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Chapter 17
The Early Ming Imperial
Atelier on the Tibetan
Frontier
Karl Debreczeny
Plate 17.1 Arhat depicted writing Tibetan,
detail from a set of ‘Water-Land’ (shuilu
水陸) ritual paintings from Baoningsi
寳寧寺, Shanxi province, Ming dynasty,
c. 1449. Ink, colours and gold on silk,
height 120cm, width 61cm. Shanxi
Museum
152 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450
A great deal of Tibetan Buddhist art was created in the early
Ming imperial workshops, both for use at court and as part
of complex diplomatic exchanges with Tibetan hierarchs.
This has not been the traditional understanding of the
Ming, which is typically described as expending a great deal
of energy to reassert an ethnic Chinese identity in the wake
of Mongol rule. Indeed the early Ming court followed
Mongol precedents in drawing on a Tibetan model for
creating an imperial Buddhist vocabulary symbolic of
divine rule, and Tibetan Buddhism continued as a faith of
the powerful within the inner court. First this chapter will
introduce early Ming interest in Tibetan Buddhism and its
artistic production and use at court. Then it will focus on an
example of the political use of such objects: a site on the
Sino-Tibetan frontier, Qutansi 瞿曇寺 (Gautama
Monastery), the Ming court’s close involvement being (in
part) one element of a larger strategy to secure its borders. 1
Ming imperial interests in Tibetan Buddhism
With the decline of Buddhism in India in the 13th century,
Tibet became the new holy land to the west and source of
Buddhist learning. Tibetan Buddhism became particularly
important in Inner Asian models of kingship and found
support in the courts of the Tanguts and the Mongols. In a
Ming painting (Pl. 17.1), for instance, from a set related to
the ‘Water-Land’ (shuilu 水陸) rite from Baoningsi 寶寧寺
(Precious Peace Monastery), an arhat is depicted writing in
Tibetan, which had become by this time the medium of the
faith.