P 501

Summary During the years 1127 to 1143, the Sung scholar, ambassador, and partiot Chu Pien ¦¶¥¯ ( Æ[ ¦p©~¤h¡A d. 1144--the great-uncle of Chu Hsi ¦¶¿Q ) was held captive in Ta-t'ung ¤j¦P by the Jurchen rulers of the Chin ª÷ Dynasty. Shortly before the end of his captivity he wrote an essay entitled T'ai-shan jui-ying chi »O¤s·çÀ³°O in which he described and commented on a series of visions of `Manjusori` witnesed at Wu-t'ai Shan by members of a Chin military force. Not long after this essay was written it was appended to the Hsu ch'ing-liang chuan Äò²M²D¶Ç¡AChang Shang-ying's ±i°Ó­^ ( ¸¹¡GµLºÉ ©~¤h 1043-1122) account of his miracle-filed pilgrimages to Wu-t'ai Shan some decades earlier (in 1088-1090). This article takes Chu Pien's essay as a focus for the discussion of two related topics: First, the condition of Buddhism in the Wu-t'ai Shan region from the tenth century through the middle of the twelfth century. Second, the role of Buddhism, especially visionary Buddhism, in the lives of the intellectuals of the late Northern Sung and the early Chin. In connection with the second of these themes, Chu Pien and his mentor Ch'ao Yueh-chih ®Ð»¡¤§ (1059- 1129)are presented as eminent representatives of certain important but negelected strains in Sung intellectual life--namely, those trends of thought in which devotion to Buddhism was fully integrated into the culture of the Sung renaissance and not simply overshadowed by Neo-Confucianism. The article includes the Chinese texts and P 502

annotated translations of both the T'ai-shan Jui- ying chi »O¤s·çÀ³°O and Chu Pine's biography from the Sung Shih §º¥v¡A along with texts and translations of several other shorter primary sources. P 503

¦òªk¦b¤E¦{¶¡ÀH¨ä¤è¦Ó¤Æ......¥_¤è¤H¾UªZ¡CÄáªZ ²ö­Y¥Ü²{¡C¬G¨¥¯«¹DªÌ©v²M²D¤s¡C

¼B¬ê¿ü

Throughout the whole of China the Buddha-Dharma has worked its transfromations in accordance with the special characteristics of each particular locale Northerners are by temperament a martial people, and for the quelling of a bellicose spirit there is nothing so effective as visions. Thus is it said that northerners are devotees of the occult who hold Mount Ch'ing-liang in special esteem.

Liu Yu-hsi1

Like all of China's Sacred mountians, but perhaps even more than most, Wu-t'ai Shan ¤­»O¤s has always been a liminal place.2 Of course, its liminality has usually been understood chiefly in religious terms. It has been thought to be, above all else, a mysterious threshold between "this world" of human affairs and the "other world" of transcendent, divine power. As they were neither fullly "of the world" (¥@¶¡,lokiya) nor entirely "beyond the world" (¥X¥@¶¡,lokottara), as they comprised both an "ordinary realm" (±`¹Ò) and a "holy realm" (¸t¹Ò),3the Five Terraces were seen as a domain of indeterminacy and instability, rich in the sorts of religious opportunities that emerge when the ordinary categories and norms of experience are suspended or weakened. The rules that govern the mundane spher¢w for example, the laws or regularities of nature¢w seemed not fully to apply at Wu-t'ai, and yet the place was not so completely removed from the mundane order that mere mortals, persons still largely bound by nature's laws, could not go there.4 Because of their remoteness, their impressive altitude, their " betwixt and between "character, and their consequent susceptibility to uncanny transformations, Wu-t'ai's "terraces" have been seen as heaven-aspiring swellings of the earth, terrestrial protrusions atop which men can temporarily escape themselves, slough off the world, and glimpse--in dramatic, visionary, and often compellingly embodied forms--immeasurable spiritual energies, which they then understand to be both the sustenance of their lives and the promise of their P 504

salvation. Innumerable pilgrims to Wu-t'ai have claimed to witness on its slopes and summits wonders that they had previously not suspected but that, once seen, planted in their minds the conviction that flat, conventional, accustomed experience was but one dimension, merely the horizontal, of an amazingly multi-dimensional reality. Wu-t'ai's peaks, and the vibrations of Manjusr's presence that were thought to quicken them and to loosen the world's hold over them, provided visitors with a sense of the vertical, of the great heights and depths which define the world' s true spiritual texture or topography. This is the paramount religious message of the many sources that preserve information and impressions about Wu-t'ai, especially the three famous "Records" of Ch'ing- liang5 ¢w¢w Hui-hsiang's ¼z²» Ku ch'ing-lian g chuan ¡m¥j²M²D¶Ç¡n (Old records of Ch'ing-liang), completed not long after 679;Yen-i's ©µ¤@ Kuang ching- liang chuan¡m¼s²M²D¶Ç¡n¡@(Expanded Records of Ch'ing- liang), published ca.1060 (but with supplementary passages added around a century later); and the Hsu ching-liang chuan ¡mÄò²M²D¶Ç¡n (Further Records of Chingliang) by Chang Shang-ying ±i°Ó­^ and others, which was complied during the three-quarters of a century that followed Chang Shang-ying's visits (i.e., during the period that extends from 1090's to the 1160's).

However, when we turn our attention from the religious phenomenology of Wu-t'ai to its history, from its timeless to its temporal significance, we may also discern quite other senses in which the place can be said to be liminal.

Located as it is in extreme northern Shansi, Wu-t'ai has always been a border territory. To its south and east lay China proper, the ordered and familiar world of civilization; but to its north and west lay the forbidding steppes, deserts, marshes, and frozen forests of the barbarians. Small wonder then that Wu-t'ai came to be regarded as one of the ramparts of the realm,6 a spiritual bastion on which the court would lavish support for centuries in the conviction that the political power of emperors and thus the very sovereignty of the empire could be guaranteed or enhanced. Surely such religio-political power was a great part of its significance during the T'ang, particularly when the foreign- born monk P 505

Amoghavajra (Pu-k'ung ¤£ªÅ, 705-774) collaborated with T'ang Tai-tsung (­ð¥N©v, r.762-779) to make of the newly established Chin-ko ssu ª÷»Õ¦x, a major center of esoteric or Tantric Buddhism, a palatial venue for elaborate and expensive Tantric rituals performed in the service of the empire.7T'ang Tai- tsung was of course already an "august and sagely sovereign," but his patronage of Wu-t'ai was responsible in good measure for his being also a "Dharma Raja" (ªk¤ý Fa-wang). His patronage helped, in other words, to add Buddhism to the panoply of his authority. Wu-t'ai earned and retained such privilege not only because it was a sacred place but also because it was a sacred place perched on the very edge of civilization. Such was part of the adventure of pilgrimage to Wu-t'ai, as well, for those who visited its heights thereby brought themselves to the outer limits of their accustomed world. And this, as well as the sheer holiness of the place, may help to explain why accounts of such visits abound in references to Wu-t'ai's alterity and its distance from "the center. "In this regard it differed markedly from other peaks, like T'ien-t'ai Shan ¤Ñ»O¤s or Lu Shan Ãf¤s, which were perhaps no less sacred but rather clearly more domestic.

But there is some potential for irony in Wu-t'ai's character as a spiritual redoubt on the northern frontier of the Middle Kingdom, for it was aslo an international Buddhist center and a passageway or link that served often to connect China with other peoples and cultures. Famous throughout Asia as the home of Manjusr, Wu-t'ai was the destination of pilgrims not only from all parts of China but aslo from Central, South, and Southeast Asia, not to mention Korea and Japan. Thus, this domain sacred to an originally foreign deity was also frequently visited by his foreign devotees. And it would maintain its international significance even in times of tension or hostility when the Chinese border near the Five Terraces was to some extent a barrier to travel, or perhaps even a battlefield.

Consider the most vivid and detailied visual image we have of Wu-t'ai before modern times, viz., the famous mural found on the back wall of Cave 61 at Ch'ien-fo-tung ¤d¦ò¬}, Tun-huang ´°·×. This highly stylized but also quite detailed depiction is believed to have been painted sometime between 980 and 995, and it indicates a significant level of interest in Wu-t'ai on the part of people in the Tun-huang area during the late tenth century.8 In those days Tun-huang was under P 506

the immediate control of a regional war-lord and in close cultural contact with certain Central Asian city-states farther west. However, in general geopolitical and cultural terms it was within the orbit of the Tangut nation. The Tanguts were a people of largely Tibetan stock who, at about the same time the Sung dynasty was taking shape, coalesced politically to form the Hsi-hsia ¦è®L state. The Hsi-hsia would come to control most of what is today Kansu and Shensi provinces, as well a some territory further west. Thus, Wu-t'ai was actually not so distant from the easternmost borders of Hsi-hsia territory; in fact, a glance at a map of China's boundaries in the Northern Sung period will show that it was situated quite near the very juncture of Sung, Liao, and His-hsia territories.

Moreover, there is ample evidence indicating that the Tanguts were especially devoted to Hua-yen µØÄY Buddhism. The Hua-yen Sutra itself, together with a number of important Hua-yen school texts, figure prominently in the extant archives of Hsi-hsia religious literature, both among texts written in Chinese and among those preserved in the native tongue and script.9 Likewise in the realm of art; Hsi-hsia murals at Tun-huang, for example, and many paintings at other Hsi-hsia sites like the Yu-lin ·®ªL caves in An-hsi hsien ¦w¦è¿¤, Kansu are rich in iconography based on the Hua-yen Ching.10 As Hua-Yen is a tradition especially associated with Wu-t'ai, Tangut interest in that sacred site was virtually guaranteed. One is therefore not surprised to learn that in the Tun-huang archives there are several manuscripts recounting journeys to Wu-t'ai by pilgrims who hailed from Tangut territory or had to pass through that territory to reach their destination.11 Chinese historical records amplify this picture of Tangut devotion to Hua-yen and to Wu-t'ai. They tell, for example, that in 1007 the Hsi-hsia ruler Li Te-ming §õ¼w©ú sought permission from the Sung court to establish ten temples at Wu-t'ai in memory of his recently deceased mother. In 1037 the subsequent ruler, Li Yuan-hao §õ¤¸©þ, again petitioned the Sung court regarding Wu-t'ai, this time asking permission to send there an official delegation bearing treasure-offerings on his behalf.12 Of course, as Tangut-Sung relations entered an era of greater tension and hostility begining in the 1040's and continuing through the fall of Northern Sung, travel from Hsi-hsia territory to Wu-t'ai probably became difficult, and official visits surely became impossible. Nevertheless, the significance of Wu-t'ai for the Hsi-hsia was not thereby lessened. In fact, it may P 507

actually have increased as the pious intentions of would-be Tangut pilgrims were thwarted by political circumstances. Shi Jinbo notes, for example, a map of Hsi-hsia territory preserved in the Hsi-hsia chi-shih pen-mo ¡m¦è®L¬ö¨Æ¥»¥½¡n, a Ch'ing compilation published in 1885 by Chang Chien ±iŲ but based on careful collection and study of earlier sources. Reference is made in this map to Ho-lan Shan ¶PÄõ¤s, a hill or mesa located in what is now western Hsing-ch'ing fu ¿³¼y©². This was the Hsi-hsia capital for a time and the site of many famous Hsi-hsia Buddhist edifices. The map specifically notes the existence at Ho-lan Shan of a cluster of temples known collectively as "The Wu-t'ai monasteries. "Apparently, each of these temples was named after one of the famous temples located at the real Wu-t'ai in Shansi¢w for example, the Ch'ing-liang ssu ²M²D¦x and the Fokuang ssu ¦ò¥ú¦x. The His-hsia, in other words, were so thoroughly devoted to Wu-t'ai and its mysterious powers that when they were prohibited from actually visiting the place they constructed a kind of symbolic replica of it in the heart of their own land.13

If Wu-t'ai was sacred to the Tanguts and other Central Asian peoples, it was probably even more so to the Khitans (Ch'i-tan «´¤¦). The people of the Liao ¿ñ dynasty (907-1125), the masses and the elite alike, were devoutly Buddhist. Having acquired the religion not only from the T'ang Chinese but also from the Uighur Turks and the Tanguts, they quickly absorbed it, combined it with their native shamanism, and integrated it into all strata of their culture.14One of their capitals, Ta-t'ung ¤j¦P ¢w the site not only of the ancient Yun-kang ¶³©£ caves but also of some of the most maginficent Liao temples (e.g., the great Upper ¡]¤W¡^ and Lower ¡]¤U¡^ Hua-yen ssu µØÄY¦x and the Shan-hua ssu µ½¤Æ¦x that even today grace the city, albeit largely in the form of later reconstructions) ¢w was located just across the border from the Five Terraces and often served as a staging ground for Wu-t'ai pilgrimages. In fact, during the last few years of the T'ang, and for short periods during the Five Dynasties period (907-960), the Wu-t'ai area even came under direct Liao control.

Wu-t'ai's associations with esoteric Buddhism are as well known as its Hua-yen connections. It is therefore significant that some of the leading Buddhist thinkers of the Liao were especially concerned with the amalgamation of Tantric (Mi-chiao ±K±Ð )and Hua-yen Buddhsim, both of which traditions were very closely associated with Wu-t'ai.15 In fact, one of the leading proponents of the P 508

Mi-chiao/Hua-yen syncretism so characteristic of Liao Buddhism was the late eleventh-early twelfth century monk Tao-chen ¹D¡¼,16and he identified himself explicitly as a "monk of Wu-t'ai. "As it happens, the Wu-t'ai with which he was associated was a different mountain and monastery complex of the same name, later to be called "Little Wu-t'ai. "It was located some distance north of Wu-t'ai proper, in the mountains near Wei-chou ½«¦{, well within the Liao territory. But from this we may deduce at least that Wu-t'ai and all that it represented were so important to the Liao that even during the long period of Chinese-Liao tension when Wu-t'ai was perhaps difficult for Liao Buddhists actually to visit, they created a surrogate for it within easier reach. Not for nothing, then, was one of the Liao emperors (Sheng-tsung ¸t©v, r.983-1030) given the childhood name Wen-shu nu ¤å®í¥£ (Servant of Manjusr).17

From the late 960's until the late 970's the W'u-t'ai area was held by the short-lived Northern or Eastern Han º~ Kingdom, the remnant of a client state known as the Latter Han, which was ruled by a family of Turkish origin named Liu ¼B but had actually been set up in the 950's with Liao suppport.18 The forces of the newly established Sung did not succeed in overcoming this pocket of war-lord resistance until the late 970's.19 But even for several decades thereafter large areas of northern China, including Wu-t'ai itself, were intermittently embroiled in the continuing military conflict between Sung and Liao forces. At times the sacred mountains appear to have been in Chinese hands ¢w for example, in 984 when the Japanese monk Chonen ¡¼µM (938 -1016) spent three months there at the expense, and under the protection, of the Sung court.20 At other times, however, the Wu- t'ai area was overrun by Liao armies. It was not really until the treaty of Shan-yuan ¿G²W in 1105 that hostilities largely ceased and Wu-t'ai was put formally under Chinese control, in which it would remain until the second decade of the twelfth century. Even so, this eventual Sung control was never fully secure. Wu-t'ai was quite close to the Liao border. Therefore, throughout the century and a quarter that followed the Shan-yuan treaty, it was deeply implicated in the structure of Sung frontier defense, an element, so to speak, of China's "front-line. "Indeed, the treaty seems to have fixed part of the Sung-Liao border just north and west of Wu-t'ai, at a distance varying from only about thirty to fifty miles.21

Nevertheless, even under such tense conditions, the Northern Sung did witness a resurgence of Chinese pilgrimage to the Five Terraces, and a renewal of official support for their monasteries. We have record, for example, that Sung T'ai-tsung ¤Ó©v (r.976-997), in his inaugural year ¢w i.e., the same year in which he imposed the anti-Buddhist requirement that all would-be monks purchase ordination licenses ¢w also decreed that the lands of Wu-t'ai should be exempt from taxation. It is perhaps not too much to say that he thereby revived the model of imperial support that had been established two centuries earlier by T'ang T'ai-tsung.22 There are also frequent references in a variety of sources to a number of Wu-t'ai monasteries that underwent reconstruction or refurbishing during the early Sung. Such support, abetted no doubt by the presence of substantial Sung defense forces in and around Wu-t'ai, established conditions in which Wu-t'ai and Wu-t'ai pilgrimage could flourish. Thus could Yen-i complete his expanded compendium of Wu-t'ai lore in 1060.23 Thus could the famous Japanese visitor Jojin Ajari ¦¨´Mªü ìG§Q (1011-1081) visit Wu-t'ai under imperial sponsorship in 1073.24 Thus too could Chang Shang- ying turn his assignment as governor of the Wu-t'ai area into the occasion for his famous visits during the years 1088 and 1090.

Indeed, the years of Chang's visits, and the several decades thereafter, appear to have been a lively time for the Five Terraces. We may glimpse some of that vitality in the several appendices to the Chang Shang-ying narrative and in the six short narratives that the Chin cleric Ming-ch'ung ©ú±R appended to Yen-i's Exp anded Record of Ch'ing-liang sometime near the middle of the twelfth century.25 Even Hua-yen Buddhism, which had long been associated with Wu-t'ai but which was not longer as vigorous a tradition as it had been during the T'ang, underwent a kind of modest revival at Wu-t'ai during the Northern Sung, evidence for which we see in the person of Cheng-ch'ien ©Ó¾E. During the reign of Chen-tsung ¯u©v (997-1022) this monk lived at the Chen-jing yuan ¯u®e°|, at the very center of the Wu-t'ai complex. He was the teacher of Chin-shui Ching-yuan ®Ê¤ô²b·½ (1101-1188), one of the Sung's foremost Hua-yen masters. A 1096 edition of Cheng-ch'ien's short commentary on Fa-tsang' s ªkÂà (640-712) Golden Lion Treatise ¢w the Chu chin shih-tzu chang ¡mµùª÷®v¤l³¹¡n¢w survives today in the Library of the Japanese Imperial Household and is the basis of the P 510

edition of the text found in the Taisho Tripitaka (T1881:45. 667a-670c). Also, the last several decades of the Northern Sung are regarded by Tibetan Buddhists as the beginning of the long tradition of pilgrimage to Wu-t'ai from Tibet. It was in those years that Pha-dam-pa-sangs-rgyas (¤Ú´°¤Ú®áµ², d.1117/11 18), South Indian missionary to Tibet and founder of the Zhi-byed-pa (³ß¸Ñ¬£ or §Æµ²¬£, i.e., the "Pacifiers" or "Alleviators of Suffering") school, is believed to have visited the Five Terraces.26

These, it must be noted, are only a few of the many references that could be cited to support the claim that Wu-t'ai was a flourishing religious center during the Northern Sung.

The rise of the Jurchens in the early twelfth century renewed the turmoil that had previously engulfed the greater Wu-t'ai region. And that turmoil did not cease after the Chin conquest of the Liao in 1125, nor even after Jurchen forces wrested control of the whole of northern China in the following year.27 The next couple of decades witnessed frequent military depredations as armies continued to trouble the lands surrounding the sacred peaks. Even the Wu-t'ai Samgha itself came to be directly engaged in the conflict. The Preceptor of Clerics (Seng-cheng ¹¬¥¿) at Wu-t'ai in the time of the Chin invasions was a cleric named Chen-pao ¯uÄ_ (d.u.). Monk though he was, Chen-pao gained lasting fame, even honorable mention in the Sung-shih, for his bravery in organizing the monks of Wu-t'ai into an army that valiantly but unsuccessfully resisted the Chin forces in and around the sacred site during the mid-to-late 1120's. This resistance brought Chin troops in force to the slopes of the Five Terraces and we are told that many Wu-t'ai monasteries were destroyed by fire in the fighting.28

The Chen-pao incident, however, cannot have lasted very long and it cannot have been typical, for there is evidence that Wu-t'ai continued to function as a religious center through most of the period in question. To be sure, even after the Jurchen had completely removed the region from Liao and Sung control, the internal strife that marked the early decades of Chin history ¢w local uprisings against Chin authority, struggles among various Chin factions, etc. ¢w continued to embroil the general vicinity of Wu-t'ai. Nevertheless, the holy mountains P 511

themselves were apparently accorded some measure of sanctuary and seem to have recovered quickly from whatever devastation they had suffered. For example, the late Chin and early Yuan poet and historian Yuan Hao-wen ¤¸¦n°Ý (1190-1257) has preserved for us, from the brush of a minor figure of the early Chin named Chia Yung ¸ëªa, an inscription entitled "Inscribed at the Temple of the Monk An-sheng" (T'i An-sheng seng ssu ¡mÃD¦w¥Í¹¬¦x¡n ).29Now An-sheng was the eighth century monk-sculptor of Wu-t'ai famous for having carved a portrait of Manjusri that was then housed in the temple best known as the Cloister of the True Countenance (Chen-jung yu an ¯u®e°|). 30 The "An-sheng seng ssu" may be the Chen-jung yuan by another name, or it may be a different edifice entirely, but in either case it is surely a Wu-t'ai monastery. In his inscription, Chia Yung notes that when he had first visited the place in 1129 he and his companions found it in shambles, a sorry casualty of recent fighting. However, just four years later, in 1133 when he visited the temple a second time, he found that the monks had already restored it to its former glory.

As will be seen below, Chu Pien, the principal subject of this essay, also provides evidence of Wu-t'ai's quick recovery from the depredations of war, a recovery fueled by official and private support forthcoming quite early in the history of the Chin. But there is other evidence of this as well, and in first considering some of this other evidence we may also glimpse something of the general quality of life at Wu-t'ai in these troubled times.

Thanks again to Yuan Hao-wen, we have information concerning an otherwise forgotten Chinese scholar-official by the name of Yao Hsiao-hsi «À§µ¿ü, whose life and work was deeply implicated in the fortunes of Wu-t'ai during the early Chin.31 Yu an tells us that Yao, whose cognomen was Chung-tun ¥ò¯Â , hailed originally from Feng-hsien Â×Äa in Kiangsu. After passing his civil-service examinations in 1114, he was posted to the military command in Tai-chou ¥N¦{, the center of administration for the Wu-t'ai region.32 When Chin forces came through Wild Goose Pass (Yen-men ¶­ªù) and attacked Tai-chou, demanding the submission of the city and putting most of the local officials in fear for their lives, Yao remained quite unconcerned. During the siege he simply "went to bed," Yuan says, "and snored loudly, giving the matter not the slightest thought. "The victorious Chin then appointed Yao to the office of Registrar of Wu- P 512

t'ai (Chu Wu-t'ai Pu ª`¤­¥xï),but he soon resigned this modest position, pleading ill health, and stayed on at Wu-t'ai as a private resident, passing his time in cultivated leisurely pursuits, in travel and sight-seeing, and in playing host to a steady stream of guests.33 Once, when the region was suffering famine, he is said to have donated ten-thousand piculs of grain from his own private stores to feed the hungry, thereby saving many lives. Such generosity earned him the admiration of the local people. In his later years he turned his household over to the care of his sons, adopted the literary name "Merry Drunkard" (Tsui-hsuan ¾K°a), and devoted himself entirely to enjoyment of the mountain scenery and to the pleasures of poetry and wine. Noted for an impassable equanimity, which included the ability to maintain serene indifference to the changing fortunes of his life, he is said "never to have allowed his demeanor to betray either delight or distress." Yuan Hao-wen tells us that he died at the age of eighty-four, some twenty-nine years after resigning all his official duties. He left behind a substantial collection of poetry which included regulated and old-style verse (the latter not much to Yuan's liking) but which consisted mostly of lyrics (tzu µü).

One of Yao's poems among those that Yuan Hao-wen chose to preserve was inscribed at Fo-kuang ssu, a famous old monastery located just south of Wu-t'ai. It combines a subtle sense of place with reflections on the difficulty of balancing the active and the contemplative life while living in a distraught world. It may also be read in Buddhist terms as alluding to the difficulty of practicing both the discipline of serenity and that of insight.34

    »N½\Áö®í³º¨â¤`¡C­ÊÄæ²×¤é©À¦æÂáC¤wÊã¹Ò±I¬~¹Ð¼{¡C§ó¾Ç¤ß²M»D§®­»¡C

    ©t³¾±a·Ï¨Ó»·¾ð¡CÂ_¶³¦¬«B¤U±×¶§¡C¤H¶¡¥¼¤R½½¤ûªÙ¡C»·¥Ø¾î¬î¯q¦Û¶Ë¡C

The slave-boy and the slave-girl, different though they were, both lost their sheep.35

Leaning on the balustrade at day's end, I ponder the question of engagement and withdrawal.36

The quietude of serenity washes away worldly thougths.

The clarity of the illumined mind senses the fragrance of the numinous.37

P 513

A solitary crow flies to a distant tree, trailing mists.

Under broken clouds laden with rain, the sun's rays slant.

A man can never predict his niche in this world.38

I gaze far off at the autumnal sky and grieve all the more.

Yuan Hao-wen noted that Yao's age at death was eighty-four, but he did not tell us exactly when he died. Nevertheless, we know that he was still living at Wu-t'ai in 1164, for in that year he wrote the following preface to new printing of the Records of Ching-liang39

¥Õ°¨ªF¨Ó, ¶H±Ð¬y¦æ©ó¤¤¤g¡B¥È­·©lºZ¡C©Î¥ÜÁI±I¥H±´ ©v, ©Î±M¯«¤Æ¦Ó¯Àªk¡C¥çµS¤ô¦æ¦a¤¤¡AªK¤À§O¬£Áö²§¡A ¦Ü©óÀÙ¥@§Qª«¤§¥\¡A¨äÂk¥¼©l¤£¦P¡C¬G­ð¼B¹Ú±o¤w¬°¦ò ªk¦b¤E¦{¶¡¡AÀH¨ä¤è¦Ó¤Æ¡A¦]¦W¤s¥H¬°²øÄY°ê¬É¡B¤Z¨¥ ¯«¹D¥Ü²{ªÌ¡A¥²©v²M²D²j¡C«ö¸g¨¥¡J¤å®í®v§Q¦vªF¥_²M ²D¤s¡A»P¨ä²²Äݦí«ù¥j¦ò¤§ªk¡A­°¤j·O´d¥H±µ¤Þ¸s¥Í¡C ©Î²{¯u®e¥H¨ÓÂk¨Ì¡A©Îµo²»¥ú¥HÚÜÆ[¥õ¡C¤dÅܸU¤Æ, ÀH ·P¦ÓÀ³, ¦³¤£¥i§Î®eÀÀijªÌ¡C¦ó¨ä²§«v¡I

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°¸¦^¸S¤§·p¨a¡A­PÀs¤å¤§­ÑÄl¡C¤£¦³¿³ªÌ¡A¸t¥\¯«¤Æ¡A ·³¤[¥±¶Ç¡CªF¦w»¯²Î¡A¥H°s©xµø§½»O¤s¡A´nµM¦³·P©ó¤ß ¡A¬J¥Õ¥D¹¬¡AÄ@®½éѪ÷¥H§U½t¡C¹¬¥¿©ú²b»y¨äÄݤê¯÷¨Æ ©À¤§¤é¤[¡AÄݤƮc¤§¨a¡C¥Î¤O¦³¥ý«á¡A¤µ¦]¨ä½Ð¡AºÉ¥X µ¯©­¡A¥H¦¨¨ä¨Æ¡Càð¤uÃóªO¡A§i¦¨¦³¤é¡C»¯¦]³yªù¡CÄÝ §E¬°§Ç¥H«a¨ä­º¡C©ú²b»P«e´£ÂI¹¬µ½½Ë¡A¬ÛÄ~¥H®Ñ¬°½Ð¡C ¹²¹Á¿×¡J¹D¤£¦b¦ç¡A¶Ç¦ç¥i¥H±Â¹D¡Fªk¤£¦b¤å¡A©Ü¤å¦] ¥H®©ªk¡C¹²¬J¹Å»¯­Ô¥Î·N¤§µ½¡A¦Ó¤G°ª¹¬¬Ò©ó²M²D¦³¤j ¦]½tªÌ¡A ª¾«D³c¦ò¥H¯t²³, ¬G¬°¤§®Ñ¡C

P 514

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It was when the white horse came east40 and the symbolic doctrine41 flowed into China, that the wind of profundity first swelled. Some have held the quiescence of meditation to be its deep purport; others have singled out thaumaturgy as the essential Dharma.42 But, like the waters that flow on the earth, though it divided into different branches, it has always had the same ultimate goal, the salvation of the world and the benefit of creatures. Liu Meng-te of the T'ang43 observed that as Buddhism spread throughout the whole of China, working its transformations locally according to the particular genius of each region, it took China's famous mountains to be the splendid embellishments of the nation and, as everyone says, Ch'ing-liang is foremost among all sacred mountains for those who hold mystic manifestation to be the essence of Buddhism. There is a scripture which says the Manjusr has made his home on the Ch'ing-liang mountains in the northeast. Here, together with his retinue, he maintains the ways of the ancient Buddhas and dispenses compassion for the edification of the all beings, sometimes attracting devotion by manifesting his true visage, at other times inciting reverence by displaying auspicious radiances. He performs miracles by the thousands and wonders by the tens of thousands, all condign and quite beyond description how wonderful!

Once there were two stalwarts of the Samgha, Sramanas Hui-hsiang and Yen-i, and two great ministers and protectors of the Dharma, Premier Chang T'ien-chueh [i.e., Chang Shang-ying] and the Imperial Ambassador Chu Kung-shao [i.e., Chu Pien]. Though separated by generations, they complemented each other in being of like mind. Concerned that the deeds of the sage might not be known in distant parts or that after a time they might be obliterated like so much scented powder,44 they compiled books about Wu-t'ai, combining lore they had gathered far and wide with things they had experienced themselves. Hui-hsiang was first with his Records of Ching-liang in two fascicles; next was Yen-i with his Expanded Record s in three fascicles; then Premier Chang and Ambassador Chu compiled their Further Records as a sequel. From this came P 515

a flow of other transcendental discourses as eminent and perspicacious men wrote poems, hymns, encomia, and psalms which were appended to the famous Records. As this splendid tapestry of words, arrayed like a constellation of stars or a string of jewels, circulated throughout the world persons all over China who could not themselves visit the mystic peaks and witness in person the traces of the sage could yet open these volumes, scan their words, and thus be naturally moved to self-reflection and conversion, their minds all the more firmly fixed on goodness. The resulting increase in lay piety45 defied description!

However, a disastrous fire reduced these wondrous texts to ashes,46 and were they not to be restored then the miraculous deeds of the sage (i.e., Manjusr) would go untold for years. Commissioner Ch'ao of Tung-an, the Director of the Wine Bureau at Wu-t'ai,47 was deeply moved by this and approached Abbot Po48 with a pledge of personal funds to be used as a subvention. The Prefect of Clerics, Ming-ching,49 spoke to his congregation, saying, "Long will we remember this deed. It is a great boon to our monasteries in their misfortune. I urge that we commit our full resources to the completion of this task."50 Artisans were then hired to carve the printing blocks and on the day when the work was to be dedicated Mr.Ch'ao came to my gate soliciting a preface to be placed at the head of the text. Ming-ching and the Fromer Monk-Bursar,51 Shan-i, also sent lettters of invitation. I have always said that although the Tao does not reside in the robe yet by the transmission of the robe one can pass on the Tao, and although the Dharma does not reside in words yet the perusal of the written word may be an occasion for insight into the Dharma."52 Having great respect for Lord Ch'ao's probity and knowing that these two monks, both deeply attached to Wu-t'ai, are not intent on simony.53 I have therefore inscribed this preface.

If in the mid-eleventh century a man like Yao Hsiao-hsi could have lived on P 516

Wu-t'ai the sort of life he is said to have lived ¢w a life of reverie, literary cultivation, spiritual reflection, and charitable service ¢w and if he was able to place his literary talents at the service of Wu-t'ai in the way in which his preface shows he did, then we have good reason to conclude that the Wu- t'ai of the mid-twelfth century ¢w even under the newly established rule of the Jurchen, and despite the general instability of the area in those years ¢w was still a functioning religious center, even a focus of the kinds of official support that political authorities have often been prepared to extend to Buddhist institutions in return for Buddhism's spiritual protection. Indeed, the early Chin may have been an especially crucial period in Wu-t'ai's history. One wonders, for example, whether the three Records of Ch'ing-liang, on which later ages have been so dependent for knowledge of Wu-t'ai, would have survived without the reprinting in which Yao Hsiao-hsi, Commissioner Ch'ao, et al. assisted.54

The viability and accessibility of Wu-t'ai is further indicated by the presence of foreigners there during the early Chin. Of course, Chinese from the Southern Sung could not visit freely, but persons from other parts apparently could. Thus, a Yuan dynasty chronicle of Buddhism55 records the following, under the year 1135:

ªk®vĬªû«Ç§Q¡A¦èªÇ¤H¤]¡C¯S§¤å®í¤_¤­»O¡Cµ½¶~©G³N ¯à³q§Q¡C¯«²§»á¦h¡A«ÒÀ±¥[­«¡C®É¦Ð¤h¿½¯u¤H¥ç°ª¤h¤] ¡A§Þ³NÃø°Ý¡A¬Ò¬°®v¥ñ¡A©ó¬O½]­º«á¹H¥@¤w¡Cª÷°ê­ð¬A ¬Û¤½Æg¨ä¯u¤ê¡J¦ü¦ü¬O¬O¡e©Î¤ª©_«v®v¤l¡fĬªû«Ç§Q¦è ªÇ¨Ó¹C¤@¦Ê¤K·³¡C³·¦â³s¸|ºÑ¥ú·¸Áu¡A¤ºÄ­¯u·O¥~²{¥i ¬È¡C¦b¶{©v´Â³s³±¤£Å´¡A¯S¶@µn¾Â©GÀs¸¨¦a¡A½ê¦â¦÷¾¤ ¦Z¦m¿Ë»s¡A¬I¤ºÂð]«×¹¬°_¦x¡C¤H¥b«HºÃ¡A¦òªûªi§Q¡A ­É¸ô­«¨Ó¤­®p¹C¡A§®o¤­¦ò«a°Ò®í¦ó²§¡C¶êº¡¤ë­±¦â«D ¬õºé¡A¯u¤H¿½¥Í»»Â¤«ô¸÷¡C

Dharma Master Su-t'o-shih-li (Sudhasr? ) was a man from western India who was especially devoted to Manjusr at Wu-t'ai. He was well versed in the arts of incantation and accomplished in thaumaturgy. No matter how many wonders he worked, the emperor always demanded more. Once the eminent Taoist adept Hsiao Chen-jen56challenged him to a sorcery contest but was bested by the master and, acknowledging his defeat, retired into obscurity. This prompted T'ang-kua,57 Prime Minister of the Chin court, to proclaim his authenticity, saying, "Bravo Master, how wonderful. "Su-t'o-shih-li had come from India at P 517

the age of one-hundred and eight. With cheeks white as snow and gleaming blue eyes,58 his awesome outward appearance belied his true inward compassion. Once, when the royal ancestral temple59 was shrouded in mists that would not dissipate, he mounted the altar at the emperor's behest and recited a prayer that made a dragon (i.e., the cause of the mists) fall to earth. As a reward he was given saffron robes personally sewn by the empress and princesses, and palace funds were provided to purchase ordination licenses and build temples. People wondered if he might be none other than Buddhapali,60feigning yet another journey to the five peaks to worship the Manjusr of the lofty five-fold Buddha-crown. 61Gazing reverently at his full-round face unblemished by any ruddy hue, the Taoist master Hsiao was moved to prostrate himself in awe.

ª÷Ĭªû«Ç§Q¡A¦è°ì¤¤¦L«×¨ºÄõªû¦x¹¬¡C¤º¶~¤TÂáA¥~ ¹ý¤­©ú¡A¯à»w¡mµØÄY¸g¡n¡C¤[¼}²M²D¤å®í¦í³B¡C¦~¤K ¤Q¤­¡A»P§Ì¤l¤C¤H¯è®ü¨Ó¦¹¤g¡C¤C¤H¤TÁÙ¤Tâf¡A°ß¦ò ªû«Ç§Q¤@¤HÀH¤§¡C¤Z¤»¸ü¡A©l¹F²M²D¡C¨C¤@»O³»¡A»w ¡mµØÄY¡n¤Q³¡¡CÁI±I¤C¤é¡A¤£®§¤£­¹¡C¨C¤J©w«h¨£µµ ¿iª÷«°¡B¬Á¼þÖæ·µ¡BÄ_½¬­»¤ô¡B¯]ºô¥æ½÷¡B¥\¼w²øÄY ¡A¤£¥iºÙ­z¡A½Ñ¤Ñµ£¤lÎêÀ¸¨ä¤¤¡C«á©óÆFøl®p¤Æ¥h¡A §Ì¤l«Ç§Q¡A¦¬ªÙ§Q¤K¦X¡A½AÀö¦p¯]¡A«ùÂk¦è¤g²j¡C

Su-t'o-shih-li was a monk of India's Nalanda Monastery in the Western Regions. Learned in the T ripitaka and well versed also in the five secular sciences,63 he could chant the whole Flower Garland Scripture hua-yen ching Having long yearned to visit Manjusr's residence at Ch'ing-liang, he set sail for China at the age of eighty-five, together with seven disciples. Three of his followers returned to India and another three perisheden route leaving only one who remained with him, a monk by the name of Fo-t'o-shih-li (Buddhasr?). The journey took six years. When he reached Ch'ing-liang he visited all of its terraces. On each one he recited ten chapters of the Flower P 518

Garland and sat in meditation for seven days without sleeping or eating. Every time he entered samadhi he had a vision of a city made of gold burnished to a lustrous purple and of palaces made of violet crystal wherein troops of divine youths disported themselves amidst jewel lotuses, perfumed waters, and scintillating pearl-spangled nets, all arrayed in ineffable splendor. When he passed away on Ling-chiu Peak64 his disciple, Shih-li, collected from his ashes eight ounces of sarira65 all shimmering like pearls, which he then took back with him to India.

There is also the intriguing story of another monk from India whose Indian name I cannot confidently reconstruct but who was known to the Chinese as Ê¡«¢Ã¹±x§Q ("Ou-ha [or'ka']-lo-hsi-li" or "Hung-ha ['ka']-lo-hsi-li").66 He is said to have come from the northern Indian country of Mokuang-t'a ¥½¥úök (Magadha?) and to have lived for a time on Chicken-foot Mountain (Chi-tsu Shan Âû¨¬¤s ), in Yunnan ¶³«n, which was then within the borders of the devoutly Buddhist proto-Thai kingdom of Nan-chao«n¶@ or Tai-li¤j²z It is well known that the Tai-li kingdom enjoyed close and continuing relations with India (throught the regions now known as Burma and Assam) and that the Buddhism practiced there, even as late as the twelfth century, was a fascinating mixture of Chinese traditions with continuously imported forms of esoterism. 67It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that this Indian monk spent his time at Chi-tsu Shan reciting mystic formulae, curing the sick, summoning rain, and taming tigers. Together with seven of his disciples, including one named Sam-mo-yeh-hsi-li (¤T¿i­C±x§Q, Samayasr?), he is said to have managed, sometime in the 1140's and with royal support, to travel through or around southern Sung territory to Wu-t'ai Shan and other parts of the Jurchen controlled North. At Wu-t'ai he is said to have paid homage to Manjusr and Avalokitesvara.68 Specific mention is made of his visit to a place called "Ling-yen" ÆFÅÉ (©¥). This, it would seem, was the temple now known as Yen-shan ssu ©¥¤s¦x. It is located in northern Fan-chih hsien Ác«Ï¿¤, on the northernmost fringes of the Wu-t'ai area. Founded during the late Northern Sung, specifically in 1079, it apparently suffered considerable damage during the Chin conquest of the area but in the 1150's and 1160's ¢w i.e., around the time of Ou-ha-lo-hsi-li's visit ¢w it found favor with the Chin authorities who P 519

supported its reconstruction.69 The main buildings now comprising the Yen-shan ssu all date from Chin times and they have attracted considerable interest of late because one of them, the Manjusr Hall, contains a magnificent set of murals completed in 1167 by the elderly count painter Wang K'uei ¤ý¶f, which art historians have only recently "rediscoved" and begun to study.70 It was at Yen-shan ssu the Ou-ha-lo-hsi-li performed and arduous series of circumambulations and fasts in worship of Avalokitesvara. Thereafter he travelled on to Ch'i-nan ÀÙ«n and Ti-chou ´Ð¦{, both of which are districts in Shantung. In Ch'i-nan he founded the Temple of Manjusri's True Visage (Wen-shu chen- jung ssu ¤å®í¯u®e¦x) and in Ti-chou the Temple of the Three Instructions (San-hsueh ssu ¤T¾Ç¦x ). He was still in Chin territory when he died in 1165, at the age of sixty-three sui.

To be sure, the tales of Su-t'o-shih-li and Ou- ha-lo-hsi-li, Yao Hsiao-hsi's preface read in the light of his life story, and Chia Yung's inscription at the An-sheng temple ¢w to the extent that they comprise evidence of any sort ¢w are merely anecdotal. Nevertheless, the impression they foster is that of a resilient Wu-t'ai Shan, a still vital religious center which survived the Chin conquest intact and which continued to attract consequential visitors and residents from near and far. Neither the havoc wrought by the Chin conquest and the Chen-pao incident nor the generally unsettled military situation that persisted in the region for some years thereafter did permanent damage to Wu-t'ai, and from such damage as it did suffer it seems to have recovered quickly.

It would appear also that official support, of some kind and in some appreciable measure, was helpful in effecting this recovery. However, there is not much indication that any of this support emanated directly from the Chin court, or that patronage of Wu-t'ai was an explicit policy of the central government, at least not during the very early period with which we are here most concerned (from the 1120's through the 1160's); patronage seems rather to have been mostly local in origin, even though some who practiced it may have had court connections. In fact, as several scholars have pointed out, the attitudes of the Chin rulers towards Buddhism are difficult to fathom, and one must take care always to distinguish between their "official" postures and their personal views. It is true that the Jurchen elite had acquired a serious interest in Buddhism even before they established their dynasty, having learned of it from P 520

Koryo °ªÄR Korea. After constituting themselves as the Chin, defeating the Khitans, and taking control of Northern China, they gradually absorbed the Buddhist culture of the Liao and the Northern Sung and their knowledge of, and respect for, Buddhism grew proportionally. However, official court decisions affecting Buddhism were relatively rare in these early decades, and those few of which we do have record may have pertained chiefly to the metropolitan Buddhist communities in the immediate vicinites of the two principal Chin capitals, Shang-ching ¤W¨Ê and Yen-ching ¿P¨Ê. From time to time individual Chin rulers may have decreed certain favors for Buddhism, as expressions of their personal esteem for the religion or in celebration of particular events, but the Chin court seems not to have begun to develop anything that might be called an official national policy toward Buddhism until the reign Emperor Shih-tsung ¥@©v (r.1161-1189), and that policy, though nominally supportive of Buddhism, seems actually to have been contrived in the desire to enforce the Samgha's subordination to state authority and to appropriate some of its wealth.71 In any case, the historical record seems not to support the likely hypothesis that the early Chin court might have designated Wu-t'ai as a special object of partonage. Nor do we find evidence that they followed the model of a T'ang T'ai-tsung in regarding the Five Terraces as a special source of spiritual power to be used in the defense or validation of their political authority. If the first Chin rulers ever did see Wu-t'ai in such light, they left no record of it that we have yet uncovered.

What we do find, instead of national or court support, is a pattern of local protection and patronage. Famous though Wu-t'ai still surely was throughout the Buddhist world, and magnet though it continued to be even to pilgrims from such distant places as India, it seems also to have remained a ditinctively regional treasure especially dependent for its survival in the early Chin on the loyalty and generosity of local devotees. As such it may serve as a reminder that despite its universalistic aspirations, often abetted in history by its incorporation into imperial ideologies, Chinese Buddhism has always had it deepest and most nourishing roots in the particular regions and locales in which it has flourished. Manjusr üg was surely worshipped by Buddhists the world over, but the people of what is now the northernmost part of Shansi and the bordering region of Inner Mongolia were especially grateful to him for having chosen their five peaks as his earthly P 521

residence. Eloquent confirmation of this is provided by yet another document of the early Chin which we have yet to consider, this one written by an eminent visitor from the Sung famous for a special affinity with all genii locorum.

From the Chin conquest of the North in the 1120's until the reunification of China effected by the Mongol conquests a little over a century and a half later, pilgrimage to Wu-t'ai Shan was virtually impossible for those Chinese, at the time the majority of the nation's population, who inhabited the regions south of the Huai river. However, in the years immediately following the conquest, the machinations of Sung-Chin relations did have the inadvertent effect of bringing to the vicinity of the Five Terraces at least one eminent Southern Sung statesman and literatus who has left us interesting literary memoranda of his visit.

As noted in the appended biography,72 Chu Pien ¦¶¥¯ (d.1144) was a scholar-official from Anhwei whose skill as a young poet caught the favorable attention of Ch'ao Yueh-chih ®Ð»¡¤§ (1059-1129), one of the leading intellectuals and men of letters of the day and a scion of one of the Northern Sung's most distinguished families. Sometime probably at the end of the second or the beginning of the third decade of the twelfth century Chu settled in Hsin-cheng ·s ¾G, an area located between Kaifeng ¶}«Ê and the ancient capital of Loyang ¬¥¶§. This region was home not only to the Ch'ao clan but also to a number of other very prominent gentry families. There, as Ch'ao Yueh-chih's protege, Chu entered the cultivated society of poets, painters, calligraphers, philosophers ¢w and Buddhist monks ¢w that then flourished in Hsin-cheng and in the nearby capitals. This is the same circle that had been led, a few decades earlier, by such luminaries as Su Shih Ĭ¸ý (1037-1101), Huang T'ing-chien ¶À®x°í (1045-1105), Mi Fu ¦Ìªè (1051-1107), Li Kung-lin §õ ¤½Åï (1049-1106), Ch'ao Pu-chih ®Ð¸É¤§ (1053-1110), and others. For some years Chu steeped himself in the culture and lore of this region, and in the writings of the great men associated with it ¢w so much so that much later in his life he would be able to compose a collection of anecdotes, the Chu-wei chiu- wen ¡m¦±¬¨Âªù¡n,73 and a series of essays in literary criticism, the Feng-yueh-tang shih- hua ¡m­·¤ë°ó¸Ö¸Ü¡n, to which later ages would be P 522

much indebted for their views of late Northern Sung literary and cultural history.74 Indeed, the Feng-yueh-t'ang shih-hu a proved to be one of the more authoritative assessments of the greatest poets of the Northern Sung, especially Su Shih, Huang T'ing-chien, Ch'en Shih-tao ³¯®v¹D (1052-1102), and Mei Yao-ch'en ±ö³ó¦Ú (1002-1060).

For our purposes it is important to note that the circles within the Sung cultural renaissance to which Chu Pien belonged were those that accommodated Buddhism, not those that condemned and rejected it. Unlike most of the Tao-hsueh movement, which culminated in the thought of Chu Pien's younger kinsman Chu Hsi ¦¶¿Q (1130- 1200), the Sung literati whom Chu Pien most admired and with whom he identified were men who found the teachings, practices, and institutions of Buddhism entirely compatible with their visions of the Tao.75 Some ¢w like Chang Shang-ying ±i°Ó­^ (1043-1122), Chu Pien's precursor among literati pilgrims to Wu-t'ai ¢w went so far as to construct sophisticated syntheses of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism in which Buddhism clearly held pride of place.76Even among those who did not undertake to fashion their own systematic interpetations of the Dharma there were many who read widely in the Buddhist canon, conducted profound intellectual exchanges with learned and saintly Buddhist monks whom they treasured as friends, drew upon Buddhist imagery in their poetry and painting, and generally had recourse to Buddhism for consolation during the course of lives troubled by disappointment and strife.

Chu Pien's mentor, Ch'ao Yueh-chih, was one such. 77 Like many of the thinkers who were later judged "unorthodox" by the narrow criteria of Chu Hsi's orthodoxy, he was an avid paricipant in the eleventh century's renewal of Confucianism. After earning his chin-shih degree in 1182, he enjoyed the favor, and the official sponsorship, of such eminent literati officials as Su Shih and Fan Tsu-yu ­S¯ª¬ê (1041-1098, tzu Ch'un-fu ²E¤Ò).78It was his connection with Fan, in particular, that brought him into the circle of Ssu-ma Kuang ¥q°¨¥ú(1019-1086), whom he came quickly to regard as his chief mentor. He even went so far as to borrow Ssu-ma Kuang's sobriquet and to call himself "The Admirer of Yu" (Ching-yu sheng ´º¨±¥Í). Ssu-ma Kuang, in his turn, treated Ch'ao as a favorite protege. Alone among Ssu-ma Kuang's disciples, Ch'ao pursued cosmological P 523

and metaphysical speculations of the sort that derive from the I-ching ¡m©ö¸g¡n tradition, including Yang Hsiung's ·¨¶¯ (53 BC-28 AD) T'ai-hsuan ching ¡m¤Ó¥È¸g¡n, a text in which Ssu-ma Kung had a special interest. Thus did he come to study symbolic metaphysics (¥ý¤Ñ¤§¾Ç)79for a time with a certain Yang Hsien-pao ·¨½åÄ_ (d.u.), one of Shao Yung's ªò¹l (1011-1077) disciples. He is said also to have studied the "Hung-fan" ¬x½d chapter of the Shang-shu ¡m©|®Ñ¡n (Book of Documents) under the tutelage of Chiang Ch'ien «¸¼ç (d.u., tzu Chih-chih ¦Ü¤§), a disciple of Sun fu ®]¨j (992-1057).80 As Sun Fu was known for his special interest in the I-ching, we can assume that Ch'ao's studies with one of Sun Fu's students, focused though they may have been on the Book of Documents, also encompassed his continuing cosmological and metaphysical research into the Bookof Cha nges and related texts. Likewise with the thought of Chang Tsai ±i¸ü (1020-1077), another of Ch'ao's interests; this too, we must assume, was related to his persistent interest in topics of the I-ching sort. In fact, although he had written important commentaries on other Confucian classics, at the very end of his life Ch'ao confessed that it was only his work on the I-ching that he regarded as worth preserving; all the rest of his voluminous corpus, he said, should be burnt.81 In politics, of course, Ch'ao was a conservative, and an outspoken critic of Wang An-shih ¤ý¦w¥Û (1021-1086). He even went so far as to request that the Meng Tzu ©s¤l be banned from the curriculum of the Imperial Academy because Mencius was so especially admired by Wang An-shih. It is said that when Emperor Ch'in-tsung ´Ü ©v (r.1126) approved this recommendation the Academy's scholars all rejoiced.82

For our immediate purposes, however, the most important point to be made about Ch'ao intellectual development is that at least by the end of his life, i.e., by the second and third decades of the twelfth century, he had conceived a serious interest in Buddhism.83 For the majority of sympathetic Northern Sung literati Buddhism meant, especially though not exclusively, Ch'an Buddhism. Ch'ao, of course, knew Ch'an. Indeed, he commented on aspects of Ch'an in his writings. Also, for most of his life he lived not far from Sung Shan ·C¤s, for which we must assume he had a special fondness since he took its name as one of his hao and the Sung Shan area, it must be recalled, is particularly well known as the location of the Shao-lin ¤ÖªL monastery, one of the great historical centers of Ch'an.84

However, as a Buddhist, Ch'ao's closest personal affiliations and strongest intellectual affinities were with the T'ien-t'ai ¤Ñ¥x tradition,85 particulary with the so-called "orthodox" or "mountain school" (Shan-chia ¤s®a) faction of T'ien-t'ai derived from the early Sung teacher Ssu-ming Chih-li ¥|©úª¾Â§ (960-1028).86 Ch'ao was in fact a disciple of a third generation Dharma-descendant of Chih-li named Ming-chin Chun-li ©ú´¼¤¤¥ß (1046-1114),87 and he had close relations also with several other prominent T'ien-t'ai monks like Chih-li's fourth generation descendent, Chih-yung Liao-jan §Ó¯F¤FµM (1076-1141). Indeed, it is not enough to say merely that Ch'ao was interested in T'ien-t'ai; rather his Buddhist writings show him to have been its very enthusiastic proponent and defender. Not at all loath to join the continuing fray of dispute between T'ien-t'ai and Ch'an that had begun early in the Sung, he was quite forceful, occasionally even acerbic, in upholding the T'ien-t'ai point of view whenever the opportunity to do so presented itself.88 We can be fairly certain, then, that Ch'ao' s decision to call himself "The Old Dharma-Blossom of the Hall of National Peace" (Kuo-an t'ang Lao Fa-hua °ê¦w°ó¦Ñªk µØ) and "Scholar-Monk of T'ien-t'ai" (T'ien-t'ai chiao-seng ¤Ñ¥x±Ð¹¬)89 was no mere whim or affectation. Rather it bespeaks the same sincere commitment that led him, as the biographical records also report, to daily recitation of the Lotus Sutra and to his choice of a Buddhist monastery as the place of his interment.

It is apparent, then, that Ch'ao Yueh-chih was a man of broad and diverse intellectual formation. He was deeply learned in Confucianism and a significant contributor to its Sung revival, but he was also a pious Buddhist quite sophisticated in his knowledge of the Dharma. Any comments such a man may have made about the relations between Buddhism and Confucianism deserve careful attention. Let us note, then, the following observations with which he opened a short essay entitled "Remarks on Fear" that he once addressed to one of the aforementioned monks, viz., Chih-yung Liao-jan.90

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P 525

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I have always found it strange that although Han Yu (768-824) and Ou-yang Hsiu (1007-1072) attacked Buddhism vehemently, and had many followers, yet Buddhist paragons like Ch'eng-kuan (738-839?) and Ch'i-sung (1007-1072) nevertheless managed to have their teaching transmitted to later generations, and so great has been their influence that nowadays gentleman-scholars are pleased to sing their praises. But to revile a teaching while promoting its adherents is surely a contradiction!

Some years ago Chih-yuan of Ku-shan (976-1022) 91achieved an awesome reputation among his contemporaries as one who had mastered all the learning of his tradition and who taught the Dharma with broad erudition, natural genius, and a command of letters both sacred and secular. Han Yu regularly condemned such learning as quite inferior to his own exclusive concentration on Confucius, and recently Ch'i-sung has strongly criticized Ou-yang Hsiu's slanders upon the Dharma as reflecting that old pharisee's self-same spirit.92 To allow admiration of the good qualities of these two men (Han Yu and Ou-yang Hsiu) to efface all memory of their bigotry this too would be a contradiction.

I have always though that if only one were tolerant in his likes and dislikes and intent on liberality, free of hidebound bias and possessed of a commodious breadth of vision, one could thus resolve any contradiction that might arise.

Here we see Ch'ao following the model established by those many Chinese intellectuals of the day who saw Buddhism as quite compatible with the Chinese heritage. He clearly rejected what struck him as the unreasoned intolerance of a P 526

Han Yu or an Ou-yang Hsiu, and urged instead a broad but not uncritical religious and intellectual pluralism. From this perspective, he suggested, it would be possible to acknowledge what was valuable in the work of those two scourges of Buddhism without forgetting or excusing their narrow-mindedness. In this way, he further implied, one could dispense with the hypocrisy of publicly condemning Buddhsim while covertly drawing upon individual Buddhist authors for inspiration. Thus, under the broader canopy that Ch'ao would erect, it would be possible to acknowledge the service rendered to the Tao even by such Buddhists as Ch'eng-kuan and Ch'i-sung.

In his advocacy of such ecumenism Ch'ao was prepared even to express his disapproval, albeit gentle and indirect, of the contempt for Buddhism that his own otherwise esteemed teacher, Ssu-ma Kuang, had so ofter voiced. An essay composed in 1124 to celebrate the reconstruction of a monastery in Ch'eng-chou ¦¨¦{ named the Ta-fan ssu ¤j±ë¦x (Great Brahmin Monastery)93 opens with the following observation:

The ancient kings all acknowledged the Buddha to be the "Sage of the West" (¦è¤è¸t¤H), but Ssu-ma Kuang was contemptuous of this and said, "There is no such thing as a regional sage (¸t¤H°Z¦³¤è©Ò¨¸)!"Now, if what the great scholar said could be amended to mean that one may surely expect liberation to be universal in scope (¥²´Á©ñ½Ñ¥|®ü) rather than regional, then that would be quite true.

Of course, as Ch'ao Yueh-chih well knew, Ssu-ma Kuang meant no such thing. His assertion that there could be no "Sage of the West" was not really the claim for sagehood' s universality that it might seem to be. Rather it was merely yet another rejection of Buddhism simply because it was foreign. What Ssu-ma Kuang really meant, in other words, was that the only true sagehood is Chinese sagehood. And yet, however much Ch'ao may have admired Ssu-ma Kuang, he was forced to disagree with him on this crucial matter. He thus goes on in the same essay to argue that, in a sense, Buddhism has always been present in China. He debunks, one after the other, all the legendary accounts of Buddhism's historical introduction into China, showing that each such tale presupposes an P 527

unexplained prior knowledge of Buddhism. How, for example, could Fu I ³Å¼Ý have interpreted Han Ming-ti's dream as an apparition of the Buddha if the Buddha had not previously been known to the Chinese? Moreover (and here he makes a point more directly related to the topic of this essay), surely one cannot date to the merely historical time of Han Ming-ti such transcendental and timeless realities as Manjusr's presence at Wu-t'ai Shan, Samantabhadra's (P'u-hsien ´¶½å) Presence at O-mei Shan ®o¬Ü¤s, or the presence of the Arhats on both Yen-tang shan ¶­¿º¤s and Ku Shan ¹ª¤s¡I94 These, after all, are "inconceivable phenomena, by which the inconceivable mind of the Buddha is limned" (¥H¤£«äij¹Ò·Ó¤£«äij¤ß). The presence of these deities at these sites cannot be explained historically but must be understood as primordial. This being so, there can be no legitimate rejection of Buddhism on the grounds that it is alien to China and associated only with some foreign place. In the borderless realm of ultimate truth, "there is neither Jew nor gentile," neither Chinese nor barbarian. In short, Ch'ao has quite deftly invoked certain of Buddhism's regional cults to demonstrate Buddhism's trans-regional universalism, and in the light of this he has demonstrated that hostility toward Buddhism of the sort we see in Ssu-ma Kuang is mere parochialism.

I have belabored the issue of Ch'ao Yueh-chih's Buddhism in the hope of establishing an adequate framework within which to interpret the attitudes of his protege, Chu Pien, toward things Buddhist. The conventional assumption would be that an enlightened and patriotic Chinese literatus like Chu Pien ¢w heir through his teachers and their teachers to the rationalism of the Sung Confucian revival, and to its uneasiness about Buddhism ¢w would have been at best skeptical about a place like Wu-t'ai and about reports of Manjusr's apperance there. But consideration of Ch'ao's deep and well informed Buddhist piety, together with appreciation of his influence on Chu, calls such an assumption sharply into question. For these two men, and for many more of their contemporaries than has usually been acknowledged, Buddhism was still a very viable option for faith and knowledge, still a fundament of their intellectual world. Given the extent to which later Confucian and modern western prejudices have conspired to conceal the importance of Buddhism in Sung culture, this is a point difficult to overemphasize.

B. Ambassador Chu, General Che, and the Miraculous Manifestations of Manjusri.

Assuming that Chu Pien had come under Ch'ao Yueh-chih's patronage sometime in the second decade of the twelfth century, we may further suppose that their close association lasted for at least a decade before the lives of both men, and of the Chinese people generally, were violently disrupted by the Chin conquest of the whole of China north of the Huai river. Jurchen pressure had been mounting for several years but the actual onslaught against the Chinese heartland began in late 1126 and Kaifeng finally fell on January 9 of 1127. It is easy for us now to forget the havoc that this geopolitical debacle wreaked in the lives of individuals. Of course, many of the Sung elite managed to escape to the south. Many others, however, did not. The current and former emperors were captured by the Chin forces and brought north as prisoners, along with many members of their households. Untold numbers of others died in the fierce fighting. How exactly Ch'ao Yueh-chih and his family fared we do not know. He himself survived the event, but only for another couple of years; he died in 1129 at the age of sixty-nine or seventy. Chu Pien also survived, but we are told that most of his family were killed. It may have been the combination of this grievous personal loss with his patriotic outrage at the nation's defeat that led him to volunteer as a member of a legation sent north in 1127 or 1128 to negotiate with the Chin for the return of Hui-tsung À²©v and Ch'in-tsung ´Ü©v and for an equitable peace. The embassy failed in its principal purpose and its members, including Chu Pien, were simply taken captive by the Chin, separated from each other, and held as hostages. Even in custody Chu relentlessly pursued the embassy's mission, repeating over and over again his arguments for peace and his entreaties on behalf of the captive Sung emperors. The Chin commander in whose charge Chu had been placed, Marshal Nien-han Öߨu himself, simply ignored Chu's pleas. Later he sought actually to compel Chu's defection, pressuring him to serve in the court of the bogus monarch, Liu Yu ¼B¿Ý, whom the Chin had set up as ruler of the short-lived puppet and buffer state of Ta-ch'i ¤j»ô. Chu adamantly refused, even at the risk of the death that threatened when his captors confined him to quarters and drastically reduced his provisions. He vowed to starve rather than turn traitor. His repeated and eloquent assertions of P 529

unflinching loyalty to the Sung, and his strong defense of the rights of ambassadors, eventually won him the respect of his captors, not to mention an honored place in the Sung annals.95The Chin relented their efforts to have him defect and thereafter treated him with courtesy and respect. Although he never did accept official appointment from the Chin, he apparently was willing to serve in a private capacity as tutor to the sons of the Jurchen elite. These relatively honorable conditions apparently conferred upon him some considerable stature, and perhaps also allowed some small measure of free movement. For most of his captivity, it seems, he was restricted to the Western Capital of the Chin, i.e. , the city of Ta-t'ung ¤j¦P. However, it may be that he was permitted to travel about in the general vicinity of the capital, and as that general vicinity included Wu-t'ai Shan (and probably also Tai-chou ¥N¦{ the administrative center from which Wu-t'ai was governed), he may actually have had the chance to visit those places. It was under these circumstances that Chu come to know a certain Che Yen-wen §é«Û¤å, military governor of Yen-men ¶­ªù. Yen-men was a frontier post located at a strategic mountain pass; it controlled most travel between the previously Liao city of Ta-t'ung and the previously Chinese territory of Tai-chou and it was situated only about thirty-five miles northwest of Wu-t'ai. In 1141, we are told,96Che Yen-wen had led a military expedition of some sort to suppress local rebels. The rebels were run to ground in the immediate vicinity of Wu-t'ai. To mark the success of his expedition, Che made a grand public offering of incense at one of Wu-t'ai's temples. We may presume that he was thereby professing thanks to Manjusr for his victory. Apparently, this offering, which must have been a rather impressive public ritual, proved also to be the occasion for one of Manjusr's characteristic Wu-t'ai miracles. Che reported that as he and the others in attendance gazed up at the clouds of incense billowing into the sky they all saw marvelous visions. Some saw strange clouds of unusual shape and color; others saw uncanny lights or radiances; others saw celestrial arches, ethereal diadems, golden nets, mythical beasts, profusions of heavenly flowers, and rainbows in the shape of crowns; still others were privileged with the paramount vision of Manjusr himself.

Chu Pien tells us that Che Yen-wen had difficulty relating this event.97 In fact, the General confessed that he was at a loss for words; after all, he was but a P 530

war-lord, and he lacked the sorts of literary skill required to do justice to so wondrous and ineffable an occurrence. He therefore asked Chu Pien, the renowned literatus, to make a record of the event for him. Apparently, Chu knew that the clan to which Che Yen-wen belonged had long been the leading military family of the region. Based for generations in the city of Yu-chung ¶³¤¤ (i.e., Ta-t'ung), but controlling large parts of what would today be northern and northwestern Shansi, the Che's had come to power during the Five Dynasties period. With the founding of the Sung they had pledged their allegiance to that dynasty, and for a century and a half had effectively defended its borders against threats from the Khitan and Tangut peoples. After the Jurchen conquests, however, they apparently switched allegiance to the Chin.

Chu Pien also learned that for as long as the Che's had been the military authority in the region they had also been generous partons of Wu-t'ai, having funded and defended its many monasteries for four or five generations. As Chu Pien explains the matter, this latter fact ¢w viz., the Che clan's long-standing patronage of Wu-t'ai ¢w presented something of a puzzle. Visions at Wu-t'ai were commonly understood to be benefactions conferred by the Bodhisattva chiefly on the masses or on unbelievers, for the purpose of evoking or stimulating faith. However, this could not have been the reason for the visions that had been vouchsafed to Che Yen-wen, for the Che family was known to have long been eminent devotees of Wu-t'ai. Chu Pien therefore employs an apt and flattering analogy. He compares Che Yen-wen to Anathapindada, the great patron of Sakyamuni himself. Anathapindada too had been the object of a miraculous manifestation. Once, while dwelling the Jeta Grove, the park which Anathapindata had donated to the Samgha, the Buddha projected from his body a marvelous radiance which, after circulating throughout the park in the sight of all present, then hovered above Anathapindada's house. Clearly the Buddha had not performed this miracle in order to awaken the great donor's faith; Suhdatta, as he was also called, was already the most devout of believers. Rather, the purpose of the miracle was to proclaim Anathapindada's great piety and thus reward his generosity. It was for the same reason, Chu suggests, that Manjusr had effected Che's miracle.

Chu Pien then draws another flattering analogy, this one from more recent P 531

history. He compares Che Yen-wen to Chang Shang- ying, the famous man of letters, statesman, and lay Buddhist of the preceding generation, the generation to which Chu's mentor, Ch'ao Yu eh-chih, had also belonged. Chang had died less than twenty years earlier, in 1122. It is not unlikely that Chu and his patron knew the man, or at least that they had met him, when they were all in court service at Kaifeng. This is all the more likely in view of the fact that Ch'ao and Chu belonged to the same conservative political faction Chang had joined late in his life. In any case, Chang's fame was surely still fresh in Chu's memory. Chu therefore probably knew that only about fifty years earlier, during the period from 1087 to 1090, Chang too had been at Wu-t'ai on official business, had taken the opportunity of that assignment to make several piligrimages to the major Wu-t'ai sites, and had been privileged to witness miraculous apparitions very much like those Lord Che described. Chu notes these facts, and notes too that Chang wrote an account of his experiences. Assuming that Chu had read Chang Shang-ying's miracle narrative, we may also assume that he took special note of the several points therein at which Chang expressed his doubts about the true nature of what he had seen. Chang had made it clear that finally he credited the visions he witnessed as genuine epiphanies, but he had also indicated that the impact those revelations had on him was all the greater for his having first doubted them. Chang' s doubts had not been simply those of the rationalist intellectual whose automatic response to all things uncanny is to doubt the representation of his senses or to search for naturalistic explanations. Rather Chang was predisposed to doubt the strange things he seemed to see in part because of his background in Ch'an Buddhism. Ch'an was congenitally and notoriously dubious about the religiosity of "miracles and wonders. "Ch'an teachers frequently warned against the seductive and delusory potential of the altered states of consciousness, the ecstasies and transports, the often befall practitioners of meditation. The Ch'an preference, in other words, is for "the spirituality of the ordinary" ( ¥­±`¤ß¬O¹D ),98for the true "wonder and mystery" ( ¯«³q¦}§®¥Î ) that resides not in the range of the paranormal but in mundane experiences and quotidian activities, like "carrying water and gathering kindling" (¹B¤ô ¤ÎºM®ã).99 At several junctures in his narrative Chang Shang-ying paused to reflect on the tension between such Ch'an attitudes and the vivid apparitions of Manjusr which, in his pilgrim's experience,

he had found so compelling. If we may assume that Chu Pien's own Buddhist predispositions were more like those of his teacher, Ch'ao Yueh-chih, ie., more T'ien-t'ai than Ch'an, then it is possible that such tensions were not so great for him as they had been for Chang Shang-ying. T'ien-t'ai ¢w with its more traditional curricula of asceticism and meditation, and especially with its characteristic emphasis on the transformative power of ritual ¢w was not so leery of visionary experience as Ch'an was. Nevertheless, Chu Pien knew of the typical Ch'an attitudes toward such things, knew also how widespread and influential they were, and may even have felt some of their influence himself. Therefore, rather than simply ignore the likelihood that Chang Shang- ying's visions, and Che Yen-wen's, would be doubted as hallucinations, either for reasons of Ch'an or out of common skepticism, he addressed the matter head-on. He noted that "there are some who regard meditative or visionary euphorias ÁI®® of the sort Chang had experienced as symptoms of sickness ¯f. "Implicit in such an observation is a further suspicion, viz. , that perhaps Chang had had ulterior and worldly motives in writing his narrative. Indeed, this latter suspicion is hard to avoid because Chang himself wrote, in an appendix to his description of his visions, that he chose to write and circulate his account in the hope of securing governmental remedy for certain depredations that the Wu-t'ai monasteries were then suffering. Chu does not reject such doubts out of hand; he does not say straight out that Chang's visions were veridical and not illusory, or that there was not motive in the writing of them. Instead he takes the subtler route, long prescribed by Buddhism itself, of relating such visions, and the subsequent reporting of them, to the overarching Buddhist ideal of compassion. To paraphrase his argument: "Some may say that Chang was hallucinating, but I say that he was simply following the compassionate models of the Bodhisattvas and the Buddhas. Availing himself of his literary skill and his high reputation for probity among both laity and clergy, he reported his miracles in order to awaken, foster, or confirm faith. "He then goes on to congratulate Lord Che for having followed Chang's example, i.e., for having taken his worldly duties (the suppression of rebels) as an occasion for proclaiming the Dharma. For this reason Chu professes himself willing to accede to Che's request and to make a record of the visions. Even at this point, P 533

however, the matter is still not quite finished. In the final lines of the essay Chu admits that, although he had agreed to Lord Che's request, he was still hesitant, still not quite ready to record Che's visions. It was only after the urging of other reputable witnesses to the event that he was finally moved to put pen to paper.

What can we make of Chu Pien's miracle tale? Can we assume that he found Lord Che's report credible, or was he simply responding, politely but also very artfully, to a request by an eminent personage, a request which it might have been difficult or boorish to refuse? Two scholars who have recently read the document have favored the latter interpretation.100 Chen Yangjiong ³¯´­¬³ and Feng Qiaoying ¶¾¥©­^, editors of the recent critical edition of the Wu-t'ai trilogy, have suggested that Chu Pien's manner of speaking about Chang Shang-ying implied disparagment of him, and disdain for the whole enterprise of publishing miracle tales for the masses. The picture of Chu Pien they present ¢w in which they quite erroneously identify him as a rationalist Neo-Confucian (li-hsueh chia ²z¾Ç®a)! ¢w is that of a skeptic engaging in irony, and an irony, at that, which his original readers presumably could not detect. Moreover, they imply that he found Lord Che's talk about visions to be superstitious nonsense, and that he regarded Chang Shang-ying's earlier niracle marrative as an exploitation of the religious gullibility of common people. Moreover, as to Che Yen-wen's own miracle, is it not true that Chu took special pains to note that the reported visions were seen as their witnesses gazed into clouds of incense? And could they not therefore be taken as products of perfervid imaginations which, under the influence of ritual solemnity, might have forced smoke to assume particular, expected, and ardently desired shapes? Such a reading may seem plausible at first, but I would argue that in the end it is simply not persuasive. It both overlooks and demands too much. It ignores, for example, Chu Pien's amply attested respect for Buddhism; it fails to account for his obvious Buddhist erudition; and it requires that we subject the rest of his essay to the most procrustean, reductionistic, and crude kind of interpretation.

Literary critics have long recognized that an author's conclusions are often most definitively stated at the beginning, rather than at the end, of what he writes.101 Introductions, after all, are usually written after the writing of the texts they purport to introduce, and it is commonly in the opening of a piece that P 534

its author takes special care, after reviewing the finished body of his composition, to announce or intimate its regnant tone or intention. This seems as true of Chu Pien's brief essay as of anything. Accordingly, I would suggest that Chu set out the underlying assumptions of his record most deliberately in its first few sentences. These lines, I believe, merit our special attention and provide our best clue to rest of the text. let us note, then, that the very first theme announced in the very first sentence is that of compassion. There is some special association, Chu insists, between the compassionate intentions of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Arhats, on the one hand, and majestic mountain landscapes, on the other. But one cannot fail to note that Chu's usages here are subtly ambiguous. It is impossible to determine whether he is speaking of the mountains and landscapes themselves, or of the apparitions that are said often to manifest themselves in such awesome locations. And yet, mountains and landscapes, however beautiful or astonishing they may be, are natural phenomena. There is nothing necessarily supernatural about them. By contrast, colossal images of lion-mouted Manjusr hovering above the peaks, set against glorious clouds of many colors, adorned with luminous jewels, arrayed amidst crystalline towers, surrounded by bevies of comely deities, radiating streams or halos of unearthly light ¢w these are all quite unnatural, perhaps even supernatural. But which does Chu Pien have in mind? He says these places are visible to the human eye and that those with feet may actually visit them. They are, in other words, "of this world. "From this one might well assume that he is talking of scenery which, for all its sublimity, is nevertheless quite natural. One need not be a Buddhist or believe in Manjusr to find such sights inspiring. On the other hand, these places are also said to be the instruments of divine compassion. Does this mean that the natural beauty of mountainous landscapes is itself an expression of the Buddhas' and the Bodhisattvas' love, or does it rather mean that only such scenes of natural grandeur are appropriate for the worldly manifestation of literally transcendental realities and persons, as though Manjusr would deign to make himself visible only in properly magnificent settings? The Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Arhats are said regularly to produce "brilliant spectacles" (kuang-ching ¥ú´º) by which believers and unbelievers alike are inspired, but even the term "kuang-ching" is ambiguous since it may refer either to impressive scenery or to radiant P 535

apparitions. Such consistent ambiguity, I would suggest, was intentional; Chu Pien was too deft a write for it to have been otherwise.

In this same connection, note also the way in which Chu's opening sentences link the grandeur of mountain scenery to the sorts of official charisma needed by those who preside over political and religious institutions. Emperors need mountains, or at least compelling images of mountains, to remind them of their awful and weighty responsibilities as regents of Heaven. Likewise, abbots and other ecclesiastical authorities require the inspiration of mountains like Wu-t'ai and T'ien-t'ai ¢w i.e., the power of peaks made sacred by the presence on them of both "majestic spirits" and "splendid temples" ¢w if they are to be mindful of their equally grave responsibilities to the Buddhist faithful. In this association too there is a kind of ambiguity or double meaning, for the mountains are hereby shown to have both religious and political significance. One is again reminded of the complex and venerable connections between Wu-t'ai, the Buddhist church, and the imperial institution. Modern habits of mind press us to pause at such conflations of politics and religion, to entertain suspicions that religion is being used in such cases as a pretext for politics, as a tool of power. But are we permitted to project our own anxieties about such matters back into the minds of twelfth century Chinese? Would we not do better to accept the likelihood that they saw political authority and institutional influence as natural resonances of the sacred?

Note finally Chu Pien's comments on the natural characteristics of mountains, both actual mountains and the representational mountains seen in paintings and drawings. As natural "weather-makers," mountains are often magnets for clouds and rain. When this is not the case, then they are illumined in special ways by the sun. But Chu states that the sunlight, clouds, and rain associated with mountains are not merely mute natural phenomena; they also have symbolic significance. Sunlight symbolizes wisdom or insight, he says; clouds are metaphors for compassion; and rain betokens the quickening force of the Dharma. This is language that in other traditions would be called theophanic. It intimates that nature is the visage of the divine, the raiment of transcendence. As such it may also provided some insight into the pregnant ambiguity that runs throughout the whole of Chu's essay. Mindful that the term is foreign to Buddhism and to P 536

China, one is nevertheless moved to suggest that Chu Pien holds a kind of "sacramental" view of mountains and landscapes. Such special locations, as well as any miracles they may precipitate, are for him vehicles of "grace. "They are more than what they appear to be, and yet they do not cease being all that ordinary apprehension shows them to be. One might even risk stretching the sacramental analogy to say that Chu Pien ¢w like others of his sort, e.g., other literati with Buddhist sympaties such as Chang Shang- ying- harbored something approaching belief in "real presence. "It may be recalled that the philosophies of Aristotle and Aquinas, sources of the doctrine of transubstantiation, were able to provide a conceptual framework wherein an otherwise opaque assertion ¢w viz., the claim that the bread and wine are actually the body and blood of Christ ¢w could be made intelligible. Similarly, Buddhist thought, for example the "three truths" (¤T¿Í) doctrine of T'ien-t'ai, was quite up to the task of explaining how a five-peaked mountain could also be the five-lobed crown of Manjusr, how clouds of incense could also form the transfigured body of Manjusr, how the glint of the setting sun on mountain slopes could be Manjusr's aura, and how all these things could be true while mountains, clouds, and sunlight never cease to be mountains, clouds, and sunlight. It is hardly improbable that Chu Pien, the student of Ch'ao Yueh-chih, could have seen Wu-t'ai Shan and its miraculous apparitions as "provisionally real" °², i.e., as having ordinary transactional ontological status; that he could also have seen these same things as "empty" ªÅ, i.e., as devoid of determinate ontological status; and that finally he could have understood their ultimate reality to consist in their being poised or exquisitely balanced in the "middle truth" (one might even say the "liminal condition") by which they both are and are not "real. "By such criteria, a manifestation of Manjusr may be held to be "truly empty" (¯uªÅ) , like a phantasm or a mirage or a trick of vision (but then Buddhism holds all things to be "like a mirage or a trick of vision"). 102 Yet, by the very same criteria, such a manifestation may be judged also to be "marvelously actual" (§®¦³), that is, genuinely occurring and efficacious. And, of course, in the final analysis it must be recognized as neither one nor the other, nor both, nor neither.

One may be disinclined to delve into such doctrinal depths; historians and other social scientists, not to mention "post-modern theorists," often are. P 537

Nevertheless, it would be quite arbitrary simply to discount the basic categories of Buddhist thought with which Chu Pien was surely familiar and which we have every reason to believe he may even have accepted. But it is only by means of such arbitrariness, a pose all too often struck by contemporary scholars, that one could read his consistently and subtly ambiguous references to miraculous events on Wu-t'ai as mere irony, as only a skillful literary slight-of-hand intended thinly to mask condescension and incredulity.

These same attitudes, I would suggest, gently inform Chu Pien' s other written recollections of the Five Terraces, recorded either during his exile or shortly after his return, in his Chu-wei chiu-wen üÌ In a cursory scan of that famous collection of anecdotes I have found four brief recollections of curious Wu-t'ai places and events. These sketches carry no burden of weighty significance; they are essentially light pieces, charming tales meant more to tweak the imagination than to stimulate the intellect. Nevertheless, as playful as they may be in tone, they are not entirely without serious intent. They are best read, I think, as expressions of mild amazement, or as reminders that the world is a more magical place than is ordinarily assumed.103

¥N¦{¤­»O¤s¤Ó¥­¿³°ê¦xªÌ, ª½ª÷­è¸g¸]¤§¤W, ¤D¥j¥Õªê ±g¤§¿ò§}¤]¡C¬Û¶Ç¤ª, ©õ¦³¹¬»w¸g±g¤¤, ±w©ó¥F¤ô¡C¾A¦³ªê ¶], ¨¬´é¬u³¾ë}ªm®}²M¡BѺ°uµLºÜ, ¦]¸¹ªê¶]¬u¡C¦Ó±g¥H¦¹ ±o¦W¡C

On Wu-t'ai Shan in Tai-chou, just above the Diam ond Sutra Cave at the T'ai-p'ing Hsing-kuo temple, lie the ruins of the old White Tiger Hermitage. Legend has it that a monk who chanted sciptures there once fell prey to thirst. Just then a tiger bounded by, and where it stepped a spring bubbled up. Its waters gushed loudly from the ground and gradually formed a clear pool that could never be ladled dry. Thus did it come to be called "Tiger-run Spring," and this is how the hermitage came to be named.

¥N¦{²M²D¤s²M²D¦x, ©l¨£©ó¡mµØÄY¸g¡n»\¤å®í¤§¦a¤]¡C ¥h¦x¤@¨½¾l, ¦³¬uõ§¤@¡¼¬u¤@¡C¤@¡¼³\Ѻ¤§¤£ºÜ, ©Î¤[¤§¤£ Ѻ, Áö¬Õ¤£·¸¡C¨ä²z¤£¥i¸Ñ, ¥ç¤@²§¤]¡C²M²D¤s¼Æ¥X¥ú´º , ¤£¥i³Ó¬ö¡C¥Ò±G¦~þ¤ë¤K¤é, ©]²{¥Õ¶ê¥ú³q¤i¤£´²¡C¤H©¹¨Ó Æ[

P 538

¤, ¦p¨­¦b¤ë¤¤¡C¤ñ¥L¤é©Ò¨£, ¤×¬°®í²§¡C The Ch'ing-liang temple, on Ch'ing-liang shan in Tai-chou, is the place where Manjustr manifests himself, as was first related in the Flower Garland Sutra Less than a mile away from the temple there is well called "One Bowl Spring. "It can't be ladled dry with a single bowl and yet, even when water isn't drawn from it for a while, though it stays full it never overflows. The principle of the thing is inexplicable and it is singularly strange. But then, Ch'ing-liang shan produces more marvels than can be reckoned. In the Chia-yen year (1134?), on the eighth day of the twelfth month, there appeared in the night sky an orb of white light, which lasted through the night without fading. People milled about looking at it, as though it were a man in the moon. On other days, however, nothing out of the ordinary was seen.

¯¦Å]ÄYÆF¸ñ¬Æ¦h¡C¹Á¦³­¸¥Û¤J´Z, «×¨ä¥Û¤§¤Ø¤o, «h¤j ©ó¤á¡C¤£ª¾±q¦ó¦Ó¤J¤]¡C¹¬¦³¤£³Q³P¸Æ¦ÓµnÅɪÌ, «h¥²¦³¥Û ¸¨¤¤¸ô, ©Î­¸¥Û¹L¦Õ¦p½bÁn, ¤H¬Ò®£©Æ¡C

The Mi-mo escarpment104 abounds in symptoms of holiness. Once a flying rock turned up inside a privy, but it was measurably larger than the privy's door and no one could figure out how it had gotten in. It always happens, whenever the monks shed their cassocks and climb the cliff, that rocks fall down into the road. Sometimes the rocks whistle by the ear like arrows, frightening everybody.

ªøªQ²£¤­»O¤sªv¤j­·¦³®í®Ä, ¥@¤H©Ò¤£ª¾¤]¡C ¤å®í«ü ¥H¥ÜÄ¡C¹¬¦p¨ä©Ò±Ð, ¨ä±w§Y·U¡C¦Û¦¹¦WµÛ©ó²M²D¶Ç, ¦Ó ¥»¯ó¥¼¤§¸ü¤]¡I

Nowadays people are unaware of the fact that the old pines that grow at Wu-t'ai Shan are very effective for curing serious illness. Manjusr revealed this by means of a leprous monk who recovered from his illness after following Manjusr's instructions. This incident is famous in the lore of Ch'ing-liang, yet it is unknown in pharmacology! P 539

I would suggest in conclusion that Chu Pien's account of add "Signs and Wonders on the Terraced Mountains" serves several purposes. It contributes further circumstantial detail to the picture of Wu-t'ai in the early Chin already sketched above from a variety of other souces. Thus portrayed, Wu-t'ai may be seen to have been, even during this relatively obscure and troubled period in its history, a center of continuing religious vitality. Furthermore, what Chu Pien tells us about Che Wen-yen, the military governor blest with visions, suggests that Wu-t'ai's persistent vitality was a function especially of local or regional patronage. The Five Terraces, in other words, may not have been forgotten in the larger national memory during these years when most Chinese could not visit them, but it is also true that they were the focus of special devotion among those who lived in their immediate vicinity and that such regional devotion carried with it an effective sturcture of reciprocal institutional support. Local authorities gave the place their protection and their donations, maintaining its clergy and preserving its famous temples and other grand edifices; in return they received spiritual benefits that they were eager, in their gratitude, to celebrate publicly.

However, apart from what Chu Pien's essay tells us about Wu-t'ai in the mid-twelfth century, it also tells us much, if we read it carefully, about Chu Pien himself, about the attitudes of men like him toward Buddhism, and about the demands Buddhism can make on the faith of intellectuals. In his canny comments on uncanny events Chu Pien demonstrates a strategy, deeply informed by Buddhist doctrine, whereby a sophisticated intellectual may credit ¢w may in fact find considerable value in ¢w religious experiences and modes of piety not commonly associated with the intelligentsia. In more specifically historical terms, he shows himself to be the exponent of a Sung worldview too often overlooked in the standard intellectual histories of China. He is, after all, a literatus, a Chinese patriot, and a loyal Confucian official. But he is also a kind of Buddhist, a man for whom Buddhist principles are fundamental to the Tao and whose confidence in an essentially compassionate order of things is strengthened rather than threatened by reports of Manjusr's miraculous appearances.

This work is preserved as one of the appendices to the Hsu ch'ing-liang chuan ¡mÄò²M²D¶Ç¡n (Further Record of the Pure and Cold Mountains [i.e., Wu-t'ai Shan]), the body of which is attributed to Chang Shang-ying ±i°Ó­^ (1043-1122). Chang Shang-ying's work, in turn, is the third in what is usually regarded as a trilogy of Wu-t'ai lore. The other two works in the trilogy are the Ku ch'ing-liang chuan ¡m¥j²M²D¶Ç¡n (Old Records of Ch'ing-liang,) compiled by the T'ang monk Hui-hsiang ¼z²» (d.u.) and the Kuang ch'ing-liang chuan ¡m¼s ²M²D¶Ç¡n (Expanded Records of Ch'ing-liang), compiled by Sung the monk Yen-i ©µ¤@ (d.u.). Yen-i's work is safely datable to the year 1060, although (as noted above) some supplements to it were added in the mid-twelfth century by the monk Ming-ch'ung ©ú±R. However, the precise date of Hui-hsiang's work is unclear. It is often given in modern reference works as ca.660, yet the work as we have it now must have been written sometime after 679, for that date (the first year of the Tiao-lu ½Õ ¸ô era) is mentioned in the text itself (T2096: 51. 1100a8). Recently, Yoshizu Yoshihide ¦N¬z©y­^ has argued that the Ku ch'ing-liang chuan contains material taken from Fa-tsang's ªkÂà (643-712) Hua-yen ching ch'uan-ch i ¡mµØÄY¸g¶Ç¡n (T2073: 51. 153a-173a).105 If Yoshizu is correct about this, and if he is also correct in dating the Fa-tsang work to sometime between 692 and 696, then we would be compelled to take those years as the terminus a quo of Hui-hsiang's work. However, although I find Yoshizu's dating of Fa-tsang's Hua-yen ching chuan-chi quite plausible, I do not believe he has demonstrated that Hui-hsiang drew on Fa-tsang's work. He has shown at most that there may have been a direct connection between the two works, not that there must have been a connection. And even if the two works were related to one another, as is likely, Yoshizu gives no convincing reason why their relation could not have been such that Fa-tsang drew on Hui-hsiang.

On the following page there is an edited version of the text based chiefly on its earliest surviving redaction, viz., that found in Juan Yuan's ¨¿¤¸ (1764-1849) Wan-wei pieh-ts ang ¡m©{©e§OÂán, in the 1937 (Shanghai: Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan °Ó°È¦L®ÑÀ]) photo-reprint of Juan's collection, Chu Pien's essay appears in chuan ¨÷ P 541

2, pp.10b-12a, ts'e ¥U 150, han ¨ç 14. In the same publisher's 1981 Taiwan reprint of the 1937 edition ( an inferior photo-copy, often hard to read ), it appears in volume 90, pp.265-267. This Wan-wei pieh- tsang edition is a reprint of a Ming edition (dated 1462) that had found its way into Juan Yuan's possession.

I have also compared the Wan-wei pieh-tsang version of the T'ai-shan jui-ying chi, indeed its version of the whole Wu-t'ai trilogy, with those available in two of the modern editions of the Chinese Buddhist canon:

1. The Dainihon zokuzokyo ¡m¤j¤é¥»ÄòÂøg¡n abbreviation: ZZûb:

a) either the original edition printed in Kyoto beween 1905 and 1912 by Zokozoyo shoinÄòÂøg®Ñ°|, in traditional stitched and boxed format, wherein Chu Pien's piece appears in Part IIB (¤G¤A), case 23, fascicle 2;

b) or the Taipei reprint of the original, in 150 bound volumes¢w entitled ¡mÉÃÄòÂøg¡n (Wan Hsu-tsang-ching abbreviation: HTC)¢wpublished first by¤¤°ê¦ò±Ð·|¼v¦LÉÃÄòÂøg·| and later by Hsin-wen-feng ch'u-pan-she ·s¤åÂ×¥Xª©ªÀ ¢wwherein Chu Pien's essay appears in Volume 150, pp.505a-506a;

c) or the new "Shinsan zokuzokyo" ¡m·sÄ¡ÄòÂán, [abbreviation: SSZZ] published in Tokyo, between 1973 and 1989, by Kokusho kangyokai °ê®Ñ¥Z¦æ·|, in 90 bound volumes. Therein Chu Pien's essay appears as No.1664, in Volume 88 (and is thus to be cited as: SSZZ1664: 88.549a-c). This new edition has recently (1991-1993) been reprinted in Taipei, in the identical 90 volume format, by Pai-ma ching-she yin-ching-hui ¥Õ°¨ºëªÙ¦L¸g·|.

2. The Taisho shinshu daizokyo ¡m¤j¥¿·s­×¤jÂøg¡n [Abbreviation: T] (Tokyo: Daizo shuppansha¤jÂÃ¥Xª©ªÀ, 1924-1932), which has also been reprinted twice in Taipei¢wonce by Hsin-wen feng; more recently by Pai-ma ching-she. In the Taisho canon Chu Pien's text appears as no.2100 in Volume 51, p.1133a-b (and is thus cited as T2100: 51.1133a-b).

These two Tripitaka versions are identical, except in punctuation (which is in both cases unreliable), and both are based on a separately published Ch'ing P 542

edition, dated 1884. The Ch'ing edition itself seems no longer to be available, at least not outside of mainland China, but it was apparently based on yet another Ming edition, which was dated 1396 and was thus earlier than the one Juan Yuan had acquired.

There is also a new critical edition of the entire Wu-t'ai trilogy¢wChen Yangjiong³¯´­¬³and Feng Qiaoying¶¾¥©­^, editors and annotators, Gu chingliang zhuan, Guang chingligliang zhuan, Xu chingliang zhuan (Taiyuan ¤Ó­ì: Shanxi renmin chubanshe ¤s¦è¤H¥Á¥Xª©ªÀ, 1989), in which the Tai-shan jui-ying chi may be found on pp.130-131. This version is based on the 1884 Ch'ing edition, which the editors say they have compared with the Wan-wei pieh-tsang edition.

Still another version of the work exists, under the fuller title Wu-t'ai-shan jui-ying chi, in Chang Chin-wu ±iª÷§^(1787-1829), Chin-wen-tsui ¡mª÷¤å³Ì¡n, chuan 65 (ca.1822; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju¤¤µØ®Ñ§½, 1990), Vol, 1, pp.302-303. The text of this version is identical in every respect to that found in the Hsu ching-liang chua n (indeed, that is the very work that Chang Chin-wu cites as his source). However, in this version the work is attributed to someone named Wen-ch'ung¤åÏÏ, also known as Sung-ch'i Lao-jen ªQ·Ë¦Ñ¤H(The Old Man of Piney Creek). However, this attribution is simply a careless error on Chang Chin-wu's part. Sung-ch'i Lao-jen or Wen-ch'ung is the Ming dynasty author of a postface («á§Ç) to the Wu-t'ai Trilogy. This postface immediately follows Chu Pien's essay in all editions of the Trilogy and Wen-ch'ung's name is at the head of it. Apparently, Chang misunderstood it as a name attached to the preceding work. Either that, or he simply could not bring himself to believe, or to admit, that a great uncle of Chu Hsi could have written such a piece.

[For a sketch of the textual history of the Hsu ching-liang chuan, see Robert M.Gimello, "Chang Shang-ying on Wu-t'ai-shan," in Susan Naquin and Chun-fang Yu, eds., Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China, Studies on China 15 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), pp.126-127, note 16.]

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Such compassion do the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and great Arhats feel for sentient beings that they regularly produce brilliant spectacles,108 overawing believers and unbelievers alike so as to instruct the deluded and awaken their faith.109 In general, it is mountainous regions and sites of scenic grandeur that are the phenomenal realms of their manifestation,110accessible to those with feet and visible to those with eyes. Thus it is that illustrated books kept in the emperor's august quarters commonly depict such vistas as covered in compassion propagating clouds, as illumined by the wisdom radiating sun, and as drenched by downpours of the Dharma bearing rain111¢w all so that the sovereign will not forget the gravity of his imperial charge. So too with the ecclesiastical officials of Wu-t'ai, T'ien-t'ai and the nearby provinces and districts who are charged with the edification of the faithful; the splendid palaces and halls of those mountains ¢w spired with whorls of jewel-like wheels112and housing majestic spirits ¢w cannot but move them to similar feelings of awesome responsibility.

Not long after Lord Che Yen-wen113 had assumed the post of Governor114 of Yen-men,115 the locals 116took up arms in the valleys thereabouts. "Donning brocade and grasping the battle-axe,"117 he tracked them down and apprehended them in the vicinity of Wu-t'ai. Then, together with the local magistrates, he burnt incense and performed ceremonies of worship before the lion-throne.118 When the five-scented smoke from the conflagration had filled the sky high overhead its appearance suddenly changed, drawing the unblinking stares of people on all sides.

Here, in random order,119 are the particular things that were seen:There were seven sightings of five-hued clouds, six of white clouds, one of a black cloud, three of golden bridges, and five of orbs of light.120 Of the five-hued clouds, some were crowned by white clouds harboring grottoes, other were like orbs of radiance, some were like five-colored sun-haloes in five or six layers, others like towering monoliths of azure and black, some like sprays of fairy blossoms, and yet others like ethereal flowers above which hovered images of Bodhisattvas.121 P 545

In the white clouds were the majestic122 features of Bodhisattvas; or turbulences like the one on which Manjusr rides; or heavenly bridges of the sort over which dragons fly; or transverse shafts of blended blue, red, yellow, and green light; or stones of jade in the shape of a Buddha's crown. The black cloud contained a solitary lion.123 As for the golden bridges, there was one resembling the leviathan that bears the sky on its back; another like a segment of rainbow; and yet another in overlapping layers like fish scales. The orbs of light resembled either jade-linked diadems or golden nets so bright as to dazzle human eyes.

Once the Governor had described this incident he said to me, "Although I and a number of others were able to see these things, yet ¢w as it was something quite anomalous beyond the power of mere functionaries to relate124 ¢w I cannot recount what I have seen. I would ask, then, that you make a record of it for me. "

"Manjusr abides in these moutains," I replied. "He manifests such saving devices125 to captivate the deluded masses. There is surely a particular reason why the Governor has had such a revelation! Long ago, when the World-honored one was residing in Sravast, he radiated a aura from his body. Golden in color, this radiance circled the Jeta Grove seven times and then shone on the dwelling of the Sudatta126which, like a small cloud, also took on a golden hue. That the illumination from this light shone first on the house of Sudatta, a great benefactor of the Buddha ¢w was this not a matter of overawing believers and unbelievers alike so as to instruct the deluded and arouse their faith? 127 Ming-ch'ung, the Head Monk of the mountains,128 has said, "My Lord's family has revered the Buddha for ages, since the days of his forebears of the fourth and third generations prior to his own,129 and it has been especially generous in its patronage of these peaks. "How then could one not conclude that Manjusr's manifestation to you now is like the Buddha's manifestation to Sudatta?"130

"I have heard that during the Yuan-yu era (1086-93) Layman Wu-chin (i.e., Ching Shang-ying) traversed these mountains and wrote his Ching-liang chuan (Account of the Clear and Cold Mountains)131 to record every one of the marvels and wonders he had personally witnessed here. To enjoy such mystical transports132 is taken by some as a sickness, but I say that Wu-chin spent his whole life spreading the compassion of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to succor P 546

the world and save its creatures. His account of Ch'ing-liang, promulgated to the multitudes that it might thus edify the unenlightened, would have been to no avail had it been written by anyone other than he,133for as a leader of his day he was revered by the populace at large, and as a lay protector134 of the Dharma, he had also the trust of the clergy. If the Governor has managed, in the spirit of Wu-chin,135 to keep himself above the world' s fray136so as to proclaim the significance of Manjusr's manifestation,137 then it is fitting that I should have the pleasure to write of it."138

Although at first I was not certain that I wished to record this matter for the Governor,139the various officers of the expedition pleaded the Governor's case so earnestly that I could not refuse. Moreover, Ming-ch'ung, the Head Monk who had come forward earlier, said to me, "At the time in question I was present at the temple, along with Reverend Ch'ing-hui, the Prefect of Clerics,140 and Che K'o-chih,141 the Superintendent of Lin and Fu Prefectures. We all saw just what the Governor saw. This is no sham."

And so it is that I have written ¢w on the hsin-ssu day of the sixth month, in the hsin-yu year of the Huang-t'ung era.142

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Chu Pien, whose cognomen was Shao-chang, was a man of Wu-yuan in Hui-chou.144 A child prodigy, he read books at the rate of several thousands of words a day. As soon as he was capped he entered the Imperial Academy. There Ch'ao Yueh-chih145 took note of his poetry and, finding it extraordinary, brought him back to his home in Hsin-cheng146 where he gave him his niece in marriage. Hsin-cheng lies between Pien and Lo and is an area where the customs of many old families have been preserved. As Pien wandered thereabouts, his first-hand knowledge of those traditions increased daily.147 In the troubles of Ching-k'ang148family was wiped out149 by the Chin brigands and Pien took refuge in the South.

At the outset of the Chien-yen era,150 when a legation was appointed to sue for the safety of the two royal personages,151 Pien was keen to volunteer. Commissioned with the rank of Officer of the Ministry of Defense, 152 he was seconded to the Chi-chou153 Militia Command as an Assistant Envoy. 154 When he reached Yun-chung155 he presented himself to Nien-han156 and made very earnest entreaties, but Nien-han would not listen and had him confined to quarters P 549

under military guard. Pien then sent letters in which he thoroughtly explained the harm of war and the benefits of peace negotiations.

In the second year of Shao-hsing (1132), Yu-wen Hsu-chung157 arrived, having been perempotorily sent by the Chin.158 He said that peace negotations might be concluded and that one man should be sent to the Sung Military Headquarters to bring back a letter of reply. Hsu-chung wanted Pien and Chief Ambassador Wang Lun to draw straws to decide which of them was to go and which to stay. Pien said,

When I came I was sure that it was my lot to die here. How could I now covet the good fortune of being the first to return!Let the Chief Ambassador take the letter and report back to the Son of Heaven. If the welfare of both nations were to be achieved and if it should soon be reported that the whole world was restored to the care of my two sovereigns,159 then though my bones should bleach in this foreign country yet it would be as though I had been newly reborn.

When Lun was about to depart for home Pien made a request of him, saying,

Emissaries of old had tallies as their bona fides. Now we have seals rather than tallies, and our seals are our tokens of good faith. Please leave your seal with me. I shall guard it to the grave and beyond,160

Lun turned the seal over to Pien and Pien cherished it, keeping it with him at all times.

When the Chin pressed Pien to serve Liu Yu,161 inveigling him by saying that "this would be a step toward your return home," he said,

Yu is a usurper. I would never so much as eat his meat; as for playing 'minister' to his 'emperor,' I would rather die 162

This angered the Chin and they cut off his provisions in order to pressure him, but Pien firmly rejected their importunities and, prepared to starve to death, P 550

vowed never to submit. In the end the Chin were moved to relent and to extend again the courtesy they had previously shown him.163

After a time they tried once more to get him to defect, but Pien said,

For ages it has been recognized that 'in the midst of hostilities an emissary has free passage,'164 If you admit that this is a principle you can follow, then follow it; if you cannot follow it, then imprison the emissary or kill him. What need is there for defection?I received my office from my own ruling house, and there is no alternative to it but death.165I swear I will 'not disgrace my sovereign'166by defecting.

He then wrote to Yeh-lu Shao-wen167 and his associates saying,

If a sovereign were to receive the august mandate in the morning, then that evening his minister could die content; if he were to receive it at night then the minister could die content the next morning.168

He also wrote a testament169 to the Sequent Ambassador Hung Hao,170 in which he said,

The murder of an envoy is no trifling matter, but if this is what is destined for me then I would give my life to preserve my righteousness intact. "

I have already obtained a plot of ground at a nearby temple. If I should happen to die in the service of my country, would you gentlemen kindly bury me there. And for an epitaph write, 'Here lies Mr.Chu, Assistant Ambassador of the Sung'.

They all cried and averted their gaze. But Pien' s conversation then turned P 551

jovial, as before, and he said,

This is just standard behavior for a minister; why are you gentlemen so sad?

At that, the Chin realized that he would never submit, and they did not press him again.

When Wang Lun returned to the Sung court he told of Pien's staunch loyalty. The emperor gave Pien's son, Lin, an official appointment and endowed the family with silver and silk.171

Witnessing the deaths, one after the other, of Nien-han and other Chin leaders,172 Pien secretly recorded these and other matters pertaining to the strengths and weaknesses of the Chin, saying "These are opportunities not to be lost. "On several occasions he sent Li Fa173 or others back to the Sung court with his reports.

Later, when Wang Lun again returned to the Sung, he presented the Emperor with Chu Pien's account of Hui-tsung's death, along with a valediction174 in which he said,

Alas, the horses have not grown horns;175 my soul will dissipate in a snowy crypt. I seized the dragon's beard but could not hold on;176my tears were strewn across the frozen sky.

When Emperor Kao-tsung read this he was moved to weep, gave official appointments to five members of Chu Pien's family, and bestowed on him five ching177of land in Wu-hsing.178The Emperor also told the Prime Minister, Chang Chun,179 that "the very day Chu Pien returns he is to be brought to the imperial compound. "In the eighth year of Shao-hsing (1138), when the Chin envoys Wu-ling Ssu-mou180and Shih Ch'ing-ch'ung181arrived at the Sung court, they praised Pien's loyalty and the Emperor decreed that he should receive a supplementary stipend of thirty taels of gold.

In the thirteenth year of Shao-hsing (1143), when peace was concluded between the Sung and the Chin, Pien returned home. He presented himself at the P 552

temporary palace, professed his gratitude, and said,

What is difficult for men to obtain is 'timeliness, 'and the rounds of time are beyond one's own control. Matters not to be lost are 'opportunities,' and the store of opportunities is indeterminate. As timeliness is beyond one's own control, it is slow to come and difficult to meet. As the store of opportunities is indeterminate, its movement is subtle and hard to discern. Your Majesty and the Chin have negotiated a peace. That you have thus brought back the body of the previous emperor,182 welcomed home your royal mother, 183and shown pity for your innocent subjects ¢w all this is clear proof that you understand the principles of 'timeliness' and 'opportunity. 'However, time flows on, and sometimes the moment is difficult to hold. Opportunities shift and change, and it behooves you to anticipate possible disaster.184A treaty is acceptable, and yet one should be wary of treacherous intention; hostilities may cease, but one should vigilant against complacency.185 The men of Chin regard incessant war as the highest of virtues and for them peace is but a deceptive lull in hostilities. To abuse the people rather than pity them and to expand their territory rather than enlarge their virtue ¢w these they take to be their divinely ordained prerogatives.186 As to 'timeliness' and 'opportunity, 'Your Majesty already understands their beginnings; I only ask that you plan for their consequences.

Accepting his remarks, the Emperor endowed him amply with gold and silk. In return Pien presented to the emperor six royal portraits and a painting done by Hui-tsung toward the end of his reign,187all of which he had obtained in Chin.188Ch'in Kuei189disapproved of Pien's assessment of the enemy and petitioned to have his prior appointment changed to that of Court Gentleman for Instruction and Auxiliary in the Imperial Archives.190 Although he had seventeen years of official service and deserved promotion through several ranks, yet Ch'in Kuei blocked his career and allowed him to advance no further than the rank of Court Gentleman Consultant. 191He died in the fourteenth year of Shao-hsing (1144).192

As he was an admirer of the prose of Lu Hsuan-kung,193 Pien's compositions were broad and astute in their erudition, factually meticulous and precise in argument. Althought he studied the poetry of Li I-shan,194 his own verse was unaffected in diction and free of Li's bizarre or forced usages. 195 Many of the famous princes and nobles of the Chin sent their youngsters to study with him, and Pien always took such literary exchanges as opportunities to discuss the advantages of peace. When he returned to the Sung he related the martyrdoms of loyal ministers and upright officials of whom he had learned while he was in the North ¢w Chu Chao,196 Shih K'ang,197 Chang Chung-fu,198 Kao Ching-p'ing,199 Sun I and Sun Ku, 200 Fu Wei-wen,201 Li Chou, 202 the monk Pao-chen of Wu-t'ai,203Madam Ting,204 Madam Yen,205 Lieutenants Yen Chin and Chu Chi,206 and others ¢w and he pleaded the case that pensions should be awarded to their descendants. Among his writings 207 are: the P'ing-yu chi (Diplomatic Journeys) in forty-two fascicles,208 the Shu-chieh (Explanations of the Book of Documents?) in ten fascicles, 209 the Chu-wei chiu-wen chi (Lore of Ch'u-wei) in three fascicles, 210 the Hsu wei-pi-shuo (Continued 'Stray Conversations') in one fascicle,211a Tsa-shu (Miscellaneous Writings) in one fascicle,212 the Feng-yueh-tang shih-hua (Discussions of Poetry in the 'Hall of the Zephyr Moon') in three fascicles,213 the Hsin-cheng chiu-shih (Old Style Poems From Hsin-cheng) in one fascicle,214 and the Nan-kuei shih-wen (Poems and Prose Written While Returning to the South) in one fascicle. 215

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10 Shi Jinbo, Xixia fojiao shilue, 126-134, et passim

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17 Wittfogle and Feng, p.294.

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64 "Lin-chiu feng" ÆFøl®p is the name of a hill located in the central valley of the Wu-t'ai complex, in the village of T'ai-huai. The temple on its summit is most commonly known today as P'u-sa ting (Bodhisattva's Crown) but it was once known as Chen-jung tine ¯u®e·µ (Hall of the True Countenance of Manjusr) or Ta wen-shu ssu ¤j¤å®í¦x (The Great Temple of Manjusr); this was the site of Chang Shang- ying's first vision of Manjusr in 1088 (which he described in terms very much like those used here to portary Su-t'o-shih-li's visions). In more recent times a climb up the one hundred and eight steps leading to the top of this hill, and a visit to the Ch'ing Lamaist temple on top, has been regarded as one of the highlights of any Wu-t'ai pilgrimage. The name "Ling-chiu-feng" is borrowed from that of the Grdhraku ta (Vulture's Peak), the hill outside of Rajagrha where Sakyamuni gave many of his discourses.

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69 See Li Hongru §õ§»¦p, Wutaishan fojiao üÎ Fanzhi pian ¡m ¤­¥x¤s¦ò±Ð¡JÁc«Ï½g¡n (Taiyuan: Shanxi gaoxiao lianhe chubanshe ¤s¦è°ª®ÕÁp¦X¥Xª©ªÀ, 1992), pp. 119-125. This whole book, it should be noted, is one of the most valuable pieces of recent Wu-t'ai scholarship.

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80 On Sun Fu, see Wm.Theodore de Bary, "A Reappraisal of Neo-Confucianism," in Arthur F.Wright, ed., Studies in Chinese Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), pp.81-111; also Michael Freeman's short biography of him in Franke, Sung Biographies Vol.3, pp.973-975. As regards Chiang Ch'ien himself, I have found no other references to him.

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155 See the remarks on Yun-chung ¶³¤¤ (Ta-t'ung ¤j¦P) in note no.113.

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159 Chu Pien here seems to support a policy of peaceful accommodation with the Chin, but only on the condition that Sung primacy be recognized. Later, after his return to the Sung, his loyalty to the Sung would take the dangerous form of outspoken opposition to Ch'in Kuei's policies of appeasement. See, below, his formal address to Emperor Kao-tsung. The "two sovereigns" in question are, of course, Hui-tsung À²©v and Ch'in-tsung ´Ü©v.

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169 It is likely that his decision to pen his "dying words" (³Z)was intended as a public declaration of the strength of his resolve, i.e., his readiness to die rather than defect.

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187 "Hsuan-ho yu shu" «Å©M±s®Ñ; literally, "royally painted during Hsuan-ho" ¢w "Hsuan-ho" being the last of Hui-tsung's reign periods, lasting from 1119 to 1125.

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197 Shih K'ang ¥v§Ü (variant: Shih Wan ¥vª± ) was a military officer stationed in Tai-chou ¥N¦{, near Wu-t'ai Shan, who was captured and killed by the Chin late in the Hsuan-ho «Å©M period, i.e., circa 1125. His biography may also be found in Sung-shih §º¥v 446.