Tracking Bodhidharma (53 page)

Emperor Wu received Hou Jing and his territories with a ceremony
worthy of China's mythical kings Yao and Shun, declaring him the king of Henan and commander of his northern forces. Before long, Hou Jing quietly put into effect his plan to take over the Liang dynasty. With his own troops now nominally a part of Emperor Wu's forces, he was soon able to advance on the capital virtually unopposed and before long took control of the city with little meaningful resistance.

Emperor Wu finally realized his mistake but was unable to marshal enough forces to stop Hou Jing from taking control of the country. The only thing left guarding the emperor was his reputation as a bodhisattva, and, surprisingly, this seems to have been worth something.

Hou Jing, instead of deposing Emperor Wu and claiming the throne, kept him as a figurehead. While the rebel general outwardly paid honor to the emperor, he kept the monarch under house arrest in the palace, gradually starving him to death. Emperor Wu's popularity, and his symbolic importance, saved him from being summarily executed. The situation was similar to what prevailed in Japan, where shoguns opted to keep the emperor as the symbolic head of the country, all the while retaining real power for themselves. This method of rule proved especially useful in Confucian societies where the emperor is supposed to lead by example. A virtuous emperor like Wu could be kept as a figurehead while those with real power could rule outside the public eye. Appearances were maintained with propaganda like the “mandate of heaven,” “Bodhisattva Emperor,” or, in the case of Japan, the “Divine Emperor.” In truth these high-sounding ideals were a perfect cover for debauchery, graft, and, in the case of 1930s Japan, imperialism.

Ultimately the grand rule of Emperor Wu literally ended with a whimper. The
Book of Liang portrays
the old man dying in bed, his power and prestige evaporated. He asked for some honey. But there was no honey or anything else left to succor the dying emperor. No one responded to his request, and so he died.

Hou Jing made a show of honoring the emperor in death, even allowing his son to nominally take the throne as emperor. But Hou Jing also moved into the palace and directly grasped the levers of power. There, like the Qi emperor Baojuan Emperor Wu had once deposed, Hou Jing feted his friends and established his own imperial harem. The people of the capital city deeply hated the usurper and suffered much at the hands of Hou Jing and his court clique.

But Hou Jing's shogunlike rule of the country did not last long. The
Book of Liang
relates that a strange monk became part of Hou Jing's palace coterie. One night, after a bout of drinking, the monk stabbed the drunken general. The cleric then ran from the palace crying, “I've killed the slave! I've killed the slave!” According to the historical record, some people of the city dragged Hou Jing's body into the street where they cut it up, boiled it, and devoured it to show their hatred for him.

THERE IS AN ACCOUNT of Bodhidharma's death that appears as a fully embellished story in the thirteenth-century
Compendium
(added as an appendix to this book). The odd story in that text purports to detail the sage's death, but the account is highly suspicious and can't be confirmed by any early sources. The story says his death occurred at a place called Thousand Saints Temple. But there is no record of any such temple in Chinese historical records, and no one knows where it might have been. Even more strange, the account says that before he died Bodhidharma was visited by the official Yang Xuanzhi, the same official who wrote the
Temples of Luoyang
and whom Daoxuan described as hostile to Buddhism. It says Yang came seeking Bodhidharma's teaching, and the sage obliged him with a lecture on the nature of mind and the nature of Zen. Then Bodhidharma died. The story also says that Yang was then the prefectural governor of Biyang City, a place a few hundred kilometers south of Luoyang. But no records I have found indicate that Yang served in that position there. The story retells a legend saying that Bodhidharma was poisoned by his jealous detractors. This unsupported idea may have arisen because of Daoxuan's account of bitter criticism to which Bodhidharma was subjected during his life.

The
Compendium
account confirms that Bodhidharma was buried at Empty Appearance Temple near Bear Ear Mountain. That place, since at least as early as the seventh century, has laid claim to be his burial spot. Because it has made the claim from such an early time, and is where the memorial purportedly composed by Emperor Wu is located, at least that part of the story seems plausible.

Taken as a whole, the
Compendium
account of Bodhidharma's death is heavy on legend and light on verifiable fact. As I've already mentioned, Yang Xuanzhi, mentioned in this account, composed
Temples of Luoyang
, and Daoxuan described him as hostile to Buddhism. Thus
this account of Bodhidharma's death, though of great interest as folklore and as a representation of how Bodhidharma was honored by later generations, cannot be taken as accurate. See a complete translation of the
Compendium
account of Bodhidharma's death in the appendix of this book.

“Who among you is an adept of the Dragon Gate? Right now, is there anyone that can enter? Hurry up and go in so that you can avoid a wasted life.”

—
Zen Master Fengyang (947—1024), addressing assembled monks

 

The Yellow River is named for the yellow silt it ferries from central Asian Deserts and the North China Plain to the sea. It creates rich soil all along the river's course, and ancient farmers prospered there. The surpluses of good farming allowed for trading, markets, and the accumulation of wealth needed for civilization. But the river's constant silting also caused disastrous floods. Four thousand years ago, the legendary Chinese ruler Yu the Great led the ancestors of the Han people in the fight to survive along the Yellow River's banks. He built dikes and dredged the river, taming its unbridled floods.

Forever honored for his labors, Yu is remembered as China's first hereditary king, whose progeny maintained continuous rule for sixteen generations. Yu was the primogenitor of the legendary Xia (Hsia) dynasty.

Perhaps Yu's greatest river-control project took place where the Yellow River emerges from the Dragon Mountains into the dusty soil of the Yellow River basin. That place, called Dragon Gate, concentrated the waters of the river to run through white rapids before they reached the plain. Today the waters there still course through massive boulders and outcroppings, but now a constructed lake just downstream has slowed the flow and controlled the shifting silt deposits that caused floods. Yu also controlled the waters at this critical point where the river exited the mountains, a place also called Yu Gate. Dragon Gate and Yu Gate are names applied to this same place.

A legend intimately tied to China's origins says that Yellow River carp traveled upstream through this spot, struggling and leaping through the rapids to reach their spawning grounds. Their heroic efforts were likened to Yu's efforts to tame the river. Yu's labors secured him the dragon throne. Thus, metaphorically, fish that conquered these rapids were likewise thought to become dragons. The painting I purchased years ago in Hong Kong depicts their struggle. In the painting, among three leaping fish, the one that leaps the highest clears the rapids and changes color, turning orange. Like Yu, when the fish conquered Dragon Gate, it changed into a dragon. In China and Chinatowns throughout the world, the scene of
li yu tiao long men
(“fish leaping through Dragon Gate”) is still displayed on all types of Chinese folk art, an echo of the mythical beginnings of China. The bright orange color of goldfish was bred into carp by ancient Chinese fish breeders to reflect the transformation of carp into dragons at Dragon Gate. When Zen Master Fengyang, quoted earlier, challenged his disciples to show they were adepts at Dragon Gate, he evoked the metaphor of the carp who could successfully transform themselves to become dragons.

Was this also the Yu Gate where Emperor Wu's memorial says that Bodhidharma died? One clear and dry autumn morning, Eric and I decide to find the place and see for ourselves, We hire a car in Xian and set off.

North of Xian, the Wei River flows from west to east on its way to join the Yellow River. This area of the Wei and Yellow River basins gave rise to China's earliest legendary kings, such as the Yellow Emperor, and the area is considered to be the original homeland of the Han Chinese.

Not far from Xian, we cross the Wei River and proceed northeast through the fertile flatlands that spawned China's earliest history. Our goal is the place where the Yellow River enters the area from the north.

After a couple of hours' drive, we reach Hancheng, a newly industrialized city ringed with chemical plants that lies against the low-lying hills of an encroaching range of mountains. The air, heavy with industrial haze, is further fouled with a yellow cloud kicked up from new road construction. The loess dust of the area, the source of Yellow River silt, covers the countryside. The chemical process plants of Hancheng look
like the same type that encroach on Changlu Temple near Nanjing, leaving the same taste on the tongue as you pass them.

After bouncing our way through the road construction around the Hancheng industrial zone, we soon reach Yu Gate, where the Yellow River emerges from the mountains. The river runs from north to south at this location and serves as the border between China's confusingly named Shaanxi and Shanxi Provinces.

My first view of Yu Gate is disappointing. The place seems forgotten. Some enormous boulders remain at the place where the Yellow River exits the mountains, and a bridge spans its waters. The old boulders at this spot help form a natural ford across the river. Historical accounts indicate ancient armies crossed the river at this location to travel to the North China Plain, thus the place had strategic significance on the chessboard of China's old battlefields.

It was these boulders and the rapids just upstream from there that gave rise to the grand rapids of legend. But upstream, on the far shore of the river, a modern gravel pit has gashed a big hole in the side of the Dragon Mountains. As a result, it appears that gravelly detritus has filled in the waterway, taming the white water where fish once turned into dragons. We gaze up and down barren landscape. Only a few scrub trees break the pale monotony of the steep rocky slopes that plunge toward the now placid river.

Sometime in recent history, an entrepreneur, or maybe the local tourist board, tried to make a go of the place. At the side of the road, a badly rusted sign still advertises the FISH JUMPING DRAGON GATE in faded characters. Also barely readable are signs pointing toward the place's EIGHT FAMOUS SIGHTS, among which are the GARGLING JADE SPRINGS, the ROCK LANDINGS, and the THUNDEROUS THREE-LEVELED RAPIDS. But the signs have fallen against the hillside. No tourists but us are around, and no gargling springs or three-tiered rapids seem anywhere apparent. There is only the thin, quiet river on a fall afternoon, meandering meekly through bare mountains. Upstream, at a distance, are some low, gentle rapids.

A few dilapidated buildings next to the road indicate that something remains of a village that once stood here. A man standing in front of one of the shacks waves to me, and I walk over to ask him about the
place. He greets me with a toothless smile and motions toward a sign indicating that the old building is in fact a restaurant.

“Is there any legend about Bodhidharma coming here?” I ask.

No, he tells me. There is only the legend of the Great Yu. He doesn't know anything about Bodhidharma coming to this place. And no, he has never heard of Thousand Saints Temple.

“Wasn't there a temple here before?”

The man nods. “It's gone now,” he says. “Everything is gone. But we have a photo of the old days.” He motions me toward the broken door that hangs on the front of the building. “Go take a look.”

I am uncertain whether this is just his ploy to get some customers. But I follow the man's invitation nonetheless and walk through the shabby entrance of the little eatery.

I enter the darkened room where a couple young men slurp noodles at one of the four or five tables in the little restaurant. In the dim light I can make out, on the back wall, a blown-up photograph. It is huge, maybe ten feet wide, and covers the entire back wall of the little eatery. Maybe it was taken in the 1930s or 1940s. It shows, in full detail, the grandeur of Dragon Gate before modernity laid waste to it. The panoramic photo displays a wide and deep river, full of fishing vessels and cargo junks, all moored or anchored near a grand shrine dedicated to Yu the Great. The huge shrine perches like a bird above the deep river waters, its Ming-style roof curving upward like a bird taking wing over the waves, or maybe like a fish leaping to become a dragon.

That evening when Eric and I return from Dragon Gate, we pass and stop at Empty Appearance Temple to talk to its abbot, the monk Shi Yanci. He meets us at the front gate and then leads us into the temple reception room for tea.

“Do you have any idea where Thousand Saints Temple was located?” I ask him.

“No,” he replies, pouring the tea.

“It's supposed to be at Yu Gate,” I say. “Today we went to the Yu Gate where the Yellow River comes out of the mountains. The place that is also called Dragon Gate.”

“That's not where Bodhidharma died,” says the abbot. “It's too far from here. Also, there are many Yu Gates. Yu had many projects in many places, and when he was finished, many of those places were called Yu
Gate. It may have been on the Luo River instead of the Yellow River. The Luo River flows south of here.”