*4.3. Aftermath*

Jianyue's bold activities and speech left a hazardous impact on building a monastic community. When he was promoting this new centerpiece of the Monastery and reframing the spatial hierarchy, just like the three potential loci confronting one another, differentiation emerged from within the Sangha. Some elder monks were even competing for the position of the Abbot. Although opinions are not settled on whether Jianyue intended to leave or was expelled from the Monastery by some monks unsatisfied with his over-activity,<sup>37</sup> the fact was that, shortly after the second platform reconstruction and the demarcation sermon, he left the Monastery for multiple years because of the conflicts between factions. Jianyue did not enter Mount Baohua once again until the literatus-official Chen Danzhong, acting as mediator, invited him to return as an abbot. Perhaps in order to balance the unsettled forces, Jianyue's last wish was to refurbish the old Open-Air Platform Unit, although he had to leave the unfinished task to his successor Ding'an.

#### **5. Ding'an: Refurbishing the Open-Air Platform Unit to Reunite the Three Centers**

Ding'an deeply remembered what Jianyue once signed to him with emotion in old age. Jianyue commented that a human's lifespan is shorter than those of metal and stone, ye<sup>t</sup> even the copper hall and stone platform are also subject to disintegration, and he saw the words "all that has form definitely deforms" in both humans and architecture (BHSZ [1795] 1975, vol. 6, p. 245). To counteract the natural process of material decay and

to balance the human forces that may deform the institution, Ding'an took the opportunity to refurbish the Open-Air Platform. Ding'an fashioned himself as a faithful follower of Jianyue without the latter's strong characteristics. He consciously took the role of compiling guidelines and historical accounts, rather than that of a chief architect. Through issuing new placatory rules, Ding'an consolidated the tensions among the monastic sections. During the refurbishment projects, he valued the works of the lay Buddhists and literati in fulfilling the revival mission. He even wrote twelve volumes about the Monastery's settings and institutional history, which became the basis of Liu Mingfang's fifteen-volume gazetteer *BHSZ*.<sup>38</sup> Through resuming solidarity among the monastic and lay communities, the ultimate goal was to reunite the Monastery that had an old center and the two new centers.

#### *5.1. Renewing Placatory Rules*

To counteract the separatist thread that had surfaced during Jianyue's time, Ding'an issued "the Rules for the Brotherhood" (gongzhu guiyue 共 住 規 約) and had the rules inscribed on a stele in 1683 (Y. Liu, forthcoming, pp. 97–99; Prip-Møller 1937, pp. 288–91). "The Rules" starts by reasserting the importance of the monastic regulations established by Jianyue. Based on Jianyue's version, the rules Ding'an issued "particularly establish some chapters and check erroneous ideas at the outset." The preventive measures particularly address that nobody should be permitted or forced "to separate himself from the community". The twelve chapters in the Rules cover all aspects about communal life in a monastery, including places for living, clothing, dining, lodging, traveling, and tonsure. The guidelines reflected Ding'an's vision for an inclusive community, which was also applicable in regard to monastery construction.

#### *5.2. Refurbishment of the Open-Air Platform*

In 1680–1691, Ding'an commissioned a series of small and delicate stone structures for the refurbishment of the Open-Air Platform. Upon the completion of the refurbishment, Ding'an compiled "A Record of the Renovation of the Copper Pavilion, the Incense Pavilion, and the Stone Platform" (chongxiu tongdian xiangting shitai ji 重 修 銅 殿 香 亭 石 台 記, BHSZ [1795] 1975, vol. 6, pp. 247–48). The record began by addressing Jianyue's last vow and the merits of several lay artists and sponsors who participated in the projects. Among them, a layman Dajing 大 莖 decorated the Copper Hall with the assistance of a Head of the Hall Xingbai 省 白. The landscape images on the railings were painted by two artists Julai 巨 来 and Zhilai 支 来, disciples of a famous painter Gong Xian 龚 贤 (1618–1689). The projects were sponsored by "dharma protectors of the Ten Quarters." Ding'an did not assert his leadership and authorship; instead, he humbly wrote that what he was doing was "documenting the events, recording the merits, and passing down for future generations".

Nonetheless, it is hard to believe that the decade-long, comprehensive refurbishments were without a planner, who could have been only Ding'an. Under his supervision, an incense-offering shrine known as "the Stone Incense Pavilion" (shixiang ting 石 香 亭) was erected in front of the copper hall when the latter was refurbished. A commemorative stele in memory of Miaofeng, Sanmei, and Jianyue was erected on a lower platform outside the Open-Air Platform Unit. In addition, the platform was widened, repaired, decorated with bas-relief friezes, and equipped with a white marble balustrade (Figure 15). In general, platforms of the *sumeru*-throne (*xumi zuo* 須 彌 座) type were only applied to esteemed buildings such as the base of the main hall in imperial palaces or ancestral temples (Figure 16). In Longchang Monastery, this type of platform had been applied only to the Ordination Platform. The refurbishment of the Open-Air Platform must have been a careful design. While the stone platform may be studied as a work of architectural decoration, this study situates it in the larger context of place-making and history-framing of the Monastery.

**Figure 15.** Rendering of the Open-Air Platform (Prip-Møller 1937, p. 236, Figure 291).

**Figure 16.** A corner of the white marble base of the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden Palace, Beijing, China, seventeenth century (Photo by author, 15 October 2021).

5.2.1. Incorporating into the Ordination Rituals

For one thing, Ding'an and others modified the Miaofeng-era monument for the sake of better incorporating it into the spatial system that centered at the threefold ordination rituals. The main stair and two side stairs all point to the newly added Stone Incense Pavilion, which better facilitates the prayer to the Copper Hall (Figures 4 and 17). According to Ding'an's, this project not only fulfilled the last will of Jianyue, but also concerned the ordination ritual. At the end of the Renovation Record, he wrote (BHSZ [1795] 1975, vol. 6, p. 23):

The precious hall, pavilion, and platform are solemn and splendid. Together with our gem-like Precepts, they shine between heaven and earth and will never exhaust!

寶殿亭臺,莊嚴端麗,與吾戒珠並燦爛于天地間而無窮盡也,其庶幾乎!

Only when being inspired by collective efforts of reviving the faith, one dared to vow that the architecture and the "gem-like Precepts" (jiezhu 戒珠) eternally coexist. Although the platform no longer formally carried any function in the threefold ordination rituals when Prip-Møller visited, he assumed that the platform had once been associated with ordination (Prip-Møller 1937, p. 294). The Copper Hall, which enshrined a Guanyin image, was believed to connect with the bodhisattva. Hence, it would well suit the third stage of the threefold ordination, during which the newly ordained monks need to utter the Bodhisattva Vow. Till the modern time, the Copper Hall and the Stone Incense Pavilion were still the "first place after the Great Hall to which the newly ordained monks go to prostrate themselves in thankfulness before the Guanyin image" (Prip-Møller 1937, p. 254).

**Figure 17.** Detail of the third floor plan of Longchang Monastery, showing the Open-Air Platform Unit in the upper half, the Roofs of the Ordination Platform Unit in the bottom-left, and the roofs of a corner of the Main Courtyard in the bottom right (Prip-Møller 1937, Pl. 3).

#### 5.2.2. Alluding to the Ordination Platform

For another, the decoration of the Open-Air Platform was designed to allude to the Ordination Platform. Through some shared visual language, the spiritual core of the past and that of the current constitute a coherent architectural landscape. The two platforms resemble each other's proportions, circulation, and dimensions. The Open-Air Platform sizes are 14.95 m (L.) by 11.27 m (W.) by 2.10 m (H.), whereas the Ordination Platform sizes are ca. 12.8 m (L.) by 11.52 m (W.) by 1.50 m (H.).<sup>39</sup> Besides, the ornate frieze of the open-air platform covers only about half of its total height (ca. 1 m vs. 2.10 m). The design approximates to the height of either tier of the Ordination Platform (66.5 cm and 83.5 cm).<sup>40</sup> By means of this design, the single-level Open-Air Platform is subdivided into two levels— a decorated upper level and an undecorated lower level. Thus, the façade proportion of the two platforms becomes closer to each other. Furthermore, the frieze design of the Open-Air Platform subtly echoes the carvings on the lower tier of the ordination platform. The narrowed waist is flanked above and below by stylized lotus-petal decorations, and both the relief "feet" of the frieze and those of the ordination platform are decorated with pairs of spiral clouds. The cloud-and-thunder pattern on the railings of the ordination platform reoccurs on the narrowed waist of the frieze, showing similar double-lined edges, layering treatments, and configuration of spirals (Figure 18). Upon seeing the Open-Air

Platform, a monastic beholder would probably recall the Ordination Platform, on which he received the Bhikkhu Precepts during the second ordination ritual.

**Figure 18.** A comparison between the Open-Air Platform (**left**) and the Ordination Platform (**right**), with author's annotations (drawing by author, based on Prip-Møller 1937).

#### *5.3. The Union of the Two Platforms and a Collapse of History*

In short, as the final stage of the collective design, the two platforms were united as a coherent setting for the threefold ordination; the main courtyard and the two units, respectively, accommodated the three stages (Figure 19). The tensions among them were raised, intensified, and finally resolved through the accumulation of drastic and subtle adjustments. The Open-Air Platform Unit resumed its spirituality as if it had never changed.

The union of space fed a belief in the correlation of various periods in the history of Mount Baohua. The emerging belief is evident in "the Prose of the Ordination Platform" (jietan fu 戒壇賦, BHSZ [1795] 1975, vol. 10, pp. 409–12) compiled by an artist-scholar Wang Gai 王" (aka. Wang Anjie 王安節, 1645–1707), who was another student of Gong Xian and in the social circle of Ding'an. The prose traced the tradition of the Longchang Ordination Platform to a time prior to Daoxuan. Presumably informed by the monks or their abbot directly, Wang associated the Ordination Platform's prototype with an ancient diagram that was allegedly made by the fifth-century Chan monk Baozhi. The fabricated narrative also perfectly connected Ding'an with all the masters prior to him: it suggested that the diagram was discovered by Xuelang, copied and preserved by Guxin, primarily constructed by Sanmei, perfected by Jianyue, and its story transmitted by Ding'an. Whether the ordination platform began with Baozhi or Daoxuan did not really matter in the believers' eyes. What they looked for was a story without a beginning and, hence, without an end.

**Figure 19.** A diagram showing a coherent spatial system in which the main courtyard, the Open-Air Platform Unit, and the Ordination Platform Unit are associated with the prelude and the three stages of the threefold ordination rituals (Drawing by author, base map: Figure 1).

#### **6. Coda: A Methodological Reflection**

Through the eyes of Prip-Møller, we see how exactly the repaired monuments have connected the past and the present. That Prip-Møller chose to render the side view of the Open-Air Platform in a meticulous way (Figure 15) is not without any reason: The represented platform was designed to allude to the stone Ordination Platform, which improved twice what it replaced. Moreover, the side view is identical with what one sees in front of one of the beamless halls designed by Miaofeng (Figure 20), and from there an elderly monk living in the beamless hall often came out to guide the modern visitors to Longchang Monastery.

The built environment of Longchang Monastery successfully maintained a dynamism and eventually a balance in the process of constant and sometimes contradictory modifications. During a crucial period of establishing an institution, the three abbots of the Vinaya lineage consciously relocated the spiritual core of the monastery from the Open-Air Platform to the Main Courtyard, then to the Ordination Platform, eventually creating a coherent spatial system. They achieved this by means of modifying the masonry structures and the multi-layered boundaries. Sanmei moved the main monastic activities around the Main Courtyard, which was set up as a new, functional center as opposed to the old, symbolic unit established by Miaofeng. Jianyue redesigned and reconstructed an ordination ritual altar and promoted it as the new spiritual center. In this way, the supreme status of the old one designed by Miaofeng was further eliminated. Eventually, Ding'an reunited the three centers by refurbishing the old Open-Air Platform, alluding to the Ordination Platform, and related both to the Main Courtyard through staging the threefold ordination. Therefore, the monk-architect and the three abbots together designed a spatial system of unprecedented spiritual symbolism.

**Figure 20.** Viewing the Open-Air Platform from the doorway of one of the Beamless Halls, showing the West Side Stair and part of the Stone Incense Pavilion (Prip-Møller 1937, p. 249, Figure 276).

Through cultural and constructional practices, the "life" of the monastery has been extended in two directions along the timeline. The repeated accounts of its remote origin drive the memory of it into the past, and the practices of persistent renewal promise its existence in the future. Through human efforts, the monastic architecture as a whole is emancipated from a tangible beginning and a predictable ending. The apparatus of immortality is precisely located in the contemporary reenactment of historical prototypes: it shapes the social memory, uncovers forgotten pasts, and sustains communal life.

In the current century, the field has adopted a more tolerant attitude toward Prip-Møller's interdisciplinary approach to architecture. Inspired by scholars of social and religious histories, architectural historians joined the blooming studies of the "living" religious landscapes.<sup>41</sup> Scholars observe the socio-political forces that drove the developments of sacred mountains and urban monasteries. In ways echoing Prip-Møller's, they fruitfully recognize the built environment as a carrier of the local history.<sup>42</sup> In retrospect, some even raise Prip-Møller to the historical position of "representing a modern, international perspective of 'earth-timber/construction'" (J. Wang 2018). Recent scholars have revived the interests Prip-Møller showed in the stone monuments and environmental design of Longchang Monastery (J. Zhang 2015; Wang and Tur 2016). Notably, architectural historian Yan Liu has recognized the methodological significance of Prip-Møller's work for architectural anthropology, conducted a large amount of archival research and field work, translated *Chinese Buddhist Monasteries* into Chinese (Y. Liu, forthcoming), and reintroduced this work to the field.<sup>43</sup>

This case study furthers our understanding of Prip-Møller by adopting his unique view of history. A historian normally seeks to sort things in temporal sequence, whereas Prip-Møller seeks the instances when the sorting loses efficacy.<sup>44</sup> This is because, in Prip-Møller's view, persistent religious and building practices can cross the unbridgeable gap between

modern and pre-modern times. Every contemporary monastery that deeply intrigues him is "an organism living in the present but with its roots deep in the past" (Prip-Møller 1937, "preface"). The architecture of Chinese Buddhist monasteries hence is "the frames around a religion which has endured without any fundamental change as a strong spiritual force in the country ever since the days of its introduction there" (ibid.). This view, as I believe, has the potential to resolve an enduring problem—i.e., the so-called "non-historical" character of Chinese architecture.<sup>45</sup> This problem of style has provoked studies about the evolution of layout and building technology. The abovementioned discourse about the dynamics of cultural production is ye<sup>t</sup> another way of arguing for a history more progressive than stationary. But Prip-Møller's solution is different in nature; he finds historical value in the common practices that made Chinese architecture seemingly non-progressive. Through this lens, we see the repaired monasteries not as an architecture that loses traces of the past, but as one that attempts to transcend history.

**Funding:** A presentation of the research paper at the AAS (Association of Asian Studies) 2019 Annual Conference was supported by a conference travel gran<sup>t</sup> from the Center for the Art of East Asia, the University of Chicago.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Acknowledgments:** The author initiated the case study during a graduate seminar taught by Wei-Cheng Lin at the University of Chicago, from whom she received theoretical fuel for this project. She thanks Delin Lai of Louisville University for his incisive comments on an earlier draft of this paper, which was presented at the AAS 2019 Annual Conference in Denver, CO, March 23, 2019. She is in debt to Yan Liu of Kunming University of Science and Technology for generously sharing a manuscript of his Chinese translation of *Chinese Buddhist Monasteries* with the author. She also thanks the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback that led the paper to the current form.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **Appendix A. Excerpts of Chinese Texts**

*Appendix A.1.* 敕建寶華山隆昌寺戒壇銘

既承師命,委囑以弘傳,密不躬行而匡正。始於國朝順治四年歲次丁亥四月三日, ... ... 結界立壇,仿古更今。 ... ... 由是復興於中懷之初志,今遂乎半。 ... .又於康熙 二年歲在癸卯三月十六日,鳴椎共議,擇院外東南閑處,解舊結新,界相無文系。石壇層 級上下分明,於是月廿日初夜分,陰雨暗暝,山嵐迷障。驟然壇殿交光五色,直沖雲霄, 峰崚顯翠,萬松環抱,群樓朗如白晝,經時始散。一眾瞻欣,同聲贊善。毗尼久住,瑞兆 若斯,誠五濁之希有也。

*Appendix A.2.* 界相準則

先明結受戒場法:東南角至屏教所墻標,西南角在本戒場右山墻標,西北角至本戒場 左墻標,東北角至本戒場圍墻外標。此是受戒場四方外相一周訖。

次明結大界內相:東南角離屏教所墻二尺標,西南角離戒場右山墻二尺標,西北角離 戒場左山墻二尺標,東北角離戒場[圍]墻二尺標。此是大界四方內相一周訖。

後明結大界外相:東南角至主山後分路標,西南角至龍背山下分路標,西北角至西華 山頂標,東北角至歡喜嶺下栗樹標。此是大界外相一周訖。

其攝衣界更無別相,表顯即準大界外相結之。
