The Landscape of the Longmen Grottoes: Practices, Repentance, Jeweled Buddhas, and Burials under Emperor Wu Zhao (r. 690–705 CE)

Abstract

This dissertation adopts a spatial-analysis and gender-studies approach to study the Buddhist visual culture of the Longmen Grottoes, where 2,345 cave-shrines were carved into the limestone cliffs on both sides of the River Yi (Yihe 伊河) from the fifth to the tenth centuries. Focusing on the seventh and eighth centuries, I examine the affective relationship between the constructed landscape of Longmen and people’s activities within the environment. Previous scholarship has engaged in discussions on the style, iconography, and patronage of Longmen sculptures. I make use of newly excavated archaeological material to investigate the site from the new and holistic perspective of landscape. I believe it is through interaction with the constructed landscape that medieval Buddhists experienced the power of the images and were motivated to participate by sponsoring a statue or a cave-shrine. To this end, I address two interconnected questions: how did the landscape take form? And how did the constructed sacred space answer the aspirations of its visitors? My goal is to reconstruct the landscape of Longmen as a matter of temporal, embodied experience. I argue that the lived experience of medieval Buddhists in Tang China (618–907) transformed the landscape of Longmen into the shape that we know of today. For the devoted Buddhists, the entire landscape was an affective space wherein one may attain the Huayan vision of enlightenment and release. At the same time, general visitors also understood the constructed landscape as a support for the claim of Wu Zhao (r. 690–705 CE), the only female monarch in Chinese history, as the sagely cakravartin, or universal ruler.