Ritual Topography: Embodiment and Vertical Space

·期刊原文
Ritual Topography: Embodiment and Vertical Space
in Buddhist Monastic practice
by Reinders, Eric.
History of Religions
Vol.36 No.3
Pp.244-264
Feb 1997
COPYRIGHT 1997 University of Chicago

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Of old, there was a mynah bird, a monkey, and a great elephant.
Together they lived in a forest as friends. They said to each other:

"The most seniors(1) of us should be respected [gongliang] with
ritual
form [li]. How can we live together if we don't know respect in
ritual form [lijing]?
The elephant said: "[I am so old that] I saw this [now tall] tree
grow [when it was] even with my belly."
The monkey said: "[I am so old that] I have crouched on the
ground and touched the top of the tree with my hand."
The bird said: "I brought the seed of this tree from a distant
forest and let it fall, and so it grew. I should be the most
senior."
So at that time, the great elephant carried the monkey on its
back, the bird stood on the monkey, and they traveled all around.
This story appears toward the end of chapter 1 of an extended
discussion of bowing practice, Shimen guijingyi ("Buddhist Rites of
Obeisance"), by the Vinaya master Daoxuan (596-667).(2) His point is
that seniority is one determinant of ritual status, which is
expressed here in directly physical terms as senior = higher, junior
= lower. In practical terms, this kind of correlation between
vertical ritual space and seniority means that age is one criterion
for determining who bows to whom, who places their body lower than
the other. As is always the case in the division of things, each
side is assigned different values, in the form of a hierarchy.
I treat the notion of hierarchy as essentially an embodied strategy
which takes certain sets of categories (e.g., old-young,
male-female) and correlates them through the basic metaphor of
vertical distinction (high-low or above-below). Hence, in the story,
the physical height of the bird at the top was due to his seniority.
There is explicit correlation of seniority to height: older stands
on younger.
Bowing practice, as the ritual placement of bodies in lower position
vis-a-vis other bodies, serves to both represent and embody unequal
distinctions, which in some sense define the conceptual structure of
traditional Chinese society. How do we conceive of this placement?
How is it reproduced? In dealing with a distinction of higher and
lower, how can we understand the relationship of the physical or
spatial distinction and other kinds of distinctions, be they moral,
social, or spiritual? How do we deal with the polysemy of the word
"up" in the two statements; "I look up to that light fixture" and "I
look up to my guru"?(3) We need to account for ritual topography.
Pierre Bourdieu suggests one avenue: "When the elementary acts of
bodily gymnastics (going up or down, forwards or backwards, etc.) .
. . are highly charged with social meanings and values,
socialization instills a sense of the equivalences between physical
space and social space and between movements (rising, falling, etc.)
in the two spaces and thereby roots the most fundamental structures
of the group in the primary experiences of the body which . . .
takes metaphors seriously."(4) This remark, of course, begs further
questions: What is the nature of this "socialization" which "roots"
social structure in the body? How does a bodily act become "highly
charged" or "instilled"? This essay seeks to address these questions
by analyzing instituted relationships between human bodies. In
another context, Bourdieu says: "What exists is a space of relations
which is just as real as a geographical space, in which movements
have to be paid for by labour, by effort and especially by time (to
move upwards is to raise oneself, to climb and to bear the traces or
the stigmata of that effort)."(5) If this "space of relations" were
indeed a geographical landscape, it would not be a level playing
field. The ritual terrain of complex social interaction requires
effort to traverse because one is constantly looking up or looking
down.
The ritual topography of the Chinese Buddhist monk is evident in
many spatial and discursive aspects of monastic life. Traditionally,
monasteries are always in the mountains, even when they are, in
fact, in the city or the plains. The entrance to a monastery is
frequently called "mountain gate" (shanmen). The language used to
speak of the physical site of the temple or monastery expresses the
site as if it were a mountain-one "goes up" (shang) as one "goes in"
(ru), goes down as one goes out. Hence, the abbot "ascends the hall"
(shangtang); the term for "abbot" is "high seat" (shangzuo). A
similar linguistic pattern was the case with imperial sites of
ritual, such as audience halls. Partly, of course, it was physically
true: the central image or throne would be raised upon a platform.
The "high seat" of an abbot both represented and embodied the
abbot's social and spiritual authority over others.
The logic of verticality in social relations is also evident, for
example, in the training of new monks-in the inculcation of the
monastic habitus, to use Bourdieu's term.(6) Daoxuan's basic
training manual for newly ordained monks, the Jiaojie xinxue biqiu
xinghu layi ("Admonitions for new student-monks to maintain
discipline," abbreviated as Jiaojie luyi)(7) makes it entirely clear
that as a rule, the junior monk must bow to authority figures such
as the abbot, the master, and the teacher. Physical lowering should
be enacted in order to embody the lower status of a junior monk. I
will discuss the spatial logic of this text in more detail below.
Central to the internal organization of monastic institutions was
the correlation of graded differences in age and height, and thus of
time and space. Mastery of the rules presupposed recognition of
these distinctions, which constituted social structure. The ideal
monastic structure was built from such distinctions, which were
trained into the body, and thus naturalized, through obeisance
practice. Daoxuan cites the four basic rules of monastic hierarchy,
in each case to be embodied by a bow (or abstention from a bow):(8)
1. Those of the way do not bow to laity. (Monastic over lay)
2. Monks do not bow to nuns. (Male over female)
3. Those who preserve the precepts do not bow to those who break the
precepts. (Disciplined over undisciplined)(9)
4. Those who received the precepts before do not bow to those who
received the precepts after. (Senior over junior-also illustrated by
the story of the bird, monkey, and elephant)
It is important to remember that my use of the word "over" in the
parentheses above is intended both figuratively and literally: in an
immediate sense, bowing creates a vertical distinction of high and
low. These four rules can be represented spatially in the form of a
diagram. (See fig. 1.)
[Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The interplay of vertical distinctions (as embodied by the bow) and
distinctions such as monastic and lay or male and female, involves
in turn still other oppositions--such as inner and outer; Chinese
and non-Chinese; more or less complete revelations of Truth;
Buddhist scripture and Confucian Classic--and takes place within a
still broader field of distinctions common to Chinese discourse in
general, such as phenomena and principle, form and mind.
The complexity of the weaving of these multiple sets of oppositions,
and their mapping onto the body, is suggested, for example, by
Daoxuan's treatment of a particular bowing method called
toumianlizu, "head and face bow to feet." Daoxuan writes:
In the sutras and vinaya texts it often says "head and face bow to
feet" or it says "head-bow to Buddha's feet" [dinglifozu]. What is
highest on me is the head, what is lowest on the other is the feet.
Taking what I honour to pay respect to what is lowest on the other
is the extreme form of obeisance. It is rather like among the laity,
when friends who have great respect for each other do not use their
personal names, but rather they call each other "beneath the feet"
[zuxia]. The meaning is of this kind. It is also similar to how the
Son of Heaven and the heir-apparent have their special terms of
reference. Not daring to refer directly to the body [of the
emperor], some say "[one who] mounts the carriage," or "chariots and
carriages" [chengyu, chejia]. Or some say "beneath the stairs," or
"beneath the hall" [bixia, dianxia]. All rites of respect are
one,(10) but the styles of practicing respect in the center and in
the borderlands are not the same. In this land, when we establish
the norms of respect, we take a remote bow as respectful. In India,
when they establish respect, the supreme bow is one in which they
approach close to the body and place hands on the feet.(11)
Daoxuan moves easily in this discussion between actual head-to-feet
movements (as in a particular form of a bow) and what might be
called "linguistic bowing," the use of some reference to what is
underneath the feet as a respectful second-person pronoun. The same
spatial structure is applied to a variety of objects: Buddha,
friends, and the emperor.
The internal organization of monastic institutions was constituted
by correlated sets of distinctions which functioned as criteria for
determining who bows to whom. Monastic training thereby emplaced
"the most fundamental structures of the group in the primary
experiences of the body,"(12) first by mapping reverence onto the
body in the form of headfoot distinctions ("What is highest on me is
the head, what is lowest on the other is the feet") and second, by
making distinctions of age, gender, and so on, the monk's guide to
bodily action and orientation. Socially understandable behavior for
the young monk required "a sense of the equivalences between
physical space and social space."(13) To further elaborate the
spatial logic of the training required to instill that "sense" or
"feel for the game," I return to Daoxuan's training manual.
VERTICAL LOGIC IN MONASTIC TRAINING
Daoxuan's guide for newly ordained monks, the Jiaojie xinxue biqiu
xirghu luyi ("Admonitions for new student-monks to maintain
discipline"), consists of a short preface followed by 466 rules of
conduct for newly ordained monks in twenty-three sections. Most of
the rules in this long list are very bluntly stated commands and
prohibitions, do's and don'ts of the monastery. The rules are
grouped by topic, with a clear inner-outer spatial organization.
Reading the list of section titles, it is easy to imagine a monk
being led through the monastery, instructed at each point. The first
section deals with "norms for entering the compound [si]." Once
inside the gate, of course, the new monk must know how to behave in
front of his superiors, the authority figures of that demarcated
space, so sections 2 and 3 concern correct etiquette in dealings
with the Master (shi 1). Then follow some general pointers on
behavior within successively smaller spatial designations: compound
(si), cloister (yuan), and room (shi 4). At this point in the
sequence of topics, with a general orientation established, the new
monk was introduced to the Teacher (or, at least, to the topic of
dealing with the Teacher).
The next four sections are related to food: behavior at the two
mealtimes, leaving the mess hall after eating, and how to wash and
protect one's bowl. Sections 12 and 13 relate to communal ritual
actions: entering the assembly and entering the Buddha Hall to
recite the monastic vows. Sections 14-16 are on the general topic of
personal hygiene (bathroom, washhouse).
Then the newly ordained monk's attention is brought back to
body-to-body coordination with other monks: the four sections from
17 to 20 share the theme of etiquette in dealings with monks of
higher status. Sections 21 and 22 are on the menial tasks of a newly
ordained monk: sweeping the ground and handling the water jug. And,
while the first section was on entering the compound, the last
section is-called "norms for entering villages" (i.e., exiting the
compound).(14) The first and last sections thus form an in-and-out
frame for the text.
The preface to the work begins: "When I consider those entering the
Way, [I see] they do not immediately master its wonderful practices.
They must obey the rules, and only then can they understand monastic
discipline." It would be unreasonable to expect a man to read or
develop competency in the entire Vinaya before becoming a monk.
These rules seem to present a "crash course," but this text is not a
kind of digest, quintessence, or summary of the canonical Vinaya. On
the contrary, Daoxuan says in the preface, "The Vinaya takes five
years to study."
One of the main themes throughout the guide is the physical
relationship of junior monk to senior monk, to the Master, Teacher,
or Abbot. An example of the kind of relationship established between
bodies is section 2, "Norms for Standing in the Presence of a
Teacher" (six items):
1. You must not stand directly in front of the Master.
2. You must not stand directly behind the Master.
3. You must not stand too close.
4. You must not stand too far away.
5. You must not stand in a high place [when addressing the Master].
6. You must not stand upwind [of the Master]. When you must have
dealings with the Master, stand at the angle of the temples, about
seven feet away.
Other examples include:
Constantly observe the Master's countenance. Do not make him
displeased. When before the Master, you must not greet people of the
same class as you. When before the Master, you must not accept the
greeting and bowing of other people. Address questions to the
Master's face; beforehand, put your palms together and bend the
body. You must not speak before the Master is finished speaking.
First wash the Master's bowl, then your own bowl. You must not go to
bed before the Master. You must not get up after the Master. Do not
step on the Master's shadow. Hearing the Master outside, returning,
you should go out to welcome him. In front of the Master, if you
have not yet been permitted to sit [or leave] you must not abruptly
sit [or leave]. If there are words being spoken, you must modestly
put yourself in the lower position, you must not take the upper
portion. (shangfen) Seeing the abbot, you must stand up and greet
him. Before the abbot has received food, you must not receive food
first. Before the abbot has eaten, you must not eat first. You must
not walk in front of the abbot. In front of the Master, don't
scratch your itches. You must not make a noise belching.(15)
Clearly, when present, the Master or other authority figure is
always the focus of attention. The monk must face him and pay
attention until allowed to leave. The monk is told to bow when
asking a question and when receiving instruction. In dealings with
the Master, no other people are supposed to compete as the focus of
attention, not even oneself. There is considerable emphasis on
control of the body's physical impulses: scratching, yawning,
laughing, blowing the nose, urinating, spitting, and chewing.(16)
Instead, the body of the Master becomes the "clock," or determinant
of correct time of action. That is, the monk cannot simply get up,
or go to bed, wash his feet, put on his socks, sit down, leave, or
eat, according to his own impulses and dispositions. Rather, the
presence and orientation of the master's body determines if the monk
can sit down or get up.
The injunction not to step on the Master's shadow problematizes
placement of the feet with reference to the Master's body. Even
standing seven feet away, a person's shadow can reach another
person. The special status of the senior monk's body also extends to
objects which touch his body: the monk is instructed not to sit or
lie where senior monks often sit or lie. Elsewhere in the text are
instructions on taking special care with the Master's water bottle
and other possessions.
Hierarchy in this code is characterized by rules that link one body
to another. That is, the rules institute an imbalanced association
between one body (the Master's) and another (the monk's). "You must
not go to bed before the Master"--the junior waits for the senior's
movements, and the senior is the first to act. The Master's
performance of a certain act is the precondition of the monk's
performance of that or other acts, but not vice versa.
I imagine the monasteries of Daoxuan as places of ceaseless training
and reenforcement of training.(17) Daoxuan places the act of
training as causally prior to understanding the goodness of such
training. As quoted above, he says, "Those entering the Way do not
immediately master its wonderful practices. They must obey the
rules, and only then can they understand the discipline" (emphasis
added). First, you do; then (perhaps) you understand. I think this
approach accords with the general educational philosophy of
traditional China, which emphasized first rote memorization and only
later enlightened comprehension. However, even if we can
chronologically locate the use of the Jiaojie luyi at the start of
monastic training, the new monk is not a tabula rasa. He already has
knowledge, an episteme, and ways of doing things, a habitue. The
institution of monkhood does not start from scratch. Children's
ritual training preceded, and in some cases conflicted with,
monastic ritual training.
The passage to monkhood in medieval China usually went through
postulant, novice, and then to monk. On the whole, most trainees
began their reorientation to the stylization proper to the monastic
life after many years (in childhood primarily) of being the focus of
a more diffuse and not specifically Buddhist discipline.(18) The
training of a novice was much more of a retraining, having to fight
against not only the diffuse white noise of general habit and "bad"
influence but also the by-now ingrained "orthodoxy" (orthopraxis) of
patterns established in childhood. The memory of the body, I
suggest, is deeper than the memory of the mind, precisely because
once an action is a habit we tend to forget all about it.
Daoxuan, known as the founder of the Chinese Vinaya School
(Luzong),(19) attempted to standardize monastic practice (around the
Four Part Vinaya, Sifenlu) and shore up its flaws; he attempted to
defend the ritual prerogatives of the monk in the face of
multipronged attacks and mounting state intervention, particularly
the issue of monks not bowing to parents or rulers. In the text in
question, I suggest, he attempted to clarify or heighten what might
be called the stylization of the monk's behavior. The preface
criticizes those young monks who do not take the Vinaya seriously
and who dismiss it prematurely as merely Hinayana. Daoxuan calls
these monastic hooligans "dead wood":
Often, a beginner in the Path runs up against some matters while not
yet skilled, and they have never investigated the regulations, and
so each time are bound up in a web of doubts. Or, they prohibit
something not prohibited, and they depart from the correct rules. Or
they say, "I am a Mahayana person, I don't practice the Dharma of
Hinayana." People like this are many, not just one or two or three.
Thus inwardly they deviate from the Bodhisattva-mind, and outwardly,
they lack the proper conduct of an auditor [disciple of Buddha]. The
four postures (walking, standing, sitting, and reclining) cannot be
nurtured, so these people are called "the dried-up [dead wood]
living beings." People like this proliferate in the past and present
without cease.
This kind of defense of the validity of the Vinaya (Hinayana though
it be) for Mahayana monks is found in other works by Daoxuan,(20)
and his condemnation of lax monks complements his grand praise for
the venerable clerics of the past. He stops short, however, of
condemning monastic hooligans to hell, as does the fifth-century
Shangongjing jing ("Sutra on Properly Offering Respect"),(21) which
describes a "small hell" known as "Hammer-striking" or "Pulverizing"
hell (chuipu or duipu), unbearably hot and inhabited by poisonous
insects, specifically for "monks who do not give rise to a mind of
respect, who speak of the strengths and shortcomings of their
masters."(22) Buddha himself says, "Even if the master truly has
transgressed, still they should not speak."(23)
BOWING AND NOT BOWING IN THE Jinojie Luyi
I would like to take further the exploration of the relationships
between the bodies of junior and senior monks. A great many rules of
Daoxuan's guide for newly ordained monks specify the ritual lowering
of the body. After the preface, the first section begins with a
series of rules on bowing:
1. When outside the compound gates (simen), retain a dignified
demeanor (weiyi).(24)
2. When entering the compound gates, do obeisance (libai), and
recite the customary praises of the Buddha.
3. Gather up your sitting-cloth, join your hands and bend the body;
Then, with a serious expression, walk slowly, at one side of the
walkway, looking ahead.
The text then, begins with a bow.
One section deals explicitly with rules of when not to bow. Given
the intense political pressures a few years previously on the
Buddhist monk's refusal to bow to the emperor, and given that
Daoxuan made it clear that obeisance was necessary and integral to
the Sangha, the exceptions listed here are very interesting:
Section 18. Norms for when you must not bow when you see (Senior)
Monks and Teachers. 11 items.
1. In front of Buddha.
2. In front of the stupa (dianta).
3. When the assembly is gathered.
4. When ill.
5. When in a high seat.
6. When the Master is reclining.
7. When the Master is washing his bowl or having his head shaved.
8. When the Master is washing his feet.
9. When the Master is chewing a willow twig or rinsing his mouth.
10. When the Master is walking in a village.
11. When the Master is in the washroom or toilet.
Here, Daoxuan specifies exceptions to the normal requirement of
junior monks to bow to senior monks and especially to the Master:
when ill; when the Master is engaged in a number of bodily
functions; when washing a bowl; and when in public view outside of
the monastery. The junior monk is also not to bow before the senior
monk while in the direct (frontal) presence of a higher symbolic
object toward which a greater obligation of obeisance is due: Buddha
(image, pagoda, which might include monastic ancestors, texts); when
the assembly is gathered (presumably also in front of a Buddha
image).
Of the bodies in this text, that of the Master becomes the focus of
attention and takes the highest position, canceling out even the
hierarchical obeisance practice of two other unequally ranked monks:
a monk may receive a bow, but not while in the presence of the
Master. Presumably, if any bowing is to take place, it must be
directed toward the highest-ranking monk. There is a prohibition on
being bowed to in the presence of a "higher" ritual object. Here,
the Buddha image ritually "ranks" higher than any monk, although
often the most senior monk is depicted in art and ritual as sitting
with his back to the Buddha, facing the bowing Sangha.
Also, a bow is proscribed while the junior is in a higher place, on
a porch or platform perhaps; when the spatial or physical high-low
relation of the two bodies does not correspond to the prescribed
ritual high-low relation of the two bodies.(25) When the ritually
lower monk is physically higher than the Master, the junior monk
should not bow to the Master and the Master will not respond to a
bow. So, an exception to bowing is made when there is what might be
called a clash of hierarchy as height versus hierarchy as seniority;
a flaw in the correspondence of physical and ritual topography; a
mismatching of the vertical positions of bodies in physical space
and in symbolic space. Implicit here is an association of ritual
rank and physical height: the high rank is above the low rank. In
these situations, presumably, the monk must descend to level ground
before bowing. The importance of flat, level ground in obeisance to
the monk's master is emphasized in the Shangongjing jing: "If the
ground is level and proper [pingzheng], you should do obeisance. If
the ground is not level or too confined, you should withdraw and
stand, and then when the master has gone past, go to a level place
and ask the Dharma."(26) I take this as further evidence of a
conscious effort to prevent any accidental interference of physical
topography with ritual topography.
If we reverse these prohibitions, we may imagine a number of
uncomfortable situations: the senior monk receiving obeisance
instead of the Buddha; a chaos of obeisance; the pathetic efforts of
the infirm; a clash of hierarchy as height versus hierarchy as
seniority; obeisance to a man engaged in personal hygiene and who
therefore cannot respond with
dignity. Also prohibited is the public display of bowing between
monks, which would perhaps disrupt the smooth and formalized
movement of monks through the "village" and present the public
spectacle of obeisance by junior monks, to whom laity were in turn
expected to bow. There is an evident concern with harmonizing the
"code" of obeisance, as well as a concern that obeisance not be done
in the presence of bodies (or objects) that are of significantly
higher or lower rank.(27)
We may compare the eleven items of section 18 to the five of section
17, "Norms for when you should not stand up when you see Monks and
Teachers":
1. When your illness is heavy. (Compare above, When ill.)
2. When having your head shaved. (Compare above, When the Master is
. . . having his head shaved.)
3. At the time of the big meal.
4. At the time of the small meal.
5. When you are in a high place. (Compare above, When in a high
seat.)
Again illness, shaving, and eating are specified, as well as a
high-low distinction. Standing up when the senior monk enters the
room or courtyard (the effective space), while less of a physical
operation requiring floorspace and a temporary halt, can be
considered also as a mode of establishing (embodying) hierarchy.
Standing up, of course, raises the body, even if it is only in order
to then lower the body in a bow.
The above discussion has, I think, shown that medieval Chinese monks
were concerned to establish the logic of ritual topography and keep
it consistent, even if doing so requires not bowing (when physically
higher or in other situations). By way of counterpoint, in the
following section of this article I consider the ritual topography
of the well-known set of five "fundamental human relations"
(lun)--ruler-minister, father-son, husband-wife, elder
brother-younger brother, and friends--in contrast to the above-cited
Buddhist monastic set of distinctions (ordained-lay, monk-nun,
senior-junior, disciplined-undisciplined). Thereby we might extend
the discussion beyond a Buddhist framework and investigate the
ritual topography of Chinese social structure in general.
THE VERTICAL SPACE OF CONFUCIAN FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RELATIONS (lun)
In the medieval debates on the refusal of Buddhist monks to bow to
any laity (even to parents and rulers), the arguments in favor of
forcing monks to bow tended to view these two relationships,
parent-child and ruler-ruled, as inherently natural. Obeisance is
treated as the affirmation (and also the embodiment, the
constitution) of human relationships thought to be fundamental,
natural, and naturally hierarchical, but nonetheless warranting a
certain degree of enforcement in ritual and legal codes. The
arguments of those who wished monks to bow are based on the idea
that hierarchical social order is fundamentally natural, that
hierarchy--or a certain definition of hierarchy--is the real pattern
of existence. A speech by Yifan, for example, asserts: "The father's
benevolence and the son's filial piety arise from Heaven's rule; the
lord's righteousness and the minister's loyalty depend on Earth's
proper form [li]. Of the weightiness of the three venerations, the
lord is first. Of what the five teachings venerate, the father
resides at its head. The fundamental principle of human relations is
the basis for ministers and sons."(28) The traditional Confucian
list of "fundamental human relations" (lun)(29) gives us the
contours of a certain ritual topography, as in figure 2.
[Figure 2 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The set of distinctions in figure 2 also corresponds to traditional
obeisance practice. As Arthur Wolf notes, "In China ancestor worship
is by nature an act of obeisance," the logic of which always
respects these fundamental human distinctions: "parents will abandon
the soul of an adolescent son rather than worship him
themselves."(30) The set of five lun and the set of four monastic
obeisance criteria have a number of rhetorical and structural
similarities. The vertical relationship of ruler to ruled (which
sometimes refers specifically to the ministers and bureaucrats) was
used in Buddhist scripture and by monks as a resource for
representing the relationship of Buddha to "the mass of sentient
beings [zhongsheng]."(31) A secondary homology might be the monkhood
(as the "ministers" of Buddha) and the civil bureaucracy (as the lay
masses, the public "mass of sentient beings").
The nearest clerical parallel to Father and Son is Master and
Disciple, and the rhetoric of inheritance, lineage, and mourning
underscores this homology. The kinship structure of the Sangha has
been the subject of a number of recent studies.(32) Despite claiming
to have "left the household" (chujia), the monk's disengagement from
the family was simultaneous to his placement in a new pseudo-family,
in a pseudo-genetic vertical lineage with ancestors, patriarchs, and
sibling-like generations of disciples. This distinction involves
time differences and the transmission through a lineage. The
distinction between master and disciple was observable particularly
in funerary ritual and in some sense replaced the father-son
distinction. Parallel to the gendered husband-wife distinction
(which is easily generalized to male-female) is monk-nun.
The nearest parallel to "brothers" within the category of the
ordained is "Dharma-brother," a term for another monk of comparable
age. When speaking Chinese, one must always choose whether
individual "brothers" (xiongdi) are older (xiong) or younger (di).
Some years ago I was teaching a pair of male twins in Thailand, and
I noticed they referred to each other as phi and nong (older
[brother] and younger [brother]), and when I asked how such a
distinction could be made of twins, they told me that the difference
was about five minutes. The Thai word for "siblings" is phi-nong
(olders-youngers), just as the Chinese term for "brothers" is
xiong-di (older brother-younger brother).
At first sight, the category "friend" appears as something of an
exception, but friendship was often modeled on brotherhood, with the
two terms xiong and di functioning to indicate an elder friend and a
younger friend.(33) Certainly in late imperial fiction, the
discourse of friendship is explicitly fraternal: The Carnal Prayer
Mat describes a pact of friendship:(34) "Since the Knave [the thief]
was older than Vesperus [the student], they addressed each other as
younger brother and elder brother, respectively."(35) There are
extended metaphorical uses of the words which refer to brothers, as
in "All Men Are Brothers."(36)
In other words, "friends" and the kinship structure would seem to
follow the same logic, although undoubtedly "friends" is much
"looser" and less codified. Confucian thinkers "ordinarily ranked it
as less important than the four more central Confucian
relationships."(37) The xiong-di distinction, the lack of a
"generic" term for "siblings" or "brothers" (words which in English
do not signify distinctions of seniority), and the willing adoption
of xiong-di distinctions within the category "friends" would suggest
that the fifth of the five lun in Confucian thought is really not
such an exception to the hierarchical pattern seen in the first four
(ruler-ruled, father-son, husband-wife, older brother-younger
brother). While there are occasional claims to the nonhierarchical
nature of friendship,(38) as Joseph P. McDermott writes, "Chinese
writers have over the centuries preferred to define friendship in
terms of the virtue of trust, not equality."(39)
BUDDHIST AND CONFUCIAN SPATIAL HIERARCHIES
The inclusion of distinctions as sets (wulun or four Sangha
distinctions) also tends to homologize each distinction to the
others, so that the relationship of ruler to ruled is like the
relationship of husband and wife, and so on.(40) The five components
of the Confucian topography correlate institutional position,
chronological sequence (of birth and giving birth), and gender. The
most venerable ("highest") persona is thus the male primal ancestor
of the ruler, to whom only the ruler could perform sacrifices. The
imperial ritual program was intended to inscribe the emperor's body
and environment with the symbolism of an unmoving, fixed center,
like the Pole Star, around which all things naturally revolve.(41)
The emperor, according to McMullen, was seen by the majority of
Confucians "cosmologically," as a crucial bodily site in a social
order ideally corresponding to fundamental but obscure patterns of
Heaven and Earth.(42) Wechsler notes, "The emperor's worship of and
identification with an all-powerful Heaven strengthened his
political status as the 'one man' [i-jen] in relation to the rest of
the empire, and thus helped establish the cosmological grounds for
an intensified absolutism."(43)
Hence, the identification of the most venerable with oneself was a
political strategy. The imperial cult promoted the public (or, at
least, elite) perception of a collapsing of the distinctions between
all-powerful celestial entities, the emperor's primal ancestor,
subsequent ancestors, and the living emperor. The ruler was
divinized by the ritual production of an imperial body which
performed the structure of Confucian reality, collapsing all reality
into one body through what is often called the logic of
microcosm-macrocosm.
Likewise, discursive and practical strategies pointed toward a
collapsing of All Buddhas, Sakyamuni Buddha, the lineage ancestors,
and the contemporary monk. The primal ancestor of the monk's "clan"
was of course Sakyamuni, and in the debates on bowing and elsewhere,
I note a collapsing of the gap between Buddha and monk, ancestor and
descendent.(44) Yenzong says that "the Triple Gem is one body; one
shows respect to a monk as Buddha."(45) In another portion of the
same collection of debate documents, Daoxuan juxtaposes the
relations of exterior form and true value, on the one hand in the
manufacture of images, and on the other in the physical demarking of
monks; "metal, stone and plain mud display the appearance of the
true image; dharma-clothes and cut hair determine the marks [xiang]
of the whole (complete) Sangha."(46) Once again we see the direct
association of monk's body and Buddha-image, here in the association
of the raw materials of Buddha-images with the clothing and
hairstyle of monks. It is worth underscoring the implications of
these assertions of the immanence of Buddha in the monk's body. By
means of this kind of analogy, derived from the rhetoric of inherent
Buddha-nature, broadly diffused ancestral cult practice, funerary
ritual, and the configuration of altars, the monk's body was placed
in the highest ritual position and identified with the ancestor.(47)
(Not coincidentally, it is in this period that the bodies of famous
monks began to be lacquered and placed on altars.)(48)
If there was indeed a discursive and practical logic of ritual
topography, how was it reproduced? What were the "mechanisms of
cultural heredity"?(49) Bourdieu writes that "on the basis of
homologies between positions within different fields . . . alliances
can be set up which are more or less durable and which are always
based on a more or less conscious misunderstanding."(50) Here
Bourdieu is writing about the homologies between intellectuals (a
dominated fraction of the dominant class) and industrial workers (a
dominated fraction of the dominated class), but the basic idea can
apply to the homologies between what might be called the
institutional field, the chronological field, the genetic field, and
the gender field--and the monastic field (the field of those
distinctions initiated by ordination). Social order is reproduced
when categories are reproduced (in discourse and practice) and when
"homologies between positions" are possible. The bowing debate is an
example of a discordance between two sets of homologies, each with
its own defined hierarchy of hierarchized relationships, as in
figure 3.
[Figure 3 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
There is still the question of the relative hierarchy within the
sets of hierarchies in figure 3, the sequence of priority. In the
latter set, for example, the position in monastic field (or field of
ordination) is the primary determinant; it has priority. In theory,
an old lay male should bow to even a young ordained female. Position
in the gender field has priority over age: a nun, no matter how
senior, bows to a monk, no matter how junior. One might arrange
these distinctions on a vertical gradation, although such an
exercise can only be tentative; in particular the Confucian list is
actually more complex and less historically stable than it appears
in figure 4.(51)
[Figure 4 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
What is explicitly unique in the monastic set in figure 4 is
discipline. In the Confucian set, discipline (correct and incorrect
behavior, obeying the rules or not) is not present, but it is, in
many ways, assumed and implicated within the whole ethical system,
which gave a prominent place to the discourse and practice of li
(propriety, rites). The Buddhist focus on obedience to rules was
perhaps necessitated by the sequence of primary socialization
(ritual learned as a child) followed by monastic training. As a
restricted set of rules learned after primary socialization,
monastic training builds on and departs from the broader cultural
body ethic, or habitue. What is unique in the Confucian set is
genetic lineage (although, as noted above, pseudo-genetic lineage
practices were relevant to monastic institutions) and the category
"friends."
Why did I place "political" and "ordination" on the same line in
figure 4? Might it perhaps be more logical to pair up ordination and
genetic lineage? The Confucian criterion of political distinction is
listed before genetic lineage distinction, and from the Confucian
perspective the ruler-ruled distinction is prior to ordination, but
from a Buddhist perspective, ordination is higher than political
distinctions. In the monastic set, the line created by ordination
(or the "monasticized" body in general) superseded all other
classificatory criteria whatsoever. From Dao-xuan's perspective, the
classification is as given in figure 5.
From a Confucian perspective, the political and genetic lineage
criteria override ordination (hence, the Confucian command for even
monks to bow to ruler and parents); the husband-wife relationship is
legitimated by its inclusion in the Confucian set, but the shared
basic principle of the hierarchy of gender is intact: wife bows to
husband, nun bows to monk. Likewise, the significance of seniority
is comparable in both sets, except that in the monastic case,
seniority is in "dharma-years," that is, number of uninterrupted
Lenten seasons since full ordination. The shared criteria of age and
gender are more "native" to the body (than ordination, e.g.), and
the logic of age and gender as hierarchized criteria of distinction
also pervades the operations of the distinct fields of ordination,
political status, genetic and pseudo-genetic lineage, and
friendship.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
When I began to attend that institution of learning called a primary
school, before I learned anything else I had to learn that if I
wanted to
ask a question, first I had to put up my hand. Much of what I
learned in school was premised on the conformity of my behavior: I
sat at the same desk, stood up when the teacher entered, and did not
run in the hallway. The study of social distinctions requires also a
study of how institutions produce specific kinds of
institutionalized bodies--bodies marked by the hierarchical
institution.
The physical presence of the Abbot, the Master, or the Teacher in
the medieval Chinese monastery signals to the new monk that a
multitude of ritual stipulations are in force, and from this
perspective we may speak of these high-ranking figures as
"embodiments of authority." So, too, the approach to the throne is
rule governed, and a wide array of injunctions and prohibitions
becomes relevant due to the physical proximity of the emperor's
body. Yet, while Daoxuan's stipulations imply the presence of an
authority figure, they address the new monk. The junior and not the
senior has to remember them. The junior has to take the initiative
in bowing. While the authority may be said to "reside" in the
senior, the rules prescribe changes in the conduct of the junior. In
terms of the Confucian relationships, although it is said that both
superior and subordinate have their mutual duties, the burden of
rule-governed behavior is more frequently on the subordinate, and as
Hsu notes, frequently "the principle of reciprocity was replaced by
a strict one-way obedience."(52) Hence, we may also say that
authority is embodied in the subordinate, at least insofar as the
lowly learn, follow, and internalize discipline. An analysis of
social relations in spatial terms highlights what Bourdieu would
call the inculcation of a habitue--in other words, the training of a
habitual "feel for the game" into the body.
Making himself the subject of these rules of obeisance, and
gradually internalizing them, the monk stylizes his behavior so as
to enact the boundary between monastic and lay. In this way, the
structured and structuring institution of monkhood was embodied.
Social order is reproduced when categories are reproduced (in
discourse and practice), and to expend effort in order to establish
categories durably or self-beneficially is to institute. The bowing
debate and the discourse of obeisance in general provides examples
of discordance between different institutions (different principles
of distinction or systems of categorization). An "institution" is
thus a distinct way of durably organizing the space of bodies, of
establishing distinctions between bodies, and of training bodies to
act in accordance with these distinctions. The persistence of an
institution requires the reproduction of an institutionalized body,
a body marked with signs and distinct behaviors as belonging to (and
hence constituting, instituting) a certain group category, such as
the Buddhist Sangha.
I have attempted to analyze the relationship between the distinction
created by the physical act of bowing and the less tangible
distinctions involved in claims of moral superiority, political
authority, or economic control in order to investigate the uses of
the body in creating social distinctions and, at the same time, the
ways in which social distinctions structure the uses of the body. In
the discourse of obeisance we see the mechanisms for establishing,
in the body, orthodox associations of different hierarchical
distinctions: physical topography superimposed on ritual topography,
or vertical space used as the basic metaphor of social difference. I
suggest that it is the establishment of relationships between
physical/spatial distinctions (e.g., high-low) and other kinds of
distinctions (e.g., ruler-ruled) which "roots the most fundamental
structures of the group in the primary experiences of the body."(53)

(1) Literally, "first-born, longest-dwelling."
(2) Shimen guijingyi, in Taisho shinshu daizokyo. ed. Takakusu
Junriro, Watanabe Kaigyoku, and Ono Gemyo (Tokyo: Taisho Issaikyo
Kankokai, 1924-35), vol. 52, no. 1896, 855c.
(3) A statement which can make sense even spoken with one's eyes to
the ground or closed.
(4) Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, trans. Richard Nice
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990), pp. 71-72.
(5) Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, ed. and intro.
John B. Thompson, trans. Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 232.
(6) He describes habitue as "the durable and transposable systems of
schemata of perception, appreciation, and action that result from
the institution of the social in the body" (Pierre Bourdieu and Loic
J. D. Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology [Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1992], pp. 126-27), as "the system of
structured, structuring dispositions" (The Logic of Practice, p. 52)
without a necessary will acting on it. In Wacquant's words, habitue
results from "the internalization of external structures" and is
"the collective individuated through embodiment of the biological
individual `collectivized' by socialization" (Bourdieu and Wacquant,
p. 18).
(7) Jiaojie xinzxue biquiu xinghu luyi, in Junriro, Kaigyokyo, and
Gemyo, eds., vol. 45, no. 1897.
(8) Shimen guijingyi, 855c.
(9) Orthodox over heterodox, or better still, "orthoprax" over
"heteroprax." (10) The meaning of this phrase is uncertain.
(11) Shimen guijingyi, 863h-c.
(12) Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, p. 71.
(13) Ibid.
(14) The use of the term "villages" may have been figurative,
archaic, or even ironic in urban Chang-an monasteries. The "village"
stands as a generic term for all nonmonastic social space.
(15) These examples are from various points throughout the text, but
the jumbled quality of this set of examples in fact echoes the text
itself, which abounds in nonsequitors and, apart from the preface
and general topical sequence, does not always "flow" in any unified
way.
(16) Chewing food, or a willow twig to clean the teeth.
(17) During a 1988 stay at Foguangshan, Taiwan, e.g., I noticed
there was always a monk correcting the shuffling of flip-flops,
getting the line into shape, etc. Elsewhere, during walking
recitation of the name of Buddhas and bodhisattvas, the typical
pattern I observed was one nun at the head of the line, with the
bell, and one nun at the end of the line, keeping an eye on the
stragglers and children. Habitus would seem to always have rough
edges.
(18) This was true of textual education as well: Buddhist texts were
generally on the monastic student's curriculum only after having
learned reading and writing using such texts as Qianziwen, Taigong
jiajino, Lunyu, Xiaojing, etc.
(19) Anachronistically, I suspect.
(20) Daoxuan's Mahayanist justification for Hinayana vinaya, and the
Hinayanist stigma he incurred, are the subjects of a future study.
(21) Shangongjing jing, in Junriro, Kaigyokyo, and Gemyo, eds. (n. 2
above), vol. 24, no. 1495, trans. Dunajueduo, a sui monk
(Jnanagupta, 523-600). see also the very similar Foshao
zhenggongjing jing (Sutra spoken by Buddha on the correct offering
of respect), in Junriro, Kaigyokyo, and Gemyo, eds., vol. 24, no.
1496, trans. in the early sixth century by Fotashanduo.
(22) ShangongJing jing, 1102a.
(23) Ibid.
(24) The term weiyi is used in the title of a text on monastic
decorum by An Shigao, Da biqiu sanqian weiyi, in junriro, Kaigyokyo,
and Gemyo, eds., vol. 24, no. 1470, to which Daoxuan occasionally
refers.
(25) See also the aforementioned Shangongjing jing, 1101b, and
Foshuo zhenggongjing jing, 1103a, for the same proscription.
(26) Shangongjing jing, 1101b. (27) For a junior monk to how to a
senior monk in the presence of Buddha/pagoda or in the presence of
laity is incorrect because in the first case troth monks should how
to Buddha and in the second case laity should he bowing to troth
monks.
(28) Jishamen buying baisu dengshi (A collection on why sramana
[Buddhist monks] should not bow to laity and related matters), comp.
Shi Yenzong, in Junriro, Kaigyokyo, and Gemyo, eds., vol. 52, no.
2108, 468a.
(29) Hsu Dau-lin has persuasively argued that the now-standard set
of five lun (wulun) was not established until as late as the Song.
Prior to that, the various lists of lun were somewhat flexible in
number, content, and order, although showing a basic continuity. See
Hsu Dau-lin, "The Myth of the `Five Human Relations' of
Confucianism," Monumenta Serica 29 (1970-71): 27-37.1 am grateful to
Patricia Ebrey for bringing this article to my attention.
(30) Arthur P. Wolf, "Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors," in Religion and
Ritual in Chinese Society, ed. A. P. Wolf (Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press, 1974), p. 159.
(31) The rhetoric of rulership pervades the attributes of Buddha,
the "Dharma-king" (fawang). For example, in the Vimalakirtinirdesa:
"Dharma-King, you rule with the Dharma/your supreme
Dharma-kingdom,/And thereby bestow the treasures of the Dharma/upon
all living beings" (The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti: A Mahayana
Scripture, trans. Robert A. E Thurman [State College: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1976], p. 13). References of this sort to
the Buddha are as innumerable as the sands of the Ganges.
(32) John Jorgensen, "The `Imperial' lineage of Ch'an Buddhism: The
Role of Confucian Ritual and Ancestor Worship in Ch'an's Search for
Legitimation in the Mid-T'ang Dynasty" Papers on Far Eastern History
35 (March 1987): 89-133; Robert H. Sharf, "The Idolization of
Enlightenment: On the Mummification of Ch'an Masters in Medieval
China," History of Religions 32, no. 1 (August 1992): 1-31; Stephen
Teiser, The Ghost Festival in Medieval China (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1988).
(33) Also, in modern Chinese, xiongdi jiemei,
"older-and-younger-brothers and older-and-younger-sisters" used to
address a crowd of friends or an audience of roughly comparable age
(e.g., game show hosts to an expected audience of college students).
The same applies to the whole vocabulary of kinship: "aunt,"
"uncle," "grandma," etc. (Usually the kinship terms used to denote
nonkin are derived from the mother's side of the family, so that
"a-yi" means both "auntie" in the broadest metaphorical sense and
sister of one's mother [or a wife's sister].) The vocabulary of the
male side of the family generally is not used in metaphorical senses
to denote nonkin.
(34) For a treatment of such rituals, see David Jordon, "Sworn
Brothers: A Study in Chinese Ritual Kinship," in The Chinese Family
and Its Ritual Behavior, ed. Hsieh Jih-chang and Chuang Ying-chang
(Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1985), pp. 232-62. In many groups of sworn
brothers, each individual is numbered (First Brother, Second
Brother, etc.). Jordon comments: "Among sworn siblings, as among
natural siblings, this hierarchical ordering is self-conscious but
weak" (p. 240).
(35) Li Yu, The Carnal Prayer Mat, trans. Patrick Hanan (New York:
Ballantine, 1990), p. 66. My thanks to Malcolm McLean for bringing
this example of the trope to my attention. Friendship is a major
theme in many stories from the late imperial period. See "The Story
of Wu Pao-an" and "The Journey of the Corpse" in Stories from a Ming
Collection: The Art of the Chinese Story-Teller, trans. Cyril Birch
(New York: Grove, 1958), pp. 11750; Feng Menglong, "Yang Jiao Throws
Away His Life in Fulfillment of a Friendship," in Perfect Lady by
Mistake and Other Stories, trans. William Dolby (London: Elek,
1976), pp. 144-58. See also Shen Fu, Six Records of a Floating Life,
trans. Leonard Pratt and Chiang Su-hui (London: Penguin, 1983). My
thanks to James Z. Lee for these additional references.
(36) of course, Shuihuzhuan is full of examples of fraternity as the
model of male friendship.
(37) Joseph P. McDermott, "Friendship and Its Friends in the Late
Ming," in Family Process and Political Process in Modern Chinese
History, pt. 1 (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1992), pp. 67-68. My thanks
to Dorothy Ko for this reference.
(38) See ibid., pp. 81-82.
(39) Ibid., p. 95.
(40) See Hsu Dau-lin, "The Myth of the `rive Human Relations' of
Confucianism" (n. 29 above), p. 35, where he notes that Cheng Hao
"identified the sovereign-subject relation with that of father and
son."
(41) The imperial enactment of cosmology, involving such principles
as wuwei, Five Phases, yin-yang, the luoshu, etc., is a complex
issue which requires far more space than I give it here. See, e.g.,
David McMullen, "Bureaucrats and Cosmology: The Ritual Code of T'ang
China," in Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional
Societies, ed. David Cannadine and Simon Price (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1987), pp. 181-236; or, along a different track,
John S. Major, "The Five Phases, Magic Squares, and Schematic
Cosmography," in Explorations in Early Chinese Cosmology, ed. Henry
Rosemont, Jr., Journal of the American Academy of Religion Thematic
Studies L/2 (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1984), pp. 133-61.
(42) David McMullen, State and Scholars in T'ang China (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 115.
(43) Howard Wechsler, Offerings of Jade and Silk: Ritual and Symbol
in the Legitimation of the T'ang Dynasty (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1985), p. 232.
(44) On the movement of the abbot into the ritual position of the
Buddha image and the elaboration of orthodox lineages in the Song,
see Sharf, "The Idolization of Enlightenment" (n. 32 above). He
notes that the application of mummification techniques to monks'
bodies (and some new methods such as lacquering) seems to have begun
in the mid-seventh century. Hence, the increased tendency to
transform famous monks' bodies into durable statues was roughly
contemporary with the debates on bowing. See also Bernard Faure,
"Relics and Flesh Bodies: The Creation of Ch'an Pilgrimage Sites,"
in Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China, ed. Susan Naquin and
Chun-fang Yu (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1992), pp. 150-89.
(45) Jishamen buying baisu denshi (n. 28 above), 474b.
(46) Ibid., 456a.
(47) As a further example from the bowing debate, in a reply to a
portion of Li Chunfeng's speech, Yenzong asserts: "Monks'
personal-bodies [shen] actualize [ju, make complete] Buddha's
precepts; their forms [xing] actualize Buddha's rites" (Jishamen
buying baisu denshi, 466b).
(48) Sharf (n. 32 above), pp. 9-11.
(49) Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (n. 5 above), p. 136.
(50) Ibid., p. 245.
(51) For example, in the late Ming, there were arguments that
"loyalty to friends takes precedence over loyalty to the throne"
(McDermott, "Friendship and Its Friends" [n. 37 above], p. 69). See
also Hsu Dau-lin's "The Myth of the `rive Human Relations' of
Confucianism" (n. 29 above). (52) HSU, P. 37.
(53) Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (n. 4 above), pp. 71-72.