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ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۠Өڷۃۣۧۢۨۤۦۗۧۖ۩ۑ
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ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۠Өڷۃڷۙۧ۩ڷۣۚڷۧۡۦۙے
ۨۦ۩ۣӨڷۙۜۨڷۢڷۺۜۤٷۦۣۣۛۡۧӨڷۘۢٷڷۙۛٷۡۦۛ۠ێڷۃۙۧۦ۪ۙۢۓڷۨۧۜۘۘ۩ψڷۙۜۨڷۛۢۢۛٷۡۙې
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۩ۣۜӨڷۛۢۜۧۙۢҒە
ҢۀۀڷҒڷۂڽۀڷۤۤڷۃۀڽڼھڷۺٷیڷҖڷھڼڷۙ۩ۧۧٲڷҖڷڿۀڷۙۡ۩ۣ۠۔ڷҖڷۧۙۘ۩ۨۑڷۢٷۧۆڷۣۚڷ۠ٷۢۦ۩ۣЂڷۙۜے
ۀڽڼھڷ۠ۦۤۆڷҢڽڷۃۣۙۢ۠ۢڷۘۙۜۧ۠ۖ۩ێڷۃڽۀۀھڼڼڿڽہڽڽۂڽھڼڼۑҖۀڽڼڽғڼڽڷۃٲۍө
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ۃۙ۠ۗۨۦٷڷۧۜۨڷۙۨۗڷۣۨڷۣ۫ٱ
ۢڷۺۜۤٷۦۣۣۛۡۧӨڷۘۢٷڷۙۛٷۡۦۛ۠ێڷۃۙۧۦ۪ۙۢۓڷۨۧۜۘۘ۩ψڷۙۜۨڷۛۢۢۛٷۡۙېڷғۀۀڽڼھڿڷ۩ۣۜӨڷۛۢۜۧۙۢҒە
ۤۤڷۃڿۀڷۃۧۙۘ۩ۨۑڷۢٷۧۆڷۣۚڷ۠ٷۢۦ۩ۣЂڷۙۜےڷғڷۀڿڿۂڽڬڿۀہڽڿڷٷۡٷۋڷٷ۠ٷөڷۜۨۢۙۙۨۦۜےڷۙۜۨڷۣۚڷۨۦ۩ۣӨڷۙۜۨ
ڽۀۀھڼڼڿڽہڽڽۂڽھڼڼۑҖۀڽڼڽғڼڽۃۣۘڷҢۀۀҒۂڽۀ
ۙۦۙۜڷ۟ۗ۠Өڷۃڷۣۧۢۧۧۡۦۙێڷۨۧۙ۩ۥۙې
ڿڽڼھڷۺٷیڷۂڽڷۣۢڷھڿғڿڼھғھڽڽғہھڽڷۃۧۧۙۦۘۘٷڷێٲڷۃۑۆۛҖЂۦۣۘۛۙғۦۖۡٷۗ۠ۧғٷۢۦ۩ۣ۞ҖҖۃۤۨۨۜڷۣۡۦۚڷۘۙۘٷۣۣ۠ۢ۫ө
The Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 73, No. 2 (May) 2014: 419–445.
© The Association for Asian Studies, Inc., 2014 doi:10.1017/S0021911813002441
Reimagining the Buddhist Universe: Pilgrimage and
Cosmography in the Court of the Thirteenth Dalai
Lama (1876–1933)
WEN-SHING CHOU
During his exiles from Lhasa in the 1910s, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama visited the holy places
of Wutai Shan in China and Bodh Gaya in India. After his return, he commissioned paintings of these two places in cosmological mural programs of his palaces. While conforming to
earlier iconographic traditions, these paintings employed empirical modes of representation
unprecedented in Tibetan Buddhist paintings, revealing a close connection to the Dalai
Lama’s prior travels. This essay traces how these “modernized” renditions were incorporated into an existing pictorial template, and examines the deft rearticulation of a Buddhist
cosmology in light of the Dalai Lama’s own encounter with the shifting geopolitical terrains
of the early twentieth century. I show that painting served as a powerful medium through
which the Dalai Lama asserted his spiritual sovereignty and temporal authority over modernity’s work of boundary making. The study elucidates a sphere of agency and creativity in
the court of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama that has evaded historical inquiries to date.
A
PERIODS OF EXILE in Mongolia, China, and India between 1904 and 1912, the
Thirteenth Dalai Lama Tupten Gyatso returned to Tibet to instigate several largescale social, economic, political, legal, and religious reforms. These reforms were
aimed at reviving the Gelukpa institution and transforming Tibet into a modern, independent nation-state, and included the establishment of major institutions (Tibet’s military,
currency, postal system, electricity network, and schools for medicine and astrology),
the abolishment of capital punishment, and restorations of major temples and palaces
in and around Lhasa.1 But because the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s efforts were not ultimately met with political success, historians have attributed this failure to forces of
imperialism and hindrances posed by conservative factions in his own government
(Anand 2009; Bell 1946; Goldstein 1989; Mehra 1976; Shakabpa 2010; Walt van Praag
1987). This singular focus on the Dalai Lama’s lack of political agency not only failed
to understand his modern reforms on their own terms, but also undermined the importance of cultural and artistic patronage in the Dalai Lama’s vision of a modern Tibet.2
FTER
Wen-shing Chou (chouwenshing@gmail.com) is Assistant Professor of Art History at Hunter College, City University of New York.
1
Many characterized these reforms as Tibet’s first step toward modernization (Kapstein 2006, 172;
Tuttle 2005, 54).
2
Gyeten Namgyal (1994) remains the only published work that discusses in detail the Thirteenth
Dalai Lama’s patronage of the arts.
420
Wen-shing Chou
The Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s scrupulous supervision of renovation projects of major
monasteries and palaces in and around Lhasa is best documented in three catalogues of
renovations of temples, paintings, and images he authored (Thub bstan rgya mtsho [1922]
1981–82, 4:761–96, 5:667–90, 5:691–708).3 In them he emphasized repeatedly that his
diligence toward temple restorations and reconsecrations were necessary measures to
keep away harm, maintain the teachings of the Buddha, and fulfill the wishes of all
Tibetan people during a time of tremendous change (Alexander 2005, 295–307; Phur
lcog yongs ‘dzin 1940, 2:226b–227b).4 In other words, temple renovation projects
were part and parcel of the religious and institutional reform of the Thirteenth Dalai
Lama.
Recognizing these projects as necessary foundations for the Dalai Lama’s reforms,
this essay examines two cosmological painting programs in the Potala and the Norbu
Lingka, commissioned by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama between 1922 and 1928. It pays
particular attention to two paintings of sacred sites, Bodh Gaya in India and Wutai
Shan in China. While they belong to a familiar Buddhist cosmology of holy places,
Bodh Gaya and Wutai Shan are also sites that the Thirteenth Dalai Lama visited
during his exiles abroad. They are depicted in what I will call empirical modes of representation unprecedented in Tibetan Buddhist paintings, while all other paintings
follow the precise iconographic prescriptions of an existing paradigm of vision, what I
will call a visionary mode of representation. What gave rise to these new depictions,
and how do they fit into the existing paradigm?
The question of how new modes of knowledge and production enter into and sustain
an image-making tradition that is based on iconographic precision became especially relevant in early twentieth-century Tibet, when images often played an urgent role in both
claiming and articulating authority in the climate of political uncertainty and ambiguity.
In her recent study of a series of Panchen Lama portraits produced from mechanical
looms in 1930s Hangzhou, Patricia Berger (2008, 2:731) shows that “the precision of
mechanical reproduction and its ability to reliably capture an extremely complicated
past” invested modern textiles with the power and authority of the original icon. Similarly,
the appearance of modern paradigms of vision and experience in the cosmological painting programs of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama further validated and articulated the visionary
worldview in a time when it was greatly challenged. These painting programs skillfully
wove the empirical system of knowledge and representation into an existing visionary
world, rather than being altered by it. The selective employment of radically different
modes of seeing and depicting reality in the sphere of artistic practice reveals what is
otherwise buried in legal, institutional, and religious sources—the role of pilgrimage
and sacred geography in the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s encounter with geopolitical transformations of the early twentieth century. Examining the pictorial programs in light of
accounts of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s travels, I argue that this particular mapping of
a Buddhist universe may be seen as a direct response to modernity’s technologies and
3
It is also described extensively in his biography by Phur lcog yongs ‘dzin (1940) and by Charles Bell
(1946) during his 1921 visit to Lhasa.
4
The Dalai Lama supervised restorations of the outer corridor of the Jokhang (Tsug lag khang), the
Ramoche Temple, the Samye (Bsam yas) Monastery, the stūpa shrine of Tsongkhapa at Ganden
Monastery, and many other sites in and around Lhasa.
Reimagining the Buddhist Universe
421
Figure 1. Mural Program of the Eastern Sunlight Hall, Audience Room of the Dalai Lama, Potala Palace, Lhasa, 1922–24
(after Jiang 1996, 1:147).
vocabularies of identity and place-making, and that painting served as a medium through
which the court of the Dalai Lama asserted his spiritual sovereignty and temporal authority. Centered on the reading of images and texts from within the tradition of Tibetan
cosmological and biographical genres, this study reveals a sphere of agency and creativity
in Tibet’s nuanced negotiation with modernity that has evaded historical inquiries to date.
THE MURAL PROGRAM
AT THE
EASTERN SUNLIGHT HALL
IN THE
POTALA
In 1923, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama personally dictated and supervised (Tib. ljags
bkod kyi lam nas)5 the rebuilding and enlargement of the upper part of the Eastern
White Palace (Phur lcog yongs ‘dzin 1940, 2:231b). The main room on the top floor of
the White Palace, known as the Eastern Sunlight Hall, served as the Thirteenth and
later the Fourteenth Dalai Lamas’ audience hall, where state affairs and meetings with
foreign representatives were conducted.6 Attached to this hall are chapels of protector
deities and living quarters of the Dalai Lama. An array of compositions and narratives
covers the walls of the Eastern Sunlight Hall, each of them accompanied by small but
neatly legible inscriptions identifying the main subject and its subsidiary details (see
figure 1). On the south end of the west wall is the image of the sacred mountain range
of Wutai Shan, the earthly abode of Mañjuśrı̄, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, located in
northeastern China. Adjacent to it on the other side of the entrance is the Kingdom of
Shambhala, a mytho-historical kingdom famed for having preserved the profound teaching of the Kālacakra Tantra (lit. Time-Wheel Tantra). To its right on the northern end of
the west wall is the Dhānyakataka Stūpa, a site in northern India where the Kālacakra
Tantra is known to have been first taught by the Buddha Ś ākyamuni. The north wall
5
Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine.
The full name of the hall is Nyiwö Shar Ganden Nangsel, or Eastern Sunlight, the Luminous
Holder of Happiness (Blo bzang thub bstan 1982, 26).
6
422
Wen-shing Chou
Figure 2. Mural of the Mahābodhi Temple of Bodh Gaya,
south end of East Wall, Eastern Sunlight Hall, Potala Palace,
Lhasa, 1922–24 (Leoshko 1988, 145).
features narratives of the life of Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), the founder of the Geluk
school of Tibetan Buddhism. The paintings, displaying Tsongkhapa’s eminent career as
a teacher, philosopher, reformer, and prolific receiver of dharma transmissions, are
visible on either side of the central throne and scripture cases. At the northeastern
end of the hall is a small balcony, inside of which are images of Abhirati, the paradise
of Buddha Aks.obhya of the Eastern Direction, and the paradise of Avalokiteśvara, the
Bodhisattva of compassion. Along the east wall, there is a portrait of the enthroned Thirteenth Dalai Lama, and the Mahābodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha Ś ākyamuni attained enlightenment (see figure 2). On the first and second stretches of the south
wall are the fifteen miracles of Ś ākyamuni, events that have been celebrated at the annual
Festival of Great Miracles on the fifteenth day of the Tibetan New Year in Lhasa since
Reimagining the Buddhist Universe
423
Tsongkhapa created the festival in 1409.7 Completing the third stretch of the south wall is a
visualization of the frequently recited Tashi Tsekpa from the Collection of Dharanis in the
Tibetan Buddhist Canon.8 In the middle of this painting, a palatial structure encloses a
two-armed Avalokiteśvara, while a smaller palace on the upper left corner is presided
over by his consort Tara. On the upper right section of the painting is a cosmological
diagram of Mt. Meru and the Four Continents, the basic structure of the Buddhist universe.
THE MURAL PROGRAM
AT THE
KELSANG DEKYI PALACE
AT
NORBU LINGKA
A similar array of heavenly realms and holy sites is found on the second story of
Kelsang Dekyi Palace at Norbu Lingka, constructed a few years later, between 1926
and 1928 (Nor bu gling ga chags tshul, n.d., 66–67). Kelsang Dekyi Palace became one
of the primary residence and reception spaces during the later years of the Thirteenth
Dalai Lama’s life. It is a small, two-story structure adjacent to the larger Chensel
Palace, which the Thirteenth Dalai Lama also restored and expanded. The upper story
of this structure contains almost identical but larger and more elaborate images of
Wutai Shan, the Mahābodhi Temple, and Dhānyakataka Stūpa, Avalokiteśvara’s Paradise,
and more depictions of the life of Tsongkhapa. In addition to these is Maitreya’s Preaching
Ground in Tus.ita. The arrangement of the sacred abodes also differs from the tightly
assembled panels in the Eastern Sunlight Hall. Largely conforming to the design of
the space, each panel of sacred sites in the Eastern Sunlight Hall was rendered in identical
sizes and shapes, while episodes from Ś ākyamuni and Tsongkhapa’s careers mirror each
other on long stretches of the south and north walls. In the Kelsang Dekyi Palace,
these panels of sacred abodes are enlarged and expanded to cover a wall of their own.
The effect is a more complete integration of the pictorial space of sacred sites and the
physical space of the throne room.
COSMOLOGICAL SCHEMES
The central theme that surfaced in the Eastern Sunlight Hall and at Kelsang Dekyi
Palace is that of sacred time and place. While calendrical and hagiographical narratives
chart the temporal axis, the assembly of sacred sites brings order and structure to the
space of the Buddhist universe.9 Among them, many sites depicted belong to a familiar,
but rarely pictorialized, ensemble of five directional sites of empowerment that became
firmly established in Tibetan sacred geography by the eighteenth century at the latest
(Bka’ ‘gyur ba blo bzang tshul khrims 1989, 1579–84; Lcang skya 1993, 1). According
to this scheme, Mahābodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya occupies the center of earth
7
Scriptural reference to these episodes can be found in the Sutra of the Wise and Foolish (Tib.
Mdzangs blun zhes bya ba’i mdo). See Mdzangs blun zhes bya ba’i mdo (n.d., A:74, 161a4–
164b1, 321.4–328.1). For an English translation of the Mongolian text, see Frye (1981, 48–63).
8
Almost identical compositions are published in Zla ba tshe ring et al. (2000, 4:107) and in the
Rubin Museum of Art.
9
Festivals of Tibetan Buddhism, as Matthew Kapstein (2006, 239) pointed out, “serve to organize
time much as the pilgrimage routes organize space.”
424
Wen-shing Chou
(Jambudvı̄pa), while Wutai Shan of China stands as the most exalted place in the east,
Shambhala in the north, the Potala Mountain in the south, and Ud.d.iyāna of the Land
of Dakinis in the west. In the Potala and the Norbu Lingka, all but Ud.d.iyāna is depicted.
This cosmography itself is developed from the classical Indian Buddhist world system
most widely studied in Tibet through Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāsyam, an extremely influential treatise that became one of the core texts in the Gelukpa monastic curriculum (Kloetzli 1987, 4:114). The universe described therein centers around Mt. Meru
rising from a Great Ocean. In each direction of Meru are four continents, of which only
the southern one is accessible to humans. This southern continent, known as Jambudvı̄pa,
corresponds to the physical earth that humans inhabit. It was within this system that
Tibetan Buddhist exegetes further mapped the above-named five sacred places onto the
five directions of Jambudvı̄pa. These exalted places are therefore both supreme and
within worldly reach. This cosmological structure of Mt. Meru, which is frequently depicted
by itself opposite the Wheel of Becoming at the entrance of temples and prayer halls, is also
seen in the background of the image of Potalaka on the south wall of the Eastern Sunlight
Hall, and directly adjacent to the Wutai Shan image, as if to serve as a locational coordinate
for the two earthly paradises. Its pivotal location on the wall between the paradises of Avalokiteśvara and Mañjuśrı̄ reinforces the coherence of this directional sacred scheme and
underscores the geographical correspondence between two otherwise very different depictions. Even though the assembly of holy places did not always remain a fixed and stable set,
the concept of empowered earthly sites can always be differentiated from paradises of
Buddha depicted in the mural programs, such as Maitreya’s Tus.ita, Amitabha’s Sukhāvatı̄,
or Aks.obhya’s Abhirati, which are situated in other realms (Gomez 1996). Among them,
Tus.ita bears the closest proximity to Jambudvı̄pa, since it is understood as situated
within the deva realm of the Mt. Meru system, and it is to Jambudvı̄pa that this future
Buddha Maitreya will descend (Kloetzli 1987, 4:115). Aks.obhya and Amitabha’s paradises
would have been seen as belonging to the family of the Five Directional Buddhas located
outside of the Mt. Meru system (Gomez 1996, 36; Nattier 2000).
A PANORAMIC VISION
Various holy places and momentous events in Buddhist history displayed in the
Eastern Sunlight Hall and at the Kelsang Dekyi Palace represent the much-aspired-to
and potentially traversable realms of the divine in an encyclopedic fashion, so that
their appearance does not so much induce the experience of entering the realms or
times as bring the time-space into an organized collection, in a way that is perfectly in
keeping with the Buddhist penchant for categorizing knowledge. This practice can be
seen in everything from the compilation of sacred texts and the creation of scriptural
canons to the visualization of deity mandalas, the formation of pantheons that continue
to incorporate indigenous and subjugated deities, and the Indian cakravartin ideal, in
which a universal king, owing to his vast stores of spiritual merit, justly rules over expansive territories.10 The ideal of a divine Buddhist sovereign, or a cakravartin, is precisely
10
For the origins of the Cakravartin ideal, see Davidson (2002, 330–33). On its development in
Tibet, see Davidson (2005). On its spread in East Asia, see Orzech (1998).
Reimagining the Buddhist Universe
425
what gave rise to the depiction of cosmological diagrams and systems visible in the
Eastern Sunlight Hall and at Kelsang Dekyi Palace. The court of the Thirteenth Dalai
Lama, by articulating his connection to the marvelous deeds of the historical Buddha,
and to those of Tsongkhapa, the founder of his religious lineage, and by bringing together
sacred realms of different directions, illustrates the all-pervading domains of his religious
sovereignty. In continuing this tradition of cosmography, however, the Thirteenth Dalai
Lama seems to be attempting something very specific in bringing together these different
worlds of Buddhas, Buddhist saints, and teachings.
EMPIRICAL INTRUSIONS
While much of the pictorial program clearly followed the visual and textual templates
of a received tradition, depictions of the Mahābodhi in Bodh Gaya in India and Wutai
Shan in China appear in unprecedented manners. As the only two sacred abodes in a cosmology of sacred times and places that can be physically revisited, and, as I will show in
the latter half of this essay, that the Dalai Lama had indeed visited a decade earlier, they
employ visual strategies that are guided by modern, empirical concerns. The Mahābodhi
Temple, or the Temple of Supreme Enlightenment, marks the place where Buddha’s ultimate enlightenment was attained. Its depiction comprises several representational modes
(see figure 2): the central temple itself en grisaille, a semi-monochrome painting, which
at times seems to imitate the light and shadows in a photograph, and at others the translucent quality of the rocks that make up the stone monument; the temple is planted in a
colorful rectangular garden of smaller funerary shrines, rendered in a combination of
semi-profile and bird’s-eye perspectives. The oversized Mahābodhi Temple, with its tip
jutting out beyond the border of the garden enclosure, appears strikingly illusionistic
in the company of rigid, color-coded trees, shrines, and Buddha images. Providing a
clue is a framed early photograph of the Mahābodhi Temple, still propped up on a
table as an object of devotion in the next room, capturing the stupa shrine from the
same direction as the wall painting (see figure 3).11 What is more revealing than the
perspectival inconsistencies is that they both feature the western face of the Mahābodhi
Temple, in front of which are the discernible diamantine throne of the Buddha and
the then-young branches of the Bodhi tree reintroduced from Sri Lanka in the late
nineteenth century.12 The exact vantage point was reproduced in a later painting of
the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s visit to the Mahābodhi Temple that appears in his mausoleum (see figure 4), a work that will be revisited at the end of this paper. Given its
early date, the photograph was likely brought back from India by the Thirteenth
Dalai Lama, and presumably served as a source for the painting. The lack of precedence
for this photographically derived depiction stems from a fundamental shift in representation. Tibetan paintings of the Mahābodhi Temple had previously not aimed to
reproduce the physical structure or capture the perceivable materiality of the
11
In this new medium of mass production, the photograph continues a tradition of worshipping
architectural replicas of the temple that began in the early thirteenth century (Oldham 1937;
.
Sānkr.tyāyana 1937).
12
I am grateful to Lobsang Nyima Laurent for obtaining this photograph.
426
Wen-shing Chou
Figure 3. Early photograph of the Mahābodhi on display in the
Zurchung Rabsel, Potala Palace. Approximately 25 x 18 inches.
Photograph by L. N. Laurent.
Figure 4. Pilgrimage to Mahābodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya,
Mausoleum of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Potala Palace,
1933–35 (Phun tshogs tshe brtan et al. 2000, 194).
Reimagining the Buddhist Universe
427
Figure 5. Mahābodhi Temple of Bodh Gaya, colors on cloth.
In the collection of the Potala Palace, eighteenth to nineteenth
centuries, Central Tibet (Xizang zizhi qu wenwu guanli weiyuanwei 1985, 106).
temple.13 Instead, such representations had been a way to mark and recall the event of
the Buddha’s ultimate awakening. In standard depictions of the Mahābodhi Temple, the
Buddha is seated in the earth-touching gesture, calling the earth to witness his resolve to
gain enlightenment. He is enshrined in a large funerary monument that vaguely carries
the geometric semblance of the temple itself (see figure 5). They employ what can be
referred to as a schematic mode of representation, in which a received template is
rehearsed to describe both the site and the event of the Buddha’s awakening. This conventional way of painting the Mahābodhi Temple was certainly known to the Thirteenth
Dalai Lama’s painters, as they still followed the tradition in part by rendering the garden
itself in much the same fashion. But the effect of inserting a temple en grisaille into the
familiarly anonymous garden enclosure is a stark juxtaposition between the central image
13
Sculpted replicas were based on the architectural exterior of the temple, but not paintings. See
note 11.
428
Wen-shing Chou
and the ground. Employing two modes of representation, one photographically driven,
the other schematic, this painting suggests a sacred place that is at once tangible and
timeless. As the first representation of its kind seen in Tibet, it also invents for the
viewer a notion that the iconicity of the site rests on the external, perceptual appearance
of the stupa, as may be seen through a photographic lens, rather than on its conceptual
and cosmological characteristics.
AN EYEWITNESS REPRESENTATION
OF
WUTAI SHAN
The Dalai Lama’s first-hand knowledge and experience was translated into yet a
different mode of representation in the Wutai Shan painting. The painting in the
Eastern Sunlight Hall, which was repeated and expanded in the Kelsang Dekyi Palace
to cover a larger stretch of wall a few years later, depicts a panoramic view of the mountain range filled with monasteries, landmarks, pilgrims, and apparitions, all precisely
labeled with Tibetan inscriptions. Besides being larger and more completely inscribed,
the layout and content of the Kelsang Dekyi Palace image are almost identical to those
of the earlier painting in the Eastern Sunlight Hall, suggesting that the latter was
based on the former, or that two paintings had both been copied from a source image.
In the earlier painting from the Eastern Sunlight Hall, while the more than forty sites
depicted were well-known at Wutai Shan through other representations and textual
records, about thirty more names of monasteries had not appeared in earlier surviving
gazetteers. These comprise sites with largely Tibetan names, some with alternate spellings, in marked contrast with the well-known names that were translations or transliterations of Chinese. In other words, this representation of the mountain range lay outside of
the well-established Chinese canons.
This appears as an anomaly if one looks solely within the canonical Tibetan tradition
of recording Wutai Shan from the eighteenth century onward, which was closely based on
Chinese records.14 But in fact, the inscriptions corroborate closely with a list of temples
the Thirteenth Dalai Lama visited at Wutai, which has been recorded in his biography.
Moreover, on the Wutai Shan mural in Kelsang Dekyi Palace, a monk figure inside a
temple compound is labeled as “Yi ching si dge bshe sa ma,” or Master Sama from
Yiching Temple. A Buryat lama by the name of Geshe “Sama” or “Soma” also appears
frequently in the biography of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama (Phur lcog yongs ‘dzin 1940,
2:39b, 43b, 44a, 46b, 47a, 48b, 53b). According to the biography, Geshe Sama repeatedly
came to meet with the Dalai Lama at Wutai Shan, and is said to have made elaborate
offerings for temple constructions and restorations, which were finished in time for
the Dalai Lama to bestow blessings and conduct consecration ceremonies while still at
Wutai Shan. The inscription of alternate temple names and a contemporaneous figure
point toward a representation of the mountain range that is closely linked to the Dalai
Lama’s personal experiences at Wutai Shan, some fifteen years before the paintings
were commissioned.
14
This is due to the work of Rölpé Dorjé, the Monguor polymath of the Qing court whose translation works standardized the Tibetan names of many sites at Wutai Shan within a circle of Tibetanlanguage scholars.
Reimagining the Buddhist Universe
429
A comparison between this “updated” picture of Wutai Shan and earlier Tibetan
depictions of the mountain range at Samye reveals its unorthodoxy. The painting of
Wutai Shan at Samye renders a landscape with five symmetrically arranged peaks,
each topped with an image of a specific form of the resident deity Mañjuśrı̄ (see
figure 6). Here, the primacy of experience and first-hand encounter does not seem to
play any role. Wutai Shan exists insofar as it completes a systematic rendering of the
world in accordance with a Tibetan Buddhist cosmology. Such depictions of Wutai
Shan are also frequently seen in Tibetan thangka paintings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where the same set of five Mañjuśrı̄s appear on five peaks with corresponding inscriptions. Because Wutai Shan is rendered in such generic and abstract
terms, the mountain appears just as distant and out of this world as any other depictions
of exalted places. By contrast, the Wutai Shan images commissioned by the Thirteenth
Dalai Lama focus on the recollection of specific visions, persons, sites, and monasteries.
As what might be considered the most direct testaments to his stay at Wutai Shan,
the Thirteenth Dalai Lama composed two praise poems in honor of Mañjuśrı̄ at the
request of two visiting monk scholars toward the end of his six-month-long residence
at Wutai Shan in 1908 (Phur lcog yongs ‘dzin 1940, 2:50a–50b; Thub bstan rgya mtsho
[1922] 1981–82, 3:395.1–404.2, see also 3:392.1–394.7). The poems in fact capture
very little “personalized experience” of the sort seen in the paintings at the Eastern Sunlight Hall and Kelsang Dekyi Palace. Like the Samye painting, the Thirteenth Dalai
Lama’s written poetry, though professing to record the sensory experience of his pilgrimage, emphasized the timeless quality of Wutai Shan. True to its genre, it rehearses earlier
praises in ornate terms and reiterates the history of the founding of Wutai Shan with an
abundance of references to early Chinese legends directly drawn from Rölpé Dorjé’s
authoritative guidebook to Wutai Shan (Lcang skya 1993). The image of Wutai Shan it
conjures up is of a wisdom paradise that seems impervious to historical transformations.
Figure 6. Mural of Wutai Shan, east-facing side of the outermost corridor, first floor of the main assembly hall, Samye Monastery, Central
Tibet. Photograph by W. Chou.
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Wen-shing Chou
Elsewhere I have explored in depth the affinities between pictorial representations
of Wutai Shan and their textual counterparts in Chinese and Tibetan languages, both in
their visually evocative qualities and in their capacity as substitutes for the mountain
range (Chou 2011). Seen as an instance within a larger tradition of eulogizing the
sacred mountain range in Tibetan Buddhism, the Wutai Shan paintings in the Eastern
Sunlight Hall and Kelsang Dekyi Palace validated empirical experience in an unprecedented way by attending to contemporaneous geography and personalities.
TIMELINESS AND TIMELESSNESS
In essence, the Dalai Lama incorporated his own encounter with the sacred sites,
both by newly acquired photographically driven means and by the insertion of personal
experience, into a tradition of sacred cosmography that saw these places as timeless,
divine, and impervious to external transformations. This pictorial diversity and the
decision not to follow schematic formulas suggest that the Thirteenth Dalai Lama was
interested in not only rehearsals of familiar cosmology but also the specific reasons for
the choice of scenes and sites. While it is easy to perceive the ability of these new, empirical modes of representation to evoke externally visible presence and personal experience,
it is equally important to recognize that the existing rhetoric of vision and truth had always
been imbued with multiple temporal and spatial layers. In contrast to empirical representations, the existing tradition follows precise visualizations of the prescriptions from
guidebooks. This mode of representation, what I refer to in general as a visionary
mode, is equally equipped with means to express physical and temporal proximity, and
the choice to follow it reflected as much intention as did the choice to follow their empirical counterparts.
As a case in point, the paintings of the Fifteen Great Miracles (chontrül düchen) on
the eastern stretch of the southern wall comprise fifteen episodes in which the Buddha
performs miraculous deeds to overcome six Brahmanical heretics. The depictions simultaneously recall and collapse multiple instances of the Fifteen Great Miracles’ history,
commemoration, and celebration. They not only reiterate stories in the life of the
Buddha Ś ākyamuni, but also recall Tsongkhapa, the illustrious founder of the Great
Prayer festival (mönlam chenmo) who first created a public commemoration of these
miracles, and whose biographical narrative is depicted on the opposite wall. They also
recall the Fifth Dalai Lama, under whose rule the festival once came under the full
control of the Gelukpa reign. Above all, contemporary viewers of the paintings would
have recognized them as referring to the joyous occasion of the Great Prayer festival
they themselves witnessed in the 1920s, owing to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s own
efforts to restore the festival to its former glory after his return from exile in 1913
(Bell 1946, 57–58). The revival of the festival, centered on narratives of the Buddha
overcoming heretics, is itself an evident reassertion of the Geluk monopoly of power
and Buddhist victory over other religions (Huber 2008, 361; Richardson 1993, 20–55;
Rigzin 1993, 8–14; Tucci 1980, 147–53). There is every reason to see a similar
intention in the depiction of these narratives and the central message of the Great
Prayer festival—to conflate Lhasa in the 1920s with previous moments of prosperity in
the Gelukpa rule.
Reimagining the Buddhist Universe
431
That the Thirteenth Dalai Lama saw his own work of renewing and reforming Tibet
as a continuation of acts carried out by his greatest predecessor, the Fifth Dalai Lama, in
an unbroken fashion through the various incarnations since the seventeenth century, is
countlessly attested to in his own writings, in the well-circulated household legends in
Lhasa, and in the very renovation projects these wall paintings were part of.15 Images
of the Fifteen Great Miracles can be seen as another form of this assertion. The Fifth
Dalai Lama expressed in his autobiography that an aspiration to paint the Fifteen
Great Miracles on the walls of the Red Palace in the Potala could not be realized
(Ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho 1979, 284:2). Having been deeply familiar with the
writings of the Fifth Dalai Lama, and indeed having commissioned a reprinting of the
autobiography in 1925, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama could have seen the paintings on
the Eastern Sunlight Hall in part as a fulfillment of an aspiration of the Fifth Dalai
Lama (Xizang wenshi ziliao xuanji 2004, 166).
Expressions of “historical time” are equally visible in depictions of timeless and semimythical places, such as the millennial kingdom of Shambhala and the Dhānyakataka
Stūpa. Standard depictions of Shambhala usually feature the kingdom in the shape of
an enormous eight-petaled lotus in the center of the composition, surrounded, in the
lower corners, by the prophesized battle of the future Shambhalan king, and in the
upper corners, by the Kālacakra deity and kings of Shambhala (see, e.g., Himalayan
Art Resources 2014). But in the painting in the Eastern Sunlight Hall, the circular
kingdom of Shambhala is relegated to the upper right corner, while the battle scene
takes center stage (see figure 7) (Kollmar-Paulenz 1992–93). The scene illustrates
the promised descent of the twenty-fifth king of Shambhala who, leading an inconceivably large army, is to conquer all forces of evil in Jambudvı̄pa at a time when this
world is overrun by greed and chaos (Bernbaum 2001, 205–55). Dominated in the foreground by a large figure of the king in shining armor, riding a flaming black horse, the
composition transforms the promised hidden kingdom from what was once an iconic,
devotional image to mere background scenery.16 The kingdom now serves the purpose
of illustrating the territory of the king’s dominion, similar to the function of topographical
landscapes in monumental tapestries of battle scenes commissioned by European
aristocracy.
This image is placed side-by-side with the Dhānyakataka Stūpa, the site believed to
be in present-day Andhra Pradesh, India (see Phun tshogs tshe brtan et al. 2000, 187).17
It matches closely the description of the stūpa in an annotated record of labels of paintings and sculptures in selected rooms of Norbu Lingka, Potala, and the Ramoche, dating
to the mid-1920s and attributed to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama (Thub bstan rgya mtsho
[1922] 1981–82, 4:761–96). The text not only transcribes the labels of wall paintings,
but also provides excursions into how the original Dhānyakataka Stūpa looked,
adorned with marble pillars, vaidurya gems, and mandala arrangements, as well as the
15
This is also no less apparent in the arduous negotiation of protocol at the meeting with the
Empress-Dowager Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor (Dhondup 1986, 28; Jagou 2009; Rockhill
1910, 77–89).
16
For a similar composition, see Niu (2002, 56–57).
17
Tibetans “rediscovered” Amaravati as the Dhayankataka Stūpa and the site of the first teaching
after Amdo Gendun Chophel’s travel writings were published (Huber 2008, 372; Macdonald 1970).
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Wen-shing Chou
Figure 7. Mural of the Battle of Shambhala, northern side of
west wall, Eastern Sunlight Hall, Potala Palace, 1922–24 (Phun
tshogs tshe brtan et al. 2000, 186).
various devotional activities at the site shared by people of all faiths.18 The description is
followed by a chronology of the lineage of the kingdom’s rulers, and their affinity to the
Dalai Lamas through shared identity as the reincarnations of Avalokiteśvara.
The Dalai Lama’s specific interest in the details of the Shambhalan myth coincided
with a brief but widespread propagation of the idea that Shambhala was located in the
Russian Empire, a belief that the Dalai Lama himself possibly shared in the decade of
the 1900s (Berzin 2003; Kollmar-Paulenz 1992–93, 86–87; Tada 1965, 39–40). The
Buryat Mongol monk Agvan Dorjiev (1854–1938), who became the Dalai Lama’s
master debate partner and at times a most trusted political advisor, argued for this
belief based on the fact that the tsar was protecting the Geluk tradition among the
Buryats, Kalmyks, and Tuvinian Turks of the Russian Empire.19
Could the image of the apocalyptic battle depicted in the Potala be taken literally as
affirming an aspiration for, or belief in, Tibet’s eventual “liberation” through the triumph
of a Buddhist holy war? It seems very likely given the explicit and worldly deployment of
Kalacakra imageries in Mongolia and other parts of Buddhist Central Asia in the war-torn
decades to follow (Berger and Bartholomew 1995; Berzin 2003). Regardless of how
widely shared this belief was in early twentieth-century Lhasa, it suffices to say that
18
The Sixth Panchen Lama (1738–80), who was eager to locate Shambhala, wrote the authoritative
guidebook to Shambhala in 1775 (Blo bzang dpal ldan ye shes [1775] 1975–78).
19
For more on Agvan Dorjiev, see Thubten and Martin (1991), Snelling (1993), and Andreyev
(2001).
Reimagining the Buddhist Universe
433
images of the Kālacakra were brought forth, along with other previously discussed images
in the Eastern Sunlight Hall, by a vested interest in reviving, remembering, and reconnecting with these specific moments, realms, and places. Together, the images represent
a selection and a conflation of key moments and places that at once continued the tradition of Gelukpa Buddhism, and had acquired special urgency in the tumultuous
period of the early twentieth century.
TOWARD NEW TEMPORALITIES
An in-depth consideration of selected paintings in the Eastern Sunlight Hall has
revealed the coexistence of two epistemological realities. On the one hand is the new,
empirical one—a method of affirming reality by the physiological eye via photographically driven and eyewitness representations.20 Instead of resorting to more familiar
schemas or templates, representations of Bodh Gaya and Wutai Shan incorporated
empirical experiences into a system of knowledge that previously established itself on
received texts and images. On the other hand, we witness the persistence and versatility
of a visionary reality made up of depictions of cyclical festivals and the apparition of divine
kingdoms and emanations. The question thus arises: if the existing system was perfectly
capable of articulating the complexity of time and eternity, dimensions of space and specificity, then why did the new mode of vision surface at all? The remainder of this essay
attempts to locate the primacy of empirical experience in the life of the Thirteenth
Dalai Lama, to show that it was through a new form of contact with the world, namely
his wandering exile, that this new cosmology was mapped.
AN ACCIDENTAL PILGRIM
Just as canonical depictions of the Fifteen Great Miracles convey Lhasa’s peace and
stability under the rule of the Dalai Lama in the 1920s, and paintings of the kingdom of
Shambhala and the Dhānyakataka Stūpa express a real and timely aspiration for their discovery and recovery, representations of Bodh Gaya and Wutai Shan that embraced
empirical observations served as a record or souvenir of the two pilgrimages the Thirteenth Dalai Lama undertook a decade earlier. If one goes back to accounts of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s travels, one discovers that the pilgrimages themselves were as
embroiled in the simultaneity of different epistemological realities as their pictorial
counterparts. In 1904, then twenty-nine years of age, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama fled
from Lhasa on the eve of the British military invasion. He and his entourage first traveled
northeastward toward Mongolia in an attempt to secure protection from tsarist Russia,
whose purported espionage in Lhasa was the justification for the British invasion of
Tibet in the first place. But when the Russo-Japanese war that ended in 1905 stripped
20
While a belief in photographic veracity in the West has taken theoreticians more than a century to
deconstruct, within Tibetan artistic production, by contrast, photographic semblance and painting
from contemporary experience were just beginning to be accepted and incorporated into the
system of truth-making in the 1920s.
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Wen-shing Chou
Russia of its military might and internal control, Russia slowly withdrew an already faint
promise to bring Tibet under its protection (Andreyev 2003, 43–45).21 In a dramatic shift
of the power balance, Britain and Russia jointly urged the Thirteenth Dalai Lama to
return to Lhasa, to which the Dalai Lama responded by doing just the opposite—going
eastward toward Beijing, the capital of the Manchu empire (Shakabpa 2010, 621–716).
At this juncture of uncertainty and compromise, Wutai Shan emerged as a supreme
destination. As the earthly abode of Mañjuśrı̄, the mountain range is conveniently located
some 200 miles southwest of the capital Beijing, just a few days’ journey away from the
political activities and summer heat of the capital. It had become an important place of
pilgrimage for all Tibetans and Mongolians traveling to and from the Yuan, Ming, and
Qing courts in Beijing from the time when the capital was first established there by Khubilai Khan in the thirteenth century. From the early seventeenth century onward, Wutai
Shan had served as the meeting place for Chinese court officials and representatives from
the outlying Tibetan and Mongolian regions, because of its proximity to Mongolia and the
capital in Beijing, its perennially cool climate, which was more tolerable for Tibetans and
Mongolians, and most importantly, its distinction as a shared place of pilgrimage and
devotion among these various groups of people (Tuttle and Elverskog 2011).
Therefore, when the Thirteenth Dalai Lama arrived in Wutai Shan in 1908, it signaled to the Manchu court that he had tacitly accepted the court’s invitation to visit
Beijing, although he stayed for six more months at Wutai Shan, meeting with various delegations and paying visits to a mountain full of temples, until finally making his way to the
Manchu court.22 As soon as he arrived in Beijing, a big argument ensued between him
and the Qing court as to whether the Dalai Lama should perform prostrations at the
feet of the emperor.23 A month after they finally settled on genuflection, a bending at
the knees, the Guangxu Emperor and Empress-Dowager Cixi both died, but not
before replacing the Dalai Lama’s old title “The Most Excellent, Self-Existent Buddha
of the West” (Chengshun zanhua xitian dashan zizai fo) with a new one—“The Sincerely
Obedient, Reincarnation-helping, Most Excellent, Self-Existent Buddha of the West”
(Xitian dashan zizai fo) (First National Archive of Beijing 2002, 168; Mehra 1976, 20).
The Dalai Lama witnessed the last gasp of the Qing Empire and saw neither reason
nor facility to rekindle the priest-patron relationship between his forebears and the
21
The potential priest-patron relationship between the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and Tsar Nicholas II
is witnessed in the much-cited story in which the Thirteenth Dalai Lama engendered a son for Tsar
Nicholas II and his wife Tsarina Alexandra, who was said to look just like the Dalai Lama (Phur lcog
yongs ‘dzin 1940, 2:50b; Shakabpa 2010, 687, 710).
22
Most Chinese sources say he was not allowed to go to Beijing until six months later, and most
Tibetan and British sources say he purposely delayed his trip to Beijing for six months (Jagchid
Sechin 2004; Jagou 2009, 349–50).
23
Jagou (2009, 358) hypothesizes that the Dalai Lama’s refusal to follow the Qing court’s required
protocol might have to do with his Western advisors at Wutai Shan, who disapproved of such practices. His disagreement would also have much to do with protocols of earlier meetings between the
Shunzhi Emperor and his predecessor, the Fifth Dalai Lama, and between the Qianlong Emperor
and the Sixth Panchen Lama (Bell 1946, 83–84; Jagchid Sechin 2004, 147; Rockhill 1910, 77–89);
Shenbao (1908) reported that the Thirteenth Dalai Lama refused to make prostrations based on the
fact that when he sojourned in Mongolia and Wutai Shan, officials and high lamas all prostrated
toward him.
Reimagining the Buddhist Universe
435
Manchu court that had been in place since the seventeenth century. He quickly left
Beijing and arrived back in Lhasa in December 1909. What remained of any mutual
understanding between the Qing court and the Dalai Lama dissolved when a Manchu
army from the southwestern province of Sichuan invaded Lhasa that same year,
forcing the Thirteenth Dalai Lama to flee again, this time to India with the aid of
British Indian officers (Shakabpa 2010, 717–53). During his second forced exile, he
visited important pilgrimage sites of the life of the Buddha Ś ākyamuni, including the
Mahābodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya. He stayed in India until 1912, when the revolution
that overthrew the Qing Empire also brought an end to Chinese control in central
Tibet. The Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa in 1913, and governed central Tibet for two
decades until his death in 1933 (Shakabpa 1967, 246–48).
COLLIDING WORLDS AT WUTAI SHAN
That the Dalai Lama’s forced exodus and subsequent pilgrimages of convenience had
been a product of modern imperialism meant they were closely observed by representatives and journalists of major powers. The multiplicity of narratives about the Thirteenth
Dalai Lama’s sojourn at Wutai Shan collectively expresses an unease symptomatic of the
meeting of different worlds. When he arrived at Wutai Shan in March 1908, his retinue of
around eighty was described by the New York Times as consisting of “priests, personal
servitors, high officials of the church, and a motley crowd of doubtful-looking soldiers
armed with rifles” and on another occasion as “a wild, disorderly, unkempt-looking
crew, giving no impression of their religious affiliations” (New York Times, July 13,
1908; September 29, 1908).24 Later, the Dalai Lama’s six months at Wutai Shan would
be recounted by his Tibetan biographer as having fulfilled prophecies of the previous
centuries and conjured miraculous visions, by many visiting Europeans as curious spectacles belonging to an archaic time and place, by visiting monks from Japan as a feast of
Buddhist scholasticism, and by the local Chinese officials as mostly a financial and
administrative liability (Phur lcog yongs ‘dzin 1940, 2:40a–52b; Shenbao 1908; Shirasu
2007).25 But whether the excesses were of miracles, monastic learning, monetary
burdens, or motley crowds, various versions of the Dalai Lama’s exile at Wutai Shan as
told from Tibetan, European, Japanese, and Chinese perspectives poignantly reveal
the colliding worlds of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. At once a divine incarnation held
in the highest esteem and accorded with absolute temporal authority by his Tibetan
and Mongolian subjects, the head of a religious order best known in Buddhist Asia for
its scholarly rigor, and an astute politician struggling to gain support for his people
from a world driven by imperial and nationalist agendas, the Thirteenth Dalai
Lama resided in a mountain range that was as much endowed with timeless spiritual
potency as it was plagued by poverty and political turmoil of an empire on the brink of
collapse.26
24
C. G. Mannerheim (2008, 758) numbers his suite and other attendants at 300.
One thing that all accounts did enumerate was the sumptuous exchanges of gifts.
26
Jagchid Sechin preserves a telling document issued by the Thirteenth Dalai Lama to his father
Lobsanchoijur, who served as his secretary in Chinese-language affairs at Wutai Shan. This
25
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Wen-shing Chou
Still and all, the unique diplomatic promise that Wutai Shan afforded to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama can be witnessed in frequent meetings with representatives from
the capital in Beijing, Tibetan and Mongolian regions, Great Britain, America, Russia,
France, Germany, and Japan, who were able to meet with him without the close monitoring of the Qing court (Tada 1965, 95).27 Accounts by the American diplomat
William Rockhill (1854–1914), who traveled from Beijing to Wutai Shan specifically to
meet with the Dalai Lama, reveal that the latter was clearly aware of and fully utilized
the fluid nature of the sacred grounds (Mehra 1976, 19). During their meetings, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama deeply impressed and later befriended Rockhill, who described him
as a charismatic leader uncertain of his future, distrustful of his surroundings, and desperately seeking benevolent council (Rockhill 1910; see also Meinheit 2011; Sperling 2011).
Rockhill’s heartfelt sympathy and admiration for the Dalai Lama exposed the extraordinariness of the circumstances that allowed two different worlds to intersect.
Parallel to meetings of diplomatic urgency were gatherings of a different kind
described only in the Tibetan biography. Throughout descriptions of the Dalai Lama’s
stay at Wutai Shan, what his biographer took the greatest poetic care to record were the
miraculous and profound meetings between the two principal deities, Avalokiteśvara,
the Bodhisattva of compassion, which refers to none other than the Dalai Lama
himself, and Mañjuśrı̄, Wutai Shan’s resident Bodhisattva of wisdom. In light of the fact
that the Dalai Lama was on his way to see the Manchu emperor, and that this was seen
as a continuation of a priest-patron relationship that had existed since the time of the
Shunzhi emperor (r. 1638–61) and the Fifth Dalai Lama, one might consider both the religious and political potency of such a happy meeting. In the seventeenth century, this
priest-patron relationship was established upon the acknowledgment that while the
Dalai Lamas are the physical worldly embodiment or incarnations of Avalokiteśvara, the
successive Manchu Qing emperors were in turn worldly manifestations of the Mañjuśrı̄
of Wutai Shan (Farquhar 1978).
A famous wall painting of the meeting between Shunzhi and the Fifth Dalai Lama
illustrates well the Manchu-Tibetan understanding of the gathering as a mytho-historical
one, in which two kingly deity-emanations animate the mandala-like space of the Forbidden City, demonstrating their dual role as rulers atop a worldly palace, and as deities at
the center of the celestial palace of the mandala. As Phurchok Yongzin writes,
At the supreme pilgrimage place of the Five-Peaked Mountain, established by
the magical play of Mañjuśrı̄ . . . the Supreme Lotus Holder [epithet for Avalokiteśvara] and the Venerable One With Five Locks of Knotted Hair [epithet for
Mañjuśrı̄], met face to face on their thrones, and engaged happily in a deep and
wide dharmic debate and enjoyed delightfully the inconceivable display of the
liberations of the three secret bodies. As though in the shapes of steps and
document, written in both Tibetan and Mongolian, expressed that “spreading the dharma for the
benefit of all sentient beings” remained his most important priority (Jagchid Sechin 2004, 149).
27
Reginald Johnston (1874–1938), who became the tutor of the last emperor, Puyi, detailed tricks
the Dalai Lama played on the local Chinese official and the lengths to which local monks and officials had gone to both entertain and contain the wishes of the Dalai Lama (Irving 1919, 161).
Reimagining the Buddhist Universe
437
lions, rainbows and clouds in the clean sky in front of the Mountain of the Great
Black Deity were gathered as special adornments by the protector deities. And
from the side of the rainbow clouds were emitted countless offering deities like
an orderly procession of monks in golden robes. Such a multitude of breathtaking displays of cloud and rainbow light appeared to all Chinese and Tibetans.
Having seen with their very eyes, truly, without doubt, these extremely
strange and rare marvels, they exclaimed “a là là” and talked joyously. (Phur
lcog yongs ‘dzin 1940, 2:40a–b)
In a later passage in the same text, the debate between the two was so excellent that even
the dharma protectors rejoiced by sprinkling raining flowers down from the clear sky,
thus making the occasion visible to all beings (45a–b).
Neither the ornamental style nor the wonderful content of Phurchok Yongzin’s
descriptions is unusual in Tibetan biographical writings. More akin to Christian hagiography than Western biographical writings that primarily recount historical events and characters in the life of an individual, the genre of Tibetan biographical writing often contains
elaborate descriptions of miraculous visions that were highly experiential but no less open
and public. Precisely because the marvelous qualities were witnessed by all, the account
of the divine meeting can be considered real and authentic.
That the Dalai Lama’s distressed and tortuous journeys across Asia in search of political allies were also seen and remembered as a spectacular religious pilgrimage and the
realization of age-old prophecies indicates a fully operative visionary dimension even at a
time when many other ways of seeing were present.28 Indeed, it is important to note that
during the visit to Wutai Shan, and throughout his time in Mongolia and China, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama staunchly refused to be photographed, even as he sought council from
representatives of Western countries and graciously accepted their offerings of rifles and
illustrated manuals of modern instruments of warfare.29 Instead, many drawings of the
Thirteenth Dalai Lama from this period survive in Western collections, such as those presented to Tsar Nicholas II in lieu of photographs (see Brauen 2005, 238).30 This insistence upon preserving his more traditional forms of representation paralleled his
refusal to engage in any direct dialogue with the British, whose goal was to pressure
him into signing lengthy treatises that would delineate, albeit with maximum ambiguity,
the identity of Tibet in accordance with the national interests of the British Empire
28
In his study on Pemalingpa and the Sixth Dalai Lama, Michael Aris (1989, 9) remarked on the
importance of travel within the Indo-Tibetan tradition of yogi-teachers, observing that “travelling
was absolutely integral to their whole existence, whether for study or teaching, alms begging or pilgrimage, the construction or restoration of temples. . . . The rhythms of this peripatetic existence
were punctuated by periods of stillness and immobility. . . . But the lives of many of them give the
impression that their retreats were secondary to their travels.” This observation can be applied to
the later understanding of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s decade of travel.
29
These were common, if not customary, gifts from foreign emissaries who came to act as his advisors. Given the prominence of the legend of the battle of Shambhala around the Thirteenth Dalai
Lama’s court, it is apt to see the gifts of weapons beyond their conventional significations as instruments of defense and modern technology.
30
While photography was strictly forbidden, photographic likeness had been deemed by the Dalai
Lama to be an acceptable mode of representation.
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Wen-shing Chou
(Anand 2009, 236). This articulation of the new geopolitical status of Tibet was not one
that the Thirteenth Dalai Lama wished to consent to, as he sought support instead in the
more traditional and familiar model of a priest-patron relationship with powers like
Russia, Japan, and China. It was only later in India, at the same time that the Dalai
Lama eventually embraced the idea of building a modern nation, that he also finally
accepted the truth-effects of photography (see Brauen 2005, 156).
This long and difficult shift to accepting new paradigms of vision and modern nationhood appeared as seamless and natural as any other transition in the Dalai Lama’s biography.
From the visionary perspective of the narrative, the Dalai Lama’s encounter with Mañjuśrı̄
and later pilgrimage to the sites of the Buddha Ś ākyamuni’s life in India fulfilled the timehonored prophecies of treasure-revealers, deepened his karmic connection with the most
important spiritual teachers of his lineage, and widened his sphere of discipleship outside
of Tibet, all of which greatly enhanced the status and credibility of his religious
persona.31 The fact that his travels greatly exposed him to a world of rapid economic, technological, and political transformations only further legitimated his supreme omniscience—
they armed him with a renewed understanding of the geopolitics of his time and allowed
him to institute a number of instrumental reforms after his return to Tibet.
PICTORIAL BIOGRAPHY
Both the religious and political potency of the journeys were understood in his pictorial biography as well. Almost immediately after the death of the Thirteenth Dalai
Lama in 1933, construction began on his mausoleum, the Serdung Gelek Döjo, or the
Auspicious Wish-granting Golden Reliquary, which was completed in 1935 under the
supervision of his chief minister Kalon Trimon Norbu Wangyal (1874–1945), a trusted
senior cabinet official (Dhondup 1986, 99–100; Phun tshogs tshe brtan et al. 2000,
294). Inside the mausoleum is an extraordinary array of wall paintings and inscriptions
that document his life in 1,227 interlinked episodes on 175 square meters of wall
space that envelops the central golden reliquary of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama (Phun
tshogs tshe brtan et al. 2000). Each episode is defined by an appearance of the Thirteenth
Dalai Lama and an accompanying inscription. As such, it constitutes the earliest postmortem retrospective on the life of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, predating Phurchok Yongzin’s
biography by five years.
Regard for the truthfulness of the Dalai Lama’s time in exile was so genuine that
master painter Tsering Gyu (1872–1935), who was in the Dalai Lama’s entourage
during those wandering years in Mongolia, China, and India, was hired specifically to
compose scenes from that period.32 Published images of the murals reveal a clear juxtaposition between episodes from the period of exile and those from the rest of his life (see
Phun tshogs tshe brtan et al. 2000, 194–207). Scenes from the period of his exile include
31
His travels to India and China, as well as his “unlocking the doors (sgo ‘byed)” of treasures at
Wutai Shan, were seen as fulfilling two prophecies from Padmasambhava recorded in the biography
(Phur lcog yongs ‘dzin 1940, 1:384b–386a).
32
While in the entourage of the Dalai Lama in exile, Tsering Gyuis was said to have also studied “the
painting techniques of the Chinese and other ethnicities” (Benca Dawa 2008, 69–70).
Reimagining the Buddhist Universe
439
the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s arrival in Beijing, his meetings with the Empress-Dowager
Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor, and his performance of prayer offerings in front of the
Mahābodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya, India (see figure 4).33 Other sections of the pictorial
biography include the prophecy at Lake Lhamo, by which the Thirteenth Dalai Lama was
found and chosen, and various major holidays and religious events in the Tibetan calendar
taking place at the Potala, Jokhang, Ramoche, and Norbu Lingka. While the appearances
of gigantic torma offerings (butter-barley dough sculptures), operatic performances,
mask dances, and parading deities are all familiar spectacles in Tibetan history painting,
images of the Mongolia-China-India interlude appear like fantastical intrusions into the
timeless web of temples, mountains, and worshipping crowds that dominate the rest of
his biographical narrative.
Among the pageantry in Beijing to welcome the arrival of the Dalai Lama were rows
of dandily clad Manchu soldiers with shiny, state-of-the art artillery. The Dalai Lama
himself can be seen inside a caravan of festive four-wheeled automotive vehicles. Like
the Mahābodhi Temple in the Eastern Sunlight Hall discussed earlier, the image of
the Mahābodhi Temple in the biography strives for a perspectival shape and observes
a pale gray stone color, while the surrounding figures, clouds, rivers, flora, and fauna
are all saturated with color and motion (see figure 4). At the foot of the Mahābodhi
Temple in Bodh Gaya, in front of the diamantine throne on which the Buddha sat
until he gained enlightenment, a composition that clearly references the painting and
photograph discussed earlier, the Dalai Lama is seen performing a prayer offering.
The Dalai Lama and the four senior monks who traveled with him are dressed in royal
robes, receiving Westerners in polka-dot pants and wide-brim hats, bearing white ceremonial scarves and presents. This echoes vividly detailed textual accounts of the Dalai
Lama’s 1910 pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya, where he is recorded to have conducted elaborate
ritual offerings and recitations (Phur lcog yongs ‘dzin 1940, 2:98a–99b). In the scene of
the ritual offering, illegible foreign characters adorn equally strange apparitions of buildings in the background. At the same time, there are also depictions of wild animals
roaming in wooded areas, which would not have been present except in idealized descriptions of Bodh Gaya passed down from earlier texts, creating a simultaneously idealized
and observed environment that serves to authenticate both the cosmic perfection of
Bodh Gaya and the Dalai Lama’s international travel and exposure.34
The Dalai Lama’s meetings with the Manchu Guangxu Emperor and EmpressDowager Cixi are depicted separately in several episodes. Each time, the small assembly
is enshrined and dwarfed by the imposing and rigid symmetry of the Chinese-looking
architecture, in stark contrast with depictions of Tibetan buildings in and around
Lhasa, which seems to stretch indefinitely and organically to embrace whatever festivities
are taking place. In one scene, the Dalai Lama, who is easily recognizable by his dark
complexion, is shown presenting the gift of a jeweled wheel of the law to EmpressDowager Cixi. Turned toward Cixi in a three-quarter view, his figure is ever so slightly
lower than Cixi, but his pointed hat saves the day by rising above the level of Cixi’s
floral headdress. Their meetings echo famous depictions of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s visit
33
His pilgrimage to Wutai Shan would presumably have been rendered in several episodes. Until
paintings are made accessible, the study of this pictorial biography remains fragmentary.
34
See Rwa Ye shes Seng ge ([12th c.] 1905, 33b 1-4), cited and translated by Toni Huber (2008, 64).
440
Wen-shing Chou
with the Shunzhi Emperor in the Sizhi Phuntsok Hall of the Red Palace in the Potala,
seen earlier, but share none of their mandala-like spaciousness and sundry gathering of
supporting characters (see Jiang 1996, 362). However, busy patterns on every surface
of the painting, from walls and tiles to foliage and clothing, allow no space for the eyes
of the viewer to rest or to wander, making the Manchu capital appear as confining as it
probably had been for the Thirteenth Dalai Lama during his visit.
This pictorial disjuncture between biographical representations of the Dalai Lama at
home and abroad is essentially a disjuncture between, on the one hand, the stable, traditional, and indispensable elements of the narrative, and on the other, the unpredictable,
foreign, and modern. The decision to render foreign sites using technologically modern
modes of representation, such as photography, and the choice to locate the exiled
moments materially in the technological modern (guns and motorcade) stand in stark
contrast with an equally absorbing interest in capturing the material reality that defended
a more traditional Tibet (sacred images and monuments, butter-dough offerings, colorful
ritual masks, etc.). The entire pictorial biography culminated in the final image of the
Dalai Lama as Avalokiteśvara, in a seamless transition between his political identity
and duties, as pictured on the peripheries of the main icon by his various activities in
Mongolia and Beijing, and in the center, as the divine, all-knowing, thousand-armed
and thousand-eyed deity (see figure 8). Here again is a merging not only of two identities,
Figure 8. Mural of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama as the
Thousand-eyed, Thousand-armed Avalokiteśvara, Mausoleum
of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, 1933–35 (Phun tshogs tshe
brtan et al. 2000, 204).
Reimagining the Buddhist Universe
441
but of two modes of representation, one absorbed in the details of the exterior vision, and
the other, in the inner, but no less public vision of divine emanation, coming together to
provide a full rendering of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s life.
USE
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES
The seamless weaving together of the Dalai Lama’s secular and religious identities by
his chief disciples and officials in their textual and pictorial narratives explored above can
be read as both “descriptive” and “prescriptive” of the Dalai Lama’s life. It is with this
double relation with their subject that these sources must be read and understood.
The narratives not only reveal how the Dalai Lama’s immediate successors saw and
remembered his life, they also reflect the roles he was expected to fulfill and the identities
he was required to assume by his people as the thirteenth incarnation of the Dalai Lama.
While these sources cannot project the Dalai Lama’s own voice, they serve as the framework within and guidelines by which the Dalai Lama was to fulfill expectations of his life
and deeds, much like musical scores or dramatic scripts to be played by their performers.
Therefore, even though they reveal the views or intentions of their writers, rather than
those of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, they provide coordinates for mapping out the intersecting dimensions of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s life. In particular, the retrospective
weight upon the Dalai Lama’s sacred peregrinations and political exiles in his biographies
reveals a correspondence between earthly geography and sacred cosmography that is fundamental to the worldviews of his contemporaries, and within the genre of Tibetan biographical writing and painting at large; they shed light on why Bodh Gaya and Wutai Shan
were incorporated into cosmographical programs of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s palaces
in ways that display his personal connection with them.
MAPPING
A
MORE PERFECT WORLD
The Dalai Lama’s exposure to a vastly different world in his travels, as well as his recognition and incorporation of the photographic vision, prepared the way for the collagelike murals in the audience hall in the Potala, in which empirical representations are
inserted into and juxtaposed with a visionary system of representation. As acts of collecting, remembering, reimagination, and self-fashioning, the mural projects reflect the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s awareness of the spatial and temporal disjunctions in his life. At a
time when the Dalai Lama continuously sought help from, and at the same time
guarded himself against, his potential allies or enemies in all directions—China and
Japan to the East, Russia to the north, British India to the west, and Gurkhas (Nepal)
to the south—it is no wonder that he mapped the cosmography of holy places to reiterate
his own historical legitimacy over a vast stretch of territories that were both vulnerable to
imperialist contests and inherently numinous. Mapping the distant and the divine onto
the tangible experiences of here and now can be seen as a project through which the
Dalai Lama asserted his spiritual sovereignty, his temporal omniscience, and ultimately
his expanding worldview.
442
Wen-shing Chou
Acknowledgments
I am especially grateful to Patricia Berger, Raoul Birnbaum, Benjamin Bogin,
Chokey Drolma, Giovanni Careri, Damchö Diana Finnegan, Fabienne Jagou, Lobsang
Nyima Laurent, Kelsang Lhamo, Nancy Lin, Zhu Lishuang, the late Gene Smith, Jeff
Wasserstrom, and an anonymous reader for their insights, help, and suggestions at
various stages of research for this essay.
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