Tag: Place

Posted on

Da huguo renwang si

Da Huguo Renwang Si 大護國仁王寺

The Da huguo renwang si was built during the years 1270 to 1274 on the Gaoliang river outside of Beijing. The temple owed its founding to the Empress Zhaorui shun-sheng (Mongolian Cabi or Cabui), the principal wife of Qubilai and mother of his chosen heir, Jinggim. Because of the generous patronage of the imperial family, the temple was extremely wealthy. In the Beijing metropolitan area it owned 28,633 qing 51 mou of irrigated fields and 34,414 qing 23 mou of dry fields, as well as the rights for forests, fisheries, moorings, bamboo and firewood in twenty-nine places. In also owned land in fifteen places around Beijing where jade, silver, iron, copper, salt and coal were produced, in addition to 19,061 chestnut trees and a wine-shop. In the Xiangyang region the temple owned 13,651 qing of irrigated and 29,805 qing 68 mou of dry fields. In Jianghuai it owned at least 140 wine shops. The temple also owned many houses and halls, and had a total of 37,059 tenant families as well as 17,988 families providing corvée labor. This list of property is drawn from an inscription written by Cheng Jufu, available in the Cheng Xuelou ji (see Franke 1984 for full reference).

In the fourth month of the Yuanzhen reign year yi-wei (1295), the Tibetan cleric (and posthumously declared Imperial Preceptor) Sga A gnyan dam pa kun dga’ grags (Ch. Gongjia ge la si or Dan pa 膽巴) received an imperial summons to become abbot in the Da huguo renwang temple. The Treasury (tai fu) was ordered to prepare an elaborate welcome ceremony on par with those prepared for the emperor himself, and many officials escorted Danpa/Dam pa Kun dga’ grags/Dan pa to the temple. Later Dan pa was also buried there in the Qing-an stupa. His relics were taken to the stupa by the mayor of Da du [Beijing], along with a retinue of servants and musicians, by order of the emperor Chengzong.

In 1311, An pu, son of the disgraced Yang, became commissioner of the Huifu yuan (會福院), the name by which Da huguo renwang si was known by between the years of 1310 and 1316. At the same time he was ennobled as the Duke of Qin and he was also once again holding the post of commissioner of the Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs (Xuanzheng yuan 宣政院). An pu had been dismissed from this post in 1291 because of widespread resentment against his father, who had destroyed the tombs of the Song emperors during a zealous campaign to convert sites in Jiangnan into Buddhist temples.


Sources:

Franke, Herbert. 1984. “Tan-pa, a Tibetan lama at the court of the Great Khans,” Orientalia Venetiana, Volume in onore di Leonello Lanciotti. Firenze: Leo s. Olschiki Editore. pp. 157-180.
Franke, Herbert. 1983. “Tibetans in Yuan China,” in China among equals: the Middle Kingdom and its neighbors, 10th-14th centuries. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sperling, Elliot. 1991. “Some Remarks on Sga A-gnyan dam-pa and the Origins of the Hor-pa Lineage of the Dkar-mdzes Region,” in Ernst Steinkellner, ed., Tibetan History and Language: Studies Dedicated to Uray Gyeaza on his Seventieth Birthday, Vienna. pp. 455-465.

Entry by Stacey Van Vleet, 2/4/07

user-1541794744

Posted on

Da sheng shou wan an si

Da sheng shou wan an si 大聲壽萬安寺

The Da sheng shou wan an temple (大聲壽萬安寺) was built sometime between 1279 and 1288 in the western part of Beijing by order of Qubilai, and originally housed the renowned Sandalwood Buddha. The sandalwood statue was said to have been the only lifelike portrait of the Buddha, carved during his lifetime in 990 B.C. by his disciple Maudgalyayana. Its presence in Beijing greatly added to the prestige of the Yuan Mongol empire.

The planning of the Da sheng shou wan an si is attributed in his biography to the Nepali architect and sculptor A ni ge (阿尼哥), who came to work at the Yuan court in 1261 and died in 1306. The temple was also known as Baita si (白塔, Temple of the White Stupa), because it was built around the Baita (White Stupa), the oldest and highest stupa or pagoda in Beijing. The 167 foot high stupa was completed in 1279 and long dominated the skyline of the western part of the city.

Just before the Yuan Mongol court fled Beijing for the north, the Da sheng shou wan an si was struck by lightning. This was on June 20, 1368, and except for two halls, the temple burnt to the ground. The Sandalwood Buddha had been moved before this to a temple inside the imperial palace. The White Stupa still stands, although it has been renovated many times during the Yuan, Ming, Qing, and Republican periods. In 1457 a new temple was erected around the stupa and called the Miaoying si (妙應寺, Temple of Miraculous Evidence). Popularly, it was again known as the Baita si.


Sources:

Franke, Herbert. 1978. From tribal chieftain to universal emperor and god: the legitimation of the Yuan dynasty, Sitzungsberichte – Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Munchen: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Franke, Herbert, 1994, “Consecration of the ‘White Stupa’ in 1279,” Asia Major VII (Third Series) (1): 155-184

Entry by Stacey Van Vleet, 2/4/07

Stupa comparison–middle stupa is Anige’s

Stupa 2006, note layers of “13 wheels” under canopy

museum reconstruction of Yuan period monastery
Posted on

Baita Shan Beihai Gongyuan

Baita Shan Beihai Gongyuan

According to the Yuan history, in the 12th month of 1290, Qubilai Khan’s imperial preceptor Pakpa/ ‘Phags pa undertook Buddhist rituals at Wansui shan [Baita shan], which was part of the imperial city at that time. Every year offerings were made to the Buddhist images at this place. In 1651, the Qing Shunzhi/Xunzi emperor restored this regular practice, and lamas again recited scriptures here, and the emperor worshipped at this place as well. Shunzhi period stele inscription recorded his exchange with the Western Lama, to whom he granted the name Naoben han (恼本汗).


Source:

Yanjing ba jing. DS 795.6 A2 Y36 2002.

Posted on

Liangzhou

Liangzhou 涼州 (currently: Wuwei 武威, Gansu Province) Tib. Ling chu gser khab/ Byang ngos

This initially Chinese prefectural seat on the Silk Road corridor between the Tibetan and Mongol inhabited regions of Inner Asia was a critical zone of contact between different ethnic and political polities across the centuries. Tibetans first attacked Liangzhou as part of the Tibetan Empire’s expansion into Inner Asia in 701, and finally captured the city from the Tang Dynasty in 764, only to lose it to the Uyghurs in 808. However, with brief exceptions, from the early ninth to the early eleventh centuries Liangzhou remained in the hands of the Tibetans, one of the last remnant outposts of their once vast Inner Asian empire.

Liangzhou Tibetans maintained good relations with the Song Dynasty from 906 to 1015, often winning titles from the court. However, after a brief period of rule by Uyghur’s from 1015 to 1030, Liangzhou became an important regional city in the rising Mi nyag or Xia Empire. Given its culturally Tibetan history, this city remained an important site for Mi nyag Tibetan contact. In the late twelfth and early thirteenth century, it was home to two imperial preceptors (dishi 帝師)–the Tibetan Gtsang po pa Dkon mchog seng ge (?-1218/1219) and Ti shri ras pa Sangs rgyas ras chen (1164/1165-1236)–in the Karma and ‘Ba’ rom pa Kagyü traditions respectively. The long-term presence of Kagyü monasteries in this region thus must date to this period.

With the collapse of the Mi nyag/Xia Empire to Mongol onslaught in 1227, in 1239 Liangzhou became the headquarters of Köden, son of Ögödei Khan. It was from this seat of power that the first Mongol invasion of Tibet was launched in 1240, under the direction of a Tangut named Doorda Darqan. Köden summoned Sa skya Pandita Kun dga’ rgyal mtshan (1182-1251) to Liangzhou in 1244, and he arrived in 1246 with his two nephew’s ‘Phags pa (1235-1280) and Phyag na rdo rje. Although these Sa skya representatives stayed only a short while in Liangzhou, they had a lasting influence on the region. In return for healing Köden from an illness, Sa skya Pandita was given the local temple Sprul pa’i sde (Huanhua si 幻化寺, also known as the White Stupa Temple (Baitasi白塔寺), located in Dahe xiang 大河鄉. He died and was buried there in 1251. In all, the Sa skya controlled four monasteries spread around the city in the cardinal directions: this temple in the east, in the west Pad mo’i sde (Lianhua si蓮花寺), in the north Byang rgya mtsho sde (Haizang si海藏寺, this is the only one to survive to the present), in the south Dbang sde (Guanding si/ Jinta si 灌頂寺/金塔寺). Shortly after his uncle died, ‘Phags pa left in 1253 to serve at the court of Qubilai (not yet khan at this time). Around 1256, Karma Pakshi (1206-1283), the second Black Hat Karmapa, also passed through Liangzhou on his way from visiting Qubilai in the south heading north to the court of Möngke Khan in Mongolia. The Kagyü influence in this region, which was quite strong until the visit of the fifth Dalai Lama in 1652 (on his way to the Qing court in Beijing), no doubt benefited from this visit. Although Köden died by 1260 at the latest, his family remained in Liangzhou as the rulers of Hexi (河西) for the duration of Mongol rule.

    Sources:

Christopher Beckwith. 1987. The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia, Princeton: Princeton University Press
Patricia Berger. 1994. Preserving the Nation: The Political Uses of Tantric Art in China. In Latter Days of the Law: Images of Chinese Buddhism 85-1850. Lawrence: Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas. pp. 89-125
Ruth Dunnel. The Hsia Origins of the Yüan Institution of Imperial Preceptor. Asia Major. Third Series, Vol. 5, part 1, 1992, pp. 85-111
Heather Karmay, Early Sino-Tibetan Art. Aris and Phillips. 1975: 35-42
Luciano Petech. 1983. Tibetan Relations with Sung China and the Mongols. In China among equals: the Middle Kingdom and its neighbors, 10th-14th centuries. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 173-204
Wangqian Duanzhi and Jiang Zengli, Sapan yu Liangzhou si da fo si, xerox, pp. 9-13.

Entry by Gray Tuttle, 1/21/07