Medieval Buddhist of the Day

[Bluesky, 12/6/24] Medieval Buddhists of the Day: Cui Hong 崔鴻, Cui Kun 崔鵾, Cui Su 崔鷫, and Cui Qin 崔懃, presumably relatives of some kind. I suspect Cui Qin is the father and the other three, who are all named for birds (鴻 wild goose, 鷫 kingfisher, 鵾 some kind of pheasant), his sons. They were from Qizhou 齊州, that is modern Jinan in Shandong, and they organized a group of 26 men who sponsored a stele image in 519. Their inscription is collected in the early 20th century collection 八瓊室金石補正15, which mostly worked from rubbings, so the original monument may no longer exist. In any case, they caught my eye because, unusually, they are upfront about how much money they spent.

The leader, Cui Qin, has the title “chief donor of the image,” which always presupposes that the person in question gave extra money for the sponsorship of a specific image on a stele or other monument. The question is, how much more? Most monuments don’t tell us. This one, however, is quite clear. 像主崔懃用錢九千⎕ (the last character is missing): “The chief donor Cui Qin gave funds, nine thousand…” Nine thousand what? It sounds like a lot of money. It continues 法儀兄弟廿五人各錢一百裁 “The 25 brothers of the society each gave funds, 100 cai.” Ok, what’s a cai here?

A lot of the senses of the word are related to cutting, but as a measure word, it is used for bolts of hempen cloth 布匹. I’m really struck by the use of 裁, bolts of cloth, as a measure of 錢, money. Textiles are money, sometimes, but I’ve never looked into the details for the Northern Wei. I wish we knew whether Cui Qin also paid in cloth. If he did, the difference in scale between his donation and the others’ is really significant. Nine thousand vs one hundred! It is true that the Cui brothers each has a string of local official titles, where the others (not surnamed Cui) do not. And maybe the three of them pooled their funds. But still. It’s a striking imbalance, and I wonder if it was at all typical.

[My grad student George commented on this example: “I also did a very quick search and here is what I found: Northern Wei did not make or use money (coins) until 太和, so cloth had been used as official currency. Here is 孝文帝’s edict in 魏书食货志: 高祖始诏天下用钱焉。十九年，冶铸粗备，文曰太和五铢，诏京师及诸州镇皆通行之。内外百官禄皆准绢给钱，绢匹为钱二百。And another case related with Buddhist temple: 《魏书》卷五五《刘芳传》云：芳常为诸僧傭写经论，笔迹称善，卷直以一缣。岁中能入百余匹。I found these in 朱安祥’s doctoral dissertation 魏晋南北朝货币研究 (2018). It seems 缣 is a smaller unit than 匹.” I was also more used to 匹 as a unit, and these quotes are illuminating. They still seem to be treating 錢 and 絹匹 as two different things with an established exchange rate, though. I’ve really never seen 裁 or another textile term as a measure for 錢.]