ABSTRACT

According to legend, the famed Indian Buddhist monarch King Aśoka 阿育王left an indelible record in China, stretching back to the Zhou dynasty. The potency of this legend blossomed much later in the region of Wuyue 吳越, one of the quasi-independent southern kingdoms during the so-called Five Dynasties (906–959) and Ten Kingdoms period. Inspired by the anxieties of displacement from and an admiration for India characteristic of a borderland complex, countered with translocations of Indian motifs, Hangzhou, the capital of Wuyue, developed a rich landscape of monasteries, temples, stūpas, etc., that transformed the region from Buddhist borderland to Buddhist center. This chapter examines the extent of the making and marking Buddhist sacred space in Wuyue, and its continued influence in defining the region as a Buddhist center, eventually manifesting in the Five Mountains and Ten Temples institutional framework in the Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279).