53. TANTRIC BUDDHISM IN MING CHINA
Shen WeirongThe Ming (1368–1644) was a Han Chinese-dominated regime estab-
lished by overthrowing a foreign conquest dynasty. Ming authorities
supported a policy of of “accommodating barbarians from afar” (huai
rou yuan yi , a strategy devised by past dynasties founded
by Han people and once broken by the Mongols) and took this acco-
modationist strategy as its basic principle in interacting with non-Han
peoples. As “barbarians from afar,” thousands of Tibetan monks were
invited to the Ming court to present tribute. Although Tibetan monks
and the secret teaching of supreme bliss (bimi daxile chanding
) practiced at the Mongol court were commonly blamed for
the rapid demise of the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), the Ming
emperors’ enthusiasm for Tibetan monks and their teachings was no
less than that of the previous dynasty.^1
It is well-known that there were eight great “religious kings” (jiao
wang ) and “Dharma kings” (fawang ) in the early Ming.
They were all Tibetan monks from various schools of Tibetan Bud-
dhism, major or minor alike, such as Sa skya pa, Karma bKa’ brgyud
pa, Phag mo gru bKa’ brgyud pa, ’Bri gun bKa’ brgyud pa, and dGe lugs
pa. They played an essential role in disseminating Tibetan Buddhism
within and beyond the Ming court in early period of the Ming.^2 Later,
several thousand Tibetan monks took residence in Beijing. There were
over twenty monasteries in the Ming capital that were associated with
Tibetan monks. The three monasteries of the Great Ci’en ,
the Great Nengren , and the Great Longshan Huguo
alone had over one thousand Tibetan monks including seven
Dharma kings, and dozens of state preceptors (guoshi ) and Chan
masters (Chan shi ) in the middle of the Ming period. An even
larger number of Tibetan monks were coming and going on tribute
missions between China proper and Tibet. Many famous monasteries
in Central Tibet (dBus gtsang) had direct connections with the Ming
(^1) Shen 2007e, 37–93.
(^2) Satō 1962, 1963.