Chapter 471: The Great Sage's Demon-Subduing True Scripture and the Reform of the Dharma

Just as Shi Chonggui was building the Zide Palace and a batch of other palaces in the Eastern Capital of Kaifeng to house palace women for his amusement, Zhang Zhao was likewise undertaking large-scale construction in Liangzhou.

In mid-March, the Great Ci'en Temple of Liangzhou — built for the spiritual practice of Zhang Zhao's birth mother, Lady Song, and also for Zhang Zhao's religious reforms — was finally completed after three years, covering more than a thousand mu.

Zhang Zhao also had a nine-story pagoda, fifteen zhang tall and built entirely of crimson-gold bricks, erected at the highest point of the temple, and named it the Baozhao Pagoda.

From the first month of this year, Zhang Zhao had begun summoning the religious leaders and painters of the various peoples of Anxi, Beiting, Qingtang, Xiasui, and even the Kyrgyz lands to Liangzhou, to begin jointly creating the True Wheel-Turning Sage King's Demon-Subduing Illustrations and the Great Sage's Demon-Subduing True Scripture.

At the same time, he merged the Dayun Temple into the Great Ci'en Temple and began establishing scriptural studies to expound the Buddhist classics.

The so-called True Wheel-Turning Sage King's Demon-Subduing Illustrations were the very heart of Zhang Zhao's Buddhist reform.

This was a collection of Buddhist story illustrations comprising over a hundred pieces, gathering together Buddhist tales of the past.

Most were of Shakyamuni, King Prasenajit, King Ashoka, and the like, while close to forty percent of the stories were newly created.

What they recounted was the story of how I, the Wheel-Turning Sage King, Dharma King Zhang, journeyed ever westward, defeated all manner of heretics and evil demons, and then, at the Vulture Palace on Vulture Peak in India, received the Buddha's enlightenment and attained the Way.

The True Wheel-Turning Sage King's Demon-Subduing Illustrations were the most important part of this, a scroll more than ten meters long, with corresponding murals as well, already carved into the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang in Shazhou.

The Great Sage's Demon-Subduing True Scripture was the textual embodiment of the True Wheel-Turning Sage King's Demon-Subduing Illustrations.

It included the scriptural meaning chanted in Sanskrit, the narration of the stories, and the Wheel-Turning Sage King's exposition of the scriptural meaning.

Buddhism at this time was, in truth, in a period of great confusion.

Before this, Buddhism's philosophical speculation and doctrine had all come from India, because Buddhism originated in India.

The Buddhist establishment of the Central Plains at this time still firmly believed in the authority of the Indian Buddhist establishment.

So much so that from the Tang through the Five Dynasties, monks of the Central Plains and Silla monks from across the sea, no matter the danger, pressed on wave after wave toward India — this was the root cause, and it was also the source of motivation for Tang Xuanzang's quest to fetch the true scriptures.

But the Indian Buddhist establishment, having come this far, now stood on the eve of extinction; to say nothing of new scriptures, even new interpretations of the old scriptures could no longer appear.

And there was another problem: Buddhism, being rooted in India, still bore an Indian cultural character at this time.

This was also one of the important reasons for the successive persecutions of Buddhism by the Three Wus and the First Emperor of the Later Zhou.

Before the Song, the Buddhist establishment was in conflict with the culture of the Central Plains — and a fierce conflict at that; even the Brahmin caste system had once attempted to spread into the Central Plains.

Historically, it was only after they had endured the thunderous storm of Emperor Shizong Guo Rong of the Later Zhou, and the forceful infiltration and reform by the scholar-officials of the Song dynasty, that they became the Chinese Buddhism we see in later ages.

Of course, in truth, by this time the Han Chinese had already begun modifying Buddhist thought.

The various sects that emerged during the Tang and Five Dynasties were the beginning of this reform.

But Zhang Zhao could not wait that long. The Buddhist establishment of the Central Plains could be left to the literati and scholar-officials to slowly correct, but Hexi and Longyou could not drag on like this — this bore directly on Zhang Zhao's grand plan of westward expansion.

"Dharma King, this is the Thirty-Two Lotus Manifestation Portrait done by Master Tongxiu."

Yang He, the Chief Dharma Overseer monk Hui Xing who was specifically in charge of Buddhist affairs for Zhang Zhao, and Long Bian, the Chief Monk Overseer who administered the monastic community, came over together.

In their hands they held a portrait, and in the portrait was a Buddha whose brows and eyes closely resembled Zhang Zhao's.

The Buddha wore a black monastic robe, held a monk's staff, and floated upon a vast, misty lake, lotus blossoms blooming all around — dignified, yet revealing an air of compassion; truly the solemnity of the Dharma.

The painter, Master Tongxiu, had the secular surname Zhou, and was said to be a descendant of Zhou Fang, who founded the Zhou-style Buddhist painting tradition.

His painting skill was beyond reproach, of course, but what satisfied Zhang Zhao most was the Buddha's brows and eyes.

This was not to say that he was satisfied simply because it resembled him, Zhang Zhao, but because before this, the images of Buddhas, arhats, and the like in Buddhism had mostly been Indian in style.

The reason some Buddha images we see in later ages look strange and misshapen is that they were not painted according to Han Chinese brows and eyes.

The reason Zhang Zhao had Master Tongxiu make the Thirty-Two Lotus Manifestation Portrait and bring it to him for review was that from this day forward, the brows and eyes of Buddha images in Hexi would all be painted according to Han Chinese features.

Those foreign-monk-style images could still be painted, but only for Shakyamuni and others who were originally from India.

"Dharma King, in reviewing the Great Sage's Demon-Subduing True Scripture, your disciples have found that our land of Liang should be the Land of True Dharma.

West of Great Liang should be the Land of Dharma Propagation; south of Great Liang should be the Land of Dharma Protection; and the Central Plains should be the Land of Good Dharma.

In all, four lands, with the Wheel-Turning Sage King dividing into four manifestation Buddhas to deliver all sentient beings."

Long Bian was extremely reverent, treating Zhang Zhao entirely with the attitude of a Buddhist disciple in the presence of the Buddha.

The so-called four lands were the Buddhist Four Images devised by Zhang Zhao and worked out by the eminent monks of Liang.

According to the explanation in the Great Sage's Demon-Subduing True Scripture, after Zhang Zhao received the Buddha's transmission and guidance at the Vulture Palace on Vulture Peak in India, the Buddhist world under heaven underwent a transformation.

In the land of India, the Dharma had declined and lost its foundation as the source of Buddhism; it should be the Land of Dharma Protection, where after the Wheel-Turning Sage King founded the school and established the lineage, he would send disciples to protect the Dharma.

West of Great Liang — that is, Transoxiana, Persia, Daqin, and all lands to the west — the people there did not know the Buddha's compassion or his heart to deliver all the world, so people must be sent to propagate the Dharma; hence it was the Land of Dharma Propagation.

Of course, in the course of propagating the Dharma, there might be a few obstinate villains, or even mortals transformed by heavenly demons, who obstructed it, so the Wheel-Turning Sage King had the authority to organize monk-soldiers to propagate the Dharma.

The Central Plains was the Land of Good Dharma — this was proposed by Zhang Zhao. The attitude of Chinese culture toward religion was what Zhang Zhao most supported, so it was called the Land of Good Dharma.

The meaning was that here, however the Dharma was understood or interpreted, it could all be summed up in the single word "good," to be decided by themselves.

This approach avoided magnifying Zhang Zhao's religious character to an extreme in the Central Plains, and also set the keynote that Hexi Buddhism must move westward.

The Land of True Dharma was easy to understand: this was the birthplace of the new Dharma, the birthplace of the Wheel-Turning Sage King, and after India's decline, the ancestral seat of the Dharma.

Seeing that Zhang Zhao rather approved, Long Bian continued his explanation: "Of these four lands, the Land of True Dharma shall be delivered by the Supreme Great Compassion Dharma King; the Land of Dharma Protection by the Supreme Great Virtue Dharma King; and the Land of Dharma Propagation by the Supreme Great Illumination Dharma King.

These three Dharma Kings are all emanations of the Wheel-Turning Sage King's dharma-body, and are called the Sage King's Three Dharma-Bodies."

Zhang Zhao nodded. This already rather matched his expectations. After thinking for a moment, Zhang Zhao decided to add one more dharma-body.

"Set the grasslands north and south of the great desert as the Land of Responsive Dharma, to be delivered by the Supreme Great Wisdom Dharma King. Establish Tengri as the Great Wisdom Dharma King, first among all the dharma-bodies.

Henceforth we must call upon the peoples of the grasslands to revere the Dharma and respond to the Dharma, so that they understand they bear an important responsibility in going to the Land of Dharma Propagation to propagate the Dharma and to the Land of Dharma Protection to protect the Dharma.

Also, quickly set up the monk-official system for Qingtang and the grasslands. Henceforth, Liang and the Central Plains may not have monk-officials; all monk-officials shall be moved to Qingtang and the grasslands.

Beneath the Sage King's Four Dharma-Bodies, establish the offices of Living Buddhas, Great Virtues, Dharma Overseers, Monk Overseers, and the like.

Living Buddhas shall be sought out by the Dharma lands themselves and confirmed by the Wheel-Turning Sage King's golden seal and golden register; below the Living Buddhas, appointments shall be made by the Living Buddhas."

I, Great King Zhang, have truly mastered the art of stitching things together — even the golden-urn lot-drawing system has made an appearance.

And it is obvious: he does not interfere with specific doctrine, but he insists on being the head of the Buddhist establishment.

He has also conveniently consigned Shakyamuni to the cold palace, with the Wheel-Turning Sage King becoming the interpreter of the worldly Dharma.

Henceforth, the fierce warriors of Qingtang and the grasslands will all be urged onward by the Dharma to advance toward India and the Caspian and Black Seas.

This was also one of Zhang Zhao's ideas for trying to solve the endless death-struggle between the steppe and farming peoples of the land of Huaxia.

The fundamental reason the steppe peoples had to push south was that life on the steppe was simply too harsh.

When the population grew too large to feed, they had to go south to plunder and survive; when disasters struck too often, they had to go south; when unscrupulous merchants cheated them and they could not afford goods, they simply went south as well.

In the end it developed into: a worthless life, no way to live well anyway, so might as well gamble and go south to plunder.

Win, and it's clubs and glamour models; lose, and it's into the sea... uh! No! Lose, and your head rolls.

And for the Central Plains dynasties, the steppe was too wide and too vast. Emperor Wu of Han beat the Xiongnu so badly, yet still could not destroy them or rule the steppe long-term. Emperor Taizong of Tang tried fighting while assimilating, and that still did not work.

Now it was Zhang Zhao's turn, and he was preparing to try diverting the disaster westward.

With the position of Khagan, he would become the Roman emperor of the steppe tribal chieftains, and use Buddhism to become their pope.

Then every ten-odd years, he would lead these wretches on western campaigns, to go west and become lords over the Rus and the Germans.

Perhaps this was a path worth taking.

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