Medieval Buddhist of the Day

[Twitter, 5/30/19] Dang Faduan 瓽法端 was a female official in the women’s quarters of the Northern Wei palace at Luoyang. Dang had planned to dedicate a Buddhist image but was unable to bring the project off before she passed away prematurely 不幸邁終. In answer to her wish, Cheng Siyun 承祀允, the leader of the imperial bodyguard assigned to the women’s quarters, commissioned an image of Sakyamuni Buddha and two bodhisattvas on her behalf, with the wish that she be reborn “in the land of miraculous joy” 願端值生妙樂國土, and also that the imperial household and the state of Wei should flourish for ten thousand generations. The image was dedicated in 506 (by which time the Northern Wei had about 28 years left, give or take, but hey, everything is impermanent, right?).

I like these two because they seem to be colleagues and, presumably, friends, rather than relatives – we’d expect a kin relationship to be articulated in the inscription, but it’s not. What was between them such that Cheng came to be the one to carry out Duan’s plan? Dang and Cheng’s image is in the Guyang Cave at Longmen. Plenty of women patrons dedicated images there, so she didn’t need a man to act on her behalf. Yet he was the one entrusted to carry out her posthumous wish. I like to think that it was out of friendship.

Here is a link to a rubbing of the inscription.