Burning for the Buddha

Chapter 5. Local Heroes in a Fragmenting Empire: Self-Immolation in the Late Tang and Five Dynasties

132 C H A P T E R 5 Local Heroes in a Fragmenting Empire Self-Immolation in the Late Tang and Five Dynasties any of the biographies in the self-immolation section of Zanning’s Song gaoseng zhuan relate the tales of local heroes in a world that was often unstable, frightening, and hostile towards Buddhists. We can ¤nd in the many accounts of self-immolation from the eighth to tenth centuries no overarching narrative of religious persecution and dynastic legitimation such as we perceived in Daoxuan’s collection. Probably the most signi¤cant theme that recurs throughout the section, and one that Zanning develops with enthusiasm in the critical evaluation, is the miraculous power of the relics of the Buddha, in which the compiler had a great personal interest. In tandem with the importance of the Buddha’s remains, we can detect in our sources a growing interest in the relics of self-immolators themselves.1 In the biographies we ¤nd relics created in ever-increasing numbers and in ever more miraculous ways. Self-immolators were able to produce šarîra not only through cremation, but now also by spontaneously exuding them from their skin while still alive. Along with this very marked “relic in¶ation,” miracles were recorded in abundance and in great detail. As the Buddha receded farther and farther in time and space so conversely did Buddhist miracles on Chinese soil become ever more important. Zanning and the Song gaoseng zhuan Zanning was the most important monk of¤cial in the coastal kingdom of WuYue during the period of disunion after the fall of the Tang dynasty. This small state was a haven of safety during the violence and disorder of the period , and Buddhism ¶ourished there under state protection and patronage.2 But when the Song emperor Taizong 宋太宗 (r. 976–997) ascended the throne of a dynasty that controlled most of China, King Zhongyi (Qian Chu 錢俶, 929–988) realized that he had little choice but to bring his state under the direct control of the Song empire. The submission of Wu-Yue to Song hegemony was accompanied by a signi¤cant gift to the new emperor of the relics of Šâkyamuni, formerly in the possession of Wu-Yue and handed over by M Local Heroes in a Fragmenting Empire 133 Zanning himself, as he relates in his critical evaluation to the self-immolation section. A collection of biographies of eminent monks was commissioned by Zanning’s new master, Taizong, in 982 and was completed in 988.3 It was the ¤rst such collection to be written under imperial orders. Because of his standing at court, and particularly because of his involvement in the diplomatic negotiations between Wu-Yue and the Song empire, Zanning was able to step fairly easily into an equally in¶uential position in the new order . Taizong, much impressed by the breadth of his knowledge, appointed him to the Hanlin 翰林 academy. But Zanning, while undoubtedly a clever individual who was well versed in both secular and religious literature, was simply not as talented a historian as Daoxuan, although the inadequacies of his work may in part be attributed to the problems in compiling a vast collection very rapidly at the end of a period of division.4 Zanning compiled the Song gaoseng zhuan not in the Song capital but in his native Qiantang 錢 塘 and clearly did not have access to as many documents, or as many eyewitnesses , as Daoxuan. He was not able to cross-check his sources with the diligence shown by his predecessor, and so we ¤nd many contradictions between the biographies.5 The collection was written for the emperor to assure his support for the Buddhist establishment and for that reason it is apologetic in nature. On the other hand, Zanning did go out of his way to explain and interpret in a way that perhaps Huijiao and Daoxuan, writing for a more Buddhist audience, may not always have thought necessary. The section on self-immolators is entitled yishen. There are twenty-two main biographies and two supplementary: These include ¤ve acts of autocremation and seventeen by other means. As we might expect from the circumstances under which the collection was compiled, there is a certain geographical bias in favor of the South, and many of the later biographies concern monks from Wu-Yue in particular. We may also note the presence of a number of quite well-known Chan masters in this section, which will con¤rm...