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155 CHAPTER SIX Narrative, Visualization, and Transposition of Mount Wutai There is, however, one mode of transposition that is most difficult for ritual praxis and thought—the transposition of space marked as sacred. —Jonathan Z. Smith, “Constructing a Small Place” In the years after the death of Amoghavajra, the dominance of Esoteric Buddhism at Mount Wutai began to wane,1 but this did not reduce Mount Wutai’s importance as a national pilgrimage site. From the last year of Emperor Daizong’s reign in 779 to the persecution initiated by Emperor Wuzong (r. 840–46) in 845, the number of eminent monks visiting Mount Wutai increased steadily.2 The popularity of the bodhisattva cult, moreover, went hand in hand with its transmission outside of Mount Wutai through textual and visual representations of the sacred site. In 824, for example, it was recorded that the Tibetan king, who then ruled an extensive area west of China, including the Mogao cave site near Dunhuang, Gansu, sent envoys to Tang China to request a copy of the “Picture of Mount Wutai” (Wutaishan tu).3 This is not the first recorded visual image (tu) of Mount Wutai, but unlike its precedents, which were made as records of miraculous occurrences at the sacred site,4 the picture requested by the Tibetan king was much more significant. It suggests not only the spread of the bodhisattva cult into the western region, but also the possible religious import of the image that depicted the sacred mountain. No later descriptions of this picture or its whereabouts exist, but the earliest murals of Mount Wutai in Mogao meditation caves did appear around this period. As such, two questions arise: What was depicted in the picture of Mount Wutai, and why were textual and visual depictions of the sacred site not produced in greater numbers until this period? Until more evidence is found, it would be difficult to properly address the first question, but we may approach it indirectly, by answering the second. To represent Mount Wutai in its entirety requires first conceptualizing on a smaller scale its five soaring peaks and extensive spatial range. Two examples from the eighth century, the base of the stone lantern (see fig. 4.3), from 713–39, and a stone engraving with the title “Picture of [Mount] Wutai” (Wutai tu) (see fig. 4.4), from 758–77, are early attempts to do just this. In them, Mount Wutai was represented schematically, with four peaks at the four cardinal directions and one in the center. In the later eighth and early ninth centuries, in comparison, it was the monastery that played a more notable role in NARRATIVE, VISUALIZATION, AND TRANSPOSITION 156 the presentation of Mount Wutai in its totality, the religious import of which may have consequently prompted more demands for and creations of both visual and textual representation. This rising importance of the monastery can be explained by the nature of the monastery system and the growth of pilgrimage to Mount Wutai. The fivefold monastic system promoted by Amoghavajra was eclipsed by a new, tenfold system, the ten great monasteries of Mount Wutai (Wutaishan shisi).5 This term is first recorded as part of an official title, that of the chief officer of the ten great monasteries at Mount Wutai (Wutaishan shisi dujianjiao); the first monk assigned to the post was Zhijun (d. 853), an eminent monk affiliated with the Huayan Monastery during the first half of the ninth century.6 The appearance of this post in charge of the administrative branch of the monastic community suggests that a much more institutionalized Mount Wutai was taking shape then, and also that its center had, again, returned to Huayan Monastery. As far as which monasteries were included among the ten, however, there are no records until much later.7 This evident lack of emphasis on which monasteries were the most important may have been due to the fact that the tenfold system was not initially a fixed designation, but a more flexible notion, representing and epitomizing the complete monastic establishment and community as a whole. Ten not only doubles five but is also the number of greatest fullness in the numerology of the Flower Garland Sutra.8 The phrase “ten great monasteries of Mount Wutai,” in this view, did not merely function as a shorthand expression, but more important, referred to the holistic, coherent entirety of the sacred mountain and all its content. This entirety made Mount Wutai as a whole more perceivable on...

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