Mongolian pilgrimage to Wutaishan

Wednesday January 14 2009

Report of the conference superbly illustrated with photos « Mongolian pilgrimage to Wutaishan"By Mrs Isabelle Charleux, Research Associate at the CNRS, Lecturer in Art and Archeology at Paris IV.

Our passionate speaker first recalled that the Mongols had not really converted to Tibetan Buddhism until the sixteenth century. As the Wutaishan is only a ten-day walk from the Mongolian border, it will remain throughout the centuries a destination of pilgrimage of choice. Western travelers in the nineteenth century. speak of the waves of Mongolian pilgrims who visit this place and make offerings of prizes to the different monasteries.

Former Chinese Taoist pilgrimage at the beginning of our era, Mount Wutai was recovered by Buddhists on the basis of theAvasamtaka sutra : Manjushri, the Boddhisattva of wisdom, is supposed to reside on a "clear cold mountain" in the Northeast, this is enough to identify the mountain and justify its other name. From the 5th century Wutaishan became an important Buddhist pilgrimage frequented by the Chinese but also by the Japanese, Tibetans or Koreans.

View of the central terrace and the valley.
Photo Isabelle Charleux.

Wutaishan is the first of the four great sacred mountains of China, and its name literally means "Five Terraces Mount" because of the arrangement of four peaks at the entrances and a central peak around the Taihuai Valley dominated by a 50m white stupa, Tibetan type, built in the 13th century.

In the nineteenth century. there are 26 Tibetan-Mongol monasteries for 100 Chinese monasteries. Tibetan monasteries are the most central, richest and most visible.

Under the Qing, they benefited from the patronage of the Manchu emperors and Kang Xi came with Zanabazar. These monasteries are endowed with imperial gifts: gigantic steles written in 4 languages, plates of name and money.

In the eighteenth century, there are 26 Gelugpa monasteries for more than 1000 Tibetan and Mongol monks. The climax is between 1750 and 1786 when the great lama Rol pa'i rdo rje spends every summer on the mountain.

In 1953, there are always 26 Tibetan-Mongol monasteries for 99 Chinese monasteries.

There is a trilingual map, made by a Mongolian monk in 1846, which provides, in addition to the site plan and the situation of the various places of worship, a whole set of anecdotes and legends and shows the procession of the sixth month of the lunar year. This map xylographed and distributed throughout the Sino-Tibetan world exists in about twenty colorful versions in various ways.

The typology of pilgrims in XIX-XX ° s. included:

Pilgrim monks drinking water from a sacred spring

• The Mongol nobles who went there regularly per turn, every six years.
• Occasional pilgrims fulfilling the vow of a life or having a special request.
• The regular pilgrims and, among them, the traders who brought their flocks to sell at the fair of the sixth month after fattening them on the pastures around.
• The pilgrims who came to bury the bones of parents or who came to die in the holy land to be sure of their rebirth.

These Mongolian pilgrimages have a great commercial importance because they allowed exchanges between Chinese and Mongols. The latter, more visible by their colorful costumes, their appearance and their demonstrations of faith, particularly struck the first Westerners to visit the place. The Mongols could find everything and buy on the market. Chinese craftsmen made icons specifically for their Mongolian clientele who won them at home. The big trade fair of the sixth month (fair for horses and mules) was accompanied by great religious festivities and festivities.

Wutaishan is an important place of burial and there are "forests" of funerary stupas. It was at a certain point that the Qing emperors legislated to oversee these Mongol burials.

The Mongols practice the great prostrations where one measures his pilgrimage to the length of his body. In addition, inside the sacred places, there are still prostrations followed by gifts and blessings by the lamas.

The "Top 5" of the Mongolian pilgrimage:

Bei tei and the Tyaunsi seen from Shanhailou.
Photo Isabelle Charleux

• The large white stupa (Bei tei), dedicated in 1301, and whose five restorations were commissioned by the Mongols.
• Pusa Ding and central monasteries.
• The funeral stupa of the great lama Rol pa'i rdo rje.
• The visit of the five peaks.
• The large statue of Manjushri (6m high) sitting on a lion in Shuxiang-si and Luohou-si where the circular altar shaped lotus flower opens by a mechanism to discover a statue of Buddha.

While the Manchu emperors favored the Mongolian pilgrimage, the Mongol monks from Wutaishan traveled to Mongolia to escape the rigors of winter and extol the merits of their monasteries to bring back donations.

The faithful seek to resonate with the sacred ground by means of the senses:

• We are looking for visions.
• Auditory hallucinations.
• Consumption of mountain water or even plants.
• Touch and rub your body against the earth to soak up the sanctity of the place. Pilgrims carry stones, earth or pieces of tree bark

But there is also the Guanyindong or cave of Avalokiteshvara in which the sixth Dalai Lama would have meditated.

Fomudong.
Photo Isabelle Charleux

The cave of the mother (matrix) Fomudong (Ehiin umai) which consists of a long hose opening on a small cavity. This site is held by Chinese monks and a monk helps people to go through the gut (possibly by ransoming those who get stuck). The pilgrim comes out of this ordeal washed of his sins. This corresponds to a Mongolian fertility ritual for having children whereas in Tibet it is a passing test for good or bad karma.

There are similar matrix caves in Mongolia and one of them, Loboncimbu Süme, is considered to be the Wutaishan girl cave and should not be entered if it has been in the mother cave.

These features and practices were implanted by Tibetans and Mongolians in Chinese soil.

Today Tibetan monks on pilgrimage behave much like tourists and have no contact with the monks of the monasteries.

Wutaishan is China's second richest monastic ensemble after Shaolin.

Now, there is some visual confusion because Chinese people have settled in ancient Tibetan monasteries and all are trying to offer the widest range of "services" which is to say they all offer more or less the same .

To conclude, if the Mongols have frequented and still frequent this site it is because it is very complete:

• Religious, one can wash oneself of one's sins, ask for children and promote one's rebirth.
• Commercial thanks to the great fair of the sixth month that allows all kinds of exchanges.

It must be remembered that formerly, the Mongols made this pilgrimage on foot, which is a tour de force for a people who is accustomed to ride!