Visions of Splendor

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Visions of Splendor:

The Aesthetics of Zhu ! ngyn /Sh " gon and

the Anagogical Use of Opulent Art in East Asian Buddhism

The Second Annual Shinnyo-en Lecture at Stanford UniversityMay 22, 2010

by

Robert M. Gimello

Research Professor of Theology and East Asian Languages and Cultures

The University of Notre Dame

2010 Shinnyo-en Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies

Stanford University

Not to be cited or quoted without the authors express permission.

([email protected])

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My topic this evening is the East Asian Buddhist notion of zhu ! ngyn or (in

Japanese pronunciation) Sh" gon a term which is most commonly translated as

adornment ornament, or to adorn but which I will most often translate, for

reasons that I hope will become clear, as glory, splendor, glori " cation or to

glorify. This intriguing term lies at an East Asian Buddhist juncture of what we in

modern times have come commonly to regard as distinct domains, viz. the domain of

the aesthetic, on the one hand, and that of the spiritual or religious, on the other. It

labels, that is to say, a value, or a constellation of values, that de " ne what is held in

some Buddhist traditions to be both beautiful and liberating or salvi " c.

At least since we in the West began to take religious artifacts, usually those

deemed to be in some sense beautiful, out of churches, temples, ritual spaces, etc. to

put them in museums and for that matter, ever since we " rst began to take religious

texts out of their confessional contexts to subject them to secular literary scrutiny we have fallen into the habit of distinguishing the beautiful, whether embodied in

images or in words, from the sacred. This even though we have never been unable

completely to overlook the fact that until rather recently in human history those things

treasured as most beautiful were also, most often, the very same things that were

considered most holy. We are thus now in the predicament of having to relearn how

the beautiful and the sacred converge if we are to understand such a things as Buddhist

art or, even more generally, if we are to understand the deep connection between the

apprehension of beauty and the attainment of liberation. Consideration of the notion of

zhu ! ngyn , I wish to suggest, is an occasion for such relearning.

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First a few words about the word itself. In a learnd and richly informative

article published in the most recent issue of the journal Asia Major, 1 Stephen Teiser of

Princeton has made a convincing case that zhu ! ngyn may well have begun its

history, at least as early as Han times (i.e. around the beginning of the common era) as

a vernacular lexeme, a word " rst em ployed in spoken Chinese that found its way, via

Buddhism, into the written Chinese language. It is, he notes " rst, a binome. Binomes, of

course, are relatively rare in classical Chinese but not so rare in spoken Chinese, not

even, so far as we can tell, in very early spoken Chinese. SLIDE 2 As is often the case,

the separate etymologies of the two characters that form the compound ( =

solemn; = digni " ed, to put in order) are less important for our understanding

of the compound, as a compound, than its actual usage, and in its vernacular use it

seems originally to have meant something like to don " nery, to put on formal

clothing, to dress up (sometimes, Teiser notes, we"

nd the homonym/homophone in place of ). Early translators of Buddhist texts even the earliest of them, like

# n Shg $o and Lokak %ema (whom Paul Harrison knows so well) apparently found it

useful to borrow this Chinese colloquialism to render Indic terms like vy #ha (array,

etc.) and ala $ k! ra (ornament, etc.). 2 But the use of the Chinese term in translated

Buddhist texts is broad and variable indeed. It refers not only to decoration or

embellishment in the purely ornamental sense (e.g., the o & ering ' owers at a reliquary)

but also to acts of exaltation of far greater even cosmic scope and signi " cance, as

when buddhas and bodhisattvas are said to e & ect the trans " guration of whole worlds

by conferring upon those worlds the boon of their own inconceivable merits, thereby

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transforming crude, gross, de " led, mundane precincts into awesome realms of the

supramundane purity and radiance. The use of the term in this more exalted sense is

related to the untrammeled hyperbole that we " nd so commonly in Mah $y$na s#tras

their intoxicating (or cloying, depending upon your tastes) descriptions, sometimes

seemingly endless, of Buddha- " elds seen as vistas of beryl or lapis lazuli, sprouting

trees and ' owers made of precious gems, irrigated by crystalline streams, irradiated by

unearthly light, free of all shadows, abounding in uncanny creatures, resounding with

heavenly music, all surfaces burnished in gleaming color, teeming with images &

" gures, devoid of empty spaces, etc.

In consideration of such Buddhist usages, I would suggest that the word

zhu ! ngyn or Sh" gon encompasses, in is full semantic range, at least the following

network of meanings: SLIDE 3

as a noun:

splendor, glory, grandeur, magni"

cence, majesty, solemnity,formality, seriousness, loftiness, stateliness, dignity,

sublimity (e.g., Kants Erhabenheit, Edmund Burkes the sublime),

repletion, pleroma.

as a verb:

to adorn, to embellish, to decorate, to set in order, to array, to

enhance, to exalt, to ennoble, to magnify, to elevate, to honor,

even to trans " gure.

Often the word has important overtones or connotations of:

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opulence, sumptuousness, ine & able luxuriance; also sometimes the

sense of the miraculous, other-worldliness, and transcendence.

It is a word, in other words, that bears comparison with Biblical terms like the Hebrew

kabod, the Greek doxa, the Latin gloria, which are all in turn translated into

modern European languages with words like the English glory or the German

Herrlichkeit. 3

But perhaps, as it is a term especially of Buddhisms visual culture, it would be

better actually to SEE what the word means rather than only collect synonyms for it or

quote passages from Buddhist scriptures exemplifying or de " ning it. Let me o & er, then,

some visual examples what I take to be examples of zhu ! ngyn , or of the

zhu ! ngyn aesthetic.

You have already seen one such example, in the " rst image I project moments

ago a detail from a Dunhuang mural showing the multiple scenes of the Huyn j % ng

( Avata $ sakas #tra, The Scripture of the Floreate Splendo r). SLIDE 4 Other examples of the sametheme abound in East Asia; here are several more: SLIDES 5, 6, & 7

All these images are visual evocations and celebrations of the most momentous of

all events, the Buddhas attainment of awakening, an event seen not only to have occurred, as

it were, in the mind of the Buddha but also to have had vast cosmic resonance as well. These

Huyn j % ng tableaux are all " elds of glory, majestic realms lit by a brilliant but ethereal light

that does not shine upon but emanates from the " gures in the compositions themselves and

thus casts no shadows. In composition they are all perfectly symmetrical, suggesting stasis and

timelessness. The " gures that populate the scenes the buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other

deities and saints who inhabit these other-worldly worlds all display a kind of serene

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imperturbability or impassable equanimity that show s them to reside well beyond all the

turbulence and imperfection of the mundane order. These scenes, I would argue, are all worlds

of zhu ! ngyn, as are the even more plentiful representations, in painting and even in

architecture, of Sukh # vat $, the Western Paradise of the Buddha Amit # bha. SLIDES 8 & 9

But the qualities of zhu ! ngyn are to be found not only in depictions of trans " gured

worlds but also in representations of individual deities. One such deity, with whom I have

lately been preoccupied, is a goddess/bodhisattva/buddha named Cund # or Cund $ ( :

Zh%nt in Chinese, Juntei in Japanese), a major " gure in the East Asian esoteric traditions,

especially in those strains of esotericism that are linked to Huyn or Kegon. Here is a

canonical, but also a particularly gorgeous, icon of this deity. SLIDES 10 & 11

Note in these icons, as in the s#tra tableaux shown a moment go, the qualities

again of opulence, symmetry, bodily radiance, serene impassability, and otherworldly

unreality (the latter evident not least in the goddesss eighteen arms, her three eyes,

her ' aming halos, her dragon-king companions, etc.). Note also the decidedly hieratic

gestures and posture of the central " gure, the absence of shading and shadow in the

overall composition, the vividness of the colors, and so forth. This deity clearly resides

in the same transcendent dimension that we saw represented in the depictions of the

Avata $ saka and Sukh ! vat % scenes, and it is especially signi " cant that the great eighth

century missionary-translator of esoteric Buddhism, Vajrabodhi, in the ritual appendix

to his translation of the Cund ( spell-scripture ( dh! ra &% -s#tra ), tells us explicitly

that when the consecrated painter depicts of the goddess as dressed in " ne white robes

with ' oral print and wearing precious jewelry he is, in fact, profusely adorning her

body ( chngchng zhu ! ngyn q shn ) 4

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should call it Zen? The terms that come most readily to mind in an e & ort to

characterize it are are terms from the aesthetic vocabulary of literati culture, including

what might be called literati Buddhism (much of which, of course, was Zen). SLIDE 13

I am thinking now of locutions like pngdn ( = bland, understated) or pngchng

( =ordinary, quotidian), which were coined in the Sng dynasty to label qualities

that suited the humanistic ethos of that age. One is reminded, for example, of the

deliberately disenchanting ( entzauberte ), and in that sense characteristically Chn,

words of Layman Png ( ):

mioyng j shnt "ng ynsh ( i y b ! nchi

Miraculous function, supernatural power

Carrying water, gathering kindling.

If there is anything miraculous or supernatural about Chn H ) ngshus Cund ( it is

clearly of a very subtle and ordinary, as opposed to a blatant and extraordinary, kind.

It is the mystery of a goddess, to be sure, but a very down to earth goddess, a goddess

in the form of a courtesan, geisha, or actress. In any case, Buddhist deities depicted in

this fashion seem to o & er a deliberate and sharp counterpoint to the zhu ! ngyn mode

and so may serve to make the distinctiveness of the zhu ! ngyn mode all the more clear.

Thus: SLIDES 14 & 15

Nor is Cund ( the only " gure who has been represented in such sharply

contrasting ways. Avalokite *vara ( Gu$ny (n) is another, much more plentiful

example: SLIDES 16, 17, & 18

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Note the naturalistic background in the M Q ( painting, the simplicity of the

deitys garb, her relaxed and casual posture, the expressive look on her face suggesting

perhaps sadness and vulnerability rather that utter serenity and impassability. Similar

qualities mark many other depictions of Gu $ny (n in the literati mode.

It is thus not di + cult to " nd in the iconography of the Buddhist pantheon many

contrasts like the following: SLIDES 19, 20, & 21

So reviewing brie ' y some of what we have just seen, I would suggest that the

aesthetic of zhu ! ngyn conveys values that are: SLIDE 22

hieratic (i.e. overtly sacral), rather than humanistic

wondrous or enchanted, rather than prosaic

marked by orderliness, rather than randomness

characterized by symmetry, rather than imbalance

hierarchical, rather than leveling

opulent and dense rather than spare and sparse suggesting horror vacui (cenophobia)

more vertical than horizontal in orientation

otherworldly, rather than this-worldly

concerned more with transcendence than with immanence

suggestive, philosophically, of necessity, rather than contingency

serious, rather than ironic, in tone

favoring literal over " gurative or metaphorical interpretation

However, I promised in the announced subtitle of this talk, not only to describe

or characterize the aesthetic of zhu ! ngyn , but also to say something about it religious

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uses, particularly its anagogical value. Anagogical, as you know, is a term

classically employed in biblical exegesis or hermeneutics. It labels the fourth and

highest of the classical four senses or levels of meaning believed to inhere in

scripture. Scripture is said to have literal meaning and spiritual meaning and its

spiritual meaning is in turn divisible into the allegorical or typological, the moral, and

the anagogical. As the ancient formal has it, SLIDE 23

lettera gesta docet, quid credes allegoria, moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.

The letter speaks of deeds; allegory to faith, the moral of how to act, anagogy

of our destiny.

The anagogical sense is that which is said to draw us up beyond the levels of

literal, allegorical, and moral meaning into experiential communion with the divine.

For this reason it is also often called the mystical sense. I would suggest to you that the zhu ! ngyn aesthetic in Buddhism was believed to

have something very much like such anagogical potential that it was held, in other

words, to have spiritual implications and genuine religious e + cacy in comparison with

which its merely decorative or ornamental value is trivial.

However, I would like to approach this topic from a distance, as it were to see

it " rst in what might be called a distant mirror. To do that I must turn for a time

away from Buddhism and medieval East Asia to Christianity and medieval France.

SLIDE 24

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What you see here is a photograph of the great Abbey-Church of St-Denis

located in the northern outskirts Paris, an edi " ce that for centuries (until the French

revolution) marked the intersection of French Christianity with French national

identity. But to speak of St-Denis is also, necessarily, to speak of its early twelfth

century abbot, the Benedictine monk Suger, the man more responsible than any other

single p erson in history for the wonder of this great basilica. SLIDE 25

Want I want to suggest to you this evening, improbable though it may seem, is

that St-Denis and Abbot Suger have something to tell us that may help in our e & orts to

understand what medieval East Asian Buddhist meant by zhu ! ngyn.

Early in the seventh century the Merovingian king Dagobert I (r. 628-638) had

founded on the northern outskirts of Paris an abbey church named after Denis or

Dionysius (Denys), the third century missionary to the Gauls and martyred " rst Bishop

of Paris whose relics, along with those of his companions Rusticus and Eleutherius, the

church housed. 6 This Denis, who was later designated the patron-saint of France, came

early on to be confused with the late " fth/early sixth century Syrian mystic, also

named Dionysius (who had in turn assumed the identity of yet another Dionysius, the

Areopagite whom the apostle Paul had befriended and converted in Athens Acts

17:34). 7 The abbey of St. Denis came to be the burial site of most later French kings

and thus one of the chief religio-political centers of Christian France up until modern

times. It was, in other words and among other things, a place at which potent currents

of religious and aesthetic value intersected with each other and with the power and

symbolism of the state. In 1122 the Benedictine monk Suger friend and adviser of

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two French kings, sometime regent of France, and famous confrre /adversary of the

great mystic and monastic reformer Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) was

appointed abbot of St. Denis. He set about immediately to redesign and expand the

already venerable church so as to ren der it more suitable to its august religious and

political mission. Availing himself of his eras most innovative techniques and criteria

of architectural excellence, and unstinting in his expenditure of national and

ecclesiastical wealth, he oversaw the construction of the worlds " rst Gothic church,

creating thereby a revolutionary new aesthetic of opulence and light, which in turn

gave shape both to new modes of Christian piety and to new notions of the place and

the role of the Church in society and polity. 8

Under Sugers direction St-Denis became a veritable treasure house adorned not

only with its magni " cent stained-glass that ' ooded the interior space with light but

also with all manner of other precious artifacts that Suger collected and commissioned

(many of which survived the depredations of the French revolution and may be seen

today either at St-Denis itself or in the Louvre). SLIDES 26 & 27

Historians of medieval European art and religion have long felt fortunate that

Suger left to posterity not only the renovated St. Denis itself but also a number of

writings in which he described, explained, and defended his program for its

reconstruction and lavish adornment.9

SLIDE 28 That program needed defense

because it was conceived and implemented in a religious age dominated by a vigorous

movement of monastic reform famous for its militantly abstemious or ascetic character.

Convinced that Benedictine monasticism had been deeply corrupted by the widespread

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con ' ation of spirituality with a , uence and lavish artistic display, that it had come to

mistake pageantry for true liturgy, the Cistercian movement inaugurated by the

redoubtable St. Bernard SLIDE 29 abhorred the intrusion of opulence, even

aesthetically worthy opulence, into the sacred precincts of opus dei . The white monks

espoused a new piety of austere simplicity and Bernard himself often turned his

formidable rhetorical skills to the excoriation of older models of religious extravagance.

St-Denis he held to be a particularly o & ensive example of the worldly corruption he so

much despised. A synagogue of Satan, he once called it, and a place where there

were rendered unto Caesar the things which are his, but there were not delivered with

equal " delity to God the things which are Gods. He is even on record as having

blamed Suger personally for the excesses of pomp and circumstance that he said

prevailed in the abbey and that struck his reformed brethern as downright insolent. 10

It was no doubt in response to Bernards astonishingly harsh and public criticisms

and perhaps also under the intimidation of Bernards waxing political in'

uence thatin 1127 Suger undertook to bring St. Denis formally into the reform movement. At this

point Bernard congratulated him, albeit rather back-handedly, by proclaiming that if

there be much joy in heaven over one sinners conversion, how much more shall there

be over that of a whole congregation. Although one might expect Suger, the elder of

the two monks, to have taken umbrage at Bernards withering condescension, the two

men were in fact reconciled and thenceforth remained on cordial and mutually

respectful terms. That they should have been able to do so is somewhat puzzling

because it was not until after the 1127 reform of St. Denis that Suger carried out

most of the reconstructions for which he is most famous. Most notable among the

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features of the refurbished abbey were the large and magni " cent stained-glass windows

of the ambulatory and the nave, which were made possible by the abandonment of

traditional Romanesque architecture. Rather than thick and relatively unbroken walls

supporting the older style barrel vault, Suger used an innovative skeletal wall design, a

ribbed groin vault, and pointed arches. The new ambulatory was thus an open

luxuriance of bright and multicolored light, an ambience of visual abundance which

allowed for a quantity and detail of iconography much more elaborate a nd profuse

than any possible in the dim shadows of the earlier Romanesque sanctuary. SLIDE 30

The overall e & ect, surely, was of a magni " cence far beyond that of the older

edi " ce that had drawn St. Bernards wrath, yet it seems to have elicited no further

condemnations from Bernard or any other contemporary. That such immoderate

splendor should have been tolerated in an era governed by the rhetoric of religious

austerity may be due in part to Sugers success in having found for it a compelling

theological justi " cation. Irwin Panofsky has persuasively argued that Suger drew upon

the neo-Platonic mystical theology of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, SLIDE 31 who

was by then the abbeys presumed namesake and whose writings had been translated

from Greek into Latin centuries earlier by John Scotus Eriugena (810-877). 11 Pseudo-

Dionysius is known best for his apopahtic theology and indeed it was his strong

conviction that the highest apprehension of God is realized only negatively, in an

endless process of unknowing and unsaying. 12 However, this same apostle of

silence and nay-saying also spoke eloquently of the positive power of language and

imagery, certainly not to capture the divine, but to evoke or intimate it. Indeed,

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cataphasis or the via a ) rmativa is the theme of three of his four major writings The

Divine Names, The Celestial Hierarchy, and The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. 13 These are all

works which reveal their author to be, in the words of theologian Hans Urs vo n

Balthasar, the most aesthetic of all Christian theologians because he held that the

aesthetic transcendence we know in this world (from the sensible as manifestation to

the spiritual as what is manifest) provides the formal schema for understanding

theological or mystical transcendence. 14 It may well have been from the Pseudo-

Areopagite, directly or indirectly, that Suger learned of the anagogical potential of

precious material things, the upward leading approach or uplifting

method ( anagogicus mos ), whereby the virtually sacramental use of art mediates

between the temporal and the eternal, the creaturely and the divine. 15 Suger believed

that human beings, made as they are of matter as well as spirit, require such a method,

such a technique of sensual sancti " cation. After all, it is a fundamen ta l article of faith

that no human being has direct or unmediated access to the divine whereas themystery of the incarnation, that the divine was made ' esh, had rendered the project

of indirect access, via material things, e + cacious and wholly valid. As Panofsky notes,

Suger may well have read Pseudo-Diony siu s statement (from The Celestial Hierarchy, as

rendered by John the Scot) that it is impossible for our mind to rise to the imitation

and contemplation of the celestial hierarchies unless it relies upon that material

guidance which is commensurate to it. The very same notion resonates in a poem

Suger had inscribed on the new bronze doors at the central west portal of the church, 16

doors intricately carved with scenes of the passion and resurrection of Christ and all

covered in gold: SLIDE 32

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Portarum quisquis attollere quris honorem Whoever thou art, if thou seekest to extol the glory ofthese doors,

Aurum nec sumptus, operis mirare laborem Marvel not at the gold and the expense but at thecraftsmanship of the work

Nobile claret opus, sed opus quod nobile claret Bright is the noble work; but, being nobly bright, the workClarificet mentes, ut eant per lumina vera Should brighten the minds so that they may travel, through

the true lights Ad verum lumen, ubi Christus janua vera To the True Light where Christ is the True DoorQuale sit intus in his determinat aurea porta In what manner it be inherent in this world the golden

door defines:Mens hebes ad verum per materialia surgit The dull mind rises to truth through that which is materialEt demersa prius hac visa luce resurgit And, in seeing this light, is resurrected its former submersion

It is essential to note that for Suger the aid that these golden doors, indeed all

precious works of religious art, might render to the dull minds of creatures does not

consist merely in the lessons they might teach. To be sure, they do teach lessons, and

much of the art in the new St-Denis was in the form of allegorical narrative (e.g., the

stained glass windows). However, Suger suggests that they also do much more; that

they can actually generate, in the minds of those sensitive to the spiritual potency of

material beauty, a condition of special contemplative intensity an altered state, if

you will in which one is somehow materially transported beyond the con " nes of

matter. Things commonly perceived as solid, heavy, and opaque become light and

transparent, all the while retaining, even intensifying, their vivid presence to the

senses. Thus, in describing some of the accoutrements of one of the main altars in his

refurbished cathedral, especially the jewelled Crest of Charlemagne that on solemn

occasions was juxtaposed with the famous Cross of St. Eloy, he says, 17

SLIDES 33 & 34

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Haec igitur tan nova quam antigua ornamentorum

discrimina ex ipsa matris ecclesi affectione crebro

considerantes, dum illam ammirabilem sanct Eligii

cum minoribus crucem, dum incomparabile

ornamentum, quod vulgo crista vocatur, aure ar

superponi contueremur, corde tenus suspirando:

Omnis, inquam, lapis preciosus operimentum tuum,

sardius, topazius, jaspis, crisolitus,onix et berillus,

saphirus, carbunculus et smaragdus. De quorum

numero, prter solum carbunculum, nullum deese,

imo copiosissime abundare, gemmarum proprietatem

cognoscentibus cum summa ammiratione claret.

Unde, cum ex dilectione decoris domus Dei aliquando

multicolor, gemmarum speciositas ab exintrinsecis

(extrinsecis) me curis devocaret, sanctaraum etiam

diversitatem virtutum, de materialibus ad

immaterialia transferendo, honesta meditatio

insistere persuaderet,videor videre me quasi sub

aliqua extranea orbis terrarum plaga, qu nec tota

sit in terrarum fce nec tota in cli puritate, demorari, ab hac etiam inferiori ad illam superiorem

anagogico more Deo donante posse transferri.)

Often we contemplate, out of sheer affection for thechurch our mother, these different ornaments both newand old; and when we behold how that wonderful crossof St. Eloy together with the smaller ones and thatincomparable ornament commonly called the Crest areplaced upon the golden altar, then [quotingEzekiel 28.13,on the mantles worn in Eden] I say, sighing deeply in myheart: Every precious stone was thy covering, thesardius, the topaz, and the jasper, the chrysolite, and theonyx, and the beryl, the sapphire, and the carbuncle, andthe emerald. To those who know the properties ofprecious stones it becomes evident, to their utterastonishment, that none is absent from the number ofthese (with the exception only of the carbuncle), but thatthey abound most copiously. Thus, when out of mydelight in the beauty of the house of God the lovelinessof the many-colored gems has called me away fromexternal cares, and worthy meditation has induced me toreflect,transferring that which is material to that whichis immaterial, on the diversity of the sacred virtues: thenit seems to me thatI see myself dwelling, as it were, insome strange region of the universe which exists neitherentirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in thepurity of Heaven; and that, by the grace of God, I can betransported from this inferior to that higher world in ananagogical manner.

Suger is not here rehearsing the conventional justi " cations for the ecclesiastical

deployment of costly art. Clearly, these beautiful and valuable things serve no merely

didactic purpose addressed chie ' y to the illiterate; nor is this simply art o & ered and

appreciated as " tting tribute to the glory of God. Rather it is art and treasure in the

mode of spiritual facilitation. These things are appurtenances also for the enhancement

of the interior contemplative life and for the ampli " cation of faith. The strange region

of the universe which Suger here says he enters when he contemplates the riches of St.

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Denis is apparently a kind of liminal condition, neither wholly of the earth nor wholly

of heaven, but betwixt and between. Dwelling therein would seem to be some

manner of ecstasy or transport and it is one, moreover, in which distinctions of the sort

conventionally drawn (by such as Bernard) between aesthetic and spiritual experience

simply no longer apply. For Suger, then, upon a strong theological warrant provided by

Pseudo-Dionysius or by the presence of his thought in twelfth century French culture,

St. Denis and its gorgeous liturgical or sacramental art could thus become the spatio-

temporal and sensory arena for anagogical transport.

Now - that we may complete this Cooks Tour of religious aesthetics I will

take you back to medieval East Asia, speci " cally to 12 th century China, the city in N.

Sh$nx( province known as Dtng , and a Buddhist temple complex there which is

now known as Shnhu s but was formerly known as P - . n s . SLIDE 35

Shnhu s chosen in 1961 as one of Chinas Important National

Cultural Properties ( qungo zhngdi * n wnw ) began its long history

in the eighth century as one of the many ceremonial temples established at the order of

the Tng emperor Xunz ) ng ( , r. 712-756). These were all o + cially dedicated to

the task of prayer for the emperor and were named K $iyun s after the reign

period of their founding (713-742). We know little about the early history of this

particular K $iyun s but may assume that for the " rst several centuries after itsfounding it served along with the neighboring Yng / ng caves and the great

pilgrimage center of W - ti sh $n located relatively nearby as one of a number

of Buddhist cult centers that sancti " ed and, as it were, protected the northern

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borders of medieval China. 18 Shortly after the fall of the Tng in 907 Y 0nzhng

(as Dtng was then called) and its environs came under the control " rst of the short-

lived Latter Tng kingdom (923-936 ), and then under the control of the even shorter-

lived Latter J (n kingdom (936-946). In the " nal year of the former and the " rst

year of the latter, for reasons not revealed in the record, 19 the K $iyun si was given a

new name, P - . n s (Te mp le of Universal Mercy). This was the designation by

which it was known in 1044 when the Khitan (Qd $n ) lords of the ascendant Lio

dynasty (907-1125) chose the garrison town of Y 0nzhng as their Western

Capital (X ( j(ng ). The Lio rulers were devoutly Buddhist, 20 much more so than

their Sng Chinese counterparts to the South, and the P - . n s became along with

the Western Capitals other great monastic co mp lex, the Huyn s (begun as

early as 1038 but o + cially founded in 1062) 21 a major focus of their famously (or

notoriously) lavish patronage of the dharma .22 The Lio authorities undertook the

temples reconstruction and expansion on a grand scale and"

lled its halls withtreasures of Buddhist art particularly with sculpted and pa in ted imagery derived

from the politically as well as religiously powerful fusion of the Huyn and

Occult (Mjio ) traditions, an amalgam that was especially characteristic of the

general ethos of Lio Buddhism. 23 Two of the temples presently surviving buildings

actually date back to the Lio, as do some of the princip al sculptures of the main hall,

and they serve therefore as especially valuable sources of our knowledge of early

Chinese architecture and sculpture. 24 Even in its post-Lio con " gurations, with the

construction of new buildings and the addition of new sculpture in the J (n

(1115-1234) and later per iods, the complex continued to conform to basically Lio

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precedents of site-design and iconography. As a cult center in a major administrative

capital, and as the object of state patronage during the Lio and later dynasties, the

P- . n s, like the Huyn/Mjio symbolic synthesis that in f ormed it, was a locus for

the convergence of religious and political meanings a monument to, among other

things, the traditional symbiosis of Mah $y$na/Mantray $na religion and imperial

ideology.

In the year 1122 the P - . n s fell victim to history; it was seriously damaged by

the Jurchen (Nzh . n ) armies of the new J (n dynasty as they wrested control of

Y0nzhng on their way to supplanting the Lio as rulers of all of northern China. The

Lio were " nally vanquished by the J (n in 1125. Although the J (n rulers were not so

thoroughly committe d t o Buddhism as their Lio predecessors, they were on the whole

quite friendly to the religion and continued the Lio policies of court patronage of

Buddhist institutions. 25 They also followed Lio precedent in designating Y 0nzhng

(Dtng) as their Western Capital. Three years later, in 1128, the J(n lords of

Y0nzhng allowed probably encouraged repair of the damage their armies had

in ' icted on the P - . n s earlier in the decade. Those popularly supported repairs took

some " fteen years to accomplish, reaching completion in 1143, but they seem not to

have altered signi " cantly the site-plan, the architecture, or the iconography of the Lio

temple. Of course, in the years and centuries after the 1128-1143 restoration numerous

other major and minor repairs were undertaken and recorded in the 1190s, the

1420s, the 1570s, 1616, 1633, 1740, 1770, and the 1950s 26 but the later Shnhu

s even the Shnhu s of today preserves much of the overall design of the Lio-

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J (n temple as well as several structures and interior elements physically surviving from

that era. It is the 1125-1143 J (n repair project that is our present concern.

This temple, in short, is one of the great cathedrals of Buddhism that date back

to the devoutly Buddhist Lio or Khitan dynasty. Here you see photographs of it as it

exists today and as it was in the 1930s when Japanese archaeologists and scholars

were exploring N. Chinese antiquities in the wake of Japanese occupying forces.

SLIDES 36 & 37 You see also a sketch of the overall design of the place. Here too are

some other photographs and drawings, which should give some impression of the

overall design and scale of the place. SLIDES 38, 39, & 40

And here are some photographs of the sculptures found on the main altar of the

principal structure: SLIDES 41, 42, 43, 44, & 45

Now, just as there was a famous personage crucially associated with St-Denis in

Paris, viz. Abbot Suger, so there was also a famous Chinese personage associated with

the P - . n s. He was a layman, not a monk, but he was known, in his own day and

later, as a devout Buddhist. That person was man named Zh 0 Bin and there are a

few things that need to be said about him by way of introduction. SLIDE 46

Owing chie ' y to the account of his life written by his much more famous

descendant none other than the famous arbiter of later Confucianism and scourge of

Buddhism, the redoubtable Zh 0 X( (1130-1200)! Zh 0 Bin is best known to

history as an eminent scholar-o + cial, a respected man of letters, and a patriotic hero. I

have told the story of his life, and translated his Sng sh + biography, elsewhere. 27

Su+ ce it here simply to note that in 1127 (at the age of 42), shortly after the fall of the

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between incantation and introspection, between presence and emptiness, etc. All of this

we can catch vivid glimpses of especially in his writings dating from the period of his

captivity in Dtng, and one of those writings is inscribed on a monumental stone

inscription that has survived down to today and is still to be found at the Shnhu s.

It happens, as has already been noted, that the years Zh 0 Bin spent at P - . n s

(1128-1143) were the very same years during which that temple underwent a major

restoration or rebuilding. And I cannot but note the (to me) irresistible chronological

coincidence that these were the very same years in which St-Denis in Paris was

undergoing its reconstruction! Of course, the reconstruction or repair of Datongs P - . n

s was not so momentous an event as the reconstruction of St-Denis, and it certainly

marked no sea-change in the history of Chinese architecture comparable to the birth of

the Gothic style precipitated by Abbot Sugers redesign of the French church. Nor was

Zh0 Bin responsible for the P - . n s reconstruction in the way in which Suger was

responsible for his project. Nevertheless there is more to the coincidence than just thecommon dates.

Zh0 Bin, in recognition of his literary eminence, was asked by the Abbot of the

P- . n s to compose a congratulatory inscription upon the completion of Chinese

temples reconstruction. He complied with this request in 1143 (just a year before

Abbot Suger penned his remarks about the reconstruction of St-Denis), and lo and

behold! we " nd in Zh 0 Bins inscriptions a few observations on the relationship

between art, aesthetics, and religion that are intriguingly similar to (albeit rather more

brief than) Sugers own observations.

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Here is the stele on which Zh 0 Bins inscription was carved just a few years

after it had been composed SLIDE 47 (I have also passed out, in hard copy, a

photocopy of the rubbing made from the stone, along with my own edition and

translation of the text.)

[Note: In the following transcription of the text of the stele the end of each line of theoriginal is indicated by insertion of the symbol ! and, if the end of a line happens also tobe the end of an original paragraph, a double ! is inserted. The stele uses some archaicor obscure character forms. Thanks to the availability of the Konjaku Mojiky ! digital character set, these have been preserved in the transcription.]

[Note also: The prose of the inscription is at points somewhat obscure, at least to thisreader, who would therefore gratefully accept corrections or suggestions for improvementof his translation.]

!

!

!

!

!!

!

!

!

!

!

!

!

!

" 28 !

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!

!

!

!

! !!

!!

!!

!!

!!

A Record of the Restored Grand Hall of the Great Temple of Universal Mercy

in the Western Capital of the Great J !n

The solicitude for the world of buddhas and bodhisattvas is rather like the sage kings rescue

from harm. Although they were not alike in their methods of governance some emphasizing

loyalty, others character, still others culture they were as one in purpose. 29 Men of the present

age hold fast to the words that Bodhidharma spoke to Mr. Xi "o Ling. 30 Accordingly, they doubtthat worldly merit can have any further e # cacy. But in this they fail to understand that it is bythe laying out of sacred precincts that the blessings of the $ve kings are established and that it isby the repair of old temples that requital of the two Brahmins 31 is secured. %"kyamunibequeathed instructions that we should store up treasures and pledges with which reverently to

adorn pagodas and shrines 32 and raise up temples and cloisters this so as to make manifest

the true presence 33 of buddhas and bodhisattvas. Surely these have been inestimably meritorious

in inducing sentient beings to take refuge in the good! Since then the eminent Bodhidharma,

with marvelous and profound clarity of mind, has personally brandished the seal of a special

transmission outside the teachings. Thus, he was not without strong opinions about worldly

merit. But this was just timely relief from harm, not actual censure. If a monk fully empoweredby the bodhisattva vow were to accept [ %"kyamunis] charge and succeed in such undertakings,how could one even estimate his merit?

The Temple of Universal Mercy in the Western Capital of the Great J !n has long been celebratedas a great monastery, 34 but since the end of the Lio it has su & ered greatly from the ravages ofwar its towers and pavilions blown to dust, its halls and galleries reduced to heaps of tiles and

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shingles, fewer than three or four in ten of its former ridgepoles and eaves preserved. Stillness

suddenly gave way to uproar when insolent and brutal troops appropriated the temple as a

billet. Purity was abruptly replaced by de $lement when it became a place for keeping plunderand prisoners. The surviving monks left, gulping down tears; the defeated populace passed by

with swelling sobs. The situation only grew worse with time and little of what was lost was

restored. But then t he re came to the abbacy of this temple T ' ngxun Wnhu, the Very ReverendYu"nm (n. Mindful [that life is ) eeti ng like] a childs idle drawings in the sand and sensingkarmic causation in the changing base [of the body], he conceived a $er ce commitment to attainthe stage of non-retrogression, and to bestow robe and bowl altogether some two hundred

thousand times 35 so that, in concert with his progeny, he might convert the recalcitrant, rouse

the somnolent, open altars of discipline, 36 and expound the teachings of Vairocana. 37 With

benevolence as his barque, he strove to be $rst in advancement; taking faith as his threshold, heheld it shameful to lag behind. At that time people demanded of themselves [the g en erosity of]

Sudatta and families urged each other on to make donations worthy of An "thapi *+ada. 38 United

in utmost resolve, they competed to donate their cherished possessions. Begrudging not eventheir marrow and limbs, they were so much the less stingy with property. So it was that they

contributed cartloads of cash, divested themselves of their jewelry and gold, and sold o & theirrobes and furs all in the service of the Way. Month after month, [the r est oration] proceeded

with scarcely an idle day, beginning in the wsh, n year of the Ti "nhu era (1128) and concludingin the gu+ hi year of the Hungt , ng era (1143). Altogether including the Grand Hall, the twoEarlobe Halls at its eastern and western ends, the Arhats Grottoes, the Maju -r! andSamantabhadra Towers, the Front Hall, the Main Gate, and the Slanting Galleries on the right

and left more than eighty columns of construction were repaired. 39 Glazed tiles have

replaced the plain clay [of the roofs]. The rafters, beams, columns, and pillars are all painted in

vermillion, but not ostentatiously adorned. The verandas and side chambers, latticed windows

and doorways are broad and capacious. For [statues of] the buddhas and bodhisattvas, and for

[images of] the eight kinds of devas and n "gas who surround them with hands and cla ws joinedin reverence, only masterpieces were selected, and for the $ve-hundred worthies 40 and theirattendants, each with its own ritual implement, only works of the best craftsmanship were

fashioned. Of gentle aspect and digni $ed d emeanor, they were done in a most archai c Indianstyle. Benevole nt compassion toward sentient beings shows in their countenances; arcane words

that draw out su & ering seem to spring from the tips of their tongues. All who come to worshipare overawed and throw themselves to the ground in full prostrations. 41 One in mind and voice,

they regard these phantasmal bodies42

as though present at Maitreyas assembly beneath thedragon- ) ower tree, 43 amidst the brilliance of a hundred jewels so utterly magni $cent as to defyimagination. Yu (nmn has this year reached the age of seventy-four. Mindful that the grace ofhis sovereign and of the Buddha are equivalent and indistinguishable, he has completed this act

of merit in ful $llment of his resolve and not as a bridge to personal advancement. Had this gooddeed been undertaken in an uneventful time of peace and order its achievement would have

been easy, but as it was undertaken in a period of unremitting military con ) ict it was quite

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di# cult to accomplish. 19 Yu "nmn had experienced the ) ames of war and had personallysu& ered its tribulations. Regarding material treasures as mere shadows, of no real consequence,he not only donated all he himself owned but also solicited other donors, directing the project

from beginning to end through all o f its phases. All this I have seen with my own eyes. Now that

it is complete, how could I have possibly preferred an ordered, peaceful, and uneventful time! 44

For three years I had lived in a hostelry; then, in the g , ngx # year (1130), I moved to this temple.

The full fourteen years that I have spent in the company of this temples community have been

like a single day. As the brethren were unanimous in wanting these things set down in writing

and so asked me to record them, as accuracy is the most important consideration in recording

events, and as I have myself personally witnessed these things, how could I decline? I note that

the name K "iyun was conferred on [this and other] temples, and on Daoist belvederes,founded in the time of Emperor Mnghung of the Tng (r. 712-756). However, it is not apparent

why this one temples n am e was changed. The bronze bell now in the bell tower bears an

inscription indicating tha t i t was cast in the third year of Q !ngti, a b+ ngsh, n year (936). The

change to the present name was thus made either at the outset of the Sh J !n45

or after the[Latter] Tng, but we simply do not know the reason for the change. Perhaps some later writer,

noting what we have missed, will obtain all the relevant information and write it down for us.

My composition of this inscription serves no particular purpose of my own; I have intended only

[to provide] what the brethren of the temple wished to hear. Recorded by Zh . Bin ofJi "ngd ' ng, on the d% ngm* o day of the second month of the third year of Hungt , ng (March 11,1143).

Seal characters [caption] by D !ng W / irn 46 Junior Grand Master of the Palace, Associate

Administrative Regent for the Western Capital, Military Director-in-Chief of the Circuit, SeniorCommandant of Light Chariots, Dynasty Founding Earl of Jyng, Holder of a Seven-hundred

Household Land Grant, Bearer of the Purple-Gold Fish-Pouch Insignia.

Written out by K , ng G 47 Grand Minister Exemplar, Vice Commissioner of MetropolitanTransport for the Western Capital, Senior Commandant-in-Chief of Cavalry, Dynasty Founding

Scion of State of L 0 County, Holder of Five-hundred Household Land Grant, and Bearer of thePurple-Gold Fish-Pouch Insignia.

Proofed by the Purple-robed Monk Yu "nmn, the Grand Master T ' ngxun Wnhu.

Engraved on the $rst (the gu+ yu ) day of the eighth (the dngy - u) month of sixteenth (theb% ngsh. n) year of the Ddng era (September 5, 1176) by Ji / z. n of Ynmn, on a stone erectedby the Three Principal O # cers [of the temple] the Prior, Venerable Huzh; the Recto r, Xngwn; and the Precentor, Q !y(n. 48

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I take this inscription to be rather more than a mere exercise in literary politesse by which an honored guest repaid the hospitality of his clerical hosts. It contains, I

think, serious remarks on serious subjects meant to be taken seriously subjects of

real moment to Buddhist intellectuals like Zh 0 Bin. Moreover, I " nd in it echoes of, or

variations upon, the same theme that is sounded in the passages cited above from the

distant yet exactly contemporary writings of Abbot Suger.

Consider " rst the opening lines, which start the inscription on a sharply critical

note: SLIDE 48

Consider next Zh 0 Bins eloquent description of the refurbished temple

complex: SLIDE 49

Note particularly what he has to say about the awesome sculpted images that

dominate the monasterys main hall: SLIDE 50

Zh0 Bins defense of the construction or reconstruction of grand religious

edi " ces, over and against the Chn suspicions or rejections of the merit of such

undertakings, seems to me analogous to Sugers defense of the opulence of the newly

reconstructed St-Denis over and against Bernards excoriation of such things. Zh 0 Bins

claim that such opulent art summons the real presence of buddhas and bodhisattvas

is not unlike Sugers claim that the grandeur of his basilica has religious value insofar

as it can transport one into a realm or condition beyond the earthly and near to the

heavenly. Zh 0 Bins description of the sumptuous but not ostentatious beauty of the

P- . n s echoes Sugers claim that it is the pious and wondrous craftsmanship of his

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creations, rather than their expense, that should draw ones attention and respect, for

the brightness of the gold and the gems with which he adorned St-Denis can lead one

to the true light of Christ. And when Zh 0 Bin claims that the awesome images of

buddhas and bodhisattvas that grace the altar of P - . n ss main hall, fashioned in a

decidedly hieratic (i.e., a most archaic Indian) style are magical in the sense that

they seem to convey those prostrated before them to the very paradise of Maitreya he

seems to be echoing Sugers claim that the treasures of St-Denis serve, in an

anagogical manner, to lift one above this inferior world to the higher one.

*****

Let me leave you, then, with these few thoughts supported, I hope you will

" nd, by the materials and re ' ections I have o & ered this evening: Although it is

appropriate in many cases, particularly when it is used as a transitive verb, to translate

the term zhu ! ngyn, in the conventional way as to ornament or to adorn, the full

range and depth of the terms meaning is not well served if it is translated always and

only in that way. It refers, after all, not only to an actually performed or meditatively

imagined (visualized) ritual procedure in which objects of value and beauty are o & ered

to a deity or used to visually enhance and thus sanctify a precinct or a scene. Nor does

it refer only to procedures by which an artist might furnish or trim his composition

with a number of decorative elements of an especially rich or ' orid kind. It also labels

a general aesthetic, an implicit conception of beauty in which the ornately or

magni " cently beautiful is taken to be a mark of the sacred. And this aesthetic, in turn,

implies a certain kind of spirituality, a religious ethos in which aesthetic opulence not

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only signals the sacred but also, by wedding sensuality to spirituality, enables the

senses to participate in, and even to intensify, experience of the sacred. I would

suggest, therefore, that just as one might describe counter-reformation spirituality of

sixteenth century Catholicism (e.g. Ignatian spirituality or the mysticism of Teresa of

Avila or John of the Cross) as baroque, so might one describe the spirituality of, say,

medieval esoteric Buddhism as zhu ! ngyn . The zhu ! ngyn mode of Buddhism, so to

speak, as exempli " ed by the vivid extravagance of so much traditional Buddhist art, by

its blatant and unambiguously hieratic character, by the hyperbolic and vatic prose of

so many Buddhist scriptures, by the abundant grandeur of so much Buddhist

architecture, the gravity of so much Buddhist ritual, the solemnity of so much Buddhist

music all this we fail properly to understand or appreciate if we consign it

exclusively to the denatured category of the merely ornamental or of art as something

independent of religion or religious experience.

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Notes

Page 31

1 Stephen Teiser, Ornamenting the Departed: Notes on the Language of Chinese Buddhist Ritual Texts, Asia Major22.1 (2009) 201-237.

2 We will forebear now to explore the histories and semantic ranges of those two Sanskrit words; there simply isnot enough time. I will, however, note the treatment ofala! k" ra in Indian aesthetics by Vidya Deheja in her TheBody Adorned: Dissolving Boundaries between Sacred and Profane in Indias Art (New York: Columbia University Press,2009), especially pp. 71-74.

3 Consider, in this last connection, the magisterial seven-volume study in theological aesthetics by the great Swisstheologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) entitled simplyHerrlichkeit in its original German and translatedinto English under the title, The Glory of the Lord (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1983-1991).

4 , T1075:20.178b19. In fact, the phrasechngchng zhu" ngyn appears frequently in the later literature of the Cund ! cult in descriptions of the deity or in directions for paintingor visualizing her. For more on this goddess and her cult, see Robert M. Gimello, Icon and Incantation: TheGoddess Zhunti and the Role of Images in the Occult Buddhism of China, inImages in Asian Religions: Texts andContexts,ed. by Granoff Phyllis and Koichi Shinohara, 223-256. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Pres

2004.5 My thanks especially to Prof. Patricia Berger of the University of California at Berkeley for bringing thifascinating painting to my attention.

6 Dagoberts church replaced a still older one said to have been built in the late fifth century by Genevive, patronsaint of Paris, at the site of what was believed to have been the tomb of St. Denis and his fellow martyrs, the placwhere they ended their headless trek from Montmarte (originally the Hill of Mars but later understood to bethe Hill of Martyrs).

7 The conflation was complete by the year 835 when Hilduin, abbot of St. Denis from 814 to 840, composed hisVitaSancti Dionysii. Drawing on a variety of earlier sources (Eusebius, Gregory of Tours, etc.), he created a singlecomposite figure by weaving together the identities of all three Saints Denis.

8 For general treatments of the early history of St. Denis see Sumner McKnight Crosby and Pamela Z. Blum,TheRoyal Abbey of Saint-Denis from Its Beginnings to the Death of Suger, 475-1151,Yale Publications in the History of Art, No.37 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987) and Michael Wyss, in collaboration with Nicole Meyer-Rodriguesal., Atlas historiques de Saint-Denis: des origines au XVIIIe sicle,Documents darchologie franaise, no. 59 (Paris:ditions de la Maison des Sciences de lHomme, 1996). The many changes wrought in the abbey during thcentury and a half following Sugers death are treated by one of Crosbys students; see Caroline Astrid BruzeliusThe 13th-Century Church at St.-Denis,Yale Publications in the History of Art, No. 33 (New Haven, Yale UniversityPress, 1985).

9 I refer toSugerii Abbatis Sancti Dionysii Liber de Rebus in Administratione Sua Gestis (The Book of Suger, Abbot of St.Denis, on What Was Done under His Administration),Libellus Alter de Consecratione Ecclesi Sancti Dionysii (TheOther Little Book on the Consecration of the Church of St. Denis), andOrdinatio A.D. MCXL vel MCXLI Confirmata

(Ordinance Enacted in the Year 1140 or in the Year 1141). Critical editions and translations of these works formthe substance of Erwin Panofskys groundbreaking study of Sugers project, originally published in 1944 AbbotSuger: on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and Its Art Treasures, second edition by Gerda Panofsky-Soergel (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1976). I am especially indebted to this masterful work.


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Page 32

10 No wonder that one modern scholar should have referred to Bernard, in the very title of a delightfully livelybook about the man, as the difficult saint; see Brian P. McGuire,The Difficult Saint: Bernard of Clairvaux and HisTradition, Cistercian Studies 126 (Cistercian Publications: Kalamazoo, 1991). No wonder, too, that another scholashould have found in Bernard a possible antecedent of Calvin; see A. N. S. Lane, Bernard of Clairvaux:Forerunner of John Calvin? inBernardus Magister: Papers Presented at the Nonacentenary Celebration of the Birth oSaint Bernard of Clairvaux, Kalamazoo, Michigan, edited by John R. Sommerfeldt, pp. 533-545, Cistercian Studies 13

(Kalamazoo: Cisterician Publications, 1992).11 Panofskys emphasis on the Pseudo-Dionysian roots of Sugers thought has its critics. The first was perhapsPeter Kidson, Panofsky, Suger and St Denis, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld institute 50 (1987): 1-17, butKidsons argument (if it can be described as such) is both supercilious and unconvincing. More serious, but stiless than convincing, is the study by Conrad Rudolph who argues that Suger is less indebted to the mysticism othe Pseudo-Areopagite than to the largely Augustinian tradition of allegory that was conventional in his day andwas probably conveyed to him by Hugh of St. Victor (ca. 1090-1141). See Conrad Rudolph, Artistic Change at St-Denis: Abbot Sugers Program and the Early Twelfth-Century Controversy over Art, Princeton Series on the Arts(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). More recently Andreas Speer, in an argument endorsed by JeffreyHamburger, claims that Sugers explanations of his program imply no speculative theology whatsoever; that thegreat abbot found his inspiration not in treatises of the Pseudo-Areopagite or any other theologians but in farmore conventional liturgical and historical sources. Speer also claims that Panofskys hypotheses betray a quaintadherence to no longer tenable Hegelian notions of the relationship between ideas and history. See Andreas Speer,Is There a Theology of the Gothic Cathedral? A Rereading of Abbot Sugers Writings on the Abbey Church of Denis, inThe Minds Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages, 65-83, edited by Jeffrey Hamburger andAnne-Marie Bouch (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), and note also Hamburgers comments in hiintroduction to this collection (pp. 18-21). However, Speers distinction between living theology andspeculative theology is itself too sharp and too closely wedded to his own somewhat tendentious philosophicalprogram, which is strangely anti-intellectual and fails to appreciate the ways in which the thoughts of thereflective few (Redman) as distinct from some HegelianGeist may pervade the broader culture. In anycase, it is hardly impossible, not even unlikely, that Suger may actually have read Pseudo-Dionysius, and even if cannot be certainly demonstrated that he did so, we may still quite plausibly speak of at least a mediatedinfluence of the Syrian mystic on the Parisian abbot.

12 For good recent and general treatments of these matters, about which there is of course a truly vast literature,see Andrew Louth,Denys the Areopagite (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1989); Michael A. Sells,Mystical languages ofUnsaying (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994); and Bernard McGinn,The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins tothe Fifth Century, Volume I of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism (New York: Crossroad, 1991),156-182.

13 For excellent, and the most recent, English translations of all three, along with theThe Mystical Theology, theclassic expression of his apophaticism, seePseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, translated by Colm Luibheid andPaul Rorem with forward, notes, prefaces and introductions by Paul Rorem, Ren Roques, Jaroslav Pelikan, JeaLeClercq, and Karlfried Forelich, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1987).

14 From Von BalthasarsGlory to the Lord, 2:168, as quoted in McGinn,Foundations, p. 161.

15 Panofsky, Abbot Suger, 24; cf.Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, 146.

16 Panofsky, Abbot Suger, 23 & 46.

17 Panofsky, Abbot Suger, 62-63 & 190-191. Only the finial of Charlemagnes crest survives today, in the BibliothquNationale, but there is an eighteenth century drawing (also in the BN) that shows the whole as it was originally.That drawing is reproduced in Crosby, 72 & 163 and in the appendices of both Panofsky and Rudolph. Themphasis in these quotations (in boldface) is my own.


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18 This region of China, corresponding to present-day northern Shanxi province, had first come truly under thesway of Buddhism during the Northern or Tuoba Wei dynasty (385-535). It was Wei rulers, for example,who built the Yungang caves and established the first Buddhist temples at Wutai shan. By Tang times, owing notleast to the prevalence thereabouts of sacred Buddhist monuments and edifices, the regions distinctivelyBuddhist ethos was well established.

19 Perhaps because it was at this time dissociated from its original function as a temple in the service of the Tangruler.

20 On Lio Buddhism in general, and particularly on Lio imperial support thereof, see:Kamio Kazuharu , Kittan bukky# bunkashi k# (1937; reprint, Tokyo: Daiichi shobo

, 1982);N"gami Shunj" , Ry#-kin no bukky# (Kyoto: Heirakuji shoten , 1953).Karl A. Wittfogel and Fng Chia-shng (Feng Jiasheng ), History of Chinese Society: Lio [907-1125]

(Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1949), pp. 291-309.Han Daocheng , Qidan fojiao fazhan kao , Dalu zazhi 18 (1958), reprinted in

Zhang Mantao , ed., Xiandai fojiao xueshu congkan 14, 45-84 (Taibei: Dashengwenhua chubanshe , 1977).

You Xia . Liodai fojiao , inZhongguo fojiao , Vol. 1, edited by Zhongguo fojiao xiehui, pp. 89-94 (Beijing: Zhishi chubanshe , 1980).

21 See Steinhardt , Lio Architecture, 123-140 andLio shi 41.

22 In 1090 the statesman and literatus Su Che ( , 1039-1112), younger brother of Su Shi , led a Sngdelegation to the Lio capital to tender official Sng congratulations on the occasion of Lio Daozongs thirtysixth birthday. He used the visit to record descriptions and judgments of Khitan culture and customs. Thesereports proved quite influential in shaping Sng attitudes and policy toward the Lio. Su Zhe took special notice othe extraordinary degree to which the Lio monarch was personally involved in the study and practice ofBuddhism and he acknowledged that the Buddhist piety of the Khitan was an advantage for the Sng insofar as icompensated somewhat for their otherwise bellicose nature. However, he was also severely critical of the Lio

courts lavish support of Buddhism, viewing it as a harsh imposition on the common people. In any case, Su Zhbelieved that the general importance of Buddhism to the Khitan was one of three things that the Sng courtabsolutely had to understand ( ) about the Lio. See the following from hisLuancheng ji 42:

The emperor of the northern court loves Buddhism and is able himself to lecture on its books. Everysummer he convenes the monks of the capitals, together with his civil officials, to hold forthpersonally on the scriptures, and numerous indeed are the monks ordained in his refurbishedtemples and cloisters. Thus are the clergy given free reign to exploit the common folk with usuriousdepredations and the masses suffer grievously from this. Yet, as the savagery of the Khitan people issoothed by such chanting of scriptures and recitation of the Buddhas name, although it is a great

pestilence throughout the northern regions, it is an advantage to the central court (i.e., the Sng).SeeSu Che ji , ed. by Chen Hongtian and Gao Xiufang (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju ,1990), vol. 2, p. 749.


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23 The topic is not well represented in scholarship, but for treatments of Lio Buddhism that at least touch uponthe importance therein of the Huyn/Mjio amalgam in addition to the books by Kamio and N"gami, and thechapter by You, cited above see the following:

Wakiya Kiken , Ry"-kin jidai no bukky" , Rokuj# gakuh# 126 (April 1912):31-43.

, Ry"-kin bukky" no ch#shin , Rokuj# gakuh# 135 (January 1913):2-9.

, Ry"dai no mikky" , Mujint # (1912): 19-26.[Note: All three of Wakiyas articles were reprinted as appendices to his later book Kegonky# y# gi (Kyoto: K"ky" shoin , 1920), pp. 256-285.]Tokiwa Daij" , Keitan no bukky" , Sh$ky#kai no. 2 (1914): 96-108.Matsunaga Y#ken , S"-ry" jidai no mikky" , Mikky# kenky$ 38 (October

1930): 1-19.Kamata Shigeo , Ch$ goku kegon shis# no kenky$ (Tokyo: Toky" daigaku

shuppankai 1965), pp. 604-618.Kimura Kiyotaka . Senen no kegon shis" and Gakuen no kegon shis"

, inCh$ goku kegon shis# shi (Kyoto: Heirakuji shoten , 1992), pp. 246-265.L Jianfu , Zhongguo Mjio shi (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe

, 1995), pp. 463-494.Chikusa Masaaki , Shinshutsu shiry" yorimita ry"dai no bukky" and

Ry"dai kegonsh# no ikk"satsu , in S#-Gen bukky# bunkashi kenky$ (Tokyo: Ky#ko shoin , 2000), pp. 76-160.


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24 Thus the special interest of modern scholars of the history of Chinese architecture in this particular temple(known now, and ever since its 1446 reconstruction, as the Shnhu s [The Temple of BeneficentTransformation]). See, for example:

Liang Sicheng and Liu Dunzhen , Dtng gu jianzhu diaocha baogao ,Zhongguo yingzao xueshe huikan 4, nos. 3-4 (1934): 1-168.

-- , A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture: A Study of ItsStructural System and the Evolution of Its Types, edited by Wilma Fairbank (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984).

In the 1930s and 40s, during the occupation of northern China, several prominent Japanese scholars also gave thShnhu s careful and well-documented attention see:

Sekino Tadashi and Takeshima Takuichi , Ry#-kin jidai no kenchiku to sono bustuz#: z$han , 2 vols. (Tokyo: T"h" bunka gakuin T"ky" kenky# jo

1934).Takeshima Takuichi , Ry#-kin jidai no kenchiku to sono butsuz# (Tokyo:

Ry#bun shokyoku , 1944), pp. 124-155 and plates 51-75.For more recent treatments see:

Laurence Sickman and Alexander Soper , The Art and Architecture of China (Hammondsworth and Baltimore:Penguin Books, 1960), pp. 278-282 and plate 182.

Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, Lio: An Architectural Tradition in the Making, Artibus Asiae 54, nos. 1-2 (1994):5-39.

,Lio Architecture (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997), pp. 140-157, and227-237.

Li Y-ming , et al., Shanxi gujianzhu tonglan (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1984), 66-68.

Laurence G. Li, Chinese Architecture (New York: Rizzoli International, 1989), 102-105.The surviving Lio sculpture still to be found in the Shnhu s has attracted very little scholarly attention. Itfalls, for example, quite outside the scope of:

Angela Falco Howard, Buddhist Sculpture of the Lio Dynasty,Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 56

(1984): 1-95.Marilyn Leidig Gridley,Chinese Buddhist Sculpture under the Lio (New Delhi: International Academy of IndianCulture and Aditya Prakashan, 1993).

25 Concerning Buddhism under the J ! n in addition to Nogami, op. cit. see Yao Tao-chung, Buddhism andTaoism under the Chin,in China under Jurchen Rule: Essays on Chin Intellectual and Cultural History, edited by HoytCleveland Tilman and Stephen H. West, 145-180 (Albany: State University Press of New York, 1995).


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26 Information on all but the most recent of these repairs and reconstructions, along with most of whatever else isknown of the history of Shnhu s, comes largely from four surviving stele inscriptions:

The earliest, composed in 1143 and incised in 1176, is the subject of this essay. An edition and traslation of it isprovided below.

The second, dated 1190 (Mingchang 1.12.8) is entitled J % n xijing puensi chongxiu shijia rulai chengdao bei and was composed by a certain Wang Bo of Taiyuan (who

seems to be otherwise unknown). It is the longest of the four but provides little in the way of historicalinformation.

The third composed by a certain Zhang Shizhong , dated 1583 (Wanli 11.3), and entitled simplyChongxiu shnhus ji provides information concerning the Shnhu s in the early andmiddle periods of the Ming. It features a reference to the Zhengtong Emperors gift to the temple of a copyof the newly printed Northern Yongle edition of theDazangjing.

The fourth, also entitledChongxiu shnhus beiji , was composed in 1740 by one ZhangChaoliang . It is brief and of interest primarily for its account of serious damage that was done to themonastery in the 17th century when it was all but abandoned and served for a time as a kind of barracksand stable.

Some of these inscriptions may be found in standard epigraphical collections like theShanyou shike congbian

of 1898 ( 21), and in certain late and modern anthologies e.g., the J % n wen cui of 1882 ( 65), about which more will be said later, and the Quan Lio jin wen of 2002. The four stele inscriptionsalso served as the principal sources for such information about Shnhu s as may be found in provincial andcounty gazetteers e.g. theShanxi tongzhi of 1892 ( 169), theDtng fu zhi of 1776-82 ( 6),and theTatong xian zhi of 1840 ( 5). Some of these gazetteers quote the entire text of one or more ofthe four inscriptions. Careful and complete transcriptions of all four inscriptions are conveniently availabletogether in Mizuno Seiichi , Daid" zenkaji sekkoku roku , T #h# gakuh# (T"ky")

10, no. 4 (January 1940): 121-134. Note that Mizuno included in his study a photographreproduced in this article, of an excellent rubbing of the 1176 stele inscription.

27 Robert M. Gimello, Wu-tai Shan during the Early Chin Dynasty: The Testimony of Chu Pien,Zhonghua foxue xuebao 7 (1994): 501-612. TheSng shi biography translated in the appendix to this article is basedclosely on Zhu Xis lengthier treatment of Zh# Bins life theFengshi zhipi ge Zhugong xingzhuang

which is preserved in the later sagesCollected Writings (Huian xiansheng Zhu Wengong wenji ), fascicle 98. To clarify the relationship between the two men I should note that Zhu Xi, who was bornfourteen years before Zh# Bins death, was the grandson of Zh# Bins third younger brother.

28 There is a lacuna at this point in the inscription, approximately the size of a single character. Whether it wasintentional (a blank space inserted in respect of an implied mention of the Emperor) or accidental (a charactereffaced because of some damage to the stele) I cannot tell.


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29 Here Zh# Bin draws a subtle and learnd analogy. Noting the Buddhist belief that the compassion of

enlightened beings is not univocal and absolute but flexible, variable, and responsive to changing patterns ofparticular need, he likens that to the Confucian belief that the sageliness of the sage kings never took any singleand invariant form but was always adaptive to the particular deficiencies of their respective times and cultures.This would appear to be an allusion to a passage in theBaihu tong (chpt. 28):

(As for why the [sage] kings instituted the three teachings, by acknowledging [the nature of their]

impairment andrelieving them from the harm [thereof], they hoped that the people would be brought back to theproper Way.) The three teachings here invoked, as theBaihutong goes on to explain, are the three principalstrategies of governance or edification said to have been adopted, respectively, by the three ancient dynasties. Thekings of Xia were thought to have governed by means chiefly of the virtue of loyalty ( zhong ), so as counteractthe characteristic Xia failing of vulgarity or barbarism ( ye ); the kings of Yin governed chiefly by the virtue ofreverence ( jing ) [curiously, Zh# Bin speaks of character or natural moral endowment ( zi ) rather thanreverence.], so as to redeem the Yin people of their characteristic flaw of superstition ( gui ); and the kings ofZhou employed the virtue of refinement (wen ), so as to rescue the Zhou people from their typical fault ofshallowness (bo ). In other words, each of the sage founders of the three dynasties was able precisely todiagnose the dominant malady of his age and to tailor his governance to the specific task of rescuing his peoplefrom just that kind of harm that most beset them. Zh# Bin is here suggesting that the Buddhist and the Chinesetraditions both foreswear ethical absolutism and share an appreciation of the need for ethical flexibility orpluralism.

30 Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty, r. 502-550. The reference here is to the famous legendary encounter between

Bodhidharma and Liang Wu Di in which the Emperor touts his many presumably meritorious deeds (Sinceascending the throne I havebuilt temples, copied scriptures, and ordained monks in numbers beyond reckoning

Jingde chuandeng lu , T2076:51.219a22), only to be told by the Indian sagethat such deeds were of no real merit whatsoever.

31 I assume (but am not certain) that the two brahmins here mentioned are$%kyamuni and Bodhidharma.

32 It is likely that this phrase chongshi ta miao was chosen to call to the mind of the cultivatedreader the sharp critique, written in 1075 by the great Su Shis (1037-1101), of the pretentious iconoclasm andinsinuated antinomianism of certain kinds of Song Chan. In hisYanguan dabeige ji , Su Shi praisedthe life-long effort of a monk named J#z (of the Anguo si , a major center of esoteric Buddhism) tobuild near Hangzhou a Buddha hall housing a large image of Thousand-armed Guanyin. Su celebrates this sort otraditional piety and excoriates the sort of Buddhists (most likely Chanists) who dismissed conscientious merit-making activities, like building monuments of faith, in favor of a kind of haughty quietism or gnostic spiritualinertia that Su regarded as bogus Buddhism. He specifically condemned those who held fasting and the keepingof the precepts to be inferior to no mind, recitation of the scriptures to be inferior to no words, and theadornment of pagodas and temples to be inferior to non-action. Such mindless, dumb, and inert Buddhists, hesaid, spent all their time just stuffing their bellies, prattling, and thus cheating the Buddha.

SeeSu Shi wenji 12, ed. by Kong Fanli (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), vol. 2, p.387.

33 The term jingjie used in Buddhist discourse to translate Sanskrit words likevi &aya, gocara, jeya," lambana,etc. labels the cognitively objective realm, the objective condition of things, the domain of things in theircondition as objects of sensation or cognition. It therefore does not seem too great a stretch to employ the termpresence as a free translation of jingjie, despite the strong Christian and Western metaphysical associations ofthe latter term.

34 Lanre short foralanre rendersara' ya, (literally: forest [dwelling]), one of many, and oneof the more formal, designations for a Buddhist monastery or monks dwelling.


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35 If we may assume that the phraseshe yiyu is used here, as it is elsewhere, to refer to the act by which amonk, just prior to his death, bequeaths his robe and begging bowl to a fellow monk or a successor, then thissentence would seem to mean that Yuanman, after the model of a true bodhisattva, wished to expand his missionwell beyond the compass of a single lifetime and intended to be reborn a monk some two-hundred thousandtimes. For other uses of the phrase in this sense see the biography of Hongzhen in theSng gaoseng zhuan (

T2061:50.859b21) and the biography of Yuancheng in the Guang Qingliang zhuan (

T2099:51.1121a4).36 Perhaps the reference here is to actual ordination platforms.

37 Vairocana is the principal deity of both the Huyn and the Mjio traditions and mention of him here is afurther reminder, confirmed by its iconographical program, that the Shnhu s, like so much of Lio and J ! nBuddhism, was especially dedicated to the amalgamation of these two heritages of doctrine and practice.

38 Sudatta and An%thapi&'ada are two different names for the same person, the donor of the Jetavana,regarded as Buddhisms first monastery, the archetypald"napati of Buddhism, a model to all later Buddhists ofunstinting generosity to the sa! gha.

39 See the description of the modern Shnhu s given above; also Steinhardt,Lio Architecture, 140-151. What Zh#

Bin here calls the Front Hall modern scholars take to be the middle structure now known as the Sansheng dian. The termying , translated here literally as column, is a measure or unit of architectural space andits use here should be understood to mean that the repairs encompassed more than eighty columns worth ofconstruction.

40 The termzunzhe is often used to translate the Sanskrit" yu &mat and can label all sorts of noble orvenerable personages. That there could have been as many of five hundred images of such beings is perhaps to beexplained by the hypothesis that the number includes the many denizens of the Arhats Grottoes mentionedabove.

41 Wuti (variant:wulun ) is the conventional designation for a full kneeling prostration in which fiveparts of the body both hands, both knees, and the forehead all touch the ground.

42 The termhuanshen may refer to the sculptured images in the temple and to their being seen to beartifices of such splendor as to resemble glorified heavenly beings. It is also possible, however, that the term

refers to the bodies of the devotees themselves. In the latter case the implication would be that, in the presenceof such magnificent sculpted images, devotees come to look upon their own bodies not as mere worldlyapparitions but as transfigured , i.e., as glorified in the manner that is to be expected of bodies basking inMaitreyas glorious presence.

43 Then" gapu & pa or pu! n" ga is the tree under which Maitreya will achieve his awakening and preach when hecomes to earth as our worlds next Buddha. In the Buddhist religious imagination it is the center of a scene ofineffable splendor, irradiated by the glory of millennial expectations fulfilled. See, for example, the*Maitreyavy"kara' a (Mile xiasheng chengfo jing , T454).

44 Zh# Bin is here expressing his admiration for Yuanmans having accomplished his restoration in difficult

times, but he is also professing that he has found his own experience as witness to the project to have been a kindof edifying adventure or ordeal, a rewarding hardship. Despite yet also because of the difficulties sucwitness entailed for him (a failed diplomatic mission, a decade and a half of exile amongst barbarians, housearrest, etc.), the experience was somehow preferable to a merely humdrum life of uneventful peace and quiet.

45 The ruling family of the Latter J ! n Kingdom (Hou J ! n , 936-946) were named Shi.


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