Mingtang and buddhist utopias in the history of the astronomical clock

the tower, statue and armillary sphere constructed by empress Wu

Antonino FORTE

Collection : Monographies / PEFEO

Collection's number: 145

Edition: EFEO - Coéditions, Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente

Publication date: 1988

Status : Available

51,00

ISBN-13 : 9782855397450

ISSN : 0768-3944

Width : 18.6 cm

Height : 25.6 cm

Weight : 0.68 kg

Number of pages : 342

Distributor : EFEO Diffusion

Geography : China

Language : English, Chinese

Place : Paris, Rome

Support : Papier

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Abstract

This book has its origins in research which I began in Autumn 1982 in an attempt to understand the nature of an obscure Buddhist building called “celestial hall” or “heavenly mansion” (tiantang). This building was erected in the palatine city of Luoyang in the year 689 A.D. As sometimes happens, when you look for one thing, you find other things which are even more interesting; at a certain point my research, I thus found myself pursuing a path which I never would have predicted…
 
Antonino Forte

Table of contents

Preface
Introductory essay: The clock and the perfect society
  1. The Chinese clock and the European clock
  2. The great regulator of Wu Zhao
  3. The importance of time for the Chinese Buddhist
Appendix: On the transmission of the text of Daoxuan on the Jetevana Monastery
 
Chapter one: The tower, the statue, the armillary sphere
 
  1. The great armillary sphere (Day 1)
 
  2. The tower called Tiantang
      i. Historical Events
      ii. Size and architecture of the tiantang
 
  3. The Great Statue (Daxiang)
      i. The material used
      ii. Installation in the tiantang
      iii. The reduction of the height of the statue and its installation in the tower of the Shengshan Monastery between 705 and 710
 
Appendix: Matsumoto Bunzaburō confusion of the great lacquer statue with the great bronze statue on the Bai Sima slope
 
Chapter two: The origins of the mechanical clock
 
  1. The Tiantang interpreted as a `sacred towerˊ
      i. The three structures of the mingtang
      ii. Was the tiantang part of the mingtang?
 
  2. The mystique of the Lingtai
 
  3. The Dayi and the origin of the mechanical clock
      i. Evidence of the construction of the astronomical clock in the years 691-692
      ii. Was the Great regulator of 686 a sound producing device?
      iii. The setting of the dayi: the tiantang-dayi `connected towersˊ and the origin of Su Song’s `combined towerˊ
 
Appendix A: Notes on some great towers prior to the tiantang and their possible relation with the idea of lingtai
Appendix B: Yamada Keiji’s opinion on the meaning of dayi
 
Chapter three: The two mingtang compared
 
  1. The dates of the two Mingtang
      i. The dates referring to the construction of the first mingtang
      ii. The dates referring to the construction of the second mingtang
 
  2. Size and architecture of the two Mingtang
      i. According to the official sources the two mingtang were identical
      ii. According to Liu Su the two mingtang were different
 
  3. The abortive attempt to reconstruct the Mingtang
      i. The order of 9th December 694 to reconstruct the tiantang and the southern building
      ii. Huaiyi put in their places the twelve three-metre bronze statues of the double-hour gods
 
  4. Hypothesis on the first Mingtang
      i. The southern building consisted of two storeys, a square one below
      ii. Wang Qiuli’s criticism of the first Mingtang
      iii. The passages in the Commentary on the Great-cloud Sūtra referring to the mingtang
      iv. Sima Guang was aware of the fact that the idea of mingtang was historically applied mainly to the tiantang
      v. Conclusions on the architecture and the measurements of the tiantang and of the southern building
 
Appendix A: The paths followed by historians to eject the tiantang from the mingtang
Appendix B: The eleven missing characters in the current editions of the Zizhi tongijian
 
Chapter four: Some remarks on the social context
 
  1. The Mingtang as an architectural projection of different politico-religious conceptions
 
  2. The fertile soil of Maitreyan utopianism
      i. The tower of the white Horse Monastery of 685
      ii. The tiantang tower of 689
      iii. A surrogate tiantang: the tower of the Shengshan
      iv. The Maitreyan cathedrals destroyed by the Uighurs in November 762
 
  3. The Mingtang/Clock-Buddhism/Pacifism association
      i. The Buddhist establishment and the tiantang
      ii. The Axis of the Sky and the mingtang
      iii. The mingtang in a pacifist key
 
Conclusion
 
Summary of three attempts to construct The Mingtang at Luoyang
Bibliography General
Index
Illustrations

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