The Emergence and Spread of Relic Veneration in Medieval China: A Study with a Special Focus on the Relics Produced by Miracles

Abstract

Miracle tales are almost the sole source for the investigation of the emergence and spread of the relic cult in the early phase of Chinese Buddhism. The earliest excavated relic casket dates back to 453 CE, over four centuries after Buddhism was introduced to China. Through a critical textual analysis of Ji Shenzhou Sanbao Gantonglu, it is evident that the initial form of relic veneration was based on miraculous responses. Legends about imperial relic worship before the 3rd century are all later fabrications. Two archeological finds—the alleged relic murals in a Han tomb at Horinger, Inner Mongolia, and the stūpa-shaped bronze vessel in Gongyi, Henan—are not directly related to relic veneration. Based on the available evidence, it is tentatively concluded that relic worship first emerged around the 3rd century in the vicinity of Luoyang, the capital of the Western Jin, and later spread to the south of the Yangtze River after the Yongjia chaos. The early worshippers included both monks and lay Buddhists, such as merchants and lower-ranking officials. Royal interest in relics did not arise until the 5th century. The rise of relic veneration in China occured two or three centuries later than that in Gandhāra, from which Chinese Buddhism was significantly influenced. Compared to the cult of images or scriptures, relic veneration also emerged relatively late in China. The reluctance to adopt relics as worship objects can be partly explained by (the mahāyāna) Buddhist doctrines and the Chinese cultural mentality.

1. Introduction

As a unique mode of existence after the Buddha entered his parinirvāṇa, relics have always been at the center of Buddhist devotion. Current studies on Buddhist relics in East Asia are mainly confined to the fields of art history and archeology. These studies were concerned with the form of reliquaries, the procedure of the relic interment,1 and the political performance of the relics in imperial ceremonies (refer to J. Chen 2002a, 2002b). However, when examining archeological remains, the deposits within relic caskets largely escape scholarly attention, and the mode of relic production is even more rarely discussed. Before the rise of imperial patronage, there was a relatively long period during which relic worship was disseminated among the lower social strata. The unique manner in which the relics appeared and the social identity of the earliest relic worshipers are the primary concerns of this paper.

It is worth noting that the earliest excavated relic casket in China dates back to the year of 453 CE. If one considers the fact that Buddhism was introduced to China around the 1st century CE, there are many miracle tales that provide arguably the sole source of how relic veneration emerged and spread in the following several centuries.

Buddhist scholars, when talking about the Chinese relic tradition in its earliest phase, often cited later accounts casually or equated the legends with historical facts. Since the narratives of miracles have undergone a series of copying, alterations, and additions to the plot, it is necessary to treat these documents with caution.

2. Buddhist Miracle Tales as a Distinct Genre

Buddhist miracle tales have traditionally been classified under the genre of zhiguai 志怪 narratives (“records of anomalies”). The authors believed that they were recording the events that actually took place. An eyewitness to the event was usually mentioned towards the end of each story. The conception of “zhiguai” is in sharp contrast to the fictional narratives known as chuanqi 傳奇 (legends), which were considered as purely imaginative literature and flourished in the Tang. On the other hand, the authors of anomaly writings were fully aware of the supernatural nature of the events they described, which differed from historical works.

Although the origin of the supernatural tales can be traced back to antiquity, zhiguai as a genre flourished during the Jin dynasty (266–420). The Buddhist motif first appeared in a collection of supernatural tales with the title Xunshi linggui zhi 荀氏靈鬼志 [Xun’s Records of Spirits and Ghosts], which was compiled around the mid-Eastern Jin period (c.350s). Approximately in the same period, Xie Fu 謝敷 (313–362) began to collect the miracle manifestations promoting the cult of Avalokitesvara. After a temporary loss, Fu Liang 傅亮 (374–426) reconstructed seven stories and added some new accounts. The corpus was further expanded over the subsequent decades by two other authors. Most collections of supernatural tales compiled in the six dynasties do not survive in their complete form, which could only be restored from the treatises or compendia. The only exception is the above-mentioned three collections of Avalokitesvara miracle tales, which were copied successively in one single scroll in Kamakura, Japan. The manuscript is now preserved at Shoren-in temple 青蓮院 in Kyoto, Japan (Makita 1970).

Among the collections devoted to the Buddhist motif exclusively, Xuanyanji 宣驗記 [Records Proclaiming Manifestations] is a milestone work. The collections of Guanyin miracles by Fu Liang and Zhang Yan 張演, though composed a few decades earlier, are relatively sparse in terms of the number of entries they include. Liu Yiqing 劉義慶, Prince of Linchuan 臨川王 during the Liu Song dynasty, was well known for his fondness for gathering scholars and literati. Buddhist miracle tales appeared in two collections that were compiled under his name, i.e., Youming lu 幽明錄 [Records of the Hidden and Visible Worlds] and Xuanyan ji. The two works differ markedly in their aims. According to Li Jianguo 李劍國, “the former is a collection of miscellaneous strange and wondrous tales, which belongs to the secular anomaly writings, whereas the latter is devoted to the Buddhist miracle tales exclusively” (J. Li 2011, p. 485). Xuanyan ji is listed in the bibliographical catalog of Sui Shu as containing 15 fascicles, which is a considerable length. Unfortunately, only some 30 stories survive.2 Judging from the extant entries, there is no hint that the authors had organized the stories according to various themes.

In the late 5th century, Wang Yan 王琰 (fl. 454–501) compiled Mingxiang ji 冥祥記 [Signs from the Unseen Realm], which is the largest collection of miracle tales that comes down to us and the most representative of this genre composed in the six dynasties. The preface preserved in Fayuan Zhulin 法苑珠林 [A Forest of Pearls From the Dharma Garden] reveals the structure of the entire work. By the end of the preface, the author declares,

For receiving and mirroring the feelings of intimacy, there is nothing that surpasses the ceremonial image. Many auspicious confirming signs emanate from them…. In the case of manifestations involving sūtras and stūpas, the meanings and proofs are of the same sort [as those of images]. The cases should not be gathered in another cycle, so I have arranged those stories right after the miracles of the images. 夫鏡接近情，莫踰儀像，瑞驗之發，多自是興。……若夫經塔顯効，旨證亦同。事非殊貫，故繼其末。3

Clearly, Mingxiang ji organized the miracle tales according to different sacred objects. The vast majority of the stories are miraculous manifestations of Buddha images, followed by those of the Buddhist scriptures and stūpas (including the relics).

The three-volume Ji shenzhou sanbao gantonglu 集神州三寶感通錄 [Collected Records of Miracles Relating to the Three Treasures in China, T no.2105, henceforth GTL], was compiled by Daoxuan in the first year of the Linde 麟德 era of Tang (664).4 This work follows the framework of Mingxiang ji, where the stories are arranged under different sacred objects, albeit with a revised order. The preface states that the book “begins with the manifestations of relics and stūpas, followed by a list of divine images descending [to the mortal realm], and concludes with sacred temples, auspicious scriptures as well as holy monks”.5 Here, the order of the images and relics has been reversed. The first fascicle is devoted to the miracles of the relics, which is further divided into three categories: first is the relics under the stūpas built by king Aśokan; second is so-called “Miraculous Responses of the Relics in the Divine Land Cīna-sthāna”; and lastly, the relics bestowed during the Renshou campaign of relic distribution.

The adjusted order of sacred objects undoubtedly reflects Daoxuan’s 道宣 sustaining interest in relic worship. Several months before he died, Daoxuan established an ordination platform, of which the relic was the crucial unit.6 In the mysterious conversations with celestial beings that took place after the establishment of the ordination platform, a recurring theme was the omnipresence of relics of Kāśyapa Buddha throughout the Chinese territory. The tooth relic was claimed to have been delivered by Nezha, son of Vaiśravaṇ, who achieved the greatest fame in Chang’an and far beyond (Strong 2004, pp. 185–87).

The tripartite classification reveals Daoxuan’s insight into the entire tradition of relic veneration in China. It implies three different ways of invoking and performing the relics, and roughly corresponds to the periods in which the three types of relics were most favored and prevalent. In other words, they represent three traditions of relic worship in China, from the relics produced by miracles, through the Aśokan relics, and finally to the relic distribution campaign of the Sui dynasty. The present study primarily focuses on the first subcategory. I will give some brief remarks on its distinction from the Aśokan relics and its impact on the relic distribution campaign during the Sui dynasty.

3. Historical Survey of Several Legends

Concerning the introduction and earliest history of the relic worship, there are some legends that have been accepted as historical facts by modern scholars on some occasions. The most widely circulated accounts are documented in the first three entries under the title “Miraculous Responses of the Relics in Divine Land Cīna-sthāna” in fascicle 1 of GTL. A critical examination of the historical sources casts doubt on the authenticity of these accounts and thus presents a scenario of the rise and development of relic veneration with more precision.

3.1. The Relics in a Buddho-Daoist Contest in Front of Emperor Ming of Later Han

The commonly accepted tradition asserts that Chinese Buddhism started with a dream by Emperor Ming of the later Han. This event became a popular theme in later sources, the number of which, prior to Daoxuan, amounts to fourteen. Previous studies have examined the intertextual relationships among various sources (Maspero 1910, pp. 95–130; Tang 1983, pp. 11–21). We shall not repeat their arguments here. Suffice it to say that the relic miracle only occurred in the Han faben neizhuan 漢法本內傳, compiled in the early Tang dynasty.7 The apocryphal text relates a contest between the monks and the Daoist priests, when the Buddha’s relics emitted a radiance. This episode is purely a piece of fiction because institutionalized Daoism emerged in the 3rd century.

3.2. The Relics Under a Stūpa to the West of the Imperial Palace of the Emperor Ming of Wei

Another widely circulated legend deals with a miracle witnessed by Emperor Ming of the Wei dynasty (r. 205–239) when he intended to destroy a Buddhist stūpa. The GTL recounts that:

During the reign of Emperor Ming of Wei, there were originally three temples in Luoyang. One of them was located to the west of the palace. When people hoisted the banners on the pinnacle of the temple, they would be able to observe the view within the palace. The emperor was upset and intended to dismantle the temple. At that time, a few foreign monks resided in the temple. They brought a golden plate filled with water to store the relics, which emitted a five-colored brilliance, with flames continuously rising. The emperor exclaimed, “If it were not for the divine power, how could this be?” Therefore, he built a hundred rooms [around the stūpa] to the east of the road, and named the temple as the official Buddhist shrine/vihara. 魏明帝洛城中，本有三寺。其一在宮之西，每繫幡剎頭，輒斥見宮內。帝患之，將毀除壞。時外國沙門居寺，乃齎金盤盛水，以貯舍利，五色光明，騰焰不息。帝歎曰：“非夫神効，安得爾乎？”乃於道東造周閭百間，名為官佛圖精舍云。8

The narrative seems to be a revised version of a passage from the “Treatise on Buddhism and Daoism” in the dynastic history Weishu 魏書 [The History of Northern Wei]. The term “official Buddhist shrine” (guanfotu 官佛圖) does not appear in Weishu. The Weishu narrative ends with the sentence that is not found in Daoxuan’s work: “the site of the stūpa was excavated to form a Mengfan Lake, in which lotus flowers were planted”.9 This description clearly indicates the location of the stūpa, which provides us with clues to explore the circumstances in which this legend was created.

First, it should be noted that the term “official Buddhist shrine” in GTL is obviously a later interpolation. The “official Buddhist shrine” or the official monastery generally refers to monasteries funded by the state, in contrast to those temples donated by individuals.10 From the Han to the early Jin dynasties, it was illegal for Chinese citizens to be tonsured as monks; thus, the existence of the state-sponsored monastery was improbable.

The narrative in Wei shu is also questionable. Emperor Ming of Wei 魏明帝 did commission a large-scale construction of the imperial palace in Luoyang. The connection between Mengfan lake and the emperor was further corroborated by a local gazetteer Henan zhi 河南志 [Gazetteer of Henan], compiled by a 19th-century historian Xu Song 徐松.11 In addition, Zhang Zai 張載 (fl. 280–289) provided a more detailed description of this area in his “Rhapsody on Mengfan Lake”.12 According to his words, water flowed into the lake from the Qianjin canal to the north of the city and then went eastward into the inner palace complex.13 There were red lotus flowers in the lake, where the emperor often took a boat excursion.

However, Buddhist architecture is not attested by contemporary descriptions. It was not until the Northern Wei dynasty that the former Mengfan lake became the site where the Changqiu temple was established. The founder of this temple was Liu Teng 劉騰, the head of palace domestic service (Changqiu ling 長秋令). Luoyang qielan ji 洛陽伽藍記 [A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Luoyang] states that the temple had a three-story stūpa adorned with shining golden umbrellas. There was an annual procession of statues in April at this temple, with thousands of beholders. It can be imagined that the tall stūpa was very striking for the residents of Luoyang. The episode of the towering stūpa overlooking the palace is presumably rooted in the experience of the Northern Wei rather than the former Wei. Actually, we find a similar episode in which the emperor of the Northern Wei forbade his subjects from ascending the stūpa in Yongning monastery 永寧寺.14 Nonetheless, it is hardly conceivable that such a towering Buddhist structure would have been established in close proximity to the palace precincts.

3.3. The Relics Obtained by Kang Senghui

The Sogdian monk Kang Senghui 康僧會 (229–280) struck the relics to demonstrate their miraculous power, prompting the sovereign to construct the Jianchu monastery 建初寺 (literally meaning the initial establishment). This event was traditionally considered the beginning of Buddhist history in South China and is arguably the earliest evidence of relic veneration in China. Of the three legends we discussed so far, the apocryphal character of this tradition is the least discernible. There are four versions of this account before Daoxuan, which can be categorized into three groups according to their dates of composition.

The earlier records are the three passages from Xuanyan ji and the lesser-known Wu lu 吳錄 [Records of Wu], as cited in Bianzheng lun 辯正論 [Treatise on Refuting the Heresies]. Both texts recount how Kang Senghui, facing the tyrannous sovereign Sun Hao 孫皓, obtained the relics ex nihilo after pious prayers, and that the relics remained intact when people struck them with hammers. Sun Hao established a monastery to the north of the grand market, which was thus called Dashi monastery 大市寺. Xuanyan ji tells another story that Sun Hao was punished for his profane deeds and finally received the five-precept ordination. And Wu lu documents the discussions between Kang Senghui and the sovereign on the affinities and differences between Confucianism and Buddhism.

The narrative in the biography of Kang Senghui in Chusanzang jiji 出三藏記集 [A Collection of Records of Translating the Tripitaka, T no.2145) by Sengyou 僧祐 represents an intermediary state. Sengyou appeared to be attempting to weave the independent episodes into a coherent narrative. In the earlier account, Sun Hao was converted to Buddhism after his conversation with Kang Senghui. In order to make the subsequent penalty for Sun Hao’s evil deeds reasonable, he inserted the phrase “although the sovereign heard the true Dharma, his brutal nature could not overcome his cruelty”.

In Sengyou’s version, the holiness of the relics is remarkably developed:

At that time, Sun Quan had the actual control of the region east of the Yangtze River, where Buddhism had not yet been established. Kang Senghui wished to spread the great Dharma, and thus he traveled eastward. In the tenth year of the Chiwu era (247), he arrived in Jianye, where he built up a thatched hut, and established statues to practice the way. An official reported, “There is a foreigner who has entered the country and claims to be a monk, with unusual attire. This matter shall be inspected and verified”. Quan said, “I have heard that Emperor Ming of Han had a dream of a deity, who was called Buddha; is what he believes in and worships a tradition passed down from that era?” He immediately summoned the monk for questioning, asking for any miraculous signs. Kang Senghui replied, “Though the Tathāgata has passed away for more than a thousand years, his body remains as relics manifest miracles in all directions. In ancient times, King Aśoka built as many as eighty-four thousand stūpas. The prosperity of stūpa and temples vividly demonstrates the immense influence of the Buddha”. Quan thought his words was exaggerated and thus said to the monk, “If you can obtain the relics, I will build a stūpa for them. If you are caught cheating, beware of the consequences under the national law”. (Omitted) On the evening of the 21st day, there was still nothing to appear. Everyone was terrified. After the fifth watch of the night, suddenly there was a sound like a bell from the bottle. Kang Senghui went to see for himself and indeed found the relics. The next morning, he presented them to Sun Quan, and all court officials gathered to watch. The five-colored light radiated, illuminating the bottle. Quan held the bottle with hand and poured it into a bronze plate, and the plate shattered where the relics struck. Quan stood up with solemn surprise, “what a rare auspicious sign!” 時孫權稱制江左，而未有佛教。會欲運流大法，乃振錫東遊。以赤烏十年（247）至建業，營立茅茨，設像行道。有司奏曰：“有胡人入境自稱沙門，容服非恒，事應驗察。”權曰：“吾聞漢明夢神，號稱為佛，彼之所事，豈其遺風耶？”即召會詰問，有何靈驗。會曰：“如來遷跡忽逾千載，遺骨舍利神曜無方。昔阿育起塔，乃八萬四千。夫塔寺之興，所以表遺化也。”權以為誇誕，乃謂會曰：“若能得舍利，當為造塔。如其虛妄，國有常刑。”（中略）三七日暮，猶無所見。莫不震懼。既入五更，忽聞瓶中鎗然有聲，會自往視，果獲舍利。明旦呈權舉朝集觀，五色光爓，照耀瓶上。權手自執瓶，瀉于銅盤，舍利所衝，盤即破碎。權肅然驚起曰：“希有之瑞也。”

The monk further said, “The divine power of the relics is not merely their luminous appearance; they are not to be burnt by the conflagration at the end of a kalpa, nor can they be shattered by the strike of a diamond scepter”. Sun Quan ordered a strong man to strike them with an iron anvil and hammer. As a result, both the anvil and hammer were dented, while the relics remained unscathed. Sun Quan was deeply convinced and filled with awe. He immediately ordered the construction of a stūpa. Since this is the beginning of the Buddhist monasteries, the temple was named Jianchu si, and the place was called the Buddha district. From then on, the great Dharma flourished in the region east of the Yangtze River. 會進而言曰：“舍利威神，豈直光相而已，乃劫燒之火不能燔，金剛之杵不能壞矣。”權命取鐵槌砧，使力士擊之，砧搥並陷，而舍利無異。權大嗟服，即為建塔以始有佛寺，故曰建初寺，因名其地為佛陀里，由是江左大法遂興。15

Here, it is Sun Quan 孫權 (182–252), the founder of the Wu kingdom, rather than the notorious last emperor, who asked for a manifestation of relic miracle and who ordered the first Buddhist monastery to be built. The name of the monastery has also changed from Dashi si to the glorious Jianchu si. In my view, the intention behind such alterations is clear: to trace the royal patronage of Buddhism and the relic worship tradition of South China back to the moment when Sun Quan declared the independence domain from the unified Han empire. In addition, Keng Senghui’s description of the relics mentions the legend of the Aśokan stūpa and their indestructibility despite the apocalyptic fire, which shows a glaring anachronism. The Buddhist literature recounting King Aśoka’s distribution of the relics was translated no earlier than the 4th century,16 while the latter detail, to the best of my knowledge, is alluded to in a passage in Buddhacarita, traditionally attributed to Aśvaghosa, which was translated in the 5th century.17 It is very likely that the scholar-monks, if not Sengyou himself, interpolated these episodes based on the newly translated Buddhist scriptures.

The biography of Kang Senghui in Gaoseng zhuan 高僧傳 [Biographies of Eminent Monks, T no.2059] represents an even more complicated narrative. The most significant alteration here is the insertion of Zhi Qian’s 支謙 biographical sketches. Zhi Qian was very important to the early history of Chinese Buddhism, but Gaoseng zhuan should not include a biography of a lay Buddhist. The solution is to incorporate his life account into the biography of a monk. The author may have encountered trouble when piecing together the two biographies. A colophon preserved in Chu sanzang jiji clearly verifies that Zhi Qian arrived in South China earlier than Keng Senghui did and served as an official in the Wu court. As a consequence, before Kang Senghui’s initial encounter with Sun Quan, the sovereign must have known about Buddhism. The relic miracle, if it really happened so early, is not the beginning of Buddhism in South China. Huijiao, the author of Gaoseng zhuan, added one more sentence to bridge the potential contradiction: “At that time, the land of the Wu kingdom was newly imbued with the great Dharma, but the transformation was not yet complete”.

Based on the analysis above, I would like to make some remarks. First, drastic changes in Kang Senghui’s biographical account occurred in the late 5th century. The heroic Sun Quan as a protagonist, the name of the monastery as Jianchu, and the scriptural allusions of the relic miracle, these elements appeared for the first time in Sengyou’s narrative.

Second, while the Daishi monastery witnessed repeated miracles during the Jin and Song dynasties, these records were absent in earlier sources. When the famous Śrīmitra, known as the High-seat Monk, arrived at Jiankang in the Yongjia 永嘉 era (307–313) of the Jin dynasty, the biography written by a contemporary lay disciple attests that he “stayed at the grand market”, rather than “settled in the Jianchu monastery”.18 It seems that no temple existed at this site until the beginning of the fourth century. This detail also explains why the monk practiced ascetic deeds in the cemetery and why people eventually built a temple there.

Third, the account of Sun Hao’s penalty for his evil deeds is obviously fictional. In the story, he knew the existence of the Buddha from his palace consort. This episode contradicts the fact that he claimed to perform a bathing ceremony earlier. Kamata Shigeo has noticed a passage in Records of the Three Kingdoms, which testifies that Sun Chen 孫綝 (?–258), an obscure sovereign of Wu, “destroyed the Buddhist shrines and executed the [Buddhist] priests”, and that the Changgan monastery was damaged in this persecution.19 Kamata suggests a hypothesis that the story of Sun Hao was created in the model of Sun Chen (Kamata 1985, pp. 212–14). In Sengyou’s biography, we have seen similar manipulations, which is a common phenomenon in the miraculous writings.

To what extent should we accept the episode of Keng Senghui’s test for the relics? Even if we envisage a possibility of a nucleus of historical facts despite all of the later alterations, this event could only occur towards the end of the Wu kingdom, rather than in the beginning.

Through a detailed analysis, the authenticity of the three legends appears to be questionable. A common feature is that the protagonists are all emperors, and they all emphasize the significance of the beginning. The dream of Emperor Ming of the later Han signals the beginning of Chinese Buddhism; the relics of the Jianchu monastery signal the beginning of the Buddhist tradition in South China. The invention of the official shrine with the stūpa reflects a revivalist enthusiasm of the Northern Wei to continue the Han-wei tradition in Luoyang.20

4. Two Archeological Excavations Re-Examined

4.1. The Mural Paintings of Relics in an Eastern Han Tomb at Horinger 和林格爾, Inner Mongolia

In 1971, a tomb with mural paintings was discovered at Horinger, Inner Mongolia. The occupant of the tomb was proven to be a military governor of the later Han dynasty. The tomb was first reported by Yu Weichao 俞偉超 in the 1980s, who claims that the paintings feature a number of Buddhist themes, such as the white elephant and the lotus. The focus of controversy concerns a now-vanished inscription on the eastern ceiling wall of the antechamber, which reads sheli 猞猁. Yu argues that this is a phonetic transliteration of the word śarīra, which is usually written as 舍利 in Buddhist literature.

The paintings disintegrated before the photo techniques were used. Yu Weichao relies on his assumption based on a personal memory of Li Zuozhi 李作之, a staff member of the Museum of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. According to Li,

In the area slightly below the King Father of the East to the north, there is a depiction of a pan-like vessel, within which “four globularnobjects” remained. To the upper right of this depiction, there is a two-character inscription that reads “sheli 猞猁”

(Weichao Yu 1980, pp. 68–72).

This discovery has been cited by many scholars to be evidence of the existence of the relic cult in the later Han. Erik Zürcher developed Yu’s argument by pointing out more allusions to the relics in Buddhist scriptures and literary works (Zürcher 2014a, pp. 355–56).

On the other hand, there are scholars who doubt whether the emendation of the more complicated inscription “猞猁” to the simple “舍利” is justifiable (Ruan 1987, pp. 205–12). The controversy has been clarified as more murals with similar inscribed paintings were unearthed. Art historians have convincingly proved that the identification of the inscription of 猞猁 as a Buddhist relic is tenable. The corresponding visual representation of 猞猁 is an auspicious animal, thus rejecting any Buddhist interpretation (Kim 2014; Zhu 2020).

4.2. The Stūpa-Shaped Bronze Vessel at Gongyi 鞏義, Henan

The second excavation was carried out under similar circumstances. In 1972, while digging a reservoir in the southeast of the village for the Zhitian 芝田 commune, a cellar was discovered. According to the report by the local museum, “the cellar is 2 m deep from the ground, with a large pottery jar placed right in the middle, filled with red and green stone beads weighing about 50 kg approximately. Around the jar, there are 71 pieces of bronze vessels stacked, weighing some 80 kg; in addition, there are two pieces of iron vessels, weighing about 50 kg”. The bronze vessels were included in the collection of the Gongxian museum in 1980. A striking discovery among the bronze vessels is a stūpa-shaped artifact.

This stūpa-shaped bronze artifact is 50 cm tall in total and hollow inside. It consists of two parts: the body of the stūpa and the base, which are detachable. The base is square and features four holes on its surface. The body of the stūpa comprises a cylindrical drum and a hemispherical dome, connected by a single string pattern. The superstructure is decorated with a four-pointed shape that flares out in a square form. The lower edge of the drum has three supporting nails that fit into the holes of the base (Figure 1). The authors of the archeological report judge that this piece is “unique in shape, which was never seen in Han dynasty tombs, but was similar to the decorative items on the stūpas after the Wei and Jin dynasties” (Gongxian Wenhua Guan 1974, p. 123).

This artifact did not attract scholarly attention until 2019, when Huang Pan 黃盼 conducted a detailed analysis. She examined the date of the production of the bronze vessels at the same site and speculated on the possible uses of the stūpa-shaped bronze ware. Judging from the shapes and decorations, the owners of these artifacts are mostly from the royal or noble classes.

Huang cited a passage from the Sūtra on Lady Yuye, which mentions that the lady made jeweled curtains with well-adorned embroidery, chanting the hymns around the stūpa22, and argued that the curtain hooks and jewels were used in conjunction with a bronze stūpa model, which constitutes rare evidence of stūpa worship practices in the later Han (Huang 2019, pp. 11–34).

For our purposes, it is important to point out that the bronze vessel is not likely to be a reliquary. If we compare the Gandharan reliquaries to the shape of a miniature stūpa, the standard form is half-hollow to receive a nested casket and has a hollow base as a relic container (Jongeward 2012, p. 70). In contrast, the base of the bronze vessel from Gongyi is hollow underneath. Because there is no support for containing the relic deposits (Figure 2), the stūpa-shaped vessel is presumably a votive stūpa or had other uses, but it is by no means a reliquary.23

5. The Relic Veneration in Its Earliest Phase—With a Comparison to the Gandhāran Tradition

Excluding the questionable items discussed above, we have compiled all the stories from the second section of fascicle one of the GTL, along with additional accounts that tell how the relics were miraculously obtained, as detailed in Appendix A.

The stories, 21 in total, are arranged in the chronological order of the events they depict. Entries that cannot be accurately dated are placed after the datable ones. We try to make some observations through an analysis of the materials.

5.1. The Mechanism of Stimulus Response and Its Significance

As we have demonstrated above, Daoxuan categorized the miracle tales of the relics into three types: relics obtained through spiritual response, relics established by King Aśoka, and relics bestowed in the distribution campaign in the Renshou period of the Sui dynasty. By examining the entries under the title “Miraculous Response of the Buddha’s Relics Within the Holy Land of Cīnasthāna” along with the additional accounts in Appendix A, a striking feature becomes readily apparent: the emergence of relics, or rather, the process of their production, is often invoked through the devout prayer of believers from the void; the origin of the relics in terms of actual time and space—such as specific famous temples in India, the Western Regions they may hail from, or their connection to the historical Buddha Sakyamuni—is not the primary focus that substantiates the authenticity of the relics. In his study of relic veneration in medieval Europe, Patrick Geary states,

The identification of false relics and the determination of genuine claims ultimately rested on very pragmatic, functional evidence: if the relics worked, that is, if they were channels for supernatural intervention, then they were genuine. If they did not, they were not authentic, regardless of the strength of external evidence (Geary 1986, p. 178).

This remark is also applicable to the earliest miracle tales of relics in the Chinese Buddhist tradition. In the preface to his work on miraculously produced relics, Daoxuan enumerates a series of sacred sites housing Buddha relics across India and the Western Regions, and the relics enshrined within the Aśokan stūpas. To some extent, these sites could be supported by the external evidence. In contrast, the relics examined in the present study are governed by an entirely distinct mechanism. Daoxuan describes these relics as “manifesting in diverse forms during their specific spiritual response processes, and emerging based on the circumstances”. Here, it is emphasized that the relics described in the earliest miracle tales, their manifestation or disappearance, all obey the principle of “spiritual response”. The supernatural forces in the invisible realm perceive (gan 感) human beings’ devotional practice or karmic merit and respond (ying 應) accordingly.24 Unlike the Christian tradition of relics, “spiritual response” is not only a basis for determining the authenticity of relics but also the driving force that brings them into existence. As the narrator summarizes in the story of Xu Chun [15], “as a rule, one may gain the relics with reverence, and lose them with negligence”.

Another characteristic related to the one above, which I call “the proliferation of relics”, forms a stark contrast to the understanding of relics found in mainstream Buddhist scriptures. In classical descriptions, the paucity of relics is a recurring theme. According to the Mahāparinibbhāna-suttanta, the relics produced after Sakyamuni’s cremation led to a dispute among eight kings. To resolve the conflict, a Brahmin lay follower named Droṇa evenly divided the relics into eight parts. The Aśokāvadāna, which was supposedly written in the 2nd century, narrates that King Aśoka excavated the relics that were previously buried by the seven kings (all but the share of Rāmagrāma) and constructed eighty-four thousand stūpas, spreading throughout Jambudvīpa. The principle of distribution was that a region with a population of more than one hundred million households could receive one share of the relics. However, a problem stood out. The people of Takṣaśilā, which had a population of 3.6 billion, requested to build 36 stūpas, leading to a shortage of relics. In response, King Aśoka threatened to slaughter 3.5 billion of the populace, and only then did the Takṣaśilans withdraw their request, settling for only a single stūpa (Strong 2004, pp. 116–22, 124–48).

On the other hand, if we look at the earliest accounts of relic miracles in Chinese Buddhism, they could be acquired through devotional practices, during fasting ceremonies, or by the power of karmic merit on ordinary occasions. In the examples of An Fakai 安法開 [05] and Meng Jing 孟景 [06], the protagonists were obviously well aware of the tradition that it is necessary to install the relics beneath the stūpa prior to its construction, yet they found themselves in the predicament of lacking relics. Eventually, they were able to effortlessly overcome this scarcity through the conduct of rituals. In the story of Xuchun [15], the relics became divisible and proliferated.

If the Aśokan relics represent a tradition that emphasizes divine provenance, and relics produced through spiritual response can increase in quantity, then the Renshou distribution campaign of relics clearly merges these two traditions. According to Sheli ganying ji 舍利感應記 [The Account of the Stimulus and Responses] by Wang Shao 王邵 (d. ca. 610), Emperor Wendi of the Sui obtained a pack of relics from a mysterious Brahman monk. Later, the emperor and the monk Tanqian each counted the relics many times by putting them on the palms of their hands. Each time, they arrived at a different number and could not determine it.25 In the tenth month of the year 601, the emperor ordered the construction of one stūpa in each of the 30 prefectures to enshrine the relics (J. Chen 2002a, p. 89). Apparently, this movement imitates the deeds of King Aśoka’s construction of 84,000 stūpas. And the design of the stūpa follows exactly the model of Aśokan stūpas. At the same time,

The emperor Wendi and his empress often found relics in their food. They floated one in a silver bowl of water and presented it to the officials; in a moment, they suddenly saw (it split into) two that were swirling to the right and joined together. On bestowing some clams (xian 蜆) to two of his royal concubines (guiren 貴人) and two princes, Yang Zhao 楊昭 (579–606) and Yang Jian 楊暕, the emperor ordered them to check the clams carefully. It turned out that each of them found a relic inside one of the clams. In less than twenty days, nineteen “relics” in total were found in the palace alone. Most of these emanated rays of light. From then on, both the clergy and laity offered to the court whatever they believed to have been relics. Hearing of the emperor’s suspicion of their authenticity, some śramaṇas tested the “relics” with hammers. Thirteen of them turned out to be grains of jade, while the true relics remained undamaged. 每因食於齒下得舍利，皇后亦然。以銀盌水浮其一，出示百官，須臾忽見有兩右旋相著。二貴人及晉王昭、豫章王暕蒙賜蜆，勅令審視之，各於蜆內得舍利一。未過二旬，宮內凡得十九，多放光明。自是遠近道俗，所有舍利率奉獻焉。皇帝曰：“何必皆是真。諸沙門相與推試之，果有十三玉粟。其真舍利鐵甲而無損。26

Here, the emperor Wendi of Sui and his wife obtained relics from food, a motif frequently found in the miracle tales of the Southern dynasties, as seen in Appendix A items [14], [15], [17], and [19]. In order to test the authenticity of relics, people often make them float on water and observe a clockwise rotation. This plot is also recorded in Appendix A items [03], [07], [10], [12], and [13]. I do not find doctrinal justifications for these practices.27 The similarities in these episodes indicate that the examples from the Sui dynasty clearly inherit the traditions of the Southern dynasties.

Upon analyzing the large-scale relic distribution movement during the Sui Dynasty, it becomes evident that the principles of distribution and the architectural design of the stūpas were modeled after the traditions of Aśokan relics. Meanwhile, the rituals for producing or testing relics still followed the tradition of miracle-produced relics that had been prominent in the Southern dynasties.

5.2. The Chronological Range and the Geographical Distribution

The protagonists Zhu Changshu 竺長舒 [01] and the wife of Zhousong 周嵩, with the natal surname Humu 胡母 [02], were the earliest examples of relic worship in China. We know from GTL that Zhu Changshu lived at the beginning of the Jin dynasty, while Guang Shiyin Yingyan Ji 光世音應驗記 [Miracle Tales of the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin] reports that his ancestors may have been Central Asian merchants. During the Yuankang 元康 period (291–299), they settled in Luoyang (Dong 2002, p. 3). It is probable that the relics were brought to Luoyang by their ancestors from the Western Regions, no later than the end of the 3rd century.

Lady Humu lived in Luoyang as well. There is an episode in Gaoseng zhuan that she obtained a Buddhist sūtra written on silk from the Central Asian monk An Huize 安慧則, who resided at the Dashi temple (the temple near the great market) in Luoyang. This event took place on the eve of the Yongjia Turmoil (317).28 The relics she possessed might have been acquired in the same period. Based on the two examples, we have arrived at the statement that relic veneration emerged in the vicinity of Luoyang, the capital, around the turn of the 3rd to 4th century.

After the collapse of the Western Jin, the monk Fayan 法顏, son of Zhu Changshu, and lady Humu, carried the relics to the Jiangxia 江夏 prefecture and Jiankang 建康, respectively. And notice the fact that the monks who constructed the stūpas in Guangling 廣陵 and Yuhang 餘杭 [04][05] are all from the north, let alone the famous Dao’an 道安 together with his disciple Tanyi 曇翼. Jiangling 江陵 and Guangling, which frequently appeared in the miracle tales, are the focal points for the influx of immigrants seeking refuge. These accounts vividly illustrate the spread of the relic cult to the populous urban sites in Southern China.

The vast majority of the miracle tales happened in the south, with only one exception [21]. The protagonist Lu Zai 陸載 was originally from the south. In a battle with northern troops, he was captured and subsequently served in the court of the Northern Wei.29 Though the descendants of this family held prominent positions in the northern regimes, they deliberately maintained their customs and cultural identity.30 In his later years, Lu Zai chanted the Lotus Sūtra and frequently obtained the relics thereafter. The pattern of stimulus–response echoes the episode of Xu Chun, among others. Lu’s worship of relics is in line with the tradition from the south.

The absence of miracle tales in the north is quite puzzling. Relic worship had already been established in the 3rd century in Luoyang. And archeologists have unearthed numerous reliquaries that date back to the Northern dynasties.31 The excavations are the testimony of highly advanced techniques in the north, and the lack of miracle narratives32 probably reflects the differing conceptions of relic veneration during the periods of division or a rupture between the northern regimes and the unified empire.

5.3. The Practitioners and the Royal Patronage

The initial practitioners of relic veneration consisted of monastics and laity. Relics may have been passed down within families, donated to the monasteries [01], or they might have been taken from monasteries to be venerated at home by lay followers [09]. The cult of relics is not confined to the monastic community or the circle of lay people.

During the reign of the Jin dynasty, practitioners were commoners or lower-ranking officials in most cases. High-rank officials (the governor of Guangzhou in [09]), members of the royal family (Prince of Linchuan in [12]; Empress Dowager Chen in [18]), and the emperor (Emperor Ming of the Song in [17]) began to figure in the miracle tales of the Liu Song dynasty. Here, we observe a tendency for social dissemination that originates from the grassroots level and ascends.

The fact that Emperor Ming of the Liu Song dynasty was the first emperor in the south to venerate relics is no accident. In Chinese history, there have been many monarchs who showed kindness to Buddhist monks and supported Buddhist monasteries. It is the act of receiving the ordination that signifies the monarch’s complete conversion, which signals a new phase in the development of Buddhism. Emperor Ming of the Song was the first emperor to receive the Bodhisattva precepts.

We should keep in mind the fact that relic veneration emerged around the turn of the 3rd to 4th century (in Luoyang), and the period when the relic worship attracted the interest of a monarch for the first time was around the year 460. This half-century period is the period when Chinese Buddhist relic worship permeated from the folk to the court. If we compare this chronological framework to the case in the Gandhāran tradition, of which Chinese Buddhism had a sustained and strong influence, it would yield some insights.

Richard Salomon conducted an exhaustive survey of the inscribed reliquaries in the greater Gandhāra region. The earliest example is the Shinkot reliquary, which bears several inscriptions. The earliest inscription dates from the reign of the Indo-Greek king Menandros/Menander around the mid-second century. And the majority of the reliquaries are from the first century CE. From the reign of Kushan emperor Huvishka in the mid-second century CE onward, the number reduces significantly (Jongeward 2012, p. 165). As for the royal patronage, we find numerous inscriptions of the reliquaries written by the regional Saka subordinates, such as the Apraca king and the Odi king, in the last half of the first century BCE and the early decades of the first century CE.33

Previous scholars may have drawn upon the extant evidence of early Chinese Buddhism, with an eye on the development of Buddhism in Gandhāra or the Indian subcontinent. The scenario they suggest is that the rise of relic veneration in Chinese Buddhism coincides with or comes a step behind the development in Gandhāra (Palumbo 2014, p. 294). Here, I repeat the points we discussed above, excluding the unreliable literary evidence and the excavations unrelated to our topic, and another picture emerges. The rise of relic veneration in China postdates the counterpart in Gandhāra for two or three centuries, and the royal veneration of relics comes 400 years later than in the Gandhāra region.

Before any attempt to propose an explanation, I would like to call to attention a classic hypothesis by Erik Zürcher and re-evaluate the content and nature of Buddhist practices in the court during the earliest phase of Chinese Buddhism. In a seminal study, Zürcher distinguishes Buddhism in the later Han dynasty as consisting of three well-defined spheres: “first, a hybrid cult centered upon the court and the imperial family; secondly, the first nucleus of ‘canonical’ monastic Buddhism, and, in the third place, the diffuse and unsystematic adoption of Buddhist elements in indigenous beliefs and cults” (Zürcher 2014a, p. 354). He defines the court Buddhism as centered upon devotional practice, with monks acting in the guise of ritual specialists. In another essay written later in his career, he repeats his points that royal patronage played a crucial role in the history of Buddhism but asserts that “court Buddhism developed in the last decades of the fourth century CE, some three hundred years after the first recorded existence of Buddhism in Chinese soil” (Zürcher 2014b, p. 587). In his view, court Buddhism became fully developed in some of the northern states at the turn of 4–5th century; the development in the south was a gradual process due to its cultural isolation. A leap forward from the mid-5th century onwards was driven by the arrival of foreign monks from the maritime route.

This raises the question of how to evaluate the change in Buddhism in the circle of the imperial court during the four centuries. Our observation on the rise and spread of relic veneration could shed some light on this problem. As shown above, Zürcher based his assumption on the misinterpretation of some evidence. Any evidence related to relic worship before the 3rd century should be excluded. It is not difficult to discover that image worship stands at the center of the devotional practice in the earliest phase of Chinese Buddhism. Regarding the dream of Emperor Ming, though not to be accepted as historical fact, if we consider the fact that the earliest version of this story appeared in the Treatise of Mouzi, composed in the 2nd century, it still reflects the contemporary conception of Buddhism. Emperor Huan of the later Han is said to “have set up a well-decorated canopy to enshrine the Buddha and Laozi”.34 It is still the visual representation that touches the monarch. Another famous example is the huge golden image cast by the warlord Zuorong in the period of the Three Kingdoms.

In contrast, there is no evidence that the monarch showed any interest in Buddhist doctrines, nor did they read the translated scriptures or promote the worship of sutras. The monarch’s interest in Buddhist doctrines emerged in the mid-period of the Eastern Jin dynasty, under the circumstance of witty debates among the scholar monks and literati intellectuals, known as qingtan 清談 (philosophical conversations), which I will deal with in another article. The enthusiasm for copying scriptures still arose later in the middle to late period of the Six Dynasties.35

6. Concluding Remarks

This paper attempts to use miracle tales as the primary historical source to examine how relic veneration emerged in medieval China. I argue that relic veneration first appeared around the turn of the 3rd and 4th centuries in the vicinity of Luoyang, the imperial capital, and then gradually spread to the south. The social strata of the worshippers expanded from obscure monks and lower-ranking officials to the royal family. Relics produced by miracles were the result of pious worship and were divisible. This contrasts sharply with the relic legends recorded in Buddhist scriptures, where relics are often objects of contention among believers.

Through critical analysis of the various layers of narrative accounts, we have confirmed that the first three entries of miraculously obtained relics in the Ji Shenzhou Sanbao Gantonglu show signs of later interpolation. This rules out the possibility of relic veneration existing during the later Han to Three Kingdoms period. The absence of relic worship implies that in the early stages of Buddhism, the objects of worship in the court circle were primarily Buddhist statues, not relics. This picture also raises another curious question: the different sequences in which various objects of veneration were accepted.

It is commonly accepted among scholars of Indian Buddhism that the Buddhist saṃgha was full of schisms, conflicts, and rivalries. Different sects claimed the superiority of some practices over others. When talking about Chinese Buddhism, as a receptacle of the ideas and practices from the Indian or Central Asian traditions, perhaps we should also pay attention to the potential competition between diverse practices. Different practices have met with varying degrees of acceptance in their integration into Chinese society. The relic veneration has never been a topic of controversy in the polemic works during the six dynasties. However, the fact that its rise and development occurred in a particularly late period probably implies the silent resistance it may have encountered. Relic veneration, as a marginal practice, secondary to image worship, could partly be explained by mahāyāna Buddhist doctrines, which claim the superiority of scriptures over relic worship, or the aversion to the bodily remains of the deceased, which is deeply rooted in the Chinese cultural mentality.