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the Yongle emperor is known in Tibetan sources, such as The himself Great Khan. According to Tibetan sources, Yongle
Blue Annals, as Ye Wang (Ye dbang), ‘The Prince of Yan 燕’, expressed an interest in recreating their priest-patron
his previous title as the prince of the Beijing area, suggesting relationship, and made a similar offer to send troops into
that the Yongle emperor, who was not the crown prince, was Tibet in order to install the Karmapa as the temporal ruler
well acquainted with Tibetans, and they with him, during and forcibly convert all monasteries to his order, an offer
his early career in Beijing during the Hongwu era. 9 similarly declined. Yongle’s offer parallels Qubilai’s offer to
Phakpa, as does the response, which was to decline in favour
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The visit of the Fifth Karmapa of religious plurality.
The most significant event in Sino-Tibetan relations during The Karmapas were of particular interest to Yongle as
the early Ming was the visit of the Fifth Karmapa, Deshin there exists a Buddhist path to legitimisation through
Shekpa (De bzhin gshegs pa; 1384–1415) (Pl. 17.4), to the empowerment, namely the path of the cakravartin ruler which
early Ming capital of Nanjing in 1407. The Karmapa taught the Mongols had employed, and the Karmapas, who were
Yongle’s courtiers and several members of his family while either the final imperial preceptors of the Yuan empire or
he stayed in Nanjing for almost a year, and among those who held a comparable position in the waning years of the
10
received instruction was Empress Xu 徐 (1362–1407). In Mongol court, were by this time the primary transmitters of
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dealing with the Karmapa, Yongle consciously drew this esoteric power. Yongle thus invited the Fifth Karmapa
parallels in his own actions to Qubilai Khan’s relationship to court in 1403, barely a year after coming to power, and
with his Tibetan Imperial Preceptor Phakpa during the received various initiations. After the Karmapa’s visit Yongle
founding of the previous Yuan dynasty. Yongle also indeed styled himself a cakravartin ruler, and some Tibetan
bestowed on the Karmapa the title Dabao fawang 大寶法王, sources obligingly describe Yongle as a cakravartin king after
or ‘Great Precious King of the Dharma’ – the same title these events, specifically an iron-wheel bālacakravartin: ‘one
Qubilai had bestowed on Phakpa when the former declared who turns the wheel of the doctrine by force’. In the portrait
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of the Karmapa (see Pl. 17.4) we see this relationship
codified: Yongle is receiving consecration as a sacral ruler,
Plate 17.4 Fifth Karmapa (1384–1415) and the Yongle emperor
(r. 1403–24), c. 18th century. Pigments on cotton, height 100cm, with a mirror reflecting Yongle’s visage while water is poured
width 60cm. Current location unknown on it from a ritual vessel. One can see that this painting both
reproduces the official Yongle portrait exactly, at lower right,
and, above him, directly quotes from the 1407 miracle
handscroll produced by Yongle court painters. 14
Visual evidence for continuity from the Mongol Yuan in
the artistic production of the Ming imperial atelier is the
presence of an already fully mature Sino-Tibetan artistic
synthesis in the early years of the 15th century, the most
famous examples being the bronzes of the Yongle period.
15
Yuan court prototypes for these Yongle Buddhist images can
be found in Yuan woodblock printings and locally in the
surviving stone carved images on the Juyong Pass 居庸關
(1345) which date to the final years of the Mongol empire in
China.
Images made in the Ming workshops and sent to Tibet
were copied and had a profound effect on Tibetan art, from
entire genres such as arhat painting to particular images,
such as the famous ‘Udayana Buddha’, represented by the
impressive gilt bronze with a Xuande 宣德 reign mark
(1426–35) in the Musée Cernuschi, known to Tibetans as
‘the Sandalwood Lord of China’ (rgya nag gi tsandan jo bo)
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which was both reproduced and venerated. For example, a
large painting of this Buddha with a Yongle reign mark
(1412) can still be found on display at Nénying (gNas rnying)
Monastery, in Tsang province, Tibet. A copy of a
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handscroll recording miracles the Karmapa performed
while in the capital Nanjing (1407), sent to the Karmapa’s
seat Tsurphu (mTshur phu) Monastery, became one of the
primary models for an entire Tibetan style, the painting
tradition of the Karmapa Encampment (Karma sGar bris). 18
One of the most famous visual manifestations of Yongle’s
engagement with Tibetan Buddhism is this same
monumental 50-metre long handscroll known as the Miracles
of the Mass of Universal Salvation Conducted by the Fifth Karmapa
for the Yongle Emperor (in Chinese known as Pudu Ming Taizu

154 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450