The Gold-Colored World: "Eulogyon the HolyRegions of Mount Wutai"

Abstract

Dunhuang, an oasis on the Silk Road, is generally credited as the point of entry for Buddhism into China. Mount Wutai (Five Terrace Mountain 1i_ L1J),a sacred Buddhist mountain associated with the bodhisattva Mafijusri, was an important pilgrimage site for the disciples of tho AvataQlsaka, Pure Land, Tiantai, Chan, and Tantric schools. There must have been considerable communication between Dunhuang and Mount Wutai in the Tang and Five Dynasties era, judging from the materials found at Dunhuang, which include an intriguing corpus of poems celebrating the mountain appearing in over thirty manuscripts preserved in the Pelliot, Stein, Leningrad, and Beijing collections. 1 The authors are thought to be monks or lay devotees, and the poems date from the Late Tang to the Five Dynasties period. This essay focuses on one set of poems from the Wutai corpus: the "Eulogy on the Holy Regions of Mount Wutai" (Wutai shan shengjing zan 1i_L1.J~:tl_), eleven poems by Xuanben, monk of the Golden Terrace ~_"T~*, dating from the ninth century. The poems not only describe the most important miraculous sites on Mount Wutai but significant Indian figures as well. The "Eulogy" demonstrates an extraordinary mix of Chinese