A Tale of Two Stūpas

Abstract

Abstract Hangzhou and the surrounding environs (i.e., the Jiangnan region) have arguably the most developed Buddhist culture in China. A Tale of Two Stūpas: Diverging Paths in the Revival of Buddhism in Hangzhou China tells the story of Hangzhou Buddhism through the conceptions, erections, and resurrections of Yongming Stūpa, dedicated to the memory of one of Hangzhou’s leading Buddhist figures, and Leifeng Pagoda, built to house stūpas of the historical Buddha’s remains. While delving into the intricacies of these two sites, the work is particularly interested in their origins and their “resurrections.” What we find in both cases is a history marked by grandeur and tragedy, of expected and unexpected turns. Reconstructed, reactivated, and reasserted Yongming Stūpa and Leifeng Pagoda have resumed meaningful places in the contemporary Hangzhou landscape. Their contemporary resurgences are by no means the first. Both had suffered devastation before and endured long periods of neglect. Yet both were resurrected (and re-resurrected) during the course of their histories, a mark of the power of their endurance. A Tale of Two Stūpas shows how the dynamics of initial conception, resurrection, and re-resurrection work and what it tells us about the nature of Hangzhou Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism, more generally.