A study on a stone lantern from Dongzhang village in medieval China

ABSTRACT

The lamp platform was one of the most interesting architectural designs in medieval Chinese Buddhism. Its history could be dated back to the late Northern dynasties and Shanxi area could be the place where it was invented. In the Tang dynasty, stone lamp platforms became flourishing in North China. As a Buddhist center in the medieval period, Mount Wutai attracted numerous pilgrims and it developed very rich and diverse Buddhist culture. Interestingly, one stone lamp platform from this area survived today. It was first commissioned in the Kaiyuan period in the early eighth century by a group of Buddhist adherents under the leadership of two Buddhist masters and renovated in the Song dynasty, in 997 by local Buddhist patrons. The inscription written by Zhang Chuzhen is mostly extant, which offers us an opportunity of understanding the historical context in which this platform was constructed. This article aims to examine the significance of this lamp platform by looking into its position with a comparison with other lamp platforms discovered in Shanxi area. It will investigate the Buddhist connections between Mount Wutai and Taiyuan, as well as the Ye City by reading a group of lamp platforms in these areas as a monastic network. In the meantime, given that the Shanxi area was a stronghold of Zoroastrians from Central Asia in the medieval period as recent archeological findings demonstrate, this article will attempt to analyze the rituals of lighting lamp platforms in Buddhism and worshipping fire temples in Zoroastrianism from cross-cultural and cross-religious perspectives.

KEYWORDS:

• Wutaishan
• lamp platform
• Zhang Chuzhen
• Taiyuan
• Buddhism
• Zoroastrianism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Daixian difangzhi bianzuan weiyuanhui ed., Daixian zhi, 387.

2. Besides the stone lantern, an octagonal stone scriptural pillar was also reported to be found within this temple.

3. Hu, Shanyou shike congbian, 28–30.

4. Fu, “Wutaishan shidengtai kao,” 25–27.

5. Lin, Building a Sacred Mountain, 112–114; for his English translation of the inscription, see 207–209. He made a good suggestion for naming it as the Dongzhang stone lantern 東張石燈.

6. Birnbaum, “Lights in the Wutai Mountains,” 195–226.

7. Lin noted that on the shaft there was an upper structure shaped like an eight-sided timber-frame building, for which he identified as the heavenly palace based on his reading of the inscription; see his Building a Sacred Mountain, 113–114.

8. Fu Shumin’s article mis-printed “seng 僧” as “fu 傅.” The transcription in Hu Pinzhi’s collection is “seng 僧.” Lin Weicheng’s book reads it as “seng” but translated “shiseng 師僧” as “teachers and masters;” See Lin, Building a Sacred Mountain, 207.

9. “bazheng” refers to an allusion in the Zengyi ahanjing 增壹阿含經 Ekottarāgama (translated by Saṃghadeva 瞿曇僧伽提婆 in the Eastern Jin Dynasty in the fourth century), juan 38: 馬血天子問八政品 43; see T. 2, no. 125, p. 756a–b, this chapter discusses eight noble paths, right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration; and it also discusses eight precepts, no killing, no stealing, no sexual misconduct, no lying, no intoxicant, no eat after noon, no sitting on a high and broad chair, and no entertainment and wrapping body with flowers; see T. 2, no. 125, p. 756c. Lin translated “bazheng” as “eight aspects of governance.”

10. The sun palace and the moon pavilion are common phrases in many inscriptions of stone lanterns in the Tang Dynasty. For instance, the stone lantern from the Longxing Temple in Qiongxia, Sichuan built in 795 also used these two phrases. I will return to this stone lantern later.

11. Five turbidities (Skt. pañca-kaṣāya; Chin. wuzhuo 五濁): the turbidity of a kalpa in decay 劫濁, the turbidity of views 見濁; the turbidity of afflictions 煩惱濁; the turbidity of sentient beings 眾生濁; and the turbidity of human lifespan 命濁.

12. I translate the Chinese phrase guangming tai 光明臺 as the Bright Light Pavilion. The term“guangming 光明 literarily refers to the bright light. Two other similar Chinese terms, dengming 燈明 and huoming 火明, also appeared frequently in medieval Chinese Buddhist and non-Buddhist texts. The former refers to the bright lamp, literarily, and the latter refers to the bright fire. All three terms indicate the entities for shining brightness. Sometimes they are interchangeable. In specific contexts, they refer to either concrete or symbolic bright entities, either lamp or fire, or just simply light. Further discussion of these terms can be found in Chen, “Tangdai shideng mingyi kao,” 84–85.

13. I use five sacred peaks to translate wuyue 五嶽 here. Many scholars translate them as five sacred peaks, holy mountains, or sacred mountains. For the discussion of wuyue in Chinese religious history, see Robson, Power of Place, 25–56.

14. Here it might refer to the allusion in the Consecration Scripture translated by Śrīmitrain the Eastern Jin Dynasty. I return to this topic in the third section of this article. Extending life is one of the most important functions of lighting lanterns, according to the Consecration scripture. See Xiao, “Daojiao fandeng xuming yi dui fojiao ji dongmi de yingxiang,” 57–75.

15. T. 2, no. 125, p. 581b12–13; According to the Ekottara Āgama 增一阿含經， juan 7，the Buddha told his monastic members that among his disciples, Aniruddha was the number one among those who obtained heavenly eyes.

16. Gu Yanwu 顧炎武，Zhaoyu zhi 肇域志，Shanxi 2，says that the copper was the product from the Fengyou Valley in Dai Prefecture 代州鳳遊谷產銅. Both Hu Pinzhi and Fu Shumin read the name of this mountain as “fengyou 鳳遊,” but Lin Weichang read it as “fengyou 風遊” and rendered it as Mt. Wutai.”

17. One character seems to be missing (as I mark it as []) before the character ‘lou (pavilion).”

18. I consult the transcription in Hu Pinzhi’s collection and that of Fu Shumin’s research paper. The following section says that the stone lantern was renovated on the 25th day of the second month of the third year of the Zhidao period (April 5, 997) in the Great Song Dynasty. Several lists of the villagers who contributed to the renovations of this stone lantern follow the date, but these lists are broken from damage to the stone lantern through the ages.

19. Tang da zhaoling ji, juan 9. Jiu Tang shu, juan 9, [二十七年] 二月己巳，加尊號開元聖文神武皇帝，大赦天下。

20. Jiu Tang shu 舊唐書, juan 8, 三年春正月丁亥，立郢王嗣謙為皇太子，降死罪已下，大酺三日；juan 111, in the seventh month of the 25th year of the Kaiyuan period, Li Siqian changed his name to Li Ying 李瑛. 廢太子瑛，玄宗第二子也，本名嗣謙。景雲元年 (710) 九月，封真定郡王。先天元年 (712) 八月，進封郢王。開元三年（715）正月，立為皇太子。二十五年七月，改名瑛。How and when the information of the appointment of the crown prince was spread to the Dongzhang Village is another question. It seems that, as a state merit title recipient, Zhang Chuzhen played a role in bridging the state policy and his native village.

21. Xin Tangshu, juan 5: 139.

22. Interestingly, a stone scriptural pillar found in Xi’an has a similar dedication inscription. This stone pillar was found in 1993 and is now preserved in Northwestern University Museum, Xi’an. This pillar also has an octagonal shape. The inscription engraved on this pillar says that the master of pillar (zhuangzhu 幢主) and the local club head (shezheng 社正) Guo Qingji 郭慶集 owned this pillar, and it was dedicated to the Kaiyuan shenwu Emperor, the crown prince, princes, princesses, civil and martial officials, and all sentient beings in dharma realm. The title of the emperor and the crown prince indicates that it was also built between 715 and 737. The list also included princesses and all sentient beings. For the discovery of this pillar, see Jia, Li, Wang, “Xin faxian de Tang Kaiyuan jingzhuang,” 93–94, they wrong dated it in the Wu Zetian period. Huang did some corrections, see “Kaiyuan jingzhuang tiji shangque,” 90. Here I narrow the date down to 713–739.

23. In traditional Chinese sources, there are several mountains called Fengyou, such as one in Jiangxi and another one in Jiangsu, but none of them can be identified with the one appeared in our inscription here.

24. Kieschnick, The Eminent Monk, 61; Xie and Bai, Zhongguo sengguan zhidu shi, 25–27.

25. Hino，Hino Kaisaburō tōyōshigaku ronshū, 225–227; Nishimura, “Tōdai zenhanki ni okeru kunkan,” 21–24; Gao, Zhongguo zhonggu zhengzhi，207–210; Kim, “Tangdai baixing xunguan kaolun,” 89–97.

26. Du You, Tongdian, juan 3; Lin et al., Tang liudian, juan 3; Liu, “Tangchao cunzheng kao,” 75-86; Sun and Song, “Quyu shehuishi,” Guangming ribao.

27. For the analysis of the statue inscriptions, see Hou, Wu Liu shiji biefang minzhong fojiao xinyang, 247–258, he categorized three groups of the beneficiaries, the ruling class, parents and relatives, and sentient beings. For the collections of some colophons of Buddhist manuscripts from Dunhuang, see Ikeda, Chūgoku kodai shahon.

28. See my discussion in “Tangdai shideng mingyi kao,” 74–75.

29. There are four officials in the Tang county administration, including the magistrate (xianling 縣令), vice magistrate (xiancheng 縣丞), registrar (zhubu 主簿), and defendant (xianwei). The county defendant was one of the most popular entry-level government posts for those literati who passed civil examinations. See Lai, Tangdai zhongceng wenguan, 233–328. Although Zhang Chunzhen’s merit title was a second-rank title, but he did not hold any government position and he was not in charge of government affairs. His merit title was honorific.

30. See the story 13 in the Guangyi ji; for the translation and analysis of this story, see Dudbridge, Religious Experience and Lay Society, 76–77. I cited Dudbridge’s English translation of this passage.

31. Ennin, Rutang qiufa xunli xingji, 309. For the English translation, see Reischauer trans., Ennin’s Diary, 266.

32. It was built on the eighth day of the fourth month (May 12, 688).

33. It was built on the 15th day of the seventh month (August 28, 752).

34. The third Chinese translation of this scripture was made by Pore 般若, a monk from Kashmir, in 796.

35. For a general introduction to Buddhism in Mt. Wutai, see Cui, Wutaishan fojiaoshi; for the history of Mt. Wutai as a sacred mountain, see Lin, Building a Sacred Mountain; Wang, “Wutaishan de shengshan hua,” 87–113; Lin, “Tangdai de Wutaishan xunli huodong,” 311–341.

36. For more discussions, see Chen, “Tangdai shideng mingyi kao,” 56–94.

37. T. 9, no. 278, p. 544a5–16。

38. T. 15, no. 643, pp. 645c22–46a4.

39. T. 12, no. 365, 344a.

40. Yiengpruksawan, “The Eyes of Michinaga in the Light of Pure Land Buddhism,” 227–230, she mainly deals with the lights of Amitabha Buddha in Pure Land tradition. For the study of the Guangfo sanmei hai jing, see Yamabe, “The Sutra on the Ocean-like Samādhi of the Visualization of the Buddha.”

41. Ji ed, Tangshi jishi, vol. 1, 30. 李從遠，奉和九月九日登慈恩寺浮圖應制：九月從時豫，三乘爲法開。中霄日天子，半座寶如來。摘果珠盤獻，攀萸玉輦迴。願將塵露點，遙奉光明臺。

42. T. 54, no. 2123, p. 8b21.

43. The Manual for Supplementing and Assisting Contemplation for Practicing the Samādhi of the Lotus Sutra (Fahua sanmei xingshi yunxiang buzhu yi).

44. T. 47, no. 1982, p. 456b10, the Manual of Repentance Rituals Selected from various Scriptures (Ji zhujing lichen yi 集諸經禮懺儀). Zhisheng was active in early eighth century. He was a noted bibliographer who was active in the Xuanzong’s reign period and compiled a catalogue in the 18th year of the Kaiyuan period (730).

45. Manual of Procedures for the Cultivation of Realization of Ritual Practice according to the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment (Yuanjuejing daochang xiuzheng yi 圓覺經道場修證儀).

46. T. 51, no. 2097, p. 1059a.

47. T. 10, no. 279, p. 1a. On the history of translation, see Chen, “The Location and Chief Members of Śikṣānanda’s (652–710) Avatamsaka Translation Office,” 121–140; and Chen, Philosopher, Practitioner, Politician, 367–368; Duan, Yutian, Fojiao, Gujuan, 167–184.

48. T. 10, no. 279, p. 1b–c.

49. For his translation, see The Flower Ornament Scripture, 56.

50. Scheidegger, “The First Four Themes of Klong chen pa’s Tsig don bcu gcig pa,” 49.

51. I have discussed this issue in my previous article, “Tangdai shideng mingyi kao,” 89–90.

52. The transcribed text of this stone lantern pillar can be found in Quan Tang wen, juan 717: 7370.

53 Saitō, Bukkyō bijutsu no kenkyū, 240.

54. The third version of the Chinese translation was made by a monk from Kashmir Bore 般若 (Prajñā) in 795, which was later than the construction of the Dongzhang stone lantern. For the textual history of the Huayan texts, in Chinese, see Hamar, “The History of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra,” 139–167.

55. T. 10, no. 279, p. 1a.

56. Hamar, “Huayan Texts in Dunhuang,” 81–102; Li, “Dunhuang yishu zhong de zaoqi Huayanjing jiqi xiangguan wenxian,” 96–102.

57. Chen, “Huayan haizangtu yu Qichu bahuitu de duli fazhan zhi jiehe tanjiu,” 45–105; Chen, “Zhongtang zhi Wudai huyan jingbian de Rufajiepin tanjiu,” 1–45; Sun，Wenshu pusa tuxiangxue yanjiu; Yan，“Beichao huanyanjing zaoxiang de xingsi,” 333–368.

58. Only the title Dayunsi shidengtai song 大雲寺石燈臺頌 is preserved in the Records of Bronze and Stone Inscriptions (Jinshi lu 金石錄) compiled by Zhao Mingcheng.

59. Shao Zhen wrote the eulogy and Wang Zexing handwrote it. The title Tang Longxingsi changmingdeng song 唐龍興寺長明燈頌 is preserved in the Jinshi lu.

60. For the transcription of the inscription of this stone lantern, see Deng, “Sichuan Qiongxia xian chutu de Tang dengtai ji qita,” 63–64; Cheng, “Sichuan Qiongxia Tang Longxingsi,” 61–63; also see Chen ed., Quan Tangwen bubian, 662.

61. In Sūtra on the Virtues of Donating Lamps 施燈功德經, it says that the lamp oil is like the water of great sea and the lamp platform is like the Sumeru Mountain; See T. 16, no. 702, p. 808a.

62. Lin, Building a Sacred Mountain, 113–114.

63. Cartelli, The Five-Colored Clouds of Mount Wutai, 76–77, 189. For the Great Flower Pond in Huixiang’s Gu Qingliang zhuan (dated in 680), juan 1, see T. 51, no. 2098, p. 1093c.

64. Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 et al., Xin Tang shu 新唐書, juan 37: 907.

65. Reischauer, The Diary of Ennin, 237–238; For the Dunhuang manuscript (S. 3921) on Puhua’s pilgrimage, see Du, Dunhuang Wutaishan wenxian jiaolu yanjiu, 222.

66. Lin Weizhen noted the Jade Flower Temple and the Golden Pavilion Temple as new constructions; see his Building a Sacred Mountain, 132. Chen Jinhua noted that the Golden Pavilion Temple was constructed in 766–767 under the recommendations of Bukong, see “Esoteric Buddhism and Monastic Institutions,” 286.

67. Bukong, 請捨衣缽助僧道環修金閣寺制一首, T. 52, no. 2120, p. 834a.

68. In the biography of Mingyin 明隱, it says that, “The central terrace is the highest, from it one can overlook all other mountains and so son. There was a large spring on the central terrace, called Great Flower” 中臺最高，所望諸山並下，上有大泉名曰太華; see T. 50, no. 2060, p. 665a.

69. T. 9, no. 278, p. 590a.

70. Sun ed., Dunhuang shiku quanji, 236.

71. T. 55, no. 2157, p. 889b, Yuanzhao 圓照, Zhenyuan xinding shijiao mulu 貞元新定釋教目錄, juan 16.

72. Later around 748 to 749, this legend alao appeared in the stele of the Clear and Cool Temple of Mt. Wutai 五台山清涼寺碑. Wang Yarong 王亞榮 suggested that this stele was composed by the temple but was wrongly attributed to Li Yong; see his “Li Yong Wutaishan Qingliangsi bei kaobian,” 87–89.

73. T. 85, no. 2920, p.1463c. Three manuscripts S. 2565, S. 2754, P. 2217 of this text have been found from the cave library of Dunhuang. For a study of this text, see Liu, “Cong Jidujiao qishilu kan Dunhuang xiejuan,” 139–166. He argues that this text was formed after the reign of Emperor Dezong 德宗 but before the Song Dynasty, in the later eighth century before the tenth century. In any sense, this text was not earlier than the Dongzhang stone lantern.

74. Chen, “Tangdai shideng mingyi kao,” 79–80.

75. Chen, “Tangdai shideng mingyi kao,’’ 82–83.

76. Chen, “Multiple Traditions in One Ritual,” 233–257.

77. For the study of the monumentalization of Buddhist scriptures, see Tsiang, “Monumentalization of Buddhist Texts in the Northern Qi Dynasty,” 233–261; for the study of the stupas in the Northern Liang Dynasty, see Abe, Ordinary Images, 123–171; Yin, Bei Liang shita yanjiu. Angela F. Howard presented a different view on identifying these stupas, see her “Liang Patronage of Buddhist Art in the Gansu Corridor,” 235–275.

78. Shanxisheng kaogu yanjiusuo, eds., Bei Qi Dong’anwang Lou Rui mu; Taiyuanshi wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo, Bei Qi Xu Xianxiu mu. Some scholars have suggested that there was the Zoroastrian cultural elements in the Xu Xianxiu tomb, see Lang and Qu, “Shilun Bei Qi Xu Xianxiu mu de Xianjiao wenhua yinsu,” 114–122, they also indicated that archaeologist Han Wei 韓偉 has suggested the high lamps in this tomb perhaps were connected with the holy fire worship in Zoroastrianism; Shi Anchang 施安昌 argues that the lamps were the fire altars in Zoroastrianism, see “Bei Qi Xu Xianxiu, Lou Rui mu zhong de huotan he liqi,” 41–48.

79. Valenstein, Cultural Convergence in the Northern Qi Period, 20; for the pictures of these lamps, see 98–99, Figures 11 and 14.

80. Shanxisheng kaogusuo et al., Taiyuan Sui Yu Hong mu, 65; Yang, “From the Han to Qing,” 139; Marshak, “The Sarcophagus of Sabao Yu Hong,” 57–65; Juliano, “Chinese Pictorial Space at the Cultural Crossroads,” 293–316.