Medieval Buddhist of the Day

[Bluesky, 11/22/24] The Medieval Buddhist of the Day is another grandmother. Lady Gao, the mother of the Prince of Beihai 北海王母高太妃, was a rough contemporary and sister-in-law of the previous MBOTD, Lady Hou. She was married to the Prince of Guangchuan’s elder brother, Tuoba Hong 拓拔弘, who became emperor Xianwen 獻文帝. However, she was not the empress, but rather a lower-ranking consort; her actual title is the evocative 高椒房 “Gao of the Pepper Chamber,” alluding to the (perhaps legendary) use of Sichuan pepper to perfume the boudoir walls of palace ladies. Xianwen had at least two wives with this title.

Lady Gao and her powerful and politically active son seem to have had an unusually close, not to say complicated, relationship. The Prince of Beihai’s name was Yuan Xiang 元詳 and he was born in 476, the last of his father’s sons, in the year of his father’s death.

[Aside: As a mother of teenage boys I am boggled by the shortness of the generations in the imperial house at this point. Emperor Xianwen came to the throne at 11, abdicated it at 17 in favor of his 4-year old son, and died at 22, having fathered 7 sons and at least 5 daughters by at least 6 consorts.]

The title “Prince Ping of Beihai” 北海平王 was granted in 485 when he was nine, and it probably explains why Lady Gao has the same title as Lady Hou did – Dowager Princess-Consort – not because she was the wife of a prince but because she was the widowed mother of one. The prince was an effective military commander in the service of his older brother, emperor Xiaowen 孝文帝, through the 490s, and was rewarded by him several times, until on his deathbed in 499, Xiaowen named him to one of the three preeminent positions in the government, the “Three Lords” 三公.  Xiaowen’s successor, Emperor Xuanwu 宣武帝 (the prince’s nephew), confirmed the prince in his rank and he became very powerful indeed. His biography suggests that once he was the uncle of the emperor, and no longer the younger brother of the emperor, he changed entirely and became corrupt and licentious.

Here’s where we return to Lady Gao, because she appears three times in three separate inscriptions in the Guyang Cave at Longmen which illustrate her relationship to her turbulent son. The first is dated 498, and records the fulfillment of a vow she and her son made to one another in 494. According to the inscription, when he was riding out to war against the Southern Qi in his brother’s train, the 18-year-old prince parted with his mother at the site of the Longmen caves (which occupy a strategic site south of Luoyang), and as they wept in sorrow, Lady Gao vowed that if they were safely reunited, she would sponsor a Buddha to be made there. Four years later, the 22-year-old prince sponsored the carving of an image in fulfillment of Lady Gao’s vow, in the Guyang cave (whose patrons were mainly the imperial and non-imperial aristocracy of Luoyang).

The second inscription that mentions Lady Gao was donated by a monk, Bhiksu Fasheng 比丘法生, in 503, when the prince of Beihai was at the height of his powers. The inscription praises Emperor Xiaowen, the prince, and Lady Gao for their devotion to Buddhism, which seems slightly odd. Bhiksu Fasheng’s choice seems distinctly political (to sponsor an image in honor of the living emperor and his most powerful minister), but in that case the inclusion of Lady Gao suggests that she was seen as very closely tied to her son and his power, which fits with details of his biography. 

Lady Gao appears surprisingly often in her son’s story. She is said to have helped him evict commoners from land where he wanted to build a palace, even turning people out of a house where a funeral was in progress. On the other hand, she also whipped him for canoodling (蒸) with someone else’s wife. The account of the prince’s peculation and sexual exploits as one of the first ministers of the empire is fairly epic and I won’t summarize it here. But he was denounced in 504, stripped of his titles, and imprisoned, where he died, aged 28. And this is where Lady Gao’s third inscription comes in.

This one is undated but located among other inscriptions from 503-505 or so. I think it must date to after the Prince of Beihai’s death, because it’s dedicated to Lady Gao’s grandson, Yuan Bao 元保. We don’t know much about Yuan Bao, who evidently died young. Lady Gao’s inscription is in his memory. In its simplicity, this inscription seems to reflect the end of the story. It certainly seems to reflect the situation after the death of the Prince of Beihai, and implies that perhaps Lady Gao, like Lady Hou before her, was ultimately left to care for her orphaned grandsons, including Bao. 

The inscription reads 孫保失鄉，播越 ⎕ ⎕ ，⎕ ⎕ 歷載，終始 ⎕ 愆，未及免之，不幸早死。今為保造像一區，使永脱百苦。Though there are missing characters, it reads ”My grandson Bao lost his home, and went into exile in Yue…for many years, in the end and at the beginning … fault, which was never forgiven, and unfortunately he died young.  Now I have made this image for him, that he may forever escape from the many sufferings.” After a long and lurid set of adventures, Lady Gao’s last inscription evokes the personal concerns of a grandmother determined to do one last service for her departed grandson.