Six Rouge and Powder Money

Besides, in my devotion to the temple of my God I now give my personal treasures of gold and silver to the temple of my God, over
and above everything I have provided.King David, 1 Chronicles 29:3

or most tourists to Longmen, the highlight of

their visit is seeing the colossal figures of the
Great Vairocana Image Shrine (figure 6.1). As
with any other effective theatrical experience,
the shrine is situated so as to build up a sense of anticipation by delaying and controlling the experience of seeing
it. The modern-day visitor enters the northern precinct
of the Longmen cliffs from the northwhich was quite
likely the experience of anyone approaching by land from
Luoyang during the Tang dynastyand amidst the flocks
of tourists from Japan, Europe, and elsewhere walks along
the stone-paved pathway that runs between the river and
the base of the cliff, then climbs several meters up the cliff
face on the modern concrete stairs to pause at the solitary
Qianxisi Grotto with its huge seated early Tang Buddha,
and then continues south several meters to enter the deep
Binyang courtyard with its arcade of three colossal entryways (see figure 4.1). Descending the stairs to a lower level
of the cliff face, the visitor passes small grottoes containing King Udayana Buddhas and climbs up to the large
Jingshan Monastery Grotto, with its finely carved bodhisattvas and guardians on the faade. Continuing to walk
the path across the cliff face past yet more open shrines,
the visitor arrives at the Cliff-Carved Three Buddhas,
a seven-meter-high open niche containing several large
unfinished figures that marks the end of the northern
precinct. A couple hundred meters south, the grottoes
of the southern precinct begin with the Paired Grottoes
and other large early Tang grottoes, and farther on, famous Northern Wei shrines such as Cixiangs Grotto and
Lianhua Grotto, which are marked by placards, are surrounded by thousands of unmarked grottoes and shrines

that perforate the cliff wall like dark windows (see figure
7.1 below).

Meeting the Gaze

After walking south the better part of a kilometer (figure
6.2), the visitor arrives at the stairs leading to the Vairocana shrine, which were restored to something like their
original Tang dynasty design in 1991.1 The old stairs were
zigzagged to allow an easier ascent up to the floor of the
grotto, which is almost thirty meters above the base of the
cliff, but that design ruined what had been an intentionally
hidden and controlled view. Although the shrine has no
faade to screen the statues, it is cut thirty-six meters deep
into the cliff, so the sculpted figures on the back wall are
not visible from the pathway at the base of the cliff. Now,
the visitor begins the approach to the shrine by climbing a short flight of stairs set parallel to the cliff face and
then turning ninety degrees to face a sheer wall cut into
a two-story stairway to the shrine. Slowly ascending the
precipitous steps, the visitors first sight over the top of the
stairs is the majestic head of the central Buddha, whose
eyes appear to fix the viewers in their gaze. As the visitor
continues to climb, the body of the Buddha comes into
view, and the standing disciples and bodhisattvas flanking
him on the back wall appear. Looming to the right and the
left are colossal guardians on the side walls of the shrine,
who gesture and glare ferociously. At last, the visitor steps
up onto the floor of the shrine to enter its space.
In the center of the back wall is the seated figure of Vairocana Buddha, measuring over seventeen meters from the
grotto floor to the tip of the halo (figure 6.3). The Vairocana

Figure 6.1.
Great Vairocana
Image Shrine,
676. Restored,
19711973. Photo,
Jin Yini, 1999.

Figure 6.2.
Longmen (3): (21)
Putai Grotto, (22)
Cleft Grotto, (23)
Weizi Grotto, (24)
Great Vairocana
Image Shrine.
Adapted from
map in Rymon
sekkutsu, ed.
Longmen wenwu
baoguansuo and
Beijing daxue kao
guxi, endpaper.

has a penetrating expression that represents samdhi, or

absorption, a state of intense meditation. The symmetrical concentration of the face and the perfect immobility of
the torso, draped entirely in a single robe, are heightened
in their effect by the ruined state of the body. The stone of
the front of the statue sheered off long ago, so the hands
112 | r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y

and legs are no longer there to distract from the expression

of the face.2 To the right of the Buddha stands the shattered figure of the older disciple Kyapa, while to the left
is the youthful figure of nanda. Both are more than ten
meters high. In each corner where the back and side walls
meet stands an elaborately jeweled bodhisattva figure,

Figure 6.3. Vairocana, west wall, Great Vairocana Image

Shrine. Photo, Jin Yini, 1999.

Figure 6.4. Bodhisattva, northwest corner, Great Vairocana

Image Shrine. Photo, the author, 1994.

each over thirteen meters high (figure 6.4). As the main

Buddha represents Vairocana, the bodhisattvas must be
Samantabhadra and Majur, though which one is which
is no longer known.3 These five figures are contained in a
huge shallow niche cut into the back wall of the grotto.
The side walls were also cut into shallow niches, and at
the inner edge stands a worshiper some six meters high
who faces in toward the Buddha figure. Next to the worshiper, facing outward in defense of this Buddha-realm
and all worshipers in it, stands a ten-meter-high lokapla
figure, in a pose of victory over a dwarf demonic nature
deity, and a similarly large dvrapla, who raises his arms
in a martial gesture. The north-wall lokapla holds up a

small pagoda on his right hand, which identifies him as

Vairavan.a, guardian of the north. The lokapla on the
south wall has been ruined by the elements, but he was
likely Virdhaka, guardian of the south.

Controlling the View

The control of visual effect in this shrine is not limited to
governing the sight of the shrine. The proportions of the
figures were also manipulated by the sculptors to counteract two different optical effects.4 One is the apparent
distortion of colossal figures when seen from below. If the
figures were of normal proportions, the heads would apr o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y | 113

Figure 6.5. Vairavan.a and dvrapla seen from the side, north wall, Great Vairocana Image Shrine. Photo, the author, 1996.

pear ridiculously small and distant. The ideal beauty of

the bodhisattvas heads and their compassionate expressions convey the essential meaning of these salvic deities,
so for the heads to be lost from view would render their
identities void. A normally proportioned figure is seven
heads high, but to counteract the effect of diminution, the
sculptors made the bodhisattvas scarcely five heads high,
shortening the bodies to bring the heads down to where
the viewer can see their expressions. In a similar fashion,
the upper torsos of the bodhisattva figures are disproportionately broad, in order to support the heads and to
serve as a backdrop for the lavish and detailed jewelry and
the beautiful plump hands held in vitarka mudr (silent
teaching). The Indian style of the jewelry and the mudrs
signify the authenticity and efficacy of the icon and must
be clearly readable.5
114 | r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y

The other optical effect the sculptors countered was

the tendency for relief sculptures to become contracted
and unreadable when viewed from an oblique angle. The
most obvious example of the sculptors altering the figures
to compensate for this tendency is seen in the side wall
lokapla and dvrapla figures. Looking directly at the
north wall reveals that the figures have been intentionally
broadened, with an almost grotesque wideness to the hips
and shoulders (figure 6.5). Their left shoulders are higher
and wider than their right, and the left side of their necks
is extended rather weirdly. When the statues are seen from
the front of the shrine at the oblique angle intended, however, the excessive width on the left sides of the figures
evens out the visual effect of contraction, and the figures
look quite normal (figure 6.6). A similar strategy was used
on the bodhisattva figures as well. Looking at them di-

vas in the corners at about a twenty-five-degree angle, so

that they appeared to be leaning gently toward her, while
the guardians were seen at about a forty-five-degree angle,
where their proportions would have contracted to a normal appearance and their glaring eyes would be focused
slightly behind the pilgrim to defend her. To complete this
imaginary Tang dynasty experience, we should envision
the figures with their original colorationgolden necklaces set with jewels of bright blue and green, white skin,
red lips, dark blue hair, and pupils quickened with black
glass.6

Iconographic and Inscriptional Evidence

Figure 6.6. Vairavan.a and dvrapla seen from intended

angle, Great Vairocana Image Shrine. Photo, the author, 1994.

rectly, the viewer can tell the bodhisattvas are a little larger
on the outside half of their bodies and seem to lean in that
direction, yet when seen from the front of the shrine, the
upper body seems to be moving slightly toward the viewer,
and the overall effect is of the gentle sway of the tribhanga
(triple-bend, or hip-shot) pose.
The evidence of the sculpture suggests the intended
view of the shrine was from the front, not far from the
point where the visitor steps up onto the threshold. At
this spot, the Tang dynasty visitor looked straight up into
the face of the Buddha and directly ahead to the frontally
presented figures of the disciples. She saw the bodhisatt

The massive throne on which the main Buddha sits, though

shattered, has an elaborate sculptural program that is still
legible. The octagonal waist of the throne is set onto a wide
pedestal bordered with lotus petals, and at each corner of
the five visible faces stands a caryatid guardian figure in
a triumphant pose on a pair of dwarf demon nature deities. Between the guardians, on each face of the waist is a
lokapla wearing armor, seated upon two dwarf demons.
The seat of the throne above them is almost entirely broken
away, yet a small section of the original carving remains,
adjoining the back wall on the south side of the throne.
Here one can still make out a few upturned lotus petals,
and centered in each is a small seated Buddha figure (figure 6.7). It is likely the entire platform of the throne was
carved as a multipetal lotus flower, each petal containing a
seated Buddha figure.
Traces of an early inscription remain on the south side
of the throne, which was evidently ruined by the elements
soon after it was made and later reengraved on the north
side.7 The text must have been written after Emperor Gao
zongs death in 683, since it employs his posthumous title,
but before it was reengraved around 723. It was not the dedication. Rather, it was a record of the making of the shrine,
of the later establishment of the imperial Great Fengxian
Monastery, by which name the shrine was known then as
now, and the history of the monks who practiced there.8
The inscription begins by describing the shrine:
On the sunny side of the Longmen hills, the Great Vairocana
Image Shrine was established by the Celestial August Great
Emperor Gaozong of Great Tang.9 The body of the Buddha,
r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y | 115

Figure 6.7. Buddhas on

lotus petals, south face of
throne, Great Vairocana
Image Shrine. Photo,
Jin Yini, 2004.

from halo to base, is eighty-five chi (25 meters) in height, while

the two bodhisattvas are seventy chi (20 meters) in height, and
Kyapa, nanda, the vajra (guardians, i.e., the dvraplas)
and the shenwang (the lokaplas) are each fifty chi (almost
15 meters) in height. On the first day of the fourth month of
the third year of the Xianheng era, a renshen year (May 3,
672), the August Empress Wu aided (this project) with twenty
thousand strings of her rouge and powder money. In obedience to an imperial decree, the clerics in charge were Meditation Master Shandao of Shiji Monastery and Dharma Master
Huijian, abbot of Fahai Monastery, of the Western Capital.10
The commissioner in charge was Wei Ji, Chief Minister of the
Court of the National Granaries, while the vice commissioner
was Fan Xuanze, Supreme Pillar of State and Director of the
Eastern Parks. The artisans were Li Junzan, Cheng Renwei,
Yao Shiji, and others. This work of merit was completed on
the thirtieth day of the twelfth month of the second year of
the Shangyuan era, an yihai year (January 20, 676).11 (6A)

Although the inscription explicitly names the Buddha

as Vairocana, it was composed at least seven years after the
shrines completion, which makes the identification less
than certain. Evidence to confirm it, however, is found
in the remaining lotus petals on the southern edge of the
116 | r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y

throne, which bear figures of seated Buddhas. Sofukawa

Hiroshi, of the Institute for Research in Humanities at
Kyoto University, has observed that the second chapter
of the Fanwang jing describes a thousand-petal, thousand-Buddha Vairocana.12 Although the Fanwang jing
(Scripture of Indras net) is introduced by kyamuni, its
principal deity is Vairocana, with whom the Tathgata
kyamuni shares an interchangeable identity. kyamuni
says: I am now Vairocana, seated on a lotus-flower throne,
and surrounding me on a thousand petals are manifest a
thousand kyamunis. Each petal (also) holds ten billion
lands, and each land a single kyamuni. Each sits under a
bodhi tree, and in a single moment each attains enlightenment. Thus, these thousand and these ten billion are the
original body of Vairocana, while the thousand and the
ten billion kyamunis each receive countless sentient
beings.13 Although the Fanwang jing is a fifth-century
indigenous scripture, it contains elements based on Indian scriptures, such as the Mahparinirvn.a Stra, and
it was considered authentic by Tang dynasty exegetes.14
Its vision of Vairocana as the original embodiment of
the dharmakya is shared by the Avatamsaka Stra (Ch.
Huayan jing, or Flower Ornament Scripture), which further illustrates the interrelatedness of kyamuni and

Vairocana with the metaphor of the jeweled net of Indra,

in which the universe is compared to a vast net.15 At each
knot is a jewel, which not only reflects the net as a whole,
but also every other jewel in the net individually. All phenomena are like these jewels in that each phenomenon in
the universe can be seen as reflecting the whole (a whole
that has both unity and multiplicity) even as it preserves
its own unique, yet not separate, identity.

The Problem of the Purpose

Since the choice of Vairocana as the principal icon for
a shrine was practically unprecedented at Longmen, it
must have been highly significant to the donors, and yet
the most prevalent theory at present ignores any religious
meaning or function of a Vairocana figure per se and asserts that the purpose of the shrine was political.16 Despite the explicit statement that the emperor established
the shrine and the empress aided the project with her personal funds, several scholars are convinced that the original sponsor was Empress Wu. Gong Dazhong, a scholar
who worked at the Longmen Cultural Relics Management
and Conservation Office in the 1970s, believed that the
creation of the Fengxian Monastery Shrine had Empress
Wu, as the wielder of state authority, as its behind-thescenes backer.17 He indicted her as a great supporter of
Buddhism, no matter the waste of money and manpower,
saying she built monasteries, excavated cave-shrines, and
made colossal sculptures as monuments to herself.18 Convinced that the empress had the shrine made to her own
political and religious glory, he offered the opinion that
the Vairocana figure was her portrait. Contravening the
traditional belief that all Buddhas and bodhisattvas are
male, he said, the main figure was boldly given a feminine
appearance.19 He noted that the Taiping princess was described as having a square forehead and broad cheeks
and that the empress had always favored her daughter because the princess resembled her in appearance.20 Hence,
the face of the empress was almost exactly in accord with
the appearance of the Vairocana. We might say the Vairocana is to some degree a portrayal of the image of Wu
Zetian or, some might say, an effigy of her.
This notion was elaborated by other scholars in the
1980s. Li Yukun flatly stated the shrine was sponsored by
Wu Zetian for political reasons, while Zhang Naizhu ar-

gued that she consciously used Buddhism, the Buddhist

establishment, and Buddhist building projects to deify
herself and that she began this career practically from the
moment she was made empress in 655.21 Her self-representation as Vairocana in the 670s at Longmen was an early
step in the religious and political scheme that culminated
in her self-declaration as a golden-wheel cakravartin in
693 and then as the Benevolent One, or Maitreya, in 694.
Okada Ken, of the Institute for Research in Humanities of
Kyoto University, wrote that Empress Wu used the emperors name to issue the edict to produce the shrine and that
her monetary contribution to the project was part of her
plan to usurp political power.22
One voice to sound against this chorus is that of Wen
Yucheng, who accepts the statement made in the inscription that the shrine was initiated by Emperor Gaozong.23
He further rebuts the idea that the Vairocana was a portrait
of Empress Wu and that she was the behind-the-scenes
backer. He notes first that the inscription clearly states
Emperor Gaozong had the Vairocana shrine made, while
Empress Wu merely helped pay for it, and second, that if
this project had been begun soon after she was installed as
empress, she would not have tested her husbands faith in
her by erecting images of herself. How and why would she
turn a statue the emperor had made for posthumous merit
into her effigy? Finally, Wen questions Gong Dazhongs
comparison of the description of the Taiping princess and
her mother to the face of the Vairocana by noting that a
square forehead and broad cheeks is one of the eighty traditional beautiful signs of the Buddha.24
This is not to say that Empress Wu would balk at any action that would accomplish her goals.25 It can scarcely be
argued that after the death of her husband in 683, she kept
her sons from ruling and held the upper bureaucracy in
check through the use of spies, secret denunciations, and
judicial murder. In 690, she did usurp the throne, inaugurating the Zhou dynasty (690705), with herself in the
role of emperor. Her self-aggrandizement continued to become more grandiose, culminating in the assumption of
the titles of cakravartin and Maitreya. Yet, although from
the start of her career she evinced the kind of amoral ambition necessary to control the throne in medieval times
(the same kind that allowed Emperor Taizong to murder
his brother with his own hands), the phases of her path to
supreme power are distinct. Having originally been a conr o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y | 117

cubine of Emperor Taizong, she began her ascent by reentering the palace as a concubine of Emperor Gaozong. She
then framed, supplanted, and murdered Empress Wang
and had her own son installed as heir apparent. She was
elevated to empress in 655, and those who opposed her,
such as Chu Suiliang and Zhangsun Wuji, were banished,
to die in exile.
In the realm of political theater, Empress Wu played the
role of supporting her husband, while actually functioning as his equal, and from 655 to 683, her goals were to
control the emperor by eliminating competing interests
and to put herself on a par with him. Beginning in 664,
court business was conducted with the empress seated
behind the emperor, screened by a curtain, whence she
issued orders. They were called the Two Sages.26 When the
emperor ascended Mount Tai with male officials on the
first day of 666 to perform the feng and shan sacrifices, in
which he announced to heaven and earth the success of his
reign, the empress led a parallel group of women to perform complementary rituals. When droughts and other
calamities struck the nation in 670, she offered to resign
her position in expiation, as a kind of substitute for the
emperor. In 674, she issued a twelve-point memorial for
reforms throughout the realm. In addition to condemning
extravagance in the construction of palace buildings and
wasteful use of corve labor, she also advocated universal
study of the Daoist classic Dao de jing.27 This last point was
clearly intended to express support for the emperors personal beliefs and for the traditional connection between
the royal house of Li and Daoism. As T.H.Barrett has said,
She had learned during the course of her marriage the art
of reconciling family, state and church interests.28
The behavior deemed appropriate for empresses was
to use personal funds to provide aid for the emperors
projects, not to initiate projects with government money.
Empress Dowager Hu of the Northern Wei, for example,
was criticized by her ministers for supporting her Buddhist projects with the state treasury. Conversely, an example of acceptable behavior was shown by Empress Xiao
of the Sui dynasty. When Emperor Yang went to inspect
the engraving of stras in stone at Fangshan, he was accompanied by Xiao Yu, the empress younger brother.
Returning to the palace, he told the empress about this
work. The empress donated a thousand rolls of silk and
118 | r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y

other wealth and materials in order to aid its completion,

while Yu also donated five hundred rolls of silk. When all
in court and countryside heard of this, they competed to
offer donations, and thereby (Jing)wan gained what he
needed to continue his work of merit.29
Empress Wus mother, Lady Yang, was descended from a
collateral branch of the Sui royal line, so although she and
her daughter were not directly related to Empress Xiao,
her behavior would still have stood as a kind of maternal
example for them. Indeed, offering aid in support of the
emperors projects is the rhetorical model that Empress
Wu adhered to from 655 to 683. In 659, for example, Emperor Gaozong ordered the imperial commissioner Wang
Changxin and the palace monk Zhizong to go to Famen
Monastery in Fufeng to request that the finger-bone relic
of the Buddha be brought to Luoyang. The following year,
it was worshiped at the palace and paraded through the
streets. Empress Wu is said to have had gold inner-coffin
and silver outer-coffin reliquaries produced to house it.30
Now whether the idea to bring the relic to Luoyang was
originally hers or the emperors, we cannot know. We can
ascertain, however, the empress public posture concerning patronage, which was to support her husband in his
projects and to use personal funds for her own projects. In
670, for example, when she sponsored the establishment
of monasteries in honor of her late mother, she used her
own funds.31
Is the Vairocana a portrait of Empress Wu? Ideally beautiful and majestic, its rounded face might seem feminine,
even as its implacable expression could suggest the ruthless usurper. Glamorous as the idea might be that in looking on this seventh-century face we see the very features of
the only woman to rule China in her own right, a colossal
portrait seems to fit better the reputation for megalomania
she earned at the end of her life and not the role she sought
at the time the shrine was made. Every public act she performed while the emperor was alive was done in the rhetorical posture of aiding or supporting him. As there is no
evidence the empress intended to usurp the throne in 672
or required the legitimizing aura of deification to maintain
her place on it, as she apparently did in 694, the theory
that the empress would have her features reproduced in
the Vairocana statue is unconvincing.

The Choice of a Vairocana

The inscriptions statement that Empress Wu paid for the
completion of the shrine, however, is convincing, and
there is much evidence that a Vairocana figure would
have had a personal appeal. Kang Fazang (643712), the
great systematizer of Huayan thought and tireless writer
of commentaries and treatises on the Avatam
saka Stra,
held a uniquely influential position with the empress.32
His great-grandfather and his grandfather both served as
prime ministers in Sogdiana, whence the latter emigrated
to serve at the court of China.33 Fazangs father served
Emperor Taizong, while his younger brother Kang Baozang was an official with a reputation for loyalty and filial piety. At the age of seventeen, Fazang set out to learn
Buddhist teachings, and he studied for several years at a
monastery on Mount Taibai in the Zhongnan Mountains
southwest of Changan. Subsequently, he studied Huayan
scripture with the master Zhiyan (600668) in Changan.
At Zhiyans death, Fazang was still a layman, though Zhiyan considered him learned enough to be his successor,
and he remained so until 670, when Empress Wus pious
mother passed away. Desirous of generating merit for
Lady Yangs posthumous benefit, the empress determined
to have worthy men ordained to practice at the monastery
she established at her mothers former home. The emperor
accepted the recommendation that Fazang be ordained,
and he was established as the abbot of Taiyuan Monastery
in Luoyang.34 So precipitate was his ordination that he did
not possess the robes of a monk when he arrived, so the
empress herself supplied him with five sets along with a
personal letter.
Fazangs relationship with the empress continued to
flourish over the years the shrine was produced. In 674,
Empress Wu ordered ten senior monks in Changan to administer the highest ordination to him, and she granted
him the honorific title Xianshou Guoshi, or National
Teacher Chief-in-Goodness.35 At her order, he lectured
on the Avatam
saka Stra at the imperial Foshouji Monastery (the former Jingai Monastery) in Luoyang, and it was
there that he and iks.nanda later produced a new translation of the Avatam
saka Stra during the Zhou dynasty,
for which the empress wrote a preface.36 To the empress he
delivered his famous statement of Huayan concepts, the

Treatise on the Golden Lion, so it seems quite possible

that if he were consulted on the matter, he would advocate
for the statue to represent Vairocana.37
The interpretations Fazang offered on the image of the
jeweled net of Indra could have served the empress as a
Buddhist ideology of rule, which might explain why a figure of Vairocana would appeal to her. He read the jeweled
net as a symbol of the universal sovereignty of the cakra
vartin. In a treatise titled Cultivation of Contemplation of
the Inner Meaning of the Huayan: The Ending of Delusion
and Return to the Source, Fazang wrote: This refers to
the precious jewel of the blessed universal monarch with
a pure jewel net. That is to say, the essential nature of the
jewel is penetratingly bright; the ten directions are equally
illumined, as tasks are accomplished without thinking.
Thoughts all acquiesce. Though manifesting extraordinary
accomplishments, the mind is without cogitation.38
Not only would the empress have been pleased to see
herself as the cakravartin with the precious jewel and the
jewel net, but also the description of extraordinary accomplishments produced without thinking, by a mind
without cogitation, is so similar to Daoist ideas about inaction (wuwei) as the highest form of government that it
would be hard to imagine it not appealing to a Chinese
ruler. She would also likely have been attracted by the description of self as principal at the end of Fazangs treatise: Sixth is the contemplation of the net of Indra, where
principal and satellites reflect one another. This means
that with self as principal, one looks to others as satellites
or companions; or else one thing or principle is taken as
principal and all things or principles become satellites or
companions; or one body is taken as principal and all bodies become satellites.39

Rouge and Powder Money

Empress Wus affiliation with Fazang and his development of Huayan thought may explain her choice, if indeed she made it, of a Vairocana figure, but it does not
explain why she became involved in the project and had
the shrine finished. I suspect the designation of the icon
was secondary; what was primary was to demonstrate
her power and effectiveness by donating a stunning sum.
Just as Li Tais inscription boasted that he poured out his
r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y | 119

heart to demonstrate his love of charity, and opening his

treasury, he was liberal with tortoise shells and cowries,
and Song Jingfei confessed, I have now parted with half
my hairpins and girdles, so the only fact stated in the Vairocana inscription concerning the empress was that she
gave twenty thousand strings of her rouge and powder
money. Seizing the opportunity to make a public display
of ostentatious expenditure at the imperial cave-shrine
site, in the rhetorical posture of supporting her husband,
seems strikingly similar to her idea to sponsor gold and
silver reliquaries for the Famen Monastery finger-bone
just a few years before.

A Scenario for the Shrine

I propose a scenario in which the Vairocana shrine was
inaugurated by the emperor around 660 and completed
by the empress from 672 to 676.40 In 660, the emperor and
empress traveled to Bingzhou (modern Taiyuan, Shanxi
Province). Wenshui District, south of Bingzhou, was Empress Wus home place, and when the imperial couple arrived in Bingzhou in the second month of 660, the empress
gave a lavish banquet for all her relatives there.41 According to a record preserved in Daoshis Fayuan zhulin of 668,
during this trip, the emperor and empress traveled west of
Bingzhou to a mountain sanctuary called Tongzi Monastery. There they saw the colossal seated image said to be
over 170 chi in height (about 50 meters).42 They also visited
Kaihua Monastery in the valley to the north, which had a
colossal image 200 chi in height (over 59 meters). There, the
imperial couple offered worship before the statue. According to Daoshi: They performed the rituals with reverence,
and gazing up at the statue, they sighed at its rarity and
extraordinariness. They made a great donation of precious
jewels, expensive objects, and clothing, and the consorts,
concubines, and women of the inner palaces each parted
with her personal donation. The emperor ordered the vice
magistrate Dou Gui to have the Holy Image refurbished
and redecorated.43 When the royal couple returned to
Luoyang two months later, in my scenario, the emperor
issued an order to commence the carving of a colossal
Buddha shrine at Longmen, in response to the excitement
engendered by his experience of the colossal statues in
Bingzhou. I suspect the purpose was to effect his healing.
The emperor suffered from chronic illness from at least 657
120 | r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y

onward, and in 660, he experienced what modern scholars

think was the first of a series of strokes.44 The emperor
had previously supported merit-making building projects
in pursuit of healing. In 656, he established the Buddhist
Western Brilliance Monastery (Ximingsi) and the Daoist
Eastern Brilliance Temple (Dongmingguan) in Changan
for the recovery of the four-year-old heir apparent.45 He
also turned to Indian healers for himself. Around 664, a
Brahmin presented at court was sent back to India with
a Chinese delegation to obtain an herb of long life without aging.46 So eager was the emperor to obtain it that
when some time had passed, he dispatched the Chinese
monk Xuanzhao, who had studied at monasteries in India
for years and was fluent in Indian languages, to retrieve
the drug. It is quite possible the figure was not a Vairocana when it was started but could have been intended
as kyamuni, Amitbha, or even Yaoshi, the Buddha of
Healing, any of which could have been suggested to the
emperor by his clerical advisors, Shandao and Huijian.
An inaugural date of 660 is also suggested by evidence
at Longmen. Late in 659, the imperial court came to Luo
yang, not to depart until early 662, and during this period
several dedications were made at Longmen by persons
connected with the court.47 All the inscribed intrusive
shrines in 659 were produced by local people, but in 660,
a shrine was sponsored by a eunuch palace receptionist,
while in 661, one shrine was sponsored by the attending
physician to the heir apparent and another by a eunuch
official of the Office of Imperial Parks Products of the
Court of National Granaries.48 In 662, a trio of officials
who worked for the Prince of Zhou (Li Xian, the six-yearold future Emperor Zhongzong) dedicated an Amitbha
shrine to His Majesty the Emperor and all sentient beings.49 After the departure of the court from Luoyang in
early 662, patronage at Longmen promptly returned to the
hands of the local population.
An inaugural date of around 660 also fits with the vogue
for re-creating Indian icons that swept Longmen at this
time. Donors began to sponsor copies of the Srnth-style
King Udayana Buddha in 655, while the first re-creation
of the Gandhra-style Amitbha and the Fifty Bodhisatt
vas icon was produced in Lady Weis grotto around 660.
It is likely the designs for all the figures in the Vairocana
shrine at Longmen were derived from drawings or copies of statues brought from India and kept in the imperial

Figure 6.8. Gandhran Buddha from

Loriyn-Tangai, Calcutta Museum.
From Kurita Isao, Gandara bijutsu,
v. 1, pl. 334.

archives, but this seems especially probable for the Buddha, since several aspects are clearly derived from seated
Buddha figures from Gandhra, especially the fully covering robe, waving hair, and broad face. Comparing it to
the Gandhran kyamuni in seated meditation from
Loriyn-Tangai, now in the Calcutta Museum (figure 6.8),
we see the same manner of drapery, with a single robe
covering the body and draped from the Buddhas proper
right shoulder over to the left. The Vairocana head is very
similar also, in its large, broad proportions, wavy hair,

wide cheekbones, long eyes, and bowed lips. If nonelite

patrons had already begun to copy Indian icons, when the
imperial donors commissioned a design, why would they
do any less?
Just a few years later, the emperor may have given up on
the project, and whatever work had begun on the Vairocana shrine ceased. He abandoned other ventures around
this time. Several important literary compilations were
produced under his guidance in the years between 656
and 663, including substantial works on statecraft, hisr o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y | 121

tory, and literature, and he continued to support the great

Buddhist scripture translation project under the direction
of Xuanzang. After Xuanzangs death in 664, however,
the emperor stopped sponsoring his followers translation work, and his support for secular scholarship also
ceased.50 Perhaps the emperors interest in creating a colossal assembly at Longmen failed at the same time he lost
interest in other activities he had previously patronized.

122 | r o u g e a n d p o w d e r m o n e y

Then, in the fourth month of 672, the empress came to

Longmen with her husband, who is reported to have gone
hunting south of the Luo River.51 Seeing the derelict site,
she determined to donate the vast sum of money needed to
finish the shrinetwenty thousand strings of her rouge
and powder moneyand it was completed nearly four
years later, in January of 676. One can scarcely imagine
the splendor of the dedication ceremonies.