Pilgrimage Map of Mt. Wutai

The sacred mountain Wutai (Wutaishan), located in Shanxi Province, China, is believed to be the earthly abode of the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, Manjushri. While Mt. Wutai was a sacred site to Chinese Buddhists as far back as the fifth century, from the seventh century on, it became an international pilgrimage center, attracting Buddhist pilgrims from as far away as India, Kashmir, Tibet, Japan, and Korea. While Tibetan Buddhism was firmly established on Mt Wutai during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Mt. Wutai had become especially important to Tibetans, Mongols, and Manchus. This panoramic view of Mt. Wutai is an impressive, six-foot-wide woodblock print on cloth that has been hand colored. There are some 30 known surviving prints of this map. It was made on Mt. Wutai in 1846 by a Mongolian monk, the carver Lhundrup, at a local monastery, Cifu Temple, the main lodging for Mongolian monks visiting the mountain. This map contains more than 150 sites of interest to the pilgrims who ventured to Mount Wutai. These sites are labeled with Chinese and Tibetan inscriptions, including Buddhist monasteries, Taoist temples, villages, sacred objects, and locations of events, both historic and miraculous. Winding paths with tiny travelers link one temple to another, suggesting possible itineraries of pilgrimage. Pilgrims traveled this sacred mountain to see divine visions, which took the form of miraculous light and cloud formations, a ubiquitous presence on this map. The most prominent monastery, which appears much larger than the others is Bodhisattva Peak Monastery (Pusa ding). This temple was converted into a Manchu imperial establishment shortly after the Qing dynasty was founded in the mid-seventeenth century, denoted by its bright yellow roof. A masked dance procession, the focus of ritual activity on the mountain, leads from the monastery down the center of the map. The content of these sites and events marked on the map are a complex historical layering of Chinese, Tibetan, Mongol and Manchu involvement on the mountain. The Mongols were militant followers of the Gelukpa, the monastic order of the Dalai Lama, and this map asserts not only a Tibetan Buddhist religious identity to Mt Wutai, but more specifically a Gelukpa identity. Their founder, Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), who was considered a Tibetan emanation of Manjushri, can be found everywhere on the map – such as visions of him emanating on clouds from Mt Wutai’s five peaks. Thus this map declares both an ethnic and sectarian identity. The tri-lingual dedicatory inscriptions at the bottom promise various benefits of seeing this image, including being free from all calamities and diseases, and enjoying boundless blessings, happiness, and longevity.