Temples in the Cliffside: Buddhist Art in Sichuan 029574930X, 9780295749303

Citation preview

s. LEE is associate professor of Chinese art and visual cultures at the University of Southern California and author of Surviving SONYA

Nirvana: Death of the Buddha in Chinese Visual Culture.

Printed in Korea

C OV E R DES I GN:

April Leidig

Maitreya Buddha, Lingyun Mountain, Leshan, Sichuan. Stone relief sculpture, 62 m. (with pedestal) x 23.35 m. First completed in 803.

C O VE R ILL UST R A TIO N :

TEMPLES IN THE CLIFFSIDE BUDDHIST ART IN SICHUAN

SONYA S . LEE

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS

Seattle

Temples in the Cliffside is published with the assistance of the Office of the Provost at the University of Southern California.

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eventually eclipse the earlier template to become the defining style of the southwestern tradition. This trend was widespread in the region, as new sites were launched with colossal statues as the anchor and others were added to existing sites in later times. Not surprisingly, Sichuan would later come to be known as the home of colossal Buddhas through iconic examples such as the Great Buddha at Leshan, which was begun in the eighth century (see fig. 1.1). The emergence of monumental statuary epitomizes the way creators of Buddhist art in Sichuan ingeniously adapted the form and function of early prototypes to the local environment, thus setting them apart from earlier complexes elsewhere in China. At the Northern Qi site Xiangtangshan, for example, most images followed well-established templates from urban monasteries and were intended to articulate concepts in specific Buddhist scriptures, rather than respond to the unique character of the mountain setting. 13 By contrast, the design of cave temples in Sichuan from the eighth century onward displayed a greater sensitivity to the physical properties of the land, its climate, and the cultural appropriations by inhabitants of earlier times. How do we make sense of the ecological significance of Buddhist art in Sichuan epitomized by cave temples? The structures' remarkable longevity and continual adaptability to the broader ecosystem and societal context to which they belong are the most fundamental characteristics. Two basic questions frame the scope of this book's investigation: In what ways did the natural setting shape the design of a cave temple? And how did the site, once established, change the ways its stakeholders interacted with and understood the setting of which it was a part? Cave temples are thus understood not in a single moment of significance as a singular creative product, but rather as part of an ongoing process with multiple creative sources and layers of altered materiality accrued over time. Encompassing both creation and reception within the same narrative links a subject's many historical layers to its later transformation, thereby underscoring the project's broad temporal coverage. Several sites from this well-defined region illustrate the core arguments in the book, maintaining cohesiveness in historical specificities while articulating a methodology that is relevant beyond the study of southwest China. The five case studies are organized into two parts. Part 1 explores the role of the natural setting in the founding and design of cave temples in premodern times. The two sites under examination, the Great Buddha of Leshan and Baodingshan in Dazu, were established purposely to counter natural disasters and diseases by adapting certain locations to attract divine help from the Buddhas. The former was conceived as a watercontrol project to calm the treacherous waters at the confluence of three rivers. The latter was the center for a multilocation healing regime that relied on an elaborate iconographic program based on the teaching oflocal preacher Liu Benzun (d. 907) to carry out ritual activities for the cult following. Despite differences in context, these two sites illuminate a central aspect of cave design, namely, an inner/outer spatial dynamics that yielded distinctive sets of monumental sculptures. The contrasting methods of adapting

INTRODUCTION

13

cave-making to the local landscape-the technology of land transformation for the Leshan Buddha and religious organization through iconography at Baodingshanembodied specific responses to the climate and the environment of Sichuan in premodern times. Part 2 addresses the effects of sites on later users, as cave temples were transformed into protected cultural properties and tourist destinations in the modern era. The transition is explicated through the perspectives of three main stakeholder groups (managers, visitors, and restorers) in their continued engagement with these sites. The actions and thinking of each group embody a different concept of sustainability, which manifested in premodern China under different guises and continued to evolve over time. For site managers, sustaining the productivity of the temple land is as vital to guaranteeing their livelihood as it is to ensuring the site's future survival. With a long history of official involvement in site management in Dazu, Baodingshan and Beishan provide two rich cases for the investigation. For visitors, Nankan Caves of Bazhong contain in situ donor inscriptions and well-preserved cliffside carvings that document visitorship over a millennium. Lay visitors who came for religious devotion dominated the site in the early centuries but were gradually superseded in number by those who made the visit for other reasons. Despite changes in visitorship, the will for preserving Nankan's material contents remained strong as visitors came to value the site more as a historic monument than as a religious center. Restorers of stone carvings exemplify a completely different attitude toward sites' effects. Whether their job was to repair the gilded surfaces of a colossal stone sculpture or to rebuild a wooden-framed shelter in front of pictorial niches, their tenacious professionalism sustained cave temples. Their commitment to eco-compatibility is evident in the restoration of the Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara (Qianshou Guanyin) at Baodingshan in the early twenty-first century as well as in the tradition of erecting wooden-framed shelters in front of pictorial niches centuries earlier. In addition, at several newly established sites in contemporary China, cave makers continue to use traditional methods to make images along mountain cliffs. The conscious shunning of innovation in cave-building techniques contrasts with the how and why of technology use in everyday life today. In examining the ongoing interaction between caves and their human stakeholders, the book uses a wide range of sources. The cave sites and their pictorial contents provide the most direct material evidence. In addition, three main types of primary sources inform my interpretation. The first type pertains to a wide range of texts, including in situ stele dedications, local gazetteers, and geographical records of events and information about the place documented by monastic managers, government officials, and lay donors. Travelogues, personal letters, and poetic writings-such as Su Che's poem that opens the book-capture how a specific site was viewed and made meaningful by later visitors, who often expressed their ideas about the environment and their personal experience of engagement. Buddhist scriptures are often quoted in inscriptions

14

INTRO D U CTION

or appear in excerpts at cave sites alongside pictorial contents. In modern times, policy documents, institutional memorandums, official annals, and news reports represent some of the texts examined in the book. The second type of primary sources provide scientific information from modern conservation and technical studies. They are helpful for reconstructing processes of creation and restoration, while revealing the artisans' sensitivity toward ecological conditions through their choices of materials and techniques to make and maintain stone carvings within such an environment. The third type of evidence is generated from interviews and ethnographic observations of select subjects at cave sites, including stone carvers, restorers, site managers, and visitors. Understanding how today's practitioners work and think complements technical studies in which the human presence is missing from scientific analyses of material properties. It also helps recuperate traces of the mind-set and practices of their predecessors from centuries ago. This book also addresses major historical questions concerning the development of Buddhist art in Sichuan as raised by previous studies in Chinese art history. The first is the place of the southwest in the history of cave temple art and architecture across China and Asia. Specimens in Sichuan and Chongqing are part of the broader tradition of cave temples in Asia, while maintaining salient local features. Although scholarship produced in Sichuan and Chongqing has stressed the uniqueness of the tradition to the point of construing it in isolation, I characterize the sites as "cave temples" by using the term shiku rather than shike, or "rock carvings," which has been the official descriptor for some of these sites since the 198os.14 The choice is meant to underscore the connection with the larger development to which Sichuan belongs. Moreover, the term "cave temple," unlike "rock carvings," conveys a concrete spatial context, thus making it better suited for any discussion on a site's relationship to its immediate surroundings. Photographic overviews of cave temples such as in figure 1.1 and figure 2.1 amply illustrate this point. The second line of inquiry concerns the development of Buddhism in southwest China as evident at cave temples. Localization and syncretism across the region were more diverse than is revealed in the writings of monastic elites in urban centers. The Liu Benzun cult, which pervaded in Anyue and Dazu from the tenth century onward, for example, was an esoteric variety of Buddhism that absorbed elements from Confucianism, religious Daoism, and local folk beliefs (fig. I.5). This hybrid, localized form of Buddhism instigated changes in the format of the cave temples built in the succeeding period of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. Its impact raises questions about why mountains were chosen as the physical setting for Buddhist asceticism and lay devotional worship and how cave temples were thought to facilitate these practices. The interaction of Buddhism with other religious traditions in Sichuan also underscores the creative use of rituals and visual elements to harness the power of nature for the benefits of Buddhist practitioners.

INT RODUCT I ON

15

Lessons from before the Anthropocene

In addition to explicating the historical and cultural specificities of Buddhist art in Sichuan, Temples in the Cliffside also brings these less familiar perspectives to bear on today's discussion about the environment, aiming to push for greater balance and inclusiveness with viewpoints from the margins. The concept "Anthropocene" has figured prominently in many related discourses since its introduction in 2000. Popularized by climate scientist Paul J. Crutzen, the term denotes a geological age pertaining to the past two to three hundred years, during which human activities related to population growth, urbanization, and industrialization have led to chemical, physical, and biological changes to the earth's atmosphere, land surface, and oceans on a scale not seen in earlier periods. 15 The resulting changes in the working of the earth in turn have affected human society through an increase in natural disasters, a loss of biodiversity, an increase in social inequalities worldwide, and even a drive toward creating artificial or synthetic life-forms. With growing evidence of the human imprint in the earth's geological record, in the form of artificial deposits from urban development or fixed nitrogen from fertilizer manufacture, the idea that humans have become a force greater than nature-first articulated by Crutzen and his colleagues-has had a

Figure 1,5

Liu Benzun with attendants and protective guardians, Pu shengmiao, Dazu. Stone relief sculp-

ture, stand in g figures about 2 m high. Twelfth to thirteenth century.

16

INTRODUCTION

profound impact on the scientific community, scholars in the humanities and social sciences, and the general public. 16 As historian Dipesh Chakrabarty puts it succinctly, the characterization of humans as a geophysical force capable of changing the climate of the planet necessitates a new way "to think the human on multiple scales and registers and as having both ontological and nonontological modes of existence." 17 In their formulation of the concept, Crutzen and his colleagues ruled out any role preindustrial human societies might have in the emergence of the Anthropocene, characterizing their impacts on nature as "largely local and transitory" due to the relatively small scale of human activities and use of fossil fuels before the nineteenth century. 18 But as scientists continue to expand and refine the terms of global climate change and its causes, the definition of the Anthropocene has also evolved, such that many of its implications need to be considered within a broader historical continuum. Cave temples in southwest China provide important lessons for rethinking two of the most urgent intellectual issues at stake: the nature-society relationship and that between human and nonhuman entities. Technology is a key channel through which cave-making and other forms of human exploitation of natural resources can be linked. Driven by an elemental impulse to create images in nature and preserve them in situ, the practice incorporated a wide range of technologies at both ends, from land clearing involving large labor forces to protecting stone surfaces with lacquer and other specialized materials. Considering disparate productions in tandem allows for a more complete picture oflabor distribution and knowledge exchange in how societies made use of the natural resources around them. The approach compels greater reflection on the human impact on the earth, which extends far beyond areas of economic productivity to encompass many other aspects of life. At the same time, cultural monuments like cave temples could help illuminate the deeper causes of the problems while paving the way for more fundamental changes in our values and worldviews. Recognizing the interdependence in the workings of human society is an important lesson that critical studies of cultural monuments could offer to today's discussion of climate change and the environment. Another lesson for exploring the Anthropocene with cave temples is the relevance of Buddhist ideas and practices in addressing today's environmental problems and sustainability challenges. The connection between Buddhism and environmentalism was firmly established in the deep ecology movement during the 1970s and 1980s. Leading proponents such as Arne Naess, Gary Snyder, and Joanna Macy incorporated key Buddhist concepts such as no-self and nonduality into their respective writing and activism, with the hope that bringing about changes in people's behaviors and value systems would lead to an ecological transformation of modern sociocultural systems, collective actions, and lifestyles. 19 In the ensuing decades, as our understanding of the earth and climate evolved, so did the academic study of Buddhism. The romanticization of the Buddha's followers as nature lovers and rationalists as promoted by previous generations of Western interpreters gave way to more critical reassessments showing that ecological awareness is not inherent in the Buddhist tradition at all. 20

INTRODUCTION

17

The material culture perspective that this book espouses contributes to this ongoing effort to reset our understanding of the Buddhist tradition's historical relationship to the natural world against the eco-Buddhist discourse still prevalent today. Buddhist art in Sichuan is relevant to this goal, for its development at cave temples exemplifies local adaptations of mainstream concepts and practices by non -elite sectors of the population who were frequently left out of official records in premodern China. Attempts to recover these forgotten voices mirror the need to rebalance today's ecological discourse through a more inclusive representation of its diverse stakeholders and their cultural backgrounds. The urgency to do so is further heightened by the participation of more people outside dominant Euro-American cultures as well as underrepresented minorities in the West in the pursuit of climate justice and social equality, a development that coincided with the emergence of the Anthropocene discourse. Although this book does not deal directly with these topics, a connection to this movement is evident through my background as a woman researcher of East Asian descent working in the United States. My contribution to these causes is through the development of an approach within my own academic discipline of art history that aims to illuminate the naturesociety relationship and that of the human and nonhuman entities.

Ecological Art History

Ecological or eco-art history is an emerging field within the discipline of art history and explores the interrelationships between humans, nonhuman sentient beings, organic matter, and the nonliving environment through the historical study of artistic works and practices. Studies of this kind expand on the discipline's basic aim to investigate the production, use, and meanings of art and architecture by situating the subject within a broader ecological context. To this end, some researchers seek to uncover the environmental factors and ecological thinking that have shaped the work in question and turn to more familiar areas of inquiry such as style, material and techniques, iconography, the artist's biography, and patronage. 21 Others opt for a more radical break with the norm by challenging art history's foundational anthropocentric focus on artistic genius and human agency and choosing instead topics that resist such inherent biases. 22 Practitioners of ecological art history are growing in number, in part responding to concepts and debates from other academic disciplines that have long taken up ecology and climate change as research topics. Particularly influential are ecocriticism and new materialism. The former gained momentum in the fields of English and literary studies in the 1990s to probe the relationship between literature and the physical environment, with the basic premise that "human culture is connected to the physical world, affecting it and affected by it." 2 3 The latter arose in the wake of posthumanism's entry in the environmental debate at the turn of the twenty-first century, when discussions of nonhumans, especially cyborgs and animals, had generated great interest in formulating nonanthropocentric approaches in order to develop new modes of consciousness

18

INTRODUCTION

and ethics for humans to deal with the climate change crisis. 24 The material world, replete with matters of all kinds and impersonal agents (e.g., electricity, bacteria, and waste) that interact with humans and sentient nonhumans in a network of complex interchanges, has now become the focus of theorization and research in philosophy, anthropology, quantum physics, biology, and feminist studies. In literary criticism, the new trend "material ecocriticism" proposes to study how material forms intra-act with each other and with the human dimension, producing configurations of meanings and discourses that can be interpreted as stories. 25 The material turn in today's ecological thinking has broad implications for art history. Building on some of the key ideas in ecocriticism and new materialism, Temples in the Cliffside argues for ecological art history's place in the environmental humanities at large by highlighting its unique potential. 26 The choice of cave temples as the primary focus of study is intended to draw a clear distinction between object-based inquiries, like the present one, and those based on literary texts or discourses, as in the case of material ecocriticism. As constructed spaces in a natural environment that have evolved in form and function after their initial creation, cave temples bear many layers of environmental data and cultural meaning accrued over time that would require different kinds of tools and modes of analysis to excavate and explicate. In the present case, material science, art conservation, heritage studies, cultural anthropology, history of religion, ecological psychology, and tourism studies are particularly relevant. The discrepancy in terms of material and interpretation between ecological art history and ecocriticism is thus reflected in my preference for the adjective "ecological" rather than "ecocritical" to qualify the type of art historical scholarship this book espouses. Moreover, the term also encompasses works made with ecological sensibilities from earlier times as well as works created intentionally in response to environmental and sustainability issues today, commonly referred to as "ecological art" or, in short, "eco art." 2 7 Lastly, the focus on objects as both the starting and end points of the analysis renders this study more "art history" than "visual culture studies," even though different concepts and practices of seeing at cave temples are discussed throughout. 28 The common confusion of "ecological art history" with "eco art history" (meaning "the history of eco art") stems from the predominance of modernists studying eco art among the first generation of art historians who took up ecological issues in their scholarship. 29 While their works had helped launch the new trend within the discipline, the constant focus on the contemporary art scene in the West also reinforced the presentism so pervasive in the climate change debate. Also inherent in this attitude is a Eurocentric worldview that seeks to comprehend global issues mainly through the experiences and perspectives of white people in the Western world. Indeed, the technological advances behind the Industrial Revolution were closely tied not only to the rapid increase in the use of fossil fuels but also to the expansion of capitalism and imperialism by European powers worldwide, which Crutzen and his colleagues do not mention in their studies. 30 The reluctance in tackling problems with worldwide implications

INTRODUCTION

19

outside mainstream Euro-American contexts is manifested in studies on eco art as well. Art historian Mark A. Cheetham, for example, has forcefully argued for a broad historical understanding of the eco art movement by construing it as part of the landscape tradition in Western art, but he chooses not to delve into "Eastern" landscape art and historical indigenous understandings of nature, although some of the contemporary artists he writes about (e.g., Kent Monkman, Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, Xu Bing, and Yao Lu) come from such backgrounds. 31 Postcolonial critiques in the environmental humanities have stressed the coexistence of different cultural understandings of history and the environment around the world, acknowledging that these traditions cannot be readily reduced to the binaries of Western knowledge configurations such as the nature-culture divide. 32 Art historians can do the same to counter presentism and Eurocentrism within the discipline by practicing ecological art history as a form of global art history. This would involve drawing on the discipline's inherent diversity to investigate visual arts from different cultures and time periods, encompassing topics that readily lend themselves to exploring a wide range of ecological issues as manifested in diverse mediums, spaces, techniques, designs, and practices. The coexistence of these subfields constitutes a fertile ground for their respective practitioners to interact, experiment, and collaborate with one another. At the same time, taking up ecological issues within well-defined historical and cultural contexts is essential for avoiding the projection of one's own worldview as a self-evident truth for others. Attempts at universalizing art history, despite the best intentions, have shown that a "territorialized binary" of a multicultural "West" and a monocultural "non-West" continues to exist in art history, such that the Western conceptual schemata are still privileged over contemporary non-Western practices, which are often dismissed as derivative and provincial.33 The commitment to the ecological as advocated in this book could help eschew some of these pitfalls and yield a different kind of art history whose coherence lies in a common vision for diversity rather than in some shared theory, methodology, canon, or narrative. How can an ecological art history of cave temples inform the discussion of the interrelationship between art and the environment? In addition to the object-based perspective noted above, cave temples as enduring monuments from Asia bring to the table a material-based mode of analysis, a greater emphasis on the role of perception and cognition in examining the nature-society relationship, a wider temporal scope, and a global outlook. Acknowledgment of the interdependence of cave temples, human society, and the environment in the longue duree represents a decidedly humanist (rather than transhumanist or posthumanist) position. This position stresses the artificiality of these structures and the continual human involvement in their upkeep against the relentlessness of their natural setting. The humanist stance is also key to the book's aim of directing the findings toward advancing causes central to society today. At the same time, many of the examples minimize anthropocentric exceptionalism as seen in the conventional art historical concept of artistic genius, for the builders and restorers of

20

INTRODUCTION

cave temples have been largely anonymous throughout history. Technical studies of the physical properties of the setting and in situ material objects are helpful to compensate for the lack of documentation on the makers. This focus not only calls attention to more concrete information on the impact of certain environmental conditions on material matter but also aligns logically with the methodological implications in the "material turn" in today's ecological thinking. Emphasis on technical studies of material matter at cave temples is balanced with cultural analysis of how human stakeholders of these sites came to know the physical environment and organize themselves in relation to the ecological conditions particular to it. The concept of affordances, first introduced in Gestalt psychology, is especially useful for directing our attention to the perceptual systems in the human-environment relationship that are grounded in the experiences of the individual perceiver and the relativity inherent therein. Accordingly, the affordance of an object (e.g., the terrain) does not change as the need of the observer changes, and the need in turn affects how the observer perceives, makes sense of, and interacts with it. 34 This model is thus considerably different from that of agency in new materialism in that any inquiry on perception still remains anthropocentric, whereas in new materialism the focus is on the interaction between different actants within a given network, which is understood as dynamic and mutually influential due to the actants' innate vitality, be they human or nonhuman.35 Because of its focus on the surfaces of objects for perceiving, the modern theory of affordances helps researchers to identify specific features at the site to explain their possible role in the initial establishment process as well as the site's rediscovery after prolonged disuse. This theory could complement analyses of period sources and practices, shedding light on the psychology of monastic instigators and patrons of restoration, but not necessarily their actions at particular locations. In addition to its methodological and theoretical underpinnings, another feature of this book is its expanded scope of investigation, encompassing both the site's creation and its later reception. Casting a particular practice or concept across the centuries, identifying and explaining significant turning points in its development, counters the tendency toward presentism in eco art scholarship. To this end, examples introduced in the second half of the book deal with the transformation of cave temples into cultural heritage sites in the modern era. Although the launch of the official heritage management system in the twentieth century precipitated major changes in management, visitorship, and restoration, certain concepts crucial to defining modern standards of sustainability, protective zones, preservation through documentation, and eco-compatibility of materials surfaced long before the modern era. That we find the precursors for many supposedly modern and Western practices in premodern Sichuan-viewed by some as the margins of the marginal non-West-underscores the need to incorporate experiences and knowledge beyond the Euro-American tradition in understanding problems of global magnitude. Recognizing that concepts and practices shared across time and place have had different trajectories helps foster greater sensitivity toward cultural and

INTRODUCTION

21

historical diversity, thereby preparing the ground for developing more holistic strategies for addressing contemporary problems. Indeed, today's critical discourse of sustainability involves the incorporation of justice and equity issues into the very core of the concept-as activist researchers have advocated-so as to make it a process with the power to transform.36 Voicing social critiques alongside environmental-ethical concerns through substantive historical analysis is an important contribution that ecological art history can make to contemporary society. Yet social engagement also extends to the domain of the discipline. Assessing the impact of the environment on a site's design involves seeing what ecocritic Lawrence Buell has called the "hitherto-underperceived significance of environ mentality" as a pervasive feature in the millennium-long tradition of cave building in southwest China. 37 Such commitment to the ecological has the power to change the way art historians study the premodern world. In promoting an inclusive vision of global art history through the lens of Buddhist art in Sichuan, this book by no means casts China as a monolithic counterpart to the West, an alternative that might lend itself to romanticization or exoticization. Likewise, strong nationalistic currents in China today have pressured many academic disciplines to conduct studies-such as those of the Dazu rock carvings in Chongqing-that demonstrate the greatness of Chinese civilization by minimizing the effect of foreign influences. The relative isolation ofSichuan throughout history sometimes makes arguments along those lines plausible, but as historian David Lowenthal observes, "History and heritage both refashion the past in present garb. But the former does so to make the past comprehensible, the latter to make it congenial." 38 It is my intention to make the development of cave temples in southwest China comprehensible, thereby setting the book apart from any heritage project.

22

I NTRODUCT I ON

PART I

INNER/OUTER

T

HE ROLE OF THE ENVIRONMENT IN SHAPING THE DESIGN OF CAVE

temples is evident in the ways their locality is used to generate meanings for the sites' human users. Mountain locations allowed humans to establish a foothold at the borders of the uninhabitable. This intermediary zone between civilization and wilderness was perceived to be efficacious for carrying out religious activities of various kinds. The symbolic values associated with the caves' in-between status were concretized by the fundamental impulse to create images out of cliff surfaces and then protect them with artificial or natural shelters. This dual act of creation and preservation gave rise to a dynamics of the inner/outer. It could manifest as separation of a physical space into two, the outside and the inside, as in the case of the massive wooden-framed shelter for the Great Buddha at Leshan, which played a crucial role in determining the visitor's experience at the site. Or, it was deployed as a means of social organization enacted through iconography, as seen at Baodingshan, where the Large and Small Buddha Bends were designed to serve the two main groups of users, advanced practitioners at the smaller site and primarily the uninitiated at the larger site. The cases at hand also offer new perspectives on the nature-society relationship and that of the human and nonhuman entities, two aspects of the urgent intellectual challenge precipitated by the Anthropocene.

CHAPTER ONE

The Leshan Buddha, a Calmer of Water

L

ESH AN IS THE HOME OF COLOSSAL BUDDHAS. MUCH OF THE CITY'S FAME

rests on a seated statue carved out of a precipitous cliff at Lingyun Mountain, not far from its historic center. Known simply as the Great Buddha of Leshan, the image is sixty-two meters high, set deep inside a massive, open niche (fig. 1.1). With two hands clasping its knees, the statue presides majestically over the confluence of three major rivers, the Min, the Dadu, and the Qingyi (map 1.1). Historical sources tell us that the statue's location was strategically chosen in the early eighth century by a wandering Buddhist preacher named Haitong, who sought to calm the treacherous waters at that spot by invoking the compassion of the future Buddha Maitreya. 1 The creation of a colossal image at Leshan must have resonated with members of the ruling elite in Sichuan at the time, for two military governors took over separate stages of the project after Haitong's death and completed it in the early ninth century. It was no small achievement to create an image on such a grand scale in a frontier region where Han people from the Central Plain had long vied with their non-Han neighbors and indigenous inhabitants for control. The installment of a monumental religious icon that could also calm water and save lives was highly symbolic of the long-standing power struggle, just as it was emblematic of the human determination to tame an unruly landscape through massive alteration. More than a millennium later, two more colossal Buddhas were added to the same landscape. Located inside a theme park called the Buddha Capital of the Orient (Dongfang Fodu), both works in many ways owe their existence to the park's renowned predecessor, as they were built after the statue at Lingyun Mountain and the adjacent Mount Emei were together designated as a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in 1996, soon to become a major

25

Figure 1.1

Maitreya Buddha, Lingyun Mountain, Leshan, Sichuan. Stone relief sculpture, 62 (with

pedestal) x 23.35 m. First completed in 803.

Figure 1.2

Shakyamuni

Buddha, Buddha Capital of th e Orient, Leshan . Stone relief sculpture, 33 m high. Con structed 1994- 2005.

• Shiziwan tombs

Buddha Capita I of the Orient

Map 1.1

26

Major monuments at Lingyun Mountain, Leshan .

domestic and international tourist destination.2 With the hope to benefit from tourism while minimizing negative environmental impact, the local authorities opted to build the new statues deep inside the mountain. They also took pains to keep a low profile for the project, at times to the point of being secretive about the ongoing construction. 3 The precaution to avert publicity was understandable, considering that one of the statues was meant to be a re-creation of the Buddhas at Bamiyan, Afghanistan, that were destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001 (see fig. P . 2) . These colossal Buddhas are distinct from all those from the Buddhist world of premodern times. Billed as the Medicine Buddha by the site's management, the re-created statue, standing over fifty meters tall, replicates the Bamiyan Buddhas' towering height and placement within a massive chamber along the mountain cliff face. Yet the theme park outdid the cave complex in Afghanistan by creating a labyrinth of large chambers and tunnels inside the mountain. It is in one of these chambers that the other colossal Buddha is located, a seated statue representing the historical Buddha Shakyamuni in a more Chinese appearance with Tang-style flair, measuring over thirty meters tall (fig. 1.2).

THE LE SHAN BUDDHA, A CALMER OF WATER

27

The circumstances under which the two colossal Buddhas were created have much to tell about the revival of monumental statuary in twenty-first-century China. But perhaps more interesting is the contrast they bring to analyzing the role of the environment in shaping the creation of the Leshan Buddha. Whereas the modern statues are located deep inside a mountain, hidden completely from view from the outside, the Great Buddha from the Tang dynasty formed a part of the Lingyun Mountain along the Min River, where it was visible yet obscured. The statue's partial visibility was the result of building a wooden-framed shelter around the carving as part of the original design, which was meant to shield the statue from view and from the elements. Although no longer extant, the shelter signaled the Buddha's physical and visual embeddedness within a landscape readily accessible to humans, a feature that is in fact consistent with most extant colossal Buddhas from the premodern world. Yet it is rare to find monumental statues set deep within a natural formation, requiring the visitor to travel into the bowels of the earth for the encounter. The inner/outer dynamics in the design of the theme park is thus fundamentally different from that in Buddhist cave temples in China and elsewhere in Asia. The notion of a paradisiacal realm hidden deep inside the earth reflects more tellingly the Daoist idea of the grotto heavens, as manifested in the landscape of Leshan through the cliff tombs that were built centuries before the Great Buddha.4 What is evident at the site of the Great Leshan Buddha, however, is an approach that encourages human followers of the Buddhas to seek them out in the immediate surroundings through the creation of artificial likenesses of these deities on the surfaces of the earth. Their perceived efficacy to secure benefits for the users hinges on a visuality defined by the embeddedness of the images within a setting that allows visitors to see in close range but not from a distance. The statues' veiled presence thus lends them an air of mystique that keeps luring visitors to the site from afar. The Lingyun Mountain landscape had been shaped significantly by human interventions long before the Buddhist preacher Haitong initiated the statue project in the eighth century. This prehistory reveals salient aspects of the Leshan Buddha that underscore the local builders' and patrons' deep understanding of the land's richness in natural, human, and technological resources. Their century-long fascination with and commitment to creating a Buddha statue that could calm water drew on their unique knowledge and experience. As the statue took shape, the site came to embody a design model that articulated a particular mode of perceiving the environment, while laying bare the power relations among different groups of users involved in the creation and reception of the colossal Buddha. The site's inner/outer dynamics can be understood as both centrifugal and centripetal. On the one hand, the artificiality of the wooden shelter stood out amid the rugged naturalness of the entire cliff face, such that it became an affordance to draw the visitors in to see the Buddha. On the other hand, upon entering the structure, the visitors would find themselves in an asymmetrical relation with the colossal statue, which in turn compelled them to reflect on their place within some larger realm, be it the Lingyun Mountain landscape or the cosmos and beyond.

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CHAPTER ONE

Technical analyses of the site and in situ materials reveal that the construction of the Leshan Buddha was an extraordinary feat of engineering executed by a massive yet well-organized labor force under the direction of the land's highest authorities. Indeed, the unprecedented scale of the Leshan Buddha prompts a consideration of the project's ecological significance in terms of the technologies it shared with other forms of anthropogenic production in Sichuan society. The present case raises many questions about the use of energy and resources in the making of religious art in preindustrial societies, a topic that has received little attention in Asian art history or environmental studies.5 A key aspect in defining the Anthropocene is the linking of the dramatic rise in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to the increased use of fossil fuel through industrialization and urbanization, such that humans are seen as an active agent in precipitating fundamental changes in the planet's workings.6 The convergence of the geological understanding of the earth and the history of human society within the same discourse marks a major development in today's ecological thinking. Yet preindustrial societies have been left out of the discussion because "they did not have the numbers, social and economic organization, or technologies needed to equal or dominate the great forces of Nature in magnitude or rate." 7 The present study does not dispute the science behind connecting human actions to environmental changes but rather critiques the implications behind making such a sweeping generalization based on a very short time period in the earth's history while ignoring key dimensions of the human experience such as art and religion. To mitigate this problem, greater attention must be paid to what historian Dipesh Chakrabarty calls the "deep history of humanity." 8 This is precisely what cultural monuments such as the Leshan Buddha can add to the current debate. The resource use required to alter nature in the creation of monumental religious icons was on par with, if not surpassed by, agriculture or other forms of economic production in preindustrial society outside the West. At Leshan, the colossal Buddha was made possible by appropriating technologies from land clearance for farming, water diversion, quarrying, and mining. Connections to these anthropogenic activities thus call for a reassessment of the extent of the statue's ecological impact, however insignificant it may first seem on the scale of geological time. Instead of following the modern geologist's lead to look for evidence in the earth's record, this chapter excavates Leshan's past and a web of interrelationships within a local culture that at once involves artistic practices, social relations, politics, religious beliefs, and technological development. The creation of the Leshan Buddha depended on the choice of its location under Haitong, the project's scale under military governor Zhangqiu Jianqiong (d. 750), and the viewing psychology of the statue under another military governor, Wei Gao (744805). A key tenet of ecological art history is the investigation of the ways in which the environment has shaped the formal properties of any given monument and the cultural context within which it was situated. The Leshan Buddha is an exceptional case for carrying out a study of this kind, as no other colossal Buddhas in Sichuan or elsewhere in

THE LESHAN BUDDHA, A CALMER OF WATER

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China can compare in terms of the range and depth of the materials available. At the same time, this account also raises fundamental questions about the transferability of certain concepts-whether for object type, iconographic motif, or design configuration-and their adaptability to specific environments. While this investigation stresses the need to examine the impact of the environment on a man-made structure or object, it by no means suggests any sort of environmental determinism in art that denies the role of individual choices in defining the form and contents of a work. 9 On the one hand, in the absence of any record concerning the workers who were directly involved in the construction of the Leshan Buddha, it would be difficult to attribute the exact share of their contribution to the project. On the other hand, the longevity of the statue and its key attributes offer compelling evidence of the ingenuity of the builders and carvers at Leshan. Despite their anonymity, it is possible to recognize the achievement of these workers by regarding it as a collective effort and by factoring their presence into the discussion of Haitong, Zhangqiu, and Wei. Although their names have survived in written records, these three individuals would not have been able to complete the project without a large team of skilled workers whose expertise, care, and dedication over the course of nearly a century culminated in the creation of the colossal Buddha.

Chronology of Construction

Understanding the Leshan Buddha in the records and in its current state is the first step toward investigating the site's broader ecological connections. Much of what we know about its creation comes from in situ donor records documenting the project's completion and later repairs, as well as descriptions left behind by visiting poets, epigraphers, and officials. This archive of inscriptional evidence offers a glimpse into the earlier state of the site, which can be complemented by careful observations of material objects and structures still on location today. WEI GAo's RECORD

The most important document regarding the Leshan Buddha is an inscription titled Record of the Great Maitreya Buddha Statue at Lingyun Monastery ofJiazhou (Jiazhou Lingyunsi da Mile fo xiang ji; hereafter Record; appendix, text 2), written and dedicated by Wei Gao in 803; a reinscription of the text made in 1945 can still be seen today on the cliff face, by the river, adjacent to the statue's right leg and outside the heavenly king 10 niche (see fig. 1.1). According to the Record, the undertaking was begun by Haitong sometime in the Kaiyuan era (713-42) of the Tang dynasty. Taking pity on those who lost their lives while navigating at the confluence of the Min, Dadu, and Qingyi Rivers, the monk reportedly vowed to "open the face of the Compassionate One widely and give contour to [the Dharma's] manifestation': (appendix, text 2, line 6). He wasted no time in raising funds and gathering artisans to begin the carving of the Buddha along the precipitous cliffs. In a few years, the massive statue slowly took shape, "with a head

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CHAPTER ONE

a hundred chi in circumference and eyes two zhang wide" (appendix, text 2, line 7). But when Haitong passed away sometime in the late 720s or early 730s, the body remained incomplete. 11 The project apparently came to a complete halt from the time of Haitong's death until 739, when Zhangqiu Jianqiong became military governor of the Sichuan region. 12 Wei's Record reports that Zhangqiu personally donated two hundred thousand cash to resume the construction of the Great Buddha, and the project was further aided by the allocation of hemp and salt tax revenues by the Tang court. Much progress was made under such favorable circumstances, especially toward the carving of the upper body. Yet the statue was once again abandoned, when Zhangqiu departed from Sichuan in 746. 13 Another forty years would pass before Wei took over and finished the project. Like his predecessor, Wei was the military governor of Sichuan and made a sizable personal contribution of five hundred thousand cash to the cause. 14 In this final phase of construction, he focused on the carving of the lower part of the body (namely, from the lotus-shaped base pedestals up to the statue's knees) as well as the erection of an enormous wooden shelter in front. The Record was dedicated in 803 to commemorate the project's completion. Written nearly a century after the Leshan Buddha was initiated, Wei 's Record presented the great statue at Leshan as a demonstration of Maitreya Buddha's benevolence in saving sentient beings from grave dangers. Central to this narrative was the mythologizing of Haitong as the hero who helped establish the crucial link between the local community and the world of the Buddhas through the construction of a colossal icon in nature. The project illustrated the monk's unswerving faith in the Buddhist dharma, his compassion for all beings, his leadership skills in fundraising and labor organization, and an iron will to attempt the impossible. Most importantly, Haitong was a paragon of self-sacrifice, a quality described in an anecdote in which he refused to pay a bribe to a corrupt local official and fended him off by sacrificing one of his eyes in a show of defiance and determination to preserve the project's funding at any cost. On this heroic act, Wei comments: "When one has single-minded devotion to the point of forgetting one's own body, it is possible to turn the mountain and spin the sun. Moreover, when this is done to promulgate our Sacred Way, encourage all to unite together, calm these turbulent currents, and follow those quiet airs, the response [from the Buddhas] is swift and appropriate" (appendix, text 2, line 17). ICONOGRAPHIC CONFIGURATION

Wei's Record reveals a great deal about the mind-set of those who devoted themselves to the building of the Great Buddha at Lingyun Mountain. At the same time, however, the text provides few details on the original design of the site or the statue's formal appearance. It is therefore critical to turn to the site for further clues. The Great Buddha at Leshan was created by cutting a natural mountain cliff down to the intended shape of the statue, a reductive method that required knowledge of the geological properties

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31

Figure 1.4

Heavenly King Vaishra -

vana, Lingyun Mountain , Leshan. Figure 1.3

Amitabha Buddha and attendants, Cave 28, Huangzesi, Guangyuan, Sichuan . Stone relief

scu lpture, s m high . Early seventh century.

of the land and careful planning and execution of the excavation process. Aside from repainting or reshaping the surface layer, any unplanned changes to the core design would have been difficult to implement after the site's completion. Thus, what we see today reflects by and large the original design. The tradition of making large-scale Buddha statues at cave temples in Sichuan began sometime in the late sixth century. 15 This provides a proper context within which to examine the iconographic configuration of the Leshan Buddha, which in turn could yield crucial information to corroborate the chronology presented in Wei's Record. Some of the earliest extant examples are located in the Chengdu area and Guangyuan in northern Sichuan and date to the sixth and seventh centuries. Exemplified by the five-meter-high standing Buddha in Cave 28 at Huangzesi in Guangyuan (fig. 1-3), nearly all of these statues follow the iconographic convention of the time of placing the Buddha at the center of an ensemble consisting of bodhisattvas, disciples, wrathful demigod (yaksha) guardians, and other figures . At Leshan, however, many of the typical attendants such as the bodhisattvas and disciples are absent except for a pair of heavenly kings, each of which occupies a shallow niche in the lower reaches of the cliff close to the water level. When viewed frontally from a distance, they appear

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CHAPTER ONE

Stone relief scu lpture, about 10 m high . First completed in 803.

flanking the Buddha's throne, even though they are physically detached from the enormous indentation into which the Buddha is set in the mountain (see fig. 1.1). Although severely eroded after centuries of exposure to the elements, the figures' general contour can still be discerned: each is standing erect with two feet apart, one hand holding an object of some sort while the other rests on the waist. The vertical elongation of the body is further enhanced by a tall, boxlike headdress and a long skirt. These attributes amount to a menacing presence on the cliff, with piercing eyes directed at the viewers approaching by boat (fig. 1.4). A pair of heavenly kings appear occasionally as part of the preaching assembly of the Buddha in Tang Buddhist art, and such examples at Qianfoya in Guangyuan and Nankan in Bazhong (see fig. 4.8) are in keeping with the iconographic model ofLongmen in central China.16 What is unique about Leshan is the grouping of the colossal Buddha with two heavenly kings in separate niches, which is specific to the Chengdu Plain in the late eighth century, when Wei Gao was finishing the project. In Qionglai, in Caves 27-29 at Shisunshan, a section dating to 768, provides reliable evidence to bracket the time frame and possible sources for the Leshan pairing (fig. 1.5). The remarkable similarities in spatial setup as well as the costume and appearance of the

THE LESHAN BUDDHA, A CALMER OF WATER

33

Figure 1.6 Figure 1.5

Seated Buddha with two heavenly kings, Caves 27-29, Shi sun shan, Qionglai, Sichuan . Ston e

relief sculpture, niche: 4.2 x 4.5 m. 768.

figures indicate that the artisans at Lingyun Mountain must have consulted nearby sites or even worked there previously. The continued popularity of the pairing can be seen in other images of "one Buddha and two heavenly kings" found in the Leshan area, many of which are labeled as such in accompanying cartouches. 17 Also important to note is that Vaishravana (Bishamen Wang), heavenly king of the north, would soon become the center of a cult following, a development that can serve as a terminus ad quern for the iconographic configuration under discussion here. 18 As evidenced by examples from the ninth and tenth centuries in other parts of Sichuan, such as Nankan in Bazhong (fig. 1.6), Zhonglongshan in Zizhong, and Yuanjuedong in Anyue, Vaishravana was now cast as an independent icon with his own attendants and consciously separated from any grouping with a Buddha. As this deity is still paired with the Maitreya Buddha alongside another heavenly king at Lingyun Mountain, the design was most likely conceived and executed in the second half of the eighth century, before the rise of the Vaishravana cult decades later. Moreover, as the examples from northern Sichuan have shown, the "one Buddha and two heavenly kings" format had not yet become prevalent in the early eighth century. This in turn suggests that Haitong did not have this configuration in mind when he began the project at Leshan. Rather,

34

CHAPTER ONE

Vai shravana, Niche 65,

Nankan, Bazhong, Sichuan . Stone relief sculpture, 1.64 x 0.38 m. 877.

it was probably incorporated into the overall design in the third and final phase of construction under Wei Gao following the iconographic trend prevailing at the time. The possible dating of the iconographic pairing of the Maitreya Buddha and two heavenly kings to Wei Gao's time rather than to Haitong's underscores the complexity and dynamism of the construction process at Leshan. With little or no evidence of a master blueprint being handed down or followed diligently through time, each generation of patrons and builders appears to have made distinctive contributions to the project.

Choice of Location

A technical study conducted at the site in 1989- 91 found that the surface layer of the statue has been altered repeatedly over the course of its life span, but the stone core underneath has remained unchanged over time. 19 This supports the statement in Wei's Record that the good monk was attracted to a spot along the Min River where it was particularly dangerous for seafarers to navigate and that he sought to calm the water and save lives by creating a colossal Buddha (appendix, text 2, lines 4-6). The text also provides

THE LE SHAN BUDDHA, A CALMER OF WATER

35

geographical knowledge about the cause of this natural hazard. As illustrated in map 1.1, the cliffs of Lingyun Mountain are located where the Dadu River flows into the Min River. The Dadu's currents are strong because another river, the Qingyi, joins in just before the Dadu feeds into the Min. Also, precipitous cliffs lining the Min trap the raging water, causing it to crash against the cliffs along the way and make a "roaring sound that [can] be heard over hundreds of miles." Despite the perilous conditions, the Min River had been the main transportation route connecting Chengdu to other parts of China through the Yangzi River for over two millennia. 20 In Tang times, it was commonly considered the beginning or upper part of the Yangzi. Leshan was located at the start of the crucial southern stretch of the Min that joined into the Yangzi proper near Yibin. The choice of location along the Min River for a colossal statue that could calm water resonates with the history of the Sichuan Basin. A clear connection can be found at Dujiangyan, in the world-famous water-control system built by Li Bing in the third century BCE in the northern part of the Min River, marking the official entry of Han rule into the region. It was Zhangqiu Jianqiong who first recognized the project's potential in light of this connection and Wei Gao who immortalized it in writing in his Record. In Haitong's time, however, the monk's decision to undertake such an enormous task was more likely prompted by the desire to proselytize the Buddha's teaching, as he was not a government official who sought to implement imperial Chinese- style rule but rather a wandering preacher from Guizhou looking for opportunities to carry out his mission. One thing he would have recognized was the many cliffside tombs scattered along precipitous cliffs next to the Min River and other streams in the vicinity. Leshan has one of the highest concentrations of cliffside tombs in Sichuan, numbering over ten thousand units by one estimate. 21 Dating from mostly the second and third centuries CE, these cliffside tombs belonged to a region-wide phenomenon in which elites and commoners alike used horizontal shafts excavated deep into the mountain for both individual burials and family crypts. At Lingyun Mountain, there are two major clusters of cliff tombs near the colossal Buddha: Shiziwan, with over a hundred units, and Mahao, with over three hundred (see map 1.1). 22 In addition, countless others are scattered throughout the area. Their ubiquity is evident around the Leshan Buddha. Along the walls of the massive niche are hollows with rectangular openings, all of which appear to have been parts of previous cliff tombs (fig. 1.7). Some of the pictorial niches along the staircase on the right-hand side of the massive Buddha niche were likely converted from preexisting cliff tombs (fig. 1.8). While many are now closed or in disrepair, others have been converted into spaces for tourists to visit. The so-called Master Haitong Cave, located behind the crown of the Buddha's head, exemplifies a typical cliff tomb (fig. 1.9). 2 3 It is essentially a rectangular space excavated into the cliff, with niches along two sides of the chamber, where the bodies of the deceased were once deposited. The chamber was left unadorned but was probably once furnished with a variety of burial goods, including finely decorated stone sarcophagi; bronze money trees; miniature ceramic replicas of houses, livestock, servants and musicians, and household utensils; and expensive items such as coins, precious stone accessories, and metalwork. 2 4 CHAPTER ONE

Figure 1,7

(Top) Upper part of niche wall on the Leshan

Buddha 's right-hand side. Figure 1.8

(Bottom left) Stairca se on the Le shan Buddha 's

right-hand side . Constructed in 1972- 75. Figure 1.9

(Bottom right) Interior of Haitong Cave, Lingyun

Mountain , Leshan . Excavated chamber, 2.70 (near entrance) x 2.50 x 8.75 m. Undated.

37

The considerable number of cliff tombs still visible around the statue today suggests that many more must have once occupied the current location but were destroyed to make way for the statue. The physical overlapping of these structures with the colossal Buddha at Lingyun Mountain thus opens up an intriguing perspective on Haitong's decision to initiate the project at this location in the eighth century. The concept of affordances from ecological psychology is particularly useful in illuminating the perception and cognition processes in the site instigators' encounter with this particular landscape. Psychologist James J. Gibson popularized the term affordance, intending it to underscore the complementarity of the animal and the environment by asserting that the former can derive meanings from the surfaces of things in the latter th rough the act of perceiving. 25 This is a radical hypothesis because psychologists have long theorized that humans and animals construe meanings or ideas through cognition rather than perception. What Gibson proposes is that there is in fact information in the surfaces of things via their composition or layout that humans and animals can perceive for subsequent action but without coming to an understanding of it. This reformulation of the perception process, in particular the ascription of inherent meaning-generating attributes to things in the environment, is significant for the present discussion, for it highlights a crucial aspect ofHaitong's response to the environment ofLingyun Mountain. That is, he must have recognized the cliff tombs as part of the landscape, deeming them to be affordances thereof but without understanding their original funerary function. According to Gibson's terms of analysis, it means that the Buddhist monk probably found the place appealing not only for its location at the confluence of three rivers but also for an air of otherworldliness associated with the existence of a large number of mysterious hollows in the mountain. Indeed, many cliff tombs in Leshan were repurposed in later times after this practice of funerary architecture died out in Sichuan by the fifth century, if not earlier. I have shown elsewhere that later visitors to abandoned cliff tombs regarded these tunnel-like spaces in mountains simply as abodes of immortals rather than as tombs, as in the case of Baiyashan in the outskirts ofLeshan, which became a popular destination for cultural tourists and a site ofliterary production by the eleventh century. 26 At Lingyun Mountain, the local landscape was about to undergo another round of epic transformation with the construction of the great Maitreya statue in the early eighth century. The launch of Haitong's project marked the arrival of a decidedly Buddhist approach to the environment. At the heart of the matter was the notion of sympathetic resonance (ganying or gantong), which was predicated on a belief in the interconnectedness between human action, divine will, and nature. The concept had a long history in China, tracing back to The Classic of Changes (Yijing), and had informed such deeply rooted beliefs as the mandate of heaven. 2 7 With the arrival of Buddhism in China in the first century CE, the cosmological framework in which sympathetic resonance operated was greatly expanded to include Buddhist deities of all sorts. As

CHAPTER ONE

recorded in many Buddhist miracle tales and hagiographical accounts, the making of a colossal Buddha was a response to certain stimuli oflocation, which only monks with extraordinary sensitivity could recognize.28 From the emission of unusual lights to the sound of heavenly music, these supernatural happenings were signs for the monks to take action. Crucially, the human agents of the divine all chose to immortalize the moment of recognition with monumental sculptures of those Buddhist deities whom they believed would respond favorably to their efforts. The creation of the Leshan Buddha seems to have followed a similar course. Although Wei's Record does not mention any unusual happenings Haitong might have experienced at the site prior to the undertaking, it does report that as soon as the monk finished the face of the Buddha statue "the fearsome currents and angry waves readily subsided." This must have been regarded as a sign of approval from Maitreya himself for the correctness of Haitong's choice of location. The stele record further explains: "Proceeding from the inner to the outer, visualizing one's mind brought about the assimilation of one's environment. In so doing the eight winds soon quieted down, and the river became still as well" (appendix, text 2, line 11). The completion of the Great Buddha of Leshan thus brought about the calming not only of the treacherous waters at Lingyun Mountain but also of the minds of its beholders.

Chinese lmperium Coming to Leshan

Haitong did not live to see the completion of the Maitreya Buddha at Leshan. After his death, the project was abandoned for a long while, before it was resumed under Zhangqiu Jianqiong. As military governor of the Jiannan region (corresponding more or less to today's Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces), he was the top government official representing the Tang court in southwest China. Zhangqiu's sponsorship at Leshan, therefore, is significant in both practical and symbolic terms. As described in Wei's Record, he helped complete a large portion of the statue with both his own funds and the allocation of tax revenues for the project. Implicit in his involvement were also the worldview, knowledge, and material resources that he brought to the site through his high position. The impact can best be gauged by the scale of the statue. UNDERSTANDING SCALE

In colossal cliffside inscriptions based on Buddhist scriptures at various mountains in Shandong, ideas about scale in Buddhism influenced the creation of images and texts of enormous size. 29 The interest in conveying a vision of cosmic proportion found in Mahayana scriptures such as Lotus Sutra had challenged Buddhist believers to imagine paradises presided over by the Buddhas on a scale that is beyond human comprehension. It also prompted many to attempt translating abstract notions of vastness into human reality through monumental undertakings. Nature has long been a common yardstick by which humans measure their place in a larger world. With the Leshan

THE LESHAN BUDDHA, A CALMER OF WATER

39

Buddha, we have a considerable amount of technical information to better understand how it was carried out. According to the most recent figures, the Leshan Buddha is 59.84 meters (196.33 feet) tall from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet; adding the foot pedestals, which measure 2.16 meters (7.09 feet) from the bottom of the feet to the ground, the statue stands at 62 meters (203-41 feet). 3 0 The statue's height has long attracted researchers' attention, but what is equally important is the volume of stone that was removed from the mountain cliff to create the massive niche in which the seated Buddha is nested. This aspect, I believe, helps quantify the unprecedented scale of the project as a whole, from the physical enormity of the statue to the massive labor force and logistical support required for execution. A preliminary estimate of the amount of stone removed can be reached by analyzing the available data about the site with what we know from the construction process at Yungang Caves as well as land clearance methods from other parts of the world. Study of the construction of the so-called Five Tanyao Caves at Yungang (Caves 16-20; fig. 1.10) has shed new light on the planning and execution of monumental projects of this kind in premodern Asia. 31 Although these caves in northeast China date to the Northern Wei dynasty (386-534), the overall methodology and even some of the findings are relevant to the present study of the Leshan Buddha in the southwestern region during the eighth century. The fact that the two sites share a similar geological composition of red sandstone makes them particularly ideal for a comparative analysis that considers the correlation of labor and technology to productivity. Work in each of the three main phases in the construction of a cave unit at Yungang would have involved clearing the slope to create a vertical faEl, 3501-19. Chengdu: Sichuan Daxue Chubanshe, 2003.

*g~~-

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