Shuilu Fahui
The Shuilu Fahui is a Chinese Buddhist ceremony typically performed with the aim of facilitating the nourishment and ultimate liberation of all sentient beings in saṃsāra. The service is often credited as one of the greatest rituals in Chinese Buddhism, as it is the most elaborate and requires the labor of monastics and temple staff and the financial funding of lay Buddhist sponsors. The full name of the ceremony is the Fajie Shengfan Shuilu Pudu Dazhai Shenghui, which translates to "Water and Land Universal Deliverance and Grand Feast Assembly for Saints and Ordinary Sentient Beings in the Dharma Realm."
The ceremony is attributed to the Emperor Wu of Liang, who was inspired one night when he had a dream in which a monk advised him to organize a ceremony to help all beings living on land and in the seas to be surfeited from their suffering, hence the name of the rite. Traditions hold that the ritual itself was first composed by Emperor Wu, with guidance from the Chan Buddhist master Baozhi, who is traditionally regarded as an emanation of Shiyimian Guanyin. The liturgy received further edits and addendums in later periods, most notably by the monks Zhipan and Zongze Cijue during the Song dynasty as well as the monk Yunqi Zhuhong during the Ming dynasty.
During the Shuilu Fahui, all enlightened and unenlightened beings in saṃsāra are invoked and invited to attend and partake in the physical and spiritual nourishment provided. In this way, the main goal of the ritual is to facilitate the nourishment and ultimate liberation of all sentient beings, including devas, asuras and humans. The ritual combines features of Chinese operatic tradition, the recitation of various sūtras and repentance rites similar to other Mahāyāna rituals as well as esoteric Vajrayāna practices. As a result, the Shuilu Fahui has been seen by traditional commentators as a union of the various different traditions in Chinese Buddhism, such as such as Chan, Zhenyan, Pure Land, Tiantai and Huayan.
History
Liang dynasty to Sui dynasty (6th–7th century)
Traditional records state that the Shuilu Fahui ceremony originated during the reign of Emperor Wu of Liang, who was historically renowned as a devout patron of Buddhism. According to accounts, Emperor Wu had a dream one night in which a holy monk told him about a ritual called the Shuilu ''Guangda Mingzhai which had the ability to deliver universal salvation to sentient beings in samsara. The next day, he consulted with ministers and śramaṇas at court about his dream, but no one had an explanation except for the Chan Buddhist master Baozhi, who told him to search through the Buddhist canon. In doing so, the Emperor found a scriptural text which recounted Ānanda's encounter with a ghost king named Jiaomian.This specific encounter is also described in two later sources that were translated during the Tang dynasty : the Foshuo Jiu Mianran Egui Tuoloni Shenzhou Jingwikisource:zh:佛說救面然餓鬼陀羅尼神咒經| which was translated by Śikṣānanda:zh:实叉难陀| between the years 700 - 704, and the Foshuo Jiuba Yankou Egui Tuoluoni Jingwikisource:zh:佛說救拔焰口餓鬼陀羅尼經| which was translated by Amoghavajra between the years 757 - 770. According to these sūtras, Ānanda once encountered a ghost king named either Mianran or Yankou that warned him about his impending death and rebirth in the realm of hungry ghosts which would happen unless he was able to give one measure of food and drink the size of a bushel used in Magadha to each of the one hundred thousand nayutas'' of hungry ghosts and other beings. The encounter prompted Ānanda to beg Śākyamuni Buddha for a way to avert his fate, at which point the Buddha revealed a ritual and a dhāraṇī that he had been taught in a past life when he was a Brahmin by the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, who is known in East Asia as Guanyin. Part of the ritual involved the brief invocation of the names of four Buddhas. According to the sūtra, the performance of the ritual would not only feed the hungry ghosts but would also ensure the longevity of the performing ritualist. The sūtra ends with Ānanda performing the rite according to the Buddha's instructions and avoiding the threat of rebirth into the realm of the hungry ghosts. Buddhist traditions hold that he eventually achieved longevity and attained the state of arhathood.
Using this text, the Emperor composed the ritual, which took three years to complete. In the year 505, after receiving advice of Baozhi regarding where to hold the ritual, he summoned another eminent monk, the vinaya master Sengyou, and personally took part in the first performance at Zexin Temple, now named Jinshan Temple, on the island of Jinshan near Zhenjiang in modern-day Jiangsu. Traditional accounts go on to state that the text was lost in the following Chen dynasty and Sui dynasty.
Tang dynasty (7th–10th century)
According to traditional accounts, during the Xianheng era of the Tang dynasty period, the Chan master Daoying of Fahai Temple in the capital city of Chang'an was visited by the spirit of King Zhuangxiang of Qin, who requested that he reinstate the Shuilu Fahui ceremony and told him that a copy of the ritual texts that had been lost were in the possession of a monk named Yi Ji at Dajue Temple. After retrieving them, Daoying oversaw the revival of the ceremony and conducted its first performance at Shanbei Temple.Various references to performances of Shuilu Fahui ceremonies during the Tang dynasty were recorded in the form of steles. For instance, in his compendium Baoke Congbian, the author Chen Si wrote about a stele in Jiankang that was made in the year 833 which he labelled a "Tang-era Inscription on Performing a Water and Land Non-Discriminatory Ceremony". He also wrote of another stele near Huzhou that was made in the year 863 that he labelled "Records of the Re-establishment of the Society for the Ceremony of the Netherworld and the Living World at Xingguo Temple". Another Tang-era stele called the "Record of the Water and Land Assembly of the Eastern Nengren Temple" located in Wuhu is mentioned in another book, the Yudi Beiji Mu, by the author Wang Xiangzhi.
Historical records also document the development of shuilu ritual paintings during this time. Shuilu ritual paintings are a special style of traditional Chinese paintings based on Buddhist divinities and all other figures in Buddhist cosmology that are invoked into the ritual space during the Shuilu Fahui ceremony. These paintings are typically enshrined and arranged at various altars during the ceremony in special formations according to the ritual manual, sometimes forming a particular maṇḍala. While the majority of these paintings usually depict Buddhist deities, a number of them also depicts non-Buddhist figures such as Taoist gods as well as the spirits of past emperors, officials and commoners since they are also invoked during the ceremony, being counted among the unenlightened sentient beings of saṃsāra that are invited to the ceremony to partake in the nourishment. In the Yizhou minghua lu by the Song dynasty writer Huang Xiufu, he records the biography of a Tang dynasty painter named Zhang Nanben, who was active in Chengdu in Sichuan from 880s onwards and who specialized in paintings of Buddhist figures, dragon kings, gods and ghosts. The biography states that, upon Emperor Xizong's return to the Tang capital of Chang'an following the end of the Huang Chao Rebellion, the prefectural magistrate Chen established a Water and Land Cloister at Baoli Temple and hired Nanben to paint over 120 paintings of the spirits of Heaven and Earth, the Three Officials and Five Emperors, Leigong and Dianmu, the spirits of mountains and marshes and well as past emperors and kings.
Song dynasty (10th–13th century)
After the Tang dynasty, Shuilu Fahui ceremonies continued to grow in popularity and were widely practiced in the succeeding Song dynasty by monastics, and historical records proliferated with numerous accounts of such ceremonies.Imperial Patronage
In particular, it was relatively common for the imperial family and government to commission performances of the ritual, especially in times of conflict or upon the death of a political figure. Various Song-era historical documents such as the Xu Zizhi Tongjian Changbian, an extensive chronicle of the history of the Northern Song dynasty in 980 volumes by the historian Li Tao, and voluminous court records as well as miscellaneous writings by officials like Wang Anshi and Qi Chongli, make numerous mentions of multiple performances of the Shuilu Fahui ceremony being commissioned by the imperial families of both the Song dynasty and its contemporaneous rival Jin dynasty. The following are a few examples. Both the Song Emperor Yingzong and the Song Empress Cao were commemorated with performances of the Shuilu Fahui ceremony upon their deaths. In 1081, the Song Emperor Shenzong sponsored a Shuilu Fahui ceremony at a temple in Guizhou for the spirits of fallen soldiers and civilians from Yongzhou, Qinzhou and Lianzhou who had perished during the Song–Đại Việt war. In 1083, Emperor Shenzong commissioned another Shuilu Fahui ceremony at a temple in Mingzhou that was held on the eve of a one-month mourning ceremony in commemoration of the death of King Munjong of Goryeo. In 1085, three Shuilu Fahui ceremonies were commissioned and held in the Funing Palace to commemorate the death of Emperor Shenzong. The famous poet Su Shi, also widely known as Su Dongpo, wrote three separate poems, one for each occasion.For the performance during the Dongzhi Festival, he wrote:For the performance during the Chinese New Year, he wrote:For the performance during the Hanshi Festival, he wrote:In 1093, at least 3 Shuilu Fahui ceremonies were held for the Song Empress Gao after her death at her residence, Chongqing Palace and at Fusheng Chan Cloister |. In 1131 and 1132, the Song Emperor Gaozong commissioned three Shuilu Fahui ceremonies to commemorate the death of Empress Dowager Meng, and the poet Qi Chongli composed poetic prayer verses for a few of the occasions. The Empress Dowager had earlier been made reagent of a short-lived puppet state by the Jin empire when they invaded the Song capital of Kaifeng, but had shown loyalty to Emperor Gaozong by ending her regency and declaring him the rightful Emperor after he returned to the city in 1127. In 1134, Emperor Gaozong sponsored another Shuilu Fahui ceremony to provide relief to the spirits of fallen soldiers after the general Han Shizhong defeated a joint-invasion by forces from the Jin empire and its puppet state Pseudo-Qi at Chengzhou. After the Jin Emperor Taizong ascended the throne in 1123, he invited a sandalwood statue to Minzhong Temple in Beijing and held a Shuilu Fahui ceremony for over seven days and nights.