一山而五頂:多學科、跨方域、多文化視野中的五臺信仰研究國際學術研討會=An International Conference The Mountain of Five Plateaus: Studies of The Wutai Cult in Multidisciplinary and Transborder/Cultural Approaches
出版日期
2015.07
出版者
山西省佛教協會
出版地
山西, 中國 [Shanxi, China]
資料類型
會議論文=Proceeding Article
使用語言
英文=English
附註項
主辦方: Buddhist association of Shanxi Province 作者單位:Università degli Studi di Perugia, Italy 義大利佩魯賈大學
摘要
At the beginning of the 21st century, on Mount Wutai there are a number of monasteries which reconnect themselves with the monk Nenghai 能海 (1886-1967), the “Chinese lama”, to whom I have already devoted a number of studies and who stands out as one of the most significant personalities of the modern phenomenon of Sino-Tibetan Buddhism as far as the Gelukpa tradition is concerned. In spreading Tibetan Buddhism inside China proper, Nenghai visited Wutaishan several times, and he finally moved there in 1952/53, spending his last years of life in the Jixiangsi, his foremost monastery on the mountain.
Nenghai’s passage on Mount Wutai has left an indelible mark. He is still revered in a number of stupas and monasteries, where monks wrapped in yellow robes follow the particular liturgy created by him: they chant Tibetan texts translated into Chinese, involve in purely Tibetan meditation practices and rituals, and at the same time also abide to typical Chinese Buddhist habits and rules.
It is likely that political reasons are not entirely foreign to the recent growth in number and importance of these Sino-Tibetan sites, which shall function as “neutral points of encounter” for Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism. That said, however, it is necessary to recall both the highly religious motivation that can be observed inside the contemporary communities of Nenghai, and the acceptance of their presence on the mountain demonstrated by the other resident monastics and – according to interviews I have conducted during a fieldwork in summer 2006 – also by pilgrims of every tradition and ethnicity. To them, the only valuable unifying element seems to be the common devotion to Mañjuśrī. As a matter of fact, the Bodhisattva is said to have appeared to Nenghai and to some of his closest disciples (including the nun Longlian 隆蓮) on Mount Wutai, and it was Mañjuśrī himself who revealed to Nenghai the teachings included in his work on the “Five syllable mantra” (Wuzi Zhenyan 五子真言), one of the principal tantric practices in this tradition.
In the present study, I shall make an attempt to evaluate Nenghai’s role in the developments of Buddhism on Wutaishan during the 20th century, as well as the legacy he left behind, particularly focusing on his first and second generation disciples who were and are still involved with the “Five Plateaus Mountain”.