The Centre of Centres: Bodhgayā in Chinese Sources

The Centre of Centres:

Bodhgayā in Chinese Sources

MAX DEEG

Cardiff University

‘…in the centre of the trichiliocosm (Skt. trisahasramahāsahasralokadhātu) is the diamond seat (Skt. vajrāsana) in Jambudvīpa which above penetrates to the boundaries of the earth and below is resting on a golden disc. Sitting on it, the bodhisattva attains ultimate enlightenment (Skt. samyaksaṃbodhi). No other place provides a firmer foundation than this.’ (Taishōedition of the Chinese canon, no. 1545, lines 156a.3ff.)[1]

The centrality and cosmological importance of Bodhgayā for the Buddhist world could not be expressed more clearly than in these words from the Abhidharmamahāvibhāṣā-śāstra, a text ascribed to Kātyāyanīputra and translated into Chinese by the famous traveller-monk Xuanzang (600 or 603-662). In cosmological terms, the śāstra, in a way, takes a shortcut insofar it leaves out the overall hierarchical and concentric structure of the Buddhist worldview: the diamond seat is at the centre of Bodhgayā, Bodhgayā is at the centre of Magadha – or madhyadeśa, the ‘central region’ – is at the centre of Jambudvīpa, the ‘Rose-apple Continent’; Jambudvīpa is the southern continent of the four-world system which is encompassed by a ring ocean and a circular mountain wall which separates the four worlds of the human sphere (manuṣyaloka) from the outer circles and other worlds which constitute, in the most expanded Buddhist cosmology, the trichiliocosm.

While the śāstra gives us a view on Bodhgayā and its centre with the diamond seat and the bodhi-tree which is doctrinally, soteriologically and cosmologically oriented and motivated, other sources emphasize the ‘microcosmic’ infrastructure of the site in relation to the narrative biography of the Buddha. This is not very surprising since(religious)stories, generally and normally, often become denser – in the sense that more sub-events are narrated for a short narrated period of time – when approaching a culmination point or a climax. And Ultimate Enlightenment (anuttarasamyaksaṃbodhi) undoubtedly is one of the most dramatic and most meaningful events in the life of the Buddha. Not only is the place of Enlightenment listed by the Buddha himself shortly before his death in a famous passage in the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra as one of the most important sites, one of the four ‘great places’ (mahāsthāna) of the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, first sermon and parinirvāṇa, which Buddhist laypeople should visit and venerate in order to be reborn in heaven (svarga); the Enlightenment’s extraordinary position in the biography and as a place for pilgrimage and veneration is also highlighted by the fact that many versions of the Buddha-biography – including the one given in Bertolucci’s movie ‘Little Buddha’ – end after the Enlightenment as the culmination point of the bodhisattva’s ‘career’.

In many religious contexts, there exists a coincidence of soteriological meaningfulness, centrality and narrative and spatial density: as the drama of the religious founder unfolds towards the culmination point, the narrative usually becomes loaded up with religious meaningful sub-narratives – and as a consequence the central place of these events and its direct environment often becomes the focus of religious veneration and ritual practice. In the biography of Jesus Christ, for instance, the soteriologically most meaningful event is the crucifixion, and its place is Mount Golgotha where the narrative in the Gospels transforms and hierarchises space: the (assumed) central place of the crucifixion becomes the sanctum sanctorum – represented by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – and the places around it are linked with the events leading to it (last supper, prayer and arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, etc.). Jerusalem eventually becomes the centre of the mediaeval Christian world. Performing a pilgrimage to the centre and its different places in the sequence of the biographical narrative becomes a soteriologically and spiritually meaningful ritual performance of the Via Crucis (‘Way of the Cross’).

In the biography of the Buddha the most dramatic culmination point undoubtedly is the Enlightenment and the events leading to it. The patio-narrative representation of Bodhgayāshows a similar tendency and development as its Christian counter-part: the closer the Buddha gets to the bodhimaṇḍa, the place underneath the bodhi-tree, the more detailed (narratively ‘denser’) the biographies (e.g. Aśvaghoṣa’sBuddhacarita, the Lalitavistara, the Mahāvastu, and other biographies)[2] become, from the decision of the bodhisattva to give up extreme asceticism to the arrival underneath the bodhi-tree and finally the ‘breakthrough’ of Enlightenment, and consequently the more the landscape gets scattered with sites and places linked to these sacred events. However, while the biographies leave no doubt about the importance and centrality of Bodhgayā and its environment, the archaeological situation on the ground does not necessarily reflect this. The modern site is dominated by the Mahābodhi-temple with the diamond-throne and the tree, but the wider area is underexplored and -excavated. We only know about the wider sacred infrastructure of Bodhgayā through other sources, the so-called Chinese pilgrim records, by travellers like Faxian, Xuanzang, Yijingand the Sino-Korean monk Huichao/Hyechŏ (returned to China 729)[3] which identify the sites of the events around the Enlightenment, and often describe them as being marked by a monument, in most cases a stūpa. These Chinese sources do not only have the advantage of ‘translating’ the pure narrative of the biographies into narrated space, but also give a diachronic panorama of the sites over a period of four centuries (early 5^th to early 8^th century).As valuable as these texts are, we have to be careful not to read them as pure eye-witness descriptions: they were clearly influenced and taking into account ‘normative’ views as the one from the śāstra quoted at the beginning, but also followed a ‘descriptive’ pattern which was a given through the blueprint of the Buddha’s traditional biography.

Already the earliest of these records, Faxian’s (trav. 399-412) ‘Record of the Buddhist Kingdoms’ (Foguo ji, Taishō no.2085), contains a description of Bodhgayā with a dense topography of sacred places in which the Mahābodhi-temple interestingly is not mentioned[4]:

‘Thirty steps in front of the bodhi-tree a god offered the grass ‘Bliss’ and the bodhisattva accepted it. He made another fifteen steps; thereupon five hundred blue birds came flying, circles three times around the bodhisattva and flew away. The bodhisattva proceeded and arrived underneath the aśvattha-tree. He spread the grass ‘Bliss’ and, facing east, sat down. Thereupon king Māra sent his three beautiful young daughters from the north to try to seduce (the bodhisattva). King Māra himself came from the south to tempt him (to abandon his quest). When the bodhisattva pushed his toes hard on the ground, the armies of Māra retreated and the three young and beautiful daughters transformed into old (hags). All the way from the place where the (bodhisattva) had performed extreme austerities over a period of six year the place (just mentioned) people later erected stūpas and statues which still exist today. Where the Buddha contemplated the tree and enjoyed liberation for seven days after having achieved Enlightenment, where the Buddha walked in meditation from east to west under the aśvattha-tree for seven days, where the gods transformed, made a platform made of the seven precious items and made offerings to the Buddha for seven days, where the nāga Mucilindaencoiled the Buddha for seven days, where the Buddha sat for seven days on a square stone underneath the nyagrodha-tree, facing east, and god Brahmā came and asked him (to preach the dharma), where the four heavenly kings offered him the alms bowls, where the five hundred merchants gave him gruel (mixed with) honey, where he converted the thousand disciples of the (three) brotherly masters Kāsyapa – at all these places stūpas were erected. There are three monasteries at the place where the Buddha achieved Enlightenment which are still inhabited by monks. The saṅgha and the people (there) receive donations in abundance, and they have no shortage of anything. The monastic discipline is strict, and the conduct, the way of sitting, rising, entering the monastic assembly is the same since the time when the Buddha still dwelt on earth.’

The most prominent of the Chinese travellers is, without any doubt, Xuanzang (600 or 602-664, trav. 629-645)[5]. Although, according to the biography compiled posthumously by one of his disciples Huiliand expanded later by Yancong, Xuanzang only spent seven days at Bodhgayā before proceeding to Nālandā, in his ‘Record of the Western Regions of the Great Tang’ (Datang Xiyu ji, Taishō no.2087)he gives a detailed report about the different sites. Xuanzang describes the bodhi-tree, the vajrāsana, the Mahābodhi-temple and their history, but also other sites and monuments around the central space, including the ŚrīLaṅkan monastery erected by the Singhalese king Meghavaṇṇa (Xuanzang: Meghavarman).

The ‘Record’ also has the first historical reference to the concept of Bodhgayā as centre of the cosmos. This is certainly influenced by the Abhidharmamahāvibhāṣā and similar text which Xuanzang translated after his return to China, but it also seems to reflect a quite popular idea in India since Xuanzang adds some elements which are not found in the Abhidharma-text and emphasize the centrality – an axis mundi, as it were – of the place of Enlightenment:

‘Right in the centre of the wall (around) the bodhi-tree is the diamond-seat. It came into existence at the beginning of the bhadrakalpa, rose together with the Great Earth, occupies the centre of the trichiliocosm, reaches all the way down to the ‘Golden Wheel’ and above gets near the extreme (ends) of the earth; (it is) built from diamond and has a circumference of more than one hundred paces; the Buddhas of the bhadrakalpa sat on it and entered (the stage) of diamond-contemplation: that is why it is called diamond-seat. Where the sacred Dao (bodhi) is realized is also called ‘Place of the Way’, (and even when) a great earthquake shatters (the world, this place)is the only (one which) does not collapse. Therefore, (when) the bodhisattva was about to realize full enlightenment and he passed the four corners of this diamond seat, the whole earth shook, (but when he) then arrived at that (central) place (the earth) was calm and did not shake (anymore).’

Yijing (635-713), who like Xuanzang studied at Nālandā, paid only a relatively brief visit to Bodhgayā during which he made offerings of silk and other items on behalf of monks back in China (reported in his ‘Record of the Inner Law Sent Back from the Southern Sea’, Nanhaijiguineifazhuan, Taishō no.2125). According to Yijing’s anthology of ‘Biographies of Eminent Monks Searching for the Dharma of the GreatTang’ (Datangqiufagaosengzhuan, Taishō no.2066)[6], several Chinese monks had stayed for longer periods of time (and even died) at Bodhgayā.

To this ‘line up’ of Chinese monks who visited India one may add the Chinese envoy Wang Xuance who, between 646 and 662, went to India three times and visited Bodhgayā several times[7]. Unfortunately his full travelogue is not extant but some fragments are preserved, most of them in the voluminous Buddhist encyclopedia ‘Forest of Jewels in the Garden of the Dharma’ (Fayuanzhulin, Taishōno.2122) compiled in the year 668 by the monk Daoshi (?-683).Some of these fragments give us some unique and interesting details about the infrastructure of the pilgrimage place Bodhgayā in the 7th century. Wang mentions the practice of erecting inscribed stone steles and expresses the wish to produce merit (puṇya) through the veneration and offerings made at the bodhimaṇḍa. Wang also obviously had very good contacts with the local saṅgha:

‘The ‘Records of the Western Regions’ says that on the twenty-seventh day of the ninth month of the fifth year of the era Xianqing of the Great Tang (660) Wang Xuance arrived at the Bodhi-vihāra; the master of the monastery (vihārasvāmin) called ‘Precept-Nāga’ (Śīlanāga) set up a great assembly for the envoy of the Han, Wang Xuance, and others. The (members of the mission) below the (rank of) the envoy were each presented with ten cuts of luxurious cotton and food and vessels for food; next the envoy himself was given a ‘dragon pearl’ and other gifts, in total recorded (as consisting of) eight boxes of big pearls, one ivory stūpa, one bejewelled relic-stūpa, and four printings of the Buddha. When the first day of the tenth month had come, the master of the monastery and the saṅgha gave a farewell banquet for the envoy, accompanied the envoy five miles in western (direction) and wept (when they) departed, saying: ‘It is difficult to meet and easy to part – thus is the nature of things.’’

There is a gap of Chinese sources on Bodhgayā after the visit of Hyechŏ/Huichao in the mid-Tang period and the next documented period of Chinese visits to India and to Bodhgayā; this gap may have been caused by the decline of the Tang dynasty and a period of instability and division of the Chinese empire. After the reunification of the empire through the Song dynasty (960-1279), however, Chinese historical sources suddenly become more vocal again about Buddhist monks going to India in order to bring back Buddhist scriptures from India in midst of a new wave of translation activities supported by the court[8].The historiographer Zhipan (second half of the 13^thcent.) gives the number of 183 Chinese monks returning from India with scriptures before the year 1035. And from this period come even voices speaking more directly to us from the site itself in form of several inscriptions on stone steles between the mid- ninth century and the year 1033which confirm the information gained from the Chinese Buddhist historiographical sources mentioned before. These inscriptions were discovered during the excavations performed in the second half of the 19th century by Alexander Cunningham and edited separately by the French scholar Édouard Chavannes. These inscriptions document a form of Chinese engagement and activities at Bodhgayā which already go back to the time of Wang Xuance. Many monks in the Song period were sent to Bodhgayā on imperial order to generate merit for the emperor or his ancestors by making offerings and through the ‘mechanism’ known as the ‘transfer of merit’ (puṇyapariṇāma); they also brought back sacred objects such as relics of the Buddha, cintāmaṇi pearls, or leaves from the bodhi-tree. Although the cosmological and soteriological centrality of the place is not explicitly expressed it seems to be the underlying motivation of going to Bodhgayā since the focus of the veneration clearly was the bodhimaṇḍa or vajrāsana. One Chinese monk in commissioned an inscription at Bodhgayā, Huaiyun, seems to have had a particularly close relation to Bodhgayā since, according to the historiographies, he went there as imperial agent several times. The purpose of his visits is clearly expressed in the inscription containing his name:

‘(Under the rule of) the saintly civilized, circumspectly belligerent, benevolently illustrious, filially virtuous emperor of the Great Song [Renzong, r.1023-1063] the empress dowager, responsive to the origin, respecting virtue, benevolent during her long lifetime, holy through compassion, respectfully sent the monk Huaiwen to the kingdom of Magadha to construct a stūpa next to the diamond seat as an offering on behalf of emperor Taizong, highly benevolent, responsive to the Way, of divine exploits, saintly virtuous, civilized and belligerent, circumspect and strong, highly intelligent, of great filial piety. Emperor Taizong humbly wished to retreat to the heavenly palace to personally receive the prophecy of the Buddha that he would realize continuous residence in the position of a true immortal, that the veneration of Śakra and Brahman would bring about reward and that his transcendent power would have the dynasty (of the Song) prosper forever. This was recorded on the nineteenth day of the first month of the second year of the era Mingdao [1033], in the cyclic year Guiyou, inscribed on the bingzi day.’

Spreading over a period of several centuries, the Chinese sources suggest that Bodhgayā became more prominent as a central place of Buddhist pilgrimage when Nālandā was already in decline. When the famous Chinese travellers were staying in India they chose to reside in places of learning like, at an earlier period, Pāṭaliputra (Faxian) or Nālandā-mahāvihāra (Xuanzang, Yijing and Hyechŏ / Huichao) and only paid relatively short visits to Bodhgayā. Later Chinese travellers during the Song period, however, were pilgrims in the stricter sense of the word insofar as it was their main goal to visit the sacred places for generating merit for themselves and commissioned by the Chinese emperor – all those who left us traces of their visits in that period were particularly eager to go to Bodhgayā as the most important soteriological place in the Buddhist world: to the centre of centres.