Abstract
Imprinting the Living Rock with Buddhist Texts: On the Creation of a Regional Sacred Geography in Shandong in the Second Half of the Sixth Century
Highlights
Stone inscriptions appear to be ubiquitous in China, where they fall into two main categories: inscriptions carved on stone slabs in the form of horizontal tablets or upright steles; and inscriptions carved in the living rock, either under the open sky as moya 摩崖 cliff inscriptions, or on the inner walls of caves hewn from bedrock
The moya cliff inscriptions first peaked in the second half of the sixth century under the northern Qi dynasty (550–577), which established the capital Ye 鄴 in the south of today’s Hebei Province
In 552, Gao Yang had Yunmen Monastery 雲門寺 built on Mount Long, located eighty Chinese miles to the southwest of the capital, as a residence for this famous monk.[3]
Summary
Stone inscriptions appear to be ubiquitous in China, where they fall into two main categories: inscriptions carved on stone slabs (beiwen 碑文, beiming 碑銘) in the form of horizontal tablets or upright steles; and inscriptions carved in the living rock, either under the open sky as moya 摩崖 cliff inscriptions, or on the inner walls of caves hewn from bedrock. 184 CLAUDIA WENZEL engaged in the renovation of a small meditation cave, which eventually became his memorial chapel.[4] This is the middle cave of today’s Xiaonanhai 小南海 complex in Anyang County 安陽縣, Anyang City, Henan.[5] The selection of jātakas and accompanying cartouches carved inside the cave, as well as the sūtra excerpts carved on its external walls, bespeaks the enormous impact the Mahāyāna Nirvāṇa Sūtra had on the meditation practice of Sengchou, and on the cave’s iconographic program.[6] striking among the cave’s materials are repeated references to the practice of carving canonical texts into stone Inside the cave this topic is illustrated by a story in which the bodhisattva receives a Dharma verse in exchange for his mortal body; before sacrificing himself, he wrote this verse everywhere, notably carving it in stone and on cliffs.[7] This fundamental message of Xiaonanhai Cave was well understood during the. Following decades, which saw the proliferation of projects, small and large, to carve selected texts on cliffs and in caves
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