Part 2A: Empress Wu Zeitan
Empress Wu Zetian of the Tang Dynasty used sacred figures of compassion to solidify her power and Empire, but her legacy is mixed as it has not had the institutional support St. Pulcheria has had.
Empress Wu Zetian, also known as Wu Zhao, was the only female Emperor in Chinese history. She came from a family that had practiced Buddhism for generations while Taoism was prevalent and Confucian ideals predominated. Although her precise birthdate and place are subject to considerable speculation, it is generally agreed that she was born around the same time as Princess Wen Cheng, who in 641, married the Tibetan King, Tsongsten Gampo, and who by bringing Buddhism to Tibet (along with her Nepalese co-wife, Brikhruti) is considered to be an incarnation of the feminine Buddhist deity of Compassion, Tara. At the age of thirteen or fourteen, Wu Zetian moved into the imperial court of the Emperor Taizong that was home to Princess Wen Cheng, a niece of the ruler. While there are no publically known records of any interactions between the two young teenaged girls, they both changed the religious practices of their respective countries. Tibet became Buddhist, while in China the religion improved in status and flourished.
After Emperor Taizong died in 649, Wu Zetian became the favorite consort of his son, the new Emperor Gaozong. After bearing him a son, she was able to have his wife, the Empress Wang, deposed and take on that role in 655. Gaozong’s court was full of intrigues, and he, similar to his earlier Byzantine counterpart, Theodosius II, was often manipulated by the party who was closest to him at the moment. Empress Wu was adept at navigating court politics and repeatedly managed to gain the Emperor’s favor and ear. By 664 she managed to be placed in a position as co-regent; they reigned as “Two Sages”; not dissimilarly to the situation with Pulcheria and Theodosius II. Wu Zetian, however, was not royally born and had been a concubine of two emperors. She did not have the support of the Court, nor at first of the people. Additionally, she was confronted with the previously mentioned popular Confucian attitude toward women, one that said “a woman ruler is as unnatural as a hen crowing like a rooster at daybreak” (Rothschild, 2006, p. 134). Somehow she needed to publically demonstrate “T’ien Ming” or rule by Heavenly Mandate. In 666, she found her opportunity to do so. She convinced the Emperor to allow her to participate in a very traditional ceremony honoring the primordial deities, the Heavenly Immortal Jade Mother and her brother the Jade Emperor. According to Chinese legend, these deities had descended to earth on the Taoist sacred Mt. Tai and created all life. Earth was governed by the goddess, Nuwa, who made humans, while the heavens were ruled by her brother from the higher Jade Emperor Peak. After the deities were finished with their work they ascended back to heaven (Palmer, Ramsay, & Kwok, 1995, pp. 9-10).
Jade Emperor and Jade Empress, Taoist Temple, Chongqing
There was an ancient tradition that the Emperor would demonstrate heaven and earth’s support for his reign by performing the Feng (heaven) shan (earth) sacrifices by climbing Mt. Tai. Normally, these rituals were reserved for the Emperor and Crown Prince or high-level male officials, but Empress Wu convinced the Emperor that as the earth was associated with yin and the female essence, she and her Court women should perform the lower, earthly sacrifice, while he should perform the higher heavenly one.
According to Rothschild:
Belying her desire to play a more prominent and active political role, she couched her argument for participation in the shan sacrifice—a sacrifice to earth held at a lesser peak on Mount Tai—in self-effacing terms consistent with the humility expected of a Confucian wife. Gaozong accepted her contention that as earth was affiliated with the female essence, the tradition of having high male officials present secondary offerings in the shan sacrifice was inappropriate. (Rothschild, 2006, p. 136)
Amazingly, they succeeded; it was the first time in centuries that the sacrifice had been successfully performed. Emperor Taizong had tried to climb the mountain three times, but had failed. Their accomplishment was popularly understood to be a divine testament to Empress Wu’s worthiness. To solidify her divine mandate, in 674, she took on the title of “Heavenly Empress”. The Emperor died in 683 and she smoothly maintained control of the Imperial reins as Dowager Queen and Regent for her seven year old son. By 690 she managed to clear her political path to become sole Emperor and called her reign the “Heavenly Bestowed”. She maintained her position on the Imperial throne until shortly before her death in 705 in approximately her 80th year. In total she reigned for a half century and during this time the Tang Dynasty with Chang’an as its capital saw tremendous growth and prosperity. In order to accomplish what she wanted, she needed to create an identity with a divine being to solidify her position as regent and to quell dissent.
In mid 7th century China patriarchal Confucianism was predominant in the Court and Imperial system, while the people were mostly Taoists or Buddhists or some synthesis of the two. In Taoism there is one major female deity, the Great Mother of the West, but in Chinese Buddhism during the 7th century there were no female figures. According to Yu:
Buddhist doctrine had always interpreted being female as a consequence of bad karma. One of the most attractive promises of Pure Land Buddhism was that there would be no women in the Western Paradise. Even if a person failed to go to the Pure Land, the merit created in this life would guarantee that one would not be born as a woman in the next. Such beliefs and sentiments did not empower women or take women’s religious needs seriously. Nor did they foster respect for feminine symbols of veneration of goddesses. Similarly, Neo-Confuciansim was a very male oriented, patriarchal, and hierarchical system of thought. It did not recognize the presence of goddesses, nor provide much support for the intellectual and spiritual strivings of real women. Although its stated program was universal sagehood, its real intended audience was educated men. It did not encourage or promote devotionalism. It did not appreciate religious enthusiasm and emotional fervor. Thus there was an imbalance and a deprivation. There was too much yang and not enough yin. (Yu, 2001, p. 20)
Even the figure of compassion, Avalokiteshvara, was male. In the Chinese concept, however, karuna—compassion, was a female attribute. This gender role discrepancy seems to shift during Empress Wu’s reign. Recent excavations around Chang’an/Xi’an have uncovered terracotta figurines of women in men’s clothing riding horses and evidence of a female prime minister, which leads archeologists to suggest that during Empress Wu’s period women enjoyed more equal rights than they had prior to her reign or would have after. To demonstrate “T’ien Ming” and proclaim her position as protector of the people, her face was sculpted onto the largest of the Longmen Grotto Buddhas. The Longmen Grottos had been a sacred place for installing images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas since the 4th century and Empress Wu is said to have authorized around 380 images in the Longmen Caves. One of the most famous temples, the Fengxian, has a seated Vairocana Buddha that has a feminine face, commonly considered modeled on the Empress herself. The over 52’ statue is the largest at Longmen and was said to have cost the equivalent of a year’s worth of cosmetics. This figure is the central Buddha of a five figured grouping in the cave, showing both the Buddha’s preeminence and the merciful Empress. As Pulcheria had her image merge with the Virgin Mary above the altar in St. Sophia, Empress Wu had hers as a Buddha towering above, and central to, all other sacred images in a main pilgrimage site. There is also a statue at the Dunhuang Caves that shows this merging of gender and deity; it was commissioned by the Yin family in 693/4 in Empress Wu’s honor. Ning Qiang describes the statue:
Instead of following the common practice of molding the Buddha in a male body covered by a monk’s robe, this statue was shaped according to a woman’s bodily form and clothing. The imposing breasts are exposed to clarify the sex of the Buddha. The womanly dress further ensures her female identity. These unique features of the Buddha image, not found in other Buddha images at the site, thus demonstrates the local support for Empress Wu and reveal the local responses to the political reforms that took place in the capital, specifically, to the establishment of the legitimacy of a female monarch. (Qiang, 2003, p. 30)
(To be continued)
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