Protection of Buddhist structures under Emperor Tao-wu of the Northern Wei dynasty as a way of asserting political power

Markhanova Tatiana Fridrikhovna PhD in History Interpreter, LLC “Standart” 670013, Russia, Ulan-Ude, Klyuchevskaya str., 64-69 tatiya6a@mail.ru Other publications by this author

The Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534) was the longest-lived and most powerful of the northern empires before the reunification of northern and southern China under the Sui and Tang dynasties. Trade flourished between China and Central Asia and the influence of Indian artistic styles is especially noticeable in the art of the Northern Wei period ^{[3, p. 29]}. Like the Mongols a millennium later, Xianbei began to rely heavily on Han Chinese administrators and bureaucrats who helped run the state ^{[1, p. 71]}. This close contact with Chinese culture helped transform the aristocratic Xianbei class from nomadic horsemen into Chinese townspeople. Important and influential families (including the imperial family) adopted Chinese surnames, abandoned traditional clothing in favor of Chinese fashion and, most importantly for the history of Chinese religious studies, converted to Buddhism, which they enthusiastically patronized.

Huge wealth and large tracts of land were donated to Buddhist monasteries, which subsequently led to a serious outflow of capital and a real threat to the state. But for most of the fifth century, Buddhism enjoyed almost unrestrained support from the Northern Wei court, with the exception of a short period from 446 to 452, when Emperor Dai Wu-di (423-452) made Taoism the state religion and brutally persecuted Buddhism, Buddhist clergy and monasteries, as well as its art, literature and architecture. After Wu-di's death, the persecution ceased, and the generous patronage of Buddhism was resumed by the court. The highlight of this sponsorship is the Yungang cave temples and eclectic monumental icons that so clearly demonstrate the sculptural style of Northern Wei.

The Tobians abandoned shamanism because they needed a powerful religious teaching capable of performing the functions of a state ideological system, so the rulers of the northern dynasties used Buddhism in the sphere of ideological relations ^{[2, p. 147]}. For a century and a half of its reign, the imperial family of the Northern Wei Dynasty constantly patronized Buddhist construction projects as a means of asserting its sovereignty with the help of political symbols unique to the history and writings of Buddhism. The article examines cases of patronage by the rulers of Northern Wei. Firstly, it is the sponsorship of buildings by the founder of the dynasty, Emperor Tao-wu (years of rule 386-409). In 398, when he founded his new capital in Pingcheng City, he ordered the construction of a pagoda, a Buddhist hall on Mount Sumeru, Vulture Peak and a monastery. Although these projects were interpreted as state support for Buddhism, it is assumed that they were intended to represent the capital as the center of government, using the symbolism of the mythical and historical Indian places of Mount Sumeru, Pataliputra and Rajagriha, while positioning the emperor as a modern day manifestation of Lord Indra, King Bimbisara or Emperor Ashoka. The following example is one of the monuments testifying to the restoration of Buddhism after the persecution of 444-446 by Emperor Wencheng (reign 452-465). Under the guidance of Monk Tanyao (c. 410–c. 486), the emperor ordered to carve five grottoes in the Yonggang rock, each of which contained a colossal collection of the Buddha. It is believed that they represent his direct ancestors and himself and were made for the karmic and political benefit of the royal line. In 500, Emperor Xuanwu (reigned 499-515) ordered the excavation of a pair of cave chapels at Longmen, a new imperial cave temple outside the relocated capital Luoyang. The relief images inside were intended to give birth to the karmic merits of his late parents, to represent his late father in his unrealized role as the emperor of all China and to portray him in the wonderful images of the Buddhist lay sage Vimalakirti and the ideal compassionate Bodhisattva prince. In the latter case, Empress Dowager Hu (d. 528), who ruled on behalf of her son, ordered the construction of the most ornate pagoda ever built. The colossal expenses, technical achievements and luxurious appearance of the Yunning Pagoda were probably intended to demonstrate its piety and power to support its dubious right to sovereignty.

According to the official dynastic history of that period, in 398, Emperor Dao-wu ordered the construction of the following:

a five-story pagoda, Vulture Peak and a hall on Mount Sumeru. A lecture hall, a meditation hall and rooms for monks were built separately, all strictly and completely ^[9].

Although modern scholars view these projects as proof that the Northern Wei government established the Buddhist religion in the capital, they can also be interpreted as the founding of Pingcheng City as the capital and ruling center, in addition to the self-government of the emperor as sovereign. 

Five- storey pagodaThe Northern Wei Court viewed the state pagodas as impressive symbols of sovereignty.

None of the records of the various pagodas built by imperial order during the Northern Wei indicate the presence of relics; rather, they are more focused on the height and splendor of the building. The political significance of the pagodas is associated with Emperor Ashoka (reign ca. 269-232 BC). As the first great imperial propagandist of Buddhism in India, Ashoka was taken as a model by the rulers of China, who wanted to position themselves as powerful patrons ^[8]. At the same time, Ashoka was also perceived as a historical example of the ancient Vedic concept of chakravartin, or universal ruler. He was considered a "chakravartin with an iron wheel" who ruled Jambudvipa, the southern continent in the Buddhist cosmos, where, according to Chinese believers, India and China were located. Thus, Ashoka became a model that could be considered superior in strength and achievable for any historical Chinese monarch. One of Ashoka's most famous projects for spreading Buddhism was to collect the Buddha relics from the eight stupas into which they were divided, to divide them into eighty-four thousand pieces, each of which was to be installed in one of the eighty-four thousand new stupas scattered throughout his empire. Medieval Chinese believed that the first and largest of all eighty-four thousand stupas was built south of Palaliputra, the capital of Ashoka ^[13]. The political message of this act, which reached the rulers of Northern Wei, was that although Ashoka had the power to spread his influence everywhere in his kingdom, he strengthened the influence of the central command emanating from his seat of government, making one of the stupas larger and more noticeable than all the others, the one that stood in his capital.

Divine Vulture Peak

The creation of Vulture Peak (G?dhrak?ta) probably also had to do with sovereignty and ties with Ashoka. In the "Notes on Buddhist Kingdoms" (Fogoji), written by the great Chinese pilgrim Fasyan (ca. 337–ca. 422) after his return from India in 415, there is such an entry:

King Ashoka had a younger brother who became an arhat and lived on Gridhrakuta, finding joy in solitude and peace. The king sincerely revered him, wished and begged him to come and live with his family, where he could satisfy all his needs. He, enjoying the silence of the mountain, did not want to accept the invitation, to which the king told him: "Just accept my invitation, and I will make a hill for you inside the city." Accordingly, he provided food for the feast, called the spirits to him and announced to them: "Tomorrow you will all receive my invitation; but since you have no mats on which you can sit, let everyone bring (their place)." The next day the spirits came, each of whom brought with him a large stone, four or five square steps (for a seat). When their meeting was over, the king ordered them to form a hill of large stones stacked one on top of the other, and also at the foot of the hill to make a room of five large square stones that could be more than thirty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and more than ten cubits high ^[6].

Fasyan's records do not mention the name of this supernatural hill created inside the city of Ashoka, but it was probably also called the Peak of the Divine Vulture, as part of the reality effect needed to seduce Ashoka's arhat brother. Since very little remains of the Pingcheng of the fourth century, it is unknown whether the emperor of Northern Wei built a large stone hill. However, if this was how the emperor "created Vulture Peak", it would strengthen the idea of Pingcheng as the capital, since the original event took place in Pataliputra, the second capital of Ashoka, and Emperor Dao-wu would again be portrayed as a modern Ashoka.

Another theory of the creation of Vulture Peak in 398 was put forward by Chinese historian Zhao Yide, who claimed that it was "created" by renaming a real mountain near the capital. He believes that it was a mountain cliff, which is now called Yungang ^{[14, p. 76]}. Sixteen kilometers southwest of modern Datong are the famous Yungang Grottoes, where forty-five large sculptural grottoes were excavated from the southern rock in the fifth century under Northern Wei. One of the key concepts to their theory is the name of the place. The name Yungang appeared relatively recently. At the time of Northern Wei, it was called both Mount Wuzhou and Lingyan, or the Monstrous Mountain ^{[9, p. 3043]}. Lingshan, or Monstrous Mountain, is a common epithet, which in Chinese writings is called Gridhrakuta, or Vulture Peak (Lingjushan). Vulture Peak was full of religious significance for medieval Chinese believers. The scriptures and reports of pilgrims say that Shakyamuni lived in a cave on Vulture Peak and preached there for many years, more than in any other place ^[13].

Zhao Yide claims that the name Lingyan indicates that the site of Wuzhou Mountain was renamed Vulture Peak. One of their proofs is that they were connected by a similar topography. It is said that Gredhrakuta had three peaks, in front of which a water stream flowed, while Yungang Cliff just consists of three parts, and the Wuzhou River once flowed along its foot ^{[14, p. 76]}. Renaming Mount Wuzhou to "Vulture Peak" for the purpose of sacralization would be just one of many examples of local believers transferring Buddhist shrines from India to China.

Nevertheless, Vulture Peak also had political significance. It was the most important mountain outside of Rajagriha (Royal House), which in the time of the historical Buddha was the capital of the kingdom of Magadha. In the medieval Chinese mind, the person who built Rajagriha was Bimbisara, the king of Magadha, who was a contemporary and patron of Shakyamuni Buddha. His virtue brought him rebirth in heaven as an "immortal among men", according to the holy scripture called "The Sutra of the Immortal among Men" ^[13]. Not only was Rajagriha a royal city ruled by this virtuous immortal, but after the kingdom of Magadha turned into the Maurya Empire (322-185 BC), it became the first capital occupied by Emperor Ashoka. In a political sense, if it moved Vulture Peak to Wuzhou Mountain, the Northern Wei government would display Pingcheng as a new Rajagriha, and the Northern Wei state as a type of Magadha-Maurya. In addition, the positioning of Pingcheng as the new rajagrih turned Emperor Dao-wu into the modern incarnation of King Bimbisara and Emperor Ashoka.

Hall on Mount SumeruAlthough the entry in "Weishu" ("History of Northern Wei") does not contain a description of the Hall of Mount Sumeru, thanks to the "Chang'an Monograph" (Chang'an zhi)

Song Mingqiu (1019-1079) we have an idea of what Mount Sumeru might look like. Song's entry includes a description of Mount Sumeru, created in Chang'an for Yao Xing (reign 394-416), emperor of another great power of northern China at the end of the fourth century, Late Qin (384-417). The description of the song is as follows:

In the center [of the Prajna Platform], Mount Sumeru was created. On its four sides there were high peaks and steep cliffs. There were precious birds and strange animals, trees and herbs, exquisite and wonderful, and images of immortals and Buddhas. No one had ever heard of such a thing, and it was considered a rarity and a miracle ^[12].

The four sides of Sumeru were reinforced by other mountain peaks facing the four cardinal directions, trees grew on the lower slopes, people lived, birds and animals were found, as well as fantastic creatures such as garuda birds ^[10]. It was relatively easy for court artisans to create an exact copy, perhaps they had a ready-made model in the form of incense burners for Beauchamp incense, which were produced from the late times of the Warring Kingdoms, and which represented a mountain or an island of immortals covered with peaks, animals, both natural and bizarre, and figures of immortals ^{[5, Fig. 112]}. However, it would be more difficult for artisans to create the upper slopes of Mount Sumeru, since the world mountain is shaped like an hourglass and is described as the top is wider than the base.

Yao Xing was one of the most ardent imperial sponsors of Buddhism in the history of China, the patron of the great translator Kumarajiva (344-413) and an independent Buddhist intellectual. Since there is no evidence of any specific Buddhist religious practice focused on the sacred world mountain model, Mount Sumeru Yao should be understood in terms of its political symbolism within Buddhist thought. According to classical Vedic thought incorporated into the Buddhist faith, Mount Sumeru is the axis of the world at the center of the universe ^{[7, p. 64]}. Located in the middle of endless oceans, in which four continents lie, it is a fixed reference point for everything that surrounds it. Consequently, it is symbolically associated, according to Jan W. Mabbett, with "the king, his palace, his central shrine and his capital" ^{[7, p. 80]}. Such associations are fundamental to Buddhist ideas of "management from the center". According to classical Chinese thought, the kings of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties (circa 1800-256 BC) ruled from an area considered the geographical center of China, that is, approximately from the Luoyang-Zhengzhou-Anyang region in modern Henan Province. In the words of the He Zong inscription of 1038 BC, for example, the author says: "Emperor Wen accepted a Great Order, and Emperor Wu carried out the conquest of the Great City of Shang, announcing this to Heaven with the words "I must live in the center and rule the people from there" ^[5]. Eventually, the Northern Wei Dynasty moved its capital to Luoyang in 494, apparently in order to follow the classical Chinese ideal of ruling from a traditional center. In 398, the solution to the problem was to create another center based on Buddhist geography. The construction of a model of Mount Sumeru in the capital has made the city the center of the universe, which is something more than just being in the center of China.

No less important, from the point of view of political symbolism, is what is on top of Mount Sumeru. The heaven of Trayastrimsha, or the Heaven of the Thirty-Three (Gods), located on the flat top of the mountain. In Buddhist cosmology, it is the second of the six heavens of the desire realm, ruled by Devaraja, or the king of the gods, Indra. In its center is the capital of Indra, called Sudarshana, or the City that pleases the eye, and in the center of this city is his palace, Vaijayanta prasad (Victory Palace). Due to the supreme position of Indra's palace in Trayastrimsha, located at the top of the central axis of the universe and towering above everything below, Indra is regarded as the ruler of the world. According to Po-kang Zhou's analysis, since Yao Xing could not find grounds in traditional Chinese political thought to consider himself an omnipotent ruler, because he was neither militarily dominant nor Han Chinese, he turned to Buddhist ideas of royal power for legitimization ^{[4, p. 39]}. Yao Xing renounced the Chinese title of "emperor" in favor of Devaraj. There were precedents for assuming the role of devaraja on earth, for example, Fu Jian (317-355), the founder of the previous dynasty with its capital in Chang'an, declared himself devaraja in 351 as part of the establishment of the dynasty ^{[11, p. 240]}. In addition to claiming the title of devaraja, the rulers of the fourth and fifth centuries also built magnificent palaces, which, according to the description, could rival the Palace of Indra's Victory. For example, the leader of the Xiongnu, the founder of the Xia-Helian dynasty Bobo (381-425) said about his luxurious new palace in Tongwan that "even the jeweled pagoda of the Tathagata at Sumeru or the divine palace of Shakra in Trayastrimsha are insufficient as a metaphor for its splendor."

Although Emperor Tao-wu did not decide to call himself devaraja, having created a model of Mount Sumeru, he positioned his palace and capital as a semblance of Indra's palace and capital in Trayastrimsha on top of Mount Sumeru, from where he rules the world. As with other projects of 398, the creation of the Hall on Mount Sumeru has an external Buddhist religious significance, although in fact it represents a magical and symbolically political use of Indian cosmological concepts found in Buddhism. At the same time, the emperor moved the center of the universe to the capital of Northern Wei and positioned himself as Indra, the ruler of the world.

"The Great Monastery" ("Dasy")The last project sponsored by Emperor Dao-wu was the main halls of a Buddhist monastery.

They are said to have been built "strictly and completely", which means that the number and type of buildings had to match what was known about Indian monasteries. The lecture hall, meditation hall, and monk quarters may have been a complex of buildings that became known as the Great Monastery (Dasi), the main imperial monastery of the early Northern Wei. And the motive for the creation of the monastery was the promotion of Buddhism. Another city with a "Great Monastery" was Chang'an under the rule of Yao Xing. Zhang Zhuo points out that Yao Xing had a pagoda, a Prajna platform and a mountain (Mount Sumeru) in his monastery in Chang'an, while Emperor Dao-wu built a pagoda, a mountain (Vulture Peak) and a hall (Mount Sumeru Hall) in his capital in Pingcheng ^{[15, p. 47]}. In the typical manner of rulers whose power was growing, Emperor Dao-wu rivaled his rival in the West in architectural orthodoxy and splendor. Hoping to win the competition with Yao Xing, he built the monastery complex.

Thus, Emperor Tao-wu created an image legitimizing his rule, based on Indian Buddhist symbols of power, and not on Chinese Confucian traditions of government. The association of pagodas, Vulture Peak with King Ashoka was still strong in the popular imagination, which Tao-wu could not help but take advantage of. The new Buddhist construction complexes were actually intended to demonstrate political dominance in the capital.