The Yongle Northern Canon as Bestowed on Jizu Mountain in Yunnan Province

The Yongle Northern Canon 永樂北藏 was an imperial court edition of the Chinese Buddhist Canon compiled in Beijing in response to the decree of Ming Emperor Chengzu 明成祖 (r. 1403–1424), who had moved the capital from Nanjing to the north. Work on the canon began in the nineteenth year of Yongle (1421) and was completed in the fifth year of Zhengtong 正統 (1440). The Yongle Northern Canon expanded over the years, and its supplementary sections were sponsored by Empress Dowager Li 李太后 (1546–1614) between 1579–1583. Its final version contained 678 _han_ 函 (cases), with 6771 volumes. As many copies of the canon were printed and presented to great temples in China, this court edition of the Buddhist canon has been comparatively well preserved.

Scholars have examined temple gazetteers, local provincial and county gazetteers, epigraphy, and other historical records to identify temples that received a copy of the Yongle Northern Canon. They have shown that a number of temples in Yunnan Province received copies of the canon, though most of these copies have been destroyed in wars and natural disasters. Nozawa Yoshimi 野沢佳美 identifies five temples in Yunnan that received the Yongle Northern Canon between 1453 and 1624, of which four are located on the Buddhist mountain Jizu shan 雞足山 (Nozawa 2003). Venerable Daojian identifies a total of ten temples on Jizu shan that received the Buddhist canon, of which he identifies the same four as having received the Yongle Northern Canon specifically (Daojian 2007, 434–444). These four temples are Huayan si 華嚴寺, Fangguang si 放光寺, Dajue si 大覺寺, and Xitan si 悉曇寺. The Yongle Northern Canon is unique because it was printed and presented by the decree of the emperor himself. Nozawa’s investigation shows that only 139 temples were honored with the canon, so the canon’s bestowal certainly brought great prestige and glory. Gazetteers and inscriptions expand our understanding of how and why the Yongle Northern Canon was bestowed on these temples at Jizu shan.

For example, in 1624 an imperial edict commemorating the emperor’s bestowal of the canon on Xitan si explained the decision as follows: “I, the emperor, know that your land is far away in southern Yunnan, to the north of India where people revere Buddhism…. In a memorial Mu Zeng praised his mother, née Luo, for being fond of meditation. He donated resources to build this temple to guard the country and protect the people, ordering the monk Shi Chan to devoutly look after it, and respectfully requesting a copy of the Buddhist canon. The relevant department conferred and agreed, granting special permission to bestow the gift. You should strengthen your good desires, lead all the monks of the mountain in incense burning and meditating, guide the border people to awakening, and spread the religion. In this way, the empire may be consolidated and emperor’s civilizing power will spread far and wide” (_Jizu shan zhi_, in _Zhongguo fosi zhi congkan_ 中國佛寺志叢刊, v. 116, 477–481). Apparently, the emperor realized that Jizu shan was far from the capital and the imperial court had neglected the border areas. It was time for the imperial court to take actions to show its concern for the people living in remote regions. Thus, four sets of the Yongle Northern Canon were bestowed upon Jizu shan

The study of how the Buddhist canon circulated is just beginning. Scholars such as Nozawa Yoshimi, Zhang Dewei, and Deng Shujun have taken pains to collect data on the distribution of the Buddhist canon throughout China. After 400 years, many copies of the canon have been destroyed or scattered in various places. It is not easy to thoroughly investigate all the extant copies of the Yongle Northern Canon, but this does not mean that we give up the investigation. On the contrary, the more temples we find that received the Yongle Northern Canon, the better our understanding of how imperially-bestowed Buddhist canons were distributed. This initial study on the distribution of the Yongle Northern Canon to temples on Jizu shan in Yunnan Province may shed light on our understanding of the temples that were favorites of the imperial court. It will also enhance our knowledge of the social history of Buddhism in the Ming-Qing period. This work seems to have no end: as long as new discoveries are made, more libraries, museums, and temples will be added to the list.