| Chapter 1: | The Life and Times of Zanning |
|
|
This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.
studies in Wuyue, cultivating the art of wen and teaching it to members of the Qian family and the soldier-officials of Wuyue.
The influences on Zanning’s literary style are prominently noted by Wang Yucheng, further substantiating Zanning’s wen credentials. His “literary style” (wenge 文格) was received through instruction from another Buddhist literatus, Huizheng 彙征, who had been honored as “Great Master who Illuminates Wen” (guangwen dashi 光文大師);43 he learned his “poetic technique” (shijue 詩訣) from Gong Lin 龔霖, who had been honored with the jinshi degree.44 These associations connect Zanning directly with an established lineage of guwen masters.45
In keeping with the model of a Confucian scholar-official, Zanning’s career in Wuyue is rounded out in Wang Yucheng’s account by his service as Ordination Supervisor of [Wuyue] Kingdom (guo jiantan 國監壇) and Buddhist Controller of Both Sides of the [Yangzi] River (i.e., the entire territory of Wuyue) (liang zhe sengtong 兩浙僧統). The decades of his early career, according to Wang, were passed cultivating Buddhist enlightenment and administering to the needs of the Buddhist faithful. In this way, Zanning’s identity as a Buddhist is nowhere denied, but remains peripheral to his accomplishments as a wen scholar-official.
Zanning’s rank as the leading scholar-official in Wuyue is confirmed by the central role he played in the transfer of authority to the Song. In this regard, the Xiaochu ji preface states:
When Prince Zhongyi abdicated his authority and devised how to reunite the [Wuyue] state [with the Song] in the third year of the taiping xingguo era (978), Master Zanning entered the capital offering stupa relics of the true body of the Buddha.46
This statement, more than any other information in Wang’s preface, speaks to the strength and significance of Zanning’s identity as a Buddhist. As the government representative who accompanied Zhongyi, it also indicates Zanning’s position as the leading diplomat in Wuyue, an unusual role for a Buddhist to play in China. The stupa relics offered