Tracking Bodhidharma

by Andy Ferguson

  Among the early Zen places in this region, there is the temple that claims to be the residence and teaching seat of the Third Ancestor of the tradition, and there is also a mountain where Zen’s Second Ancestor, Huike, Bodhidharma’s main Dharma heir, is said to have lived.

  Scholars mostly ignore these places because there are no early texts like the Continued Biographies that confirm that the Second and Third Zen ancestors lived here. The references to these places are all found in later texts that many Western and Japanese scholars dismiss as fictions. Many scholars regard the idea that the Second and Third Ancestors lived in these places as highly dubious, probably just later attempts to create a Zen mythology. I think the facts we know support the idea that the old ancestors really lived in these places, but that is an argument for a different book.

  BODHIDHARMA LEAVES THE LUOYANG MOUNT SONG REGION IN 494?

  As I mentioned previously, while much of Buddhism, including certain currents of Zen, submitted to and was tainted by the wealth and power of the court, Bodhidharma’s band of followers appears to have stayed away from the intoxicants of fame and royal praise. This is indicated in the Continued Biographies where it says he would not remain in “places of imperial sway” and “those who loved to see he could not draw him near them.” That this was part of Bodhidharma’s Zen tradition is also indicated by the refusal of the Fourth Ancestor to answer multiple summons from the emperor.

  The Chinese scholar Yang Xiaotian has written a paper about Bodhidharma’s life that emphasizes this point. He points out that the fact that Bodhidharma’s disciple Sengfu left the Luoyang area in the year 494 is significant. Yang shows that this time coincides with the decision by Emperor Xiao Wen, of the Northern Wei dynasty, to move his court from the northern city of Pingcheng to Luoyang, the place where we know Bodhidharma and his disciple were living at that time. Sengfu’s biography says he left the area at that time and went to Nanjing. Evidence indicates Bodhidharma also would have had good reason to leave.

  Emperor Xiao Wen, who was of the Tuoba ethnic group, was everywhere adopting and incorporating Chinese culture into his “barbarian” northern empire. Moving from the northern city of Pingcheng, near the Tuoba people’s traditional northern home, to Luoyang, a place with a long history as China’s capital, was a political move designed to cement the Wei’s legitimacy with the Han Chinese population.

  Emperor Xiao Wen, like other Chinese emperors, was a believer and promoter of Buddhism. He spent lavishly to build monasteries and support the religion in various ways. A famous landmark of his support for Buddhism is the Yungang Grottos, the site of stunningly beautiful and artistic Buddhas carved into the stone cliffs and caves near modern Datong City in North China. That site, better preserved but less famous than the Longmen Grottos near Luoyang, remains as evidence of the astonishing artistic skills of carvers who believed that carving beautiful Buddhas secured you a better future life. Emperor Xiao Wen, who fashioned himself to be an incarnation of the Tathagata (the Buddha), commissioned the Buddhist statues that were carved into the cliffs in both Yungang and Longmen.

  When Emperor Xiao Wen moved his capital from Pingcheng to Luoyang around the year 492, work on the Yungang Grottos near Datong was stopped. The work then started again at Longmen (“Dragon Gate”) along the Yi River near Luoyang. For the next two and a half centuries, the Longmen site saw the creation of literally thousands of Buddhist carvings in caves that overlook the river. That place is now a famous UNESCO World Heritage site visited by thousands of tourists every day.

  The Continued Biographies reveals that Sengfu left Luoyang just when Emperor Xiao Wen moved his court there. A coincidence? Bodhidharma’s biography in the Continued Biographies indicates he was roundly criticized for the type of practice he advocated. He did not fit in the Buddhist establishment of Emperor Xiao Wen’s court. In fact, Emperor Xiao Wen issued a directive demanding that Buddhist scriptures be publically taught by Buddhist monks. Bodhidharma, an independent teacher outside the religious establishment, could well have suffered criticism if not persecution for not joining the emperor’s efforts to spread scriptural study.

  During the time of Emperor Xiao Wen’s rule (471—499), monks were definitely not supposed to operate outside the religious establishment and direction of the court. The reason for this is clear from historical records. During the first two decades of Emperor Xiao Wen’s rule, at least three uprisings against him and his court were led by Buddhist monks. The last such rebellion in the year 490, shortly before the Wei capital moved to Luoyang, occurred when a monk declared himself the new messiah and marshaled the Han Chinese peasants against the Tuoba “foreign” oppressor. Emperor Xiao Wen brutally crushed this rebellion and executed the “messiah” and his commanders.

  For these reasons it seems logical that Professor Yang’s ideas are right, and that Bodhidharma and his band of independent misfits decided they should get out of Luoyang, while a new gang, the emperor and his establishment monks, was taking over their turf in the Luoyang area. They likely left the Luoyang area around 494, as Sengfu’s biography indicates. They departed the area where the Northern Wei dynasty was setting up a new capital and headed south, down the Han and Yang-tse Rivers into the area where Xiao Yan (Emperor Wu) would soon overthrow the boy emperor Baojuan and set up the Liang dynasty.

  If Professor Yang’s idea is indeed correct, and Bodhidharma and his disciples left the Luoyang area at that time and traveled south, then many pieces of the Bodhidharma puzzle fall into place. This possibility provides a possible explanation for tantalizing references to Bodhidharma and his disciples living in the southern part of the country, especially around Nanjing. It also explains where Bodhidharma and Huike lived and taught during the long thirty-plus-year gap in their history that the Continued Biographies leaves open, a gap that stretches from the year 494, when they were in Luoyang, until the approximate date of Bodhidharma’s death sometime around the year 530. In this long period of time, there would have been ample opportunity and means for Bodhidharma’s group to migrate to the southern Yang-tse River region and take up residence there.

  As I mentioned earlier, the people who established the Wei dynasty that ruled Northern China at that time were originally of the Tuoba ethnic group. They were foreigners, not Han Chinese. Since the third century, their invasion of Northern China drove many ethnic Han Chinese to migrate from the north to the south of the country. One of the main routes for these migrations started from the area where Bodhidharma and his disciples lived around Luoyang and proceeded south through the Fu Niu Mountains. After a relatively short distance, this migration route reached the Han River, which flowed downstream to meet the Yang-tse. Commerce and travel was well-established on these rivers, and so the great majority of the distance between Luoyang and Nanjing could be traveled by boat. The idea that Bodhidharma and his disciples could have followed this well-established migration route to the south is entirely plausible. Their route, going downstream on the Han River, would have carried them through the vital trading and political city of Xiangyang (pronounced Hsiong-yong), the same city where Military Governor Xiao Yan (the future Emperor Wu, who we’ll examine in detail soon) lived around that same time biding his time, planning his rebellion against the last Qi dynasty emperor in south China.

  FIGURE 13. Bodhidharma and his disciples leave Luoyang and travel down the Han and Yang-tse Rivers to the Nanjing region in the year 494.

  The precise reasons why Bodhidharma avoided imperial contacts can only be surmised. Naturally, as a Buddhist home-leaver, he might be expected to leave society behind and avoid its temptations. Yet the fact is that Bodhidharma traveled at great personal danger for an enormous distance to proselytize in China. Clearly he was not simply of a home-leaving mindset that ignored the world. He wanted to convert people to his vision of Zen and willingly traveled in the world to do that.

  In light of the idea that Bodhidharma seems to have avoided the Wei emperor Xiao Wen (and later, as I will show, Emperor Wu), the likel
ihood that Bodhidharma met Gunabhadra and learned from the latter’s harrowing experience with royalty seems even more plausible. Buddhism teaches that life can be both mesmerizing and transient, and where more so than among the competing ruling elites and their bitter struggles for power? At the top of the list of those to be avoided would be an emperor and his immediate kin. Gunabhadra’s bitter experience as a political hostage showed that no matter how such people profess affection for the Dharma, they are still tactically minded, always jockeying for advantage in the fearful maelstrom of politics. Emperors and kings maintain their positions through lethal force.

  Daoxuan clearly says that Bodhidharma taught in the “south and north” of China, citing the areas of Luoyang and the Yang-tse. Teaching along the Yang-tse, in my view, must mean that he taught in the most important region of the Yang-tse, the area around Nanjing. Therefore, any analysis of Bodhidharma’s life must show whether and how he could have resided in that area.

  Eric and I will go to Nanjing and see what clues it holds about Bodhidharma’s life.

  The different dates pertaining to Bodhidharma’s possible presence in the Nanjing area are a fascinating part of his puzzle. The two Nanjing-area places most plausibly connected to Bodhidharma, places that have the best claim of a direct historical connection to him, are Dingshan Temple, where he supposedly stayed for up to three years, and True Victory Temple in the nearby city of Tianchang. There, local records claim he established a teaching seat in the year 520. These are places I need to explore in Nanjing.

  23. Nanjing City

  FROM A WIDE, twenty-first-story hotel-room window, I look across a broad swath of downtown Nanjing City. My view roughly encompasses the area where the Tai Cheng Palace, Emperor Wu’s ancient home, lies buried a few meters beneath the cityscape and its autumn morning traffic jam. This is the locale at the heart of Bodhidharma’s story.

  Nanjing, whose name means “Southern Capital,” has had other names during its long history. One of Nanjing’s early names was Jinling, meaning “Gold Hills” or “Gold Mounds.” The name comes from a legend that says an ancient king who ruled this region from a different place buried gold in the Mufu Mountains that lie to the north of the city to disrupt the favorable feng shui the city enjoys. Such a place, he feared, could easily give rise to talented men who would challenge and overthrow him. The city’s feng shui is indeed very good. Around the old city proper, the Yang-tse, approaching the city from the southwest, passes up and over the city, providing arched protection from invaders approaching from the west or north. On the east side of the city sits Bell Mountain, which, along with some lesser peaks, offers an excellent high-ground defense against invading armies from the east. Finally, the Qin Huai River, flowing from cast to west beneath the city and emptying into the Yang-tse, defended the city’s southern approach.

  The Mufu Mountains, a line of rocky bluffs riddled with white dolomite limestone, rest along the bank of the Yang-tse, providing high, defensible ground and even more protection from any invader attempting to cross the river. If all this weren’t enough, within the upper semicircle formed by the Mufu Mountains and Bell Mountain rests Dark Warrior Lake. This beautiful natural lake provided a huge reservoir of fresh water within the city’s defensive perimeter, allowing it to withstand a long siege.

  Along a portion of the Qin Huai River that loops around the bottom of the city, another group of hills called the Stone Fortress gave the city more high ground to repel invaders that might attack the city from upstream positions.

  Along with these ideal natural defenses, a high man-made wall surrounded the old city proper. And finally, within the northern area of the old city, another rectangular high wall protected the Tai Cheng Palace.

  The layout of the Tai Cheng Palace, where Emperor Wu presided over his dominions, was much like the Forbidden City we can see today in Beijing. Oriented toward the south, grand halls met a visitor coming in through the main gate, eventually leading to the emperor’s living area at the north of the complex. From the well-defended throne of the Taiji Dian (“Great Ultimate Hall”) inside this imperial seat, emperors ruled a number of Southern Chinese dynasties beginning with the Eastern Jin dynasty (317—419) and ending with the Chen dynasty (557—583). Emperor Wu, the key player in Bodhidharma’s legend, established the Liang dynasty and ruled from this place beginning in the year 502 and continuing for the next forty-seven years.

  In modern times Nanjing played a key role in the formation of modern China. The city was the seat of Sun Yat-sen’s Nationalist Government established in 1911. Today, a grand memorial site to the “father of the Nationalist Revolution” lies on the wooded slopes of Bell Mountain.

  Nanjing’s formidable natural defenses notwithstanding, it lies atop the detritus of measureless triumphs and tragedies. One infamous tragedy happened only recently. The “Rape of Nanjing” by Japanese imperial forces is still remembered by older citizens of the city who lived during the late ’30s, the period preceding the United States’s entry into World War II. The Nanjing Peace Museum commemorates that gruesome stain on human history by receiving and educating thousands of visitors each day. The museum, about three blocks long, is filled with disturbing photographs and documents about Japan’s brutal occupation of the city. China will not let the Rape of Nanjing slide into history’s dustbin and be forgotten.

  24. Emperor Wu and Imperial-Way Buddhism

  The Jade spring is nearly exhausted,

  The palace splendor diminished,

  Surrounded by heavenly music,

  Everywhere the chants flow forth,

  The body cleansed in tepid baths,

  Penitence purifies the mind,

  The rushes again luxuriant,

  Falling flower petals splendidly blanket the ground.

  —“Taking the Buddhist Refuges with the Crown Prince,” by Xiao Yan (Emperor Wu)

  EMPEROR WU (ruled 402—449), whose personal name was Xiao Yan (pronounced Hsiow Yan), was a devout Buddhist who ruled China’s Liang dynasty after seizing power in a rebellion against the Qi (pronounced Chee) dynasty. He initiated and led a bloody war against the Qi emperor Baojuan, a young man only seventeen years old.

  The boy emperor Baojuan assumed the throne upon the death of his father, the Qi emperor Ming Di. The boy was then still in his early teens and considered too young to wield power, and a group of officials was established to rule the country in the boy’s name. But soon the boy, spoiled and temperamental, demanded to exercise the full prerogatives of his position. When he was denied such power, he reacted by forming a secret alliance with court eunuchs, ambitious military men, and corrupt courtiers to strike against the officials who held the reins of the state.

  In a ruthless bid for power with his unsavory allies, the boy executed the country’s two highest officials and slaughtered their families at the imperial Tai Cheng Palace in a single morning of bloodshed. Following that event, the youth systematically tortured and murdered any court officials he and his court toadies thought might oppose him. This threatened the lives and families of scores of officials and aristocrats of high standing.

  As the bloodbath spread with ever greater ferocity, some retired generals and others launched rebellions to dethrone the deranged boy. Two major attempts to topple him ended in disappointing failure at the foot of the Tai Cheng Palace wall. Strange misadventures caused the rebellions to fail, leading that superstitious age to believe that heaven had intervened to protect the occupant of the throne. Even Baojuan believed himself to have supernatural protection. Imagining himself invulnerable, he and his corrupt clique carried out ever-greater outrages of murder, debauchery, and mayhem against the cowering aristocracy, and the circle of his victims widened to include commoners unlucky enough to come to his attention.

  This turbulent era spread its effects into far reaches of Chinese culture. Baojuan owned a favorite concubine, a beauty named Jade Slave. Her tiny, delicate feet aroused the boy’s extreme passion. Baojuan was so enraptured by Jade Slave and her
miniature feet that he routinely traveled to her father’s house to pay the man special honors, even acting as the man’s servant. These bizarre expeditions spread terror, for any commoners unlucky enough to remain in the street when the imperial caravan passed on the way to Jade Slave’s house were summarily murdered. The boy’s episodic madness terrorized everyone. Aristocrats, trying to survive the boy’s rule, made a show of embracing his perverted tastes. Some historical accounts say the foot binding of ancient China was started due to Emperor Baojuan’s infatuation with Jade Slave’s tiny feet.

  One night while Baojuan, Jade Slave, and their friends were enjoying themselves at the house of Jade Slave’s father, fire broke out in the Tai Cheng Palace, destroying scores of halls along with the apartments of the imperial concubines. The unlucky women were unable to escape the conflagration because gates that enclosed their living quarters could not be opened without the emperor’s direct command. Thus well over a thousand women, girls, and their servants perished. When Emperor Baojuan returned and viewed the carnage, the bodies “stacked like cordwood,” he reportedly said, “Now I can build the palace I have wanted!” He then ordered ornate new halls to replace what was lost, undermining the country’s already crippled finances. As a special gesture to his beloved Jade Slave, inside one of the new halls he built a special pathway where lotus flowers, sculpted in relief using ivory and jade, marked where her tiny feet passed each day.