The fifth volume on Sichuan in the monumental Buddhist Stone Sutras in China series continues the impressive teamwork of the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften to document the famous site known as Wofoyuan (Grove of the Reclining Buddha). Vol. 5 surveys Caves 71, 73, and 76 in Section E and Caves 83 and 85 in Section F. All material is provided in both Chinese and English. In this volume, the only engraved text translated (on pp. 35–8) is the impressive stele-shaped inscription in Cave 81, discussed below.
The first part (“Introduction”) consists of two chapters, a survey of Sections E and F by project leader Lothar Ledderose and an analysis of the Suvarṇabhāsottama-Sūtra (Golden Light Sutra) by Michael Radich. Inscriptions featuring a synoptic version of the “Golden Light Sutra” are distinctive features of Caves 73 and 76 in Section E. Further discussion of the two introductory chapters is provided below.
The second part, “Catalogue”, includes meticulous coverage of each cave in Sections E and F. All the volumes in this series provide high-quality documentation, enabling other scholars to incorporate study of the site. For each cave, coverage includes a “Description” subsection giving an overview, location, measurements, a layout of each wall with a report on the state of preservation, and a “Discussion” subsection, consisting of annotated citations of previous scholarship. This is followed by “Illustrations”, state-of-the-art photos of rock-face and rubbings for each inscription segment on each cave wall. The final section for each Cave is “Transcriptions”, with annotations comparing the cave-text with versions in the Taishō Daizōkyō. Two sections of end matter provide a “Table of selected variant characters” with thumbnail photos, and a bibliography of relevant secondary sources.
The first “Introduction” chapter by Lothar Ledderose, “Sections E and F in the southern escarpment”, explores diverse aspects of Caves 71–77 (Section E), Caves/Niches 81–90 (Section Fa), and Caves/Niches 90.1–94 (Section Fb). Ledderose provides closely observed reconstructions of how the caves were carved. He focuses on those caves that include sūtra engravings, tracking shifts in engraving practices. Close analysis reveals that original design intentions were not always realized. Cave 76 is a fascinating example: the bottom, accessible portions of columns of text are completed, with the obvious intention of completing the top portions using a ladder – but the top was never finished. A contrasting example is Cave 85 in Section F, which contains the entire Vimalakīrti Sutra. Ledderose's meticulous account of the construction of Cave 85 connects topographical features, textual requirements and aesthetics, and the ways that the builders customized the space to fill it with text and place the most significant chapters on the rear wall of the cave, facing devotees. He also notes inexplicable anomalies.
The second section of the chapter gives background and context for the five sūtra texts carved in the caves: the entire Heart and Diamond sūtras, the opening chapters of the Golden Light Sūtra (in Section E), a small portion of the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and the entire Vimalakīrti Sūtra (in Section F). Possible intentions and interests of the lay donors are reconstructed on the basis of degrees of completion and comparisons with other engraved texts in the Wofoyuan compound. A subsequent section on colophons provides further insight into donor activities from the eighth to the tenth centuries. Three final sections briefly discuss spells, line engravings, and graffiti.
The centrepiece of the chapter is a section devoted to the above-mentioned stele-shaped engraving on the rear wall of Cave 81, dated 1103. Ledderose designates this as the most informative inscription “in the entire Grove”. The “Sacred stele to ward off evil with warnings and consequences for thieves and robbers of fireworks and candles” renders a rich trove of insights into problems that plagued the monastery at Wofoyuan; in addition to warnings about the consequences of theft, there are also strictures against wrongful appropriation of monastic property, clerical laxity, and not cremating those who die of contagious diseases within the precinct. Commissioned by two abbots of the monastery, the appeal has a striking immediacy and granularity. No summary description can do it justice.
In the second “Introduction” chapter, Michael Radich gives a fascinating account of the protean “Golden Light Sutra” and its variants and witnesses. The text represented at Wofoyuan, the Hebu jin guangming jing 合部金光明經 (T#664), a synthetic version combining three portions of three Chinese versions of the Suvarṇa(pra)bhāsottama-sūtra, compiled by Baogui 寶貴 (d.u.) in 597–598. A second section on “Textual-historical significance” covers five aspects: a comparison of variants of a key passage in other relevant texts; variations on some of the dhāraṇīs found in the text; variant readings of two other portions; and reasons why Baogui's version was chosen. The last argument is contextualized by Stefano Zacchetti's research on the use of Jingtai's 精泰 catalogue at Wofoyuan. These textual analyses are invaluable for scholars undertaking reconstructions of patterns of reproduction and transmission. Radich pays tribute to “our texts” as living organisms: “any fixed version of a text, like the one we happily find on the walls of caves 73 and 76, is only a snapshot of a single moment in a long and complex life process” (p. 70).
The third and final section on “Thematic relations to the programme(s) at Wofoyuan” summarizes the seven engraved chapters of the Golden Light Sūtra (pp. 84–87). Radich then discusses chapter themes in relation to dominant motifs at the site, most prominently the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra and the massive central reclining Buddha-parinirvāṇa image that prompted the designation Wofoyuan. Radich surveys a constellation of patterns arising from these texts and images: dharmakāyā; buddha-body theories and the practices aimed at attaining them; conquest of death and illness; confession liturgies and buddha-naming.
Baogui's translation of the Golden Light Sūtra is thus a good reflection in microcosm of earlier constellations of Hebei-Henan texts, practices, and constructions of the sixth and seventh centuries. For example, the Three (Buddha) Bodies exposition in Chapter Three of the Golden Light Sūtra shows affinity with the Yogācāra-tathāgatagharba blend associated with Dilun (Stages Treatise) exegesis and practice. I have long been intrigued by resonances between Dilun-inflected productions in the sixth and seventh centuries and Wofoyuan in the eighth century. Wofoyuan reflects “holy synaesthesia”, in Radich's felicitous phrasing, that weaves devotional seeing of icons, visions, hearing, and perlocutionary confession and evocation. In related earlier contexts in the North, these were ways to pay court to the non-dual efficacy of dharmakāyā; visual dynamics were represented as mirror-like and auditory dynamics were also meant to be copoietic, calling on the powers of sympathetic resonance (ganying).
However, I would like to challenge one point that Radich makes: the final part of the chapter is cast as a corrective to a putative misunderstanding about textual and iconic images of the Buddha's final nirvāṇa scene. Radich asserts that “modern scholarship” usually misunderstands the parinirvāṇa scene in the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra as negative. I would demur – I have read quite a lot of the literature on practices of this period and most scholars, myself included, recognize that the magnificently staged pathos MPNS and other final-nirvāṇa treatments are empowerments for devotees. The one example Radich cites of treating final nirvāṇa material as “negative” is Sonya S. Lee's Surviving Nirvana: Death of the Buddha in Chinese Visual Culture (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010). The reference Radich refutes, “anxiety about absence”, appears to come from the book's jacket-cover, and even there “anxiety” is cast as a pretext. Throughout her book, Lee weaves a far more complex narrative, one that is fully in alignment with the insight Radich claims as his own, namely that the “absence” motif is the site of a proliferation of practices expanding the horizons of both transcendence and immanence. On a page Radich cites as “negative”, Lee in fact writes this of the nirvāṇa image: “Its affective power was often seized upon to recast a moment of loss and despair as a harbinger of hope and confidence” (Lee 2010: 4).
In any case, this is a minor point in light of the accomplished scholarship and tremendous work that went into the creation of Radich's groundbreaking chapter and the volume and series it enhances. In sum, I have only praise for this magnificent achievement; each aspect of the volume shows the highest degree of attention to detail and quality scholarship. I had the opportunity to hear a presentation by Manuel Sassmann on the technology and labour involved in producing the detailed photos of rubbings and correlating them with photos of wall-segments. The process was complicated and exacting, and creates a high standard for other archaeologists. This will be an enduring resource for scholars of medieval China, Buddhism, and Chinese archaeology.
