Agents of Religious and Artistic Dialogue along the Southern Sino-Tibetan Frontier
Karl Debreczeny
Mahamayuri Presiding Over a Water-Land Assemblage, detail of wall painting, south wall; Dabaojigong Temple, Baisha Village, Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China; ca. 1643; 79-7⁄8 × 175½ in. (203 × 446 cm); image after Wang Haitao 2002, fig. 98
Dabaojigong Temple
Lijiang, Yunnan Province, Chinafounded 1582
Mahamayuri Presiding Over a Water-Land Assemblage, detail of wall painting, south wall; Dabaojigong Temple, Baisha Village, Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China; ca. 1643; 79-7⁄8 × 175½ in. (203 × 446 cm); image after Wang Haitao 2002, fig. 98
Summary
The Naxi Kingdom of Lijiang was an expansionist mountain state in what is now Southwest China, which allied itself politically with Beijing but invited high Tibetan lamas to its court. Art historian Karl Debreczeny examines murals at Dabaojigong Temple, showing how Naxi kings mixed Chinese Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, and Tibetan Buddhism with their own indigenous ritual traditions to establish dominion over their multiethnic territories. The murals may have been commissioned by king Mu Zeng, whose patronage turned Lijiang into a major Tibetan Buddhist center.
Buddhism first appeared in China in the first century CE, and by the fourth century had become one of the major religions of the country, along with Daoism and Confucianism. Essentially all Chinese Buddhism is Mahayana; Vajrayana teachings flourished for a brief period in the eighth century, but suffered repression and mostly disappeared as an organized school of practice, except in the southwest. Chan (Zen) Buddhism is a unique Chinese tradition, known for its teachings on sudden enlightenment, some of which parallel teachings of Dzogchen (the Great Perfection) practiced in Tibetan regions. Other Chinese Buddhists follow Pure Land teachings, hoping to be reborn in the western paradise of Amitabha.
The Karmapas are a lineage of tulkus, or reincarnated lamas, and heads of the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, recognizable by their distinctive black hats. They began tracing their reincarnations starting in the thirteenth century when Rangjung Dorje (1284–1339) recognized himself the reincarnation of two predecessors, to whom he gave the titles Second and First Karmapas. The Karmapas are thus the historically oldest tulku lineage in Tibetan Buddhism. The Karmapas were a major force in medieval Tibet, but their economic and political power was broken in the mid-seventeenth century when the Geluk-tradition Dalai Lamas and their Mongol allies defeated the king of Tsang and drove many Karma Kagyupas into exile. Nevertheless, the Karmapa lineage survived, and remains influential today. The Karmapas are believed to be emanations of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.
A practice of hiring and commissioning artists to create works of art. In religious context patrons were often rulers, religious leaders, as well as ordinary people. (see also donor)
Historically, Tibetan Buddhism refers to those Buddhist traditions that use Tibetan as a ritual language. It is practiced in Tibet, Mongolia, Bhutan, Ladakh, and among certain groups in Nepal, China, and Russia and has an international following. Buddhism was introduced to Tibet in two waves, first when rulers of the Tibetan Empire (seventh to ninth centuries CE), embraced the Buddhist faith as their state religion, and during the second diffusion (late tenth through thirteenth centuries), when monks and translators brought in Buddhist culture from India, Nepal, and Central Asia. As a result, the entire Buddhist canon was translated into Tibetan, and monasteries grew to become centers of intellectual, cultural, and political power. From the end of the twelfth century, Tibetans were exporting their own Buddhist traditions abroad. Tibetan Buddhism integrates Mahayana teachings with the esoteric practices of Vajrayana, and includes those developed in Tibet, such as Dzogchen, as well as indigenous Tibetan religious practices focused on local gods. Historically major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism are Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Geluk.
The Ming dynasty was a Chinese state that existed from 1368 to 1644 CE. The Ming founder, Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398), led an army that defeated the Yuan dynasty of the Mongol Empire and restored ethnic Chinese rule in China. Unlike the Mongols before them or the Qing dynasty after them the Ming never seriously attempted to rule the Tibetan regions, preferring instead to manage border affairs by granting titles and trading rights to friendly Tibetan monks and secular leaders. Nevertheless, several early Ming emperors had close personal relations with Tibetan lamas, and relations of trade and cultural interchange flourished between Chinese and Tibetan regions.
Daoism refers both to a philosophical tradition and to an organized religion. In ancient China, texts attributed to semi-mythical figures like Laozi (sixth–fourth century BCE) and Zhuangzi (369–286 BCE) contained mystical speculation about the “way” (Dao) that brings humans into harmony with heaven, as well as explorations of philosophical and political relativism. From the second century onward, a ritual-exorcistic tradition appeared that called itself “the teachings of the Dao” (Ch. Daojiao). Mutually influencing with Chinese Buddhism, this tradition grew into an organized religion with monasteries, a priesthood, a canon of ritual texts, and a complex pantheon of gods organized into a bureaucracy modeled after the Chinese state which govern the natural world.
Third-party intermediaries, such as the Tangut, Mongol, and Manchu courts, often initiated intersections of Tibetan and Chinese religious and artistic culture. A similar pattern of also took place on a smaller scale along the outer reaches of the Sino-Tibetan frontier. Dabaojigong is a small Buddhist temple located in Baisha Village (fig. 2), several miles outside of Lijiang in remote northwestern Yunnan Province, the southern meeting of Tibetan and Chinese areas. The temple was built by the Naxi people, an ethnic group living in areas between Chinese and Tibetan regions that drew from both cultural spheres. Dabaojigong is the earliest extant temple in Lijiang that gives evidence of a local workshop that had fully absorbed both Chinese and Tibetan religious and artistic traditions, and as such it exemplifies the wide range of cultural dialogue that took place on this frontier.
Fig. 2. Dabaojigong Temple; Baisha Village, Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China; founded 1582; photograph by K. Debreczeny
The Kingdom of Lijiang
In official Chinese histories, the kingdom of Lijiang (Tibetan: Jang Satam) was an area recognized as beyond direct imperial control. By the fifteenth century, the local Naxi inhabitants, while ethnically related to the Tibetans, had closely allied themselves politically and culturally with the Chinese. They depicted themselves as Chinese officials and kept records in Chinese (fig. 3). The rulers of Lijiang were also enthusiastic patrons of both Chinese and . Through military campaigns the kingdom of Lijiang expanded its domain into Tibetan territories, and the local ruling family took an increasing interest in Tibetan Buddhism. The main trade routes between Yunnan and Tibet all passed through Lijiang-controlled territory, giving the Naxi control over the Yunnan-Tibet tea-horse trade, which provided a great deal of revenue to support such construction projects.
Fig. 3.
King of Lijiang, Mu Zeng (1598–1646; r. 1598–1624/46), Official Portrait; Lijiang, China; Qing dynasty (1644–1911); album leaf, ink and pigment on paper; 17¾ × 11 7⁄8 in. (45 × 30.2 cm); Yunnan Provincial Museum; image after Yunnan Provincial Museum 雲南省博物館. 2001. Mushi huanpu 木氏宦譜「影印本. Kunming: Yunnan meishu chubanshe, 134
Dabaojigong Temple
Dabaojigong exemplifies the synthesis of Chinese and Tibetan traditions characteristic of the local Naxi rulers, and its wall paintings contain , , and Tibetan Buddhist themes (fig. 4). The architecture is Chinese, and the temple is roughly square in appearance, with a face three bays wide and a double-eaved, hip-gabled tile roof. Twelve panels of wall paintings measure a total of 661.7 square feet (61.48 square meters). A set of Chinese name boards record that in 1582 the local official Mu Wang (r. 1580–1596) built the temple. Known in Tibetan sources as the king in Lijiang, in 1582 he also invited the Ninth Karmapa (1555–1603) to Lijiang, expressing his wish to commission a new woodblock edition of the Tibetan Tripitaka (Kangyur).
Fig. 4. Diagram of the Dabaojigong painting program; diagram by K. Debreczeny
Painting Program: Front of the Hall
The wall paintings at the front of the hall contain a mixture of imagery derived from Buddhist, Daoist, and traditions, focused on worldly concerns and dominated by iconographic themes standard to Chinese Buddhist temples of the Ming dynasty (fig. 4). Nonetheless, Tibetan elements permeate these paintings. For instance, the main theme of the south wall is a painting of a water-land (shuilu) assemblage (fig. 1), a Chinese Buddhist ritual of universal salvation designed to feed the untended spirits of the dead, which cleverly co-opts Confucian concerns of ancestor worship and sets them in a Buddhist ritual framework. Presiding over this gathering of one hundred deities drawn from Chinese Buddhist and Daoist pantheons dressed in Chinese royal garb is a form of Mahamayuri, one of the Five Protector Goddesses (), the magical reliever of suffering invoked to protect against poisons and calamities, as well as to bring rain and relieve drought. She represents the protective virtue of all the buddhas as she holds her identifying attribute, a peacock feather, drawn from Tibetan iconographic models and identified by a Tibetan inscription on her throne. In addition, a following Tibetan conventions hangs from her throne, flanked on the right by a Tibetan monk, identifiable by his bare right shoulder, and on the left by a long-sleeved Chinese monk, giving visual expression to the Naxi ruling house’s embrace of both Buddhist traditions. Tibetan color notations visible through the paint layer of this otherwise Chinese imagery suggest a mixed workshop.
Flanking the east side of the front door (fig. 4) is the Buddhist deity Marichi (fig. 5), also identified by a Tibetan inscription, surprisingly surrounded by Daoist gods, such as the Three Purities. Directly across the hall are the Daoist gods known as the Three Officials of Heaven, Earth, and Water. They are charged with keeping an equilibrium in the world through bureaucratic management of natural forces, and act as intermediaries between the living and the bureaucracy of the underworld. These are the only overtly Daoist figural themes found at Dabaojigong, and their presence is indicative of the religious syncretism prevalent across China at this time.
Fig. 5.
Marichi and the Daoist Three Purities, detail of wall painting, south wall, corresponding to diagram of the Dabaojigong painting program, no. 2; Dabaojigong Temple, Baisha Village, Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China; ca. 1643; 81½ × 48 3/8 in. (207 × 123 cm); image after Lijiang Naxi zu zizhi xian wenhua ju丽江纳西族自治县文化局 and Lijiang Naxi Dongba wenhua bowuguan丽江纳西东巴文化博物馆, eds. 1999. Lijiang Baisha bihua丽江白沙壁画. Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, fig. 52
On the ceiling above the central altar screen (fig. 6), in the center of a sunken well, the interlocked syllables of the Kalachakra mantra—known in Tibetan as “the ten syllables of power”—are surrounded by the eight trigrams painted on the leaves of a lotus. In Chinese temples the eight trigrams would typically surround a yin-yang circle, forming a Daoist protective talisman. The presence of the Kalachakra mantra here combined with the trigrams makes for a fascinating hybrid of Tibetan and Chinese protective symbols.
Fig. 6. Kalachakra Mantra surrounded by the Eight Chinese Trigrams, ceiling painting; Dabaojigong Temple, Baisha Village, Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China; ca. 1643; photograph by K. Debreczeny
Painting Program: Rear of the Hall
The wall paintings at the rear of the hall (fig. 4) are entirely Tibetan Buddhist in nature, devoted to inner practices and standard for temples of the Karma Kagyu tradition. Interestingly, almost all of the deities represented in the rear of Dabaojigong appear as meditational deities in the biographies of the Sixth Zhamar (1584–1630) (fig. 7) and the Tenth Karmapa (1604–1674), two of the most influential lamas to visit Lijiang.
The south-central section of the rear wall depicts the transmission lineage, one of the two primary teaching lineages of the Kagyu tradition (fig. 8). The figures are all labeled in Tibetan, except the central figure, which makes it possible to trace the transmission of the teachings through the Ninth Karmapa. It seems most likely that the unidentified central figure in a black hat is the Tenth Karmapa. If true, his teacher, the Sixth Zhamar, would be missing. One possible explanation might be that the Sixth Zhamar, who visited several times between 1610 and 1621, oversaw the composition and omitted himself out of modesty. This would place the execution of the painting after the date of the Tenth Karmapa’s enthronement in 1611, and before the arrival of the Tenth Karmapa in Lijiang in 1646. Had the painting been executed after the Tenth Karmapa’s arrival, it is unlikely that he would have consented to omit his own teacher, which would cut off his connection to this transmission.
Fig. 8.
Mahamudra Lineage, detail of wall painting, rear wall; Dabaojigong Temple, Baisha Village, Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China; ca. 1643; 81 7⁄8 × 76¾ in. (208 × 195 cm); after He Shiyong, ed. 2011, 50
Dating the Wall Paintings
Sites continuously evolve, and one should not assume that the wall paintings date to the temple’s initial founding. A dated Tibetan inscription located in the front of the hall reads: “This great inconceivable temple which rivals the abode of the gods, of excellent Dharma, of the superior called Dorje Demchok, was perfectly completed on the third day of the sixth month of the female water-sheep year.” Unfortunately, the identity of the ruler Dorje Demchok named in this inscription remains unclear, as it does not match any known Tibetan names of the local Naxi kings. However, the anomaly in the Mahamudra lineage painting, taken together with the water-sheep year mentioned in this inscription, narrows the date to 1643, about three years before the arrival of the Tenth Karmapa. Distinctive stylistic details, such as wispy flames and throne patterns, are consistent throughout the temple, suggesting the same workshop. This allows us to extend the dating to the wall paintings throughout the temple, roughly simultaneous to at least five other Buddhist construction projects sponsored by the founder’s grandson Mu Zeng.
Patron of the Wall Paintings
Mu Zeng (1598–1646) (figs. 3 and 9), known in Tibetan sources as the King of Lijiang Karma Mipam Tsewang Sonam Rabten, was the greatest supporter of Tibetan Buddhism among the Naxi rulers. In 1624 he abdicated the throne to act as monk-regent, and a number of portraits depict him in Chinese monastic robes beneath a Tibetan long-life deity (fig. 9). One of the most important products of his patronage was the Jang Satam (Lijiang) edition of the Buddhist canon (Kangyur) (figs. 10 and 11), completed by the Sixth Zhamar in 1621. This massive literary undertaking established Lijiang’s reputation as a major center of Tibetan Buddhist activity (fig. 7).
The push to build or convert temples in Lijiang may have been intended in part to attract major Tibetan hierarchs to the local ruling family’s court, and thereby to gain prestige within its newly conquered Tibetan territories.
Fig. 9.
Mu Zeng as a Monk (木生白画像); Xitansi Monastery, Chicken Foot Mountain, Yunnan Province, China; 17th century; pigments on silk; 38¼ × 61-7⁄8 in. (97 × 157 cm); Yunnan Provincial Museum; A(1)-4
This essay is largely drawn from Karl Debreczeny, “Dabaojigong and the Regional Tradition of Ming Sino-Tibetan Painting in Lijiang,” in Buddhism Between Tibet and China, ed. Matthew T. Kapstein (Boston: Wisdom, 2009), 97–152 and Karl Debreczeny, The Black Hat Eccentric: Artistic Visions of the Tenth Karmapa, Exhibition catalog (New York: Rubin Museum of Art, 2012), 64–95, https://issuu.com/rmanyc/docs/6._black_hat_eccentric_96.
2
On the Naxi, see Joseph F. Rock, The Ancient Na-Khi Kingdom of Southwest China, vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1947); Christine Mathieu and Cindy Ho, eds., Ancestral Realms of the Naxi: Quentin Roosevelt’s China (New York: Rubin Museum of Art, 2011).
3
Elliot Sperling, “The Szechwan-Tibet Frontier in the Fifteenth Century,” Ming Studies 26, no. (Fall) (1988): 39; Patrick Booz, “Tea, Trade and Transport in the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands” (PhD diss., University of Oxford, 2011); Patrick Booz, “‘To Control Tibet, First Pacify Kham’: Trade Routes and ‘Official Routes’ (Guandao) in Easternmost Kham,” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review 19, no. June (2016): 27–47; Patrick Booz, “Tibet and Tea: A Summary of Trade, Social Customs and Sino-Tibetan Relations Dealing with Ja/Cha,” in Commerce and Communities: Social Status and Political Status and the Exchange of Goods in Tibetan Societies, ed. Jeannine Bischoff (Berlin: EB Verlag, 2018), 127–60.
4
For a discussion of the complete iconographic program, see Karl Debreczeny, “Dabaojigong and the Regional Tradition of Ming Sino-Tibetan Painting in Lijiang,” in Buddhism Between Tibet and China, ed. Matthew T. Kapstein (Boston: Wisdom, 2009), 97–152. For images, see Lijiang Naxizu zizhixian wenhuaju 丽江纳西族自治县文化局 and Lijiang Naxi Dongba wenhua bowuguan 丽江纳西东巴文化博物馆, eds., Lijiang Baisha Bihua 丽江白沙壁画 [Lijiang Baisha Murals] (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1999), 20–67; Wang Haitao 王海濤, Yunnan Lishi Bihua Yishu 雲南歷史壁畫藝術 [The Art of Yunnan Historical Murals] (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2002), 96–167; He Shiyong 和仕勇, ed., Lijiang Baisha bihua tushi 丽江白沙壁画图释 [Lijiang Baisha mural images and explanations] (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2011), 12–103.
5
萬曆壬午端陽圓澫拜書, 土官功德主木旺志.
6
Si tu and ’Be lo = Si tu Paṇ chen Chos kyi ’byung gnas and ’Be lo Tshe dbang kun khyab, Bsgrub rgyud karma kam tshang brgyud pa rin po che’ i rnam par thar pa rab ’byams nor bu zla ba chu shel gyi phreng ba (Reprint, New Delhi: D. Gyaltsan and Kesang Legshay, 1775),180, ll. 1–2, http://purl.bdrc.io/resource/MW23435.
7
For instance, in the Mahamayuri water-land assemblage, the letters ka for white (dkar po) are visible. See He Shiyong 和仕勇, ed., Lijiang Baisha bihua tushi 丽江白沙壁画图释 [Lijiang Baisha mural images and explanations] (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2011), 25.
8
Trigrams are the eight symbols composed of three broken or unbroken lines, used in Daoist cosmology and divination.
9
See Karl Debreczeny, “Dabaojigong and the Regional Tradition of Ming Sino-Tibetan Painting in Lijiang,” in Buddhism Between Tibet and China, ed. Matthew T. Kapstein (Boston: Wisdom, 2009), 97–152, fig. 15, and app. 2, Painting Key 1; He Shiyong 和仕勇, ed., Lijiang Baisha bihua tushi 丽江白沙壁画图释 [Lijiang Baisha mural images and explanations] (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2011), 51; Xiong Wenbin 熊文彬, “Cong Zangwen Tiji He Gajupai Da Shouyin Shang Shi Chuancheng Tu Kan Lijiang Baisha Dabaojigong Bihua de Chuangzuo Niandai” 从藏文题记和噶举派大手印上师传承图看丽江白沙大宝积宫壁画的创作年代 [The Dating of the Murals of Dabaojigong Temple, Lijiang, Yunnan Province, According to the Tibetan Inscription and the Image of Mahamudra Lineage],” in Da Xile Yu Da Yuanman: Qingzhu Tan Xiyong Xiansheng 80 Huadan Han Zang Foxue Yanjiu Lun Ji 大喜乐与大圆满 : 庆祝谈锡永先生八十华诞汉藏佛学研究论集, ed. Shen Weirong 沈卫荣 (Beijing: Zhingguo Zangxue chubanshe, 2014), 484–87.
10
Gong ma chos rgyal rdo rje bde [m]chog zhes/ chos bzang lha gnas de dang ’gran nus pa’i/ gtsug lag khang chen bsam gyis mi khyab ’di: chu mo lug lo zla [ba] drug pa’i/ tshes pa gsum la bkra shis bde leg[s] grub/
11
Karl Debreczeny, “Dabaojigong and the Regional Tradition of Ming Sino-Tibetan Painting in Lijiang,” in Buddhism Between Tibet and China, ed. Matthew T. Kapstein (Boston: Wisdom, 2009), 105; Xiong Wenbin 熊文彬, Shargan Wangdui 夏格旺堆, and Habibu 哈比布, “Yunnan Lijiang Baisha Dabaojigong Mingdai Bihua Tiji Ji Qi Xiangguan Wenti Taolun” 云南丽江白沙大宝积宫明代壁画题记及其相关问题讨论 [Discussions on the Tibetan Inscription on the Murals Created in the Ming Dynasty in Dabaojigong Temple, Baisha, Lijiang, Yunnan Province and Relevant Questions],” Zhongguo Zangxue 中国藏学 / China Tibetology 3 (2013): 68–69; Xiong Wenbin 熊文彬, “Cong Zangwen Tiji He Gajupai Da Shouyin Shang Shi Chuancheng Tu Kan Lijiang Baisha Dabaojigong Bihua de Chuangzuo Niandai” 从藏文题记和噶举派大手印上师传承图看丽江白沙大宝积宫壁画的创作年代 [The Dating of the Murals of Dabaojigong Temple, Lijiang, Yunnan Province, According to the Tibetan Inscription and the Image of Mahamudra Lineage],” in Da Xile Yu Da Yuanman: Qingzhu Tan Xiyong Xiansheng 80 Huadan Han Zang Foxue Yanjiu Lun Ji 大喜乐与大圆满 : 庆祝谈锡永先生八十华诞汉藏佛学研究论集, ed. Shen Weirong 沈卫荣 (Beijing: Zhingguo Zangxue chubanshe, 2014), 479–91.
12
Xiong Wenbin 熊文彬, Shargan Wangdui 夏格旺堆, and Habibu 哈比布, “Yunnan Lijiang Baisha Dabaojigong Mingdai Bihua Tiji Ji Qi Xiangguan Wenti Taolun” 云南丽江白沙大宝积宫明代壁画题记及其相关问题讨论 [Discussions on the Tibetan Inscription on the Murals Created in the Ming Dynasty in Dabaojigong Temple, Baisha, Lijiang, Yunnan Province and Relevant Questions],” Zhongguo Zangxue 中国藏学 / China Tibetology 3 (2013): 57–70; Xiong Wenbin 熊文彬, “Cong Zangwen Tiji He Gajupai Da Shouyin Shang Shi Chuancheng Tu Kan Lijiang Baisha Dabaojigong Bihua de Chuangzuo Niandai” 从藏文题记和噶举派大手印上师传承图看丽江白沙大宝积宫壁画的创作年代 [The Dating of the Murals of Dabaojigong Temple, Lijiang, Yunnan Province, According to the Tibetan Inscription and the Image of Mahamudra Lineage],” in Da Xile Yu Da Yuanman: Qingzhu Tan Xiyong Xiansheng 80 Huadan Han Zang Foxue Yanjiu Lun Ji 大喜乐与大圆满 : 庆祝谈锡永先生八十华诞汉藏佛学研究论集, ed. Shen Weirong 沈卫荣 (Beijing: Zhingguo Zangxue chubanshe, 2014), 479–91.
13
See Karl Debreczeny, The Black Hat Eccentric: Artistic Visions of the Tenth Karmapa, Exhibition catalog (New York: Rubin Museum of Art, 2012), 63, 80–82 https://issuu.com/rmanyc/docs/6._black_hat_eccentric_96; Joseph F. Rock, The Ancient Na-Khi Kingdom of Southwest China, vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1947), pl. 44.
14
Now known as the Litang Edition. See Yoshiro Imaeda, “L’édition du kanjur Tibétain de ’Jang sa-tham,” Journal asiatique 270 (1982): 176.
15
Kurtis R. Schaeffer, The Culture of the Book in Tibet (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 145; Yoshiro Imaeda, “Mise au point concernant les éditions chinoises du Kanjur et du Tanjur tibéains,” in Essais sur l’Art du Tibet, ed. Ariane Macdonald and Yoshiko Imaeda (Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Oriente, 1977), 23–51; Heather Karmay, Early Sino-Tibetan Art (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1975), 50–58; Paul Harrison, “A Brief History of the Tibetan BKa’ ’gyur,” in Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre, ed. José Ignacio Cabezón and Roger R. Jackson (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1996), 70–94.
Further Reading
Debreczeny, Karl. 2009. “Dabaojigong and the Regional Tradition of Ming Sino-Tibetan Painting in Lijiang.” In Buddhism between Tibet and China, edited by M. T. Kapstein, 97–152. Boston: Wisdom.
Dy-Liacco, Kristina. 2005. “The Victorious Karma-pa Has Come to ’Jang: An Examination of Naxi Patronage of the Bka’-brgyud-pa in the Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries.” Master’s thesis, Indiana University.
Buddhism first appeared in China in the first century CE, and by the fourth century had become one of the major religions of the country, along with Daoism and Confucianism. Essentially all Chinese Buddhism is Mahayana; Vajrayana teachings flourished for a brief period in the eighth century, but suffered repression and mostly disappeared as an organized school of practice, except in the southwest. Chan (Zen) Buddhism is a unique Chinese tradition, known for its teachings on sudden enlightenment, some of which parallel teachings of Dzogchen (the Great Perfection) practiced in Tibetan regions. Other Chinese Buddhists follow Pure Land teachings, hoping to be reborn in the western paradise of Amitabha.
The Karmapas are a lineage of tulkus, or reincarnated lamas, and heads of the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, recognizable by their distinctive black hats. They began tracing their reincarnations starting in the thirteenth century when Rangjung Dorje (1284–1339) recognized himself the reincarnation of two predecessors, to whom he gave the titles Second and First Karmapas. The Karmapas are thus the historically oldest tulku lineage in Tibetan Buddhism. The Karmapas were a major force in medieval Tibet, but their economic and political power was broken in the mid-seventeenth century when the Geluk-tradition Dalai Lamas and their Mongol allies defeated the king of Tsang and drove many Karma Kagyupas into exile. Nevertheless, the Karmapa lineage survived, and remains influential today. The Karmapas are believed to be emanations of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.
A practice of hiring and commissioning artists to create works of art. In religious context patrons were often rulers, religious leaders, as well as ordinary people. (see also donor)
Historically, Tibetan Buddhism refers to those Buddhist traditions that use Tibetan as a ritual language. It is practiced in Tibet, Mongolia, Bhutan, Ladakh, and among certain groups in Nepal, China, and Russia and has an international following. Buddhism was introduced to Tibet in two waves, first when rulers of the Tibetan Empire (seventh to ninth centuries CE), embraced the Buddhist faith as their state religion, and during the second diffusion (late tenth through thirteenth centuries), when monks and translators brought in Buddhist culture from India, Nepal, and Central Asia. As a result, the entire Buddhist canon was translated into Tibetan, and monasteries grew to become centers of intellectual, cultural, and political power. From the end of the twelfth century, Tibetans were exporting their own Buddhist traditions abroad. Tibetan Buddhism integrates Mahayana teachings with the esoteric practices of Vajrayana, and includes those developed in Tibet, such as Dzogchen, as well as indigenous Tibetan religious practices focused on local gods. Historically major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism are Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Geluk.
The Ming dynasty was a Chinese state that existed from 1368 to 1644 CE. The Ming founder, Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398), led an army that defeated the Yuan dynasty of the Mongol Empire and restored ethnic Chinese rule in China. Unlike the Mongols before them or the Qing dynasty after them the Ming never seriously attempted to rule the Tibetan regions, preferring instead to manage border affairs by granting titles and trading rights to friendly Tibetan monks and secular leaders. Nevertheless, several early Ming emperors had close personal relations with Tibetan lamas, and relations of trade and cultural interchange flourished between Chinese and Tibetan regions.
Daoism refers both to a philosophical tradition and to an organized religion. In ancient China, texts attributed to semi-mythical figures like Laozi (sixth–fourth century BCE) and Zhuangzi (369–286 BCE) contained mystical speculation about the “way” (Dao) that brings humans into harmony with heaven, as well as explorations of philosophical and political relativism. From the second century onward, a ritual-exorcistic tradition appeared that called itself “the teachings of the Dao” (Ch. Daojiao). Mutually influencing with Chinese Buddhism, this tradition grew into an organized religion with monasteries, a priesthood, a canon of ritual texts, and a complex pantheon of gods organized into a bureaucracy modeled after the Chinese state which govern the natural world.
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