A stellar addition to the Buddhist Stone Sutras in China series, this fourth volume on Sichuan carries forward the project of documentation of the famous site known as Wofoyuan (Grove of the Reclining Buddha). Vol. 4 surveys Caves 59, 66, 65, and 70 in Section D of the site.
The first part (“Introduction”) consists of individually authored chapters highlighting special features of the caves: these are discussed separately below. Subsequent major sections are divided into “Caves with sutras” (Caves 59 and 66) and “Caves without sutras” (Caves 65 and 70). Also included are annotated English translations of the two meditation texts in Cave 59.
All the volumes in this series provide high-quality documentation, enabling other scholars to incorporate study of the site. The second major part, “Caves with sutras”, meticulously covers Caves 59 and 66, and includes a “Description”, recording measurements, plan drawings, photos, and comments on the condition of each cave, and a “Discussion” highlighting previous scholarship. Most substantially, the subsection entitled “Illustrations” (legible photos and rubbings) documents each portion of inscription, followed by “Transcriptions” with annotations. The third and final major section is “Caves without sutras”, offering descriptions of Caves 65 and 70.
The Introduction by series editor Lothar Ledderose is entitled “The heroic section D”. Ledderose gives a descriptive overview of Caves 59 and 66, focusing on texts and colophons. He introduces the Dharmakṣema translation of the Nirvāṇa Sūtra (T. 374) as the principal source for the engravings, and orients the reader to this translation in relation to Wofoyuan carvings: the carving in Cave 59 covers chapters 1–4 and Cave 66 continues with chapters 5–10. Some further sections appear in Caves 46, 51, and 83. (Chapters 1–5 are considered “common”, corresponding to the Faxian and Tibetan translations, while 6–13 are “unique” to the Dharmakṣema translation and its revision.) Ledderose suggests that the entire Wofoyuan precinct can be seen as a mortuary shrine, inspired by the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and centred on the monumental reclining Buddha image in the north of the valley. The Wofoyuan donors, who apparently began with Cave 59 early in the eighth century, probably intended to engrave the entire Nirvāṇa Sūtra. Although this was not completed, it was indeed a heroic attempt.
Chapter 2, “Cave 59 and its ornament” by Jessica Rawson, gives a detailed description of the decorative elements of the cave, positing functions for motifs in terms of viewer experience. Rawson notes that “frames” for texts and figures were a rare feature in the Tang but had Hellenistic antecedents. She traces related motifs in Tang Buddhist mortuary art, and suggests that the caves may be understood as reliquaries, with texts as relics.
In chapter 3, Nirvāṇa Sūtra, translator Mark L. Blum provides a comprehensive survey of the contexts and contents of this influential scripture. He notes that the Wofoyuan text appears to be the oldest extant carved representation of the Dharmakṣema translation. Blum presents the Nirvāṇa Sūtra as a genre rather than a single text, and introduces some of its many fascinating features (final words, repentance, monastic wealth, buddha-nature theories, the donor Cunda, non-emptiness, faith, and more), underscoring its polysemic effect. Intriguingly, Blum suggests that the design of the Wofoyuan precinct may have been influenced by a supplemental Chinese apocryphon that recreated a scene of the Buddha's death and cremation (which appears in the Pali accounts but not in the Sanskrit-based Mahāyāna versions). Blum's chapter closes with a summary of inscriptions in Wofoyuan Caves 59, 66, 83, 51, and 46 in relation to extant texts.
The following chapter, by Eric M. Greene, is entitled “The Scripture on the Secret Essentials of Meditation: the authority of meditation in the Kaiyuan era”. On the wall of Cave 59, texts on meditation dedicated by lay donors in 735 interrupt the Nirvāṇa Sūtra sequence: excerpts from the Dasheng daji Dizang shilun jing (Great Vehicle Great Collection Sūtra on the Earth-Store Bodhisattva and the Ten Wheels, T. 411, 13) and the Chan miyao jing (Scripture on the Secret Essentials of Meditation, T. 613, 15).
Greene's research on the Secret Essentials points to compilation in South China in the mid-fifth century. Greene characterizes it as four distinct discourses on obstacles to meditation practice; its teleology is hybrid, for both progression through stages of the path to arhathood and rebirth in Tuṣita heaven are promised results. Greene argues that the Wofoyuan inscriptions show evidence of skilful extraction and reassembly. He correlates the patterns of extraction with developments in early Chan during the eighth century, when concrete visionary experience was devalued. He posits Sichuan as shared milieu for this unique extracted version of the Secret Essentials and Chan reinterpretation of meditation practice (as exemplified by the Lidai fabao ji, Record of the Dharma Treasure through Successive Generations, T. 2075, 51).
The other meditation-text extract in Cave 59, the Sutra on the Ten Wheels, argues for providing meditation specialists with enough material support to prevent them from resorting to demeaning or transgressive activities (like fortune-telling) in order to maintain their meditation practice. Greene suggests that taken together, these choices may represent a carefully calibrated response to Emperor Xuanzong's (r. 712–756) reforms aimed at the clergy, causing meditation masters to be regarded with greater suspicion by officials. Claims to meditative visions may have become associated with the prohibited practice of prognostication. Greene suggests that the texts could show “a strategy intended to safely reaffirm the value of meditation as a source of authority and legitimacy in a difficult political climate” (p. 92). Wofoyuan may thus be seen as part of a vitally transformative Sichuan-based discourse on the ways and means of meditation practice.
The last “Introduction” chapter is “The Sutra on the Profound Kindness of Parents” by Ryan Richard Overbey, who describes the third donor-dedicated carving in Cave 59, a short version of the Bao fumu enzhong jing 報父母恩重經 (Sutra on Repaying the Profound Kindness of Parents). Overbey notes that although always listed as spurious in official catalogues, it remained irrepressibly popular and was transmitted through local carvings and manuscripts. If the Cave 59 engraving can be aligned with the meditation texts dedicated in 735, it would be the earliest witness. Further, it was dedicated by a pious laywoman, giving voice to the sutra's appeal for lay Buddhist mothers.
Space does not permit a detailed summation of this magnificent volume; suffice it to say that each feature shows the highest degree of attention to detail and quality scholarship. The case for the Wofoyuan precinct as a “mortuary shrine” is compellingly made, but the nature of the chosen engravings also shows that mortuary and meditation-practice orientations were closely related. This will be an enduring resource for scholars of medieval China, Buddhism, Chinese archaeology, and those attempting comparative studies.
