12 Origins of a Military Tradition
turies BCE it was chosen as one of the Five Holy Peaks (Wuyue), which served
as divine protectors of the state.^13 In accordance with Five-Phases Cosmology,
these deified mountains faced north (Mt. Heng), south (Mt. Heng), east (Mt.
Tai), west (Mt. Hua), and center (Mt. Song). In 110 BCE, Emperor Han Wudi
(reigned 140–87 BCE) climbed the Central Holy Peak (Mt. Song) and offered
s a c r i fi c e t o t h e m o u nt a i n’s g o d.^14 Thus, he began a tradition that lasted through
the seventh century, when Empress Wu performed there the most elaborate of
all imperial legitimation rites: the fengshan sacrifice. On that occasion, the em-
press changed the surrounding county’s name—as well as her own reign
title—to Dengfeng (literally, “mounting the feng [sacr ifice]”).^15
Mt. Song’s significance in imperial cults was reflected during the first
centuries CE in the sacred geography of the emerging Daoist religion. The
mountain became the object of Daoist pilgrimages, real as well as imaginary.
Whereas eminent Daoists such as Zhang Daoling (fl. 142), Kou Qianzhi
(365–448), and Sima Chengzhen (647–735) resided on the mountain,^16 mys-
tics arrived there without ever leaving their studios. Using as aids for the
imagination spiritual charts such as the Map of the Five Peaks’ True Shape (Wu
yue zhen xing shan tu), they reached the mountain by meditation. Early in the
medieval period the enormous Daoist Temple of the Central Peak (Zhongyue
miao) was established on Mt. Song. It is among the largest and most ancient
Daoist temples in China. Nowadays it houses monks—and, in a separate
wing, nuns—belonging to the Perfect Realization (Quanzhen) Sect.^17
Religions tend to appropriate each other’s sacred places ( Jerusalem is
one example). Thus, when Buddhist missionaries arrived in China in the
first centuries CE, they quickly perceived the religious potential of Mt. Song.
As early as the third century a Buddhist monastery was established on the
mountain, which by the early sixth century featured no fewer than six Bud-
dhist temples.^18 The mountain’s “Buddhist conquest” (as Bernard Faure has
termed it) involved the creation of a new mythology, which tied the Chinese
peak to the Indian-born faith. It centered on the legendary founder of the
Chan (Japanese: Zen) School: Bodhidharma.^19
The eighth century witnessed the flowering of a new school of Chinese
Buddhism, which as indicated by its name stressed the significance of medita-
tion (chan in Chinese; dhyâna in Sanskrit). One of the Chan School’s novel
traits was the belief that the truth revealed by the Buddha could be directly
transmitted from master to disciple. At least in theory, it was no longer neces-
sary to study the scriptures. Instead, the unmediated mind-dharma (xinfa)
could be handed from teacher to student. To legitimize this claim, Chan mas-
ters had to show that their mind-dharma had been transmitted to them through
a lineage going back all the way to the Buddha himself. Therefore, in the
course of the eighth century, Chan authors furnished their school with a past.
They manufactured a genealogy of Chinese—and, further back, Indian—
patriarchs who connected them to the source of the Buddhist faith.^20
Chan authors paid particular attention to the patriarch they claimed