Stabilizing Empire through Buddhist Architectural Monument, Text, and Image

Karl Debreczeny

Juyong Guan Stupa Gate

Changping District, Beijing, China 1345

Juyong Guan Stupa Gate; Nankou Town, Changping District, Beijing, China; dated 1345; white limestone; 32 ft. 9 1/2 in. × 88 ft. 7 in. × 59 ft. (10 × 27 × 18 m), gateway: 23 × 59 ft. (7 × 18 m); image after Murata 1958, pl. 1

Summary

Standing at a strategic pass on the Great Wall north of Beijing, this stupa gate was constructed by the last Mongol emperor of China. The stone arch originally supported three Tibetan-style stupas, five mandalas, and dedicatory inscriptions in six languages. Curator Karl Debreczeny unpacks the complex iconography of this carved gateway, showing how Mongol rulers used the universal symbolism of Vajrayana Buddhism to sanctify and stabilize their increasingly unsettled empire.

Key Terms

chakravartin

A chakravartin is an ideal of Buddhist kingship, a universal ruler who supports the sangha and “turns the wheel of the Dharma.” Since the time of Emperor Ashoka (304–232 BCE), the archetypal chakravartin, many Buddhist rulers in history have been praised as chakravartins, or rulers who support Buddhism and help its spread through the expansion of his domains.

dharani

In Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, a dharani is a short, Sanskrit language text or spell-like formulas thought to have protective power when written or recited out loud, often as part of a ritual. Often inscribed on objects or at sacred sites, their power through the written physical presence is associated with long life, purification, and protection. Dharanis are similar to mantras, but usually longer. One important dharani is the Ushnishavijaya Dharani. The Pancharaksha is another important text that contains five dharanis of protection.

Mongol Empire

The Mongol Empire (ca 1206–1368) was the largest contiguous empire in world history, founded by Chinggis Khan (1162–1227), which at its height controlled most of Eurasia, from the Korean peninsula to Central Europe. The Mongols conquered the Tanguts in 1227 and absorbed Tibetan regions in the 1240s, granting power over central Tibet to the Sakya Buddhist hierarchs in what is characterized as a priest-patron relationship. In 1260, Qubilai Khan declared himself Great Khan, which was contested, fracturing the Mongol Empire into four independent regimes. Qubilai remained the ruler of most of Asia establishing the Yuan dynasty. Mongol rulers of Yuan, and the first six rulers the Ilkhanate in the Middle East, starting with its founder Hülegü, were also patrons of Tibetan Buddhism.

Tibetan Buddhism

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.

Yuan Dynasty

The Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) is the branch of the Mongol Empire in Asia. In 1260 when Qubilai Khan declared himself Great Khan, his realm included Mongolian, Chinese, Tangut, and Tibetan regions. In 1271 emperor Qubilai Khan proclaimed the Yuan dynasty on a Chinese model, employing Tibetan and Tangut monks. Tibetan Buddhism played an important role in the state, establishing a political model that would be emulated by later dynasties, including the Chinese Ming and Manchu Qing dynasties. The Mongols were major patrons of Tibetan institutions, and many Mongols converted to Tibetan Buddhism, though their interest declined with the fall of the empire.

The gate at Juyong Guan, meaning “Dwelling in Harmony Pass” (Mongolian. Chabchiyal), is located at the foot of the famous Great Wall, about thirty-seven miles (sixty kilometers) northwest of Beijing. A strategically important hub on a pivotal route in the fourteenth century, Juyong Pass connected Daidu (modern-day Beijing), the winter capital, to the northern areas, including the summer capital, Shangdu—the two capitals of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368). With the Mongol incorporation of Tibetan areas in 1247, Mongolian emperors came to embrace , through which they ruled. They constantly invited Tibetan to their capitals, built royal monasteries, and set up official institutions to create Tibetan Buddhist art. Juyong Guan Gate (figs. 1 and 2) is a monumental surviving testament of this artistic, cultural, and political legacy, its six-language inscriptions propagating imperial identity in a Buddhist framework.

Fig. 2. Juyong Guan Stupa Gate; Nankou Town, Changping District; photograph by Xie Jisheng

Construction

The existing monument is a massive rectangular platform with a grand gateway in the center, facing north and south. Its magnificence is attributable to its grand scale. Historical records and inscriptions record that the original gate complex of the Juyong Guan Gate comprised the gate and Yongming Baoxiang Temple, and Juyong Guan Gate once supported three on top of it. The temple and the three stupas no longer exist. A comparison with the stupa gate built in 1311 at Xijindu in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province (fig. 3), gives a sense of Juyong Guan Gate’s original appearance.

Fig. 3.

Xijindu Stupa Gate; Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province; dated 1311; photograph by Xi Jisheng

Juyong Guan Gate was constructed from 1342 to 1345, under the order of Toghan Temür Khan (1320–1370; r. 1333–70), the last emperor of the Yuan dynasty. Toghan Temür was such an avid follower of Tibetan Buddhism that later Confucian historians consider this one of the causes of the fall of the Yuan dynasty. Many important Mongolian, Chinese, Tibetan, and Tangut officials and monks were responsible for the gate’s construction, including Tibetan monk-officials Namkha Sengge, who supervised the project, and Imperial Preceptor Kunga Gyeltsen Pel Zangpo (1310–1353), the highest religious authority in the land, who performed the ritual after its completion.

Images and Inscriptions

Relief carvings are engraved on the north and south facade of the platform around the gateway openings and the inner vaulted ceiling and walls. Six ornaments commonly found on Nepalese and Tibetan gateways, or toranas—mythical bird (garuda), snake spirit (), water monster (makara)) (fig. 4), leogryph, youth, and elephant—are carved on the north and south faces of the base, framing the gateway openings.

Fig. 4. Juyong Guan Stupa Gate, showing six ornaments of the south face; Nankou Town, Changping District; photograph by Xie Jisheng

On the vaulted ceiling (fig. 5), five mandalas (fig. 6) are engraved in shallow relief along the apex of the central axis, whose main deities are identified by Uyghur and Mongolian inscriptions as (fig. 6), Sarvavid , , , and . The inscriptions also identify the large (fig. 7), which line the east and west sloping sides, surrounded by tiny reliefs of the Thousand Buddhas of the Fortunate Aeon (Bhadrakalpa). The Four Guardian Kings (fig. 8), who traditionally guard the four cardinal directions at the entrances of Buddhist temples, are engraved on the east and west inner walls of the gateway near the north and south entrances.

Fig. 5 Ten Buddhas and Five Mandalas, details from the gateway ceiling of Juyong Guan Stupa Gate; Nankou Town, Changping District; photograph by Xie Jisheng

Fig. 6 Akshobhya mandala, central mandala of five on the ceiling of Juyong Guan Stupa Gate; Nankou Town, Changping District; photograph by Xie Jisheng

Fig. 7 One of the Buddhas of the Ten Directions on the ceiling of Juyong Guan Stupa Gate; each height approx. 8 ft. 2 in. (2.5 m); Nankou Town, Changping District; photograph by Xie Jisheng

Fig. 8

Dhritarashtra, one of the Four Guardian Kings, in the gateway of Juyong Guan Stupa Gate; Nankou Town, Changping District; photograph by Xie Jisheng

In addition, the inner walls at the top are also inscribed, in large Lantsa () script, with two , Sanskrit formulas believed to have protective power through their sound and written physical presence: the Ushnishavijaya Dharani and the Tathagatahridaya Dharani, which are associated with long life, purification, and protection/averting disaster.

Smaller inscriptions in Tibetan, Mongolian square script, Uyghur, Tangut, and Chinese transliterate these Sanskrit incantations and celebrate the of stupa construction (fig. 9). The inscriptions in each language differ. For instance, the Tangut and Chinese inscriptions additionally provide a story from the Tathagatahridaya Sutra that helps explain the benefit of building such a stupa at a crossroads with the dharani in it to prevent shortening of life and to avoid unfortunate rebirths as an animal and in the .

Fig. 9.

Detail of inscriptions in six languages in the gateway of Juyong Guan Stupa Gate; Nankou Town, Changping District; photograph by Xie Jisheng

The Mongolian inscriptions articulate a Buddhist sacralization of Mongol rule, likening the founder of the Yuan dynasty Qubilai Khan (r. 1260–1294) to Ashoka, stupa builder and the archetypal Indian universal Buddhist ruler (), and further glorifying Qubilai Khan and, by extension, his successors of the Yuan imperial line as long-prophesied rulers, establishing the sacral nature of their rulership and empire:

That blessed bodhisattva the Emperor Sečen [Qubilai], possessed of vast wisdom, about whom the prophecy was made that there would be someone named “the Wise one from the vicinity of Mount Wutai” [Manjushri] who would become a great emperor. . . . Commemorating in gold the marvelous deeds which have been brought about by those bodhisattvas destined by Heaven [to rule; that is: the Yuan emperors], [I] the Emperor Bodhisattva, the Son of Heaven and Master of Men [Toghan Temür], have caused this extensive and vast to be founded.

This unusual language draws on one of the most important tantric authorities on prophecy, especially related to kings, the Manjushrimula Tantra.

All the images at Juyong Guan Stupa Gate are in low relief. The depictions of the and bodhisattvas at the gateway follow Tibetan iconographic and visual conventions combined with distinct Nepalese aesthetics. Surrounding these buddhas (fig. 7) is a scrolling flower pattern, a prominent stylistic feature of both Xixia and Yuan art that can also be seen in contemporaneous Yuan court production and in the early fourteenth-century renovations at Zhalu Monastery in central Tibet. Nepalese decorative motifs visible at Juyong Guan Gate appear in the decorative arch framing the entranceways (fig. 4), especially in the dramatically stylized scrolling foliate tails of the water monsters at the top.

Chinese artistic idioms are reflected in the faces, armor, implements, and attendant demons of the Four Guardian Kings (fig. 8) at the gateway. Some subjects, such as “new mode” Manjushri (fig. 10) and Water-Moon decorating the armor worn by the Four Guardian Kings, are derived from Tangut Buddhism, originating in the of , conquered and absorbed by the in 1227.

Fig. 10. Manjushri on the mirror of Vaishravana’s armor, one of the Four Guardian Kings, in the gateway of Juyong Guan Stupa Gate; Nankou Town, Changping District; photograph by Xie Jisheng

The entire relief at Juyong Guan Stupa Gate exemplifies a perfect fusion of Tibetan, Chinese, and Tangut art. This rich fusion of artistic traditions is closely related to the sophisticated cosmopolitan idiom of Tibetan Buddhist art created by the workshop of the royal court in the Yuan dynasty. The decoration with Buddhist images and dharanis in Juyong Guan Stupa Gate closely resembles that of the imperially sponsored White Stupa in Beijing, completed in 1279, which is attributed to the Nepalese artist Anige (1245–1306).

Function and Symbolism

It has been suggested that Juyong Guan Stupa Gate was built as a religio-political monument intended to revitalize Mongol rule through the articulation of an all-encompassing Buddhist vision of universal rulership, combined with its accompanying cosmology of religious imagery and magical dharani formulas.

According to historical records, the construction of stupa gates in Beijing followed a precedent established by Qubilai Khan, who had a stupa erected on top of the south city gate (Zhangyi Gate) in 1294. Regarding the origin of its architectural form, scholars have not yet come to a definitive conclusion. Stupa gates are found in Tibetan regions, and in many gateway stupas are dated to the thirteenth to fourteenth century. Most scholars thus assume that this form was introduced from Tibet and is closely related to the function of Buddha Akshobhya (meaning “unshakable”) to provide stability, in the physical sense of geomantic protection and here, perhaps by extension, of the realm. The central (fig. 6) at Juyong Guan Gate is Akshobhya, with the surrounding deities personifying the Eight Auspicious Symbols, a specific form suggesting this monument is analogous to Kankani stupa gateways found in Ladakh. The name Kankani refers to the dharani of Akshobhya, which commands that evils be cut off and obstacles dispelled. Gateway stupas did not become widely popular until Akshobhya took over the central position in stupas, which in Ladakh appears to have occurred in the late thirteenth century. The other four mandalas in this gate are the first four of the Purification of All Bad Rebirths Tantra (Sarvadurgatiparishodhana Tantra), and are all protective in nature.

Why was such a protective stupa gate needed at this place and time? Juyong Pass became increasingly important strategically when control over Mongolia was in question, which became true after 1323, when Yisün Temür Khan (r. 1323–1328), in a Mongolia-based coup d’état, seized power in Daidu. In 1326, he ordered Sanskrit dharanis carved on the walls of Juyong Pass. However, this proved insufficient, as a short but intense civil war (1328–1329) soon followed between the two capitals on either side of the pass. Civil conflict was therefore a driving force in fortifying the pass.

Thus, by means of these images and multilingual inscriptions, the last Yuan emperor aspired to reinforce unity among the various ethnic groups under his rule, consolidate political power, and realize peace and stability. However, already in the 1330s and 1340s the dynasty had been rocked by a series of new crises, including disease and famine—disasters that the stupa gate was intended to suppress—and the Yuan collapsed soon after, unable to ritually stem the tide. In 1368 Toghan Temür fled north through Juyong Guan Gate, where his descendants continued to claim the Yuan title in Mongolian lands until 1634.

Thank you to Xiong Wenbin for his help in developing an initial draft of this essay.

Footnotes

Wen Yucheng 温玉成, “Zhenjiangshi Xijindu Guojieta Kao 镇江市西津渡过街塔考 [A Study on Xijindu Stupa Gate in Zhenjiang City],” in Su Bai Xiansheng Bazhi Huadan Jinian Wenji 宿白先生八秩华诞纪念文集 [Collected Works Celebrating the 80th Birthday of Mr. Su Bai] (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2002), 597–613. For a rendering of the three stupas, see Su Bai 宿白, Zangchuan Fojiao Siyuan Kaogu 藏传佛教寺院考古 [Archaeological Studies on Monasteries of Tibetan Buddhism] (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1996), 355, fig.17–4.

Jirō Murata 村田治郎, ed., Kyoyōkan 居庸關 / Chü-Yung-Guan, The Buddhist Arch of the Fourteenth Century AD at the Pass of the Gate Wall Northeast of Peking, 1:325–59, [Japanese, with a summary in English], vol. 1 (Kyoto: Faculty of Engineering, Kyoto University, 1955), 1:335; N.N. Poppe, Mongolian Monuments in HP’ags-Pa Script, ed. and trans. John R. Krueger, 2nd ed. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1957), 61.

See Yael Bentor, “On the Indian Origins of the Tibetan Practice of Depositing Relics and Dhāraṇīs in Stūpas and Images,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 115, no. 2 (1995): 248–61.

David Farquhar, “Emperor as Bodhisattva in the Governance of the Ch‘ing Empire,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 38, no. 1 (1978): 5–34, 12; N.N. Poppe, Mongolian Monuments in HP’ags-Pa Script, ed. and trans. John R. Krueger, 2nd ed. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1957), 60–66; Gadjin M. Nagao, “The Tibetan Eulogy at Chü-yung-kuan Text and Translation,” in Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honour of R. A. Stein, ed. M. Strickmann, vol. 3 (Bruxelles: L’Institut belge des hautes Études chinoises, 1985), 835–61.

David M. Robinson, Empire’s Twilight: Northeast Asia Under the Mongols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009), 214, 285; Herbert Franke, From Tribal Chieftain to Universal Emperor and God: The Legitimation of the Yuan Dynasty (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1978), 68; Patricia Berger, “Preserving the Nation: The Political Uses of Tantric Art in China,” in Latter Days of the Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism, 850–1850, ed. Marsha Weidner, Exhibition catalog (Lawrence: Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, 1994), 89–124.

Xie Jisheng 謝繼勝, “Juyong Guan Guojieta Zaoxiang Yiyun Kao–11 Zhi 14 Shiji Zhongguo Fojiao Yishu Tuxiang Peizhi de Chonggou 居庸关过街塔造像意蕴考—11至14世纪中国佛教艺术图像配置的重构 [The Iconography of Crossing Road Pagoda (Guojie Ta) Images of JuYongGuan Pass—Reconstruction of Chinese Buddhist Art Images and Composition from 11th to 14th Centuries],” Gugong Bowuyuan Yuankan 故宮博物院院刊 [Palace Museum Journal] 5 (2014): 57; Jirō Murata 村田治郎, ed., Kyoyōkan 居庸關 / Chü-Yung-Guan, The Buddhist Arch of the Fourteenth Century AD at the Pass of the Gate Wall Northeast of Peking, 1:325–59, [Japanese, with a summary in English], vol. 1 (Kyoto: Faculty of Engineering, Kyoto University, 1955): 328; Aurelia Campbell, “Consecrating the Imperial City: Tibetan Stupas in Yuan Dadu,” Journal of Song and Yüan Studies 51 (2022): 207–43.

Gerald Kozicz, “One Stūpa and Three Lha Thos. The Monuments of Tashigang,” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines 41, no. September (2017): 234; Xie Jisheng 謝繼勝, “Juyong Guan Guojieta Zaoxiang Yiyun Kao–11 Zhi 14 Shiji Zhongguo Fojiao Yishu Tuxiang Peizhi de Chonggou 居庸关过街塔造像意蕴考—11至14世纪中国佛教艺术图像配置的重构 [The Iconography of Crossing Road Pagoda (Guojie Ta) Images of JuYongGuan Pass—Reconstruction of Chinese Buddhist Art Images and Composition from 11th to 14th Centuries],” Gugong Bowuyuan Yuankan 故宮博物院院刊 [Palace Museum Journal] 5 (2014): 56.

Christian Luczanits, personal communication, October 29, 2021.

Christian Luczanits, Alchi: Ladakh’s Hidden Buddhist Sanctuary (Chicago: Serindia, 2023), 364; Rob Linrothe, “Two Fieldnotes from Zangskar: A Kashmiri Sculpture in a Personal Shrine and an Etymology of ‘Kankani’ Chorten,” in Long Life: Festschrift in Honour of Roger Goepper, ed. Jeong-hee Lee-Kalisch et al. (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2006), 167–79, 171–74. Thanks also to Elena Pakhoutova for suggesting this connection.

Thanks to Christian Luczanits for this clarification.

Song Lian 宋濂 (1310–1381), Yuanshi 元史 [The History of the Yuan, 1370] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1976), chap. 30, 670. On the strategic importance of Juyong Pass, see Christopher P. Atwood, “Validation by Holiness or Sovereignty: Religious Toleration as Political Theology in the Mongol World Empire of the Thirteenth Century,” The International History Review 26, no. 2 (2004): 281.

Christopher P. Atwood, “Validation by Holiness or Sovereignty: Religious Toleration as Political Theology in the Mongol World Empire of the Thirteenth Century,” The International History Review 26, no. 2 (2004): 237–56, fall of Yuan 609–11; Northern Yuan: 407–11.