorers/viewers were important agents in the reinvention of Mount Wutai. First, numerous iconographic decisions were made during the process of coloring the print. Like the disciples of Rölpé Dorjé and the lamas in Mount Wutai today, a pilgrim eager to pay homage to every sacred place in Mount Wutai would have recognized the sites on the map despite their sometimes difficult-to-decipher labels, being familiar with the structures and the iconography of the figures associated with the site. A case in point is the identification of a stupa associated with Tāranātha (1575?–1634?), an eminent scholar of the Jonangpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism (see fig. 4.28). The inscription above the stupa belongs to a small group of Tibetan-only inscriptions that are exceptions to the otherwise undeviating practice of bilingual transliteration.84 No known textual records in Chinese indicate that Tāranātha ever visited Mount Wutai, which makes this Tibetan-only inscription all the more intriguing, suggesting that the stupa’s existence in Mount Wutai and its depiction in the print are of particular importance in the Tibetan-Mongolian context.85 The lack of a textual reference suggests that the cloud-borne deities can be seen as another kind of authenticating inscription besides the written one. The well-differentiated iconographical elements of the deity emanations serve as equally authoritative authenticators of the miraculous properties of each individual temple (as discussed earlier). As pictorial labels, they are much more immediately visible and comprehensible than the foreign sounds of names in barely visible letters. Seeing the two prints side by side makes clear just how much this kind of pictorial inscription can be conditioned by the interpretation of the coloring, rather than that of the original carving. The Rubin print dresses the figure of Tāranātha in generic yellow robes and a red inner robe, with his right arm exposed (see fig. 4.29). This clothing suggests a generic

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monastic scholar, but the same figure in the Helsinki print is more explicitly identified. Here, the figure wears a black lobed hat that closely resembles nineteenth- and twentiethcentury depictions of the Jebtsündambas of Urga (fig. 4.39). The Jebtsündambas of Urga, of whom the carver Lhundrub had proclaimed himself a disciple, trace their preincarnation to Tāranātha, by whose name the Jebstudambas are often epithetically referred to. By specifying the identity of the figure as a Jebtsündamba, rather than the original historical Tāranātha, the colorer of the Helsinki print reveals his familiarity with this lineage,86 and reinforces the stupa’s connection to Mongolia and to the origin of the map-carver Lhundrub.87 Records corroborate the Helsinki colorer’s identification. An early nineteenth-century Tibetan-language guidebook to Mount Wutai recounts the visit of the “venerable Tāranātha Tulku Rinpoché”  —  referring to the Fourth Jebtsündamba Lubsang Tübden Wangchug (1775–1813)  —  to Mount Wutai in the seventh year of the Jiaqing Reign (that is, 1802).88 Other details show that while the colorer of the Rubin print relied on the many Tibetan-language inscriptions of the print to make iconographic interpretations, the colorer of the Helsinki print knew how to “color-code” the figures, sites, and buildings correctly according to their contemporaneous affiliations. This difference suggests that the former was literate but perhaps unfamiliar with Mount Wutai’s history and geography, while the latter was the reverse  —  he or she was probably illiterate in Tibetan but well-versed in the local history and geography of Mount Wutai. For example, in the middle-right section of the map is a scene of a man fleeing from a wild tiger while gesturing wildly in the air. Right above him is the mantra “Om mani padme ˙ ˙ hūm” inscribed in Tibetan uchen script (fig. 4.40). The man is enclosed by a protective ˙ net originating from the fingertip of a deity on a cloud, which in turn emanates from the so-labeled Mañjuśrī’s Cave (Wenshu Dong 文殊洞). The rescuing deity, who is identified as the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara by the inscribed mantra (which belongs to him), is confirmed in the Rubin print by the figure’s iconography. The figure wears a white robe and bodhisattva’s headdress, corresponding to popular depictions of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara in China after the tenth century.89 However, two interpretations of the deity are visible on the Helsinki print: both the engraved iconography of the woodblocks, and a new interpretation put forth by the colorer. The deity in the fig. 4.39. Jebtsündamba of Urga, Mongolia, 19th century. Colors on cloth. 11.3 × 9.5 cm. Courtesy of the Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York. 70.0/ 5087

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Helsinki print is a seated figure wearing a black hat and a yellow robe, with bare feet, appearing more like a Daoist priest than a bodhisattva (fig. 4.41). Even though the mantra issued by the figure belongs exclusively to Avalokiteśvara, the person who colored the Helsinki print obviously understood otherwise, disregarding or, more likely, unable to comprehend the mantra inscribed in the Tibetan uchen script. Given that the artisan(s) who colored the print in China or Mongolia might not have been literate even in their native language(s), it is all the more likely that they would not have been able to understand a Tibetan script used for the writing of sutras. Through the application of color, a new identity for the deity  —  or at least a new emanation (of the omniscient Avalokiteśvara who is known to emanate in whatever form necessary to save his devotee from calamities)  —  is created, altering the intended meaning of the engraved blocks. The new guise reflects the prevalence of indigenous priests and deities at Mount Wutai, who are by no means excluded from the pantheon of Buddhist deities and manifestations. In a sense, when the carver Lhundrub created what can be considered the single most comprehensive record of the mountain (the carving even includes many Daoist shrines and grottoes), and proceeded to acknowledge in his inscription the impossibility of capturing Mount Wutai’s every numinous site, he was also referring to the perpetual transformations of numinous sites and the potential for new apparitions. The malleability of the surface of the woodblock print both mirrors and materializes the evershifting nature of the mountain range. The story of Avalokiteśvara’s special appearance in Mañjuśrī’s Cave does not seem to have made its way into any of the texts, an omission that contributed to the malleability of the narrative. What is puzzling in the story, before the change of character, is why Avalokiteśvara should emanate directly out of a cave associated with Mañjuśrī. Competition between Mañjuśrī and Avalokiteśvara is documented in several popular legends of Mount Wutai and Mount Putuo. In one of them, Avalokiteśvara visits Mañjuśrī at Mount Wutai to engage in a discussion of the Dharma. During their meeting, they will choose an individual who practices compassion and transform him into an immortal, and they make a bet as to which of two famous villagers is truly compassionate, “Butcher” Zhang or “Pious” Li. Avalokiteśvara roots for Zhang, who, although he slaughters animals for a living, is kind and generous to everyone. Mañjuśrī roots for Li, a wealthy miser who chants sutras all day and follows a strict vegetarian diet. Throughout

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fig. 4.40. Detail of fig. 4.2. fig. 4.41. Detail of fig. 4.1.

the story, Avalokiteśvara and Mañjuśrī appear in the guise of different characters to test Zhang and Li during the day, and at night, they appear in the dreams of the candidate they are rooting for to give him hints before each test. In the final test, Zhang drinks the river water and turns into an immortal, while Li, drinking the same water, turns into a frog. Consequently, on his home turf, Mañjuśrī lost the bet to Avalokiteśvara.90 Such a story reveals a friendly rivalry between the two principal bodhisattvas, which in turn provides another possible reason for the colorer of the Helsinki map to have obscured the identity of Avalokiteśvara. After all, the primary purpose of that map was to expound the wonders of Mañjuśrī, not those of his counterpart Avalokiteśvara or any other important Buddhist deities. Moreover, in a culture in which deities engage in friendly competitions and take on flexible forms of emanations, a crowning virtue of Mañjuśrī is his adaptability and interchangeability with other deities  —  a quality that is sustained and carried out in the multistep processes of printing and coloring. Although the colored figures of the Helsinki print do not seem to match the Tibetan inscriptions, they reinforce the color conventions of Qing monastic structures, a trait also seen in other versions of the map.91 Roofs of temples with predominantly imperial sponsorship are painted bright yellow, while roofs of other temples are rendered in blue. This attention to the contemporary provenance and patronage of the monasteries shows not only a familiarity with either the established system of coloration or the actual colors of the roof tiles, but also an acknowledgement of Qing imperial policy and of the institution at Mount Wutai during the time when the map was colored. In the Rubin print, however, the roofs of temples are all painted blue and the walls, beams, and pillars are painted red, with one exception: the central temple of Bodhisattva’s Peak. In that print, more attention is paid to articulating the details of celebrity visits and visitations than to differentiating the affiliation and sponsorship of monasteries. In another miraculous episode, depicted on the left side of the map, a person diving off a cliff is saved by a golden hand that reaches through a cloud. In the Helsinki print, he is jumping to escape an attack by two huge wild animals that are chasing him (fig. 4.42). The colorer of the Rubin print, however, obscured the original engraved outlines of the two animals with a dark green wash covering the hills (fig. 4.43). Without the ravenous animals, the scene can be interpreted as depicting a different tale. In fact, the diving figure readily recalls the depictions of a tale of Prince Mahāsattva in wall paintings and relief carvings from at least the fifth century, in which the young prince, one of Buddha Śākyamuni’s previous lives, sacrifices his life by leaping off a cliff and thus offering his body as food to a hungry tigress unable to feed her cubs. A place by the name of “Mahāsattva’s Cliff ” (Saduo Yai 薩埵崖) and a story associated with the site are also recorded in Qing-dynasty gazetteers of Mount Wutai. The described location of the place corresponds to where this episode is shown taking place on the map below the Western Terrace.92 In the story recorded in the gazetteer, a young woman flees to Mount Wutai to escape her arranged marriage, surviving solely on forest herbs and dew. When her parents come to take her back to her betrothed, she chooses instead to commit suicide by jumping off the cliff. But as she dives down, she flies away instead. The site was thus named Mahāsattva’s Cliff after her miraculous flight and in reference to the story of Śākyamuni’s previous life as Prince Mahāsattva. It is likely that the colorer of the Rubin print conflated the scene depicted in the woodblock prints with a version of this earlier and better-known story preserved in the gazetteers.93 The fact that parts of the engraved content could be ignored and others reinterpreted shows just

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how selective the coloring of originally monochrome woodblock prints can be: at the same time as it completes the picture of Mount Wutai by labeling, highlighting, and accentuating details amid an overload of information, it also embodies the openness of Mount Wutai as a living and ever-changing reality. One of the most important details of any work within the Chinese epigraphic tradition is its colophon. In the original carving of the Cifu map, the phrase “[wood] blocks [were] carved on the fifteenth day of the fourth month the twenty-six year of the Daoguang reign (May 10, 1846) and [are to be] preserved at the Cifu Temple” is rendered in Chinese and Mongolian at the upper-left corner. It is highlighted with a background painting in pink in the Helsinki print, and is entirely concealed in the Rubin print as well as many other prints I have examined. This inscription provides the single most important piece of information that refers directly to the Mongolian and Wutai provenance of the map; its revelation in one version and concealment in another again points to the physical proximity of the colorer of the Helsinki print to the original carving and the distance of the colorer of the Rubin print from it. It is likely that the Helsinki print was colored at or close to Mount Wutai by a Chinese or Mongol carver, and the Rubin print by someone farther away who interpreted the iconography of figures according to Tibetan inscriptions but who had little knowledge about Mount Wutai or the map’s Mongolian provenance. Ironically, in the retracing of the Tibetan title of the print, the word “mountain” is misspelled, making it unlikely that the person who inscribed the title in the retracing knew Tibetan.94 Whether or not this retracing of the Tibetan inscription was done by someone other than the colorer who recognized the other Tibetan inscriptions, the colorer(s) of the print was/were presumably far away from the original carving of the print, but nonetheless licensed to individuate and interpret the print through color. Besides significant differences in the interpretation of iconography from one print to another, what on the surface appear to be tenuous and negligible differences, conditioned by the colorers’ own artistic traditions and personal preferences, in fact reveal two modes of devotion toward the mountain range. A vibrant green commonly found in central Tibetan menri-style landscape paintings saturates almost the entire Rubin print (see fig. 4.2). Semitransparent layers of green paint were applied to articulate

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fig. 4.42. Detail of fig. 4.1. fig. 4.43. Detail of fig. 4.2.

the shape of the mountain that the thickly engraved lines could only suggest. Mount Wutai’s lush mountain landscape is juxtaposed against the azurite blue of the sky. The contour of the five terraces is further accentuated by the long string of clouds that nestle above the mountain range, painted a bright and opaque white and then traced in detail with colored outlines. The same technique is also employed to illuminate cloudborne apparitions, the large white stupa in the lower-middle section of the map, and the heads of human figures. In contrast to all other semitransparent layers of pigments on the darkened linen, the opaque white ink remains the only bright color, imparting an emphatic shape to Mount Wutai’s five terraces. The uniformity and consistency of the application of these colors, together with the well-defined cloud formations, gives the composition as a whole a structural cohesiveness, while the subtle modeling of the hills with a translucent green color gives volume and depth to the vegetation, creating an openly traversable terrain. When the print is viewed from a distance, the landscape looks similar to the idealized mountains and ravines that can frequently be seen in Tibetan hagiographical paintings. The Helsinki print (see fig. 4.1) shows an abundance of pink, violet, blue, yellow, and dark green reminiscent of the popular New Year woodblock prints (nianhua 年畫) of the Shanxi region.95 Unlike the popular Shanxi prints, though, its negative spaces are filled with color, including the space between the heading and the landscape’s horizon, a full application of paint rarely seen in the Chinese tradition of landscape prints.96 Moreover, printed characters, such as those for sun (ri 日) and moon (yue 月) at the top of the print, were traced over in a stiff calligraphic style. In contrast to the hyper-coloring of the upper register, looseness characterizes the shading of the flora and fauna below. While most of the hills are left unpainted save for a few strokes of olive green and magenta, the buildings are filled in with intense hues of ultramarine blue, magenta red, and golden yellow, the trees, with heavy olive green, and the clouds and apparitions with rosy pink and opaque white. As a result, the dense sky, temples, trees, and clouds all rest on some sort of spaceless space, supported only by monochrome lines of engraving. There is no sense of how one part of the mountain relates to another spatially, or how its shape or volume could hold up any of its painted landmarks. Unlike in the Rubin print, which invites visual navigation through its pleasing and even application of color, the space here seems flat, closed, and decentered; because of the Helsinki map’s lack of any topographical depth, a viewer who seeks to enter the space will find herself lost in the thicket of holy sites and apparitions, unable to make visual sense of the undifferentiated landscape. Where very little is known about the colorers and users of the two prints, a close comparison of the two preceding maps reveals two different uses for the map image. Conforming to the map’s Tibetan inscriptions and adhering to the Tibetan style of landscape depiction, the Rubin print presumably served as an icon of veneration to Mount Wutai. While remaining faithful to its original narratives and iconography, it obscures the print’s obvious reference to Mongolia and what is happening “on the ground” at Mount Wutai. Its concealed colophon erases all signs of authorship, while its pristine condition and silk-brocade mounting show that it was not used for practical purposes of navigation. Its coherent, cohesive, and structurally cogent space reinforces the vision of the Mount Wutai landscape as an icon  —  timeless, ethereal, and devoid of earthly contexts. The Helsinki version highlights the impenetrable mountain of miracles and wonders in a way that is not always in consonance with the stated Tibetan

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inscriptions, but one that still reflects and reinforces popular beliefs and contemporary understandings. The application of color reminiscent of popular folk prints, the accentuation of Mongolian authorship and related locations, and the well-worn quality of a pilgrimage guide all suggest a vision of Mount Wutai not so different from that held by the majority of Mongol pilgrims  —  ordinary laity whose pilgrimage journeys bring about as many miraculous benefits as they do economic opportunities.97 This “earthly” quality of the Helsinki print by no means diminishes its worthiness for veneration in the eyes of its beholder. In fact, it is exactly its ability to show Mount Wutai as a lived tradition of folklore and pilgrimage activities that gives the map its aura of authenticity. The Helsinki print most likely resonated with lay pilgrims from various parts of Mongolia whose travels to the actual Wutai mountain range were arduous but not infrequent. Unlike their learned monastic counterparts, they might not have been sufficiently trained in Tibetan to read inscriptions on the map, thus giving them the freedom to reinterpret. Meanwhile, the painting styles of the Rubin print point to the possibility that the print had traveled to Central Tibet, or had at least been colored and mounted for a Central Tibetan audience. If this were true, it would also give rise to the possibility that the image was seen as a surrogate of Mount Wutai by people in Central Tibet, most of whom did not have the permission and provisions to make the long journey to Mount Wutai  —  that is, seeing the image served to bring them closer to a semimythical Mount Wutai that exists only in oral and textual descriptions. Much of this difference can also be observed from the afterlives of the images themselves. While the Rubin copy is mounted with elaborate brocades, and probably hung as a thangka painting from the time it was first printed and colored, the Helsinki copy exhibits multiple traces of creases, indicating that it was folded up for prolonged periods and may have been stored in a pilgrim’s amulet box.98 This difference in the physical condition and handling of the maps suggests divergent uses, one as an image of the holy mountain to be worshipped and admired as a surrogate from the mountain itself, and the other as a guide for actual pilgrimages. It has been suggested that the practice of hand-coloring woodblock prints in medieval Europe allowed both consistency in Christ’s imagery and freedom to personalize and record private devotional practices.99 The Cifu image might not have been made as an act of contemplation, but it could very well have been used for that purpose. Therefore, the act of coloring seems to have been a crucial step in the production of the Cifu image, as it is in some medieval Christian woodblock prints; for both the makers and the users, the visual representation of Mount Wutai would not have been wholly satisfying without color. If the medium of woodblock printing is what renders Mañjuśrī’s worldly abode authentic, the process of coloring is what makes the mountain fully manifest. Regardless of what the differently colored images of Mount Wutai offer their viewers, every map reflects and continues to reconfigure Mount Wutai. Every step of the image-making process mediates a different understanding of Mount Wutai, sometimes further away from and at other times closer to its original production, proving the impossibility of pinning down “a real Mount Wutai” at any given moment; from carving and printing to the dispersal, coloring, mounting, and acquisition of the prints, the landscape that the image captures is transformed accordingly. Even as a finished work of art in a museum’s permanent collection, the image continues to be interpreted and reinterpreted by viewers throughout time. On a recent trip to Mount Wutai, I met a resident monk from Amdo Tibet who proudly showed me a map image of Mount

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Wutai from his newly published Tibetan-language guidebook to the mountain that was on sale at Wutai’s many shops.100 That image was taken from a map I had brought to Mount Wutai almost a decade ago. At around the same time, an interactive map of the Rubin print was made available online through the Rubin Foundation.101 These recent modes of propagation can be seen as newer ways of fulfillments of their original promise of circulation and refashioning.

The Map Is the Maker Although the first object of this study, the Badgar map, has roots in Qing imperial and administrative cartography, it has been shown to have close connections to early modern pilgrimage and devotional images from Tibet and elsewhere. It is located at the nexus of multiple pictorial practices, from the medium of printed book illustrations to Chinese ink-and-brush paintings and monumental temple murals, and from the genres of popular votive prints, ritual supports, and devotional thangka paintings to those of gazetteer maps, imperial tours, and colonial cartography. Occupying fluid positions between these visual worlds, the map’s integration of them into a single pictorial unit, and its own incorporation into a larger pictorial program, offer unprecedented access into how Mount Wutai was perceived in the early nineteenth century by groups of pilgrims from Mongolia. The ability of the map to evoke multiple topographic and cultural dimensions, be they official, local, popular, or revelatory, becomes fully operative in the second map, the Cifu woodblock-panel and their diversely colored prints disseminated around the world. The maps’ versatility and ability to participate in each of the earlier image cultures and pictorial practices also determined their broad and far-reaching appeal. In their pictorialization and modification of Mount Wutai and the subsequent multiplication and circulation of the various images of that site, the prints have undergone a series of transformations in the hands of its makers, owners, colorers, copiers, and viewers. It became by far the most popular and widespread medium, and an authoritative object for the diffusion of knowledge about Mount Wutai. As Qing visions of Mañjuśrī’s abode on and off the mountain, the two images articulate the complex veins of religious, cultural, historical, and linguistic exchanges in Qing-dynasty Mount Wutai. By tracing the lives and afterlives of these two maps, this chapter uncovers the fluid cartographic world in which images were the truest instantiations of Mount Wutai. An account of the production and circulation of the two map-images during the early part of the nineteenth century demonstrates that map-images were entrenched in a network of visual traditions and played a central role in facilitating diverse pilgrimage encounters with places. They project the unique transcultural identities of Mount Wutai’s pilgrims. The many different lives of images of Mount Wutai in different mediums and versions serve to highlight the heterogeneous and ever-shifting terrains of a mountain range that both conditioned and were conditioned by increased mobility in the nineteenth century. Simultaneously revealing and asserting the matrices of Mount Wutai’s topography, each surface and each instance becomes Mount Wutai’s only permanent reality for its makers and users. Despite the fact that the Badgar map has deteriorated and the Cifu prints were virtually absent from the mountain by the second half of the twentieth century, their language of visions are not forgotten, waiting to be revived and reinterpreted again by a new wave of pilgrims seeking their own encounters with Mañjuśrī.

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The multiple replicas, translations, lineages, and visions explored in the foregoing chapters collectively present a vista of the mountain that is contingent, expansive, and open. Each reimagining of the mountain in the forms of temples, images, guidebooks, hagiographies, and maps mirrors the broad visions and aspirations of their makers and users. These visions mediate how Mount Wutai has been perceived in ways that are dialogical to one another and to the physical site itself. The Qing Qianlong emperor sought to transfer and to transform Mount Wutai from a millennium-old residence of Mañjuśrī into that of his own. As chapter 1 demonstrates, he did so through appropriating the synecdochical efficacy of a miraculous icon. When combined with his scriptural translation and gazetteer compilation, Qianlong’s embodiment of Mount Wutai’s resident deity makes it amply clear that he did not simply acknowledge the appellation of  “ Mañjughosa-emperor” given to him by the Dalai and Panchen Lamas, ˙ ˙ but reformulated his own interpretation of this bestowed title by fashioning an imperial Buddhist tradition out of it, with the intention not merely to appeal to his Tibetan subjects, but to enact the role of a universal Buddhist emperorship that subsumes all peoples, teachings, and traditions. The numinous potential of Mount Wutai was also of great import to the Tibetan, Monguor, and Mongol Gelukpa scholars living on or peregrinating the mountain, as seen in chapter 2. Out of the desire to encounter the great bodhisattva, they turned their attention toward Chinese language records that detail the physical and numinous topography of past encounters with Mañjuśrī. Their efforts culminated in a selective translation of a Chinese gazetteer that displays at once a deft understanding of Chinese literature and a concern for the legibility of the Chinese text to their Tibetan- and Mongolian-language audience who are seeking to

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use the text as a pilgrimage guide to the mountain. At the same time, the work contributed to the construction of a Pan-Gelukpa, Tibetan Buddhist identity that could also encompass Chinese Buddhist history. From the point of view of the Gelukpa writers, the shared veneration of Mañjuśrī at Mount Wutai promises a bridging of the divide between history of Mount Wutai and their own traditions. The popular reception of the guidebook speaks to the success of this translation. The interest on the part of Inner Asian pilgrims to see Mount Wutai in terms of its Chinese-language history and geography runs parallel to the veneration of the Gelukpa teacher Rölpé Dorjé, and the mapping of his sectarian and reincarnation lineages onto the landscape, as explored in chapter 3. Just like the Mongour polymath himself, portrayals of Rölpé Dorjé and his lineages of relations lie at the intersection of the multiple genres and media of Qing court art and of Tibetan Buddhist hagiography. In all of them, Mount Wutai plays a central role. I have thus argued to see Rölpé Dorjé’s hagiography as a representation of the mountain. The imperial, scholarly, and hagiographical visions of Mount Wutai all found their way onto multilingual panoramic maps of the mountain. As the final chapter of this book shows, pilgrims everywhere collected, copied, venerated, and indeed relied on prints of one particular map image, which became the most authoritative image to mediate access to the mountain in the nineteenth century. The map image thrived not on simplicity or easy legibility, but on its comprehensiveness, precision, and pictorial fluency across multiple cartographic and visual traditions. It embodied and reinforced the cosmopolitan identity of a community of the map’s makers and users, who were the authorities for disseminating knowledge about the site. Coextensively and congruently, architectural, ritual, and artistic copies  —  linguistic translation of the accumulated Chinese historical past, commemoration of the sustained physical presence of a master on the mountain, and detailed maps of the site and its various landmarks, routes, and miracles  —  all informed an Inner Asian understanding of Mount Wutai that was based not on abstract ideas but on first-hand encounters and received knowledge about Mount Wutai. They subsequently mapped the mountain beyond the boundaries of empirical time and space, connecting it to other places and times within the Sino-Tibetan world, thereby bridging a previously wide gap between a religious, scriptural vision and a physical, historical reality. That the map carved by a Mongol lama eventually became the locus of Mount Wutai’s knowledge production in the nineteenth century demonstrates the full extent to which Inner Asians identified with the northern Chinese mountain and made it their own. At a time when many parts of Mongolia and Tibet had recently became part of the Qing empire, Mount Wutai thus provided the Qing Inner Asians a unique space to engage with, and to reinvent their own genealogies and identities in relation to, the history and geography of China proper. The promise of Mount Wutai’s open space also transcends the shifting geopolitical, economic, and religious institutional structures of the Qing and beyond. Since the mid-1980s, the mountain has once again emerged as an important site of Tibetan Buddhism in eastern China in the wake of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966– 1976) that had virtually decimated all religious practice on the mountain.1 In spite of the very different realities of post–Cultural Revolution China, Mount Wutai emerges once again as a gateway between China and Tibet, and one of the only places in China proper to attract Tibetan pilgrims in large numbers. An extraordinary pilgrimage to Mount Wutai in 1987 led by the Tibetan charismatic teacher Khenpo Jikmé Püntsok coda

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(1933–2004; hereafter, Khenpo Jikpün) of the Nyingmapa tradition illustrates the revisionist potentials of pilgrimage to Mount Wutai in contemporary China. Khenpo Jikpün’s arrival with tens of thousands of his disciples from Eastern Tibet was an unusual feat.2 It took place during a period of conflict between Chinese and Tibetan groups in the wake of the decades-long religious persecution after Tibet came under the rule of the Chinese Communist government in 1951.3 In addition to their language barriers and the near impossibility of transprovincial travel for a large religious group,4 what support there was on the mountain for Tibetan Buddhism had been reserved for the Gelukpas (owing to the history of Qing-Gelukpa dominance, explored in this book), not for monks from the Nyingmapa tradition. Nevertheless, Khenpo Jikpün’s more than three months’ stay at Mount Wutai played a significant role in reviving Tibetan Buddhism on the mountain, and helped to reconsecrate the sanctity of the politically restrictive and physically devastated ground. Correspondingly, the pilgrimage became remembered as the decisive turning point in the career of one of the most influential Buddhist leaders inside Tibet in the second half of the twentieth century. I close with a brief consideration of this event.5 By examining a pilgrimage that represents yet a different tradition of envisioning the mountain from those of the Qing-Gelukpa or Chinese Buddhist, and under vastly different circumstances, my goal here is to highlight what remains the same  —  the means and mechanisms by which the sanctity of the mountain continues to manifest. Khenpo Jikpün was the revered founder of the ecumenical Tibetan Buddhist academy of Larung Gar in Golok Serta on the eastern reach of the Tibetan plateau in the present-day Sichuan province,6 which became the single largest Buddhist institution in modern China.7 He belonged to a Nyingmapa tradition of visionary Buddhism in which treasure-revealers, known as Tertons, discover and conceal ancient texts and treasures, known as terma (gter ma), in the forms of physical objects buried underground or texts spontaneously recited through revelatory visions.8 Due to the site-specific nature of these activities, Khenpo Jikpün achieved, as David Germano has characterized, an innovative and successful regeneration of Tibetan Buddhist identity inside the People’s Republic of China.9 His 1987 pilgrimage to Mount Wutai and expansion of his visionary activities to Han Chinese areas were thus part of the larger project of recentering Tibet’s fragmented modern religious identity and cultural geography through an inversion of Chinese migrations into Tibetan areas and the reclaiming of a Tibetan presence in northern China.10 Germano’s model of Tibetan identity rejuvenation against the destructive forces of Chinese urbanism and Tibetan refugeedom complements Khenpo Jikpün’s own stated reasons for the trip to Mount Wutai  —   providing spiritual aid to China and strengthening his connection with Mañjuśrī. Indeed, this responsibility to bring (and then reveal and conceal) the teachings of the Buddha in a time and a place of need, as well as the ability to reestablish a connection Tibetan masters had been making for centuries up until the Chinese Communist revolution, also informed a sense of Tibetan pride.11 His pilgrimage to Mount Wutai subsequently marked the beginning of his teachings and discipleship outside Tibet, and the most significant expansion of his academy in size and number.12 The host of political, logistical, and linguistic challenges to traveling to Mount Wutai is mirrored in an abundance of dreams, prophecies, and visionary encounters that detail the extensive preparations that culminated in the physical pilgrimage to Mount Wutai. In fact, Khenpo Jikpün was known to have traveled to Mount Wutai coda

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three times previously through a form of meditative dreaming, memories of which later helped him to navigate around the mountain.13 A string of events prompted him to disregard the warning of his elders to enter what was referred to as “the demon land” of Han China. In one, Mañjuśrī appeared and instructed Khenpo Jikpün to go to Mount Wutai during an empowerment (a ritual initiation of disciples into a particular tantric practice) of the Magical Net of Mañjuśrī (Tibetan: ’Jam dpal sgyu ’phrul drwa ba), an esoteric teaching cycle he delivered to more than one thousand disciples in 1986.14 During that time, after reportedly levitating three feet above the ground and descending back down to his seat, he informed his disciples that Mañjuśrī and Vimalamitra, the eighth-century Indian scholar of the Great Perfection, personally had come from Mount Wutai to extend an invitation to them, and prophesized the arrival of many Han Chinese disciples at the Larung Academy.15 In order to generate the right conditions for such a visit, Khenpo encouraged all monasteries to perform thousands of ritual evocations of Mañjuśrī.16 On yet another occasion, the protector deity Yamāntaka (Tibetan: gshin rje gshed) at the sacred mountain of Sotok (Bso thog) north of the city of Kardzé, offered him a guidebook to Mount Wutai in anticipation of his visit there.17 Once at Mount Wutai, Khenpo Jikpün gave mass teachings and empowerments, transmitted texts and practices, made numerous ritual offerings, underwent intensive retreats, experienced spectacular private and public visions, concealed and revealed religious treasures, all of which were detailed by his biographers and documented by photography.18 When he returned to Larung Gar with a small group of Han Chinese followers  —  the initial members of Khenpo Jikpün’s Chinese-language discipleship, who numbered more than one thousand by 2001  —  he consecrated a surrogate Mount Wutai in the hills behind the Larung Gar Academy.19 Today, it remains the pilgrimage destination of choice for students and visitors, continuing a tradition of creating visual, architectural, and spatial “replicas” of Mount Wutai that began as early as the pilgrimage cult of Mount Wutai itself in the seventh century. Indeed, spectacular narratives of Khenpo Jikpün’s pilgrimage rehearse what are by now familiar tropes, rituals, and techniques of encountering Mount Wutai’s resident bodhisattva. Seen everywhere from poetry and paintings of medieval Dunhuang to accounts of the Ming and Qing emperors’ visits to Mount Wutai, magnificent apparitions of Mañjuśrī in the sky, accompanied by radiant play of light on clouds, saturate narratives of Khenpo Jikpün’s stay on the mountain.20 These visual and textual descriptions of the happenings weave together a language of vision that not only serves to document past events but also prescribes future encounters with Mañjuśrī. With the perpetuation of this mutually reinforcing interrelationship between image and vision for more than a millennium across Pan-Buddhist Asia, these miracles had become immediately recognizable, to such an extent that even witnesses who had come to Mount Wutai for the first time expected them to occur. For example, in one of the visions, which Khenpo Jikpün had attained after a three-week retreat at the Sudhana Cave, Mañjuśrī was described as follows: The primordial wisdom manifestation of all the Buddhas of the three times, wearing a five-Buddha crown, with one face and two arms, holding a scripture in his left hand and raising the wisdom sword in his right, sitting in the vajra posture, fully adorned with Sambhogakāya garment, abiding in a peaceful manner.21

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At the moment of his vision, he was said to have spontaneously uttered a praise poem to Mañjuśrī, which was jotted down by his disciples, translated into Chinese and Mongolian for his non-Tibetan disciples, and placed on the walls of the Sudhana Cave, along with a triad of sculptural images of him, Sudhana, and Mañjuśrī. The location was significant.22 Records make clear that the poem had issued forth from Khenpo’s mouth at the same exalted spot where Sudhana met Mañjuśrī, and where numerous early masters of the Great Perfection lineage meditated. Furthermore, this took place on the morning of the anniversary of the passing of Mipham Rinpoche (1846–1912),23 whom Khenpo Jikpün recognized as his primary teacher by visionary means. By receiving a vision of Mañjuśrī where and when he did, Khenpo both affirmed himself as one in a long lineage of teachers and brought back to Mount Wutai the historical period of the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century, when the Tibetan empire was at the height of its strength and many eminent Indian teachers were invited to teach in Tibet. Although the Sudhana Cave had received little or no attention until the eighteenth century, the evocation of eighth-century Tibet propelled it into an alternative spatial and temporal dimension that transcends history and records in gazetteers. Detailed descriptions, photographic documentations, iconic images, and poetic verses generated from visionary encounters such as this one collectively affirm the presence of a spiritual lineage linking Khenpo to Mañjuśrī. They attest to the notion that Khenpo Jikpün was at once a disciple and a manifestation of Mañjuśrī, an understanding of the interdependent identities and manifestations of all forms by which Tsongkhapa, Rölpé Dorjé, and Qianlong were also portrayed in their hagiographies. The iconography of Khenpo Jikpün’s visions, consistent with that of the many images offered by Khenpo Jikpün and his disciples throughout the mountain range, bears the cultural marker of a Tibetan rather than a Chinese manifestation. Just as displays of light in the sky affirm Mañjuśrī’s continuous and undeniable presence at Mount Wutai in a very public way, the ubiquitous presence of sculptural images of deities and saintly figures placed there by Khenpo Jikpün during his stay reinforces his presence and traces his spiritual lineage to Mañjuśrī and an entire pantheon of religious teachers long after he left Mount Wutai. Like records of visions and miracles, these acts of image making were aimed at furthering Khenpo Jikpün’s connection to Mañjuśrī and the presence of Tibetan Buddhism at Mount Wutai, as were subsequent images of Khenpo Jikpün that his disciples placed at various temples at Mount Wutai.24 Even though most of the halls and temples at Mount Wutai are no longer maintained by Tibetan Buddhist monks from Tibet and Mongolia, as they had been during the Qing dynasty (and some through the early Republican periods, when the mountain was still dominated by lamas from Mongolia and Tibet), and sculpted images from the Qing period and before are no longer present, these images offered by Khenpo and his disciples throughout the Wutai mountain range have formed a new corpus of  Tibetan Buddhist holy objects that draw pilgrims to the site. The mapping of one’s spiritual lineages onto the mountain range has been seen in a variety of objects explored in this book. Whether it is through depictions of previous masters on a panoramic map of Mount Wutai, or by evoking their names in the guidebook, hagiography, or praise poem of the mountain range, the invocation of earlier figures, and now through the materialization of their presence, the host of figures, with their varied origins, teachings, practices, and networks, also expands the spatial and temporal capacity of the mountain. coda

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Stories of visionary encounters, intended to inspire faith in the devotees, directly results in the revelation and transmission of teachings. Mañjuśrī’s instructions to Khenpo Jikpün led to many spontaneously uttered teachings. According to the Nyingmapa tradition of treasure-revelation, the provenance of these teachings is considered divine in the same way sacred objects and images are miraculously revealed. These teachings were treasures attributed to Khenpo Jikpün’s spiritual teachers and predecessors, such as Mañjuśrī and Padmasambhava, the renowned Indian tantric adept who was invited to Tibet in the eighth century to found Tibet’s first monastery at Samye, and who subsequently buried many treasures in Tibet. In general, treasures were believed to have been buried (either in the ground or in the mind of the future revealer) during the eighth century, when Buddhism first flourished in Tibet, a period when the Tibetan empire was at its greatest military might and territorial extent.25 As an accomplished treasure-revealer, Khenpo therefore had been entrusted with the mission of uncovering these previously buried treasures at the appropriate time. He carried his practice of treasure-revelation beyond the conventional boundaries of Tibet over to Mount Wutai, uncovering treasures at various locations on the mountain in the forms of physical objects (“earth treasures,” or sa gter, including sacred texts, votive images, or objects buried or unearthed from the ground) and as spontaneous recitation of texts (“mind treasures,” or dgongs gter), which resulted from his revelatory experience of pure visions (dag snang).26 His activities endowed Mount Wutai with another layer of numinous mystery. Within this visionary tradition, the treasure-revelations became an equally authoritative means of asserting presence  —  in this case, a Tibetan dynastic presence  —  as the record of visions and the making of images, adding a new dimension to Mount Wutai’s already rich textual and material history. In addition to uncovering texts and images, Khenpo Jikpün also buried many statues and precious boxes of Buddhist teachings. Just like the treasures he revealed, these concealed treasures would be exposed by a future treasure-revealer in a time of great need for the benefit of sentient beings. Khenpo’s activities at Mount Wutai distinguished him from other Tibetan Buddhist treasure-revealers throughout the ages, who rarely practiced their profession outside Tibetan cultural areas.27 While the particular tradition of treasure-revelation was introduced into Mount Wutai by Khenpo Jikpün’s visit, the idea of Mount Wutai’s landscape as a repository for sacred objects and teachings, however, was already firmly established by the seventh century, as has been noted in Raoul Birnbaum’s study of the Diamond Grotto.28 Moreover, the notion that the timely introduction of a sacred text could quell all calamities in troubled times has also been integral to the establishment of the cult of Mount Wutai. The legend of Buddhapāli became such an iconic miracle story from Mount Wutai that by as early as the ninth century in Dunhuang, the figures of Buddhapāli and Mañjuśrī as the bearded old man became inserted into the iconographic sculptural group of Mañjuśrī riding a lion from Mount Wutai’s Zhenrong Cloister discussed in chapter 1. A virtually identical story exists in Tibetan sources about the twelfth-century South Indian tantric siddha Padampa Sangyé. Padampa Sangyé reenacts Buddhapāli’s meeting with Mañjuśrī in the seventh century,29 except that this time, the siddha possessing tantric powers had no need to undergo the toils of an arduous round-trip journey to India and back, and traveled instead through the cavity of a rock at Mount Wutai to reach back to Vajrāsana and effectively pacify the epidemics.30 That Padampa Sangyé could go back to Vajrāsana through the interconnected passageways of caves, rather coda

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than via the arduous conventional route, reveals yet again the expansive spatial and temporal dimension in Tibetan religious and literary imagination that acknowledges alternative means of travel and channels of connection between exalted places. The understanding of Mount Wutai’s supra-geographical link to other exalted places of the Buddha’s teachings, especially to India, served as a backdrop for Khenpo Jikpün’s recoveries and concealment of treasures there. The sites where Khenpo Jikpün experienced visions of Mañjuśrī and subsequently revealed treasures became several of the most visited sites on the mountain range today for pilgrims from Tibet and Tibetan Buddhist practitioners. Especially after Khenpo Jikpün died in 2004, pilgrims and disciples of Khenpo go to these sites to venerate him and to receive blessings from the sites, affirmed and enhanced by Khenpo Jikpün’s visionary encounters there. Many of these pilgrimages have been aided and encouraged by a new Tibetan-language guidebook to Mount Wutai written in 2007 by Khenpo Sodargye (Bsod dar rgyas),31 a chief disciple of Khenpo Jikpün and author of his Chinese- and Tibetan-language biographies. Sodargye consulted the Guide and other sources, but he also included, so far as I am aware, an unprecedented compilation of prophecies about Mount Wutai and journeys there by previous Indian siddhas of the Great Perfection lineage from dynastic Tibet that are most central to the Nyingmapa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. These descriptions, together with extensive descriptions of Khenpo Jikpün’s various activities, transmissions, and visions, did not displace the retelling of miracles and descriptions of sites contained in the Chinese gazetteers. Sodargye not only retained much of the information from the Chinese sources about the sites and their associated miracles but also updated them with apparitions of Mañjuśrī from the Cultural Revolution era,32 portraying a landscape with visionary activities that were not slowed down by the decimation of its monasteries and Buddhist practice. The act of pilgrimage, the visions, the offering of images, and the concealment and revelation of treasures all authenticated Khenpo Jikpün’s authority and identity in connection with the Mañjuśrī. The events were seen as the beginning of Khenpo Jikpün’s teachings outside Tibet, not only in China proper but also all over the world. His pilgrimage to Mount Wutai was followed by travels to India, Europe, and the United States.33 It was also at this time that his institution back home in Eastern Tibet, the Larung Gar Academy, drastically expanded in size and number.34 The transformative quality of these visionary encounters is evident in the subsequent ways in which Khenpo was identified by his disciples. In the most frequently recited prayer of empowerment at Larung Gar today, Khenpo Jikpün is referred to as none other than “the one who has been empowered by the heart of Mañjuśrī from the realm of the Five Peaks,” connecting him to the topography of Mount Wutai and illustrating how much his journey to Mount Wutai and, in particular, this meeting and merging with Mañjuśrī had become part of his permanently established identity. In keeping with the way Mount Wutai has been re-created in various mediums and to various parts of Buddhist Asia since China’s middle period, Khenpo Jikpün consecrated a new surrogate Mount Wutai when he returned to the Larung Gar Academy. Known as the “Riwo Tsenga” of Dokham, or the Five-Peak Mountain of Eastern Tibet, Larung Gar’s Riwo Tsenga entailed no formal resemblance to Mount Wutai itself. Instead, a “Riwo Tsenga” was created through a ritual touring of the hills behind Larung Gar, led by Khenpo Jikpün, where five local mountain protector deities coda

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were invited to dwell on five different peaks.35 Annual rituals have since been conducted to propitiate these local mountain deities.36 These protector deities are important to Larung Gar and the surrounding regions, but they bear no direct connection to Mount Wutai. Students at Larung Gar are encouraged to make a pilgrimage circuit of the five hills during their scheduled vacation breaks from the academy. Khenpo Jikpün pointed out to his disciples that because the mountain range provides the same level of empowerment as the Mount Wutai in Shanxi, for those who make a pilgrimage at the five peaks behind Larung Gar, the efficacy would also be equal to that of making a pilgrimage to the actual Mount Wutai. The replication rests not on formal resemblance or connection, but on equal efficacy. In comparison to other mediums of replication, this method of bringing Mount Wutai home may be the least imagistic and referential, but as site of pilgrimage, it elicits an experience of physicality and communitas similar to that of an actual journey to Mount Wutai. The rhetoric and imageries of sacred empowerment, visionary encounters, treasurerevelations, lineage-inscribed landscape, miraculous aerial occurrences, and replicas of surrogate pilgrimages seen in Khenpo Jikpün’s pilgrimage all participate in a long tradition of translating Mount Wutai that can be traced back to the seventh century. At the same time, they are also grounded in specific lineages of a Tibetan visionary tradition. As such, Khenpo Jikpün’s transformative pilgrimage both recentered the identity of  Tibetan Buddhist geography and reaffirmed an intimate connection with Mount Wutai that was only completely fulfilled after his journey there. His historic 1987 pilgrimage is a contemporary case in point of the reimagining and reshaping of Mount Wutai. Manifestations of seemingly ephemeral or intangible experiences constitute the core of the mountain’s identity, defining the ways Mount Wutai came to be viewed in the Tibetan Buddhist world with a power, resilience, and spectacle that outstrips its physical topography, material structure, or holdings. As a compelling response to what is lost and initially far-flung, the pilgrimage demonstrates the potential of an ecumenical religious vision to adapt and transform.

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Appendixes

Appendix A: The Cifu Temple Map and Legend

Appendix A: The Cifu Temple Map and Legend

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Wutai Perfecture 五台縣

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Siyang Pass 虒陽领

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Budda Radiance Temple 佛光寺

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Ancient Bamboo Grove 古竹林

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Si Gap 四溝

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Eternal Peace Temple 永安寺

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Southern Terrace 南台 Samantabhadra Stupa 普賢塔

8

25

Mañjuśrī’s Mantra (Oṃ a ra pa tsa na dhīḥ)

48

26

Linggong Stupa 令公塔

49 Three Springs Temple 三泉寺

27

Indian Sage Mountain 梵仙山

50

Phoenix Grove Temple 鳳林寺

28 Temple of Mañjuśrī’s Image 殊像寺

51

Bodhisattva’s Peak 菩薩頂

29

52 Three Stupas Temple 三塔寺

Ocean-Taming Temple 鎮海寺

Longevity and Peace Temple 壽寧寺

30 Yang Boyu 楊柏玉

53

Broad Lineage Temple 廣宗寺

31

Imperial Traveling Palace 行宮

54

Slope Shop 坡子店

Ancient Southern Terrace 古南台

32

Bathing Hall 沐浴堂

55

9

White Dragon Pond 白龍池

33 White Cloud Temple 白雲寺

Complete Illumination Temple 圓照寺

10

Seven Buddhas Cave (khre’i hwo dung)

34

56

Clairvoyant Power Temple 顯通寺

11 “Lor ci tha'u" Terrace

36

Kindness Protecting Lord 護恩王

57

Stupa Courtyard Temple 塔院寺

37

Mimo Yan 秘魔岩

58

Hair Stupa 髮塔

38

Central Terrace 中台

12

Clear and Cool Rock 清涼石

13 Arhat Cave 羅漢洞 14 Ancient Clear and Cool 古清涼

Stele Pavilion Temple 碑樓寺

35 Taihuai 台懷

39 Alms Bowl-Washing Pond 洗缽池

15

Lion’s Den 獅子窩

16

Golden Pavilion Pass 金閣領

17

Golden Pavilion Temple 金閣寺

41 Waters with Eight Attributes 八攻德水

18

Bamboo Grove Temple 竹林寺

42

19

Sun Illumination Temple 日照寺

43 Arhat Meadow 羅漢平

20

Golden Lamp Temple 金灯寺

44

Jade Flower Pond 玉花池

21

Heaven Sincerity Temple 天誠寺

45

Clear and Cool Bridge 清涼橋

22

Numinous Peak Temple 靈峰寺

46 This Is the Two-Tigers Monk (Di ra hu ho shan)

23 Thousand Buddha Cave 千佛洞

40 Western Terrance 西台

Ox Heart Rock 牛心石

47 Western Heaven Cave 西天洞

59 Yang Lingzi 陽鈴子 60

Rāhula Temple 羅睺寺

61 Ten Directions Hall 十方堂 62

Dharma King Stupa 法王塔

63

Fire God Temple 火神庙

64

Imperial Traveling Palace 行宮

65 Avalokiteśvara’s Cave 觀音洞 66 Tāranātha’s Stupa (Ta’ra na tha’i chod rten) 67

Grandmother Temple 奶奶庙

68

Mañjuśrī’s Temple (Wun shu si’)

69

Benevolent Virtues Cave 慈福洞

24

Serpent Pond Temple 蛇溝寺

70

Benevolent Virtues Temple 慈福庙

93

Conch Shell Peak 大螺頂

114 Ocean Viewing Tower 望海樓

71

Jade Emperor Temple 玉皇庙

94

115 Nārāyaṇa Cave 罗罗洞

72

Respite of the Worthy Temple 棲賢寺

Avalokiteśvara’s Mantra (Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ)

95

Sudhana Cave 善財洞

73

Bathing Pond 澡浴池

96

Mahākāla Mountain 公布山

74

Northern Terrace 北台

97

Mañjuśrī’s Cave 文殊洞

75

Preaching Terrace 説法台

98

Śāla Tree 梭羅樹

76 Ten Thousand Year Ice 萬年冰

99

Rising Sun Cave 朝陽洞

77

100 South Mountain Temple 南山寺

Black Dragon Pond 黑龍池

78 Temple Roof Hermitage 庙頂庵

101 Bright Moon Pond 明月池

79 Avataṃsaka Hermitage 雜花庵

102 Universal Peace Temple 普安寺

80

Iron Tiled Temple 铁瓦殿

103 White Head Hermitage 白頭庵

81

Grassy Plot 草地

104 Tanzi Village 灘子村

82

Benevolent Virtues Temple 慈福寺

83

Universal Happiness Grove 普樂院

105 Myriad Conditions Hermitage 萬緣庵

84

Horse Stable Hall 馬房院

85

East Hamlet Village 東庄村

106 Black Cliff Cave 黑崖洞

86 Accumulated Virtues Temple 吉福寺

107 Making Prostrations, Venerating the Five Terraces, Giving One’s Strength and Redeeming One’s Vow 磕大頭朝五台捨力還願

87

108 South Stupa 南塔子

Diamond Grotto 金剛窟

88 Azure Mountain Temple 碧山寺 89

Concubine Temple 妃子寺

90 Temple of the Dragon Kings of Various Mountains 諸山龍王庙 91

Seven Buddhas Temple 七佛寺

92

Drinking Ox Pond 飮牛池

109 Arhat Terrace 羅漢台 110 Lanran Temple 闌然寺 111 Straw Hat Stupa 笠子塔 112 Avataṃsaka Pass 華嚴嶺 113 Eastern Terrace 東台

116 Eastern Terrace Gap 東台溝 117 Western Gulf Village 西湾子 118 Bright and Clear Temple 光明寺 119 Pingzhang Temple 平掌寺 120 Horse Run Spring 馬跑泉 121 Western Heaven Temple 西天寺 122 Gushing Spring Temple 湧泉寺 123 Great Wall Pass 長城领 124 Chu Family Hamlet 褚家庄 125 Myriad Buddhas Pavilion 萬佛閣 126 White Cloud Cave 白雲洞 127 Water Curtain Cave 水連洞 128 Lu Family Hamlet 芦家庄 129 Terrace Foothill Temple 台麓寺 130 Imperial Traveling Palace 行宮 131 Ganhe Village 甘和村 132 Rear Stone Buddha 後石佛 133 Front Stone Buddha 前石佛 134 Diamond Grotto 金剛窟 135 Ocean Returning Hermitage 海回庵 136 Big Temple 大寺 137 Shizui 石嘴 138 Black Horse Rock 黑馬石

* This legend provides an English translation of each decipherable inscription, followed by the characters of the Chinese inscription as they appear on the map, and the transliteration of the Tibetan inscription whenever Chinese characters are absent.

Appendix B: Chinese Donative Inscription on the Cifu Map Inscription of Gelöng Lhundrub, Panoramic Picture of the Sacred Realm of the Mountain of Five Terraces, 1846, bottom-right corner. 詩曰: 三世諸佛稱清涼, 法照三界及萬方, 文殊变化通凡聖, 三寶諸仙即此身, 真容久在清涼境, 人人敬禮無所觀. 大華嚴經云, 東北方有處名清涼山, 從昔以 來, 諸菩薩眾於中止住, 現有菩薩名文殊師利, 其眷屬諸菩薩眾一萬人, 俱常在 其中而演説法. 又寶藏陀羅尼經云, 佛告金剛密跡王言, 我滅度後於此南瞻部 州東北方, 有國名大震那, 其中有山, 名曰五頂, 文殊童子遊行居住, 爲諸衆生 於中説法, 即有無量, 天龍八部圍繞供養, 斯言可謂審矣. 此五台一小山圖, 未 能盡其詳細, 四方善士凡朝清涼聖境, 及見此山圖, 聞講菩薩靈驗妙法者, 今生 能消一切災難疾病, 享福享壽, 福祿綿長, 命終之後, 生於有福之地, 皆賴菩薩 慈化而得也. 故大窟圇智宗丹巴佛之徒桑格阿麻格, 名格隆龍住, 大發愿心, 親 手刻造此板, 以施四方善士. 如有大發願心, 印此山圖者, 則功德無量矣. Translation All Buddhas of the Three Ages praise the Clear and Cool [Mountain]; the dharma illuminates the three realms and all directions. Mañjuśrī’s transformations reach all ordinary beings and sages. The Three Treasures and all immortals are this very person. Mañjuśrī’s true appearance has for long dwelled in the realm of Clear and Cool Mountains, where people have paid respect to it without seeing it. The Avatamsaka ˙ Sūtra says, “In a place northeast of here, there is a certain region called the Cool and Clear Mountains.” Many bodhisattvas from olden times have calmly abided in there. Nowadays the holy Mañjuśrī, together with a retinue of ten thousand bodhisattvas, dwells there and preaches the dharma. In addition, the [Mañjuśrī] Precious Treasury of the Law Dhāranī ˙ Sūtra says, “The Buddha said to the Vajra-wielding guardian bodhisattva: after I enter nirvāna, in the northeastern part of the Jambūdvipa is a country called the Mahācina, where there is a mountain called the Five Peaks, in the midst of which the youthful Mañjuśrī roams, dwells, and preaches the dharma for the benefit of all sentient beings. At that time innumerable gods and the Eight Classes of Beings, together with their retinue, gather around to make offerings.” You can investigate this for yourself. This little map of Mount Wutai cannot possibly exhaust every detail of the mountain. The benefactors from all four directions who make a pilgrimage to the sacred realm of the Clear and Cool, see this map of the mountain, listen to and recount the spiritual efficacy and wondrous dharma of the bodhisattva, will in this life be free from all calamities and diseases, and enjoy boundless blessings, happiness, and longevity. After this life, they will be reborn in a blessed land. All these can be acquired by relying on the bodhisatt­ va’s compassionate transformations. Therefore, the disciple of Jebtsündamba of Da Khüriye, the engraver, the fully ordained monk Lhun grub [Chinese: Longzhu] from the Sengge aimag, makes a great vow, to carve this woodblock with his own hands, in order to extend [the merit] to benefactors of the four directions. Should a person make the vow to print this image, they will accumulate immeasurable merit.

appendix b

177

Notes

identical allusion to Mañjuśrī’s presence at Mount Wutai, although it is not clear if the reference was later added, as the passages do not exist in the Tibetan translation. See DHYJ, T. 278: 9.590a; T. 279: 10, 241b20–22. While it is uncertain when and whether the Chinese translation of the Avatam.saka Sūtra was falsified, Daoxuan, writing around 664, described Mount Wutai as an ancient abode of heavenly spirits, and according to scriptures, a place occupied by Mañjuśrī and five hundred divine beings. See Daoxuan, Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu, T. 2106: 52, 424c22–c27. The passage is cited and translated in Sen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade, 100. 10.  Daoxuan, Daoxuan lüshi gantong lu, T. 2017: 51, 437a21; GQLZ, T. 2099: 51, 1007a6–20. For further evidence of the attempt to re-create India, Tansen Sen writes,“Mount Wutai also contained the dwelling cave of the Nārāyan·a, the Buddhicized Brahmanical god Vis·n·u, the Diamond Grotto which purportedly led to the realm of paradise, and the site where Mañjuśrī and Vimalakīrti allegedly discussed the main teachings of Mahāyāna. The whole mountain, moreover, was said to be covered by the aroma of Indian incense.” Sen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade, 78–79. 11.  See FWSBNJ, T. 463: 14; Quinter, “Visualizing the Mañjuśrī Parinirvān.a Sutra.” 12.  This is elaborated in a 710 translation of WSFBTJ, T. 1185: 20, 791c11–16. Mount Wutai was portrayed as the site where the dharma both prevails and is most needed. In the mountain range’s most iconic story of an early encounter with Mañjuśrī, Mount Wutai was seen as a portal for the spread of Buddhism from India to China in times of hardship. In this legend, the Kashmiri monk Buddhapāli (Chinese: Fotuo poli 佛陀波利) comes to Mount Wutai to pay respect to Mañjuśrī. When he arrives at Mount Wutai in the year 676, longing to meet Mañjuśrī, he encounters an old bearded man in white who asks Buddhapāli if he had brought with him a particular Usnīsavijayā-dhāranī ˙˙ ˙ ˙

Introduction 1.  See chapter 4 for a detailed study of this map. 2.  “Mongour” refers to a group of Mongols who had settled in the northeast Tibetan highlands during the Mongol Yuan dynasty. During the Qing dynasty, many religious authorities from this group played an important role in mediating the relationship between the Qing court and Central Tibet. 3.  The current designation dates to the middle of the ninth century. Hou, Wutai shan zhi, 14. 4.  On the role of architecture in the development of Mount Wutai, see Lin, Building a Sacred Mountain. For more on the significance of the early temples in modern history, see Steinhardt, “The Tang Architectural Icon and the Politics of Chinese Architectural History”; Rujivacharakul, Liang Sicheng and the Temple of Buddha’s Light. 5.  The Chinese term Si寺 refers broadly to temple architecture that houses religious devotion and/or monastic communities. I generally translate the term as “temple” to denote locations on Mount Wutai where pilgrims visit and where a monastery or monastics are also present; I render the term as “monastery” whenever a clear and continuous institutional structure of a monastery is present. 6. Hou, Wutai shan zhi, 18. 7.  This was recorded in the seventh-century. HQLZ, T. 2098: 51, 1093a13–14. 8. Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 63. 9.  Mount Wutai had been a famed as a numinous mountain and Buddhist activities were already present during the Northern Wei dynasty, but it is unclear whether the presence of Mañjuśrī was established at this time. Lamotte, “Mañjuśrī,” 61–84, suggests that the passages were falsified in the Chinese translations. Two translations of the Avatam.saka Sūtra in 60 and 80 fascicles, by Buddhabhadra (359–429) and Śiks.ānanda (650–710), respectively, made virtually

179

clan and of the entire nation. See Birnbaum, Studies on the Mysteries of Manjusri, 32; Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang, 83. Chronicles of the mountain traces Mañjuśrī’s arrival to the reign of King Mu (r. 1001–947 b.c.e.) during the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 b.c.e.), and its recognition in the Han dynasty (206 b.c.e.–220 c.e.) through the clairvoyance of two Indian monks, Kāśyapamātan·ga and Dharmaratna, who traveled to China after Emperor Ming (r. 58–75 c.e.) had a dream about a radiant golden figure. See QLSZ, juan 1, 3; juan 7, 2–3. Unless otherwise specified, citations to QLSZ refer to the 1660 edition. Imperial patronage of temples at Mount Wutai continued through the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, and was also well documented in the Ming gazetteers. 19.  A system of astrology and divination in Tibet came to be seen as originating from Mañjuśrī’s teachings at Mount Wutai. Pakpa composed three influential praise poems of Mount Wutai. See Chos rgyal ’Phags pa Blo gros rgyal mtshan, ’Jam dbyangs la ri bo rtse lngar bstod pa nor bu’i phreng ba (The Garland of Jewels: Praise to Mañjuśrī at Mount Wutai); Ri bo rtse lnga so so’i rigs su mthun pa’i bstod pa (Praise to the Five Peaks of Mount Wutai) (1257); Chos rje pa la bstod pa ri bo rtse lngar bris pa (Praise to the Dharma Master Composed at Mount Wutai). 20.  Constructed in 1301, this is a sister stupa to the Great White Stupa in Beijing that was built twentytwo years earlier. See Franke, “Consecration of the ‘White Stupa’ in 1279.” For a recent study of the connection between Mongol clergy and the local clans around Mount Wutai, see Wang, “Clergy, Kinship, and Clout in Yuan Dynasty Shanxi.” The way in which Tibetans from the thirteenth century onward mapped Mount Wutai onto their dynastic past is the subject of Ding, “  ‘Translating’ Wutai Shan 五臺山 into Ri bo rtse lnga.” 21.  Both the Péma Katang (The Chronicles of Padma), a biography of the eighth-century Indian Buddhist master Padmasambhava revealed by Orgyen Lingpa in the fourteenth century, and the White Beryl, contain descriptions of Mañjuśrī’s appearance at Mount Wutai. See O rgyan gling pa (1323–?), Pad ma bka’ thang; for the English translation, see The Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava; Gyurme Dorje, Tibetan Elemental Divination Paintings, 48–52. 22.  Studies focused on Qing-dynasty Mount Wutai have emerged only in the last ten years. See Chou, “Ineffable Paths”; Chou, “The Visionary Landscape of Wutai Shan”; Köhle, “Why Did the Kangxi Emperor Go to Wutai Shan?”; Tuttle and Elverskog, Wutai Shan and Qing Culture; and Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage. 23.  For a detailed analysis of the various dimensions of the Qing imperial sponsorship of Mount Wutai, see Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 105–126. 24.  As the embodiment of the quality of wisdom, Mañjuśrī became linked with Indian Buddhist ideals of religious kingship. See Crossley, Translucent Mirror, 233. For the origins of the cakravartin ideal, see Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism, 330–333; on its development in Tibet, see Davidson, Tibetan

sutra. When Buddhapāli replies in the negative, the old man asks him to go back to India and return with the text in translation, as the magic power of the dhāranī could eliminate all the great diseases and ˙ calamities suffered by people in the land of China. Hearing this request, Buddhapāli is overcome with joy and devotion. After two more perilous journeys crossing over to India and back, he duly returns with the translated text in the year 683. He is ushered into the Diamond Grotto by Mañjuśrī and is never seen again. See GQLZ, T. 2099: 51, 1111a19–b23. 13.  The earliest reference to a map image of Mount Wutai is in Huixiang’s Ancient Record of the Clear and Cool Mountains, which mentions that the monk Huize 會賾 had a map of Mount Wutai made in the year 662 while on a pilgrimage to Mount Wutai. See HQLZ, T. 2098: 51, 1098b22–c16. 14.  Birnbaum, “Thoughts on T’ang Buddhist Mountain Traditions,” 5. 15.  Legends of relics and reliquaries at Mount Wutai did however play an important role in establishing Mount Wutai’s sanctity. See Andrews, “Representing Mt. Wutai’s Past,” 34–44. For a medieval Christian example of a hagiographic landscape composed of saints’ relics, see Overbey, Sacral Geographies. 16.  Most recently, Wei-Cheng Lin examines the panoramic mural of Mount Wutai in Mogao Cave 61 in Dunhuang as a “metamonastery” more real than the mountain itself. See Lin, Building a Sacred Mountain, 18. See also Marchand, “The Panorama of Mount Wutai as an Example of  Tenth Century Cartography”; Wong, “A Reassessment of the Representation of Mt. Wutai from Dunhuang Cave 61”; Zhao, Dunhuang shiku yishu, Mogaoku di 61 ku; and Heller, “Visualizing Pilgrimage and Mapping Experience.” Besides Dun­huang, Japan, Korea, Khitan Liao, Tangut Xixia, and Tibet all have re-created Mount Wutai early on, and such re-creations frequently involved the erection of a new temple named after a monastery at Mount Wutai. On Japan, see for example, Andrews, “Moving Mountain.” On Korea, see Lee, “The Emergence of the ‘Five-Terrace Mountain’ Cult in Korea.” On Khitan Liao and Tangut Xixia, see Yang, “Xixia Wutai Shan xinyang zhenyi.” See also Shi, Xixia fojiao shilue, 118–119 and 156, cited in Gimello, “Wu-t’ai Shan 五臺山 during the Early Chin Dynasty 金朝,” 507. On sites in Tibet, see the Tibetan-language guidebook by ’Jam-dbyangs Mkhyen-brtse’i-dbang-po et al., Guide to the Holy Places of Central Tibet, 72, and Gruschke, The Cultural Monuments of Tibet’s Outer Provinces: Kham, 82. More recently, a Mountain of Five Peaks was ritually initiated at the Larung Valley in Eastern Tibet; see coda. 17.  For two excellent summaries of the Mongol patronage of Mount Wutai, see Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 94–98, and Debreczeny,“Wutai shan,” 16–23. 18.  Imperial patronage at Mount Wutai is documented in the mountain’s own historiography. Rulers of the Northern Wei, Northern Qi (550–577), and Sui (581–618) dynasties all erected temples at Mount Wutai. Rulers during the Tang, whose ancestral home is located in the vicinity of Mount Wutai in the Taiyuan region, were especially committed to advancing Mañjuśrī as the protector of the imperial

notes to introduction

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also attracted Tibetan pilgrims, but there was never a known Tibetan temple there. It is located south of Chengdu in Sichuan province, near the Tibetan regions of western Sichuan. 33.  The issue of translation appears throughout Berger, Empire of Emptiness, and especially chapter 2. While Berger limits the focus of her book to a Buddhist context, many examples in her work reveal the wider scope of Qianlong’s translation practices. For a recent review of scholarship on Qing engagement with the world, see Wang, “A Global Perspective on Eighteenth-Century Chinese Art.” 34.  Worth noting is the fact that while Gelukpa Buddhists from Tibet and Mongolia ecumenically embraced Mount Wutai’s history and the diverse manifestations of Mañjuśrī, there was still considerable tension between the different sects of Tibetan Buddhism vying for patronage and power at the Qing Court. See Uspensky, Prince Yunli, 8–25. 35.  Recent additions to this body of scholarship include Lin, “Wutai shan yu Wenshu daochang”; Lin, Building a Sacred Mountain; Cartelli, The Five-Colored Clouds; and Andrews, “Representing Mt. Wutai’s Past.” For the pioneering works of Raoul Birnbaum, see Birnbaum, Studies on the Mysteries of Mañjuśrī; Birnbaum, “The Manifestation of a Monastery”; Birnbaum, “Light in the Wutai Mountains”; Birnbaum, “Secret Halls of the Mountain Lords: The Caves of Wu-t’ai”; and Stevenson, “Visions of Manjusri on Mount Wutai.” For the earliest modern studies on Mount Wutai, written in part as history and in part as travelogue, see Ono and Hibino, Godaisan; Lamotte, “Mañjuśrī.” Two journals, Wutai shan yanjiu and Xinzhou shifan xueyuan xuebao, cover extensive local research on Mount Wutai. 36.  Sen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade, 76–86. 37.  For a preliminary look at Mount Wutai in the Northern Wei, see Barrett,“Northern Wei Wutaishan.” 38.  Fewer studies have focused on the mountain’s considerably more heterogeneous history from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries. See Lin, “Biandi shengjing”; Gimello, “Wu-t’ai Shan during the Early Chin Dynasty.” 39.  Tuttle and Elverskog, Wutai Shan and Qing Culture. 40.  Elverskog,“Wutai Shan, Qing Cosmopolitanism, and the Mongols,” uses “cosmopolitanism” to characterize the unique place of Qing-dynasty Mount Wutai; Tuttle, “Tibetan Buddhism at Wutai Shan in the Qing: The Chinese-Language Register,” considers the imperial sponsorship of Chinese, rather than Inner Asian language gazetteers; Natalie Köhle’s paper, published separately, examines the patronage of Mount Wutai by the Kangxi emperor to challenge the assumption that Tibetan Buddhism in the Qing was Tibetan at all. See Köhle, “Why Did the Kangxi Emperor Go to Wutai Shan?” 41.  This is illuminated in Berger, Empire of Emptiness. 42.  Many scholars of New Qing history have deliberately moved away from Sino-centric narratives by focusing on the perspective of its non-Han rulers, in particular through the wealth of non-Chinese-language archives in the Qing empire. Delving into

Renaissance; on its spread in East Asia, see Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom. 25.  For the foundation of Tibetan temples, see Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 109–112. 26.  Although the Qing also created the position of jasagh lama at the capital in Beijing, as well as in Mukden (Shengjing), Hohhot, Chengde, and Dolonnuur, only the successive jasagh lamas at Mount Wutai were tied to Tibet in this way. At different points into the Republican period (1912–1949), they served as the chief intermediaries between Tibet and China proper. See Tuttle, Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China, 22 and 43; and see also Qinding Lifan yuan zeli, juan 58, 9. The three earliest jasagh lamas, Awang Laozang, Laozang Danbei Jiancan, and Laozang Danba wrote prefaces to the imperially sponsored editions of Mount Wutai gazetteers in Chinese and Manchu and included their own biographies among the eminent monks of Mount Wutai. These prefaces are preserved in QLSZ. See also Tuttle, “Tibetan Buddhism at Wutai Shan in the Qing,” 192–194; Köhle, “Why Did the Kangxi Emperor Go to Wutai Shan?,” 78–79. The biographies are included in QDQLSZ, juan 16, 21a–22b; and QLSXZ, juan 7, 21b–24b. For a partial English translation of these biographies, see Toh, “Tibetan Buddhism in Ming China,” 228–237. 27.  According to the imperial stele “Qingliangshan ji” 清凉山記, 1811: “黃教為諸藩部傾心信仰, 進 関朝山頂禮者, 接踵不絕,誠中華衛藏也.” (The yellow teachings are the faith of all the fan [Mongol and Tibetan] tribes who believe with their whole heart, and for those who enter China to pay homage to the mountain making prostrations one after the other without interruption; it is unquestionably the Tibet of China.) See Zhou, Wutai shan beiwen bian’e yinglian shifu xuan, 81, cited and translated in Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 110; see also Lin, “Zhonghua Weizang.” 28.  Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 114. 29.  For Mount Wutai as an important trade center on the Sino-Mongolia border, see Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 234–237. 30.  The other imperially supported Buddhist centers include the capital Beijing, the former capital in Mukden, the Inner Mongolian administrative hub of Hohhot, the Qing imperial summer palace of Jehol, and the religious center of Dolonuur. For the Qing rebuilding of Beijing, see Naquin, Peking, 287–702; for a financial perspective, see Lai, Qianlong huangdi de hebao; for Jehol, see Forêt, Mapping Chengde, and Millward, New Qing Imperial History. 31.  The three other mountains are Mount Putuo 普 陀山, Mount Emei 峨眉山, and Mount Jiuhua 九華 山. Mount Wutai and Mount Emei became famous mountains as early as the Tang dynasty, whereas Mount Putuo emerged only in the tenth century, and Mount Jiuhua as late as the Ming dynasty. For Mount Emei, see Hargett, Stairway to Heaven; for Mount Putuo, see Yü, Kuan-yin, and Bingenheimer, Island of Guanyin; for Mount Jiuhua, see Zhiru, The Making of a Savior Bodhisattva Dizang, 216–219. 32.  Mount Emei is the only other mountain that

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52.  Katz, Demon Hordes and Burning Boats, 113–114. 53.  Pollock, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men. 54.  Grapard, Mountain Mandalas, 157–158. 55.  Yü, Kuan-yin, 448. 56.  There are two systems for enumerating the Panchen Lama incarnation lineages. Throughout this ˙ book, I follow the reckoning of the Trashi Lhünpo Monastery.

the social and institutional system of the Manchus, Evelyn Rawski argued that the success of the Qing rule rested on “its ability to implement flexible culturally specific policies aimed at the major non-Han peoples inhabiting the Inner Asian peripheries.” See Rawski, The Last Emperors. Pamela Crossley argued that the construction and articulation of cultural-ethnic categories such as “Han” and “Manchu,” which were deeply imbricated in a rehistoricizing of the past, was instrumental to Qing emperorship. See Crossley, A Translucent Mirror. Considering the reason behind the sustained success of Manchu rulership, Mark Elliott argued that an ethnic coherence in spite of cultural difference, which was manifested in the development of the eight-banner system, served as the basis of the Manchu empire-building enterprise. See Elliott, The Manchu Way. Their studies were founded on the indispensable scholarship of David Farquhar and Samuel Grupper, who drew attention to the essential role of Tibetan Buddhism in the crafting of religious kingship. See Farquhar, “Emperor as Bodhisattva in the Governance of the Ch’ing Empire”; Grupper, “Manchu Patronage and Tibetan Buddhism during the First Half of the Ch’ing Dynasty.” Johan Elverskog more recently challenged this unidirectional framework by focusing on Mongol self-representations and the formation of the Mongol Buddhist identity in the empire. See Elverskog, Our Great Qing. 43.  Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. 44.  Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane. 45.  Anthropologists were the first to challenge the Durkheim’s dichotomy. See Evans-Pritchard, Theories of Primitive Religions, 65; Goody, “Religion and Ritual: A Definition Problem.” For a survey of the field of sacred geography after Eliade, see Park, Sacred Worlds, 7–18, cited in Robson, Power of Place, 23. Robson also provides a summary of this shift. 46.  Naquin and Yü, Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China, 9. Naquin and Yü’s work is a path-breaking and still timely study of the topic through examination of historical materials in China. 47.  Toni Huber explores the concept of the Tibetan holy mountain landscape as both an abode of a deity (né) and an embodiment of the divine itself. See Huber, The Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain, 13–14. Robson’s monograph on Nanyue begins by parsing a Chinese notion of the sacred mountain from an array of early textual sources. In Robson’s view, “the sacred nature of a Chinese mountain was constituted as much by what it contained as by its terrestrial siting within the landscape and its relation to the celestial sphere above.” See Robson, Power of Place, 23. Allan Grapard formulates a threefold emergence of sacred sites as “site,” “area,” and “nation” in Japan. See Grapard, “Flying Mountains and Walkers of Emptiness.” 48.  For a most recent summary of this, see Tuck and McKenzie, Place in Research. 49.  Ibid., xiv. 50.  Ibid., 6. 51.  Duara, “Superscribing Symbols.”

Chapter 1. Imperial Replicas 1.  In 1640, the Fifth Dalai Lama, jointly with the Fourth Panchen Lama, addressed the Qing dynastic ˙ founder Hong Taiji (1592–1643; Qianlong’s greatgreat-grandfather), as “Mañjuśrī-Great Emperor.” The Fifth Dalai Lama visited Shunzhi in Beijing in 1653, and it was upon his return to Tibet that he bestowed on Shunzhi the title Mañjughos.a Emperor. This appellation was maintained and solidified by and for subsequent Manchu emperors. This identification was made indisputable by the Third Dalai Lama’s prophecy that a great secular incarnation of Mañjuśrī would unite China, Mongolia, and Tibet, together with the homophonic similarity between the names “Manchu” and “Mañju.” See Farquhar, “Emperor as Bodhisattva,” 15–20. 2.  Farquhar, “Emperor as Bodhisattva,” 15. 3.  Tuttle, “Tibetan Buddhism at Wutai Shan in the Qing,” 164, observes that the imperial gazetteers of the mountain  —  the most intentionally visible documentation of their activities on and off the mountain  —  were chiefly produced (as were often only legible) in the Chinese language, which was rarely accessible to the Mongols and Tibetans. He argues that the works were directed toward the Han Chinese Tibetan Buddhists at Mount Wutai. 4.  Kangxi took his sons with him, including the future Yongzheng emperor, who visited Mount Wutai three times with his father. Monasteries that became imperial stations and therefore endowed with imperial donations by the Kangxi period include Puji Si 普 濟寺 (Universal Salvation Temple) on the southern peak; Yanjiao Si 演教寺 (Expounding the Teachings Temple) on the central peak; Wanghai Si 望海寺 (Ocean Viewing Temple) on the eastern peak; Falei Si 法雷寺 (Dharma Thunder Temple) on the western peak; Lingying Si 靈應寺 (Spiritual Response Temple) on the northern peak; and Shuxiang Si 殊 像寺 (Temple of Mañjuśrī’s Image), Dailuo Ding 大 螺顶 (Conch Shell Peak), Tailu Si 臺麓寺 (Terrace Foothill Temple), Pusa Ding 菩薩頂 (Bodhisattva’s Peak), Xiantong Si 顯通寺 (Clairvoyant Power Temple), Baiyun Si 白雲寺 (White Cloud Temple), Luohou Si 曪睺寺 (Rāhula Temple), Bishan Si 碧 山寺 (Blue Mountain Temple), Tayuan Si 塔院 寺 (Stupa Courtyard Temple), Yongquan Si 湧泉 寺 (Gushing Spring Temple), and Qingliang Si 清 凉寺 (Clear and Cool Temple) in and around the Taihaui valley. For imperial records related to the building and restoration of temples at Mount Wutai, see Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan, “Qianjia nianjian Wutai shan simiao xinggong.” The design and

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building of imperial traveling palaces (xinggong 行 宮) at Mount Wutai was undertaken by the Lei family. Architectural sketches of these traveling palaces are still preserved in the Yangshi Lei Archive at the National Library in Beijing and the National Science Library in Beijing. 5.  The itineraries of Qianlong’s six visits in 1746, 1750, 1761, 1781, 1786, and 1792 are recorded in Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan, Qianlong di qiju zhu. Qianlong’s 1792 visit is also recorded by the official Wang Chang in his diary. See Wang, Taihuai suibi, 1808. 6.  Köhle, “Why Did the Kangxi Emperor Go to Wutai Shan?” 99, observes the centrality of this tantric vision with regard to Kangxi, and argues that Kangxi’s patronage of Mount Wutai followed a rather “Chinese” interest in esoteric Buddhism (or tantra), continuing a practice of the Ming emperors. Köhle borrows the concept of an esoteric recursive cosmology from Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom, 30. 7.  They have been studied only in Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 161–164, and Lin, Qingdai Menggu yu Manzhou zhengzhi wenhua, 169–175. 8.  The status of a Manchu Bannerman would have made it impossible for him to become a monk. 9.  Booi were considered the emperor’s personal property. By the Qianlong period, they were mostly descendants of Han, Korean, Mongol, Jurchen, and even Russian groups who were captives of the Manchus and condemned by them to servitude. For more on the origins and definitions of booi, see Elliott, The Manchu Way, 81–84. The term “Manchu” was coined in 1636 by Hong Taiji in an effort to unite different Jurchen tribes on China’s northeastern frontier. By Qianlong’s time, this constructed ethnic marker had become an ancestral tradition that he sought to uphold in governing a largely Chinese empire through the preservation of Shamanistic rituals and the use of the Manchu language. 10.  Manchus were in fact forbidden to take monastic vows until the Shunzhi reign. This new Manchu Buddhist monastic tradition was established only three years after Qianlong ordered a codification of Manchu Shamanist rituals, which was another explicit assertion of a Manchu identity that is to be distinguished from those others practiced at the court. See Di Cosmo, “Manchu Shamanic Ceremonies at the Qing Court.” 11.  The Manchu monasteries were predominantly clustered around the Summer Palace and were looted and destroyed during the second Opium War in 1860. They have received little scholarly attention because they were largely destroyed. This is in contrast to the well-known imperial monasteries that remain active today, such as the Yonghe Gong, or Qianlong’s impressive commissions for celebratory occasions, such as his replica of the Potala Palace of Lhasa at his summer palace. Scholars have only recently started to investigate their liturgical and organizational models. See Wang, “Qianlong yu Manzu lama siyuan”; Li, “Shengjing sisi”; Lin, “Shengjing beita falun si.” 12.  See, for example, Loh, Titian Remade, who uses Deleuze’s model of a rhizome, among others, to

reconstruct the interdependent relationship between the original and the replica, between the imitator and the original author. See also Wood, Forgery, Replica, Fiction. For Wood, the processes of substitution and replication are sites for the revelation of “deep structure of thinking about artifacts and time.” Davis, Replications, 4, describes the process or dynamics in replication as cognition, consciousness, and therefore culture itself. 13.  Smith, “Constructing a Small Place,” explores the various “metonymic” and “metaphoric” ways in which the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is transposed elsewhere through replication, and the “miniaturization” of ritual in a collection of ritual texts from Greco-Roman Egypt known as Greek Magical Papyri. 14.  For a study of the copy in contemporary culture through the lens of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy, see Boon, In Praise of Copying. 15.  Berger observed this with regard to the Qing copy of true images, arguing that “the real source of potency for images that claimed to be authentic, as the Manchus rapidly found, was their seeming resistance to translation and analysis.” See Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 165. 16.  Berger coins this term following Hillel Schwartz’s study of the Western fascination with replicas in Schwartz, The Culture of the Copy. See Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 124. 17.  Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 133. 18.  Berger pointedly places a brief discussion of the replicas within a stream of Qing projects that were deeply concerned with the truth of revelatory visions materialized in cultic images. They include Qianlong’s reordering of Guanxiu’s arhats, his reproduction of the Long Roll, and Kangxi’s enshrinement of the sandalwood image. See Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 127–161. 19.  Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 332. Tuken does not mention an exact date of this event between the 1740s and 1750s, but the timing of the institution of the first Manchu Buddhist monastery is corroborated both in the archives of the Grand Council ( Junji chu 軍 機處) and in Dharmatāla, Rosary of White Lotuses, 320–321. See Beijing Number One Archive, document nos. 03-182-2218-15 and 03-182-2218-14, two fragments of what was originally a single file. I thank Lin Shih-Hsuan for helping me piece this together. Chen Qingying’s attribution of this event to after 1761 is likely erroneous. See Chen, “Zhangjia Ruobi duoji nianpu,” 37. Huang, Zai Beijing de Zangzu wenwu, 85, tentatively identifies this monastery as the Xiangjie Monastery, but court and gazetteer records, as well as Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, indicate the Baodi Monastery to be the monastery in question. For more on Rölpé Dorjé, see chapters 2 and 3. 20.  First built in the fifth century, it was originally named the Wenshu Cloister 文殊院 (Cloister of Mañjuśrī), but was renamed Bodhisattva’s Peak early in the fifteenth century. 21.  The various recensions of this story in connection with the sacred icon have been the focus of a number of art-historical studies. See Choi, “Quest

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Buddha of Immeasurable Life. See Wang, “Gugong Yuhua ge tanyuan,” 52, 54–55. Located in the northwestern sector of the Forbidden City, the structure of the Yuhua Pavilion was designed by Rölpé Dorjé at Qianlong’s request during the same year of 1750. See Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 97–104. 36.  The hall or monastery of origin was not always specified, although it is clear that they would have come from a Tibetan Buddhist temple, presumably Bodhisattva’s Peak’s Mañjuśrī dugang, the only one of the two dugangs at Mount Wutai. 37.  The Seven Treasures are gold, silver, lapis lazuli, crystal or quartz, pearl, red coral, and agate or coral; and the Seven Royal Treasures are the wheel, the jewel, the queen, the minister, the elephant, the horse, and the general. 38.  QGNWF, vol. 17, 431. 39.  Ibid., 431–433. The Chinese date is the second day of the fourth month. The commissioning of drawings for sets of Five Sense Offerings and Eight Offerings are listed in great detail. For example, among the Eight Offerings, the offering of music has a “gilt bronze vajra bell on purple sandlewood tray with cloisonné enamel stand.” 40.  Wang, Cultural Relics of Tibetan Buddhism, 169. 41.  Beer, The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist Symbols, 37–42. Even though in Buddhist traditions, the set of Seven Royal Treasures later became ritual offerings to the Buddha, they still carried with them imperial connotations and were regularly used to furnish imperial chapels, especially during the Qing dynasty. 42.  On the copying of rituals themselves, Rölpé Dorjé was said to have copied rituals from Lhasa. See Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 84, citing Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 138, 225, 187, and 221. Berger shows how these various linguistic and iconographic projects were harnessed to produce an orthodoxy of form and meaning. The prefaces of the Canon of Iconometry translated into Chinese by Mongol scholar and Qing court translator Gömpojab state an intention to correct previous Han Chinese models, which were thought to be imprecise. See also Greenwood, “Yonghegong,” 221–227. In addition to various iconographic pantheons undertaken by Rölpé Dorjé, his compilation of multilingual dictionaries that aimed to standardize the process of translation also served the same need for ritual authenticity. 43.  Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 6. 44.  On the Lobsang Danjin rebellion, see Ishihama, “Gushihan ōke no Chibetto”; Schwieger, The Dalai Lama and the Emperor of China, 132–139. 45.  Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 510–511. See chapter 3. Many secondary sources indicate that Rölpé Dorjé entered retreat consecutively at Mount Wutai beginning in 1750, but from his biography it is obvious that he did not go there during a two-year trip to Tibet in search of the Seventh Dalai Lama’s reincarnation between 1757 and 1758. 46.  They are described in two major Tibetan biographies of Rölpé Dorjé. See chapter 3. For summaries of Rölpé Dorjé’s activities at Mount Wutai, see Wang, “Tibetan Buddhism at the Court of Qing”; Smith,

for the True Visage,” 164–174, and Lin, Building a Sacred Mountain, 96–98. 22.  Reischauer, Ennin’s Diary, 234. 23.  Köhle, “Why Did the Kangxi Emperor Go to Wutai Shan?” shows that Bodhisattva’s Peak was probably converted to a Tibetan Buddhist temple as early as 1481. 24.  See Shan, Qingdai jianzhu nianbiao, 202. The complex at Bodhisattva’s Peak would have featured four halls on the central axis, three of which had only three bays. See QDQLSZ, juan 10, 1. 25.  The temple was then called Dafutu Si. See HQLZ, T. 2098: 51, 1094a25–b2. 26.  Dou, Qinding rixia jiuwen kao, juan 103, 7. The original text reads: “地即清凉, 白馬貝書開震 旦, 山仍天竺, 青鴛蘭若近離宮” (This is the very [ground of the] Clear and Cool. [Mount Wutai] Palm Leaf manuscripts of the Baima Monastery opened China [up to Buddhism]. The mountain is still [in] India, but the black-tiled monastery is close to the summer palace.). By inscribing this statement on the placards, Qianlong asserted that the site is a surrogate of Mount Wutai, which is a surrogate of India. 27.  Dou, Qinding rixia jiuwen kao, juan 103, 7; Wang, “Qianlong yu Manzu lama siyuan,” 60; Lin, Qingdai Menggu yu Manzhou zhengzhi wenhua, 136–138. 28.  Writer Zhu Ziqing 朱自清 (1898–1948) documented in his travelogues the collapse of the gate in the spring of 1932. See Zhu, “Songtang youji.” 29.  Chayet, “Architectural Wonderland,” 49; Li “Beijing Biyun si jingang baota zuo”; Zhang, Qingdai lamajiao beiwen, 132–133; and Charleux, “Copies de Bodhgayā en Asie orientale.” Continuing this connection to the state, the Biyun Temple was where revolutionary and modern China’s founding father Sun Yat-sen’s body was interred temporarily before burial in his mausoleum in Nanjing. 30.  In addition, the entire complex also includes a six-bay side hall near the front of the complex; a three-bay hall of heavenly kings; three-bay mountain gate, bell, and drum towers (one bay each); an eighteen-bay side dormitory hall; a twenty-four-bay corner dormitory hall; and a six-bay guard building, which makes a total of eighty-seven bays. See Shan, Qingdai jianzhu nianbiao, 202. 31.  QDQLSZ, juan 10, 1. 32.   “ 將 顯 通 寺 無 量 殿 尺 寸 盪 樣 呈 覧 欽 .” QGNWF, vol. 17, 275. 33.  “將 菩 薩 頂 文 殊 都 剛 殿 地 盤 尺 寸 佛 像 法 器等項俱畫樣.” QGNWF, vol. 17, 275. This was undoubtedly preparatory work required for the building of the Baodi Monastery. 34.  In the eighteenth-century Chinese imperial gazetteer, only one other monastery at Mount Wutai was listed as having a dugang. That monastery was Rahūla Temple. See QDQLSZ, juan 10, 9b; appendix A, no. 60. It is the second-largest Gelukpa Monastery at Mount Wutai, which housed about two hundred lamas by the end of the nineteenth century. Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 110. 35.  The back shrine of the first floor of the Yuhua Pavilion is also called a “Wuliang Dian 無量殿,” referencing the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and the

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and consecrated them at Mount Wutai in 1700. See chapter 3. 51.  For analysis and translation of colophons, see Chou, “The Visionary Landscape of Wutai Shan,” 26–30. 52.  Like the Mongol emperors of the Yuan, who discontinued the painting academy of the Song and established a superintendency for Buddhist icons ( fanxiang yiju si 梵像提舉司) to focus on the production of Buddhist images, Qianlong’s engagement with Mount Wutai reflects a similar turn from the Chinese scholarly to the Buddhist religious. See Yang, Qingdai yuanhua, 19. 53.  Ibid., 48. The exact term used in the imperial catalogue is to enlarge and affix [the sketch] to a rock (放展成大圖勒石). Further research of the site and the stele may be undertaken when the site becomes accessible. 54.  According to his biography, Rölpé Dorjé was in charge of building the Baoxiang Monastery; see Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 486. 55.  Dou Guangnai, Qinding rixia jiuwen kao, juan 103, 8. 56.  Wang, “Qianlong yu Manzu lama siyuan,” 60. Wang cites Neiwu fu zouxiao dang 內務府奏銷 檔 (Imperial Household Agency archives, Financial accounts volumes), 319 ce. See also Qinding Lifan yuan zeli, juan 58, 16; juan 59, 25. 57.  See Zhao, Wutai shan shige zongji, 407. 58.  Ye shes don grub and Ngag dbang bstan dar, Ri bo dwangs bsil. 59.  Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 615; Chinese translation by Chen, Zhangjia, 294. 60.  Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 79. 61.  Judging from available images from Dunhuang, this triad was later expanded sometime in the ninth century to include the Kashmiri monk Buddhapāli and the bearded old man. See Sha, “Dunhuang P.4049.” For a study of the Mañjuśrī pentad in Japan, see Wu, “The Manjusri Statues and Buddhist Practice of Saidaiji; Quinter, From Outcasts to Emper­ors. For more on the depictions of Sudhana’s pilgrimage, see Fontein, The Pilgrimage of Sudhana; on its incorporation into the pictorial program at Boro­budur, see Gifford, Buddhist Practice and Visual Culture. 62.  This sculptural group is also found at the Nanchan Temple 南禪寺, the Foguang Temple 佛光 寺, and the Yanshan Temple 岩山寺 in the Mount Wutai area from the eighth to the twelfth centuries. 63.  The figure resembles a woodblock print of Mañjuśrī with Sudhana and the Khotanese king found in the Dunhuang manuscripts. Stein 239, Stein 236, Stein 237, and Pelliot 4514, 2(5). The prints include Mañjuśrī, a groom, and Sudhana above, with texts below that label Mañjuśrī “Mount Wutai’s Mañjuśrī.” Some have argued that this iconography originated not in Mount Wutai but in Khotan, noting the obvious prominence of the Khotan king. Regardless of its origin, the iconography became associated with Mount Wutai. See Jiang, “Qianxi Dunhuang xinyang Wenshu.” 64.  The legend was cited in the carved colophon

Among Tibetan Texts, 133–146; and Illich, “Selections from the Life of a Tibetan Buddhist Polymath.” 47.  The entourage departed Beijing on the tenth day of the second month, and returned more than a month later; Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan, Qianlong di qiju zhu, vol. 20, 42–85. 48.  A copy of Bitian Xiaoxia 碧天霄霞 (Glowing Clouds in an Azure Sky) is in the Gest Library at Princeton University. See Wu, Glowing Clouds in an Azure Sky, 46–55. In the genre of tributary dramas, the play featured “celestial deities on five-colored clouds,” “gods of the Five Marchmounts,” and heads of “ten thousand states” arriving to pay obeisance and offer birthday wishes to the emperor and empress-dowager. Dramas for the emperors and empress-dowagers’ birthdays constitute an important part of Qing ritual dramas. They were written and presented by local officials to the throne when the emperor visited on imperial tours. For a case study of Qing ritual dramas, see Ye, “Ascendant Peace in the Four Seas.” According to Ye, these series of six dramas date to 1786. But the source Ye cites dates the dramas to Qianlong’s third visit to Mount Wutai in 1761. This makes more sense considering the 1761 visit coincided with the celebration of Qianlong’s fiftieth and his mother’s seventieth birthdays. See Fu, Qingdai zaju quanmu, 383–386. On the whole, ritual offerings remain an important and unexplored area in the study of Mount Wutai. Ritual manuals for propitiating local deities remain one of the major genres of Tibetan texts authored at and about Mount Wutai. 49.  “是像即非像, 文殊特地殊, 亳端寶王剎, 鏡 裡焰光珠, 法雨滄桑潤, 梵雲朝暮圖, 高山仰止 近, 屏氣步霄衢. 謁殊像寺得句, 因寫滿月容, 以紀其真, 即書於右, 行營促成, 限於方幅, 迴 鑾餘暇, 將放展成大圖勒石, 須彌棗葉, 無異無 同, 五於此未免著相矣. 辛已暮春, 保陽行宮並 識.” (An image and not an image, Mañjuśrī’s abode is indeed special. The awe of the bejeweled king is at the tip of the brush, and brilliant flaming light in the reflection of the mirror. The rain of Buddhist teachings moistens all worldly sufferings, heavenly clouds at dawn and dusk make a marvelous sight. I gaze up at the tall mountains; holding my breath, I approach the high path. When I paid a visit to the Shuxiang Temple, these verses came to me. Therefore I sketch the full-moon countenance [of Mañjuśrī] in order to document its authenticity, and compose a colophon to its right. This is hastily executed while still on the road, so its size is constrained. When there is time after our return, I will enlarge it and affix it to a rock [that is, make a relief carving]. Mount Meru and a jujube leaf are neither different nor the same. If one were to insist on this, it would be attaching oneself to form. Written at Baoyang traveling palace, at the end of spring season during the Xinyi year [1761].) It is recorded in Qinding Bidian zhulin, 42. Baoyang Palace probably refers to the traveling palace at Baoding 保定 in Hebei Province. 50.  For evidence of Qianlong’s own hand inside the One or Two paintings, see Kleutghen, “One or Two, Repictured,” 37–39. Kangxi had evidently made sketch models for three images in his own likeness,

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an analysis of them, see Wang, “Tibetan Buddhism at the Court of Qing,” 293–296. 78.  Zito, Of Body and Brush, 43–50. 79.  Hevia, “Lamas, Emperors, and Rituals,” 246. 80.  I thank Wei-Cheng Lin for pointing this out to me at the Association for Asian Studies conference in 2012. 81.  The complete inscription reads: “乾隆辛已 春. 上以祝釐巡幸五臺. 瞻禮曼殊寶相. 圓光默 識. 如月印川. 回鑾後. 摹寫為圖. 水墨莊嚴. 妙 合清涼真面. 復以稿本. 命小臣觀鵬設色. 齋 盥含毫. 積七閱月. 雖華鬘珠珞. 猊座蓮臺. 殫 竭小乘知解. 而於師利本來相好. 實未能裨助 萬一. 竊自念凡庸末技. 幸得仰承天筆. 擬繪金 容. 譬諸匠眾為優填王作旃檀像. 雕鐫塗澤. 無 足名稱. 而濁質鈍根. 獲霑香國功德. 歡喜信 不可思議. 臣丁觀鵬敬識.” (During the spring of 1761, the emperor toured Wutai to obtain blessings. He visited the precious image of Mañjuśrī [at the Shuxiang Temple], which is radiant with the subtle glow of wisdom, like the moon’s reflection on the river. After returning to his palace, he made a sketch after the image in ink splendor. The sketch wondrously matched the true countenance of [the sage of ] Clear and Cool [Mañjuśrī]. Then, based on the sketch, he ordered the humble servant Guanpeng to make a colored painting. Observing ritual fasting and cleansing, I diligently held a brush for seven months. [Even though I was able to paint] the garlands and the beaded pearls, the lion throne and the lotus pedestal, exhausting all knowledge and understanding of the smaller vehicle, Mañjuśrī’s primary and secondary marks are originally excellent, therefore my brush could not enhance even one-ten-thousandth. I secretly feel my thoughts are banal and my skill is limited. Fortunately, by relying on the heavenly brush [of the emperor], I was able to lay out the golden countenance. Just like the artisans who carved the Sandalwood Buddha for King Udāyana, [I completed it] after much careful chiseling and modification. It can still hardly deserve to be called anything. Even though my qualities are impure and roots dull, that I can still obtain merits of the fragrant land [paradise of Amitābha], I feel blissful beyond measure. Servant Ding Guanpeng respectfully acknowledges [this].) 82.  For a history of Sandalwood Buddhas in China, see Carter, The Mystery of the Udayana Buddha; for devotion among Mongols, see Charleux, “The Mongols’ Devotion to the Jowo Buddhas.” 83.  Qianlong instructed Ding to paint an image of Mañjuśrī by “imitating a wax model” (仿蠟身樣 法身). 84.  “圓光默識, 如月印川.” 85.  For more on these thangkas, see chapter 3; see also Berger, “Lineages of Form,” and Henss, “The Bodhisattva-Emperor.” 86.  Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 166. 87.  At least seven extant Tibetan thangkas featuring the likeness of Qianlong’s face that are found in Tibetan Buddhist inner sanctuaries of the court and at the court of the Dalai Lamas and Panchen Lamas ˙ in Tibet  —  together with similar portrayals in other

on a 1608 stele erected by Zhencheng. See Cui and Wang, Wutai shan beiwen xuanzhu, 289–291. See also Huanyu, “Shuxiang Si li de chuanshuo gushi.” 65.  In this story, the old abbot of the monastery hosted a competition for the design of the main image. Dissatisfied with each and every design entry, the old abbot finally accepted the pleas from an extremely skilled sculptor and his team of artisans, who, having journeyed from afar, vowed not to return home if their work did not meet the expectations of the abbot. The project began and progressed in due time, but came to a standstill when the sculptor found himself stymied by artist’s block in attempting to come up with the perfect design for Mañjuśrī’s head. After several days of this, at around lunchtime, the clouds suddenly parted, and an image of the perfect form of Mañjuśrī riding on a lion appeared in the sky. Witnessing this, all of the artisans prostrated themselves in amazement. The sculptor immediately got up, ran into the kitchen, grabbed a batch of buckwheat dough prepared for lunch, and sculpted it into the form of the heavenly apparition. Just as he was finishing it, the image of Mañjuśrī disappeared. This story of miraculous occurrence spread far and wide, and soon pilgrims rushed there from all parts of the country to pay homage to the resulting sculpture. See Ye shes don grub and Ngag dbang bstan dar, Ri bo dwangs bsil, 5a. 66.  Lcang skya, Zhing mchog (1993), 43. This text is analyzed in chapter 2. 67.  For a recently published Tibetan source, see Ngag dbang bstan dar, Dwangs bsil ri bo rtse lnga’i gnas bshad, 58; for Mongolian, see Ye shes don grub and Ngag dbang bstan dar, Ri bo dwangs bsil, 5b, line 3; the name also appears as an inscription on the late eighteenthto early nineteenth-century map of Mount Wutai at Badgar Choiling Süme. See chapter 4. 68.  Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, online appendix B, 59. 69.  Charleux notes that the true image was replaced in 1482 by a new golden statue. Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 311. 70.  QGNWF, vol. 33, 40–41. 71.  “乾隆二十六年四月十八日: 十八日接得員 外郎安泰押帖一件, 內開本月十七日奉旨著丁 觀鵬用舊宣紙畫文殊菩薩像著色工筆畫, 得時 裱掛軸, 欽此. 乾隆二十六年十二月十五日: 十 二月十五日接得達色押帖一件, 內開十四日太 監胡世傑持來御筆文殊像二幅, 丁觀鵬畫文殊 像一副. 傳旨著觀鵬仿蠟身樣法身起稿, 仍用舊 宣紙另畫三幅, 其塔門暫且放下, 先畫文殊像, 欽此.” Ibid., vol. 26, 693. I thank Wang Ching-Ling for first bringing this reference to my attention. 72.  Qinding Bidian zhulin, 357–358. 73.  This would date the painting to the eleventh month of the year, just one month before it was presented to the emperor as per record from Ruyi Guan. Wang Ching-Ling, e-mail to the author, August 13, 2010. 74.  Qinding Bidian zhulin, 405. The inscription reads: “臣裘曰脩之母王氏率孫媳等敬繡.” 75.  I thank Christian Luczanits for this observation. 76.  Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 231–270. 77.  The immensely informative Tibetan biography of Rölpé Dorjé by Tuken records the initiations. For

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to complete. A Manchu translation bureau (Qingzi Jingguan 清字經館) was established in 1772 (the thirty-seventh year of the Qianlong reign). See Bingenheimer, “The History of the Manchu Buddhist Canon and First Steps towards Its Digitization”; Gao, “Rulai shiyin sanmai jing fanyi yanjiu,” 1–33, 153–205; Fuchs, “Zum mandjurischen Kandjur”; and Kämpfe, “Einige tibetische und mongolische Nachrichten zur Entstehungsgeschichte des mandjurischen Kanjur.” On the connection with the Shuxiang Monastery at Chengde, see Feng, “Shuxiang si yu Manwen dazang jing.” 98.  According to Wang, “Qianlong yu Manzu lama siyuan,” 62, Lifan Yuan’s records indicate sixty-three Manchu lamas resided in the Shuxiang Monastery. Wang does not provide citation. 99.  One exception to the structure of the Chinese canon is addition of esoteric texts; see Gao, “Rulai shiyin sanmai jing fanyi yanjiu,” 10. 100.  “莊校金容, 一如香山之制; 而殿堂樓閣, 略 仿五臺山.” The commemorative stele dates to the fortieth year of the Qianlong reign (1775); see Zhang, Qing zhengfu yu lama jiao, 443. 101.  Meng “Chengde Shuxiang si.” 102.  Chayet, “Architectural Wonderland,” 49. 103.  An eighteenth-century map of Chengde at the Library of Congress shows that the Shuxiang Monastery is not so purely “Chinese” in style after all  —  faux Tibetan-style buildings and stupas, similar to the blind walls with small ornamental windows of the Potala replica adjacent to the Shuxiang Monastery, were also built off to the side of the central axis. 104.  The current structure is five bays wide and three bays deep. QDQLSZ, juan 10, 10, records the hall as measuring two bays (three yin 楹) wide. 105.  The name is a variation of Qianlong’s iconographic project, the Baoxiang Lou 寶相樓 (Tower of Precious Form), located in the Cining Palace inside the Forbidden City, which was also constructed in honor of the eightieth birthday of his mother, the empress-dowager, in 1771. 106.  The current pavilion and image are newly erected. 107.  See Chengde Cultural Heritage Bureau, Hebei Cultural Heritage Bureau, and the Getty Conservation Institute, Assessment Report on Shuxiang Temple, Chengde. 108.  Xiang, Huangdi yu foyuan, 47. Hedin, History of the Expedition in Asia 1927–, 141, notes that “Folklore says that the rider on the lion is the divine representation of the Emperor Ch’ien Lung as Mañjuśrī.” A similar description of another Mañjuśrī on a lion together with his entourage at the Zhengjue Monastery 正覺寺 is found in Pander, Lalitavajra’s Manual of Buddhist Iconography, 40; cited in Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 226. Berger interprets Pander to refer to the famous Zhenjue Monastery 真覺寺 (also know as Wutai Monastery 五塔寺) that features a copy of the Mahābodhi Temple, and suspects that he was in fact mistakenly talking about another temple. However, since the Zhengjue Monastery could also refer to a Manchu Buddhist monastery built in 1773 near the Yuanming Yuan Summer Palace (the location and devastated condition Pander explicitly

media and references and addresses to Qianlong as the wheel-turning Mañjughos.a emperor in Tibetan and Mongolian sources  —  have led scholars to regard the efficacy of Qianlong’s self-fashioning within a Tibetan Buddhist (and specifically Gelukpa) sectarian and courtly context. See Farquhar, “Emperor as Bodhisattva,” 15–20; the notion that Qianlong promoted his image as the Mañjughos.a emperor exclusively toward the Mongols and Tibetans has also been implicitly substantiated by the fact that Qianlong at the same time supported Confucian state rituals and the preservation of Manchu Shamanistic rituals. For more on Qianlong’s practice of Confucian state rituals and participation in Shamanistic rituals, see Zito, Of Body and Brush, and Di Cosmo, “Manchu Shamanic Ceremonies.” 88.  “歲辛巳, 值聖母皇太后七旬大慶, 爰奉安 輿詣五臺, 所以祝釐也. 殊像寺在山之麓, 為瞻 禮文殊初地, 妙相莊嚴, 光耀香界, 默識以歸. 即 歸則心追手摹, 係以讚而勒之碑. 香山南麓, 曩 所規菩薩頂之寶諦寺在焉. 迺於寺右度隙地, 出內府金錢, 飭具庀材, 營構藍若, 視碑摹而像 設之 . . . 經始於乾隆壬午春, 越今丁亥春蕆工.” Zhang, Qing zhengfu yu lama jiao, 409–411. 89.  因記之曰: 文殊師利久住娑婆世界, 而應現 說法則獨在清涼山, 固華嚴品所謂東方世界中 菩薩者也. 夫清涼在畿輔之西, 而香山亦在京城 之西. 然以清涼視香山, 則香山為東, 若以竺乾 視震旦, 則清涼, 香山又皆東也. 是二山者不可 言同. 何況云異? 矧陸元暢之答宣律師曰: 文殊 隨緣利見, 應變不窮, 是一是二, 在文殊本不生 分別見, 倘必執清涼為道場, 而不知香山之亦可 為道場, 則何異鑿井得泉而謂水專在是哉? 而昔 之詣五臺禮文殊, 所以祝釐也, 而清涼距畿輔千 餘里, 掖輦行慶, 向惟三至焉. 若香山則去京城 三十里而進, 歲可一再至. 繼自今憶萬年延洪演 乘, 茲惟其恒, 是則予, 建寺香山之初志也. 寺成, 名之曰: 寶相. Zhang, Qing zhengfu yu lama jiao, 408. 90.  For knowledge production of and policy toward, see Mosca, From Frontier Policy to Foreign Policy. 91.  Dou, Qinding rixia jiuwen kao, juan 103, 8. Concerning the building of the main hall, the text reads: 命於寶諦寺旁, 建茲寺, 肖像其中, 殿制外方內 圓, 皆甃甓而成, 不施木植, 四面設甕門. 92.  Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 161. For the design of the mandalic structure, see Stoddard, “Dynamic Structures in Buddhist Mandalas.” Stoddard relates ˙˙ the building of the Cakrasamvara Mandala at Pule ˙ Monastery in the Qing imperial summer palace of Jehol to the mandala initiations that Qianlong undertook at around the same time. 93.  Snellgrove and Richardson, A Cultural History of Tibet, 115–116. 94.  GQLZ, T. 2099: 51, 1104a11; Chos rgyal ’Phags pa Blo gros rgyal mtshan, ’Jam dbyangs la ri bo rtse lngar bstod pa nor bu’i phreng ba, 26. 95.  Qianlong gave at least one painting to Rölpé Dorjé around the year 1784; see Wang, “Tibetan Buddhism at the Court of Qing,” 296. For more, see chapter 3. 96.  Bodolec, “Uncommon Public Buildings.” 97.  The Manchu Buddhist canon took nearly twenty years and more than five hundred translators

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124.  In addition to the Shuxiang Monastery, a copy of the Manchu canon was placed at the Potala palace of the Dalai Lamas in Lhasa, Trashi Lhünpo of the Panchen Lamas in Shigatse, their respective replicas ˙ in Chengde, and the Yonghe Gong Monastery and the Hongren Monastery in Beijing. 125.  Di Cosmo, “Manchu Shamanic Ceremonies,” 390.

cites), it would not be surprising to find Qianlong’s replicas of the Shuxiang Temple’s Mañjuśrī sculpture at the Zhengjue Monastery or other Manchu monasteries as well. 109.  These childhood objects include a silver vase, a golden bowl, ivory pillars, and porcelain plates; see Feng, “Shuxiang Si yu Manwen dazang jing,” 397. 110.  Zhang, Qingdai Lama jiao beiwen, 105. 111.  “殊像亦非殊, 堂堂如是乎. 雙峰恆並峙, 半 里弗多纖. 法爾現童子, 巍然具丈夫. 丹書過情 頌, 笑豈是真吾.” Qi, Wai ba miao beiwen zhushi, 92. 112.  Dasheng Wenshu shili pusa zanfo fashen li 大聖 文殊師利菩薩讚佛法身禮, T. 1195: 20. 113.  Lin, “Siyi er wei Manzhou.” 114.  Lin, Qingdai Menggu yu Manzhou zhengzhi wenhua, 215, quoting Yuzhi shi siji, juan 89, 19. 115.  “大聖文殊師利菩薩讚佛法身禮經載漢經 中而番藏中乃無. 去歲巡幸五臺, 道中因以國語 譯出, 並令經館譯出西番、蒙古, 以金書四體經 供奉臺頂及此寺.” 116.  A study has yet to be done on how many copies were made and how widely they were disseminated. 117.  Crossley, A Translucent Mirror, 266. For more on this, see discussion of translation practices in chapter 2. 118.  Beijing Number One Archive, document no. 04-01-38-0015-011. 119.  Tuttle, “Tibetan Buddhism at Wutai Shan in the Qing,” 179–181. 120.  This transformation of the imperially sponsored texts from gazetteers to accounts of imperial tours also prompted a turn from the textual to the pictorial. Woodblock illustrations of major monasteries and imperial traveling palaces on the imperial pilgrimage route first appeared in the Imperial Gazetteer. Although that book included only a frontispiece of the iconic image of the bodhisattva, an overview of Mount Wutai, and images of the five peaks of Mount Wutai and three monasteries that housed the imperial traveling palaces, the illustrations were expanded in the Magnificent Record (while omitting the frontispiece) to include every stop of the way on the Jiaqing emperor’s western inspection tour, delineating the exact architectural and topographical layout of as many as forty-nine sites, twenty-one of which are located in Mount Wutai proper, and a total of twenty-eight en route to and from Mount Wutai and the capital, Beijing. For more on this, see chapter 4. 121.  Elverskog, Our Great Qing, 8. 122.  As Stephen Whiteman shows through his study of the imperial summer retreat in modern-day Chengde during the reign of Qianlong’s grandfather Kangxi, the retreat constructed under Kangxi displayed a very different vision of rulership than that of the Qianlong era, despite Qianlong’s employment of a rhetoric of continuation from his grandfather. The transformations of the summer retreat that took place between the two reigns reflected the fact that whereas Kangxi faced the “challenges of conquest and consolidation,” it was only under Qianlong’s reign that a model of universal emperorship was established. See Whiteman, “From Upper Camp to Mountain Estate,” 266. 123.  See Shan, Qingdai jianzhu nianbiao, 202.

Chapter 2. Miracles in Translation 1.  For more on Jiaqing’s tour, see Lin, “Zhonghua Weizang”; Berger,“The Jiaqing Emperor’s Magnificent Record of the Western Tour.” 2.  The political, economic, and religious importance of Mount Wutai for the Mongols, the largest and most important subgroup of pilgrims, is the subject of Isabelle Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage. 3.  Gilmour, Among the Mongols, 141; cited in Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 1. 4.  For a list of works in Tibetan that pertains to or includes Mount Wutai, see Chou, “The Visionary Landscape of Wutai Shan,” appendix VII; for an annotated list of known premodern guidebooks in Mongolian to Mount Wutai, see Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, online appendix D; for a list of Qingdynasty multilingual texts, including an imperial edition in the Manchu language, see Tuttle, “Tibetan Buddhism at Wutai Shan in the Qing”; for a study of the equally important genre of Tibetan poetry, see Schaeffer, “Tibetan Poetry at Wutai Shan.” 5.  This study relies on the Tibetan edition printed at the Songzhu Monastery, Beijing, in 90 ff. in the original Tibetan book format (pecha) at the library of the Minorities Cultural Palace, Beijing (Text no. 001798). I thank Xianba, librarian at Minorities Cultural Palace Library, for providing me with scans of the valuable text. Multiple reprints were made in modern typeset. See Lcang skya, Zhing mchog; Dge ’dun chos ’phel, Gnas yig phyogs bsgrigs, 384–565. Further citations refer to the 1993 typeset edition. The Tibetan and Mongolian versions were issued together (that is, both carved from woodblocks and printed at the same time) but have since been dispersed and included in different collected works. About the Mongolian translation, see Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 166–167. For an approximate Chinese translation, see Wang Lu, “Shengdi Qingliang Shan zhi.” Rölpé Dorjé’s incomplete work was published as a separate text in his collected works called Ri bo dwangs bsil gyi kar chag mjug ma tshang pa. For an early German translation of Rölpé Dorjé’s incomplete work by Albert Grünwedel, see Boerschmann and Walravens, Lagepläne des Wutai shan, 64–94. For a basic study of the colophon of the text, see Nishioka, “Chankya rama ni kurabun no Seiryōsanshi.” The English translations of passages from Zhing mchog are modified from the initial translation by Tenzin Bhuchung. 6.  Most recently, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, the Gelukpa lama who cofounded the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahāyāna Tradition (FTMP), an international network of practice centers, requested a

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“Les ‘lamas’ vus de Chine.” The Buddhist layman Zhang Dungu wrote a diary of his visit to Mount Wutai in 1911 filled with negative portrayals of what he estimated to be three to four thousand Tibetan and Mongol monks. Zhang, Wutai shan canfo riji, 17, quotes a famous local saying: “[At Mount Wutai] houses built from piled rocks do not fall, monks at the gate are not bitten by dogs, lamas in the bedchamber do not trouble people.” 15.  Chan Buddhism was reduced to a “sudden approach” to enlightenment. See Adamek, The Mystique of Transmission, 288. A number of recent works recover the importance of Chan Buddhism in Tibet based on the prevalence of Chan manuscripts in Dunhuang. See van Schaik, Tibetan Zen. 16.  Yü, Kuan-Yin, 375. 17.  For an analysis of the concept of ganying at Mount Wutai, see Birnbaum, “The Manifestation of a Monastery.” For the chief role vision played in early literature on Mount Wutai, see Cartelli, The FiveColored Clouds of Mount Wutai. 18.  See Streng, “The Buddhist Doctrine of Two Truths as Religious Philosophy.” 19.  This discovery is based on both the contents of the chapters and the sequence in which the stories take place. Whereas in each successive recompilation of gazetteers, the sequence of sites and personages change varies slightly, the Guide’s ordering of sites and personages are identical to those in the New Gazetteer. 20.  See Crossley, A Translucent Mirror, 262–266. The compilation of a pentalingual dictionary of the Western Regions in 1763 is a case in point. See Fuheng, Qinding Xiyu tongwen zhi. 21.  The work was completed in 1759 and printed in 1773. For an introduction to and facsimiles of the work, see Chandra, Sanskrit Texts from the Imperial Palace at Peking; for a user-friendly annotated version, see Lin, Xinbian dazang quanzhou. See also WangToutain, “Les éditions impériales multilingues.” 22.  For more on Rölpé Dorjé’s translations, see Wang, “Tibetan Buddhism at the Court of Qing,” 139–158. 23.  This was undertaken only for very few selected scriptures at the command of the Qianlong emperor, who also participated in the translation. They were also multilingual translations rather than from one language to another. See Lin, “Siyi er wei Manzhou.” 24.  For an example of a short early-eighteenth-century Mongolian manuscript compiled from Chinese sources, see Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 166. 25.  They are collected in the same volume as Rölpé Dorjé’s unfinished guide to Mount Wutai in his collected works. See Lcang skya, Tsan dan jo bo’i lo rgyus; rgyal khab chen po’i nub sgo’i mchod rten. On the Sandalwood Buddha in Beijing, see Charleux, “The Mongols’ Devotion to the Jowo Buddhas.” 26.  See Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 504; Chinese translation by Chen, Zhangjia, 240. Rölpé Dorjé nevertheless still consulted and cited Rtse lnga pa Dpal ldan grags pa in Lcang skya, Zhing mchog, chapter 2, 16 recto, line 5. 27.  Changlung was a descendant of Genghis Khan

translation of the Guide into English. A recently published Tibetan guidebook draws from the Guide as well as the Cifu map I discuss in chapter 4. See Ngag dbang bstan dar, Dwangs bsil Ri bo rtse lnga’i gnas bshad. Many praise poems, such as the ones by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, draw from this source text. See Chou, “Reimagining the Buddhist Universe,” 429. 7.  At least two other Tibetan-language guides predated the Guide, although they were probably inaccessible to Rölpé Dorjé and his disciples. They are the 1701 court-commissioned translation from the Chinese language text QLSXZ by Mount Wutai’s Jasagh Lama Laozang Danba, which will be discussed later in this chapter, and a guidebook (Ri bo rtse lnga’i dkar chag) in thirteen folios by Gömpojab, the famous Mongol translator working in the Qing Court, composed sometime before 1736. The text by Gömpojab was cited by himself in another text and also mentioned by Vladimir Uspensky and in Dung dkar tshig mdzod chen mo, but it did not seem to have been cited by other eighteenth- and nineteenth-century guidebooks. See Mgon po skyabs, Rgya nag chos ’byung, 50. 8.  A later title, Ri bo rtse lnga’i dkar chag rab gsal me long (Clear Mirror: Guidebook to the Five Peak Mountain), completed at around the same time by Dznyana Shriman draws heavily from the Guide to the Clear and Cool (rather than directly from Chinese sources) and also includes many more descriptions of contemporaneous Tibetan and Mongol visitors. Even though this text includes many of the same stories contained in the Guide, the stories become highly abbreviated. Among the most notable Tibetan-language descriptions of Mount Wutai are the writings of Pakpa, the Sakyapa lama who became the imperial preceptor of the Khubilai Khan’s Yuan dynasty. See Schaeffer, “Tibetan Poetry at Wutai Shan”; Ding, “ ‘ Translating’ Wutai Shan.” 9.  McRae, “The Riddle of Encounter Dialogue,” 78; Heine, “Visions, Divisions, Revisions,” 140. 10.  Yanagida, “The ‘Recorded Sayings,’ Texts of Chinese Ch’an Buddhism,” 190; cited in Heine, “Visions, Divisions, Revisions,” 140. 11.  For the inclusion of biographies in local gazetteers and the implication of the relationship between place and person, see Robson, Power of Place, 24–25. 12.  For the latter sense, see McRae, Seeing through Zen, 76. 13.  Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute, 6. 14.  Most Chinese (Buddhist or otherwise) accounts of Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhism from this period consistently perpetuated a vilified image of Tibetan monks as corrupt and unruly government bureaucrats. The portrayal persists even of the Sixth Panchen ˙ Lama, on the occasion of his meeting with the Chinese monk Datian Tongli 達天通理 (1701– 1782). See Liu, “Datian Tongli yu Liushi Banchan zhi wu kaolun.” This negative portrayal is typical in Chinese writings since the twelfth century. See Shen “Shentong, yaoshu, he zeikun”; in English, “Magic Power, Sorcery and Evil Spirit”; Shen, “Background Books and a Book’s Background: Images of Tibet and Tibetan Literature in Chinese Literature”; Charleux,

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nyan du ’ongs nas phyir log te rang gnas su sleb pa na grub pa brnyes te mtsho skam pa’i shul du grags). See Lcang skya, Zhing mchog, 12. 36.  The Mongolian edition, however, did seem to have been widely circulated, and resulted in a modern edition from 2000. See Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, appendix D. 37.  Qianlong’s Imperial Gazetteer, compiled in 1785, though lengthy, contains far fewer details and more abbreviated entries on the history of Mount Wutai than the Guide. 38.  Bingenheimer, “Bibliographical Notes,” 53. Gazetteers have been collectively reprinted in an abundance of modern typeset editions since the early Republican period, and in recent decades, made even more widely accessible and searchable through innovative projects in digital humanities. For a summary, see also Cao, Mingdai fojiao fangzhi yanjiu, 6–9. 39.  Bol, “The Rise of Local History”; Hargett, “Song Dynasty Local Gazetteers,” 416. The gentry class refers to intellectuals who have attained positions as local government officials through the national civil examination system, not by virtue of their being born into a noble family. Between the Han (206 b.c.e.– 220 c.e.) and the Tang (618–907) dynasties, most areas of China were centrally ruled by aristocratic elites, with little social mobility and without the possibility for the development of local or regional intellectual culture. During this period, and extending into the Northern Song dynasty (959–1126), local geographic texts, often called tujing 圖經 (literally, maps/illustrations and treatises), primarily served the purpose of supplying information to the central government. But starting in the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279), tujing became obsolete (no longer required by the central government), due also to a shift of orientation from the national to the local on the part of elite families wanting to promote their families’ privileged positions. 40.  Hargett, “Song Dynasty Local Gazetteers,” 407. 41.  Brook, Sources of Ming-Qing History, 33. Between 1400 and 1600, the numbers of shengyuan, the first major rung on the ladder to office, may have increased as much as twenty-fold. See Atwell, “From Education to Politics,” 338, cited in Brook, Praying for Power, 18. 42.  Mountain gazetteers make up roughly a third of the entries in Timothy Brook’s bibliography of gazetteers. See Brook, Geographical Sources, 31. 43.  It is also an unusually fertile site for gazetteers in northern China. In observing the relative lack of Buddhist topographical gazetteers in the old heartland of Chinese Buddhism around Chang’an, Marcus Bingenheimer suggests it was perhaps due to the fact that the genre’s “tastes and sensibilities . . . were not universally accepted on the northwestern border of the empire, where Chinese, Muslims, Tibetans, Mongols and Manchus co-existed uneasily.” Bingenheimer, “Bibliographical Notes,” 60. The case of Mount Wutai would be an exception to this  —  it is precisely the multiculturalism that gave rise to the Ming and Qing compilations of mountain gazetteers at Mount Wutai. 44.  Gimello,“Chang Shang-ying on Wu-t’ai Shan,” 101.

(born in the Sunid Left Banner of Inner Mongolia). Changlung also authored a praise poem of the preincarnations of Rölpé Dorjé and a guide to painting the incarnation lineage. See chapter 3. See Lcang lung, Skyabs mgon lcang skya rin po che and Khyab bdag. 28.  A colophon appended to the 1831 edition written by Changlung indicates that Rölpé Dorjé completed the first two chapters; Lo chen Ngag dbang bskal bzang and Gro tshang Mkhan sprul bla slob completed the latter chapters by translating from the Chinese; and Changlung himself subsequently made stylistic revisions, corrected faulty translations, and paid for the printing of the blocks. See Lcang skya, Zhing mchog, 207–208. See also Gray Tuttle, “Tibetan Buddhism at Wutai Shan,” appendix 1, note 127. 29.  Schaeffer, “Tibetan Poetry at Wutai Shan,” 219. 30.  The Jifu Temple was one of the five Gelukpa monasteries at Mount Wutai established as residences for the Lcang skya Hutukhtus during the Daoguang era (1821–1850), when the fourth Changkya Hutukhtu Yeshé Tenpé Gyeltsen (Lcang skya Ye shes bstan pa’i rgyal mtshan, 1787–1846) was active. Little is known about the history of the Jifu Temple, but given the affiliation of the authors, it would have been a likely place for the carving of such a commission. The impressions printed there, along with those from Rölpé Dorjé’s unfinished initial chapters, are now preserved at the library of the Minorities Cultural Palace, Beijing. They are the original pecha editions consulted for this study. 31.  Rgyal dbang Chos rje, Rje btsun dpal ldan bla ma, 89 recto-verso, detailed the extended and slow-coming production of the text as it passed from one author’s hand to another. Schaeffer’s reference cited by Tuttle (see earlier note) first led me to this text. 32.  See quadrilingual edition in the collection of the Library of the National Palace Museum, Taipei. 33.  In the Guide, past and present Chinese rulers are always referred to as kings (rgyal po) and not as emperors (gong ma chen po). 34.  But unlike Chinese language books, which are stitch-bound on the right margins in accordance with the direction Chinese language texts are read, from right to left and top to bottom, the Tibetan language edition of New Gazetteer is bound on the left margins of the pages to cater to the direction of Tibetan readers, who read from left to right. 35.  For example, the legend surrounding the numinous site of Sacred Pile of the Naga Palace (Longgong shengdui 龍宮聖堆) was described in the Chinese version of the New Gazetteer as “the female naga disappeared upon hearing the Buddhist teachings; the naga pool welled up and turned into a heap” (龍母 聞法化去, 龍池卽湧為堆). The Tibetan version of the New Gazetteer rendered the Chinese text verbatim, as “klu’i yum lugs srol thos te sprul nas song phyin klu mtsho brtas te bye mar gyur to /,” whereas the Guide supplies a full story: “It is said that in the past, a female naga received teachings here. When she returned to her land, she achieved spiritual attainment. As a result the lake dried up with only a remnant of the lake remaining.” (sngon klu mo zhig chos

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45.  The three works are included in the Taishō canon: HQLZ, T. 2098: 51, 1091c–1100c; GQLZ, T. 2099: 51, 1127a–35a; and Zhang Shangying, Xu Qingliang zhuan, T. 2100: 51, 1127a–35a). For dating of the texts, see Bingenheimer, introduction to Zhonghua fosizhi congshu, XXI. 46.  Bingenheimer, Zhongguo fosizhi chutan, 391, refers to these works as “proto-gazetteers” to describe pre-Ming accounts of individual sites that do not include zhi in their titles but that “clearly belong to the genre.” 47.  “傳雖再出, 而於文殊應迹、志士感通, 班班 遺諸羣籍而猶未備焉.” QLSZ, preface, 2b. 48.  Feng, “Wutai shan lidai shanzhi bianzhuan luekao,” 4. 49.  “清涼勝境, 可撫卷 而得其梗概也.” See Kangxi’s preface to QLSXZ. 50.  Andrews, “Tales of Conjured Temples.” 51.  Shinohara, “The Story of the Buddha’s Begging Bowl,” demonstrates the significance of Daoxuan’s thaumaturgic self-fashioning. 52.  Ibid., 97. 53.  按華嚴靈記云. 律師常至中臺頂上. 見一童 子. 形貌異常. 律師問其所由. 童子曰. 弟子天也. 帝釋遣令巡守聖境. 律師又問. 道宣嘗覽華嚴經 菩薩住處品. 文殊師利.住清涼山. 宣自到山. 未 嘗得見. 其理如何. 童子曰. 師何致疑. 世界初 成. 此大地踞金輪之上. 又於金輪上. 撮骨狼牙. 生一小金輪.其輪.至北臺半腹.文殊菩薩七寶宮 殿之所在焉.園林果樹.咸悉充滿. 一萬菩薩之所 圍遶. 北臺上面. 有一水池. 名曰金井. 大聖文殊. 與諸聖眾. 於中出沒. 與金剛窟正相通矣. 大聖 所都. 非凡境界. 師可知之. 言終乃隱. 律師下山. 向眾親說其事云. T. 2099: 51, 1119a2–15. 54.  This source text is attributed to the Tangdynasty monk Huiyuan 慧苑 (673?–743?). Known variously as the Huayan Compendium of Numinous Tales (Huayan zuanling ji 華嚴纂靈記), Huayan Numinous Tales (Huayan ling ji 華嚴靈記), or simply and most commonly as the Compendium of Numinous Tales (Zuanling ji 纂靈記), the text had been out of circulation in the fourteenth century. See Chen, Philosopher, Practitioner, Politician, 21–23. 55.  師曰, “準華嚴說, 此山乃文殊住處, 今見丘 陵草樹, 宛是凡居, 聖人境界, 果何有耶?” 天童 答曰, “大聖境界, 固非凡夫二乘可得而知. 我, 凡 夫也; 師, 二乘也. 若以有思惟心, 求不思議境, 則殆矣. 師豈不聞一法無異, 三人殊見者乎? 蓋 隨其各具業報之眼有殊, 而所見亦異. 若某所見 清涼山, 碧琉璃色, 諸臺麓間, 皆雜寶林, 光明煥 發, 日夜無閒. 而菩薩住處, 非我所及也.” 言訖而 隱. QLSZ, juan 7, 8a. 56.  Mueller, The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism. 57.  Another well-known encounter dialogue featuring Daoxuan and Kuiji 窥基 also casts Daoxuan in the role of someone lacking insight. See, for example, Jingkong, “Daoxuan lüshi.” 58.  Heine, “Visions, Divisions, Revisions,” 137–167. 59.  Ibid., 139. See also Andrews, “Tales of Conjured Temples (huasi) in Qing Period Mountain Gazetteers.” 60.  Gimello, “Chang Shang-ying on Wu-t’ai Shan,” 119–122. 61.  “Ngas bltas na ri bo dwangs bsil ’di baidūrya’i ˙

mdangs su gsal zhing / ri bo rnams kyi zhol du rin bo che’i ljon shing sna tshogs kyis sbras pa ’od ’tsher bas nyin mtshan kyad med du lhan ne lhang nger snang ste / rje btsun gyi yul ni kho bo’i spyod yul min no shes smras te mi nang bar gyur to /.” Lcang skya, Zhing mchog, 29b, lines 1 and 2. 62.  Dznyā na shrī man, Ri bo rtse lnga’i dkar chag. 63.  For more on Ganying and its pre-Buddhist origins, see Bingenheimer, Island of Guanyin; Sharf, Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism, 77–133; Birnbaum, “The Manifestation of a Monastery,” 134– 137; Yü, Kuan-yin, 153–158; and Campany, Signs from the Unseen Realm, 49. 64.  For more on Chan encounter dialogues, see McRae, Seeing through Zen, 74–83. 65.  “Nyin cig ri bo rtse lngar chas tsam na / hwa shang zhig gis tshigs su bcad pa smras pa / sa phyogs gang gi ri kun chos kyi ri / ci’i phyir ri bo rtse lngar ’khar bas ’gro / smrin gseb mngon pa’i seng ge gser ral can / ngag pa’i mig gis bltas na dge mtshan min / zhes so // chan shis de la ’jus nas dag pa’i mig ces pa ci yin zhes dril pas cang mi zer ro / de nas chan shis khur po bsnams te bzhud do /.” Lcang skya, Zhing mchog, 42b, lines 1 and 3. 66.  Pure eye is linked to pure vision, which is a Tibetan tantric notion that an advanced practitioner could see and experience a pure world akin to the Buddhist paradise of a pure land. See Gyatso, “Genre, Authorship, and Transmission.” 67.  McRae, Seeing through Zen, 78. 68.  T. 51: 277a. For an English translation, see Ogata, The Transmission of the Lamp, 349; cited in Heine, “Visions, Divisions, Revisions,” 165, no. 24. 69.  “Rgyal pos mdzad pa’i dkar chag tu ’di mthar ji ltar gyur pa ma shes zhes byung zhing / ’og tu’ang de bzhin mang du byung ba rnams ni phal pa rang bzhin pa dang ma mjal ba’i dbang du byas pa yin bas / bdag nyid chen po de dag phal che ba ni sku tshe ’di nyid kyis grub pa’i gnas gzhan dang gzhan dag tu gshegs par mngon no /.” Lcang skya, Zhing mchog, chapter 3, 26b, lines 3 and 4. 70.  Ibid., chapter 2, 16 recto, lines 4–5. 71.  The most notable and lengthy addition is the story of Shuxiang Temple’s miraculous sculpture of Mañjuśrī in Lcang skya, Zhing mchog (1993), 43. For more on Tibetan and Mongolian recensions of the legend behind this miraculous image, see chapter 1. Another important correction is the biography of the Gelukpa master Śākya Yeshé (1354–1435), who visited Beijing on the invitation of the Ming Yongle emperor, and who was erroneously described as an Indian monk. Śākya Yeshé was recognized as a preincarnation of Rölpé Dorjé, to be discussed in chapter 3. To amend this error, the Guide doubled the amount of text about Śākya Yeshé, corrected the mistake, supplied more information about his travels to China, and included a praise poem extolling Śākya Yeshé from the 1744 text Garland of White Lotuses by Purchok Ngawang Jampa (1682–1762). See Lcang skya, Zhing mchog (1993), 126–127. It also included the addition of two sites (out of a total of 118) associated with Rölpé Dorjé: the Sudhana Cave and the Universal Happiness Grove, the continued

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84.  Obermiller, “Bu-ston’s History of Buddhism and the Mañjuśrī-mūla-tantra.” 85.  Lcang skya, Zhing mchog, chapter 1, 2 verso. 86.  ’Jam dpal rtsa rgyud, chapter 24, 695, and chapter 36, 886; Mala, “A Mahayanist Rewriting,” 159, cites the Peking edition of the Tibetan Buddhist canon, vol. 6, no. 162, 260-4.1–7. 87.  It is also cited in Tuken’s biography of Rölpé Dorjé as one of the chief scriptural justifications for Rölpé Dorjé’s decision to retreat at Mount Wutai every summer. See Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 501; Chinese translation by Chen, Zhangjia, 238. 88.  Mala, “A Mahayanist Rewriting,” 158–159. 89.  For an English translation of this section, see ibid., 158. 90.  Lcang skya, Zhing mchog, chapter 1, 2. 91.  Lcang skya, Zhing mchog, chapter 1, 9–10, 35. 92.  The Five Directional Buddhas were mentioned only once in a quotation from Chengguan 澄觀 in QLSZ, juan 2, 1, and reprinted in QLSXZ, juan 2, 1. 93.  Lcang skya, Zhing mchog, chapter 1, 10. 94.  Ibid., 34–35. These observations were made by Pakpa. See Chos rgyal ’Phags pa Blo gros rgyal mtshan, ’Jam dbyangs la ri bo rtse lngar bstod pa nor bu’i phreng ba, 26. 95.  The same practice is continued in the guidebook by Dznyana Shriman and in Khenpo Sodargye’s 2007 compilation of the Mount Wutai guidebook, which was specifically intended for pilgrims from Larung Gar in Eastern Tibet. The latter includes both the Buddhas and Mañjuśrīs of the Five Families as well as a list of tantric prophecies from all known texts, Tibetan and Chinese, made much longer by the inclusion of Nyingmapa sources. See Bsod dar rgyas, Ri bo rtse lnga’i gnas bshad. 96.  Mgon po skyabs, Rgya nag chos ’byung; Chinese trans., Hanqu Fojiao Yuanliu ji. Sum pa Mkhan po, Dpag bsam ljon bzang; Chinese trans., Songba fojiao shi. Thu’u bkwan, Thu’u bkwan grub mtha’; English trans., The Crystal Clear Mirror. For a study of Chinese Buddhism in the eyes of these three writers, see Liu, “Shiba shiji Beijing Mengzang.” 97.  Mala, “A Mahayanist Rewriting,” 157, 163. 98.  Sumba, who was a student of Rölpé Dorjé’s previous incarnation, Ngawang Lozang Chöden, likens the teaching of the Buddha to the sun, the teachings of the Laozi to the moon, and the teachings of Confucius to the star. Sum pa Mkhan po, Dpag bsam ljon bzang, 104; Chinese trans., 508. 99.  Thu’u bkwan, Thu’u-bkwan grub mtha’, 400–401; English trans., 337. 100.  On Rölpé Dorjé’s demystification of Chan Buddhism and caricaturization of the figure Chan monk Hwa Shang Mahāyāna, see Smith, Among Tibetan Texts, 137; Edou, Machig Labdrön, 32, 181 n. 20; Saerji, “Fotuo boli Dangpa Sangjie Puti Damo.” On how Hwa Shang Mahāyāna became a quintessential philosophical other in Tibet, see Ruegg, Buddha-nature; summarized in Cabezón, Freedom from Extremes, 19–21. 101.  Wylie, “The Tibetan Tradition of Geography.” 102.  The appearance of Chinese characters and page numbers is very common for books printed in Beijing

significance of which has been demonstrated by nearly all subsequent Tibetan Buddhist pilgrimages to Mount Wutai. See Lcang skya, Zhing mchog (1993), 18 and 24. Descriptions of these two sites were revised and added, respectively, after Rölpé Dorjé completed and published the first two chapters alone. See Lcang skya, Ri bo dwangs bsil, 11 recto and 14 recto. 72.  Lcang skya, Zhing mchog (1993), 1. 73.  “Ri gnyan chen po lnga.” For use of the term “fierce mountain,” or “ri gnyan po,” see Xie, “The Mythology of Tibetan Mountain Gods.” 74.  See introduction, note 31. 75.  By this point, the Five Marchmounts (Mount Heng 恒山 in the north, Mount Hua 華山 in the west, Mount Song 嵩山 in the center, Mount Tai 泰 山 in the east, and Mount Heng 衡山 in the south) have been commonly associated with Daoists. See Robson, Power of Place, 46–52. Here the Tibetan word for the Five Marchmounts, “ri gnyan chen po lnga (Five Fierce Mountains)” reflects this understanding by authors of the Guide. Tuken uses the same word in his 1801 Grub mtha’ shel gyi me long, 414. Gömpojab translated the Five Marchmounts as “ri bo ’am lhun po chen po lnga” in his 1736 Rgya nag chos ’byung, 4. In addition to describing their Daoist affiliations, Chinese-language gazetteers from the Ming and Qing also expounded on the Five Marchmounts as the sacred mountains where the emperors conducted sacrifices. See QLSZ, juan 1, 2b. 76.  See QLSZ, preface, 1 (reprinted in QLSXZ, preface 18) and juan 1, 1. 77.  For more on Meru cosmology, see Kloetzli, “Buddhist Cosmology,” 114. 78.  For a discussion of Tibet’s belated Mount Meru controversy in the twentieth century, see Lopez, Buddhism and Science, 57–63. 79.  They were described in a 1278 text written by Pakpa for Khubilai’s second son, Prince Zhenjin (Tibetan: Jin gim). See Hoog, Prince Jin˙-Gim’s Textbook of Tibetan, 16. For an English translation of an original Mongolian translation from the Yuan dynasty, see Uspensky, “Explanation of the Knowable.” 80.  The same directional schema of exalted places is also mentioned in Bka’ ’gyur ba Blo bzang tshul khrims, Ri bo rtse lnga’i gnas bstod (praise poem of Mount Wutai), which is probably dated to the early part of the eighteenth century. It is collected in his Gsung ’bum in six volumes (179 chos tshan) in the Minorities Cultural Palace, Beijing. See Shes bya’i gter mdzod, vol. 1, 125, # 003895 (15); published in Blo bzang chos grags and Bsod nams rtse mo, Gangs ljongs mkhas dbang, 1579–1584. 81.  Kapstein, “Just Where on Jambudvīpa Are We?”; and Yongdan, “Tibet Charts the World.” Sumpa Khenpo however, maps a different scheme in his ’Dzam gling spyi bshad (General Description of Jambudvīpa). 82.  Huber, The Holy Land Reborn, 193–220. 83.  This is evident in Qing world geographic texts discussed in the section on Gelukpa geographic writing in this chapter.

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118.  Chengguan and Dushun are the patriarchs of the Huayan school of Buddhism. 119.  Translation modified from Illich, Selections from the Life of a Tibetan Buddhist Polymath, 528–529. See Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 509–510. 120.  See Schaeffer, “Tibetan Poetry on Wutai Shan,” 229.

and Mount Wutai, as the printers were probably Chinese. I thank Isabelle Charleux for pointing this out. 103.  Venturi, “Creating Sacred Space,” 4. 104.  Ramble, “The Creation of the Bon Mountain of Kongpo,” 139; Buffetrille, “Reflections on Pilgrimages,” 21–22. 105.  The same motivation applies to mountain and temple gazetteers in Ming and Qing China in general. While a Tibetan monastery might produce guidebooks to promote itself, in the case of Chinese mountain and temple gazetteers, the sponsors were usually lay donors. See Brook, Praying for Power, 179. 106.  Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 504; Chinese translation by Chen, Zhangjia, 240. 107.  See the note at the beginning of this chapter for a list of editions. 108.  When prominent Chinese Buddhist masters are frequently mentioned, they are usually mentioned by a transliteration of their Chinese names. There are however occasional deviations from this. In some cases, their names are sometimes translated and elsewhere transliterated. When translated, the names of Chinese masters sound like those of Tibetans, whereas when transliterated, their historicity is better preserved. Hanshan Deqing 憨山德清 (1546–1623), for example, was referred to as “Yonten Salwa” in the description of a hermitage and as “Han shan ta’i ching” in the biography of eminent monks section, suggesting perhaps the work of two translators. 109.  For an analysis of Dag yig mkhas pa’i ’byung nas, see Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 37–38. 110.  Rölpé Dorjé’s translation treatises are summarized in a chapter on translation in Dharmatāla, Rosary of White Lotuses, 402–403; Mount Wutai is frequently mentioned in 417–431. 111.  One of the most popular pilgrimage places, the Mother’s Womb Cave (Mongolian: Ekhe-yin Umai; Chinese: Fomu Dong 佛母洞) was not included in the canonical sources, and therefore also omitted in the Guide. Pilgrims would have presumably been led to the cave by others while at the mountain. 112.  Bangbo Hu, “Maps and Cartographic Techniques”; for a survey of gazetteer maps, see Yee, The History of Cartography, 71–95. 113.  This parallel development is discussed in chapter 4. 114.  At the peak of the Gelukpa monastic presence during the Jiaqing reign, some three thousand lamas were in residence at Mount Wutai. See Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 110, citing Zhao, and Hou, “Jianlun Qingdai,” 29, citing Tian, Wutai xinzhi. 115.  This is quite the opposite of the Manchu emperors’ practice of prefacing works. The eulogy is cited in full in Tuken’s biography of Rölpé Dorjé, and also completes the final version of the guidebook that was finished by his disciples in 1831. See Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 504–510. 116.  For the structure and poetic metaphors of Rölpé Dorjé’s eulogy, see Schaeffer, “Tibetan Poetry on Wutai Shan.” 117.  Kāśyapamātan·ga and Dharmaratna are believed to have been the first Indian masters to come from India to China in the year 67 c.e.

Chapter 3. Landscape and Lineage 1.  Sculptural images often feature the pronounced growth on his right jaw as a defining feature of his physiognomy. This feature is seen in only some of the thangka paintings. See Wang, “Zhangjia Hutuketu xiang xiao kao.” For an example, see HAR item no. 75066 from the Jacques Marchais Collection, available at www.himalayanart.org/items/75066 (accessed March 21, 2016). 2.  Scholars have observed an unusual and intentional cross-referencing of identities through a play on words, such as the explicit reference to Rölpé Dorjé’s name in the inscription of the Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī thangkas. See Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 61. 3.  They are as follows: the Seventh Dalai Lama at the top; the tantric tutelary deities Vajrabhairava, Mañjuvajra, Guhyasamāja, and Cakrasamvara on the ˙ second register; Amitāyus and White Tārā on the third register; Mahācakra-Vajrapāni and a fierce Vajrapāni ˙ ˙ on the fourth register; and Yama, the six-armed Mahākāla, and Palden Lhamo on the lowest register. 4.  There are possibly Qing court-produced albums of other reincarnation lineages, such as of the Dalai Lamas, that have yet to be located. 5.  The album of Rölpé Dorjé (see figs. 3.1, 3.14, and 3.18), together with that of the Sixth Panchen ˙ Lama (see figs. 3.9, 3.11, 3.12, and 3.16), were among a batch of four hundred objects that were acquired by the Prussian ambassador to China Max Von Brandt (1835–1920) in Beijing and sent to the Royal Museum of Ethnology in Berlin as early as 1885. Looted from the museum after World War II bombings, the albums resurfaced on the art market in Amsterdam, and entered the private collection of Werner Schulemann (1888–1975), a German physician and scientist who made a fortune from developing a synthetic anti-malaria drug. The museum in Berlin, renamed the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, bought the albums back from Schulemann after he exhibited them as a part of his bequest to the Museum of East Asian Art in Köln in 1974, and they were subsequently identified as part of the museum’s original collection. The return of the two albums was never published or formally documented. I thank Hans Roth of the Department of Mongolian and Tibetan Studies, University of Bonn, for informing me about the location of the Panchen ˙ album. The two albums were kept intact and in each other’s company through the trials of war, theft, and art market transactions, but they had yet to be studied in relation to each other. For a history of original acquisition and preliminary iconographical study of the two Berlin albums, see Grünwedel, Mythologie des Buddhismus, 208, and “Notizen zur

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Court. See Panchen Lama, Bla ma sna tshogs kyi brtan ˙ bzhugs. 10.  On the formation of the incarnation lineages of Rölpé Dorjé, see Everding, Die Präexistenzen der lCan˙ skya Qutuqtus. For a study on the interrelations of all three, see Ishihama, Shinchō to Chibetto Bukkyō, 227– 249. José Cabezón has further analyzed the formation of preincarnation lineages in general, and of Rölpé Dorjé specifically, through his study of an important figure recognized at Rölpé Dorjé’s previous incarnation. See Cabezón, “The Life and Lives of ’Khon ston dpal ’byor lhun grub,” and “On Tulku Lineages.” 11.  Among texts and inscriptions produced in the Qing court, writing on ciqing paper of this quality is found only in the production of Buddhist scriptures. 12.  Two recent edited volumes examine Buddhist kingship in the Tibetan cultural world: Hirshberg, The Tulku (sprul sku) Institution in Tibetan Buddhism, and Dotson, Kingship, Ritual, and Narrative in Tibet and the Surrounding Cultural Area. Schwieger, The Dalai Lama and the Emperor of China, focuses on the government of the Fifth Dalai Lama and the Qing imperial court. 13.  The ritual fanfare that surrounded the Sixth Panchen’s visit to Beijing was meticulously described ˙ in his biography and in Qing court records. See ’Jam dbyangs bzhad pa, Pan chen Dpal ldan ye shes kyi rnam ˙ thar; Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan and Zhongguo Zangxue yanjiu zhongxin, Liushi Banchan chaojin dang’an xuan bian. Wang Xiaojing speculates that the disproportionate attention toward the Panchen’s ˙ travel to Beijing in his biography arose out of need for political legitimation by a faction of the Panchen ˙ Lama’s successors in the wake of his untimely death and the chaos that ensued at Trashi Lhünpo. See Wang, Liushi Banchan jinjing, 119–156, for the meeting between Qianlong and the Panchen Lama, and ˙ 224–239, on the composition of the biography. On Qianlong’s building of replicas to reiterate ritual precedence, see Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 181. 14.  This is Thich Nhat Hanh’s term for the Buddhist concept of dependent arising (pratītyasamutpāda). See Nhat Hanh, Heart of Understanding, 3–5. 15.  De Certeau, The Writing of History, 281. Bernard Faure employed this definition of hagiography (from the 1975 French edition of de Certeau’s book) in rethinking the study of narratives of Bodhidharma’s life in Chan Buddhism. See Faure, “Bodhidharma as Textual and Religious Paradigm.” 16.  Foucher, The Life of the Buddha, 7–9. Huber, The Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain, 14, foregrounds his study of the Tibetan pilgrimage mountain of Tsari with the notions of abode and empowerment, which could be applied to both persons and places in order to highlight their “mutually determinate relationships”; Shinohara, “The Story of the Buddha’s Begging Bowl,” traces the construction of sacred places in China through seventh-century Vinaya Master Daoxuan’s biography; Robson, Power of Place, 23, observes that “the conjunction of places and people” is what constitutes a sacred mountain through his study of the textual corpus of sacred mountains in China; Quintman, “Toward a Geographic

Ikonographie des Lamaismus,” 44–45, 103–131. For an early and only study on the Panchen album, see ˙ Schmid, Saviours of Mankind II. For reference to the Rölpé Dorjé album, see Sagaster, Subud erike, 338; Everding, Die Präexistenzen der lCan˙ skya, 29–30; Henss, “The Changkya Huthugtu Rölpai Dorje, 261–265; Müller, Wege der Götter und Menschen, 140. For a more recent study of Max von Brandt’s collecting activities in Japan and China, see Butz, “Max von Brandt.” Butz, the former director of the East Asian Art Museum, Berlin, does not mention the albums or any other Sino-Tibetan materials that entered the ethnographic collection. The third album, depicting the incarnation lineage of the Qianlong emperor (see figs. 3.2, 3.3, 3.15, and 3.17), remains in the Forbidden Palace. This album is kept with the predominantly textual rare books collection in the Palace Museum Library in Beijing; three leaves (partial or complete) from it had been published without identification in the following catalogues: Zhu, Shengzhi wenzhi, 208; Zhu, Qinggong shengshi dianji, 266, 267; Gugong bowuyuan, Gugong cangpin daxi, shanben tecang bian, Manwen guji, 108–109; and idem, Gugong cangpin daxi, shanben tecang bian, Mengwen guji, 301. I am grateful to Lin Shih-Hsuan for bringing the Qianlong album to my attention. 6.  Many such prophecies about their future meeting are recorded in the biography of Rölpé Dorjé by Tuken. When the Sixth Panchen Lama presented ˙ Rölpé Dorjé with a matchlock and an Indian sword in 1781, Rölpé Dorjé understood that the presents were meant to be used for the final Shambhalan battle. On a separate occasion, the Sixth Panchen Lama ˙ prophesized Rölpé Dorjé and the Qianlong emperor’s participation in the Shambhalan war, and further gave the emperor two matchlocks and an Indian sword. The author Tuken puzzled over the combination of the gifts of weapons and the giving of the battle prophecy and asked Rölpé Dorjé for his take on the matter years later in 1785. Rölpé Dorjé responded by relating his own lengthy conversation with the Sixth Panchen about this, and how he expressed his ˙ desire to stay in meditation away from courtly battles. See Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 588–589; Chinese translation by Chen, Zhangjia, 281. 7.  Panchen Lama, Bla ma sna tshogs kyi brtan bzhugs, ˙ 56–59. 8.  The text is partially translated in Uspensky, “The Previous Incarnations of the Qianlong Emperor.” Uspensky cites eleven incarnations. If taken together with sections Uspensky omitted in his translation, the text in fact can be read as beginning with Mañjuśrī as the first incarnation (rather than with King Prasenajit as in Uspensky’s translation) and ending with Qianlong himself as the Mañjuśrīcakravartin (rather than with Trichen Jinpa Gyatso, as in Uspensky’s translation) as the last incarnation. I thank Nancy Lin for reading this text with me. 9.  Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 7–15; Chinese translation by Chen, Zhangjia, 5–12. In addition, the Sixth Panchen Lama’s Collected Works contains an extraor˙ dinary number of rebirth lineage prayers for major Tibetan Buddhist lamas in and around the Qing

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he opted for summer retreats at Mount Wutai as a substitute for his Amdo homeland. See Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 504–510. For a translation, see Illich, “Selections from the Life of a Tibetan Buddhist Polymath,” 510–511, 516. 36.  Gene Smith has indexed the chapters of this biography and provided a summary. See Smith, Among Tibetan Texts, 133–146. Marina Illich has provided partial translations of this chapter in her study of Rölpé Dorjé as a tantric yogi and visionary. See Illich, “Selections from the Life of a Tibetan Buddhist Polymath,” chapter 6. 37.  For studies on the three-tiered system, see Ruegg, The Life of Bu ston Rin po che, 44–45; Ferrari and Petech, Mk’yen Brtse’s Guide to the Holy Places of Central Tibet, xix; Tucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls, vol. 1, 150–151; and Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self, 6–8 and 102–106. 38.  Willis, Enlightened Beings, 5. 39.  For more on dream yoga in Buddhism, see Young, Dreaming in the Lotus. On dreams in Tibetan Buddhism, see Germano, “Food, Clothes, Dreams, and Karmic Propensities”; Sumegi, Dreamworlds of Shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism; and Wayman, “Significance of Dreams in India and Tibet.” Tokden Jampel Gyatso is said to have visited Mount Wutai in his dreams due to his correct meditation on Mañjuśrī from the instructions of Tsongkhapa. See Willis, Enlightened Beings, 34. Within the Nyingmapa tradition itself, the treasure-revealer Guru Chökyi Wangdruk (Chos kyi dbang phyug, 1212–1270) is said to have traveled to Mount Wutai to receive teachings from Mañjuśrī. See Dudjom Rinpoche, The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, 763. Aside from those who have journeyed there through dreams or on foot, there are many instances of those who, like Tangton Gyalpo, probably simply emanated there. See Stearns, King of the Empty Plain, 316–319. A recent guide to Mount Wutai includes a section on dream pilgrimages. See Bsod dar rgyas, Ri bo rtse lnga’i gnas bshad. 40.  Official Chinese sources indicate that the Sixth Dalai Lama was dethroned by Manchu imperial decree after Tibetan aristocrats declared him an illegitimate reincarnation, as a result of political struggles and his own unwillingness to adhere to monastic disciplines. Various versions of the legend of the Sixth Dalai Lama meditating at Mount Wutai were told to me many times during my visit to Mount Wutai. When the Thirteenth Dalai Lama visited Mount Wutai in 1908, he made a point of paying homage to the cave where the Sixth Dalai Lama had purportedly meditated. See Ya, Dalai lama zhuan, 41. Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian sources do not agree on the whereabouts of the Sixth Dalai Lama after he was dethroned; see Dharmatāla, The Secret Deliverance of the Sixth Dalai Lama. 41.  According to the same sources, Vimalamitra also promises to appear once every century as an emanation in Tibet, to help elucidate the teachings of innermost spirituality. See Thondup, Masters of Meditation and Miracles, 72; Dudjom Rinpoche, The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, 763; and Dodrup Chen, Biography of Vimalamitra, 26–27.

Biography,” posits a dialogical relationship between the shifting biography of the Tibetan yogi and saint Milarepa on the one hand, and the equally unstable places he traversed on the other. 17.  Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages, 17; cited in Quintman, The Yogin and the Madman, 23, who observes a similar trend in the study of Tibetan hagiography. 18.  For historical and philosophical study of the notion of personhood in one tradition of Buddhism, see Collins, Selfless Persons. 19.  The notion of the interrelated identities of the saints has also been noted in Christian hagiography. The title of Gregory of Tours (538–594)’s collection of hagiographies, Life of the Fathers, speaks to the idea that different saints all “manifest” a singular life. See Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 520. 20.  There is also a related genre of royal geneaology. See, for example, Sørensen, Tibetan Buddhist Historiography. 21.  Lopez, Buddhism and Science, 8–9. 22.  Ibid., 9. 23.  Even though the short list of the lineage of births, or trungrap, might not impart details about the life of each preincarnation, his or her more extensive life stories, or namtar, are often available elsewhere. 24.  Vostrikov, Tibetan Historical Literature, 97. 25.  Ibid., 100–101. 26.  For detailed studies of the formation of these lineages, see Everding, Die Präexistenzen der lCan˙ skya Qutuqtus; Cabezón, “On Tulku Lineages.” 27.  There is only one surviving pictorial namtar of Rölpé Dorjé. It was probably made in the twentieth century at his home monastery of Gonlung. See Liu, Tangka, 187–188. 28.  Cabezón, “The Life and Lives of ’Khon ston dpal ’byor lhun grub,” 228. 29.  Cabezón, “On Tulku Lineages,” 20. 30.  Dharmatāla, Rosary of White Lotuses, 220, explains the phenomenon of how deities and individuals can appear in the rebirth lineage of multiple people. 31.  I am indebted to Karl-Heinz Everding for sharing with me a previously unknown and unpublished handwritten manuscript of a supplication addressed to Rölpé Dorjé. The work, Hs. Or. 2039 in the collection of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, contains a list of preincarnations that includes the female figures of Yaśodharā (Siddhartha’s wife) and Ni gu rnal ’byor ma (Naropa’s wife). See Everding, Tibetische Handschriften und Blockdrucke, 34–35. 32.  The importance of memories of a master’s presence extends beyond the case of Rölpé Dorjé and the Tibetan tradition at large. Raoul Birnbaum has recently written about the significance of sacred traces left by the presence of “previous practice” in Chinese Buddhist traditions today. See Birnbaum, “Human Traces and the Experience of Powerful Places.” 33.  Kämpfe, Nyi ma’i ’od zer, 10. 34.  Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya. 35.  After Rölpé Dorjé failed to obtain permission from Qianlong to return to the Gonlung Monastery,

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53.  For more on Mādhyamika, see Arnold, “Mādhyamika Buddhism.” 54.  Jinpa, Self, Reality, and Reason in Tibetan Philosophy. 55.  The song is cited in full in Rölpé Dorjé’s biography. See Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 548. 56.  Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 516; Chinese translation by Chen, Zhangjia, 246. 57.  “ ’Dir bzhugs nges pa cher ma mchis kyang da lta ching lang cho’u zer ba’i hva shang gi dgon der bzhugs pa yin ’dra zhes gsungs /.” Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 517; Chinese translation by Chen, Zhangjia, 247. Chen translates it as Qingning Si 慶寧寺. Qingliang Qiao is where the Nenghai Lama, an influential early twentieth-century Chinese monk trained in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, established his monastery after returning from Tibet. For more on Nenghai’s activities at Mount Wutai, see Tuttle, “Tibetan Buddhism at Ri bo rtse lnga/Wutai Shan in Modern Times.” 58.  QLSZ (1933), juan 7, 284. 59.  Available at www.china.com.cn/aboutchina /zhuanti/lddw/2007-12/06/content_9351212.htm (accessed June 13, 2017). 60.  “Dngos su yang mjal yod par the mi tshom mo.” Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 517. 61.  In these accounts, during the time of Tsongkhapa’s conception, his father dreamed of a monk from Mount Wutai who came to seek shelter at their house, entered their shrine room, and disappeared. A devoted practitioner of the Reciting the Names of Mañjuśrī (’Jam dpal mtshan brjod), Tsongkhapa’s father sensed that the monk must have been an emanation of Mañjuśrī. See Rtog ldan ’Jam dpal rgya mtsho, Rje btsun tsong kha pa’i rnam thar, 1 verso–2 recto; for discussion of this text, see Ary, Authorized Lives, 29–34. The story is almost always reiterated in later biographies. See Rgyal dbang Chos rje (Zhou), Zhizun Zongkeba dashi zhuan, 86. 62.  Chos kyi rgyal mtshan, Mkhas grub thams cad mkhyen pa’i gsang ba’i rnam thar, 69, line 4: “da lta rgya nag ri bo rtse lngar / dge slong rdo rje ’dzin pa stong brgyad brgya re tsam la / snga dro dbu ma dang lam rim / phyi dro gsang bde ’jigs gsum gyi bskyed rdzogs ’chad kyi yod /.” Translated in Ary, Authorized Lives, 147. 63.  Ary, Authorized Lives, 57. 64.  Lin, “Recounting the Fifth Dalai Lama’s Rebirth Lineage.” 65.  According to accounts of his life, Tsongkhapa continued to receive teachings from different manifestations of Mañjuśrī and other deities in his meditation. See Thurman, Life and Teachings of, 33–35; and Cabezón, A Dose of Emptiness, 18. 66.  Ary, Authorized Lives, 43, points out that the earliest biography of Khedrup, written by Choden Rabjor, is primarily concerned with Tsongkhapa rather than with Khedrup. 67.  The Sudhana Cave is a small meditation cave with a modest structure built over its entrance, nestled midway up the steep hill of the Dailuo Ding, a temple located close to the Taihaui village that became an imperial pilgrimage station during the

For more on the attainment of the rainbow body, see Kapstein, “The Strange Death of Pema and the Demon Tamer.” More recently, Khenpo Jikmé Püntsok was said to have toured Mount Wutai three times through before he physically arrived there in 1987. For more discussion, see the coda of this book. 42.  See Gimello, “Chang Shang-ying on Wu-t’ai Shan,” 103. 43.  Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 510–511. 44.  Here Yamāntaka is the protector of death, rather than the lord of death. The most popular temple among Han Chinese visitors to Mount Wutai today is none other than Wuye Shrine 五爺廟, a shrine of the Naga or Dragon King (Chinese: Longwang 龍王), which exists as part of a Buddhist monastery. The Dragon King himself is considered to be an emanation of Mañjuśrī. The theme of poisonous dragons subjugated by Mañjuśrī is frequently seen in Dunhuang manuscripts and wall paintings, such as that in Mogao Cave 61. For early legends of the nagas at Mount Wutai, see Cartelli, The FiveColored Clouds, 60–62. 45.  Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 511; Chinese translation by Chen, Zhangjia, 244. 46.  “The ‘Lord of Death,’ master of powers, together with his wives Remati and Camunda and eight fearsome groups of terrifying retinues, reside there as protectors, practicing their yogas.” Translation modified from Illich, “Selections from the Life of a Tibetan Buddhist Polymath,” 527. See Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 508. 47.  For this reason, Yamāntaka was seen as a protector of the Qing imperial court of Beijing. See Bianchi, “Protecting Beijing.” 48.  Lcang skya, Ri bo rtse lnga’i gzhi bdag. 49.  Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 511–512. 50.  Recounting the Qing national preceptor Rölpé Dorjé’s description of Tsongkhapa, the nineteenthcentury Inner Mongolian historian Dharmatāla wrote, “The great and holy Lama Tsongkhapa, using the special methods received from Mañjuśrī, cleared the doubts in Tibet, as well as all misunderstandings and polluting hesitations.” Dharmatāla, Rosary of White Lotuses, 199. 51.  Elijah Ary traces various biographical works on Tsongkhapa, showing that Tsongkhapa’s unmediated interactions with Mañjuśrī are recounted only in the later biographies of him and that his subsequent elevation to the status of a Mañjuśrī incarnate (sprul pa) appears not in accounts of his life but in those of his student Khedrup. See Ary, Authorized Lives, 15–24. In discussing the seeming contradiction of Tsongkhapa both as a disciple/worshipper and as an emanation of Mañjuśrī, Ary notes that although this has been uniformly reconciled by later scholars through the doctrine of the two truths, the dual identity of Tsongkhapa in fact results from the later biographers’ elevation of Tsongkhapa to the divine status of an emanation of Mañjuśrī, and thus exemplifies the writing of biography “as both a historical tool and a doctrinal support through which new ideas can be transformed into a tradition.” See Ary, Authorized Lives, 22. 52.  Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 511.

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and influenced by each other’s work, such that the shifts from one version to another can be seen as part of the mutual exchange itself, which was never unidirectional. See Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 177. 86.  See van Alphen, The All-Knowing Buddha. 87.  For the creation of albums in another Qing courtly context, see Whiteman, “Translating the Landscape.” 88.  See, for example, the second row from the bottom, second figure from the right, in fig. 3.21. 89.  Schmid, Saviors of Mankind II, 12. 90.  Ibid., 16. 91.  Qianlong is not the only Manchu emperor whose biography was told in terms of his preincarnations. A Mongolian chronicle (written in Tibetan) from 1889 includes a list of eight precinarnations of Qianlong’s predecessor, the Yongzheng emperor. See Dharmatāla, Rosary of White Lotuses, 99–100. 92.  For more on Qianlong’s refashioning of the dynastic lineage, see Lai, “Heritage Remaking.” 93.  Leaf 8 of the Qianlong album depicts Sakya Pandita as the teacher of Drubchen Darcharwa. ˙˙ Sakya Pandita is depicted on leaf 6 of the Panchen ˙˙ ˙ album. Gendun Drub (the First Dalai Lama) appears on leaf 11 of the Qianlong album. 94.  Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 181. 95.  On the use of blue-and-green landscape in Tibetan paintings of arhats, see Linrothe, Paradise and Plumage, 36–40. 96.  Lcang lung, Khyab bdag. For discussion, see Everding, Die Präexistenzen der lCan˙ skya, 24–25. 97.  Lcang lung, Khyab bdag, 323. 98.  They were destroyed to create a vacation lodge for the Communist military leader Lin Biao 林彪 (1907–1971). The sites are still part of closed off military compound. Even so, its ruins are venerated by Tibetan and Mongol pilgrims today. For a recollection of the destruction, see Wang, “Lin Biao ‘xinggong’ xiujian shimo,” and idem, “Lin Biao zai Wutai shan”; the occasion of the detonation of the temple was marked by strange manifestations of clouds and mists in the sky. 99.  See Kyoto University Humanities Institute, Collection of Rubbings. I am grateful to Lin ShihHsuan for bringing this to my attention. 100.  The biography by Rölpé Dorjé’s brother Chu­ zang, however, records 1769 as the year when construction at Pule Grove was finished. See Kämpfe, Nyi ma’i ’od zer, 43. 101.  See Boerschmann and Walravens, Lagepläne des Wutai shan, 33. 102.  This list includes (1) one thangka in the Palace Museum, Beijing; (2, 3, 4) three thangkas at Yonghe Gong, Beijing; (5, 6) two thangkas in the Museum of Natural History, New York City; (7) one thangka in the Oriental Museum, Moscow; (8) one thangka in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; (9) one thangka in Musée Guimet, Paris; (10) one photograph of a thangka from the Huizong Monastery (Mongolian: Koke Süme), Rölpé Dorjé’s official monastery in Dolonnuur; (11) one thangka in Phillipps University in Marburg; (12) one thangka in an auction at Christie’s; (13) one thangka in an auction at Sotheby’s; (14) one thangka in the Field Museum of

Qing dynasty when Qianlong established it as a surrogate for all of the five terraces. 68.  Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 633–648. 69.  See Kapstein, Reason’s Traces, 16–19. Kapstein includes a partial translation of the main text by Rölpé Dorjé. 70.  “Da ni rje btsun bla ma dam pa nyid nges pa’i don du rje btsun ’jam pa’i dbyangs dang dbyer ma mchis na’ng drang don gdul bya’i snang ngor mnal lam ’od gsal gyi dang nas rgyal ba’i yab gcig rje btsun mkhyen pa’i gter gyi sprul pa’i rang gzugs dang mjal te /.” Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 634. 71.  Chen, Zhangjia, 322–323. 72.  Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 634. 73.  Mauss, The Gift, 11. 74.  See detailed descriptions of gift exchange in ’Jam dbyangs bzhad pa, Pan chen Dpal ldan ye shes kyi ˙ rnam thar, and Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan and Zhongguo Zangxue yanjiu zhongxin, Liushi Banchan chaojin dang’an xuan bian. On Qianlong’s gifting practice, see Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 40–50; 182–187. 75.  For wall paintings of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s preincarnation lineage in the Potala Palace, see Lin, “Recounting the Fifth Dalai Lama’s Lineage.” For images of the wall paintings, see Jiang, Xizang Budala gong, 354–358; Phun tshogs tshe brtan, A Mirror of the Murals, 84–86. 76.  For a discussion about the relationship between the individual and the group in Tibetan paintings, see Linrothe, “Group Portrait.” 77.  Jackson, “Lineages and Structure in Tibetan Buddhist Painting,” 1. The thangkas’ striking appearance in the staging of the enthronement of Gyaltsen Norbu, the Eleventh Panchen Lama chosen by the ˙ Chinese Communist Party, attests to their rhetorical power in asserting the legitimacy of current events. See Zhu, Fomen shengshi, 103; reproduced in in Berger, “Reincarnation in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 729. 78.  Chöying Gyatso’s patrons included the Fourth Panchen Lama and the Great Fifth Dalai Lama. ˙ 79.  Jackson, History of Tibetan Painting, 233. 80.  The Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama sets still ˙ housed at the Palace Museum in Beijing today were sent to the Qing Court in 1761 and 1770, respectively. Reproduced in Wang, Gugong tangka tudian, 26–53. 81.  The replicas examined in chapter 1 are a classic example of Qianlong’s interest in material translation from one medium to another, and so is Qianlong’s copying of the Seven Past Buddhas sent by the Panchen Lama onto a variety of two-dimensional ˙ and three-dimensional surfaces. See Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 186–187. 82.  Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan and Zhongguo Zangxue yanjiu zhongxin, Liushi Banchan chaojin dang’an xuan bian, 24, 47, 95–97, 292–293. 83.  Berger, “Reincarnation in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 732. 84.  Poole, Vision, Race, and Modernity, 11. 85.  Elsewhere, Berger has also shown that the eighteenth-century Central Tibetan painters of the Panchen Lama’s preincarnation lineage and the Qing ˙ court painters of Zhongzheng Dian were aware of

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Zangxue yanjiu zhongxin, Liushi Banchan chaojin dang’an xuan bian, 238–240, 279. 113.  Sagaster, Subud erike, 121, 264–265. According to the second Changkya Ngawang Chöden, Kangxi sketched the blueprint himself. See the colophon of the consecration text written by Ngawang Chöden for this occasion, titled Rab gnas dge legs rgya mtsho’i char ’bebs kyi zur ’debs. The collection of treasure dhāranīs ˙ used for consecration can be found in the preceding consecration text in Ngawang Chöden’s collected writings. An abbreviated account of this is also given in Dharmatāla, Rosary of White Lotuses, 283. 114.  Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 189. 115.  Ibid., 189. 116.  For published records, see Gugong bowuyuan, Gugong bowuyuan cang Qinggong chenshe dang’an. 117.  Wang, “Liushi Banchan yu Sanshi Zhangjia,” cites from chenshe dang a “hanging panel with a sandalwood frame and glass cover, flanked by the emperor’s calligraphic couplet on yellow imperial paper.” (北墙挂紫檀边影翠花玻璃挂屏一件, 左右挂御 笔黄笺纸字对一副). 118.  Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 48, notes that the number nine (and multiples thereof ) is an essential organizing principle for the Qing. The central figure is likely Qianlong, judging from the wheel of law that he holds in his left hand and the inscription below that appears from available photograph to be identical to other similar thangkas and shrines. However, the prominence of his root lama Rölpé Dorjé that occupies the pride of place above him in all other similarly composed thangkas and shrines appears to be reduced here. 119.  Luo Wenhua notes more than seven such shrines in the Buddhist halls of the Qing palace. See Hong Kong Museum of Art, A Lofty Retreat from the Red Dust, 252. 120.  Berger, Empire of Emptiness, 60. 121.  See www.himalayanart.org/search/set.cfm?setID =157 (accessed December 1, 2015). For more on tshogs zhing, see Jackson, “The Tibetan Tshogs Zhing; Lunardo, “The dGe lugs pa tshogs zhing”; and idem, “Tshogs zhing.” 122.  Because refuge-field paintings played an important role in ritual, liturgy, and meditative visualization  —  aiding the practitioner in his or her visualization of the lineages of gurus and teachings  —  Ishihama Yumiko has argued that Qianlong was indeed venerated as the central deity of guru practices. See Ishihama, “Study on Qianlong as Cakravartin.” I believe the potency of this vision  —  of Qianlong as Mañjuśrī at the center of a lineage map  —  prevails regardless of whether it is ritually or meditatively enacted, and also regardless of how many people actually saw the thangkas. The nature of a lineage map, and the cosmological structure that lies behind it, would have made any viewer who was familiar with this visual tradition understand Qianlong to embody the center of this universe. 123.  The two exceptions out of the seven extant Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī thangkas are (1) the thangka formerly in the Pule Monastery in Chengde, which does not include historical teachers (HAR item

Natural History; (15) one thangka in the Ashmoleam Museum of Art and Archaeology; (16) one thangka from what was originally a series of thangkas featuring the Changkya preincarnation in the Philadelphia Museum of Art; (17) one thangka formerly sold by the Asian Art Gallery, London; (18) one thangka in the Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde, Munich; (19) one thangka in the Galerie Koller, Zürich; and (20) one thangka and (21) another album of Rölpé Dorjé in the Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin. See Luo, Longpao yu jiasha, 537–538; Niu, Yonghe gong tangka, vol. 1, 10–11; Gyamyang Tubtan, The Treasured Thangkas in Yonghe Gong Palace, 13 and 17; American Museum of Natural History no. 70.2/868, available at https://anthro.amnh.org/ collections (accessed January 10, 2016); Sergeeva, Sacred Images of Tibet, illustration no. 50; Elikhina, Tibetan Paintings (Tangka) from the Collection of Yu. N. Roerich, 36–39; Everding, Die Präexistenzen der lCan˙ skya, 28–29; Béguin, Musée national des arts asiatiques-Guimet: Les peintures du bouddhisme tibétain, 443–444; and Henmi, Manmō hokushi no shūkyō bijutsu, vol. 6, 78. Many from this list are discussed in Henss, “The Changkya Huthugtu Rölpai Dorje.” 103.  A third type of depiction is Rölpé Dorjé’s namtar, of which only one example is known. See note 27, earlier. 104.  Helman-Waz˙ny, The Archaeology of Tibetan Books, 79–81; Pakhoutova and Helman-Ważny, “Tools of Persuasion”; Pal, Buddhist Book Illuminations. 105.  Elverskog, Our Great Qing, 4. 106.  See chapter 2. 107.  “蓋梵經一譯而為番, 再譯而為漢, 三譯而 為蒙古.” Transcribed and translated into German in Fuchs, “Zum mandjurischen Kandjur,” 398–399. 108.  Similar to Elverskog’s observation of an architectonic narrative, Lin, “Siyi erwei Manzhou,” 180, speculates that Qianlong’s progression here refers to a sequence of relative geographic proximity to India. 109.  妙法単持智慧通, 俱足清涼靜界中, 宣揚佛 語周無量, 二舌噶瓦巴(拉子)(噶僧). 110.  Kawa Peltsek was a disciple of Śāntaraksita and ˙ Padmasambhava who was active in the courts of the Tibetan emperors Trisong Détsen (754–797) and Muni Tsenpo (r. ca. 797–799?), the latter of whom is a preincarnation of Qianlong. Here, the Tibetan and Manchu verses refer instead to the Land of Snow and the Cool Country, respectively. Since these terms also match early scriptural description of Mañjuśrī’s earthly abode (of the snowy mountains) at the same time as they reference Tibet and the Himalayas, they appear particularly apt ways to describing these compounded identities. I thank Nancy Lin and Lin Shih-Hsuan for translating and discussing this passage with me. 111.  See Kämpfe, Nyi ma’i ’od zer, 83 verso–85 recto; Thu’u bkwan, Lcang skya, 302. Both accounts detail all the images and the consecration rituals. The images included five statues of Cakrasamvara (made ˙ of silver inside a shrine); a triad of Tsongkhapa and his two disciples; a statue of Trichen Dorjé chang; and statues of Vajrapāni, Acala, and Hayagrīva (made ˙ of unfired clay). 112.  Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan and Zhongguo

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examining the Mount Wutai mural, in which the individual monasteries depicted, their style of representation, and their specific architectural properties all closely resemble illustrations from imperial productions such as the ones in the Magnificent Record of the Western Inspection Tour. Assuming that the Mount Wutai mural is based on circulated images of imperial productions from 1812 or later, it would be unlikely that it could have been composed earlier than 1812. Moreover, the fact that the Cifu Temple, a major Mongolian temple at Mount Wutai, is absent in the Badgar depiction of Mount Wutai also suggests that the painting was completed before the temple was founded in the 1820s. 9.  During the Jiaqing reign, there were 1,200 monks by one reckoning, and 1,700 by another; see Wang, Zangchuan fojiao, 113. 10.  There are still disputes as to which sites were depicted in this series of images at Badgar. According to Isabelle Charleux, who conducted fieldwork at Badgar throughout the 1990s, they represent (1) Ganden, (2) Sera, (3) Jokhang, (4) Potala, (5) Mount Wutai, (6) Kumbum, (7) a nunnery, and (8) Badgar. See Charleux, Temples et monastères de Mongolieintérieure, CD-ROM, 5. Wang Leiyi describes nine places in his article on this set of murals, which include, using his numbering, (1) Potala, (2) Drepung, (3) Sera, (4) Ganden, (5) Jokhang, (6) Sangphu Neuthok (Gsang phu ne’u thog), (7) a nunnery, (8) Mount Wutai, and (9) Badgar. See Wang, “Wudangzhao de jiuda fosi bihua,” 146. The Japanese scholar Nagao Gajin 長尾雅人 (1907–2005), who visited Badgar in the summers of 1939 and 1943, commented on there being seven or eight paintings of sites including (1) Potala, (2) Trashi Lhünpo, (3) Drepung, (4) the Temple of Kokonor, (5) Mount Wutai, and (6) Badgar; see Nagao, Mōko ramabyō ki, 151. Jin Sheng includes in his list (1) the Potala, (2) Drepung, (3) Sera, (4) Ganden, (5) Mount Wutai, and (6) Badgar; see Jin, Wudang zhao, 9. 11.  See the “Badgar” entry in the CD-ROM appendix of Charleux, Temples et monastères de Mongolieintérieure; Delege, Nei Mengu lama jiao shi, 608–619. Lubsang Danbi Jialsan was the disciple of the learned second Kanjurwa Mergen nomun khan (d. ca. 1735). For a discussion of the Kangjurwa incarnation lineage by the 17th Kanjurwa Lama, see Hyer, A Mongolian Living Buddha, 19–36. 12.  In 1799, there were 1,268 monks at Badgar who came from forty-five Banners and other administrative units across Inner and Outer Mongolia, as well as one Tibetan lama. See Humphrey, A Monastery in Time, 174, quoting Altanorgil, Kökekhota-yin Teüken Monggul Surbulji, vol. 1, 221. 13.  Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 48. 14.  Nagao documented life at Badgar as a leading example of a Mongolian Buddhist monastic university. See Nagao, Mōko ramabyō ki, 151. His principal work on Badgar is Mōko gakumonji. 15.  They could have been brought back by any one of the reincarnate lamas and learned monks at Badgar, who usually traveled to Lhasa for their education. The second Duingkhor Khutugtu, who presided

no. 99433); and (2) one from Yonghe Gong that arranges them more loosely, inside a bend of rainbow (HAR item no. 83010). See www.himalayanart .org/items/99433 and www.himalayanart.org/items /83010 (accessed July 6, 2016). 124.  The root teachers at the top of leaves in the Qianlong album include Atiśa on leaf 7, Sakya Pandita on leaf 8, and Tsongkhapa on leaf 10, and the ˙˙ First Dalai Lama, Gendun grub, who appears only in HAR item no. 83010. 125.  Lai, “Heritage Remaking,” 37. 126.  Ibid. 127.  See, for example, Wu, “Emperor’s Masquerade.” 128.  See Gung thang, Thu’u bkwan chos kyi nyi ma’i rtogs brjod, vol. 1, 410.19–413.5. 129.  Kurtis Schaeffer reconstructs, through a study of Tibetan poetry on Mount Wutai, a close-knit intellectual community during the eighteenth century to which both Tuken and Rölpé Dorjé belonged. See Schaeffer, “Tibetan Poetry at Wutai Shan.”

Chapter 4. Panoramic Maps 1.  Chou, “Ineffable Paths.” 2.  On technology and cultural transformation, see, for example, Johns, “The Coming of Print to Europe.” 3.  Harley, The New Nature of Maps, 146; Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 226; Turnball, Maps Are Territories. 4.  For the Qing imperial mapping project of the western frontiers, see Millward, “Coming onto the Map.” For the creation of a national identity through cartography in modern Thailand, see Winichakul, Siam Mapped. For imperial cartography of British India and elsewhere, see Edney, Mapping an Empire, and Ackerman, The Imperial Map. 5.  A monumental six-volume work, The History of Cartography, typifies this approach. Its sheer scope does not allow the authors to take into account the continual pictorial exchange among the various mapping traditions in the early modern and modern periods beyond the more frequently acknowledged paradigm of Westernization. See Harley, The History of Cartography. 6.  For an illuminating study of maps as objects of translation or exchange, see Mundy, The Mapping of New Spain. 7.  The Mongolian leagues under the Qing dynasty were a midlevel administrative organ that transmitted appeals and orders between the banners and the central government. See Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire, 329. 8.  I date the original set of paintings to sometime between 1812 and the 1820s based on the following observations: the mural that depicts Badgar in this series does not include the assembly hall of Coira dugang (Chinese: 卻伊拉獨宫) built in 1835, nor the hall of Lamrim dugang (Chinese: 日木倫獨 宮) built in 1892, indicating that the painting dates to sometime between 1757, when the building was erected, and 1835. See Charleux, Temples et monastères de Mongolie-intérieure, CD-ROM, 6; and Jin, Wudang zhao, 9. This range is further shortened by

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Cloud Temple). The set of twenty-one sites includes the previously mentioned eight; Yongquan Si 湧泉 寺 (Yongquan Si); Hanhe Cun 漢河村 [written as Ganhe Cun 甘和村] (Ganhe Village); Taihuai Zhen 臺懷鎮 (Taihuai Town); Zhenhai Si 鎮海 寺 (Ocean-Taming Temple); Shuxiang Si 殊像寺 (Temple of Mañjuśrī’s Image); Dailuo Ding 黛螺頂 (Conch Shell Peak); Jingang Ku 金剛窟 (Diamond Grotto); Pule Yuan 普樂院 (Universal Happiness Grove); Luohou Si 羅睺寺 (Rāhula Temple); Xiantong Si 顯通寺 (Clairvoyant Power Temple); Tayuan Si 塔院寺 (Stupa Courtyard Temple); Yuhua Chi 玉花池 ( Jade Flower Pond); and Shouning Si 壽寧寺 (Longevity and Peace Monastery). 26.  Only six other sites, all of which were smaller in scale, were depicted as compounds with borders on the mural. 27.  Berger, “The Jiaqing Emperor’s Magnificent Record of the Western Tour,” argues that the twenty-four-volume work aimed to demonstrate both the Jiaqing emperor’s benevolence toward the local population and a filial gesture toward his forebears. 28.  According to Isabelle Charleux, Mongols were forbidden to learn Chinese at the time; Charleux, e-mail to the author, March 11, 2010. 29.  Ibid. 30.  Wang, Qingliang shan zhi jiyao. 31.  The preface states that “the older editions of Gazetteers possess improper formatting, and for that reason the Qianlong emperor had the Grand Council order a recompilation” (清凉山志舊本原纂體例俱 有未當, 著軍機大臣派員重行纂輯欽此). 32.  All three titles can be found in the Beijing National Library. Even though the editions held there do not indicate specific dates, the library dates the books to the years from 1900 to 1905. 33.  For transcription of the trilingual inscriptions, see Chou, “Visionary Landscape of Wutai Shan,” appendix 1, 143–146. 34.  See chapter 1. 35.  Almost six hundred survey maps from the eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries still remain in four collections today. Their centralized location reflects the centralized patronage and collection by the government agency Lifan Yuan. Walther Heissig and Klaus Sagaster studied and published the Mongolian and German collections in several batches. See Heissig, Mongolische Handschriften and Mongolische Ortsnamen. Currently, the maps are distributed in three major collections, with 335 maps in the State Central Library of Mongolia, 182 maps in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (the former Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz), 44 maps in Tenri Central Library of Japan, and 16 maps in the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. See Bawden, “Review of Walther Heissig’s Mongolische Ortsnamen”; Futaki, Landscapes Reflected in Old Mongolian Maps; Oyunbilig, Studies in Mongolian Maps Preserved in the Tenri Central Library. The maps in Tokyo are available at http://mongol. tufs.ac.jp/landmaps/ (accessed June 13, 2017); all 182 maps from Berlin are available at Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, “Mongolische Landkarten.” 36.  For a translation of the Tibetan and Mongolian

over Badgar during the time period when the paintings were created, studied in Lhasa between 1782 and 1792. After his return from Lhasa, he visited the two successive Qing emperors ( Jiaqing and Daoguang) seven times in Beijing between 1801 and 1825. He most likely traveled to Mount Wutai on his way to or from the capital, and could have brought back portable paintings from both Tibet and Mount Wutai. See Wang, Zangchuan fojiao, 122. 16.  Henmi Baiei 逸見梅栄 (1891–1977) in the early 1940s photographed many portable paintings of famous Tibetan monasteries in the storage of the Qing summer palace of Chengde. See Henmi, Manmō hokushi no shūkyō: vol. 6, 140–147. For other maps, see Beguin, “The Great Monument of Lhasa as Presented in the Architectural Paintings of the Musée Guimet.” For examples of similar paintings, see HAR item no. 77600 (Royal Ontario Museum); HAR item no. 65625 and HAR item no. 65848 (Rubin Museum of Art); HAR item no. 74280 (painting of Labrang Monastery in a private collection); HAR item no. 90408 (Lost-and-Foundation); HAR item no. 99023 and HAR item no. 81872 (private collection); and HAR item no. 50151 (collection of Zanabazar Museum of Fine Arts, Mongolia). See also a large-scale painting of Lhasa and environs in the Sven Hedin Collection in the Etnografiska Museet, Stockholm, available at http://collections.smvk .se/carlotta-em/web/object/1356299/REFER ENCES/653 (accessed June 13, 2017), and depictions of the Potala at Musée Guimet and Antwerp and of the Samye Monastery in the Newark Museum, available at http://pilgrimage.asiasociety.org/artifacts /samye-monastery (accessed November 30, 2015). For similar thangkas and wall paintings in the Potala Palace, see Zla ba tshe ring, Precious Deposits, vol. 3, 188–189; vol. 4, 22–23, 86–93. The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, holds a set of Lhasa cityscapes given to Queen Victoria of Great Britain in the nineteenth century. 17.  Chayet, Les temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, 86–90. 18.  For more on this genealogy, see chapter 3. 19.  Missionaries were the first Westerners to have reached Lhasa in the seventeenth century. For the various influxes of foreigners in Lhasa, see the essays in Pommaret, Lhasa in the Seventeenth Century. 20.  For complete transcriptions of all legible inscriptions in the three languages, see Chou, “The Visionary Landscape of Wutai,” appendix 1. 21.  The latter is apparent from the severe peeling of the paint on the surface of the painting. All other paintings are intact; only their colors have faded slowly over the years. 22.  Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 205–275. 23.  See chapter 1. 24.  Both gazetteers also contain route maps and illustrations of sites en route to and from Mount Wutai. 25.  The set of eight illustrations in the Imperial Gazetteer consists of depictions of each of the five directional terraces plus Pusa Ding 菩薩頂 (Bodhisattva’s Peak); Tailu Si 臺麓寺 (Terrace Foothill Temple); and Baiyun Si 白雲寺 (White

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donated by William Rockhill, who visited Mount Wutai several times. We can assume that Rockhill was the donor of that copy because the Library of Congress did not receive many donations at that time, and Rockhill was one of its earliest contributors. One section of the map is published in Yee, The History of Cartography, pl. 14. Another unpainted print came from the map collection of Arthur Hummel; only the central portion of the image is still visible. 41.  All earlier editions I have examined were printed on linen, possibly around the time they were purchased during the first decade of the twentieth century, when paper was not widely available in northern China. The later prints were often made on pieces of paper glued together, and many were left uncolored, as the skill and practice of coloring woodblock prints from this map seem to have become obsolete in the twentieth century. 42.  Prints of this woodblock copy can be found in the Beijing National Library, the collection of Kawaguchi Ekai in Tohoku University, and in the Astamangala Gallery in Amsterdam. They are based on the Cifu print(s), with much coarser quality of the carving and the omission of many Tibetan inscriptions. 43.  The painting at the National Library, Beijing, dated to 1908, retains only the Chinese names. A painting now in the Museum für Völkerkunde, Hamburg, includes both Chinese and Tibetan inscriptions, as well as a large procession of lamas and Cham dancers. I am grateful to Hans Roth for bringing this painting to my attention. For more on the painting of Mount Wutai in Lhasa, see Chou, “Reimagining the Buddhist Universe.” 44.  In a similar vein, Areford, The Viewer and the Printed Image, demonstrates how viewers of late medieval European prints actively shaped the images through use and manipulation of the prints by color. 45.  On this debate within the Chan context, see chapter 2. 46.  Through a comparison of this map to the tenth-century panoramic mural of Mogao Cave 61 in Dunhuang, I demonstrated its adherence to this millennium-old pictorial lineage in function, structure, and iconography. See Chou, “Ineffable Paths,” 116–117. 47.  Su, “Dunhuang Mogao ku zhong de ‘Wutai shan tu’ ”; Zhang, “Dunhuang ‘Wutai shan huaxian tu,’ ” 1; Cartelli, The Five-Colored Clouds, 180–191, provides a comparison to eulogies of Mount Wutai from Dunhuang. 48.  On the favorite place of Mongol pilgrimage at Mount Wutai, the Mother’s Womb Cave, see Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 350–359. 49.  There are around 150 inscriptions, 138 of which are completely decipherable. They include most of the names mentioned in the gazetteers and an additional list of names of villages, hills, passes, and grottoes. Among the seventy-odd Buddhist temples with inscriptions found on the Cifu map, only a handful are not found in earlier gazetteers. These temples may have been built around the time the map was carved, as the Cifu Temple was. Other sites, such as the Sudhana Cave, can be found in the Tibetan sources but are not listed in Chinese gazetteers until

inscriptions, see Debreczeny, “Wutai shan,” catalogue no. 1 (Mongolian translation by Brian Baumann). For a translation of the Mongolian inscription, see Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, online appendix G, 154. Baumann and Charleux do not agree on how to render the location of Lhundrub’s original monastery as stated in the inscription. 37.  The original woodblock-panel had been kept on site, and was removed from the temple during the Cultural Revolution, when monasteries at Mount Wutai suffered near total destruction. See the coda for more on the Cultural Revolution. 38.  That the prints can be found in many European and Japanese collections reminds us of the fact that as maps, they were of inherent interest to colonial explorers and surveyors of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. 39.  While Mount Wutai’s other temples were known to offer other locally produced items (such as rosaries, wooden bowls, mushrooms, and medicinal pasta), the Cifu Temple became famous for distributing its map. When Qing official and traveler Wang Jieting visited Mount Wutai in 1896, he recorded a list of items that he received from various monasteries in return for his donation, including “a panoramic map of Mount Wutai from the Cifu Temple.” See Cui, Wutai shan youji xuanzhu, 69. 40.  I am aware of at least eighteen prints: one colored print in the Museum of Cultures in Helsinki; one colored print in the Confucian Temple at Ochanomizu in Tokyo; one colored print in the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City; one print (probably colored) in the Etnografiska Museet in Stockholm, from the collection of explorer Sven A. Hedin; one black-and-white print in the Museum of the Missionary Fathers of Scheut (C.I.C.M.) in Belgium; one black-and-white print in the Beijing National Library; one black-and-white print in the Minorities Cultural Palace, Beijing; two prints in the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, one of which is colored; two copies of the black-and-white print shown in an online catalogue from an auction house in Beijing; one black-and-white print in the Honolulu Academy of Art; one colored print in the National Palace Museum, Taipei; one colored print in the Toyo Bunko library in Tokyo; one colored print at Jaya-yin Khüriye, Tsetserleg, Republic of Mongolia; and one colored print in a private collection (HAR item no. 30877). I also acquired a copy from a villager, whose father was given two copies of the map in the 1930s in return for donation to the temple. The Helsinki print is published in Halen, Mirrors of the Void; the Tokyo print is reproduced in F. A. Bischoff, “Die Wu T’ai Shan Darstellung von 1846,” 17–18; the Stockholm print is cited in Li, A Descriptive Catalogue of Pre-1900 Chinese Maps, 31; the Scheut print is cited in Charleux, “Mongol Pilgrimages to Wutaishan in the Late Qing Dynasty,” note 30. The two copies in the Library of Congress came into the collection separately; one hand-colored copy acquired in 1905 (though not recorded in any of the Library of Congress’s annual reports) came into the collection along with other maps and rare books

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such as Tsongkhapa’s apparition to Khedrup as the Mahāsiddha Dombi-Heruka surrounded by eightyfour Mahāsiddhas, in the collection of Tibet House (HAR item no. 90748), were depicted independently, doubling as an image of the Mahāsiddhas. 57.  The same account appeared in Chöden Rapjor and Jétsün’s biographies of Khedrup, both of which have been translated in Ary, Authorized Lives, 118 and 147. 58.  See chapter 3. 59.  This story exists with many slight variations in local compilations of Mount Wutai’s legends and on the Internet. See, for example, Fang, Wutai shan fengwu chuanshuo, or Wei, Wutai shan chuanshuo gushi, 134. 60.  According to another version told to me by a Mongol lama at Mount Wutai in 2005, the brother lama manifested in the form of the protector deity Yamāntaka. The Mongol lama recalled this from a story he had read in a Mongolian text when he was a resident lama in the 1950s at Zhenhai Si, Rölpé Dorjé’s meditation retreat and temple. 61.  I have not been able to locate any premodern iteration of this story. Although the story’s historicity remains unattested, it is likely that there was competition for imperial support and bureaucratic posts in the community of Tibetan Buddhist monks at Mount Wutai, since the court-appointed officials of the mountain were mostly Tibetan and Mongol lamas. Reference to specific lama officials in the nineteenth century are scant because, as Gray Tuttle suggests, they did not play important roles in facilitating communication between China and Tibet. See Tuttle, Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China, 23. 62.  See Cabezón, Tibetan Literature, 338, and Bentor, Consecration of Images and Stupas in Indo-Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, 3–4. 63.  Cabezón, Tibetan Literature, 333. 64.  One of the shrines, Nainai Miao, was until the early twentieth century a popular theater stage for local performances in the center of the town of Taihuai. Theater stages are frequently located in local shrines and temples. In Nainai Miao, two opposing stages are set up, to create the so-called duitaixi, or “oppositional stages” providing rival performances for the audience. 65.  In Mount Wutai today, the terms miao and si are used interchangeably to mean temples (of either Buddhist or Daoist affiliation). Still, it is important to note that none of the miao or natural grottoes depicted in the Cifu map, which presumably played important roles in the local life and tourism of Wutai, are recorded in any of the gazetteers written or prefaced by monks or commissioned by the Qing emperors. 66.  It is also likely that the temples had been resurrected by the Daoguang era, although Wutai’s most prosperous era was during the Qianlong reign. 67.  The only exceptions are well-established Tibetan Buddhist monasteries that already had different names in Chinese and Tibetan at the time the woodblock-panel was carved. 68.  In one instance, the transliteration of  “Ling­gong Ta” (Stupa of Linggong), a site without any apparent

the twentieth century. Several temples that are listed in the Imperial Gazetteer under the category “monastic ruins” are depicted on the Cifu map no differently from any other existing temple, and in some cases pilgrims are shown climbing the steps leading up to them, suggesting either a revival of activities or a recognition of the timeless numinous quality of a site. Although imperial interests espoused Mount Wutai as a Buddhist site, the Cifu map included a dozen shrines and caves dedicated to local deities, and none of those are found in any previous gazetteers. They include Nainai Miao 奶奶廟 (Grandmother Temple); Cifu Miao 慈福廟 (Benevolent Virtues Shrine, not to be confused with the Cifu Temple); Haiyai Dong 黑崖洞 (Black Cliff Cave); Chaoyang Dong 朝陽洞 (Raising Sun Cave); Shuilian Dong 水連洞 (Water Curtain Cave); and Baiyun Dong 白雲洞 (White Cloud Cave). There are also several other caves with unclear inscriptions that don’t appear to be known Buddhist sites. 50.  Contemporary ethnographic studies reveal a similar inclusive trend on the ground. See Ujeed, “Making of Folk Beliefs in the Buddhist Holy Land Wutaishan.” 51.  Chou, “Ineffable Paths,” esp. 109–117. 52.  Ibid., 117–124. 53.  By their attributes, they are identified as the five-directional emanations of Mañjuśrī. They are known to dwell on the five peaks of Mount Wutai, also known as the five topknots of Mañjuśrī. See GQLZ, T. 2099: 51, 1104 b25–c10. See also Fang, “Wutai shan Wenshu pusa.” 54.  These five different forms are Tsongkhapa as Mahāsiddha riding a tiger (central terrace); as a monk seated on a throne supported by gods and goddesses (western terrace); as a monk riding on an elephant (eastern terrace); as Mañjuśrī riding on a lion (southern peak); and as a monk wearing a pandita hat (northern terrace). For an iconographic ˙˙ study of Khedrup’s five visions of Tsongkhapa, see Li, “Zongkeba wuci shixian.” 55.  The Fifth Dalai Lama conferred the title of Panchen Lama to his teacher Lobzang Chokyi ˙ Gyaltsen, abbot of the Trashi Lhünpo monastery in Shigatse. 56.  Jeff Watt has compiled a list of the paintings and sculpture featuring this iconography, available at www.himalayanart.org/search/set.cfm?setID=1334 (accessed September 5, 2015); note, however, that most of the extant examples date to the nineteenth century or later. Two eighteenth-century paintings in the Museum of Asian Art in San Francisco, which probably originated from a set of five, depict Tsongkhapa appearing on two separate occasions to his student Khedrup in the guise of Mañjuśrī riding a lion (HAR item no. 69426) and as the great Indian adept (Mahāsiddha) Dombi-Heruka (HAR item no. 69407) in order to transmit teachings to Khedrup. In a nineteenth-century painting in the American Museum of Natural History, all five forms of Tsongkhapa in Khedrup’s visions appear in a group below the conventional depiction of him as a pandita ˙˙ (HAR item no. 94269). Some of the five forms,

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Yong’an Si was relocated to its current location after a flood in the year 1643; see Hou, Wutai shan zhi, 221. I have not come across any record of Lanran Si. It is also likely that these two temples, along with a handful of other sites and shrines, existed earlier, for reasons discussed earlier, but simply were not recorded in the gazetteers. 76.  Other examples of large-scale Buddhist art produce can be seen in the thangka appliqué of Tsongkhapa made at Mount Wutai. See Reynolds, “A Sino-Mongolian-Tibetan Buddhist Appliqué in the Newark Museum,” 81–87. According to Charleux, the main types of objects produced were smallsize bronze images and miniature paintings. See Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 322. 77.  The Beijing National Library, the National Palace Museum in Beijing, and several temples at Mount Wutai all hold woodblocks and prints of the mountain in similar styles and dimensions. 78.  For epigraphical evidence of Rölpé Dorjé’s trans­lations at Mount Wutai, see Lin, “Siyi er wei Manzhou.” 79.  See Tsien, Paper and Printing, 8–9, 146–159; and Carter, The Invention of Printing in China and Its Spread Westward. 80.  DHYJ, T. 279: 10, 241b20–22; WSFBTJ, T. 1185: 20, 791c11–16. 81.  See note 36, earlier. The nearly identical Mongolian and Tibetan inscriptions do not give instructions for the printing of this image or elaborate on the myriad of blessings to be gained by its proper usage, but they reiterate the carver’s desire to overcome all obstacles in the making of the image. 82.  For a study on the veneration of a replicated image, see Carter, The Mystery of the Udayana Buddha. 83.  Halen, Mirrors of the Void, 3. Painters from Mount Wutai also traveled to Urga frequently at the end of the nineteenth century; see Pozdneyev, Mongolia and the Mongols, 69. 84.  The single-language inscriptions appear only in Tibetan, whereas almost no Chinese inscription appears by itself. In addition to place-names, occasional mantras, and narrative commentaries such as “Om mani padme hūm” (Avalokiteśvara’s ˙ ˙ ˙ Six-Syllable Mantra) and Om a ra pa tsa na dhīh ˙ ˙ (Mañjuśrī’s Five-Syllable Mantra) are given in the Tibetan transliteration of Sanskrit, and “Bowing down in obeisance and worshipping the Five Peaks” is written in Chinese. The rules of transliteration do not seem to apply to phrases recording the recitations of pilgrims or documenting their activities. 85.  According to Rosary of White Lotuses, Tāranātha visited Mount Wutai with the emperor, and he died during a visit to China. See Dharmatāla, Rosary of White Lotuses, 341–342. However, other sources in Tibetan, Chinese, and Mongolian do not agree. On this controversy, see Chen, “Ke’erkebu zhebuzundanba huofo zhuanshi de qiyuan xintan.” 86.  The Jebtsündamba’s visit in 1802 is mentioned in Dznyā na shrī man, Ri bo rtse lnga’i dkar chag rab gsal me long. I thank Gray Tuttle for this reference. 87.  I thank Karl Debreczeny for this observation.

Tibetan affiliation, also appears alone with­­out Chinese characters. Linggong Ta is said to have been erected by Yang Yanlang (a Song-dynasty Kungfu master, the eighth of the Yang brothers famous in Qing martial-arts dramas) for his father, who died in Mount Wutai. See QDQLSZ, juan 9, 5. There are a few other exceptions to the Tibetan transliterations, including the Mañjuśrī’s Cave, which is written in Tibetan. This method of labeling is quite unlike the cartouche found in Dunhuang or on conventional Chinese maps. 69.  The Tibetan Lama and Yuan state preceptor Pakpa famously casted a golden image of the Yuan martial deity Mahākāla at Mount Wutai. It is likely the origin of this site. 70.  This information is obtained from a recently erected plaque at the entrance to the temple. 71.  The Cifu Temple was recorded as having been built in the Song dynasty and restored in the early Republican period (1912–1928), according to Miaozhou, Mengzang fojiao shi, 88. 72.  Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, appendix, 21–22. 73.  Mongolian-language steles, all from between 1920 and 1935, can still be found behind bushes at the entrance to each of the Cifu Temple’s prayer halls. During that period, Mount Wutai was occupied by Japanese forces of the second Sino-Japanese War, after which the monastery seemed to have never again been home to Mongol lamas. I thank Isabelle Charleux for her careful study of the extant inscriptions. According to Charleux (e-mail to the author, March 11, 2010), one stele dates to 1920; a second dates to 1931, inscribed by the nobleman Buyanbatu from Gourlus banner in Jirim league (a banner is similar to a county, and a league is a prefecture); a third dates to 1935, inscribed by Bosug Darijab from Plain Red banner in Kölün Buir Sine Bargu; and a fourth dates to 1935, inscribed by Galdan Bazar from Plain Red banner in Kölün Buir Sine Bargu. 74.  See chapter 1. The central image that was designed for the space would have soared above the first level. It has now been replaced by a statue of Śākyamuni Buddha (a few feet short of the height originally intended by the two-story space), and the second story now contains sculptural images of eminent Indo-Tibetan masters, kings, and scholars, such as Śāntaraksita (active eighth century), ˙ Longchen Rabjam (1308–1364 or possibly 1369), Padmasambhava, Trisong Détsen, Tsongkhapa, and Sakya Pandita. These figures were commonly ˙˙ known to be manifestations of Mañjuśrī in various major sects of Tibetan Buddhism, and they were also recognized as previous incarnations of Gelukpa masters. Many of these figures are no longer found anywhere else at Mount Wutai. Although it is not clear whether they date to the nineteenth century or were offered by pilgrims from recent years, such as Khenpo Jikmé Püntsok, they represent a pantheon of Indo-Tibetan figures associated with Mañjuśrī. 75.  The other two monasteries not included in earlier gazetteers are Yong’an Si 永安寺 and Lanran Si 闌然寺. According to the 2003 Record of Wutai,

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to resume their monastic practice. By 1987, there were 75 new monks and nuns at Mount Wutai. See Hou, Wutai shan zhi, 132–133. Raoul Birnbaum, who was at Mount Wutai in 1986, estimates fewer than 800 registered and nonregistered monastics in 1986. Personal communication, April 24, 2011. 2.  Many disciples of Khenpo Jikpün who followed him to Mount Wutai said that many thousands of people were present, while all biographies state that the number reached more than ten thousand. 3.  For a history of Tibet–China relations in the late twentieth century, see Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of Snows. 4.  Especially for religious groups, it was, and still is today, a challenge to obtain permits from state and local officials for travel and for assembling as a group for religious activities. 5.  The sources for this study are drawn from written, oral, and photographic records of Khenpo Jikpün’s pilgrimage and David Germano’s descriptions from his own translation of the Tibetan-language biography. See Germano, “Re-membering the Dismembered Body of Tibet,” 53–94. For Tibetan biography, see Tshul khrims blo gros, Snyigs dus bstan pa’i gsal byed; for Chinese biography, see Suodaji, Jinmei Pengcuo fawang zhuan. For a fuller account of this pilgrimage, see Chou, “The Visionary Landscape of Wutai Shan,” 138–142. 6.  The full name of the academy is Larung Nangten Lobling (Bla rung nang bstan slob gling [Larung Five Sciences Academy]). It is about ten kilometers away from the Serta (Gser rta) township in Kardzé (Dkar mdzes; Chinese: Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan. 7.  Larung Gar underwent drastic expansion after Khenpo met with the Panchen Lama (Blo bzang ˙ phrin las lhun grub chos kyi rgyal mtshan, 1938–1989) in 1987 en route to Mount Wutai, and the Panchen ˙ Lama officially recognized it as a Buddhist academy that same year. By the year 2000, the number of resident monks, nuns, and lay practitioners reached nearly ten thousand. Even though Larung Gar was centered on religious teaching and practice and was explicitly apolitical, its enormous size led to the 2001 crackdown after Khenpo Jikpün refused to reduce its size. See Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), “Destruction of Serthar Institute. Beginning in the summer of 2016, the government engaged in another mass eviction of monks and nuns and demolition of housing at the site. 8.  For more on different categories of treasures, see Thondup, Hidden Teachings of Tibet, 71–93, and Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self, 147. For the relationship of the revealed texts to the Tibetan textual canon, see Germano, “History and Nature of the Collected Tantras of the Ancients.” For more on the tradition of treasure revelation, see Aris, Hidden Treasures and Secret Lives; Doctor, Tibetan Treasure Literature; and more recently, Hirshberg, Remembering the Lotus Born, 85–140. 9.  Germano writes that Khenpo Jikpün “reconstituted Tibetan identity within the realities of life in the contemporary People’s Republic of China . . . the

88.  According to this account, Tāranātha Tulku Rinpoché set up a tent near the Shuxiang Temple (in the location where the stupa is shown on the map), fell ill, and passed into Dharmakāya. For a translation, see Schaeffer, Sources of the Tibetan Tradition, 640. The date of his visit fits within the birth and death dates of the Fourth Jebtsündamba Lubsang Tübden Wangchug (1775–1813) given in biographical chronicles. See Dharmatāla, Rosary of White Lotuses, 347; Cheng, Qingdai Menggu gaoseng zhuan yiji, 418. At any rate, this large funerary stupa no doubt belongs to the Jebtsündamba who died at Mount Wutai around that time. See Bawden, The Jebtsundamba Khutukhtus of Urga, 89. 89.  Yü, Kuan-yin, 6. 90.  Zhongguo minjian wenxue, Zhongguo minjian guoshi jicheng, 132. 91.  The Library of Congress version acquired by Rockhill also follows this convention; it is otherwise rather plainly and loosely colored in comparison with the Helsinki and Rubin versions. 92.  The same description of Mahasattva’s Cliff exists in all three versions of Mount Wutai gazetteers printed during the Qing dynasty; see QLSZ, juan 2, 6; QLSXZ, juan 2, 4; QDQLSZ, juan 9, 10. 93.  This is likely, considering that the same story is also preserved in Tibetan sources. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama reiterated the story in poetic verses in his praise poem of Mount Wutai; see Thub bstan rgya mtsho, Rje btsun ’jam pa’i dbyangs kyi gnas la bstod pa. 94.  Debreczeny, “Wutai shan” cat. no. 1, 51, points out that the colorer of the Rubin print had misspelled the Tibetan title, making it unlikely that the colorer knew Tibetan. 95.  For scholarship on popular woodblock prints, see Wang Shucun, Zhongguo gudai minsu banhua, and Po Sungnien, Domesticated Deities and Auspicious Emblems. 96.  This is a full application of paint rarely seen in the Chinese tradition of landscape prints, which is generally more sparing with its use of colors and more nuanced with the spread of ink washes. 97.  Charleux, “Mongol Pilgrimages,” 8–10, 12–16. 98.  Charleux, e-mail to the author, April 7, 2007. 99.  Areford, “The Image in the Viewer’s Hands.” 100.  See Ngag dbang bstan dar, Dwangs bsil Ri bo rtse lnga’i gnas bshad. 101.  Available at https://asianart.com/exhibitions /wutaishan/pop1.html (accessed July 10, 2016).

Coda 1.  According to Chinese official records, there were 582 monastics on Mount Wutai in 1958. During the Cultural Revolution beginning in 1966, the monks and nuns were either sent down, forced to disrobe, or tortured to death. By 1972, only 25 remained on the mountain. In 1977, after waves of destruction, the structures in about ten monasteries that were protected as cultural monuments had survived. Revival of monasticism and restoration of temples began in 1979, when 94 survivors of the Cultural Revolution were allowed to return to Mount Wutai

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with generative, revitalizing, purifying, or preservative aspects.” See Huber, The Cult of Pure Crystal Mountain, 14–15. 18.  For a complete photographic journal of his pilgrimage to Mount Wutai, see www.ptz.cc/plus/view .php?aid=449700 (accessed June 5, 2017). 19.  The number of Han Chinese disciples is recorded in TCHRD, “Destruction of Serthar Institute.” 20.  See QLSXZ, juan 3, 19; this fact is also emphasized in Lcang skya, Zhing mchog (1993), 204–205. 21.  Tshul khrims blo gros, Snyigs dus bstan pa’i gsal byed, 405. 22.  This is due to the fact that the wooded area behind Sudana’s Cave is called the “Cooling Charnel Ground” (Tibetan: Dur khrod chen po bsil sbyin; Sanskrit: Śītavana). Obscure outside Tibetan Buddhism, it is considered by many in the Nyingmapa tradition as equal in spiritual potency to the famous cemetery of the same name located northeast of Bodh Gaya. Cooling Charnel Ground is one of the eight great cemeteries (Tibetan: Dur khrod chen po brgyad) in India, described in Hindu and Buddhist texts to be the major centers of tantric practices, thus forging a link to India. Practitioners of Great Perfection lineages have identified the Cooling Charnel Ground as the very cemetery where the semimythical figure of Śrī Sim·ha, an early master of Great Perfection lineages, meditated when he was in China, and also where his disciple Jñānasūtra met him. It is not known whether meditational practices were commonly performed at this cemetery at Mount Wutai outside the Nyingmapa tradition, but the popularity of Mount Wutai’s “charnel grounds” as a burial destination, especially among the Mongols, has been well documented from at least the eighteenth century (see Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 245–255). This practice was so prevalent that the Qing Court had to ban it for fear of  “polluting the Buddhist pure land,” following the traditional Chinese (rather than Buddhist) notion that death and decayed bodies are polluting entities (Zhao, Qianlong chao neifu chaoben “Lifan yuan zeli,” 131–132). It is likely that the Cooling Charnel Ground developed through the convergence of two separate practices  —  the Mongols’ penchant for being buried at Mount Wutai, and cemeteries as a hagiographical requisite in the meditation practices of early Nyingmapa masters. 23.  The twenty-ninth day of the fourth lunar month. 24.  At the Shuxiang Temple, Khenpo and his entourage offered Padmasambhava, Atiśa, and Tsongkhapa, perhaps reflecting the ecumenical orientation of Khenpo Jikpün. They inserted consecration relics into the bodies of the statues and adorned them with fine clothes and ornaments. At the main monastery of Pusa Ding (Bodhisattva’s Peak) and at many other temples, they also offered sculptural images of Vimalamitra; King Gesar of Ling (the epic hero of Tibet, who was said to have lived in the tenth century, and to whom Khenpo Jikpün claimed a close connection through visions and through remembrance of his previous incarnation as the son of King Gesar’s general); and two great teachers and treasure-revealers,

reconfiguration and reanimation of the body of Tibetan sacred geography . . . rebuilding the intellectual and material substructure of Tibetan intellectual culture . . . and, above all else, his assumption of the mantle of the Terton . . . who is able to establish a visceral link to Tibet’s glorious past and to bring discrete products of that link into the present. In these ways, Khenpo has helped to reverse the centrifugal flow of Tibetan identity into contemporary Chinese urban culture, refugee centers in South Asia, depression, nostalgia, or even the far-off alien dream of the West, and instead revitalize a profoundly Tibetan sense of identity within a uniquely Tibetan landscape.” Germano, “Re-membering the Dismembered Body of Tibet,” 57–58. 10.  Ibid., 86. 11.  He expressed the wish to go to Mount Wutai to benefit sentient beings in Han China, “enabling them to enter the Mahāyāna path via the Four Methods” (Tibetan: bsdu ba’i dngos po bzhi; Chinese: sishe 四攝)  —  namely, charitable offerings, loving words, beneficial conduct, and working together. Khenpo Jikpün’s nephew and attendant Passang, Khenpo Tsultrim Lodrö, and Khenpo Sodargye, conversations with author, December 20, 2008, and June 28–29, 2009. See also the transcript of teachings of Khenpo Sodargye, available at www .buddhanet.idv.tw/aspboard/dispbbs.asp?boardID =2&ID=15000&page=20 (accessed June 13, 2017). 12.  Lama Lakshey, conversation with author, April 28, 2011. For more on this pilgrimage to Mount Wutai as the beginning of his teachings in Han Chinese areas, see Bianchi, “Teaching Tibetan Buddhism in Chinese on Behalf of Mañjuśrī.” 13.  Bsod dar rgyas, Ri bo rtse lnga’i gnas bshad mthong ba don ldan, 26, “Through dream transformation, Khenpo Jikpün visited Mount Wutai three times. . . . One time he saw many sculpted images nearby a tree at the Bhīma Grove on the Eastern Peak; another time he reached the eastern cliffs; and yet another time he found himself in the country meadows. Later, when he physically arrived [at Mount Wutai], he saw that he had really been there before.” 14.  Germano, “Re-membering the Dismembered Body of Tibet,” 84. 15.  Tshul khrims blo gros, Snyigs dus bstan pa’i gsal byed, 404; and Suodaji, Jinmei Pengcuo fawang zhuan, 59–60. 16.  According to Germano, this involves recitation of Mañjusri’s mantra and visualization of his form. See Germano, “Re-membering the Dismembered Body of Tibet,” 84–85. 17.  Tshul khrims blo gros, Snyigs dus bstan pa’i gsal byed, 397–398, and Suodaji, Jinmei Pengcuo fawang zhuan, 60. Toni Huber posits the ability to receive sacred empowerment from a holy place at the center of Tibetan Buddhist pilgrimage. According to the logic of spiritual efficacy, a site becomes sacred by the residence of the highest class of deity. By association, everything at the site becomes saturated with positive power or energy, of an effective sort that has a “transformative power of transcendent origins

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28.  Birnbaum, “Secret Halls of the Mountain Lord.” 29.  Debreczeny, “Wutaishan,” 111–112. 30.  Similar portrayals are known to exist in Tibet. See Toni Huber, The Holy Land Reborn, 1–2, and Epstein, “Ganja and Murdo,” 324–326. For more on the formulation of interconnected cave tunnels in Tibetan Buddhism, see Charleux, “Padmasambhava’s Travel to the North,” 184. 31.  Bsod dar rgyas, Ri bo rtse lnga’i gnas bshad mthong ba don ldan. It is not clear what the print run was and how widely this guidebook had been circulated. It was available neither at Larung nor at Mount Wutai. I received my copy from the author. 32.  Ibid., 38. 33.  His teachings became “as wide and lofty as the sky . . . from India to the Fire Continent (America) by the compassion of his tutelary deity Mañjuśrī.” Ibid., 406. 34.  Lama Lakshey, conversation with author, April 28, 2011. 35.  This was related to me by Khenpo Jikpün’s nephew, Passang, in Dharamsala. See also Gruschke, The Cultural Monuments of Tibet’s Outer Provinces: Kham, 82. 36.  They include Amnye Machen (A myes rma chen), Gowo Lhatsi (Go bo lha rtsi), Nyenpo Gyutsé (Gnyan po gyu rtse), Drü ri (’Brus ri), and Tsengyel Dorjé Penpuk (Btsan rgyal rdo rje ’phen phugs). Lama Lakshey Zangpo, conversation with author, April 29, 2011.

Rigdzin Godem (Rig ’dzin rgod ldem, 1337–1408) and Jigme Lingpa (’Jigs med gling pa, 1729–1798). 25.  Gyatso, “Drawn from the Tibetan Treasury,” 147–155. 26.  While staying at the Sudhana Cave, he reportedly looked toward the Central Peak and recognized that he had visited the place thrice in his dreams, and he informed his disciples about a broken stone statue of Mañjuśrī. They subsequently went to the Central Peak and discovered under a tree a broken image of Mañjuśrī, which was later brought back to Larung Gar and is housed in the Hall of Mañjuśrī atop the sacred mountain of Wish-Fulfilling Gem (Tibetan: tsin ta ma ni; Sanskrit: cintā-mani) near ˙ the Larung Gar Academy. The mountain range is nestled in the Garuda Mountain, and known in Chinese as Xinbao Shan 心寶山. It towers over the Larung Gar valley like a bird with its wings stretched. When Khenpo visited the Dalai Lama in 1990 in Dharamsala, India, he presented him with a gift of another golden Buddha that he had recovered from the Nārāyana Cave below the Eastern Peak. Khenpo ˙ Sodargye, conversation with the author, June 29, 2009. Germano, “Re-membering the Dismembered Body of Tibet,” 90. 27.  Germano, “Re-membering the Dismembered Body of Tibet,” 56, notes the difficulty of transplanting the treasure tradition outside of Tibet, in particular to the exile communities in India.

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Bibliography

ba 老藏丹巴. Quadrilingual edition. Beijing: Wuying dian, 1701. Collection of the Library of the National Palace Museum, Taipei. Reprinted in Gugong bowuyuan, Qingliang shan zhi, Qingliang shan xin zhi, Qinding Qingliang shan zhi. QLSZ Qingliang shan zhi 清凉山志 (Gazetteer of the Clear and Cool Mountains). Compiled by Zhencheng 鎮澄 (1546–1617). Originally published 1596; revised in 1660 by Lama Awang Laozang 阿王老 藏 (1601–1687); reprinted in Gugong bowuyuan, Qingliang shan zhi, Qingliang shan xin zhi, Qinding Qingliang shan zhi. Updated compilation by Yinguang 印光 (1862–1940) in 1933; reprinted in Du Jiexiang 杜潔祥, ed., Zhongguo fosi shizhi huikan中國佛寺史志彙刊. Taipei: Ming­ wen shuju, 1980–1985. T. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新修大藏 經 (The Buddhist Canon, comp. Taishō era, 1912–1926), edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭 (Tokyo: Taishō issaikyo kankokai, 1924–1932), 100 vols. Following standard convention, references to texts in the Taishō canon are indicated by title of text and Taishō serial number, followed by the volume number, page number, register (a, b, or c), and, when appropriate, line numbers  —  for example, GQLZ, T. 2098: 51, 1093a13–14. TBRC Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center, www .tbrc.org/. WSFBTJ Wenshu shili fa Baozang tuoluoni jing 文殊師 利法寶藏陀羅尼經 (Mañjuśrī Precious Treasury of the Law Dhāranī Sūtra). T. ˙ 1185: 20.

Abbreviations DHYJ  Dafangguofo huayan jing 大方廣佛華

嚴經 (Avatam.saka Sūtra, or the Flower Garland Sutra), T. 278: 9 (60 fascicles, translated by Buddhabhadra, ca. 420); T. 279: 10 (80 fascicles, translated by Śiks.ānanda, 699). FWSBNJ  Foshuo Wenshu shili ban niepan jing 佛說 文殊師利般涅磐經 (Mañjuśrī Parinirvān.a Sūtra), T. 463: 14. GQLZ  Guang Qingliang zhuan 廣清凉傳 (Expanded Record of the Clear and Cool Mountains). Yanyi 延一 (fl. 1060). T. 2099: 51. HAR  Himalayan Art Resources, www.hima layanart.org. HQLZ  Gu Qingliang zhuan 古清凉傳 (Ancient Record of the Clear and Cool Mountains). Compiled by Huixiang 慧祥 (fl. mid- to late 7th century). T. 2098: 51. QDQLSZ  Qinding Qingliang Shan zhi 欽定淸凉山 志 (Imperial Record of Clear and Cool Mountains). Compiled by Dong Gao 董 誥. Beijing: Wuying dian, 1811 (compiled 1785). Reprinted in Gugong bowuyuan, Qingliang shan zhi, Qingliang shan xin zhi, Qinding Qingliang shan zhi. QGNWF Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’an guan 中國 第一歷史檔案館, ed. Qinggong Neiwu fu Zaoban chu dang’an zonghui 清宮內 務府造辦處檔案總匯 (The Complete Archive of the Royal Manufactory in the Imperial Household Department). Beijing: Remin chubanshe, 2005. QLSXZ Qingliang shan xin zhi 清涼山新志 (New Gazetteer of the Clear and Cool Mountains). Compiled by Laozang Dan-

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Index Page numbers in italic refer to figures. Amitābha (Buddha of Immeasurable Light): Amitābha’s paradise on a panel at Cifu Temple, 148, 149; and the five Buddha families, 71; seated Amitābha in Mañjuśrī’s crown, 33–34, 33; wuliang dian associated with, 22–23, 38, 184n35 Amoghavajra (Ch. Bukong Jingang), 46, 70 Andrews, Susan, 61 Ary, Elijah, 91–92, 151, 196n51, 196n66 Ārya Mañjuśrīmūlatantra (’Jam dpal rtsa rgyud; the Root Tantra of Mañjuśrī): Rölpe Dorjé’s Guide, 69–70; Tuken’s use of, 72 astrology and divination: and Mañjuśrī’s teaching at Mount Wutai, 180n19. See also White Beryl Avalokiteśvara: Avalokiteśvara paradise on a panel at the Cifu Temple, 148, 149; Avalokiteśvara’s Cave (Guanyin Dong) on Mount Wutai, 89, 149–50, 150, 195n40; Dalai Lamas as emanations of, 17; mantra in uchen script on a copy of the Panoramic View of Mount Wutai, 157–58, 159, 203n84 Avatam· saka Sutra: quoted in the donative inscription on the Cifu map, 156–57, 177; reference to Mañjuśrī’s presence at Mount Wutai, 28, 62, 70, 156, 179n9 Badgar map, 15; dating of, 131, 199n8; and the genre of Gelukpa topographical paintings of holy sites, 130–33, 135–36, 148; identification of sites on, 138–39, 198–99n441; outline drawing and legend of, 129 Badgar Monastery: founding of, 132; mural of Mount Wutai (see Badgar map); size and academic rigor, 132, 199n9, 199n12 banners: function of, 199n7, 203n73; and the Manchu empire-building enterprise, 181n42; map of Eight Banners Brigade barracks and the Yihe Yuan Summer Palace, 22; on survey maps commissioned by the Lifan Yuan, 139, 139 Baodi Monastery (Precious Truth Monastery): modeling after Bodhisattva’s Peak, 17, 20–21, 26; modeling after Mount Wutai’s Bodhisattva’s Peak, 18, 20, 21, 184n26; stone gate at, 22, 22, 184n28 Baoxiang Monastery (Precious Form Monastery): as one of three monasteries “modeled after” originals at Mount Wutai, 17, 18, 103; stele erected in front of, 38–39, 44 Baoxiang Pavilion (Precious Form Pavilion): exterior of, 43; interior of, 43; its construction for the empress-dowager, 38, 187n105; Mount Wutai evoked in its miniature mountain landscape, 42; replication of Mount Wutai as a miniature mountain landscape at, 42 beamless halls (wuliang dian 無梁 殿): and Amitābha (Buddha of Immeasurable Light), 184n35; at Baoxiang Monastery, 38–40 (see also Baoxiang Monastery); first floor of Yuhua Pavilion referred to as, 184n35; and the homophone for “immeasurable” (wuliang 無量), 23; at Xiantong Temple, 22, 38

Berger, Patricia, 37, 96, 103, 180, 183n15, 184n42, 187n108, 196; on the Qing as a “culture of the copy,” 19, 183n18 Bingenheimer, Marcus, 190n43, 191n46 Biography of Rölpé Dorje (Lcang skya rol pa’i rdo rj’i rnam thar) by Tuken: its lack of visual depictions, 87–88; rhetoric of prophecies or emanations not used in his history, 72 Birnbaum, Raoul, 170, 195n32, 204n1 Biyun Temple: replication of Mahābodhi Temple at, 22; stone gate at, 22, 23; temporary internment of Sun Yat-sen’s body at, 184n29 Bodhisattva’s Peak (Pusa Ding), 20; conversion to a Tibetan Buddhist temple, 20, 184n23; Mañjuśrī Hall at, 20, 20, 22–23; miraculous image of Mañjuśrī in, 20, 28–29; as an official imperial establishment, 20, 137; recreation as Baodi Monastery at Xiangshan, 20–21, 26 (see also Baodi Monastery); renaming of Zhenrong Cloister as, 20; steps leading up to, 22, 23 booi (Ch. Baoyi): Manchu lamas selected from, 18, 27; origins and definitions of, 183n9 Brook, Timothy, 190–92nn223–224 Buddha Śākyamuni: and kingship, 83, 111, 115 (see also Qianlong emperor as Mañjuśrī-cakravartin); life stories of, 86–87 (see also Mahasattva’s Cliff ); Mañjuśrī as the successor to, 4; sandalwood image commissioned by Udāyana, 36, 186n81; statue in the Cifu Temple on Mount Wutai, 203n74 Castiglione, Giuseppe, 36, 105 Chan Buddhism: encounter dialogues, 53, 63, 66–68, 71, 142, 191n57; masters affiliated with Mount Wutai, 53; metaphor of the moon’s reflection on the river, 37, 186n81; Rölpe Dorjé’s demystification of, 72; Zhaozhou’s pilgrimage to, 67. See also Daoxuan Changkyas: second Changkya (see Ngawang Lozang Chöden); third Changkya (see Rölpe Dorjé) Changlung (Lcang lung Ārya Pan·d·ita): biographical details, 190n27; completion and printing of the Guide by Rölpé Dorjé, 57, 190n28 Charleux, Isabelle, 186n69, 199n10; on Mount Wutai as a pilgrimage center for Mongols, 11, 51 Chayet, Anne, 41 Chengde (also known as Rehe or Jehol), 3; eighteenth-century map of, 187n103; replication of originals at Mount Wutai, 18, 40–41, 47–48, 103–4, 111, 134 (see also Baoxiang Monastery; Potala; Pule Monastery; Samye Monastery; Shuxiang Monastery; Trashi Lhünpo) Chinese Buddhist scriptural canon (Tripit·aka), 40, 187n99 Chinese Buddhist scriptural canon (Tripit·aka), The Great Sage Mañjusri Bodhisattva’s Praise of the Dharma Body of the Buddha Liturgy, 46 Chöying Gyatso, 95, 197n78 Cifu map of Mount Wutai: as an agent of the reinvention of Mount Wutai, 130, 151, 155, 164; bilingual colophon on, 141, 174; Buddhist temples with inscriptions on, 201n49; Chinese

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donative inscription on, 141, 156–57, 177, 203n81; coloring as a crucial step in its production, 161–63; Gelöng Lhundrub’s carving of, 1, 121, 141, 161, 177; new monasteries depicted on, 154, 203n75; stupa in the center of the Taihuai village, 147, 148; translation and transliteration on labels, 141, 152–53, 153, 202n68; prints and imitations, 121, 128, 141, 201nn38–42; copying it as an act of merit, 177. See also Panoramic View of Mount Wutai Cifu Temple (Benevolent Virtues Temple): as a lodging center for Mongol lamas visiting Mount Wutai, 153, 203n71; Mañjuśrī Hall at, 149, 149–50, 154, 154, 155, 155; map of Mount Wutai printed at (see Cifu map of Mount Wutai); Milarepa Shrine, 154; Mongolian-language steles (from between 1920 and 1935), 203n73; printing workshop at, 155 Crossley, Pamela. A., 46n173, 181n42 Dalai Lamas, and Qing imperial support of Gelukpa institutions on Mount Wutai, 5–7 — Fifth Dalai Lama, 197n78; and the title “Mañjuśrī-Great Emperor,” 17, 182n1; title of Mañjughos·a emperor bestowed on Shunzhi, 17, 182n1; trungrap (rebirth lineage) of, 92 — Sixth Dalai Lama’s meditation at Mount Wutai, 89, 150, 150, 195n40 — Seventh Dalai Lama, 118, 184n45; as Rölpe Dorje’s root lama, 100, 105–6, 193n3 — Eighth Dalai Lama, 95, 117 — Thirteenth Dalai Lama: praise poem of Mount Wutai, 188n6, 204n93; visit to Mount Wutai, 195n40 Daoguang emperor, 65, 161, 190n30, 199n15, 202n66 Daoism: Jebtsündamba of Urga mistakenly depicted as a Daoist priest, 159, 159; shrines and grottoes depicted on the Cifu map, 143, 159, 201n49, 202n64 Daoxuan, 62–65, 179n9, 191n57, 194n15 Darpan·a Ācarya, 83, 87 Davis, Whitney, 183n12 Debreczeny, Karl, 178, 204n94 de Certeau, Michel, 85, 194n15 Dharmatāla, Damcho Gyatsho, on Tsongkhapa, 196n50 Diamond Grotto (T. Rdo rje’i phug; Ch. Jingang ku), 106, 119, 170, 179n12 Ding Guanpeng, paintings of Mañjuśrī on a Lion, 30, 33; dating of, 30, 186n73; Ding’s inscription on the second painting, 35, 37–38, 186n81; first painting of, 31; Mañjuśrī as both subject and object in, 36; Mañjuśrī at Baoxiang Pavilion compared with, 43–45; second painting of, 31, 37 dream pilgrimage to Mount Wutai: by Confucian scholar and statesman Zhang Shangying, 89; Khenpo Jikmé’s experience of, 168, 205n13; Tokden Jampel Gyatso’s experience of, 194–95n341 Duingkhor Bandida: Lubsang Danbi Jialsan, 132, 199n11; second Duinghkhor Khutugtu, 199n15 Dunhuang: Cave 61, 142, 180n16, 201n46; depiction of Zhenrong Cloister in, 20; Mañjuśrī of Mount Wutai, 28, 29; and Sudhana imaged with the Khotanese

king as lion-tamer, and Mañjuśrī at, 170, 185n61, 185n63; theme of poisonous dragons subjugated by Mañjuśrī seen at, 196n44 Dznyana Shriman (Dznyā na shrī man), Ri bo rtse lnga’i dkar chag rab gsal me long (Clear Mirror: Guidebook to the Five Peak Mountain), 65, 189n8, 192n95 Elliott, Mark C., 181n42 Elverskog, Johan, 109, 181n42 emanation as a means to travel to Mount Wutai: and histories of Mount Wutai, 72. See also dream pilgrimage to Mount Wutai; Mañjuśrī emanations; Tsongkhapa in the guise of Mañjuśrī; Tsongkhapa’s appearances to Khedrup; visionary experiences Emperor Muni Tsenpo, as a preincarnation of the Qianlong emperor, 83, 104, 198n110 empress-dowager: Baoxiang Monastery in Xiangshan constructed for, 17, 20–21, 26; Baoxiang Pavilion constructed for, 38, 187n105; Putuo Zongcheng Temple at Chengde erected for, 41; tributary drama written for her birthday, 25, 185n48; visit to Mount Wutai, 25 Farquhar, David M., 181n42 Faure, Bernard, 194n15 five Buddha crown, 33–34 five Buddha families: five peaks of Mount Wutai associated with, 71; Khenpo Sodargye’s 2007 compilation of the Mount Wutai guidebook, 191–92n277. See also Amitābha; Vairocana five directional Buddhas associated with Mount Wutai, 70, 70–71, 148, 202n53 five terraces of Mount Wutai: association with the five directional Buddhas, 70, 148–49; association with various forms of Mañjuśrī, 147, 148–49; the Cifu map’s inscription of the Gelukpa lineage visions and revelations, 144–48; and the coloring of Rubin print of the Panoramic View of Mount Wutai, 161–62; Dailuo Ding as a surrogate for, 196n67; as its literal name, 2; as a mandala, 40 Foucher, Alfred, 85 Gazetteer of the Clear and Cool Mountains (Qingliang shan zhi) of Zhencheng: as the basis of several imperial productions of gazetteers of Mount Wutai, 47, 60; Laozang Danba’s revision of (see New Gazetteer of Clear and Cool Mountains); overview of its content, 60; story of Daoxuan in, 62–63 gazetteers: popularity of the subgenre of mountain gazetteer in the Ming and Qing dynasties, 59–60, 190nn42–43; pre-Ming “proto-gazetteers,” 60, 191n46; promotion of religious centers as a motivation for, 73, 193n105; tujing (local geographic texts contrasted with), 190n39 Gelöng Lhundrub. See Lhundrub Gelukpa: Mount Wutai’s as a center of Qing-Gelukpa Buddhism, 88, 110–11, 130, 144–49, 148–49, 150; protector deity (see Yamāntaka). See also Dalai Lamas; Jebtsündamba of Urga; Khedrup; Pan·chen Lamas; Tsongkhapa Gelukpa monasteries: destruction

of monasteries on Mount Wutai during the Cultural Revolution, 106, 166, 197n98, 204n1. See also Badgar Monastery geography and location of Mount Wutai, 2–3, 3; descriptive texts (zhi; “gazetteers”) about the history of local administrative units, 59 (see also gazetteers); and the Five Marchmounts (Wuyue), 68–69, 185n48, 192n75; its sacred geography as hagiography, 84–86, 88, 119, 166, 169, 194n16; its super-geographical link to Vajrāsana and other exalted places, 170–71, 178–89n10; and the pilgrimage and scholastic geography of Gelukpa Tibetan Buddhism, 131–33, 135–36, 164; as a portal for the spread of Buddhism from India to China, 4, 179n12; Vulture Peak (Ch. Lingjiu Feng) of, 4, 20–21. See also Badgar map; Cifu map of Mount Wutai; five terraces of Mount Wutai; gazetteers; Guide to the Clear and Cool Mountains (Guide); maps; Panoramic View of Mount Wutai Germano, David, 167, 204n9, 205n16, 206n27 Gesar of Ling, 205n24 gift exchange: lineage albums as products of gift exchange, 94–97; Marcel Mauss on, 94 Gimello, Robert M., 63–64 Gömpojab (Tib. Mgon po skyabs), 72, 184n41, 189n7, 192n75 Grupper, Samuel, 181n42 guides to Mount Wutai. See Badgar Map; Cifu Map; gazetteers; Guide to the Clear and Cool Mountains; maps; Panoramic View of Mount Wutai; pilgrimage guides to Mount Wutai Guide to the Clear and Cool Mountains (Guide) by Rölpe Dorjé: additions and corrections of factual errors, 68, 191n71; and the close-knit intellectual community formed at Mount Wutai, 57, 199n129; on the five-directional Buddhas symbolized by Mount Wutai’s peaks, 71; as a liaison between the Chinese and Indo-Tibetan Buddhist cultural worlds, 56–57, 74–75; printing at Jifu Temple, 57, 190n30; Rölpe Dorjé’s writing of, 52, 56, 57–59, 73; Tibetan and Mongolian pilgrimage guides compared with, 52, 189n8; Tibetan-language guides pre-dating it, 189n7 (see also New Gazetteer of Clear and Cool Mountains); translation into English, 188n6; transliteration of Chinese names and terms, 57, 74, 292n290 — eulogy: evocation of Yamāntaka, 89, 196n46; Mount Wutai defined as a topography of saints and spiritual ancestors in, 75–77, 119; Mount Wutai described as a place of refuge, 88; placement as a conclusion, 193n115

and trungrap types of, 87–88 (see also trungrap); and the role of relics and reliquaries at Mount Wutai, 180n15; sacred geography as hagiography, 84–86, 88, 119, 166, 169, 194n16 Harley, J. B., 199n5 Helsinki print. See Panoramic View of Mount Wutai, Helsinki print Henmi, Baiei, 200n16 Hevia, James, 35 Huayan Buddhism, 71; Chengguan, and Dushun, 75, 192n92; Huayan Compendium of Numinous Tales, 62, 191n54; masters affiliated with Mount Wutai, 53, 75 Huber, Toni, 194n16, 205n17

hagiography: cemeteries as a meditation practice found in stories of Nyingmapa masters, 205n22; in the Christian tradition, 195n19; gazetteers as repositories of hagiographical accounts of Buddhist masters, 53, 60, 72; life stories of the historical Buddha Śākyamuni, 86–87; namtar

Kangxi emperor: imperial promotion of Mount Wutai, 17–18, 60, 65, 181n40, 181–82n60; New Gazetteer, 17, 47; poems about the image of Mañjuśrī at Shuxiang Temple, 27; preface to the New Gazetteer, 65; Qianlong’s identitymaking enterprise distinguished from, 188n122; tours of Mount Wutai, 20,

Imperial Gazetteer of the Clear and Cool Mountains (Qinding Qingliang shan zhi): compared to the Guide, 190n37; identification of “monastic ruins,” 152, 201n48; illustrations of Mount Wutai temples, 136, 137, 137, 200n25; Qianlong’s issuing of, 17, 46–47; as a record of an imperial tour, 47, 188n120; reprinting of, 137 imperial support of Mount Wutai: documented in the mountain’s own historiography, 180n18; waning of, 14, 48–49. See also Qing dynasty Ishihama, Yumiko, 198n122 Jambudvīpa, five sites of empowerment of, 68–69 jasagh lamas at Mount Wutai: and the administration of Mount Wutai, 6, 21; Awang Laozang, 47, 181n26; distinguished from other jasagh lamas, 181n26; Gelek Namkha, 106; Laozang Danba’s revision of Zhencheng’s Gazetteer (see New Gazetteer of Clear and Cool Mountains); Zuoba Longzhu (or Nabuhai), 153 Jebtsündamba of Urga: First Jebtsündamba Khutugtu Zanabazar, 147–48; Fourth Jebtsündamba Lubsang Tübden Wangchug’s visit to Mount Wutai, 158, 203n86, 204n88; Lhundrub’s identity as a disciple of, 143, 147, 151, 156, 158; nineteenth- and twentieth-century depictions of, 158, 158; preincarnation lineage traced to Tāranātha, 147 Jehol. See Chengde Jétsün Chökyi Gyeltsen (Rje btsun chos kyi rgyal mtshan), 83, 91–92, 202n57 Jiaqing emperor: Mount Wutai called “China’s Tibet” by, 7; patronage of Mount Wutai, 65; population of monks at Badgar during his reign, 199n9; tours of Mount Wutai, 20, 51 (see also Magnificent Record of the Western Inspection Tour) Jifu Temple (Accumulated Virtues Temple), 57, 155, 190n30 Jokhang (Lhasa), depicted on the Badgar map, 131, 132, 198–99n441

27, 51, 182n4; and the translation of Kālacakra tantras into Mongolian, 132 Kawa Peltsek (Ska ba dpal brtsegs), 83, 103–4, 104, 110, 198n110 Khedrup (Mkhas grub): biography by Choden Rabjor, 196n66; as Tsong­ khapa’s primary disciple, 91–92, 100, 117, 145; visions of Tsongkhapa (see Tsongkhapa’s appearances to Khedrup) Khenpo Jikmé Püntsok (’Jigs med phun tshogs): and Larung Gar, 166–68, 171–72, 204n7; Larung Gar Riwo Tsenga consecrated by, 171–72; offerings at Shuxiang Temple (Temple of Mañjuśri’s Image), 205n24; pilgrimage led to Mount Wutai, 15, 166–68, 205n11; previous incarnations, 205n24; regeneration of Tibetan Buddhist identity inside the PRC, 167, 204n9; travels to Mount Wutai via meditative dreaming, 168–72, 195n41, 205n13, 206n26; as a treasure revealer and concealer at Mount Wutai, 168, 170–71, 172; visionary teachers of, 169 Khenpo Jikpün. See Khenpo Jikmé Püntsok Khöntön Penjor Lhündrup (’Khon ston dpal ’byor lhun grub), 83, 87 Khubilai Khan: as preincarnation of Qianlong, 83, 101, 102; and Sakyapa Lama Pakpa, 5, 102 King Prasenajit as a preincarnation of the Qianlong emperor, 83, 194n8 Köhle, Natalie, 183n6, 184n23 Langri Tangpa Dorjé Senggé, 83, 87 Larung Gar: image of Mañjuśrī at, 167–68, 171–72, 204n7, 206n26; and Khenpo Jikmé Püntsok (’Jigs med phun tshogs), 204n7; and Khenpo Sodargye’s 2007 Mount Wutai guidebook, 191–92n277 leagues: function of, 199n7, 203n73; Ulaanchab league region, 130 Lhundrub (T. Lhun grub; Ch. Longzhu): his carving of the Cifu map of Mount Wutai (1846), 1, 121, 141, 157, 161; his identity as a disciple of Jebtsündamba of Urga, 143, 147, 151, 156, 158; inscription on the Cifu map, 141, 177, 200. See also Cifu map of Mount Wutai; Panoramic View of Mount Wutai Linggong Ta (Stupa of Linggong), 202n68 Lin, Nancy, 92 Lin, Shih-Hsuan, 198n108 Lin, Wei-Cheng, 180n16 Loh, Maria, 183n12 Lopez, Donald, 86–87 Magnificent Record of the Western Inspection Tour by the Jiaqing emperor, 136–37, 188n120, 199n8, 200nn26–27; compilation by Peng Lin, 47 Mahābodhi Temple: replication at Biyun Monastery, 22; replication at Zhengjue Monastery, 187n108 Mahasattva’s Cliff (Saduo Yai), 160, 161, 204n92 Mahāsiddha Darcharwa: as a preincarnation of the Qianlong emperor, 83; teacher-disciple relationship with Sakya Pan·d·ita, 103 Manchu Buddhist scriptural canon: distribution of, 48, 188n124; translation of, 19, 40, 44, 48, 110, 187n97 Manchu monasteries, 18; destruction of, 183n11. See also Baodi Monastery;

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Baoxiang Monastery; Shuxiang Monastery; Zhengjue Monastery Mañjuśrī and Mount Wutai: and the Gelukpa Mañjusri-TsongkhapaKhedrup lineage, 144–49, 148–49, 150; and Mañjuśrī’s five-syllable mantra, 70; teachings at Mount Wutai, 88, 180n19 Mañjuśrī and the title “Mañjuśrī-Great Emperor,” its bestowal on Qing emperors, 17, 182n1 (see also Qianlongas-Mañjusrī shrines; Qianlong-asMañjusrī thangkas; Qianlong emperor as Mañjuśrī-cakravartin) Mañjuśrī emanations: Buddhapāli’s encounter in the Diamond Grotto, 75, 106, 119, 170, 179n12; Jebtsündamba Khutugtu Zanabazar as, 147–48; and the karmic conditioning of worthy individuals, 66; Padmasambhava as, 198n110, 203n74; pantheon of figures on second-story of Cifu Temple, 153, 203n74; Rölpe Dorjé as Mañjuśrī and as the double of the Qianlong emperor, 79–80, 80, 82; seen by lama woodcarver Yinban, 150–51; seen by the sculptor of the Mañjuśrī sculptural group at Shuxiang Temple, 28; and Tsongkhapa (see Tsongkhapa in the guise of Mañjuśrī) Mañjuśrī riding on a lion: sculpture at Shuxiang Temple, 25, 26, 27–28, 27, 185n64, 186n65. See also Sudhana imaged with the Khotanese king as lion-tamer maps: of Eight Banners Brigade barracks and the Yihe Yuan Summer Palace, 22; Huixiang’s mention of a map of Mount Wutai (662), 180n13; imperially produced gazetteers as touring guides, 46–47, 136–37 (see also Gazetteer of the Clear and Cool Mountains; Guide to the Clear and Cool Mountains; Imperial Gazetteer of the Clear and Cool Mountains; Magnificent Record of the Western Inspection Tour; New Gazetteer of Clear and Cool Mountains); Lifan Yuan survey maps, 139, 139; “Map of Imperially Established Mount Wutai of the Clear and Cool Realm of Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī,” 137–38, 138; map of Mount Wutai printed at Cifu Temple (see Badgar map; Cifu map of Mount Wutai; ); as portrayals of geopolitical worldviews or projections of particular visions of society, 130n434; of Qing China circa 1820, 3; of the southern route to Mount Wutai, 139; topographical paintings of holy places, 134–35 (see also portable paintings of holy sites). See also Panoramic View of Mount Wutai; pilgrimage guides to Mount Wutai McRae, John, 67 mountains: Five Marchmounts (Wuyue), 68, 185n48, 192n75; Four Powerful Mountains (sida mingshan), 7, 68; Mount Emei, 3, 181nn31–32; Mount Jiuhua, 3, 181n31; Mount Putuo, 3, 159, 181n31 Mount Wutai: as “China’s Tibet,” 7, 72, 181n27; five Buddha families associated with, 71; five directional Buddhas associated with, 70–71, 148, 202n53; five terraces (see five terraces of Mount Wutai; geography and location of Mount Wutai; maps); imperial

support of Buddhism at, 4–7, 10–11, 14, 48–49, 92, 202n61; and Mañjuśrī (see Mañjuśrī and Mount Wutai); as one of four famous mountains (sida mingshan), 7, 181n31; revival of monasticism and restoration of temples, 166–67, 171–72, 204n1. See also reinvention of Mount Wutai Mount Wutai temples: mapped on the Badgar mural map, 129; mapped on the Cifu temple map and its copies, 121, 122–29; Rahūla Temple (Gelukpa), 184n34; use of the terms terms miao and si for, 202n65; Xiantong Temple, 22, 38. See also Bodhisattva’s Peak; Cifu Temple; Jifu Temple; Nainai Miao; Pule Grove; Shuxiang Temple; Sudhana Cave Mukden (Shengjing), 3; imperially supported Buddhist centers, 18, 181n30; jasagh lamas at, 181n26 Nagao, Gajin, 199n10, 199n14 Nainai Miao (Grandmother Temple): inclusion on the Cifu map, 201n49; staging of duitaixi (“oppositional stages”), 202n64 namtar (rnam thar; literally “[tales of ] complete liberation”): defined in contrast to trungrap tales, 86–87; of Rölpé Dorje (see Biography of Rölpé Dorje) New Gazetteer of Clear and Cool Mountains: Jasagh Lama Laozang Danba’s compilation of, 60–61, 189n7; Kangxi’s reissuing of, 47; rearrangement and reduction into the Guide, 65–66 Ngawang Chokden (Ngag dbang mchog ldan), 76 Ngawang Lozang Chöden (Lcang skya Ngag dbang blo bzang chos ldan), Rölpe Dorjé recognized as his incarnation, 83, 87 Nhat Hanh, Thich, 84, 194n14 Nyingmapa tradition: and burial practices at Mount Wutai, 204–5n554; treasure tradition of (see treasure tradition of the Nyingmapa) Padmasambhava, 198n110, 203n74 Pakpa Lama. See Sakyapa Lama Pakpa Pakpa Lodrö Gyeltsen, 83, 102, 102, 103 Pan·chen Lamas, lineage paintings, set of thirteen thangkas, 95, 95, 110 — First Pan·chen Lama. See Khedrup — Fourth Pan·chen Lama, 147, 182n1, 197n78 — Fifth Pan·chen Lama Lozang Yeshé, 99, 99; Rebirth Lineage Album, 12th leaf, 99 — Sixth Pan·chen Lama Pelden Yeshé: lineage album (see Rebirth Lineage Album of the Sixth Pan·chen Lama Pelden Yeshé); visit to the Qing court, 82, 95, 194n13 — Tenth Pan·chen Lama Lozang Trinlé Lhündrup Chökyi Gyeltsen, 204n7 — Eleventh Pan·chen Lama Gyaltsen Norbu (chosen by the CCP), 197n77 Pan·chen Lama’s Rebirth Lineage (Nartang series): composition of, 98; depiction of the Fifth Pan·chen Lama Lozang Yeshé, 98–99, 99; and Khedrup’s vision of Tsongkhapa riding on a white elephant, 146 Panoramic Picture of the Sacred Realm of the Mountain of Five Terraces:

copies. See Cifu map of Mount Wutai; Panoramic View of Mount Wutai. Panoramic View of Mount Wutai: circulation of copies of, 1, 15, 21f1.4, 120, 141–42, 144, 148, 157, 200n40. See also Cifu map of Mount Wutai Panoramic View of Mount Wutai, Helsinki print, 122–23; Avalokiteśvara’s mantra in uchen script on, 157–58, 159; coloring of, 162–63; Mahasattva’s Cliff depicted on, 160, 161, 204n92; stupa of Tāranātha on, 147, 148, 158 Panoramic View of Mount Wutai, Honolulu Museum of Art print, 126 Panoramic View of Mount Wutai, Library of Congress print, 126, 126, 204n91, 204n92; Rockhill’s donation of, 200n40 Panoramic View of Mount Wutai, Rubin print, 124–25; colophon on, 161, 204n94; coloring of, 161–62; depiction of Avalokiteśvara, 157–58, 159; Mahasattva’s Cliff depicted on, 160, 161, 204n92 pilgrimage guides to Mount Wutai: by Dznyana Shriman (Dznyā na shrī man), 65, 189n8, 192n95; guidebook offered to Khenpo Jikpün by Yamāntaka, 168; by Ritsé Ngapa Penden Drakpa (Ri tse lnga pa Dpal ldan grags pa), 57, 71; by Sodargye (Bsod dar rgyas), Khenpo, 171, 191–92n277, 204n13, 206n31. See also Badgar map; Cifu map of Mount Wutai; gazetteers; Guide to the Clear and Cool Mountains; maps; Panoramic View of Mount Wutai Poole, Deborah, 96 portable paintings of holy sites, 132, 134, 199n15, 200n16; eighteenth-century portable painting of the Potala Palace, 132, 132 Potala (Putuo Zongcheng Temple at Chengde): blind walls with small ornamental windows of, 187n103; its erection in homage to the Dalai Lamas, 41, 44, 103 Potala Palace (Lhasa): depicted in a mural in the Great Western Assembly Hall, 134, 134; depicted in the mural at Badgar, 131, 132, 198–99n441; eighteenthcentury portable painting of, 132, 132; imitation of the Cifu map of Mount Wutai at, 128; Manchu canon placed at, 188n124; Qianlong-as-Mañjusrī thangkas received by the monks of, 117 preincarnation lineage (trungrap). See Dalai Lamas; Pan·chen Lamas; Qianlong emperor’s preincarnations; Rölpe Dorjé’s preincarnations; Tibetan genre of preincarnation lineage Pule Grove (Universal Happiness Grove): Rölpe Dorjé’s construction of, 106, 197n100; Rölpe Dorjé’s inscription on a stele from the temple, 206 Pule Monastery (Monastery of Universal Joy): Cakrasam·vara Mandala at, 187n92, 187n92; main icon of Mañjuśrī at, 112, 198n111; Qianlong’s building of, 40 Qianlong album. See Rebirth Lineage Album of Qianlong Qianlong-as-Mañjusrī shrines: in a Buddhist hall of the Qing palace, 198n119; Paradise of the Mañjughos·a Emperor (Ningshou Palace), 114, 117;

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Paradise of the Mañjughos·a Emperor (Yuhua Pavilion), 114, 114 Qianlong-as-Mañjusrī thangkas, 8–9; album leaf depicting Qianlong compared with, 79–80; cross-referencing of identities on, 192; multidimensional promotion of Qianlong’s all-encompassing vision of a sovereign, 118; and refuge-field paintings (tshogs zhing), 115, 117–18, 198n122; shrine panel portraying Qianlong-as-Mañjusri compared with, 114–15; and the Tibetan Buddhist sectarian and courtly context, 186n87; and the visual culture of Qing-Gelukpa genealogies, 88 Qianlong emperor: new edition of Mount Wutai’s Ming dynasty gazetteer sponsored by (see Imperial Gazetteer of the Clear and Cool Mountains); retrieval, repair, replication of objects from Mount Wutai’s Bodhisattva’s Peak, 23; sketches at Mount Wutai (see Ding Guanpeng); stele inscription at Baoxiang Monastery, 38–39, 187nn88– 89; stele inscription at Shuxiang Monastery, 44; translation practices of, 10–11, 45–48, 109, 110, 181n33 Qianlong emperor as Mañjuśrīcakravartin (or wheel-turning Mañjughos·a emperor): his presentation at the center of a lineage map, 115–18, 198n122; and the homophone of “Manchu” and “Manju,” 44; portrayals of (see Qianlong-as-Mañjusrī shrines; Qianlong-as-Mañjusrī thangkas) Qianlong emperor’s preincarnations: individual figures, 83; praised in The Song of the Fearless Five-Faced One by the Sixth Pan·chen Lama, 82. See also Emperor Muni Tsenpo; Khubilai Khan; King Prasenajit; Mahāsiddha Darcharwa; Qianlong emperor as Mañjuśrīcakravartin; Rebirth Lineage Album of Qianlong; Trichen Jinpa Gyatso Qing dynasty: as a “culture of the copy,” 19, 183n18 (see also replication; replication of architecture; replication via translation); emperors (see Daoguang emperor; Jiaqing emperor; Kangxi emperor; Qianlong emperor; Shunzhi emperor; Yongzheng emperor); imperially supported Buddhist centers, 7, 181n30, 181n34, 183n11 (see also Chengde; Manchu monasteries; Mount Wutai; Yonghe Gong; Zhengjue Monastery); imperial promotion of Mount Wutai, 12; linkage between the Qing imperial court at Beijing and Mount Wutai, 90, 196n47. See also empress-dowager Qing rulership rituals: Confucian state rituals practiced by Qianlong, 186n87; Manchu Shamanistic rituals practiced by Qianlong, 183nn9–10, 186n87; and the perfection ritual settings, 24–25, 184n42 Quintman, Andy, 195n17 Rawski, Evelyn, 181n42 Rebirth Lineage Album of Qianlong: current location of, 193n5; first leaf, Mañjuśrī, 80; landscape and space rendered in, 105; 9th leaf, Khubilai Khan, 102, 102; 13th leaf, Qianlong Emperor, 79, 81; Rebirth Lineage Album of Rölpé Dorjé:

acquisition by the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, 193n5; compared with single-thangka paintings, 107–9; 8th leaf, Pakpa Lodrö Gyeltsen, 102, 102, 103; 15th leaf, Rölpé Dorjé, 79–80, 80, 100, 192; 4th leaf, Kawa Peltsek, 103–4, 104, 110; landscape and space rendered in, 105 Rebirth Lineage Album of the Sixth Pan·chen Lama Pelden Yeshé: Chöying Gyatso’s incarnation-lineage paintings of the Pan·chen Lamas compared with, 95; 2nd leaf (King Yaśas), 82, 95, 98, 98 refuge-field paintings (tshogs zhing): and the Qianlong-as-Mañjusrī thangkas, 115, 198n122; refuge field of Tsongkhapa, 115, 117–18, 117 reinvention of Mount Wutai: the Cifu map as an agent of, 130, 151, 155, 164; its incorporation into the pilgrimage and scholastic geography of Gelukpa Tibetan Buddhism by the Badgar map, 131–33, 135–36, 164; as an ongoing, fluid, and collaborative process, 7, 10, 12, 12, 159; reflected in differently colored images of the Panoramic View of Mount Wutai, 161–63 replication: chain of replicas associated with Qianlong’s sketch of the Mañjuśrī in the Shuxiang Temple, 44–45, 45; circulation of the Cifu map, 141, 171 (see also Panoramic View of Mount Wutai); dynamics of, 19, 183n12; and notions of rebirth (see Tibetan genre of preincarnation lineage); the Qing as a “culture of the copy,” 19, 183n18; re-creations of surrogate “Mount Wutais,” 4, 180n16, 210n477; replication of Mount Wutai as a miniature mountain landscape at Baoxiang Pavilion, 42; Rölpe Dorjé as Mañjuśrī and as the double of the Qianlong emperor, 79–80, 80, 82. See also Qianlong emperor as Mañjuśrīcakravartin; Qianlong emperor’s preincarnations; Rölpe Dorjé’s preincarnations; Tibetan genre of preincarnation lineage; Tsongkhapa in the guise of Mañjuśrī replication of architecture: of the Mahābodhi Temple, 22, 187n108; “metonymic” and “metaphoric” transposition of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, 183n13. See also Baoxiang Monastery; Chengde; Potala; Pule Monastery; Samye Monastery; Shuxiang Monastery; Trashi Lhünpo replication via translation: and the Buddhist canon (see Manchu Buddhist scriptural canon); Kangxi’s translation of Kālacakra tantras into Mongolian, 132; the Qianlong emperor’s translation practices of, 10–11, 109, 181n33 Robson, James, 182n47, 194n16 Rölpe Dorjé (Rol pa’i rdo rje): architectural and sculptural designs (see Baodi Monastery; Pule Monastery; Yuhua Pavilion); biography by his brother, 88; biography by Tuken (see Biography of Rölpé Dorje); and Cakram·vara, 105, 105, 117; death on Mount Wutai, 27; demystification Chan Buddhism, 72; guide to Mount Wutai (see Guide to the Clear and Cool Mountains); identifying features of his face, 79, 192;

Rölpe Dorjé (Rol pa’i rdo rje), cont. as Mañjuśrī and as the double of the Qianlong emperor, 79–80, 80, 82; as Qianlong’s root lama, 7, 24, 198n118; Seventh Dalai Lama as his root lama, 80, 100, 105–6, 193n; song of realization “Recognizing My Mother” by, 90 Rölpe Dorjé’s preincarnations, 83, 87; individual figures, 83; thangka, 107–8, 108, 110, 197n88. See also Jétsün Chökyi Gyeltsen; Kawa Peltsek; Ngawang Lozang Chöden; Pakpa Lodrö Gyeltsen; Rebirth Lineage Album of Rölpé Dorjé; Śākya Yeshé sacred space: Mount Wutai in relation to five sites of empowerment in Jambudvīpa, 68–69; sacred empowerment at the center of Tibetan Buddhist pilgrimage, 4, 89, 167–72, 194n16, 205n17. See also Shambhala; Vajrāsana Śākyamuni. See Buddha Śākyamuni Sakyapa Lama Pakpa (Chos rgyal ’Phags pa; Ch. Basiba): depictions of, 102; poetry composed during his stay at Mount Wutai, 5, 180n19 Sakya Pan·d·ita, 102, 103; teacher-disciple relationship with Mahāsiddha Darcharwa, 103 Śākya Yeshé: as a preincarnation of Rölpe Dorjé, 83t1, 191n71; visit to Mount Wutai in place of Tsongkhapa, 90 Samye Monastery: location of, 3; Mount Wutai depicted in wall paintings of, 5, 7; Padmasambhava’s founding of, 170; Qianlong’s architectural replica of, 103, 104, 134; translators associated with (see Kawa Peltsek) Sandalwood Buddha, 36, 186n81; image housed in the Zhantan Monastery, 57 Śāntaraks·ita, 198n110, 203n74 Schaeffer, Kurtis R., 57, 76, 199n129 Schmid, Toni, 100 Shambhala, 68, 69, 148 Shinohara, Koichi, 62, 194n15 Shunzhi emperor: activities on Mount Wutai, 6, 60; appointment of jasagh lamas created by (see jasagh lamas at Mount Wutai); Manchus allowed to take monastic vows by, 183n10; production of a new edition of Mount Wutai’s Ming dynasty gazetteer sponsored by, 17; and the title “MañjuśrīGreat Emperor,” 17, 182n1 Shuxiang Monastery (monastery of Mañjuśrī’s Image): hybridness of, 41, 187n103; idealized plan of, 43; as one of several monasteries “modeled after” originals at Mount Wutai, 18; ruins of, 41 Shuxiang Temple (Temple of Mañjuśrī’s Image): its history and environs described by Yeshé Döndrup, 27; Khenpo Jikpün’s offerings at, 205n24; miraculous sculpture of Mañjuśrī on a lion, 25, 26, 27–28, 27, 186n69, 185n64, 186n65, 191n71; popularity among Mongol and Tibetan pilgrims, 27–28 Sodargye (Bsod dar rgyas), Khenpo, Ri bo rtse lnga’i gnas bshad mthong ba don ldan, 171, 191–92n277, 206n31 Stoddard, Heather, 187n92 Sudhana Cave (Tib. Nor bzang phug; Ch. Shancai Dong): on the Badgar map, 128; “Cooling Charnel Ground” located behind, 204–5n554; Khenpo

Jikpün’s retreat at, 168–72, 206n26; Rölpé Dorjé’s stay at, 92, 169; as a surrogate for the five terraces of Mount Wutai, 196n67; in Tibetan and Chinese sources, 201n49 Sudhana imaged with the Khotanese king as lion-tamer, and Mañjuśrī, 28, 185nn61–62; Ding Guanpeng’s image of Qianlong compared with, 30; evidence from Dunhuang of, 185n61, 185n63 summer retreats. See Chengde; Xiang­ shan; Yihe Yuan; Yuanming Yuan Sumpa Khenpo Yeshé Penjor (Sum pa Mkhan po Yes shes dpal ’byor), The Auspicious Wish-fulfilling Tree, and Gömpojab’s The History of Buddhism in China, 72 Tara, Green Tara’s paradise on a panel at Cifu Temple, 148, 149 Tāranātha: alleged visit to Mount Wutai, 157, 158, 203n85, 204n88; Jebtsündamba’s preincarnation lineage traced to, 147; stupa at Mount Wutai associated with, 147, 148, 157–58 Tibetan genre of preincarnation lineage (trungrap): albums (see Rebirth Lineage Album of the Sixth Pan·chen Lama Pelden Yeshé); appearances in the rebirth lineage of multiple people, 195n30; pictorialization of, 95; and sacred traces, 195n32; shift from public displayed thangkas to privately received albums, 99–100; thangka sets (see Pan·chen Lama’s Rebirth Lineage). See also Dalai Lamas; Jebtsündamba of Urga; Pan·chen Lamas; Qianlong emperor’s preincarnations; Rölpe Dorjé’s preincarnations Trashi Lhünpo: in the background landscape of a portrayal of the Pakpa Lama, 104; Badgar modeled after, 132, 133; and depictions of sites on the Badgar map, 198–99n441; Manchu canon at, 188n123; recreated at Chengde, 41, 96, 98, 103, 134; thangkas sent to the Qing Court from, 97 Trashi Lhünpo (Xumi Fushou Temple) at Chengde, constructed to honor the Pan·chen, 41 treasures: Eight Treasures (babao), 23, 25; Seven Royal Treasures (qizhen), 23–24, 25, 184n37, 184n41; treasure dhāran· is, 112 treasure tradition of the Nyingmapa, 167, 170, 194–95n341; and Mount Wutai, 168, 170–71, 172, 195n39; outside of Tibet, 206n27; treasure revealers (Tertons) (see Khenpo Jikmé Püntsok; Padmasambhava) Trichen Jinpa Gyatso, as a preincarnation of the Qianlong emperor, 83, 194n8 trungrap (’khrungs rabs; literally “lineage of births,” also known as skyes rabs or sku phreng): defined in relation to jātaka tales, 86–87; paintings of the Pan·chen Lamas, 146 (see also Pan·chen Lamas); trungrap söldep (’khrungs rabs gsol ’debs; lineage supplication prayers), 87 Tsongkhapa: emanation on Mount Wutai to Cifu map woodcarver Yinban, 150–51; and the Gelukpa lineage from Mañjuśrī to Tsongkhapa to Khedrup, 145–49, 149; his arrival at Mount Wutai, 90, 91–92, 145; his father’s dreams during his conception, 195– 96n363; larger-than-life-size thangka

appliqué of, 92, 93; as Mañjuśrī’s incarnation, 90; painting of his refuge-field, 115, 117–18, 117; realization of Mādhyamika at Mount Wutai, 90; and Yongle’s invitation to visit Mount Wutai, 90 Tsongkhapa in the guise of Mañjuśrī: as an incarnation (sprul pa) of Mañjuśrī, 90–91, 196n51. See also Tsongkhapa’s appearances to Khedrup Tsongkhapa’s appearances to Khedrup: five revelations to Khedrup, 91, 144– 47, 145, 148, 149, 202n56; in the guise of Mahāsiddha Dombi-Heruka, 146, 202n56; in the guise of Mañjuśrī, 91, 145–46, 145, 148, 149, 202n56; riding a white elephant, 146, 147 Tuken Lozang Chökyi Nyima (Thu’u Bkwan Blo bzang chos kyi nyi ma): The Crystal Mirror of Philosophical Systems (Grub mtha’ shel gyi me long) of Tuken, 72, 183n19, 192n75; namtar of Rölpe Dorje (see Biography of Rölpé Dorje) Tuttle, Gray, 182n3, 202n61

reincarnation lineage of the Pan·chen Lamas, 146, 147; guidebook to Mount Wutai offered to Khenpo Jikpün, 168; manifestations in Rölpé Dorjé’s dreams, 89–90; as the protector of Mount Wutai, 89, 92; as the protector of the Qing imperial court at Beijing, 90, 196n47; story told by a lama manifesting as, 201–2n491 Yihe Yuan (Summer Palace), Baodi Monastery located on a map of, 22, 22 Yonghe Gong, 183n11, 188n124; ceremonial costume for an imperial lama from, 34, 34; Qianlong-as-Mañjuśrī thangkas at, 198n123; single-thangka portraits of Rölpé Dorjé at, 197n102 Yongzheng emperor, 65, 87, 182n4, 197n91 Yuanming Yuan: Manchu monasteries in, 18; Zhengjue Monastery, 187n108 Yuhua Pavilion (Pavilion of Rainy Flowers): first floor referred to as a “Wuliang Dian,” 184n35; Paradise of the Mañjughos·a Emperor (niched shrine), 114, 114; Qianlong’s building of, 40

uchen (dbu can) Tibetan script: Avalo­ kiteśvara’s mantra on the Panoramic View of Mount Wutai, Helsinki print written in, 157–58, 159; sites on the Cifu map written in, 152 Uspensky, Vladimir. “The Previous Incarnations of the Qianlong Emperor,” 194n8

Zen. See Chan Buddhism Zhaozhou, 67 Zhencheng: Qingliang shan zhi (QLSZ) (see Gazetteer of the Clear and Cool Mountains); stele erected by, 185n64 Zhengjue Monastery, 187n108 Zhenrong Cloister (Cloister of True Appearance): as a locus of pilgrimage, 36; miraculous image of Mañjuśrī, 20, 28–29, 36, 44; renaming as Bodhisattva’s Peak, 20 Zhu, Ziqing, 184n28 Zito, Angela, 35

Vairocana: cosmic Buddha Vairocana, 34; and the five Buddha families, 71; and the five-directional Buddhas, 70–71 Vajrāsana: Mount Wutai’s super-geographical link to, 170–71. See also Mahābodhi Temple Vimalamitra, 89, 168, 195n41, 205n24 Vinaya schools and teachings of Chinese Buddhism, masters affiliated with Mount Wutai, 53. See also Chan Buddhism; Daoxuan; Huayan Buddhism. visionary experiences: the Cifu map’s inscription of the Gelukpa lineage visions and revelations, 144–48; depicted on beam paintings at Cifu Temple’s Mañjuśrī Hall, 149, 149–50; Tibetan tantric notion of pure vision, 67, 191n66; visionary teachers of Khenpo Jikmé Püntsok (’Jigs med phun tshogs), 169. See also dream pilgrimage to Mount Wutai; Mañjuśrī emanations; Tsongkhapa’s appearances to Khedrup visual economy of exchange, 96 Wang, Leiyi, 129, 199n10 Watt, Jeff, 202n56 Wenhua, Luo, 198n119 White Beryl, 5, 6, 180n21 Whiteman, Stephen, 188n122 Wood, Christopher, 183n12 wuliang dian. See beamless halls Xiangshan: location of, 3; replicas of temples on Mount Wutai at, 17–18, 18, 40–41, 47–48, 111. See also Baodi Monastery; Baoxiang Monastery; Baoxiang Pavilion Yamāntaka (Tib. gshin rje gshed): Damchen Chögyel as an emanation of, 89, 196n44; depiction in Khedrup’s

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Photo Credits © American Museum of Natural History, New York (3.5, 3.13, 4.16, 4.26, 4.39) © Asian Art Museum, San Francisco (4.24, 4.25) © Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin (3.1, 3.9, 3.12, 3.14, 3.16, 3.18, 3.21) © Freer and Sackler Galleries (0.7, 4.27) © Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu (4.4) © Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, Tokyo (1.2) © J. Paul Getty Trust (1.22, 1.23) © Karl Ryavec (4.8) © Library of Congress (1.5, 2.2, 4.3) © Minorities Cultural Palace, Beijing (2.1) © National Library, Beijing (4.6, 4.17, 4.19) © National Museum of Finland, Helsinki (1.4, 4.1, 4.28, 4.41, 4.42) © Newark Museum of Art, Newark, NJ (3.4) © Palace Museum, Beijing (0.6, 3.2, 3.3, 3.8, 3.15, 3.17, 3.22, 3.23, 3.26, 3.27) © Palace Museum, Taipei (1.14, 1.15, 1.16, 1.17, 1.18, 2.3, 4.5) © Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (3.7, 3.19) © Rubin Museum of Art, New York (0.4, 3.28, 4.2, 4.14, 4.23, 4.29, 4.32, 4.33, 4.34, 4.40, 4.43) © State Museum of Oriental Art, Moscow (3.20) © The State Hermitage Museum. Photo by Dmitry Sirotkin (4.7) © Wang Leiyi (4.9, 4.10) © Wei Wen (4.11)