Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism by April D. Hughes

Abstract

Reviewed by: Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism by April D. Hughes Yu Xuan Tay April D. Hughes, Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2021. xiii, 181 pp. US$148.00 (pdf). ISBN 978-0-824-88870-1 An essential aspect of imperial authority in premodern China was providing sufficient legitimation for its political rule over culturally and socially diverse regions. The essen-tialized understanding of such political legitimation revolves primarily around the concept of the “Mandate of Heaven.”1 However, scholars in the field for the past few decades have complicated this simplistic portrayal by analyzing a multitude of different legitimation strategies employed by various rulers according to their respective social milieu.2 April D. Hughes’s first book, revised from her doctoral dissertation, titled Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism, delves into a distinct set of approaches to political legitimation during the Sui and early Tang periods. Her book analyzes the historical development and popularization of the image of “worldly saviors.” Emperor Wen (Wendi 文帝) of Sui and emperor Wu Zhao 武曌 (also known as Empress Wu Zetian 武則天) of Zhou both utilized this image to legitimize their rule.3 Hughes begins her book in the introductory chapter by surveying a few of the legitimization strategies undertaken by some Chinese rulers. This brief survey includes claiming the “Mandate of Heaven,” beckoning to the concept of “Great Peace,” or taip-ing 太平, or styling themselves together with their state as the successor to the previous unified Han empire (p. 4). Hughes then introduces the concept of “worldly saviors,” who are beings that appear in this current world, destined to save everyone by quelling chaos and dispensing proper rule over their territory (pp. 4–5). This concept had to be underlaid by a Buddhist soteriological understanding of how the Buddha’s teaching or dharma will inevitably deteriorate throughout time, also known as the age of the Final Dharma or mofa 末法. Therefore, one or many “worldly saviors” are expected to rise during such a [End Page 149] trying time and create a terrestrial utopia for the believers, protecting them from a general apocalypse and the wrath of the unfaithful. Hughes specifically notes that this concept of “worldly saviors” also heavily overlaps with canonical Buddhist concepts such as the far future arrival of the next Buddha, Maitreya, and the pious Buddhist universal king known as the “Wheel-Turning King” or cakravartin, the zhuanlun wang 轉輪王. The difference lies in the fact that these canonical concepts usually espouse a singular identity of either a Buddha or a sovereign, whereas a “worldly savior” is both a Buddha and a sovereign simultaneously (pp. 8–7). It is, however, important to note that some of these “worldly saviors” were not strictly limited to a “Buddhist” portrayal, but were also characterized as a “Daoist” savior such as a “True Lord” or zhenjun 真君. Hughes thus argues that such a concept of “worldly saviors” primarily derived from apocalyptic extracanonical scriptures, and served as a political legitimation for Chinese rulers. The first chapter of the book is a general survey of the scriptures that contain figures that satisfy the concept of a “worldly savior.” Some of these saviors, such as Maitreya Buddha 彌勒佛 and Prince Moonlight 月光童子, commanded supernatural, moral, and political power, capable of saving the faithful from apocalypses and politically ruling these faithful in utopias that could one day exist in this material world. A pertinent feature of these utopias is that they imagine an idealized society that affirms proper social hierarchy and gender roles, one that would have been unfamiliar to readers who lived during the fifth and sixth centuries CE (p. 32). The utopias preached by these scriptures must have resonated with contemporary readers. Thus in the second chapter, Hughes further asserts that numerous monastic rebellions within that same period drew their justification and mass support from similar apocalyptic scriptures. Some rebel leaders styled their names in an apparent reference to the “worldly saviors” in these apocalyptic scriptures, such as “Luminous King of Dharma” or mingfawang 明法王 (pp. 46–47). At the same time, some rebel leaders used the expected imminent arrival of Maitreya Buddha as a...