The color of the characters here has faded to a rusty maroon, instead of a light brown hue, indicating that cinnabar powder has been added. My sources at Yongquan Monastery also confirm the common practice of mixing blood with cinnabar. As such, the colors of faded characters usually can reveal whether or not the blood was mixed with cinnabar to make the blood scripture.
This text was done by a certain Chan master who resided near Mt. The size of the whole fragment measures 4. Currently, it is housed in Beijing National Library. Cinnabar as a mineral consists of red mercury II sulfide HgS , an ore, and is vermilion in color.
According to the principles of traditional Chinese medicine, cinnabar is associated with the heart meridian. The main function of cinnabar used in its powered form is to cure poison with poison, since cinnabar is highly toxic Chen and Chen, , — Interestingly, because of its toxicity, Buddhist clerics may have used it to mix with blood to prevent insects from eating away at the paper, thus ensuring the preservation of the blood scripture Footnote For example, in the manuscript illustrated in Fig.
On the other hand, that part of the document containing the blood characters is relatively untouched by insect damage. From this observation, and from the color of the characters, I have concluded that cinnabar was probably added to the blood used for the production of this fascicle of the scripture. Currently, it is housed in Fuzai-in in Noto Peninsula, Japan.
Instructions for blood writing are given in the oral tradition and there is a clear set of protocols for the performer regarding the ritual production of the blood scripture. The body of the writer must be cleansed before engaging in the work because it is a sacred text. The upper body of the performer must be upright, similar to the posture in seated meditation. This posture helps the performer to be concentrated and relaxed so as not to make any mistakes.
It also ensures that the energy of the body will flow smoothly so that the performer is able to follow the rhythm of each stroke.
Sometimes other forms of preparatory religious practice are used, such as ritual ablution, prostration, the chanting of the scripture to be copied and contemplative practice Footnote One of my monastic informants assured me that often a performer will practice copying the chosen scripture several times in regular ink in order to condition the body to the action of the strokes before actually making the final copy in blood.
My informants also tell me that the performer of blood writing must abstain from eating salt several months before they start the project and they must maintain this diet to ensure that their blood will be thinner and less likely to congeal. If a monk does not refrain from eating salt, then at the least his diet must be light. A vegetarian diet for Chinese lay Buddhists who wish to engage in blood writing is also considered mandatory Footnote Buddhist performers generally prick their own fingertips or incise the vessels under the tongue in order to draw the blood which is then collected in a bowl during the course of their writing.
They generally have to cut their bodies every few days in order to finish a long scripture. Otherwise, the blood congeals. Since many Buddhist scriptures are long, involving thousands of Chinese characters, it could take several years to copy a single Buddhist scripture. There are also external conditions that prevent performers from drawing blood, such as during the cold winter months when blood congeals quickly.
Shouye had copied the entire eighty-volume Flower Ornament Scripture in over six-hundred thousand characters with the blood from his ten fingers and tongue during a solitary retreat on Mt. Wutai Bo, , pp. He began writing in and completed it in He did not mix his blood with cinnabar. Blood was methodically drawn by using a small pair of scissors to cut open the tips of his fingers and a razor blade to slice open the underside of his tongue. The blood was then drained out into a small bowl.
The locations he used for drawing blood follow common practice. According to the Buddhist scriptures, blood from fingers symbolized the written aspect of the scripture. Blood from pricking the tongue symbolized the spoken aspect Footnote Shouye also used a shaved piece of sandalwood to grind the blood in order to get rid of the thin strings of fiber that usually drained out of his fingers or tongue.
He was able to use the same blood over several days. In the summer he had to place the bowl of blood in a larger bowl filled with cold water, so that the blood would not go bad. In the winter, because of the harsh cold weather at Mt. Wutai, his blood would congeal as soon as it left his body, so he had to discontinue the writing during the months of October through February. His diet supposedly consisted mainly of rice gruel, pickles, and unsalted vegetables.
The rapidity with which blood congeals can be problematic and writers can typically produce no more than several pages per day dependent upon the size of the characters. Despite his efforts to squeeze the blood from the tips of his fingers, very little blood came out and, soon after, a local physician diagnosed him with a severe case of anemia. In fact, he was told that he was on the brink of death and no medicine would heal him. Subsequently he was able to finish copying the blood scripture.
His production earned him the position of abbotship to several of the monasteries on Mt. In premodern East Asia, the self-sacrificial act of producing blood written texts was believed to amass so much religious merit that it was able to generate miracles and change social relations.
Buddhist hagiographic literature bear witness to the numerous clerics and lay people who produced blood scriptures. He was orphaned in his youth. Every time he thought about his parents, he was moved to tears.
One day a monk told him that he could copy a Buddhist scripture in his own blood to repay his gratitude to his deceased parents. Upon its completion, monastics and lay people who lived in the vicinity flocked to see his blood scripture and verify his scars. They were awed at the sight of his scars and by the difficult process he had undertaken to produce the scripture.
His blood scripture was not meant for publication or mass production. It was not a passive artifact and its material existence or thingness was an active interchange between him as its producer and his spectators as witnesses.
As such, it was received with great respect. Many high-profile Buddhist clerics during the sixteenth and seventeenth-centuries engaged in blood writing Yu, , pp. May my deceased mother, and my compassionate mothers of countless lifetimes, sever the fundamental afflictions, be reborn in lotuses, and receive the prediction [of buddhahood] by the Buddha. May my fellow practitioners of this lifetime, and all the past true virtuous friends, perfect and fulfill Bodhi before me.
I dedicate the causes and conditions of the benevolent power from the vows and bestow them universally on the dharma realms, [so that sentient beings therein may] together attain the nonduality of the unborn, the nonattainment of the uncreated, and permanently separate themselves from delusion and realize permanent happiness Footnote Ouyi specifies the kinds of benefit he would like to bring to his parents: the severance of attachments and afflictions, rebirth in the Land of Bliss, and attainment of buddhahood.
Elsewhere, Ouyi also used blood writing to demarcate the boundaries between what he perceived as orthodoxy and heterodoxy:. But among the root causes of beginningless birth and death, none is deeper than the attachment to the perception of the body.
This [practice of blood-writing] is called paying reverence to the correct Dharma; it is also called using the Dharma of making offerings to Buddha. The practice… is situated precisely in this very flesh and blood Ouyi, , p. This passage describes the way in which he engaged in a bodily practice to defend against charlatan Buddhist teachers who merely talk of nonduality and wisdom. Blood writing was also practiced outside of Buddhist circles.
It was intended to cure illness, challenge the existing political order, change the course of natural disasters, and even exonerate crimes and negotiate amnesty from the emperor.
His father was a virtuous censor of note and one of the last disciples of Wang Yangming Chen, , pp. Emperor Shizong interpreted this as a bad omen signifying the disloyalty of his ministers at court. The heavens were understood to operate in symbiotic resonance with earthly phenomena, so if the imperial court were immoral or the court ministers corrupt, then heaven would mimic that imbalance and rain down disasters on humankind.
Emperor Shizong solicited criticism from his ministers in an effort to dispel this bad omen by rooting out any internal corruption. In compliance with the imperial order, Feng En submitted a review of 20 high officials, ten of which he criticized for their flaws.
Begging for mercy, Feng Xingke submitted his memorial to the emperor through sympathetic officials, who recommended that the sentence be reduced. The son then wrote the following:. Ever since my official father [Feng En] lost his own father in his youth, my grandmother Madame Wu remained chaste to educate him until he reached adulthood and became a censor.
Our whole family receives his emolument…. Now that he has fallen under the emperor, and my grandmother is over eighty, the pain of her sadness is deep, and she has only a few breaths left. If my official father were to die today, grandmother Wu would also surely die today…. I beg your majesty to have pity, revoke the sentence placed [on my father], release him, and extend the lives of the mother and son [i.
I sincerely extend my neck and wait for your naked sword Footnote As a result, Feng En was given the title of vice minister of the Grand Court of Revision and, because of his age, was granted the right to live in retirement. Furthermore, his son, Feng Xingke, was given an imperial citation for his filial piety and was then made head of a bureau in the Court of Imperial Entertainment Goodrich and Fang, , p.
His actions won not only a pardon from the emperor but also a higher social status for his father and for Feng Xingke himself. The discourse of morality, honor, and self-sacrifice was demonstrated with blood writing. In other words, the message was trumped by the medium of that memorial. The cases described above attest to the extraordinary efficacy of blood writing, residing in the physical presence of sight and contact.
Its extraordinariness comes from its material presence, mode of production, and the efficacy of embodying time-honored cultural values in premodern China. Imbued with an agency to negotiate socioreligious and political change, blood writing drew on the symbolism of blood, its talismanic associations, and the performance of self-sacrifice to concretize the cultural values of filial piety, religious sanctity, and moral virtue in visceral and extraordinary ways that no other materials or discourse could.
The extraordinary feat involved in producing a blood scripture, as seen in the cases cited, was recognized by both performers and those who witnessed it. Ironically, the ritual of blood writing, after centuries of its long history in East Asia, could also be considered ordinary.
It was precisely because blood writing was a understood to be one of the best means for demonstrating sanctity and moral virtue that by the late imperial times it became common place—not because many people performed it necessarily, but because it was socially recognized and intelligible to so many people, from upper echelons of the society to villagers and children.
For example, in the case of Wu Junping, blood writing appeared to be a legitimate practice and shared knowledge for anyone who wished to transfer merit to deceased parents for their better rebirth. In the case of Feng Xingke, it was through his blood writing that the emperor moved to issue an amnesty for his father. The expected response of the emperor testifies the accepted sanctity of blood writing.
Whether blood writing was extraordinary or ordinary, at least in the imagination of the premodern Chinese, it was able to negotiate rebirth into the pure land, attainment of buddhahood, defend the borders of religious orthodoxy, and even persuade the emperor to issue political amnesty. Such agency to accomplish all these things rested in its materiality.
The datasets analyzed during the current study, the blood writings, are not publicly available because they belong to private Buddhist monastic library collections, but photo reproductions of them may be available from the author on reasonable request.
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