Philosophy; religion and theology; Social sciences; China
摘要
During his reign, Qianlong 乾隆 (r. 1736-95) built symbolic representations of an ideology based upon dGe-lugs-pa Buddhist doctrine that ultimately portrayed him as the Buddha Miji Wenshu Jingang Fo 密集文殊金剛佛 (Guhyasamaja-Manjuvajra), an emanation of Manjusri as a universal monarch and head of the Buddhist universe. Through Buddhist art, architecture, and ritual performance, Qianlong transformed the Qing Empire into a mandala where he aligned himself with the empire’s center as its most powerful participant. This fact is manifested in the symbolism contained within the Yonghe Palace and Yuhua Pavilion. These two locations strategically positioned within Beijing contained the central philosophy of Qianlong’s reign and represent his attempts to posit dGe-lugs-pa doctrine as China’s dominant religious ideology. Tibetan Buddhism was firmly placed in Beijing by the transformation of the Yonghe Palace—a place visited by both the Dalai and Panchen lamas and home to both Mongolian and Tibetan monks—into a Buddhist lamasery. Having incorporated Tibetan and Mongolian culture into the capitol on an exoteric level, Qianlong further secured his ideological role as a Buddhist cakravartin through his ritual performance at the Yuhua Pavilion where he assumed his position as the highest manifestation of Manjusri through the practice of Anuttarayoga-tantra. With his persona established as a universal monarch, he wielded a powerful ideology that was essential in legitimizing his rule over the various Qing Buddhist cultures. This ideology enabled him to pull together the loose ideological strands of the Qing Dynasty left by his predecessors and weave the Han Chinese, Manchus, Mongols, and Tibetans into a single political and cultural entity that exists still today.
