Woodblock Printing and State Protection in the Inclusive Buddhist Culture of the Tanguts

This printed image and a text it illustrates offer one example of many prints from carved woodblocks produced in the Tangut state of Xixia and excavated from the ancient city of Khara-Khoto. The multiethnic state formed by the Dangxiang, a Tibeto-Burman-speaking people, was known in Chinese sources as Western (Xi) Xia. Its Tangut name means the Great State of White and High, and its territory stretched west of the Yellow River’s (Huang He) northern bend known as Hexi Corridor (Hexi, “west of the river”), flanked by the Mongolian and Tibetan Plateaus. The area served as an important link along the so-called Silk Roads, the trade routes connecting cultural regions of Central and Inner Asia with the Western world.

Chinese records indicate that the Tangut state was established in 1038, when the Tangut emperor Li Yuanhao (r. 1032–1048) officially informed the Northern Song court of his new status, but Tangut texts count the state’s chronology from Yuanhao’s grandfather Li Jiqian (963–1004).1 Tangut script was created not long before 1038.2 Mongol invasions of 1215 and 1227 destroyed the Tangut state; its population was assimilated into the Mongol Empire or integrated into Tibetan areas.3

Khara-Khoto

The city of Khara-Khoto was an important northern outpost of the Xixia state through the mid-fourteenth century and remained populated even after the state’s demise in 1227.4 Studies of a large cache of multilingual printed and written Buddhist texts, documents, and printed and painted images offer insights into the Tanguts’ history, religion, art, literature, economy, and cross-cultural connections.5

Buddhism was crucial for unifying and protecting the Tangut realm and maintaining its prosperity. The state propagated Buddhist teachings by acquiring Buddhist texts inviting foreign monks to assist in translation projects, building temples, and importing relics.

Tangut Buddhism

Chinese texts served as the initial source of Buddhism among the Tangut elite, as confirmed by acquisitions of the Buddhist canon in Chinese and its translation into Tangut. The cosmopolitan Tangut state embraced diverse sources of Buddhist culture—Indian, Tibetan, Chinese, and Khitan (Liao)—and systematically integrated them into its own cultural production. Several tantric Buddhist texts were translated from Tibetan and some probably from Sanskrit.6

The Tanguts’ expansion westward brought them into direct contact with Tibetans of the eastern Tibetan region (Amdo) and facilitated connections with central Tibet, increasing exchanges with Tibetan Buddhist traditions.7 Kadam, Kagyu, and Sakya Buddhist lineages spread in Xixia alongside Chinese Buddhist traditions. Tibetan and Tangut sources indicate that some Tibetan monks served as Imperial and State Preceptors in the Xixia court.8

Tangut Buddhist hierarchy was headed by the State Preceptor, a position of “supreme” rank, according to Tangut legislation. Another important figure was the imperial preceptor. It seems that in practice, the imperial preceptor’s single duty was to perform tantric empowerment (abhisheka) rituals for the emperor, and the highly prestigious position included an assigned temple.9

Triggered by the inflow of Tibetan texts during the reign of Renzong Renxiao (r. 1139–1193), new translations of canonical scriptures continued, with the focus shifted to revise earlier translations. The arrival of the Indian translator Sumatikirti in the late eleventh century and the Kashmiri Buddhist scholar (pandita) Jayananda with his Tibetan disciples in the 1140s perhaps enabled the Tangut transcription of invocation spells (dharani) and mantras to more closely reflect Sanskrit sounds.10

The Amended and Revised Legal Code of the Tiansheng Reign Period, promulgated in the mid-twelfth century, stipulated regulations for monastic ordination as well as the curriculum of Buddhist doctrinal learning and mandatory texts for monastic communities’ recitations. The list included several Pancharaksha texts associated with the protection of the state and the well-being of sentient beings, as indicated by the Tangut imperial preface to the publication.11

Woodblock Prints (Xylographs)

The method of printing text and images by pressing paper to carved wooden blocks that have been inked and the movable-type method were well documented in the region. Tanguts made a significant contribution to the development of printing technology as early as the beginning of the twelfth century. In Khara-Khoto, texts in Tibetan and translated into Tangut and Chinese had been printed from woodblocks by the mid-twelfth century.12

The printing of images was widely practiced, and images often served as frontispieces of the printed Buddhist texts, as in this example. The origins of the printed images’ compositions remain in question, but portable scroll paintings and illuminated manuscripts were among the sources of the prints’ iconography. Mass-produced printed images, in turn, helped to propagate the iconographies, visual conventions, and messages these images and texts conveyed.

Most of the printed publications in Xixia were distributed by the imperial court for several statewide Buddhist assemblies in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but some texts may have been published through alternative venues. The names of the temples mentioned in the publications’ colophons indicate the translators’ affiliations and, possibly, publication sites.13

Many of the materials discovered throughout the former Tangut territory, especially the texts of tantric instructions, were not listed in the legal regulations for the monasteries. This suggests that Buddhism in the Tangut state performed two functions. “Popular” Buddhism utilized various manuscripts and printed esoteric instructions (upadesha). Worship of Maitreya, broadly popular in Xixia, may have been expressly intended for the well-being and good rebirths of the royal family. Though not officially sanctioned, Maitreya-related sutras were published and widely distributed during Buddhist assemblies. “Official” Buddhism employed the sanctioned canonical texts, including the state protection texts of Tibetan and Chinese origin.14

The Illustrated Buddhist Text for Protection of the State

This printed work of the Five Sutras was published on the order of the Tangut emperor Renzong for nationwide distribution. Its title and the opening line of a preface, composed by Qi Qiu, appear to the left of the image. The sutras, known as Five Protections (Pancharaksha), are associated with Five Protector Goddesses and their specific mantras. Chinese and Tibetan traditions include translations of the Pancharaksha texts with dharani and instructions for their use, and various Tangut texts have similar content.

This Tangut translation of the Buddha’s discourse (sutra) from Tibetan,15 printed in a folded (concertina) format, sets up the text’s narrative. The Buddha and the Four Great Kings offer protection in the aftermath of an earthquake at Vaishali.16 The frontispiece combines two images rendered in a seemingly Chinese mode. The left frame (fig. 3) shows a semiwrathful deity seated on a large throne with left leg pendent, surrounded by her retinue. Dressed in Indic fashion, she has four heads, each with three eyes; her hair is standing on end; and her eight arms hold various implements.17 This is one of the five goddesses, Mahasahasrapramardani. The cartouche reads, “Root Dharani Heavenly Mother ‘protecting the Great Thousands of States.’” The tantric iconography of the deity stems from Indian and Nepalese models, as in the illuminated manuscripts of Pancharaksha in the National Museum in Delhiand San Diego Museum of Art(fig. 4).18 In the lower corners of the image, two figures in Tangut royal attire sit with their hands in supplication, and the whole tableau is framed by a vajra fence. The image diverges from earlier prints of Pancharakshadharanis found in Dunhuang.19

The right frame image (fig. 5) follows the previous modes of Chinese sutra frontispieces in printed form (fig. 6).20 A kneeling royal figure in front of Buddha Shakyamuni replaces the elder Subhuti, depicted in another sutra. To the right of the Buddha are Ananda and Bodhisattvas Manjushri and Samantabhadra, identified by cartouches. The convention of depicting royal figures as participants inserted into the scenes in Tangut Buddhist images indicates imperial patronage. The whole group faces the goddess and the text, denoting their importance.

During the two hundred years of the Xixia state’s existence and well after its destruction in 1227 by the expanding Mongol Empire of Chinggis Khan, the Tangut people and their Buddhist culture, with material objects like this print, produced a lasting sociopolitical legacy in Central Asia, including in their conqueror’s culture, religious authority, and state rituals.