Nomads on Pilgrimage: Mongols on Wutaishan (China), 1800-1940 9004297782, 9789004297784

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Nomads on Pilgrimage

Brill’s Inner Asian Library Edited by Michael R. Drompp Devin DeWeese Mark C. Elliott

VOLUME 33

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bial

Nomads on Pilgrimage Mongols on Wutaishan (China), 1800–1940 By

Isabelle Charleux

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Charleux, Isabelle. Nomads on pilgrimage : Mongols on Wutaishan (China), 1800-1940 / by Isabelle Charleux. pages cm. -- (Brill’s Inner Asian library, 1566-7162 ; volume 33) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-29601-5 (hardback : acid-free paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-29778-4 (e-book) 1. Mongols-China--Wutai Mountains--History. 2. Mongols--China--Wutai Mountains--Social life and customs. 3. Pilgrims and pilgrimages--China--Wutai Mountains--History. 4. Wutai Mountains (China)--History. 5. Wutai Mountains (China)--Religious life and customs. 6. Wutai Mountains (China)--Ethnic relations. 7. Mongols--Antiquities. 8. Inscriptions, Mongolian--China--Wutai Mountains. 9. Nationalism--China-History. 10. Anti-clericalism--China--History. I. Title. DS793.W8222C47 2015 305.894’2305117--dc23 2015012315

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1566-7162 isbn 978-90-04-29601-5 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-29778-4 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

I dedicate this book to my family, who helped me at every stage of its realization, from its incubation to its incarnation.

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Contents

Acknowledgements xi List of Tables, Maps and Figures xiv Note on Transcriptions and Other Conventions xvii Correct Tibetan Spellings xviii

Introduction 1

Focus of the Book 3 The Sources to Study Mongols’ Pilgrimages 6 Questions of Vocabulary 19 1 The Pilgrimage Sites of the Mongols: An Overview 28 Sacred Mountains—The Tibetan Buddhist and Chinese Buddhist  Cosmology 28 Buddhist Pilgrimages Abroad 30 Pilgrimages to Reincarnations and Saints in Mongolia 40 Pilgrimages to Buddhist Monasteries 48 Pilgrimages to Mountains and Natural Numinous Sites of Mongolia 53 Conclusion 60

2 The Invention of Wutaishan 62 Earthly Wutaishan 63 Otherworldly Wutaishan 83 Historical Wutaishan 90 Conclusion 103

3 Political and Clerical Promotion of Wutaishan in the Qing and Republican Periods 105

How the Manchu Emperors Reshaped Wutaishan 105 The Manchu Emperors’ Promotion of Wutaishan 115 The Wutaishan Clergies and Their Role in the Promotion of the Pilgrimage 126 The Development of Syncretic Schools in the Late Qing and Republican  Periods 135 The High-ranking Lamas Who Contributed to Empowering Wutaishan 145 Conclusion 155

4 The Mongol Imaginaire of Wutaishan 157

Wutaishan and the Cult of Mañjuśrī in Mongolia before the Qing Period 157

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Contents

The Production of Mongolian Guidebooks and Maps 162 Mongol Buddhist Imaginaire of Wutaishan 177 Mongols’ Knowledge of the Ancient Chinese History of Wutaishan 187 Mongol Popular Imaginaire of Wutaishan 191 The Cult of Wutaishan: A Late Phenomenon? 201

5 The Mongol Pilgrims: Sociological and Economic Aspects 205 A Major Source on the Pilgrimage: The Stone Inscriptions 207 Who were the Mongol Pilgrims? 210 The Pilgrimage to Wutaishan: A Refuge from Conflicts and Economic  Stagnation? 222 The Contribution of Mongol Herders to the Wutaishan Economy 226 Mongol Trade on Wutaishan 234 The Expectations of Mongol Pilgrims 237 Mongol Burial on Wutaishan 245 The Pilgrims’ Journey 255 Conclusion: Typology of Pilgrims 275

6 The Mongols on Wutaishan: Interactions and Encounters 277

Accommodation and Reception of Pilgrims 277 Great Moments of Communitas: The Festivals of Wutaishan 282 Mongol Pilgrims’ Ritual Practices and Offerings at Monasteries 289 The Circuits of the Mongol Pilgrims 306 When Pilgrims Go Shopping 318 Wutaishan: A Main Place of Contact between Chinese, Mongol and Tibetan  Cultures 328

7 Mongolized Wutaishan and Mongol Wutaishans: Appropriation and Substitution 338 Absorbing the Mountain’s Power 339 The Caves of Wutaishan 349 Mongol Pilgrimages Related to the Wutaishan Pilgrimage 369 Conclusion: The Mongols’ Appropriation of Wutaishan 377

Conclusion 379

Wutaishan’s Legacy in Mongolia 382 Rupture and Revival 383 The Return of the Pilgrims 386

Contents

Appendices 393

Appendix 1: Main Monasteries of Wutaishan, Early Twentieth Century 395 Appendix 2: A Study of the Mongolian Stone Inscriptions of Wutaishan 405 Appendix 3: Khorchin Song “Utai-yin jam” 419

Bibliography 425 Index 462

ix

Acknowledgements The original idea for this project stems from the convergence of various research trails. My interest in pilgrimages arouse in the mid-1990s when I joined pilgrims on several sites of Inner Mongolia during fieldwork research on Buddhist monasteries. My studies on Sino-Mongol interactions in the field of material culture thus naturally led me to Wutaishan. I first visited Wutaishan in 1994, and, among the very few pilgrims I met, a couple of Mongols from Ulaanbaatar aroused my curiosity. During the same period, I was awakened to the importance of epigraphy for the social history of religion thanks to Kristopher Schipper and his research group “Peking as a Holy City” in Paris. In May 12-13, 2007, I participated in the Columbia University conference “Wutaishan and Qing Culture,” organized by Gray Tuttle and Johan Elverskog at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, on the occasion of the exhibition “Wutaishan: Pilgrimage to Five Peak Mountain,” held from May 10 to October 16, 2007. The majority of the contributions focused on Qing imperial patronage and on biographies and writings of Tibetan high clerics, while ordinary pilgrimages received scant attention. I started to work on this book project following the very stimulating remarks of the participants of the symposium, and I particularly thank Gray Tuttle and Susan Naquin, who encouraged me to work in this direction. My fieldwork visits in July 2007, October 2009, September 2010 and October 2012 had three main objectives: copying and taking pictures of the stone inscriptions; collecting written and oral material on the monasteries; and interviewing pilgrims and resident monks. My key informants were Inner Mongol and Eastern Tibetan lamas from Luohousi and Shifangtang (two main Gélukpa monasteries), lama-pilgrims from Amdo and lay pilgrims from Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. I followed several groups of devotees on their pilgrimages and recorded the acts and rituals they performed and the places they favored. Previous avatars of this work were presented at the Mongolia & Inner Asia Studies Unit (MIASU, Cambridge, UK, March 7, 2008), at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO, Paris, March 21, 2008), at the European Mongolists’ Conference (organized by the Embassy of Mongolia in Hungary and the Academy of Sciences, Budapest, November 24-25, 2008), and at two conferences held at the Centro Incontri Umani (Ascona, Switzerland) on “Pilgrimage and Sanctuaries: Ambiguity in Context” (November 12-14, 2010) and “Visual Art, Material Culture and Pilgrimage” (November 12-13, 2011). I am grateful to several organizations whose generous funding and institutional support at various stages during my research and writing have made this

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Acknowledgements

work possible. My research institute, Group Societies, Religions, Secularisms (GSRL, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique—École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris) supported my initial fieldwork in July 2007, as well as part of my 2010 and 2012 fieldwork. The ANR (National Research Agency) project on the study of the use of texts in imperial architecture of the Qianlong period (headed by Françoise Wang-Toutain, UMR [Joint Research Unit] 8155: Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l’Asie orientale) supported my 2009 and 2011 fieldwork and part of my 2010 fieldwork. I would especially like to thank the wonderful staff of the Institute for Chinese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who provided me with the best possible working conditions in which to start this research in 2007. I have become indebted to a number of libraries and their staff members, in Paris (INALCO, École Française d’Extrême-Orient, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, Musée du Quai Branly); in London (School of Oriental and African Studies), in Hong Kong (Chinese University of Hong Kong), in Inner Mongolia (Library of the Inner Mongolia Normal University, Archives of Inner Mongolia) and in Beijing (Beijing Library, Library of the Institute of Minorities). My work has benefited from the inspiration, collaboration and assistance generously offered to me by many people, ranging from friends and colleagues to anonymous pilgrims. Raoul Birnbaum shared with me ideas and souvenirs from 1986 to 1994, when Wutaishan was a very quiet and poor place and “monks were a mixture of saints and rascals, including a few criminals.” This book owes much to Chou Wen-shing, Vincent Goossaert and Françoise Wang-Toutain, who gave so much of their time and energy to help me. I am extremely grateful to Françoise Aubin, Katia Buffetrille, Ü. Hürelbaatar, Zsuzsa Majer, Krisztina Teleki and Uranchimeg Ujeed, who provided many insightful comments and suggestions as this book developed. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Erkhes Bayasgalan and Sayinzaya in Paris, and the monk Agwangsangjie of Luohou Monastery on Wutaishan, who helped me decipher the stone inscriptions and averted errors of interpretation; to Cao Xinyu, Elisabetta Chiodo, Olivér Kápolnás, Marie-Dominique Even, Gray Tuttle and Vladimir Uspensky, who brought new sources to my attention. I have also greatly benefited from the help of and interesting discussions with Elena Astafieva, Luboš Bělka, Anne-Marie Blondeau, Don Croner, Grégory Delaplace, Elvira Eevr Djaltchinova-Malets, Vincent Durand-Dastès, Caroline Gyss, Roberte Hamayon, Corneille Jest, Luo Wenhua, Pierre Palussière, Rodica Pop, Françoise Robin, Tadeusz Skorupski, Heather Stoddard, Simon Wickham-Smith and my colleagues of the GSRL. Thanks to their advice and assistance, many errors and inaccuracies have been avoided, but, needless to say, those that no doubt remain are my responsibility alone.

Acknowledgements

xiii

At Brill, I was fortunate to work with Patricia Radder and her excellent staff. I also wish to thank my copy-editor, Heddi Goodrich, and the anonymous readers of my manuscript for their careful and thoughtful comments, which greatly improved the quality and arguments of the book. I wish to sincerely thank all the monks and pilgrims who helped and accompanied me on the Wutaishan paths, especially Badraltsetseg, Borjigid, Tserendorji, Dalai, Geden, Gedünshirab, Gesang Dorji (Baatar), Gesangsangji Jamyangsambuu, Lubsangjamso, Lubsangsambuu, Ngawang Gedan, Shirabdorji and Tinley. It is my family who deserves the greatest thanks of all for their unwavering support, and especially my husband, who read and helped me improve the many drafts of the manuscript, participated in endless discussions and who is always in my heart.

List of Tables, Maps and Figures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 2

Tables Number and dates of imperial, Chinese non-imperial and Mongolian steles in thirteen monasteries 8 Number of worshippers who visited the Thirteenth Dalai Lama in Urga, Kumbum and Wutaishan 47 Foundation date of twenty-seven Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in activity during the Qing period 111 The five terraces, maṇḍala of Mañjuśrī 179 Number and date of inscriptions, and origin of donors per monastery 209 Number and date of the Mongolian stone inscriptions and their localization 223 Twelve Chinese Buddhist and Gélukpa monasteries that received more than five thousand silver dollars in donations in 1936 231 Ritual calendar (lunar months) of Xiantongsi and Pusading in 1940 290 The twenty-three polyglot steles of Mongol donors 410

Maps Map of the Qing empire focusing on its northern and western ‘dependencies,’ ca. 1820 31 Map of the main sites of pilgrimages cited in the text 42 General map of Wutaishan, distinguishing between the ‘Yellow’ and ‘Blue’ monasteries of the late Qing period 69 Map of the central part of Wutaishan 70 Map of the Taihuai monasteries 74 Map showing the geographical origin of Mongol pilgrims in the late Qing dynasty 221 Topographical map showing the northern part of Shanxi in 1820 272

Figures The ‘stele wall’ on the northern side of the Great White Stūpa, Tayuansi 11 Paper certificate of donation from Santasi, 1863 12

List of Tables, Maps and Figures 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

xv

“Panoramic Picture of the Sacred Realm of the Mountain of Five Terraces,” carved by the monk Lhunrub, 1846 16 Mongolian pilgrims in Urga 45 Gilubar Juu, Baarin Left Banner, Chifeng Municipality, Inner Mongolia 53 View of the Northern Terrace from the Central Terrace, and the Southern Terrace 66 General ancient view of the Great White Stūpa and its surroundings 72 General view of the Great White Stūpa and its surroundings 72 Statue of Mañjuśrī, Shuxiangsi and ‘White Mañjuśrī’ of Luohousi 79 Photograph of Mañjuśrī appearing among the clouds 89 Lama in Qing dynasty official dress 108 Pusading imperial monastery 108 Lamas in the 1930s 127 Amdo pilgrims worshipping the ruins of Puleyuan 147 Stūpa of Rölpé Dorjé in Zhenhaisi 149 Drawing of the map of Wutaishan painted on the second floor of the Assembly Hall (Tsogchin dugang) at Badgar Choiling Süme, between 1757 and 1835 172 Apparition of Tsongkhapa above the Eastern Terrace 173 Pusading 174 Painting of Wutaishan in the White Beryl 180 Divination chart (sipaho) topped by Mañjuśrī, painting on a wall at Zhenhaisi 193 Dragon King identified as a fierce emanation of Mañjuśrī, Guanyindong 196 Statue of Old Mañjuśrī in Puhuasi 197 Mongolian pilgrims 206 Trilingual stele TY7 (1887) in Tayuansi 233 Funerary stūpa of the First Chagan Diyanchi, Ruiyingsi, Fenglingu 250 Mongol laypersons’ tombs, cemetery on the way to Sanquansi 251 A lama student traveling from one monastery to another and a wandering lama 258 Equipment of the badarchi lama, and detail of the painting “One day in Mongolia” by B. Sharav, circa 1915 259 Pilgrim progressing in great prostrations from his home to Wutaishan 267 Traveling lama pilgrims 270 Yurt in front of the Scripture Hall of Tayuansi 279 Statue of Mañjuśrī or Maitreya carried in procession during the Great Sixth Month Festival 284 Procession, Great Sixth Month Festival 286 Procession, Great Sixth Month Festival 286 Pilgrims attending a ritual and being blessed by lamas, Luohousi 297

xvi 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

List Of Tables, Maps And Figures Stone reliefs of Mañjuśrī dug up near the source of the Sanquansi spring, Sanquansi 304 Mongols worshipping the Shuxiangsi statue 312 Sandalwood Buddha statue, Dailuoding 313 The ‘blooming lotus revealing the buddhas’ of Luohousi 315 Large appliqué of Tsongkhapa made to be offered to Shancaidong 321 Buddha Śākyamuni, statuette, cast bronze, gold leaf, 3.5 cm high, nineteenth century 323 Relief of the Buddha’s footprints on the base of the Great White Stūpa, Tayuansi 324 Woodblock print of Buddha’s footprints with pigment on cotton dated 16591658, bearing Chinese and Tibetan texts 326 Footprints of Mañjuśrī, Zaoyuchi 341 Footprints on the Northern Terrace 341 Pilgrim-monk from Labrang Monastery (Amdo) giving holy water to a pilgrim from Amdo, Puleyuan 345 Horses grazing of the slopes of the Northern Terrace 345 Five-color ‘prayer horse’ papers thrown from Fanxianshan 347 Shituolin, cave where a hermit is said to have meditated and died, located above Wenshusi 350 Avalokiteśvara Cave Monastery (Guanyindong) 351 Pilgrim being pushed into the narrow passage at Ekhe-yin Umai; naked Vajrayoginī above Zhenhaisi 354 A Mongol pilgrim pushes her husband inside the Mother’s Womb-Cave at Fomudong 355 Pilgrim walking in great prostrations to Ekhe-yin Umai 355 A Mongol pilgrim crawling into the womb-cave of Tövkhön Kheid, Bat Ölzii Sum, Övörkhangai Province, Mongolia 360 Luvsansharav, “Monastery in Utai” (Utai Uula-yin Kheid in Dornod Province) 371 Three examples of steles showing marks of veneration in Guanyindong and in Shifangtang 408 Examples of Type A, Yuanzhaosi and Luohousi 408

Note on Transcriptions and Other Conventions I used Christopher Atwood’s system (2002: xv-xviii) for phonetically rendering Mongolian terms and names in the text. When citing authors, book titles and quotations of texts in footnotes, appendices and bibliography, I used Antoine Mostaert’s system to transcribe the traditional Uyghur-Mongolian script, but I replaced ‘č’ and ‘ǰ’ with plain ‘c’ and ‘j’ and transliterated the vowels that can be pronounced as ‘o’ and ‘ö’ within non-initial syllables as ‘u’ and ‘ü’ (following Ferdinand Lessing’s dictionary, 1960). I added the Cyrillic (Cyr. Mo.) transcription for place names and personal names of the Republic of Mongolia, as well as for some Mongol names which may be familiar to the reader (such as Zanabazar): ‘j’ for ж, ‘z’ for з, ‘ts’ for ц, ‘ch’ for ч,” ‘sh’ for ш, ‘ye’ for е, ‘yo’ for ё, ‘i’ for й and ъ, ‘y’ for ы, ‘yu’ for ю, ‘ya’ for я. Tibetan words (Tib.) are phonetically transcribed according to the THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription of Standard Tibetan System; the reader will find pp. 462-466 the correct spelling according to Wylie’s system. Romanization of Chinese words (Ch.) follows the pinyin system, and characters are included the first time a Chinese term appears in the text. Mongol or Tibetan names appearing in Chinese transcription are transcribed with hyphens between syllables. Sanskrit terms follow the standard International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration. For some foreign words that have entered the English-language academic literature, I have departed from the transcription systems noted above and kept now familiar spellings, e.g., Panchen Lama, Dalai Lama, Tukwan (Thu’u-bkwan) and Kumbum. Likewise, I have spelled certain place names according to modern renderings; for example, Beijing (even when the capital city was renamed Beiping, from 1928 to 1949), Lhasa, Höhhot (for Khökhe Khota) and Urga— which is more familiar to Western readers than Yekhe Khüriye (modern Ulaanbaatar). When speaking of the pre-communist period, I use the term Chinese as denoting the Han ‘ethnicity.’ The term ‘Mongol’ here refers to the Mongolic peoples of Inner Mongolia (now in the People’s Republic of China), Mongolia proper before 1911, and Russia, and the term ‘Mongolia’ refers to the Mongol-inhabited historical and cultural areas. ‘Mongolian’ is here restricted to qualify the citizens of Mongolia proper after it gained its autonomy in 1911 and to the language; otherwise ‘Mongol’ is used. ‘Eastern Inner Mongolia’ designates the Jirim, Josotu and Juu Uda Leagues of Inner Mongolia, following the usage of the peoples there.

Correct Tibetan Spellings Alaksha Tutop Nyima Amdo Amnye Machen

A lag sha mThu stobs nyi ma A mdo A myes rma chen

badang bardo Butön Rinchen Drup

ba dang bar do Bu ston rin chen grub

cham Chang Gyeltsen Changkya chisa chöjé chöjel chöné Choné Trashi Chökhor Ling chöyön

’cham lCang [?] rgyal mtshan lCang skya spyi sa chos rje mchod mjal mchod gnas Co ne bkra shis chos ’khor gling mchod yon

da dakzhing Damchen Chökyi Gyelpo Damchen Dorjé Lekpa Dampa Künga Drak Déchok Dergé Détri Jamyang Tupten Nyima Deushen Dewachen Dézhin Shekpa Dhétsang Dilgo Khyentsé Döndrup Pelden dorampa lama Lozang Zangpo Dorjé gyel[tsen] Drakkar Treldzong Drakpa Özer Drépung Monastery

brda dag zhing Dam can chos kyi rgyal po Dam can rdo rje legs pa Dam pa kun dga’ grags bDe mchog sDe dge sDe khri ’Jam dbyangs thub bstan nyi ma rDe’u shan bDe ba can De bzhin gshegs pa Dhe tsang Dil mgo mkhyen brtse Don grub dpal ldan rdo rams pa lama bLo bzang bzang po rDo rje rgyal [mtshan] Brag dkar sprel rdzong Grags pa ’od zer ’Bras spungs

xix

Correct Tibetan Spellings Drigungtil drönnyer Drung Rinchen Tsön[drü] duk düzang Durtrö Chenpo Siljin

’Bri gung mthil mgron gnyer Drung rin chen brtson [’grus] gdugs dus bzang Dur khrod chen po bsil sbyin

Ganden (Namgyal Ling) Ganden Datsang Lhündrup Ling Ganden Podrang Ganden Shireetü Khutugtu Lozang  Tenpé Nyima gau Gélek Damchö gélong Gélukpa Gen(Gam)po Karpo Gendun Chopel géshé Golong Champa ling Gomang Gönpo Kyap gowé lha nga gyanakpa gyelkham dönmé nyülba gyeltsen gyépok

dGa’ ldan (rmam rgyal gling) dGa’ ldan da tshang lhun grub gling dGa’ ldan pho brang dGa’ ldan siregetü qutuγtu bLo bzang bstan  pa’i nyi ma ga’u dGe legs dam chos dge slong dGe lugs pa rGan(sGam) po skar po dGe ’dun chos ’phel dge bshes dGon lung byams pa gling sGo mang mGon po skyabs ’go ba’i lha lnga rgya nag pa rgyal khams don med nyul ba rgyal mtshan ’gyed phogs

Jamchen Chöjé Śākya Yéshé Jampel Nakpo Jamyang Jamyang Zhépa Jangchup Tsültrim Pelzangpo Jarung Khashor Jéba Jikmé Püntsok jinchen jinlap Jokhang Jowo Rinpoché

Byams chen chos rje Śākya ye shes ’Jam dpal nag po ’Jam dbyangs ’Jam dbyangs bzhad pa Byang chub tshul khrims dpal bzang po Bya rung kha shor Byes ba ’Jigs med phun tshogs byin can byin rlabs Jo khang Jo bo rin po che

xx

Correct Tibetan Spellings

Kanjur karchak Karmapa Katok Kawa Karpo Kelzang Tupten Wangchuk Kham Khangsar Rinpoché khatak Khédrup Gélek Pelzang Khédrup Jé Könchok Jikmé Wangpo Kongtsé Trülgyi Gyelpo kor kubum Kumbum Jampa Ling Künga Özer Mergen Künga Trashi Künrik Nampar Nangdzé Küntu Dewé Sel

bKa’ ’gyur dkar chag Karma pa Kaḥ thog Kha ba dkar po sKal bzang thub bstan dbang phyug Khams Khang gsar rin po che kha btags mKhas grub dge legs dpal bzang mKhas grub rje dKon mchog ’jigs med dbang po Kong tse ’Phrul gyi rgyal po bskor sku ’bum sKu ’bum byams pa gling Kun dga’ ’od zer mergen Kun dga’ bkra shis Kun rig(s) rnam par snang mdzad Kun tu bde ba’i gsal

Labrang Tashi Khyil Labrang Lama Chenpo Sanggyé Pel Lamrim chenmo lendza lentsa Lhalé bappé düchen Lhamo lharampa lhari Lhatsün Dargyé Nomönhen Lhündrup Longdöl Ngakwang Lozang Loppön Chenpo Lozang Chökyi Nyima Lozang Chökyi Nyima Gélek Namgyel

bLa brang bkra shis ’khyil bLa brang bLa ma chen po sangs rgyas dpal Lam rim chen mo lan dza lan tsha Lha las babs pa’i dus chen Lha mo lha rams pa lha ri Lha btsun dar rgyas no mon han Lhun grub kLong rdol ngag dbang blo bzang sLob dpon chen po bLo bzang chos kyi nyi ma bLo bzang chos kyi nyi ma dge legs rnam  rgyal bLo bzang sman lam bLo bzang dpal sangs

Lozang Menlam Lozang Pelsang

xxi

Correct Tibetan Spellings Lozang Penden Tenpé Drönmé Lozang Tendzin Lozang Tendzin Gyatso Lozang Tenpé Gyeltsen Lozang Trashi lüjin lungta lungten

bLo bzang dpal ldan bstan pa’i sgron me bLo bzang bstan ’dzin bLo bzang bstan ’dzin rgya mtsho bLo bzang bstan pa’i rgyal mtshan bLo bzang bkra shis lus sbyin rlung rta lung bstan

Mahākāla Gur Gönpo mangja margyur semchen Migön Karpo Milarépa Mitséring Mönlam

Mahākāla Gur mgon po mang ja mar gyur sems can Mi mgon dkar po Mi la ras pa Mi tshe ring sMon lam

rnam thar gnas chen lnga gnas mjal gnas bskor gnas skor ba gnas ri gnas bshad gnas yig Ngag dbang lhun grub dar rgyas Ngag dbang blo bzang chos ldan dpal bzang  po Ngakwang Lozang Tenpé Gyeltsen Ngag dbang blo bzang bstan pa’i rgyal  mtshan Ngakwang Tendar Ngag dbang bstan ’dar Ngakwang Tuptsen Wangchukden Trinlé Ngag dbang thub btsan dbang phyug ldan  Gyatso  ’phrin las rgya mtsho Nor bzang Norzang dmyal lam nyellam nyenné bsnyen gnas Nyi ma rdo rje Nyima Dorjé rNying ma pa Nyingmapa namtar néchen nga néjel nékor nékorwa néri néshé néyik Ngakwang Lhündrup Dargyé Ngakwang Lozang Chöden Pelzangpo

Orgyen Lingpa

O rgyan gling pa

xxii

Correct Tibetan Spellings

Pabongkha Rinpoché Padampa Sanggyé Pakpa Lama Pakpa Lodrö Gyeltsen Peltang pen

Pha bong kha rin po che Pha dam pa sangs rgyas ’Phags pa bla ma ’Phags pa blo gros rgyal mtshan sPel thang ’phen

Ramoche Rangjung Dorjé rapné Ribo Tsénga riksum gönpo Rölpé Dorjé

Ra mo che Rang byung rdo rje rab gnas Ri bo rtse lnga rigs gsum mgon po Rol pa’i rdo rje

Sakya pandita Śākya Yéshé Sakyapa Samyé sang Sanggyé Gyatso Séra Serthar sipaho Situ Panchen Chökyi Jungné Sönam Dorjé Sönam Gyatso Songtsen Gampo söpön Sumpa Khenpo Yéshé Penjor sungbum sungdü

Sa skya pandita Śākya ye shes Sa skya pa bSam yas srang Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho Sera gSer thar srid pa ho Si tu pan chen chos kyi ’byung gnas bSod nams rdo rje bSod nams rgya mtsho Srong btsan sgam po bso’i dpon Sum pa mkhan po ye shes dpal ’byor gsung ’bum srung mdud

Tangtong Gyelpo Tanjur Tashilhunpo Tendzin Gyatso Tenpa Terdrom terma terné

Thang stong rgyal po bsTan ’gyur bKra shis lhun po bsTan ’dzin rgya mtsho bsTan pa gTer sgrom gter ma gter gnas

xxiii

Correct Tibetan Spellings thangka tongchö Tongkhor Khutugtu Yönten Gyatso torma tranglam Tsampa Lozang Könchok Tsangyang Gyatso tsatsa Tsawa Lama Tamdrin Lozang Tayang tsennyi Tsongkhapa Tukwan Lozang Chökyi Nyima

thang ka stong mchod sTong ’khor qutuγtu Yon tan rgya mtsho gtor ma phrang lam mTshams pa blo bzang dkon mchog Tshangs dbyangs rgya mtsho tsha tsha rTsa ba bla ma rta mgrin blo bzang rta dbyangs mtshan nyid Tsong kha pa Thu’u bkwan bLo bzang chos kyi nyi ma

Yéshé Döndrup Yéshé Penden Yéshé Rinchen Yéshé Tenpé Gyeltsen śrībhadra yidam yönchö yöndak yöndak chöné Yönten yüllha

Ye shes don grub Ye shes dpal ldan Ye shes rin chen Ye shes bstan pa’i rgyal mtshan śrībhadra yi dam yon mchod yon bdag yon bdag mchod gnas Yon tan yul lha

zhappé zhaser zhiba

zhabs spad zhwa ser bzhi ba

Introduction

… Un lieu saint ne peut exister sans l’action centrifuge des saints et des religieux, et l’action centripète des pèlerins. Les religieux proposent et les pèlerins disposent.1

⸪ The Chinese and Western travellers among the Mongols in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries repeatedly noticed the spectacular devotion of these Buddhist pilgrims on the way to and at pilgrimage sites. They were so numerous on the roads to Tibetan sacred sites that Westerners and Japanese alike found it easy to disguise themselves as Mongols and mingle in their midst.2 But the most popular Mongol pilgrimage was that of Wutaishan 五臺山 (‘Five-Peaked Mountain,’ Mo. Utai Uula3), the famous Buddhist mountain in Shanxi Province and a main place of Sino-Tibeto-Mongol encounter in China. The Scottish missionary James Gilmour (1843-1891), who visited Wutaishan in 1872, even compared the Wutaishan pilgrimage for Mongol Buddhists to Jerusalem and Mecca: As Jerusalem to the Jews, as the Mecca to the Mahometans, so is Wu Ta’i Shan to the Mongols. All over Mongolia, and wherever Mongols are met with in North China, one is constantly reminded of this place. It is true that the mania which possesses the Mongols for making pilgrimages carries them to many other shrines, some of which are both celebrated and much frequented, but none of them can be compared to Wu T’ai. At all 1 “A sacred place cannot exist without the centrifugal action of saints and clerics and the centripetal action of pilgrims. The clerics put something forward and the pilgrims make use of it.” (Buffetrille 1996a: 390). Unless otherwise stated, all translations from non-English-language sources are my own. 2 Such as Hisao Kimura (1922-1989), a young Japanese recruited by the Japanese intelligence service, who traveled to Tibet assuming the disguise of a Mongol monk from 1943 to 1945. 3 Or Udai, Utai Shan, Udaishan Uula. One of the earliest occurrences of the term Udai is in the fourteenth-century Mongolian inscription of Juyongguan Pass, northwest of Beijing (see Chapter 4). Wutaishan is also translated as Tabun Üjüürtü Uula or Tabun Uula, ‘Five-Summit Mountain,’ ‘Five Mountains.’ To Tibetans, it is known as Ribo Tsénga.

©

5 | 

/

2

Introduction

seasons of the year, in the dead of winter, in the heat of summer, pilgrims, priests, and laymen, male and female, old and young, rich and poor, solitary and in bands, on foot and mounted, from places far and near, may be seen going to and returning from this, the most sacred spot on earth to the Mongol Buddhist, the object of his devout aspirations during life, the place where he desires his bones to be thrown at death. The Mongols speak of it as one of the blessed spots on the earth, holy, purified, everlasting, indestructible …4 In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Mongols went to Wutai­ shan in droves, and their donations greatly contributed to the development of Wutaishan’s monasteries and to their maintenance after the decline of Manchu imperial patronage. Dmitri Pokotilov, then attaché of the Russian diplomatic mission in Beijing, described in 1889 the uninterrupted flow of Mongol pilgrims—Chinese and Tibetans being apparently much less numerous.5 R.W. Swallow, a Western traveler, wrote in 1903: The Mongols were the chief supporters of the various temples in the financial sense, and it was considered the right thing for every rich Mongol to make one journey at least to this place, bringing with him gifts from his tribe and friends.6 The pilgrimages stopped in the late 1930s, when Wutaishan became a conflict zone between Japanese and communist forces. Nowadays, after seventy years of Soviet atheism in the Republic of Mongolia and a century of anti-religious policy in China, many young urban Mongols have never heard about Wutai­ shan. However, the prominence of the Wutaishan pilgrimage in their religious landscape is still recorded in the memories of Mongol elders. In the mid-1990s, pilgrimages and festivals were revived in remote places of Inner Mongolia and Mongolia, and Mongols once more started to journey to Wutaishan, though they found themselves diluted among the crowds of Chinese pilgrims and tourists. Wutaishan is now one of the wealthiest Buddhist centers in China, along with Shaolin Monastery in Henan Province. In June 2009, it was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and received more than three million visitors that same year.7 On this occasion, the provincial authorities decided to carry out 4 5 6 7

Gilmour 1970 [1883]: 141, 143. Pokotilov 1935 [1893]: 66, 70, 79. Swallow 1903: 182. Unesco 2009.

Introduction

3

major investments to improve infrastructure and attract tourists from China and abroad. Already in 2008, the 2.8 million paying visitors had brought 1.4 billion yuan (US$ 206  million) in tourist revenues, according to government figures.8



Focus of the Book

Although it was present-day observations that first aroused my interest in Wutaishan and later helped me understand some of the mechanisms of the pilgrimage, I am interested here in the genesis and the development of Mongols’ journeys to this Chinese mountain from a historical perspective. Mongol pilgrimages to Wutaishan started in the seventeenth century and reached an apex in the late Qing period (from the nineteenth century to 1911)—a time of economic stagnation and political weakness, generally seen as a period of decline in China and Mongolia yet one of relative peace—and in the early Republican period, when Mongols struggled for autonomy while their land became the focus of conflicts between various foreign powers.9 The aim of the book is to understand why Mongols went to Wutaishan, especially at a time of rising nationalisms, anticlericalism, spiritual revivals and Buddhist reforms. The imperial patronage of the Wutaishan monasteries has attracted the attention of past and present scholars, and many Chinese articles and books deal with the imperially founded temples and the steles and poems calligraphed by emperors. The participants of the 2007 conference “Wutaishan and Qing Culture,” as well as earlier scholars who have worked on the subject (such as David Farquhar 1978), have generally focused on Qing imperially centered historiography (Gray Tuttle, Natalie Köhle, Vladimir Uspensky, Patricia Berger) or on treatises, poetry and arcane scriptures produced by small groups of learned clerics (Kurtis Schaeffer).10 Following recent trends in Qing studies that tend to shift the focus from China-centered historiography towards local, non-Chinese historiography, Johan Elverskog was one of the few scholars who took into account the Mongol perspective by looking for mentions of Wutaishan in Mongolian literature. He showed that it is necessary to reintroduce the Mongols’ agency in the making of Wutaishan as a pilgrimage site.11 8 9 10 11

Saiget 2009. Bawden 1989 [1968]; Atwood 2002. Their articles were published in a special issue of the Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies 6 (2011): http://www.thlib.org/collections/texts/jiats/. Elverskog 2011.

4

Introduction

For this book, I have followed Elverskog’s suggestion but have gone much further in exploring Mongol ideas and practices—I have mostly used sources other than Mongolian literary works and official histories. The specific purpose of my study is to document and analyze the reasons and motivations for such pilgrimages, the actual journeys made not only by nobles and lamas but also by ordinary Mongols, as well as their representations and ritual practices on the sacred mountain. Worship of Wutaishan in fact extended far beyond the world of learned clerics and was deeply rooted in popular traditions. Considerable hardship was endured by many monks and lay men and women who devoutly journeyed to Wutaishan, sometimes performing great prostrations all the way. This book is therefore not an intellectual, doctrinal or imperial history of Wutaishan but focuses on the pilgrims themselves. I was much inspired by the work of the Indianist Gregory Schopen, who stressed the importance of archaeological sources and especially stone inscriptions that express donors’ intentions and tell us what a fairly large number of Buddhists actually did, as opposed to what—according to literary sources—they might or should have done. Schopen was not preoccupied with what small, literate, almost exclusively male and certainly atypical professionalized subgroups wrote, but rather with what religious people of all segments of a given community actually did and how they lived.12 The aim of Chapter 1 is to understand the Mongols’ engagement with Wutai­ shan compared to other pilgrimage sites in Mongolia (including ‘pragmatic’ pilgrimages to mountains, springs and rocks) and abroad—in Tibet, Nepal and India, the historical core of the Buddhist religion—but also in China. I investigate the respective spiritual and practical advantages of the different pilgrimage sites (including trade opportunities) in order to propose a hierarchy according to a scale of ‘spiritual magnetism,’ to use James Preston’s terminology,13 and to the types of pilgrims. A general geographical, spiritual and historical presentation of the site (Chapter 2) will help us understand how Wutaishan was chosen as a mountain of spiritual significance, first by Chinese, by Buddhists of all East and Central Asia, and then by Mongols. The notion of liminality developed by Victor Turner, 12

13

In several of his articles, Schopen stressed that both the monastic elites and the less learned participated actively in a wide range of ritual practices and institutions that have heretofore been labeled as ‘popular’ (1997, esp. “Archaeology and protestant presup­ positions in the study of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism,” 1-22). Preston 1992: 38-40.

Introduction

5

can apply not only to the state of mind of the pilgrims but also to the place itself: Wutaishan appeared as an almost otherworldly place, where one had the possibility of establishing contact with supernatural powers, and at the same time, for the Mongols, as a familiar place. A presentation of its layered, sedimented history shows how Wutaishan has gradually developed into a formalized pilgrimage structure, to become a central place for the ritual protection of the empire. It helps understand why Yuan-dynasty Mongols became interested in this powerful site. In the Qing period, the Manchu emperors developed Tibetan Buddhism on Wutaishan to such a point that Wutaishan became a ‘Tibet in China.’ Chapter 3 questions David Farquhar’s 1978 thesis on the role of Qing imperial patronage in the promotion of the pilgrimage among the Mongols through two means of propaganda—imperial tours and the publication of gazetteers. I then investigate the strategies of the resident clergies to attract pilgrims and their donations when the imperial subsidies were reduced, before drying up in 1911. Lastly, the Tibetan, Mongol and Monguor high clerics also played a role in promoting the pilgrimage and transformed the spiritual landscape of Wutaishan by diffusing new narratives and discovering new sites. 14 Chapter 4 moves the focus to Mongol narratives and restores the Mongols’ agency in the development of the pilgrimage. It first introduces the Mongols’ veneration of Mañjuśrī and Wutaishan before the Qing dynasty, and then presents their literary, oral and visual productions about Wutaishan. I will contrast Tibeto-Mongol clerical conceptualizations and Mongol popular views of the sacred mountain, in order to highlight the specificities of the Mongol imaginaire, or social imaginary, of Wutaishan compared to Chinese and Tibetan representations. Finally, I question whether the proliferation of Mongolian guidebooks and maps of the mountain was a cause or a consequence of the success of the pilgrimage, in order to understand when the popularity in Mongol pilgrimages to Wutaishan actually arose. Chapter 5 addresses the social and economic side of the pilgrimage, taking as a main source the stone inscriptions erected within Wutaishan monasteries: Who were the Mongol pilgrims? What were their geographical origins and social backgrounds? And to what extent was Wutaishan a pan-Mongol pilgrimage? Was the Wutaishan pilgrimage a refuge in times of troubles, to escape poverty and debts and ask for divine help, or rather linked to the Mongols’ feeling of being ‘Qing Buddhists’?15 To explain the extraordinary amounts of 14 15

Monguors (Ch. tuzu 土族) are an ethnic group living in Amdo (Qinghai Province), related to the Mongols, and followers of Tibetan Buddhism. Elverskog 2006.

6

Introduction

donations, I will look at the importance of trade and ask whether the pilgrims were only noblemen, wealthy commoners and lamas. A typology of pilgrims according to their identity, origins, material and spiritual motivations, modes of travel and material details of their journey will highlight the variety of pilgrims and pilgrimages. A particular motivation to undertake the pilgrimage was to bury a relative on the mountain. I will focus on how Wutaishan could have become a main burial place for Mongol pastoralists accustomed to burying their dead in their homeland so that their ancestors might protect the pastures, while at the same time allowing herders to claim the pastures surrounding the burial spot. Chapter 6 focuses on what Mongol pilgrims actually did on Wutaishan. I will introduce the sacred sites they tended to visit, as well as the specific merit/ chance-producing activities and rituals they engaged in, to understand whether or not they made the same pilgrimages as the Tibetans and the Chinese and whether they adopted Chinese practices in addition to their own. This chapter also deals with interactions and encounters between Mongols and other ethnic and religious communities and questions Elverskog’s theory on the role of Wutaishan in the creation of a ‘Mongol identity,’ a ‘Qing identity,’ a ‘Qing culture,’ and Qing ‘cosmopolitanism’ uniting Mongols, Chinese and Tibetans.16 Were there forms of communitas between ‘ethnicities’ and between the Mongols themselves on Wutaishan? Chapter 7 focuses on the Mongol pilgrims’ appropriation of Wutaishan through their practices, rituals and interpretations of its natural numinous sites; in fact, they disrupted the clerical Buddhist project by introducing some of their own pilgrimage practices. I take the example of the Mongols’ ritual practice at the Mother’s Womb-Cave to highlight the fact that Wutaishan was not only a Buddhist pilgrimage center in China but also a Mongol popular pilgrimage. This process of appropriation went as far as to claim that sites of the Mongol countryside were equivalent or identical to Shanxi’s Wutaishan. But could these fully replace the pilgrimage to Wutaishan?



The Sources to Study Mongols’ Pilgrimages

Because of the multifaceted nature of sacred places and the diversity of pilgrims’ quests, scholars of pilgrimages generally agree on the necessity of an interdisciplinary approach. I have therefore favored an ethno-historical approach 16

Elverskog 2011.

Introduction

7

that includes the study of both the sacred place and the pilgrims, by combining a great diversity of written and visual sources.

Mongolian Stone Inscriptions on Wutaishan My main sources to document the pilgrims themselves are the stone inscriptions commissioned by groups of Mongol devotees (Fig. 1). Wutaishan today mostly appears as a Chinese site, making these ostentatious marks of religious patronage the only visible historical traces left by Mongol pilgrims. The practice of erecting steles recording donations was an old Buddhist tradition; they are found on the railings surrounding Indian stūpas and in cave temples since the second century BCE.17 The multiplication of steles on Wutaishan, and also near Datong 大同, on the way to Wutaishan, marks the Mongols’ appropriation of this sacred site and of parts of the roads that leads to it.18 The Mongol donors had more than 340 inscriptions carved on stone steles to commemorate their offerings and vows. They are dated between 1658 and 1940, but the great majority are dated to the late Qing (1875-1911) and Republican periods (1912-1940). They tell us about the identity of pilgrims, the date, amount and purpose of their donation, as well as the pilgrims’ wishes and aspirations. Between 2007 and 2012, I took pictures of all the inscriptions I could find in situ and copied those which were not legible in photos. I have built a database to study this corpus and try to quantify its different variables (see Appendix 2 and Online Appendix A1). The list of steles is presented by monastery in chronological order in Online Appendix A2, with the name and origin of the main donor, the date and the amount of the donation, as well as the steles’ location in the monastery, and a summary of the text for the most important ones.19 Except for some which are broken or have fallen down and have been moved to a corner, these steles still stand on Wutaishan, and eighty-five percent of them are located within the precinct of three monasteries: Shifangtang 十方堂, Tayuansi 塔院寺 and Luohousi 羅睺寺 (Table 5). Modern Mongols occasionally read the stone inscriptions and show respect towards this heritage by pasting gold leaf or Chinese coins on them. Unfortunately, a few steles covered by coins pasted with the wax of lamps have become illegible (Fig. 56). 17 18

19

Ray 1994: 38-39; Schopen 1997. In many cultures, vertical steles are like seals that mark the possession of the soil. See for instance the Tibetan pillars and steles erected to signify possession of the ground (Stein 1987 [1962]: 138). On the functions of Chinese steles in pre-Buddhist and early Buddhist China: Wong 2004. I here refer to the steles by their number in Online Appendix A2 and by their date. For instance, ‘SF144, 1927’ is the 144th stele of Shifangtang in chronological order and is dated 1927.

8

Introduction

Table 1

Number and dates of imperial, Chinese non-imperial and Mongolian steles in thirteen monasteries (in bold: Tibetan Buddhist monasteries of the Qing and Republican periods)

Monasteries

Number Number (and date) Number (and date) of Number (and date) of of non-imperial non-imperial steles of steles imperial steles steles in Chinese in Mongolian as the in Tibetan main language

Tayuansi Xiantongsi Pusading Yuanzhaosi Luohousi Shifangtang Cifusi Shuxiangsi Dailuoding Bishansi Zhenhaisi Nanshansi Shouningsi Total for 13 monasteries

8 (1408?-1601) 6 (1458-1677) 8 (1671-1811) 5 (1458-1569) 4 (1417-1710) 3 (1591-1749) 3 (1582?-1786) 4 (1487-1525) 1 (1711) 1 (1339) 1 (1711) 44

13 (1323-1934) 5 (1636-1925) 4 (1569-1917) 1 (1624) 4 (1328-1665) 6 (1504-1929) 20 (1885-1935) 2 (Yuan and 1691) 53

61 (1853-1934) 5 (1918-1935) 1 (1936) 7 (?) 47 (1658-1935) 182 (1835-1933) 7 (1920-1940) 1 (1665) 2 (1691 and 1874) 1 (Guangxu period?) 5 (1829-1866) 2 (1894 and 1895) 2 (Kangxi and 1774) 321

1 3 -

Chinese steles, especially imperial ones, have attracted more attention than Mongolian steles; thus, most of the pre-Qing inscriptions and Qing imperial inscriptions have been published, while Qing and Republican non-imperial inscriptions have not.20 Yet the Mongolian steles largely outnumber pre-1949 Chinese inscriptions: few inscriptions commemorating donations from other ethnicities before the twenty-first century are found on Wutaishan (Table 1).21 The small number of Chinese inscriptions comes as a surprise considering the 20

21

A collection of steles published by Zhou Zhenhua et al. (1998) lists only 112 Chinese stone inscriptions (including funerary steles—not included in my corpus—and the Chinese version of a few polyglot steles erected by Mongols); see also Cui Zhengsen and Wang Zhichao 1995 and articles published in the journal Wutaishan yanjiu recording Chinese inscriptions. Only the Chinese texts of the few polyglot imperial steles have been published. Hundreds of steles in Chinese were carved since the 1990s, commemorating Han Chinese and Inner Mongol donations. Modern Chinese visitors often have a look at stone

Introduction

9

popularity of the Wutaishan pilgrimage among Chinese devotees.22 Indeed, the geographer and Buddhist layman Zhang Dungu,23 who visited Wutaishan in 1911, noticed than one or two steles out of ten were in Chinese, the rest being in Mongolian or Tibetan.24 This corpus of Mongolian inscriptions forms a unique heritage that has not attracted much attention before I started studying it and raising awareness among my Inner Mongol colleagues. Except for Rev. Joseph Edkins (1823-1905) and Zhang Dungu (1866-1933),25 early twentieth-century pilgrims and visitors who wrote diaries, records and guidebooks did not notice them. The Japanese guidebooks and surveys published in the first half of the twentieth century and modern studies on Wutaishan occasionally mention multilingual steles but say nothing of Mongolian inscriptions.26 To my knowledge, none of these texts (or stone rubbing of them) have been published yet. In 1999 the Catalogue of Ancient Mongolian Books and Documents of China listed 249 inscriptions.27 I found 94 more inscriptions, and 21 inscriptions listed in the Catalogue have disappeared between 1999 and 2012.28 Several steles that I copied or photographed in 2007 had disappeared by 2012, or were hidden or moved to a remote corner of a monastery.29 These steles are not ‘eternal’ testimonies as their title usually suggests,30 and many of them have become completely illegible because of natural degradation or vandalism. Some inscriptions mentioned by written sources, such as a

22

23 24

25 26 27

28 29 30

inscriptions when visiting a temple and express their surprise when discovering steles written in Mongolian. I also recorded the Chinese non-imperial and imperial steles within the monasteries, first because I used them as historical sources and, second, to highlight their location in comparison to Mongolian steles. Zhang Dungu 1911: 1a. I found a dozen steles written in Tibetan only: three in Shifangtang, located among the Mongolian steles east of the Buddha hall, two in Baohuasi, one in Qifosi, one in Sanquansi, one in Xiantongsi and two in Mimoyan. Edkins 1893 [1878]: 228; Zhang Dungu 1911: 1a. Except for Altanzayaa 2010. Catalogue of Ancient Mongolian Books and Documents of China 1999: 2141-2147 n° 1261012647 and p. 2178-2211, n° 12786-12996. It gives the title, date, location on Wutaishan, name and origin of the main donor, size and language(s) but not the full text. Altanzayaa (2010: 145-146) mentions thirty-five ‘important’ inscriptions, but includes in this total the Qing polyglot imperial steles. In 2012, I could not find again steles I previously saw in Fomudong and Pujisi on the Southern Terrace and fragments of steles in Yuanzhaosi and Sanquansi. The steles’ ‘head’ (upper part, Mo. tologai) often expresses in Mongolian or in Chinese the wish of lasting forever, or at least ‘a thousand kalpas.’

10

Introduction

Tibetan stele written by the Fourth Jebtsündamba Khutugtu31 at Fomudong 佛 母洞, have disappeared during the twentieth century.32 Many inscriptions were carved on a poor-quality stone that did not withstand time—probably sandstone, whereas granite was used for the imperial steles. Others have been broken, mutilated, covered with Chinese graffiti or with a black pigment, stored in a corner, abandoned or used as tables or as construction materials. Some have even been scratched and re-carved. Evidently, Mongolian steles erected in Chinese Buddhist monasteries do not present any interest for present-day communities. However, my work has inspired my colleague Hürelbaatar Üjeed from the Normal University of Höhhot (Mo. Khökhe Khota, capital of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region), who has since made several fieldtrips to Wutaishan with his students to record the texts of these steles.33 Among the Mongolian steles, seventeen imposing inscriptions record exceptional donations and especially important donors. Some of them stand symmetrically opposite Chinese inscriptions in front of the Buddha hall, showing the public acknowledgement of some major Mongol donations. But the great majority of Mongolian steles are embedded in a low wall, a balustrade or in a special place inside three monasteries: Shifangtang, Luohousi and Tayuansi. I counted twenty-three multilingual steles—in Mongolian and/or Tibetan, and/or Chinese, sometimes with a prayer in Lantsa script34—written by Mongol donors (Table 9). In bilingual Mongolian-Chinese inscriptions, the Chinese text is not a translation of the Mongolian one, and is shorter, probably because Chinese texts were often written and signed by the abbot of the monastery, who wanted to record the material aspect of the donation, while the Mongolian texts follow Mongol patterns. Pilgrims whose donations were too small to be recorded on stone received paper certificates. These were issued in considerable numbers by the Wutai­ shan monasteries, and some are now found in the archives of Höhhot and Ulaanbaatar (Fig. 2; Online Appendix A3).35 They often adopt a vertical format 31 32 33 34 35

Khutugtu is the title given to reincarnated lamas of the highest rank. According to the Dilowa Khutugtu, interviewed by Lessing 1957b: 97. Stein (1988: 3), who visited the place, did not find it either. Kürelbaγatur (forthcoming) found a total of 353 steles, of which 23 are incomplete or illegible. Lantsa (lañja, Tib. lentsa or lendza) is a sacred script elaborated in Nepal to write Sanskrit, especially dhāraṇīs, particularly in architecture (for consecration formulas) and books. Hundreds of such receipts are preserved in the Archives of Inner Mongolia; one is preserved in the Royal Library of Copenhagen (Heissig and Sagaster 1961: 252, Mong. 214). Others are sold on ebay.com and in antique shops of Ulaanbaatar. I thank Olivér Kápolnás, who purchased four certificates for me in Ulaanbaatar.

Introduction

Figure 1

11

The ‘stele wall’ on the northern side of the Great White Stūpa, Tayuansi. © Isabelle Charleux, 2010.

modeled on the shape and frame of the stone inscriptions. They are printed or pre-handwritten sheets of paper with the same formulas as the steles; blanks were left to be filled in by hand (in darker ink) at the time of the donation to record the name and origin of the donor(s), the amount and nature of the donation as well as the date. Red seals of the monastery are added, such as that reading “Seal of Three-Stūpa Monastery” (gurban suburgan-yin temdeg). Certificates of donations thus imitate steles in their form and content and can be viewed as cheap paper versions of the stone inscriptions or, in some cases, as a double of the stele to be carried back home by pilgrims (one certificate also mentions the carving of a stele).

Other Emic Sources The literary style of the steles and certificates is often too formal and codified to give us much information about what made the pilgrimage to Wutaishan unique for those Mongols. A more personal kind of record that gives an insider’s viewpoint is pilgrims’ diaries. Diaries of pilgrims to Urga, Lhasa, India and

12

Figure 2

Introduction

Paper certificate of donation from Santasi, 1863. © Isabelle Charleux, 2011.

Introduction

13

Nepal include Gombojab Tsybikov’s (1873-1930) famous detailed diary to Lhasa,36 and diaries of Kalmyk and Buryat lay and monk pilgrims between 1882 and 1905. 37 As for Wutaishan, the travel account of Duke Migwachir (18931958), a writer, traveler, artist, poet and pious Buddhist from Inner Mongolia, describes his visit to the sacred Chinese mountain in 1938 with his younger brother after a long journey to Tibet, India and Beijing.38 Other Mongolian diaries to Wutaishan did certainly exist. According to a stone inscription standing in Pusading 菩薩頂,39 Prince Ardsedi of the Abaga Banner and deputy chief of the Shili-yin Goul League (Inner Mongolia) wrote an account (oron-u dangsa) of the pilgrimage he made to Wutaishan in 1848.40 In the early 1930s, two Westerners visiting Wutaishan met “a group of Mongol pilgrims, the leader of whom was busily engaged writing down in Mongol script in a very modern notebook descriptions of the places of interest visited for the edification of those at home.”41 In addition, short descriptions of Wutaishan are found in the autobiographies and memoirs of high clerics.42 For instance, the Kanjurwa Khutugtu (1914-1978), a renowned reincarnation from Inner Mongolia,43 and the famous Buryat diplomat monk Dorjiev (1854-1938)44 wrote down factual details of their 36

37

38

39

40 41 42 43 44

This famous Russian Buryat explorer, Buddhologist and anthropologist left a travel account that is a unique source for the history of Tibet and Tibetan politics (Tsybikov 1992 [1919]). He also served as an interpreter for the Dalai Lama who had taken refuge in Urga in 1904. Five Kalmyk manuscript diaries are listed by Tsybikov 1904; Bormanshinov 1998: 10, n. 43 and 44, 13, 16-17 and n. 71, 19. Some are preserved in the Archive of the Russian Geographical Society. See also Andreyev 2001c: 349, n. 1. Several travel records by Buryat lamas are preserved in the Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg (Sazykin 1988: I, 295-296, n° 1635, 1636, 1638, 1639, 1640; Tsyrempilov, comp. 2004: 263-165, n° 549, 551, and 553; Tsyrempilov, comp. 2006: 287-289, n° 825, 826 and 827). Alaša qosiγun-u baraγun güng-ün iledkel šastir (“Report of the Western Duke of Alashan Banner”], Miγvacir 2008 [1942]: 403-407. See an abstract of his journey to Wutaishan in Online Appendix C. Pusading, Bodhisattva Peak or Bodhisattva’s Uṣṇīṣa [Monastery], was built during the Yongle reign on the ruins of old Da Wenshusi 大文殊寺, or Zhenrongyuan 真容院, that sheltered the ‘true image’ of Mañjuśrī. It was the Gélukpas’ principal monastery, sponsored by the Manchu emperors. Online Appendix A2, stele PSD1, 1936. Alley and Lapwood 1935: 118. Yang Jizeng, ed. 1997. Jagchid and Hyer 1983: 106-107. Martin and Norbu (1991) translated an autobiography written in 1923, of which several manuscripts and lithograph copies in Tibetan and Mongolian exist (I thank Gray Tuttle for having sent me a copy of this article).

14

Introduction

journeys to Wutaishan. Over the past decade, a few Inner Mongols’ memories of their pilgrimages from years back have been recorded.45 But since the pilgrimages stopped in the late 1930s (the last stone inscription was written in 1940), there is little hope of finding any more elderly pilgrims who still have a clear recollection of the pilgrimages they performed more than seventy years ago. A few guidebooks were written in or translated into Mongolian. They are of two different types: firstly, guidebooks translating parts of Chinese gazetteers (Ch. shanzhi 山志, ‘mountain gazetteers’) on Wutaishan, which offer a comprehensive clerical and/or imperial presentation of its religious geography; and secondly, guidebooks modeled on Tibetan guides to holy places, which fit with Katia Buffetrille’s definition of Tibetan guidebooks as “literary stereotyped projections of an internal vision of spiritual reality destined to convey the pilgrim towards a supernatural level.”46 Since some of them reached a wide audience,47 advertising the sanctity of Wutaishan in Mongolia, they helped shape the Mongol representations of Wutaishan. Other writings by Mongol lamas that evoked their visits to Wutaishan generally dealt with their initiations and visions; like the Tibetan-style guidebooks, they give a symbolic, ‘mandalic’ topography of Wutaishan, viewed as the otherworldly abode of bodhisattva Mañjuśrī.48 There was a gap between popular piety and the Buddhist spirituality of the literate;49 hence, unfortunately, we still know little about what ordinary Mongols (and, especially, the illiterate or poorly literate masses) actually thought about Wutaishan during the Qing and Republican periods. Mongol historiography dealing with the history of Buddhism over the course of its transmission from India to Mongolia, the genealogies of nobles and reincarnated lamas and records of how they spread the faith and founded monasteries are of no help in documenting pilgrimages. However, oral and written literature such as tales, folk songs, wise sayings, prayers and prophecies can provide some insight, as they occasionally refer to Wutaishan as a holy and even mythical place. 50 For instance, a sixty-seven-verse popular song recorded among the Khorchins in 45 46 47 48 49 50

Nan Yang 1998; Ha-si-wu-la 哈斯烏拉 and Feng Qiuzi 馮秋子 in Tian Chang’an and Liang Heng, eds. 2003: p. 41-48 and p. 62-71. Buffetrille 1998: 19; also Buffetrille 1997: 89. Especially the Uta-yin tabun aγulan-u orusil süsüg-ten-ü cikin cimeg orusiba, hereafter UTAOSC (see Chapter 4). Schaeffer 2011. About the gap between popular piety and Buddhist spirituality in pilgrimage practices in Tibet: Macdonald 1998: x. For an example of such prayers, see the manuscript prayer from Ordos: “U-tai-yin maγtaγal orusiba” (Yang 2000: 231-238): Online Appendix E.

Introduction

15

eastern Inner Mongolia describes the route of pilgrims to and on Wutaishan (see Appendix 3). The National Archives of Mongolia and the Provincial Archives of Inner Mongolia preserve interesting materials documenting pilgrimages such as passports for groups of pilgrims giving them authorization to cross their banners’ frontiers,51 in addition to “petitions of grievances,” which provide us with some insight as to how nobles’ pilgrimages may have impacted local populations. Russian archives have preserved an incomplete manuscript manual written for Buryat pilgrims with notes on the distance between various monasteries and sacred places in Mongolia, Eastern, Central and Southern Tibet, and Nepal.52 The most complete Mongol representations of the sacred mountain are maps. The oldest is a mural on a wall of the assembly hall of Badgar Choiling Süme in Inner Mongolia,53 painted at some point between 1757 and 1835, which represents Wutaishan together with seven monasteries of Central and Eastern Tibet (Fig. 16). The second oldest map is a woodblock xylograph map carved by a Khalkha monk in 1846 at Cifusi 慈福寺, a Gélukpa monastery of Wutaishan, of which sixteen prints are known (Fig. 3). It had a wide circulation in Inner and Northern Mongolia in colored and uncolored prints; owing to its success, in 1874 new blocks were carved in China.54 The Cifusi map locates the main monasteries and evokes the lore of the mountain, including apparitions of deities, historical narratives and symbolic interpretations of the landscape;55 it certainly played a significant role in the development of the Wutaishan cult in Mongolia. Etic Sources Although the Chinese language gazetteers do not discuss pilgrims, the Republican-period Chinese and Japanese guidebooks have different values and concerns: they are at the same time practical guidebooks investigating history and 51

52 53 54 55

I thank Cao Xinyu for having given me access to the digitalized archives of Alashan League, which keep fifty-seven passports of pilgrims from Alashan (n° 101-05-0098-0110016-01). Tsyrempilov and Vanchikova, comp. 2004: 164, n° 551. Known in Chinese as Wudangzhao 五當召, this monastery, founded around 1749 northeast of Baotou, was the main academic monastery of Inner Mongolia. Chou 2007; Chou 2011a. The prints that circulated and were colored in China and Tibet, however, cannot be considered as emic representations. The Rubin Museum of Art in New York proposes a digitalized interactive version of its print of the Cifusi map: http://wutaishan.rma2.org/rma_viewer.php?image_id=1&mode= info (accessed on November 1, 2011).

16

Introduction

Figure 3

“Panoramic Picture of the Sacred Realm of the Mountain of Five Terraces,” carved by the monk Lhunrub, 1846, woodblock print on linen, hand colored, 118 × 165 cm. Rubin Museum of Art, New York; Gift of Deborah Ashencaen, acc. no. C2004.29.1. © Karl Debreczeny.

architecture, and sometimes travel accounts.56 More useful for us is the genre of travel accounts, which often offers glimpses of the Mongol pilgrims’ practices. Western (including Russian), Chinese and Japanese travelers, as well as Chinese pilgrims, wrote a number of records of their peregrinations mostly during the period 1870-1940: they were tourists, officials, scholars, Buddhist clerics, lay pilgrims, Christian missionaries, geographers, explorers, diplomats and engineers.57 They offer different perspectives on the pilgrimage. The travel records of Chinese literati and officials, though often written by lay Buddhists (such as Zhang Dungu 張沌谷 in 1911 and Jiang Weiqiao 蔣維橋 in 1918),58 do not give much information on the pilgrimage and pilgrims but simply note the Mongols’ 56 57 58

Li Xiangzhi 1932; Ono Katsutoshi and Hibino Takao 1940. See the list of travelers and short presentations of the main accounts in Online Appendix C. On the genre of literati travel accounts to pilgrimage sites in China: Naquin and Yü 1992: 18.

Introduction

17

presence. By contrast, Chinese pilgrim accounts—such as renowned Chan master Xuyun 虛雲 (b. 1840 or 1864, d. 1959), who traveled in 1882-1883, and lay pilgrim Gao Henian 高鶴年 (n.d), who made pilgrimages in 1903 and 1912—put emphasis on dialogues with monks and encounters with Mañjuśrī. As for Westerners’ descriptions, Christian missionary accounts by J. Gilmour and J. Edkins, who travelled to Wutaishan in 1872 and who were especially interested in converting Mongols, give a very different viewpoint from that of scholars like D. Pokotilov (in Wutaishan in 1889),59 H. Hackman (1900) and W.W. Rockhill (1887 and 1908), that of travelers like E. Fischer (1917) and that of Buddhist scholars like J. Blofeld (1935-1936). Travelers’ accounts offer us some vivid descriptions of the Mongol pilgrims’ journeys and of practices that are absent from other sources. Indeed, some sacred spots on the mountain were known through stories that had a wide circulation and were often recorded in imperial gazetteers, while others became known through local monks or ethnic groups of pilgrims and thus circulated in narrower circles. For instance, some relics (such as the long tooth of Mañjuśrī in Jingangku 金剛窟, the Vajra Cave) or the Mother’s Womb-Cave ritual were described only by a few witnesses who actually went to these places. Western and Chinese travel literature is of an uneven quality, but it remains a major primary source to reconstruct the pilgrimage, in particular when it concerns lesser known practices and places.

Secondary Literature The secondary literature on Mongols’ pilgrimages to Wutaishan is extremely lean. Three short articles have been published in Mongolian and Chinese: Altanzayaa published a 2000 article documenting the pilgrimage of nobles and lamas and Mongolian guidebooks mostly from archival documents; in the same year, Song Wenhui 宋文輝 wrote an article about a document written by a Kharachin lama, preserved in the Archives of the Kharachin Right Banner, and Yan Tianling 閻天靈 (2004) listed some Chinese and Western sources on the pilgrimage. Although the libraries of Inner Mongolia and of the Republic of Mongolia possess a few guidebooks and religious writings on Wutaishan, as well as archival documents such as passports and paper certificates, Mongol and Chinese researchers have generally not been interested in pilgrimages. Chinese specialists of Wutaishan, such as Wang Zhiyong 王志勇 and Cui 59

Two out of the four chapters were translated from Russian into German in 1935. At the time of its translation, the Russian original was already rare; the translator W.A. Unkrig obtained it from A.M. Pozdneev in 1918 (introduction to the translation, Pokotilov 1935 [1893]: 38). I only had access to the German translation.

18

Introduction

Zhengsen 崔正森, who in 2000 published a two-volume general historical survey on Wutaishan, and scholars who write for the periodical Wutaishan yanjiu 五臺山研究 (Wutaishan studies), such as Gao Minghe 高明和, Wang Lu 王 璐, Wei Guozuo 魏国祚, and Xiao Yu 肖雨, all focus on Chinese history and architecture, Chinese Buddhism, Chinese steles, calligraphies and poems.60 Neither have researchers been interested in the Wutaishan pilgrimage from an anthropological perspective. Modern Mongol pilgrims do not have much material written in their language to learn about Wutaishan. I only know of two modern Mongolian guidebooks. The first is the Utai-bar juγacaγsad-tu, published in Chifeng 赤峰 in 1988, the translation of Wei Guozuo’s Wutaishan daoyou 五臺山导游 (Guide to Wutaishan); in 2007 and 2012, a few copies could be purchased in the bookshop of Taihuai 臺懷, the central village of Wutaishan. The second one is a small guidebook in Cyrillic script by lama Ishtavkhai, published in 1998 in his booklet Mörgölchidöd zoriulsan tailbar (Explanations to pilgrims). The Qing period Mongolian guidebooks have not been reprinted since the early twentieth century and are found only in archives, except for the eighteenth-century imperial gazetteer Cing liyang šan aγulan-u sine ji bicig (hereafter CLŠASB), which was published in 2000 in a modern version. The Mongols from Inner Mongolia now use Chinese guidebooks, such as Wei Guozuo’s, and lamas who read Tibetan mostly use one of the recently published Tibetan guidebooks.61

Present-Day Observations Observation of the Mongols’ journeys through the lens of historical and visual sources gives us only part of the story. No Qing or Republican source tells us about pilgrims rubbing their hands on miraculous footprints, or about icons and springs that had to be worshipped in order to complete the pilgrimage. We will never know what past pilgrims thought, felt and experienced. Nonetheless, field observation and interviews with today’s pilgrims on the site and with Buddhist devotees in Mongolia can help apprehend mental representations of the sacred geography, hierarchy of places to visit, motivations, beliefs, personal histories and ritual practices, along with their emic interpretations that are absent from historical sources. However, we must be extremely careful in our attempts to compare the pilgrimage in the twenty-first century with that of the 60

61

The articles by Yan Tianling and Song Wenhui are the only two articles about Mongols’ pilgrimages to Wutaishan in Wutaishan yanjiu, a periodical published four times a year since 1985. For instance, Ngag dbang bstan dar 2007. On recent Tibetan guidebooks: Chou 2011b: 134, 161-162.

Introduction

19

nineteenth century. The revival of the Wutaishan pilgrimage, including the behavior of present-day pilgrims, the respective roles of pilgrims in a group (‘the leader/guide,’ ‘the translator,’ ‘the lama,’ ‘the pilgrim who has already performed the pilgrimage and knows what to do,’ ‘the negotiator’ [with Chinese merchants, taxis] and so on) and, above all, the many individual stories would deserve to be the subject of a separate book-length study. I have focused here on the Qing and Republican period pilgrimages, only occasionally using observations on contemporary pilgrimages as comparison.



Questions of Vocabulary

Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Mongols: Geography and Diversity Before entering into the world of pilgrims, it is necessary to specify what I mean by ‘Mongols,’ ‘Mongol Buddhism’ and ‘pilgrimage.’ The main category of pilgrims we will encounter in this book is that of Mongols from Inner Mongolia,62 andKhalkha/Northern/OuterMongolia(present-day[Republicof]Mongolia),63 both included in the Qing empire. They formed the vast majority of the Mongols: according to early twentieth-century censuses, there were 828,000 Mongols in Inner Mongolia (for 1911) and 611,000 Mongols in Khalkha Mongolia (for 1918). A small minority of Mongols lived in other parts of the Qing empire, such as the Khoshuud of Kukunor (present-day Qinghai Province), the Torguts resettled in Turkestan (Xinjiang) and bannermen from Beijing. In addition, Mongols living outside the Qing empire (Buryats of Siberia and Kalmyks of the Volga) and Tuvans (of Turkik origin) are also mentioned among pilgrims to Wutaishan. The geographical origin of Mongols is defined by their ‘banner’ (khoshuu)— the basic territorial, administrative and military unit of Qing Mongolia—and by their league (chuulgan or aimag). The Mongol banners were administrated

62

63

‘Inner Mongolia’ (Dotood Monggol, Ch. Nei Menggu 内蒙古), renamed in Mongolian ‘Southern Mongolia’ (Öbör Monggol, but the Chinese denomination kept the appellation Nei Menggu) in 1947, originated in the alliance between Mongol princes with Manchu power in 1636. I consider the terms ‘Khalkha Mongolia,’ ‘Northern Mongolia’ (Aru Monggol) and ‘Outer Mongolia’ (Gadaadu Monggol, Ch. Wai Menggu 外蒙古) as more or less synonymous (‘Outer Mongolia’ lost its raison d’être when the Qing dynasty was abolished in 1912; it was renamed the Mongolian People’s Republic in 1924).

20

Introduction

by local ruling princes called jasag,64 and they enjoyed some autonomy, particularly during the first half of the Qing;65 besides, some were managed by monasteries and reincarnations, thus functioning as monastic estates. The outer frontiers of the Qing empire (represented in Map 6) are mere indications since real frontiers moved according to the movements of frontier guards and herders.

Tibeto-Mongol Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism In the Qing period, Tibetan/Tibeto-Mongol Buddhism was practiced by Tibetans, Mongols, Monguors, Tuvans, as well as some converted Manchus and Chinese. I here prefer the non-ethnic term Gélukpa Buddhism, since from the Qianlong period (1736-1796) to the end of the dynasty, the Qing support of Tibetan Buddhism was restricted to the Gélukpa School, and non-Gélukpa traditions of Tibetan Buddhism were not represented in Wutaishan’s clerical institutions. To a certain extent, the non-ethnic and encompassing terms ‘lamaist’ and ‘Lamaism,’ which are no longer in use in the academic world,66 would also be appropriate. The Wutaishan monasteries belong to two different clergies, the Chinese Buddhist and the Tibeto-Mongol Buddhist. It is difficult to avoid the term ‘Chinese Buddhism’ since, during the period studied here, there were no longer Chan, Avataṃsaka, Pure Land, Vinaya or Esoteric Schools but only monasteries 64

65

66

Except for the Tümed, the Chakhar of Inner Mongolia and the Khölön Buir banners, which were under direct Qing governmental control. The Inner Mongols and the Northern Khalkhas, whose aristocracy was linked to Chinggis Khan’s family, were generally called ‘Eastern Mongols,’ while the Mongols of Alashan, Ejene Torgut, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Khobdo were Oirads (Western Mongols) who had survived the violent conquest and destruction of the Jungar (Zunghar) empire by Emperor Qianlong, or who had previously allied or taken refuge with the Qing. The populations of the Chakhar and Bargu banners were mixed, composed of Mongols resettled there by the Qing. Khalkha Mongolia was divided into four aimags (divided into 86 banners from 1759 to 1912, plus eight monastic territories) located north of the Gobi, plus Darigangga (a special banner for imperial herds), the ‘Khobdo frontier’ and the ‘Tannu Uriyangkhai.’ Inner Mongolia included six leagues (divided into 49 banners), plus the Chakhar, Alashan and Ejene Torgut banners. The Bargu banners (in Khölön Buir) were part of Heilongjiang Province. On the administrative hierarchy and military organization of the banner: Vreeland 1962 [1957]: 13; Di Cosmo 1998: 301; Atwood 2004: 30-32. The term ‘Lamaism,’ which has no Tibetan or Mongol equivalent, comes from Qing imperialism and was vulgarized by Western orientalism. It is repudiated by Tibetan Buddhists for its pejorative connotations, setting Tibetan Buddhism apart, as if different from Buddhism: Lopez 1998: Chapter 1, esp. p. 17-20.

Introduction

21

combining these different traditions, with a general Chan or Pure Land orientation. The Chinese and Tibeto-Mongol traditions both stem from Mahāyāna but differ in the texts and the organization of the canons they rely on (the Chinese Tripiṭaka 大藏經 on the one hand, the Tibetan Kanjur and Tanjur on the other),67 the liturgical language, rituals, the monastic way of life, the pantheon and its iconography, and paraphernalia. Moreover, Tibetan Buddhism emphasizes esotericism and the presence of reincarnated lamas, whereas Chinese Buddhism does not. The popular understanding of the distinctions between these two forms of Buddhism have been studied by Gray Tuttle, who argues that before the 1930s, when Buddhism was constructed as a world religion, Tibetans and Chinese even perceived the two traditions as different religions. He nevertheless acknowledged that “the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Mongol and Monguor lamas who served at the court … tended to have a better understanding [than Tibetans] and more sympathy for Chinese Buddhists and their practices.”68 The present study will show that Mongols did not view these traditions as distinct religions and even built bridges between them, especially on Wutaishan. On Wutaishan, the Gélukpa and Chinese Buddhist traditions are distinguished by colors: Chinese Buddhism is identified as qing 青, or ‘green-blue/ grey,’ due to the color of the monks’ robes (in Mongolian, khökhe, ‘blue’). Its monks are called ‘monks in blue robes’ (qinggyi seng 青衣僧) and Chinese Buddhist monasteries are thus ‘blue monasteries’ (qingsi 青寺).69 The Gélukpa tradition is called huang 黃, or ‘yellow’: the lamas are ‘monks in yellow robes’ (huangyi seng 黃衣僧) and Gélukpa monasteries are ‘yellow monasteries’ (huangsi 黃寺)—the Gélukpas being known as the ‘Yellow Hats’ (Tib. zhaser).70 During the period under study the Mongol word for Buddhism was shira sha­shin (‘yellow religion/tradition/doctrine/teaching’), the Gélukpas being in the majority in Mongolia.71 67

68 69 70

71

The Kanjur and Tanjur also exist in Mongolian (and Manchu) translation, but since the eighteenth century, save a few exceptions, the Mongol monasteries have relied on the Tibetan canons. Tuttle 2005: 26, 70-71, 262, n. 7. Monks and nuns of North China are dressed in grey (blue-grey), or combine brown and grey, but ceremonial and abbots’ robes are yellow and red. As opposed to the ‘Red Hats’ i.e., the other schools of Tibetan Buddhism, and more specifically the Nyingmapas. Although this colored terminology is rejected by Tibetans and Tibetologists for being a Sino-Manchu invention, it is commonly used by Mongols. The yellow of the Mongol church contrasts with the black of the laymen (khara khümün) and of popular religion (khara shashin), a pejorative term. Modern Mongols now call

22

Introduction

I refer to Gélukpa monks as ‘lamas,’ as in the current Mongolian usage, i.e., fully ordained monks,72 to distinguish them from Chinese Buddhist monks (heshang 和尚). Qing and Republican period Chinese sources on Wutaishan call them lamas 喇嘛 or fanseng 番僧 (‘foreign monk’).

Definition of Pilgrimage in a Mongol Context In China, the liberalization of state policy toward religion in the 1980s allowed for the revival of national and local pilgrimages and at the same time provided an opportunity for research on this phenomenon. A number of studies on the subject have appeared over the last twenty years, and the reference book on the subject, Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China, was published in 1992.73 Simultaneously, scholarly interest in Tibetan pilgrimage sites has grown rapidly among Tibetologists.74 Though these studies are not numerous in the larger field of Chinese and Tibetan religious studies, they do nevertheless exist; in comparison, no book has yet been written on Mongol pilgrimages. One explanation is that Mongol pilgrimage guides are rare and difficult to obtain compared to Tibetan guidebooks. Besides, most anthropologists working on Mongolia have up to now chosen not to focus on Buddhism, and the revival of pilgrimages in the 1990s went unnoticed in the scholarly world. In this book, I use the conventional, restricted definition of pilgrimage: “a journey to a sanctified place, undertaken with the expectation of future spiritual and/or worldly benefit,” distinct from regular worship in time (long journeys) and space (separation from home).75 Pilgrimage is a transaction, ‘an investment in the future,’76 from which the pilgrims, through their prayers, offerings and physical involvement (walking, circumambulation, prostrations), expect to obtain benefits as a reward. Yet a pilgrimage also involves much more than a physical journey and worship of a sacred place: it is ‘a complete cultural phenomenon’77 involving a wide range of actors—ranging from the political authorities to the residing monks, traders, beggars—and of motivations,

72 73 74

75 76 77

Buddhism burkhan-u shashin or budda-yin shashin (“religion/tradition/doctrine/teaching of the Buddha”). The term ‘lama’ should be restricted to designate the master, the guru; but Mongol monks, whatever their position and knowledge, are commonly called and addressed as lamas. Naquin and Yü, eds. 1992. Among others, Anne-Marie Blondeau; Katia Buffetrille (1996a, 1998, 2000, 2003); Alexander W. Macdonald (1998); Alex McKay (ed. 1998); Toni Huber (1999; ed. 1999). For a critical review of Tibetan pilgrimage research: Huber 1994; Huber 1999: 231, n. 2. McKay 1998: 1. McKay 1998: 2. Buffetrille 2003.

Introduction

23

including tourism and trade. It has a political, sociological, economic, as well as an ecological, impact and participates in the construction of cultural identities. Mongolian language distinguishes ‘pilgrimage’ from ordinary worship, called mörgöl, by referring to its ‘size,’ plus adding a verb denoting departure or travel.78 The most common expression is (yekhe) mörgöl-dür yabu- (or khi- or üiled-), literally ‘to go on/to make a (big) prayer.’79 Yekhe, meaning ‘big’ or ‘large,’ evokes the adventure and emotional intensity inherent in long-distance pilgrimages. The term mörgöl refers all at once to bowing (‘kowtow, knocking one’s forehead against the ground’), public prayer, religious worship, religious ceremony, as well as pilgrimage. It comes from the verb mörgö-, which originally meant ‘to butt, to hit, knock’s one’s forehead against something, to gore’ for a horned animal,80 and also designates the shaman’s gestures imitating the goring attitude of the stag in order to please the spirit who gives game.81 Mörgö- is also used in expressions meaning ‘a collision, a car accident.’ In the Buddhist context, it means ‘to touch with one’s head, to bow, to pray, to make a prostration, to pay religious homage’; Mongols commonly say: “I pray until my forehead is pierced.” Interestingly, the Mongolian terminology of pilgrimage and worship does not use specific Buddhist terms but rather terms for concrete body language: the worshipper touching the ground with his forehead is comparable with the goring deer and the gesticulating shaman wearing antlers and imitating a cervid’s butt. Prostrations, more than circumambulation, therefore seem to characterize Mongol worship and pilgrimage; by contrast, the Tibetan vocabulary emphasizes circumambulation of the sacred site, generally in a clockwise direction, as prescribed in ancient Buddhist Sanskrit sources.82 The generic Tibetan term for ‘pilgrimage’ is nékor, lit. ‘circuiting, going around (kor) a place (né),’ or (more honorific) néjel, lit. ‘to meet a né (a holy place), to encounter, to pay respect to a holy place.’83 A pilgrim is a nékorwa, ‘the one who goes around the sacred place.’ 78

79

80 81 82 83

The verb ayala- means ‘to travel, set out on a journey, go on a military or hunting expedition, or a pilgrimage’; ayalaltsa-, ‘travel, go on pilgrimage or on an expedition in a group.’ A worshipper and a pilgrim are both called mörgölchin (or mörgöltön, jochin mörgölchin; jochin meaning ‘guest, visitor’); to make a full prostration is mörgöjü dokhi or tologai mörgökhü; a place of worship (temple, sacred place, pilgrimage site) is called mörgöl-ün oron or mörgögdekhü-yin oron. Tsevel 1966: 345. ‘Shamanizing’ is böge mörgö- (Hamayon 1990: 142, 361, 497-499). Buffetrille 1996a: 347-355; Huber 1999: 13. Jel: ‘paying respect to, the paying of respects.’ Tibetans generally make a distinction between long-distance pilgrimages to a major holy place and regular, short-term

24

Introduction

However, there are lesser-used Mongolian expressions that also refer to circumambulations: Antoine Mostaert gives for the Ordos dialect mörgöl ergil or ergil mörgöl, ‘pilgrimage’ (lit. ‘circumambulation while praying/bowing’) and mörgöl ergil khi-, or mörgöl ergilte yabu-, ‘to make a pilgrimage.’84 Ergil, ‘turning, rotation, circumambulation of a temple or a stūpa,’ translates the Sanskrit pra­ dakṣiṇa and the Tibetan kor. In Mongolia, monks also say (Cyr. Mo.) goroo- or gorool- (< Tib. kor): ‘to go round, circumambulate,’ such as in Bogd uulin goroond yava-, ‘make the circumambulation of Bogda Mountain.’85 The notion of né, the translation of the Sankrit pratiṣṭhitā, is central to understanding Tibetan and Mongol pilgrimages. Né can be translated as ‘abode,’ ‘power place,’ ‘holy place,’ ‘potential source of sacred energy,’ as well as ‘the (temporary or permanent) abode of a deity or a saint.’86 A né place can be a mountain, a cave, a temple, a relic, an icon, or a human incarnation of a deity such as the Dalai Lama. Né sites are ‘empowered’ as a result of the contact with enlightened beings, such as Padmasambhava,87 and by the religious practices performed there. As Huber puts it, “gnas [né] in the term gnas-skor [nékor] always carries the double meaning of the actual physical place, and of the residence or existence of deities, entities or beings believed to be powerful or significant in some way by the pilgrims who go there.”88 Meditating lamas can ‘read’ a né, i.e., interpret it by making a link between the ‘actual plane’ and a more subtle level of reality.89 Né have the primary quality of being potential sources of ‘sacred energy’ or ‘empowerment, blessing’ (jinlap, Skt. adhishthāna) and wield transformative power over pilgrims. Né places both attract and emit: they attract pilgrims and emit a sort of magnetic field.90 Né is also a key notion of Mongol pilgrimages. According to the context, Mongols translate né as oroshigsan, lit. ‘contained in, which dwelled in

84 85 86 87 88 89 90

individual worship at a local shrine, for a festival, for instance, which is called chöjel (‘to pay respect with an offering’). But “the boundaries between these words (mchod-mjal, gnas-bskor, gnas-mjal) are subject to change and are blurred” (Ekvall and Downs 1987: 26). For other definitions of a Tibetan pilgrimage: Large-Blondeau 1960; Ekvall 1964: 244; Ekvall and Downs 1987: 26; Huber 1994: 23-39; Buffetrille 1996a: 478; for a comparative perspective in East Asia: Naquin and Yü 1992: 1-38. Mörgɯ̅ l ergɯ̅ l / ergɯ̅ l k’ī / ergɯ̅ lt’ɯ jawu- (Mostaert 1941-1944: 470). Lubsangdorji 2002. Huber 1994: 23, 30-31; Huber 1999: 13. Renowned eighth-century yogin reputed to have introduced Tantric Buddhism in Tibet and revered by the Nyingmapas as a second buddha. Huber 1994: 31. Huber 1999: 13. Ramble 1997: 133.

Introduction

25

something,’ or adistid-un oron, adistidlagsan oron (‘blessed site’). Adistid, or adis, from Sanskrit adhishthāna, means ‘blessing, benediction, consecration, bestowal of miraculous power by a deity.’ Adis is obtained (or transferred) by touching a lama’s hand, an icon, or a stūpa with one’s forehead (adis ab-, ‘to receive [lit., take] the blessing’; adislagsan gajar, a ‘blessed ground, blissful place’; adisla-, ‘to bless, pronounce a benediction, consecrate’). Deities and saints such as Padmasambhava “blessed the Five[-Terraced] Mountain [i.e., Wutaishan] with their feet [i.e., footprints].”91 These Buddhist notions coincide with properties of Mongol mountain gods who are said to possess ide shidi (supernatural power, magic) and sür (majesty, might, splendor). While accumulating merit for oneself or a living or dead relative (hence the possibility of making substitution pilgrimages) is the official, ‘orthodox’ goal— and often the only expressed goal—of all Buddhist pilgrimages, the pilgrims generally also have more mundane objectives.92 This is reflected in the Mongolian term buyan (