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ABSTRACT
In the Qing and early Republican period, Wutaishan had between 25 and 30 monasteries affiliated to Tibetan Buddhism. Their monastic architecture seemed to exclusively follow the Chinese-Buddhist style, except for the Tibetan-style bottle-shaped stupa. The Wutaishan built landscape seemed relatively homogeneous, and travellers were sometimes confused about the blurred visual frontier between Chinese Buddhist and Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist monasteries.Were there buildings (other than stupas) typical of Tibetan monasteries that have not been preserved on Wutaishan? Why did the Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist communities settled in Chinese style monastic buildings? Was there local or imperial pressure to ‘keep things Chinese,’ or was it in their interest to entertain a visual confusion between the two traditions of Buddhism? And how did Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist monks, whose lifestyles and spatial practices of Buddhist architecture differ from Chinese Buddhist monks’s, adapt themselves to Chinese spatial arrangements?This article will highlight mutual borrowings between Chinese Buddhist and Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist monasteries on Wutaishan. Using various sources such as ancient picture-maps, old photographs, floor plans and travellers’ accounts, I will highlight interactions between Chinese and Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist monasteries from the point of view of architecture, iconography and material culture in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 109–115.
2. By the eighteenth century, the Manchu emperors’ support was restricted to monasteries of the Gelukpa tradition, and the “red” (old Tibetan Buddhist schools) communities that were active during the Yuan, Ming and perhaps the early Qing were turned into Gelukpa centres. However, some “red” hermits and monks did reside on Wutaishan in Qing times.
3. According to official figures, 47 Wutaishan monasteries (and 24,108 statues) survived the Cultural Revolution and more than twenty were rebuilt or newly built in the 1990s-2000s.
4. The clergies of Pusading and Tailusi were supported by the Qing treasury (Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 113–114).
5. On Wutaishan, Chinese Buddhist monks (heshangs 和尚) and their monasteries are identified as “blue/black” (qing 青) and Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist monks and monasteries as “yellow,” due to the colour of the monks’ robes. Nowadays there are also nunneries on Wutaishan, but they were absent or marginal in the past.
6. Hackmann, A German Scholar in the East, 118–119.
7. See notably the work of the famous specialist of Chinese architecture Liang Sicheng 梁思成; and Lin, Building a Sacred Mountain.
8. Chai Zejun, “Wutaishan jilüe”; Wang Jinping, Shan you jiangzuo jilu, Part I.
9. Prip-Møller (Chinese Buddhist Monasteries) studied monasteries of Central China and drew their plans to understand the function and location of the different buildings; Welch (The Practice of Chinese Buddhism) studied the different “departments” of a Chinese monastery. See also Pichard and Lagirarde (eds. The Buddhist Monastery) who compared Buddhist monasterie’s layouts all over Asia.
10. Chinese characters and their translations for the Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist monasteries are given in Table 1.
11. Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 82–83.
12. Wutaishan quantu. In the 1846 Cifusi map, Puleyuan is depicted as a Chinese-style monastery.
13. Chou Wen-shing, email, May 2010.
14. Gilmour, Among the Mongols, 146.
15. Charleux, “The Pilgrimage Account of Duke Migwachir.” According to Wei Guozuo (Wutaishan daoyou, 98), who does not quote his source, the Jifusi had a “Tibetan layout.”
16. Mannerheim, Across Asia from West to East, 689.
17. Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster.”
18. Yuanzhaosi, Jifusi, Tayuansi and Santasi belong to Nenghai’s 能海 (1886–1967) school (Tuttle, “Tibetan Buddhism at Ri bo rtse lnga/Wutai shan”; Bianchi, “Lama Nenghai’s imprint on Mount Wutai”). Upper Shancaidong belongs to Han Chinese disciples of Tibetan Nyingmapa master ’Jigs-med phun-tshogs (1933–2004) who visited Wutaishan in 1987.
19. Puhuasi (rebuilt in 1925), Sanquansi, Shouningsi, Lower Shancaidong, Qifosi, and Cifusi.
20. Notably French sinologist and archeologist Édouard Chavannes in 1907; Japanese scholars Ono Katsutoshi and Hibino Takao (Godaisan); Tokiwa Daijō and Sekino Tadashi (Shina bukkyo shiseki hyokai, and Chūgoku bunka shiseki).
21. The Qinding Qingliangshan zhi (Imperially commissioned gazetteer of Qingliangshan), compiled in 1785, lists the different halls and their dimensions for the main monasteries (Table 2).
22. Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 57–89.
23. Picturesque China. His Lagepläne des Wutai shan includes a synthetic catalogue of the Wutaishan monasteries.
24. Wei Guozuo, Wutaishan daoyou. See Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage: “Online Appendices” for a catalogue of monasteries with references in gazetteers and guidebooks.
25. Tibetan and Mongol lamas eat meat and take a meal in the late afternoon; heshangs eat vegetarian food and are not supposed to have a substantial meal in the afternoon. On present-day Wutaishan, food is a main visible religious marker between the two communities: heshangs say that lamas are not true Buddhists because they are not vegetarians. The “Chinese lamas” of Nenghai’s school eat vegetarian and follow a strict discipline (Bianchi, “Lama Nenghai’s imprint on Mount Wutai”).
26. I have not come across mentions of married lamas on Wutaishan.
27. Pommaret, “Buddhist Monasteries in Tibet” about Tibet; Charleux, Temples et monastères de Mongolie-Intérieure, about Inner Mongolia.
28. According to Chou Wen-shing (who quotes the Neiwufu Zouxiao dang 內務府奏效檔), Baodisi 寶諦寺 built in 1751 as a replica of Pusading in the hills west of Beijing to house a community of Manchu monks had a “eighteen-bay side dormitory hall,” and a “twenty-four-bay corner dormitory hall” (“Imperial Apparitions,” 144).
29. Meyer, “Le Tibet à l’époque des Dalailama,” 386 fig. 198, 401–402.
30. Charleux, Temples et monastères de Mongolie-Intérieure, Chapter 5 on Chinese-style Gelukpa architecture in Inner Mongolia.
31. Huangsi’s assembly hall had a square floor-plan (Charleux, “Qing Imperial Mandalic Architecture”); Yonghegong’s is cruciform with four roof light wells.
32. Although Tibetan Buddhism was the state religion of their empire, the Yuan also sponsored Chinese Buddhist monasteries of Wutaishan and erected new ones, such as Wansheng Youguosi 萬聖佑國寺 (later renamed Nanshansi 南山寺, Southern Mountain Monastery), and Puningsi.
33. In the fifteenth century, the Ming emperors continued to support Tibetan Buddhism, which guaranteed the ritual protection of the empire and of the imperial family.
34. For references on monastic foundations in the Yuan and Ming periods: Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 94–103.
35. He was Tsongkhapa’s disciple and the founder of Se-ra Monastery in Central Tibet.
36. Puningsi was renamed Yuanzhaosi in 1434, when a Tibetan-style stūpa was built to enshrine a part of the relics of Śāriputra Paṇḍita (ca. 1335–1426), or in 1458. It served as the seat of the “foreign” administrator of the whole Wutaishan “Tibetan” (fan 番) and Chinese clergies from 1426 or 1448 until at least 1538 (Köhle, “Why Did the Kangxi Emperor Go to Wutai Shan?,” 80–82).
37. The often-cited fact that ten Chinese monasteries were turned into Tibetan monasteries by Emperor Kangxi in 1683, or in 1705, has no historical basis.
38. Xiantongsi, Luohousi (rebuilt in 1465–1467), and perhaps Yuanzhaosi and Xiantongsi, housed both heshangs and lamas who performed rituals for the protection of the Ming empire.
39. Zhao Gaiping and Hou Huiming (“Jianlun Qingdai qianqi de Wutaishan zangchuan fojiao,” 31) and Gao Lintao (“Huangjiao zai Wutaishan de chuanbo”) do not quote their sources.
40. Such as a Ming dynasty two metre high iron statue of Śākyamuni in Shouningsi, a Tang period statue of Sudhana in Upper Shancaidong, and the five hundred arhats of Yuhuachi. Qifosi preserved one of Wutaishan’s oldest stone statues of Mañjuśrī on its lion (Edkins, Religion in China, 229). Guanghuasi, Wanfoge, Qifosi, and Jifusi preserved dhāraṇī pillars (jingchuang 經幢) and ancient small stūpas dating from the Tang to the Ming dynasties.
41. ’Phags-pa blo-gros rgyal-mtshan administrated Wutaishan’s clergy in 1257–1258; he was a key figure in the Tibetanization of Wutaishan.
42. On the date of its conversion to Tibetan Buddhism: Köhle, “Why Did the Kangxi Emperor Go to Wutai Shan?,” 80.
43. It was modelled on the White Stūpa of Beijing, erected 30 years before by Aniko. The stūpa was called Daci yanshou baota 大慈延壽寶塔 (shortened as Dabaota 大寶塔, commonly known as the Great White Stūpa.
44. The pagoda was believed to enshrine one of the 84,000 relics of Śākyamuni disseminated by the Indian Emperor Aśoka (r. ca. 274–ca. 236 bc).
45. Xiantongsi (Clear Understanding Monastery), built under Hongwu’s reign (1368–1398) above the ruins of Da Huayansi, served as De-bzhin gshegs-pa’s residence.
46. Guangzongsi 廣宗寺 (Ancestor Honor Monastery), founded by a Tibetan monk in 1507, was also counted among the Chinese Buddhist monasteries in the Qing period.
47. Boerschmann, Lagepläne des Wutai shan, 33.
48. Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 115.
49. Rol-pa’i rdo-rje resided there; after his death his funerary stūpa was built in this courtyard and another residence for the lCang-skya qutuγtus was built to the west of it (). A new ‘Western-style’ bla-brang for the Sixth lCang-skya qutuγtu bLo-bzang dpal-ldan bstan-pa’i sgron-me (1891–1958) was built in Zhenhaisi, south of Rol-pa’i rdo-rje’s stūpa (Wei Guozuo 1993 [1988]: 132–133). High Tibetan lamas liked to take residence there, such as the Ninth Panchen Lama Thub-bstan chos-kyi nyi-ma (1883–1937) in 1961.
50. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama later resided in Pushousi. To the left of Shifangtang’s rear courtyard are private quarters where the Tenth Panchen Lama bLo-bzang ’phrin-las lhun-grub chos-kyi rgyal-mtshan (1938–1989) resided in 1983.
51. On Nagao’s opposition between ‘academic’ and ‘ritualist monasteries’: Miller, Monasteries and Culture Change, 20–22.
52. About 340 Mongolian stelae record Mongols’ donations: Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 297–305.
53. It had statues of Maitreya, Śākyamuni and Tsongkhapa, a Kanjur and a Tanjur on shelves, and counted 26 students (Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 75).
54. Shifang monasteries were the property of the Buddhist order at large, as opposed to hereditary, privately-run monasteries (zisunmiao 子孫廟), which functioned as a closed and local system, whereby an ordained monk teached to a few disciples who did not travel to other monasteries. This Chinese distinction also applies to Gelukpa monasteries such as Zhenhaisi, Pusading, Cifusi, and Shifangtang. For a list of shifang monasteries and zisunmiaos on Wutaishan in the 1980s: Wutaixian zhi bianzuan weiyuanhui, Wutai xianzhi, 583.
55. On pilgrims’ accommodation, see Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 277–282.
56. The Qing emperors also had a palace called Imperial City (Huangcheng 皇城) south of Tayuansi, and two travel palaces, in Baiyunsi 白雲寺 and in Tailusi.
57. Blofeld, The Jewel in the Lotus, 91.
58. At the end of Shunzhi’s reign or during Kangxi’s, the old stables of Luohousi were turned into a lodging centre for Tibetan, Mongol and Manchu pilgrim-lamas. From 1831 to 1835, a Monguor lama from Co-ne Monastery in Amdo turned this lodging centre, which was then called Guangrensi, into a branch monastery of Luohousi. Shifangtang became independent in the Republican period (Charleux 2005: Online Appendix B).
59. Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 279–280.
60. Mannerheim, Across Asia from West to East, 691.
61. It is called wuguantang 五觀堂, as in Chinese Buddhist monasteries.
62. The yurt in front of the scripture hall of Tayuansi seen on a photo by Boerschmann (“Die grosse Gebetmühle,” ill. between, 36–37) may have been a Guest department.
63. Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 138–144, 280–282.
64. For instance, the Beamless halls [wuliangdian 無梁殿] of Xiantongsi, temples of the five terraces, temples of Nanshansi and Lingyingsi 靈應寺 (Numinous Answer Monastery) on Fanxianshan Peak 梵仙山.
65. In a Chinese monastery, the buildings form only about 15% of the total surface area; this empty area is smaller on Wutaishan, where courtyards are smaller.
66. For the different layouts of the Wutaishan monasteries: Wang Jinping, Shan you jiangzuo jilu, chapters 3 and 4.
67. Blofeld, The Wheel of Life, 122.
68. On Chinese Buddhist architecture: Charleux & Goossaert, “The Physical Buddhist Monastery in China”; Zhang Yuhuan, History and Development of Chinese Architecture; Prip-Møller, Chinese Buddhist Monasteries.
69. The central building of the Chinese(-style) monastery is called Great Buddha hall (dafodian 大佛殿), great hall (dadian 大殿), or hall of the Great Hero (Mahāvīra hall, daxiong baodian 大雄寶殿), an epithet of Śākyamuni. It is called ’du-khang in Tibetan, and (γoul) coγcin, “(central) assembly hall” in Mongolian.
70. Some monasteries do not allow the laypersons to enter the assembly hall when the monks are praying.
71. In Tibet and Mongolia, the biggest ones had 9 × 9 bays (Charleux, Temples et monastères de Mongolie-Intérieure, 225).
72. Pokotilov noticed that monks’ rows of seats and low tables were perpendicular to the aligned statues in Gelukpa assembly halls (as in Tibet and Mongolia), which was not the case in Chinese Buddhist temples (“Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 60).
73. Mannerheim noticed that compared to temples of Tibet, in Wutaishan monasteries, “The halls of the temples have no depth, as among the Kalmuks and Tibetans, only breadth. The altar stands just behind the entrance door with one or more seated, richly gilded, large Buddha images, with one or two rows of smaller ones in front” (Across Asia from West to East, 189). When he describes the temples of Hohhot (Kökeqota) in Inner Mongolia, he then wrote that “the temple hall is deep, considerably deeper than at Yutai [Wutai] Shan”; “Main idols are placed against the back wall, as in Tibetan temples, and not in the middle of the room as at Yutai Shan and in Chinese temples” (ibid. 712).
74. Interestingly, Pusading’s replica in the hills west of Beijing, Baodisi, had a nine-bay assembly hall (Chou, “Imperial Apparitions,” 144). Dugang is also commonly used in imperial stelaes to designate the assembly halls of the Chengde temples modelled after Tibetan temples (Chayet, Les Temples de Jehol et leurs modèles tibétains, 37).
75. Charleux, Temples et monastères de Mongolie-Intérieure, 248–250, 256–257; Charleux, “Qing Imperial Mandalic Architecture.”
76. Zhenhaisi’s assembly hall has a back altar with a modern statue of Avalokiteśvara (flanked by Sudhana and Longnü 龍女), and a door that opens to the second courtyard. But it is possible that initially, this building was not an assembly hall: the Qinding Qingliangshan zhi lists a “front hall” and a five-bay wide “great hall” (which usually designates an assembly hall) (). The two halls would have changed function in the nineteenth century (Boerschmann describes it as an assembly hall: Lagepläne des Wutai shan, 38, quoting Pokotilov).
77. It is an elaborate revolving sculpture that “opens to reveal buddhas.” The mechanism located in a subterranean chamber was apparently similar with that of the revolving sūtra tower of Tayuansi. A similar lotus existed in sKu’-’bum (Kumbum) Monastery (Amdo/Qinghai Province).
78. It now has statues of Tsongkhapa and his two disciples and serves as an assembly hall.
79. See a drawing in Boerschmann, Picturesque China, 39.
80. Charleux, Nomads on pilgrimage, Online Appendix B: “Tayuansi.”
81. Li Xiangzhi (Wutaishan youji, 64) mentions a tinglingting 亭靈廳, funerary hall for deceased monks, in the East wing of Tayuansi.
82. See the stūpas of the jasaγ lamas and of the Caγan diyanci qutuγtus in Fenglingu 楓林谷. About cemeteries on Wutaishan: Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 245–255. The founder of Shifangtang built a collective funerary stūpa for pilgrim monks about 100 metres from the monastery.
83. Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 59.
84. Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 75.
85. Gilmour, Among the Mongols, 146.
86. Pokotilov describes monks’ dwellings to the north of Pusading (“Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 77).
87. Nowadays, the lamas of Luohousi and Shifangtang share four or five-bed dormitories inside the monasteries.
88. For instance, the roofs of the Mañjuśrī hall of Luohousi and of the Ming dynasty Great Buddha hall of Yuanzhaosi.
89. In 2010, only Luohousi, Cifusi and Shifangtang had a Qing dynasty imperial name plaque written in the three (Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian) or four languages (plus Manchu) of Qing Gelukpa Buddhism. According to Zhang Dungu, who travelled there in 1911, all the monasteries had a tablet in Chinese and Mongolian (Wutaishan can fo riji, 1r).
90. See Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, Chapter 5 and Online Appendix A.
91. Yuanzhaosi preserved a big bell with inscriptions in Chinese, Tibetan and Lantsa.
92. Prayer-wheels and Tibetan pinnacles were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and were reinstalled in the 2000s. According to earlier travel accounts, prayer-wheels were found in many monasteries: Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 60; Gao Henian, Ming shan youfang ji, 111, 119.
93. Lantsa (lañja, Tib. lan-tsha or lan-dza) is a sacred script elaborated in Nepal to write Sanskrit, especially dhāraṇīs in Tibetan Buddhism, particularly in architecture (for consecration formulas) and books.
94. Old paintings on the framework above the doorways of the Mañjuśrī hall represent the five manifestations of Tsongkhapa, arhats, the Green Tārā, Śākyamuni, and the kingdom of Shambhala.
95. Pokotilov (“Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 78–79) calls it “Changtaiyuan” (for Chantangyuan 禪堂院, the ancient name of Cifusi).
96. See Charleux, Temples et monastères de Mongolie-Intérieure, 202–206. I thank Chou Wen-shing for having sent me photos of this hall.
97. Charleux, Temples et monastères de Mongolie-Intérieure, 232, 237–239.
98. Fischer, The Sacred Wu Tai Shan, 92.
99. Pozdneev, Religion and Ritual in Society, 155–156.
100. Travellers mention embroidered thang-kas (Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 84). On Wutaishan, workshops of sculptors and painters were specialized in Tibetan Buddhist art, and their production was exported towards Mongolia: Halén, Mirrors of the Void; Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 320–328.
101. Blofeld, The Jewel in the Lotus, 92. Mannerheim also described the interior of Wutaishan (“Yutai Shan”) temples: “The furnishing is sumptuous. Many images are of bronze, but the great majority of gilded clay. Large numbers of coloured ribbons, lanterns, banners, etc. are suspended from the roof. Indoors, too, everything is ostentatious, but closely confined” (Across Asia from West to East, 689).
102. In Qifosi (Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 80).
103. In Jifusi (Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 81).
104. On musical instruments on Wutaishan: Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 61–62, 75.
105. Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 61.
106. The present-day Gelukpa monasteries have recently-made statues of Milefo and Weituo in their lokapāla hall.
107. Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 75, 78, 83, 88; Boerschmann, Lagepläne des Wutai shan, 38.
108. Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 79.
109. Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 69–70, 78, 81, 82.
110. According to Pokotilov’s informant, Luohousi, Pusading and Xiantongsi had a Tibetan Kanjur; Puleyuan had a Mongolian Kanjur (“Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 83).
111. “The side walls in some of the temples are filled by many niches, in which there are hundreds (in one temple 100) of small idols under glass” (Mannerheim, Across Asia from West to East, 689). There were a “thousand Buddhas” in small cases or niches in the first hall of Shouningsi, in the Mañjuśrī hall of Luohousi, in the rear hall of Pushousi (Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 69, 78), in Wenshusi (Boerschmann, Lagepläne des Wutai shan, 34).
112. Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 72, 80.
113. Wei Guozuo, Wutaishan daoyou, 89–91.
114. In that case it is sometimes called “hall of the Three Holy Ones” (Sanshengdian 三聖殿) or “hall of the Three Great Masters” (Sandashidian 三大師殿).
115. The oldest version of the story of this miraculous image was told by Japanese monk Ennin 圓仁 (794–864) in the ninth century. See the references in Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, Online Appendix B: “Pusading” and “Shuxiangsi.”
116. Birnbaum (Studies on the Mysteries of Mañjuśrī, 18–19; also plates 1–2) details the origin of this form in the Tang dynasty. A ruyi is an auspicious Chinese symbol, discussion wand and staff of authority.
117. Wei Guozuo deplores the loss of the 2-metres high Ming dynasty icons of Mañjuśrī flanked by Avalokiteśvara and Samantabhadra. The present statues were made in 1985 (Wutaishan daoyou, 80–81). The iconography of the Mañjuśrī statue is Tibetan; it is seated facing the viewer and is turning the dharmacakra. On its right is a six-armed three-headed Mañjuśrī with a sword.
118. According to a panel in the hall.
119. Emperor Qianlong himself made a sketch of the icon and had it copied in both painting and sculpture: Chou, “Imperial Apparitions.”
120. The Luohousi statue was described by Pokotilov (“Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 69).
121. Chinese Buddhist monasteries such as Baohuasi, Xiantongsi, and Jindengsi have statues of Old Mañjuśrī. On Old Mañjuśrī: Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 196–198.
122. Edkins, Religion in China, 232. It is probably the statue now displayed in the Mañjuśrī hall of Puhuasi.
123. Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 78.
124. It had replaced the statue of the Third Prince (third son of Emperor Wenxuan 文宣, of the Northern Qi (550–570), said to have immolated himself as an offering to the Buddha around 550).
125. Edkins, Religion in China, 232.
126. Boerschmann, Lagepläne des Wutai shan, 38. The present-day “Indian-style” bearded statues of Mañjuśrī, Avalokiteśvara and Samantabhadra seem to have been made recently.
127. Edkins, Religion in China, 229.
128. Kṣitigarbha presides in the kitchen of Pusading (its statue is usually found in the refectory of Chinese Buddhist monasteries).
129. Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 61.
130. Pokotilov, “Der Wu T’ai Schan und seine Klöster,” 61.
131. Such as Laozi, the Three Saints (Laozi, Śākyamuni, Confucius), the Jade Emperor (Yuhuang 玉皇), the Three Emperors (Sanhuang 三皇: Huangdi 黃帝, Yao 堯 and Shun 舜), the Three Officials (Sanguan 三官廟, of Heaven, Earth and Water), Songzi Niangniang 送子娘娘 (The Maiden Who Brings Children), the Eight Daoist Immortals, the stellar deity of longevity (Laoshouxing 老壽星).
132. Jifusi had a shrine to Nainai 奶奶 (Li Xiangzhi, Wutaishan youji, 26–27, 127–149).
133. The denomination of these halls may be recent, and their function may also have changed.
134. Chinese Buddhist monasteries of Wutaishan have a small altar outside the Great Buddha hall (on the left side) dedicated to Mianren dashi 面然大士, a fierce Tantric manifestation of Avalokiteśvara (Baiyunsi, Mingyuechi); a Vairocana hall (Piludian 毘盧殿 in the Zunshengsi 尊勝寺, called Leiyindian 雷音殿 in Bishansi 碧山寺 and in Nanshansi); a Kṣitigarbha hall (Dizangdian 地藏殿, which can serve as a colombarium), a reclining Buddha hall (Wofodian 臥佛殿, in the Puhuasi), a Yankoutang 焰口堂; and so on.
135. It is not known whether the lamas preserved the former icon. Qormusta tngri is the Mongol form of Ahura Mazda, identified with Indra by the Uyghur Buddhists and transmitted to the Mongols during the fourteenth century.
136. Ten Thousand Buddha Pavilion, popularly known as Wuyemiao 五爺廟, Fifth/Five Lord Temple.
137. Mannerheim, Across Asia from West to East, 693; also Blofeld, “The Festival of the Sacred Mountain,” 34.
138. Ujeed, “The Black Manjushri.”
139. Images of the Five Mañjuśrī of the Five Directions are found in Xiantongsi, Puhuasi, Dailuoding 黛螺頂 and Shuxiangsi, and on the terraces’ temples.
140. Actually this is the case nowadays: lamas “complain about the local government forbidding them to build anything ‘Tibetan,’ and that everything had to be in the Chinese style, which they felt really uncomfortable with” (Chou, email, May 2010).
141. Scholars working on emperor Qianlong such as Patricia Berger (Empire of Emptiness) and Françoise Wang-Toutain (Le programme ornemental de la tombe de Qianlong) showed that on the one hand, the emperor, at the end of his reign, stressed the difference between the two traditions by calling Tibetan Buddhism the “religion of the lamas,” lama zhi jiao 喇嘛之教; on the other hand, he strove to restore an “authentic Indian or pan-Mahāyāna Buddhism” mostly based on Tibetan Buddhism but incorporating various Buddhist traditions (notably Chinese Buddhism), through the standardization of texts, rituals, and pantheon. In a recent article, Chou highlighted Qianlong’s attempt of creating a Manchu Buddhism, through the building of monasteries (some of them replicating temples or the Mañjuśrī image of Wutaishan), and the compilation and translation of a canon which “was in fact an entirely new compilation based on a synthesis of Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian Canons” (“Imperial Apparitions,” 162).
142. The 1883 “New Wutai Gazetteer” seems to be the first that distinguishes the monasteries of the two traditions. But it is not properly speaking a guidebook for pilgrims (Tian Pixu et al., Wutai xinzhi).
143. A whole guidebook about Shuxiangsi (a Chinese Buddhist monastery) and its famous icon was written in 1813 for a Mongol and Tibetan audience: Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 165–166.
144. In addition, they shared several common devotional practices. For instance, Chinese pilgrims circumambulated stūpas and crawled into the womb cave: see Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 289–317.
145. Wutaishan quantu (no pagination). Proportions are not respected: for instance the hexagonal pavilion of Shouningsi is depicted much larger than the other halls.
146. Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 126–133.
147. In the nineteenth century, more than half of the lamas of Wutaishan were Mongols (Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 128).
148. The “New Qing history” has shown how these ethnic categories are fluid and changing.
149. Tuttle, “Tibetan Buddhism at Wutai Shan in the Qing,” 184–185.
150. Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 134.
151. The apparent homogeneity of monastic communities, whatever their affiliation, was noticed by Hackmann: “The most curious feature of Buddhism on the Wutai shan is the amalgamation of Chinese Buddhism and Lamaism. …Where the two doctrines meet on Chinese ground as they do on the frontier of Tibet, they stand apart. Lama is Lama, Hoshang is Hoshang as the Chinese say. But things are different on the Wutai shan. Both doctrines borrow from one another in habits and arrangements. …In their services, too, one style blends with the other” (A German Scholar in the East, 118–119, also 138).
152. Monk Puji 普濟和尚 (Li Xiangshan, d. 1917)’s movement appropriated more than twenty monasteries on Wutaishan that were integrated into a national Chinese network, and spent seven million silver dollars to restore or rebuild them. It initiated an artistic renaissance, with stone archways and screen-walls decorated with exquisite sculptures including Chinese popular deities (in Nanshansi, Longquansi 龍泉寺, Puhuasi, Gufosi 古佛寺).
153. On Nenghai and Fazun’s 法尊 (1886–1980) Chinese Gelukpa school of Buddhism, which appropriated about ten old yellow and blue monasteries in the course of the twentieth century on Wutaishan: Tuttle, “Tibetan Buddhism at Ri bo rtse lnga/Wutai shan,” Bianchi, “Lama Nenghai’s imprint on Mount Wutai.” The Sino-Tibetan community, which initially was ethnically Han, now has Inner Mongols and Tibetans from Amdo into its ranks. Inner Mongol and Tibetan nuns become Chinese Buddhist nuns because they can obtain a higher ordination than in Tibetan Buddhism.
154. Charleux, Nomads on Pilgrimage, 132–133.
155. In his 2005 book Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China, Gray Tuttle argues that before Buddhism was constructed as a world religion in the 1930s, Chinese Buddhism and Tibeto-Mongol Buddhism were largely perceived (at least by Chinese and Tibetans) as two different religions. Yet Mongol clerics and pilgrims did not view these traditions as distinct religions and even built bridges between them, especially on Wutaishan where they also worshiped Chinese Buddhist monasteries.
156. Frégosi, “Introduction,” 104.
157. Albera & Couroucli, eds., Religions traversées.
158. In addition, every village had one or several Chinese popular temples dedicated to Guanyin, Caishen, the Jade Emperor, the Three Emperors and so on.
159. Memorial stūpa of Fazun erected in 1980 in Guangzongsi; Nenghai Memorial Stūpa in Qingliangqiao 清涼僑, 1991; new stūpa of Nenghai near Dailuoding.
160. Dailuoding, Puhuasi, Fenglinsi 楓林寺, and Lower Shancaidong (commemorative stūpa of Dil-mgo mkhyen-brtse [1910–1991]).
161. Previously on Wutaishan there was no monumental temple such as the nineteenth and early twentieth-century Maitreya or Avalokiteśvara temples that enshrined up to twenty-six metre-high statues in Mongolia, Tibet and Beijing (Yonghegong).
162. The presence of red and yellow slips of papers written with the name of one’s living or dead parents, of Chinese Buddhist and popular icons (notably Caishen) are seen in several monasteries of Tongliao Municipality in Inner Mongolia such as Sira mören süme (Tongliao City), Morui-yin süme, and Gegen süme.