If Confucian society upheld strict gender divisions, then how could Empress Wu solidify her power so effectively? I agree that she was a manipulative genius, as said in this thread, but the common Chinese and those officials out in the prefectures must have accepted HER for some other reason.

Recently, I came upon an article in Oriental Art that suggested that Wu Zetian’s patronage of Buddhist art was motivated by a need for political legitimacy instead of religious devotion. The author, Ning Qiang, uses the prominence of certain sutras that legitimize a female, bodhisattva ruler and the sculpting of feminine Buddhas to cement his argument. I’ve read a similar theory in Kenneth Ch’en’s Buddhism in China and thought it was interesting enough to share.

In 690, Empress Wu used the Dayun Jing (Grand Cloud Sutra, or the Mahamegha-sutra), which was translated during the Liang period by Zhu Fonian and Dharmakshema, as spiritual propaganda to legitimize her status. Ning writes that “The sutra contained an important prophecy of the imminent reincarnation of Maitreya as a female deity, monarch of all the world, something which was needed by Empress Wu to justify her position as a female ruler” (31).

The Dayun Jing describes the world under the female rule:

"Harvests will be bountiful, joy without limit. The people will flourish, free of desolation and illness, of worry, fear and disaster [. . .] At that time all her subjects will give their allegiance to this woman as the successor to the imperial throne. Once she has taken the Right Way, the world will be awed into submission." (Twitchett 305)

According to Ch’en, a monk named Huai Yi took useful phrases and included that “Empress Wu Zhao was the incarnation of the Maitreya on earth and therefore qualified to rule as successor to the Tang Emperors” to the historic Dayun Jing (221).

The resulting document is the Dunhuang manuscript S 6520, entitled Dayun Jing Shenhuang Shouji Yishu (Commentary on the Meaning of the Prophesy about the Divine Emperor in the Grand Cloud Sutra). To explain the transformation of Bodhisattva Maitreya from male into female, the sutra relayed “the story of ‘tiannu’ (Daughter of Heaven) was quoted from the Vimalakirti-nirdesa to explain the empress’ ‘bodily transformation from male into female.’ (Ning 31)

These sutras were distributed throughout every prefecture in China and two Dayun Temples were erected in each prefecture. Copies of the sutra and of the commentary have been found in Dunhuang’s library cave. (Ning 31)

Ning also describes Buddhist sculptures portraying the Empress Wu. Cave 96 at Dunhuang has a 34 meter high Maitreya statue that was made in 695, during the reign of Wu Zetian. The Empress did not commission the statue (though according to Ch’en, she did commission other caves at Dunhuang), instead, the Yin family, an elite clan in Dunhuang, built it. Here’s a description of statue in Cave 96:

"Instead of following the common practice of moulding the Buddha in a male body covered by a monk’s robe, this statue was shaped according to a woman’s bodily form and clothing. The imposing breasts are exposed to clarify the sex of the Buddha. The womanly dress further ensures her female identity. These unique features of the Buddha image, not found in other Buddha images at the site, thus demonstrates the local support for Empress Wu and reveal the local responses to the political reforms that took place in the capital, specifically, to the establishment of the legitimacy of a female monarch in the early Tang." (Ning 31)

This statue suggests that the Yin family politically supported the female emperor (Ning 32). I couldn’t find an image of the statue on the internet, but if someone else has one, please post it

Ning provides other instances that suggest Emperor Wu’s use of Religious doctrine and iconography to legitimize her rule and gender, including the Treasury Rain Sutra found in Cave 321 at Dunhuang, but listing them would be redundant.

Comments, questions, anything…please share

My Questions:
Though Wu Zetian shrewdly used Buddhism to legitimize her usurpation, she must have done something else. How else did Wu Zetian solidify her power and persuade others to accept a female ruler? Did she have close connections in the army? How did she instill fear in the court factions?
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Sources:
Ch’en, Kenneth. “Buddhism in China: A Historical Survey.”

Ning, Qiang. “Gender politics in Medieval Chinese Buddhist art; Images of Empress Wu at Longmen and Dunhuang.” Oriental Art. Vol. 2 (2003) p. 28-39.

Twitchett, Denis and Fairbanks, John K. “Cambridge History of China.”

There seem to be a lot of means Wu Zetian employed to legitimize her power, here are a few that seem obvious to me.

Buddhism: Buddhism and Daoism (as "religions") were in constant conflict vying for power during the Tang dynasty. Particularly under contention was imperial patronage, which (Wu Zetian being a notable exception to this rule) almost always favored Daoism (in great part because the Daoist convinced the ruling Li family that Laozi was their ancestor) and was the best route to gaining money, lands, and political office/influence for a sect. Less obvious, though (because sources tend not to focus on it) is the struggle between Buddhism and Daoism to gain lay followers, both in the peasantry and in aristocracy. Though there aren't many sources to support this assertion (that I've come across yet), I would say that Wu Zetian's adoption and support of Buddhism helped her by not only supporting her rise to power as a woman but by also setting up as the official religion/philosophy an idea system that had much greater influence over the peasantry than Daoism, which probably undervalued the importance of "common" support in its pursuit of imperial patronage. Considering that some of the most famous (and influential) "Buddhist evangelists" came about in Wu Zetian's time (like Shenxiu and, the most famous of all, coming just after her time, Shenhui), I'd suppose that Buddhism had far more popular following and support at Wu Zetian's time than Daoism.

"Secret Police" Tactics: Another significant tool employed by Wu Zetian was the use of secret police. She created large networks of informers, many of whom had the power to torture (for the purpose of eliciting confessions) anybody suspected of treason. Despite popular hatred of these officials (whose bureaucracy worked independently of other parts of the govt and reported only to Wu Zetian) another impressive aspect of the Empress' personality was her ability to place culpability for negative events on others (such as blaming the death of her daughter on Gaozong’s first wife), an ability that, when discontent with the corruption and cruelty of the secret police reached a boiling point in the empire, allowed her to escape being identified with the very institution that she put in place (which, by that time, had spread fear and weeded out dissenters so effectively that it was mostly unnecessary anyways, allowing Wu Zetian to simply put an end to it and publicly punished its leaders).

Networking: Wu Zetian also was an exceptional networker. She developed close contacts as early as her concubine days and extended her reach significantly when Gaozong withdrew from performing most of his imperial duties dues to illness. So she did have some connections in the army, as well as (perhaps more importantly) friends to inform her when others were plotting against her.

Independence: Something that is unique about Wu Zetian (distinguishing her from most other powerful and attractive women with similar skills in Chinese history) is that she retained independence from those who tried to control her--she never, for example, allowed herself to be a puppet for her (Wu) family to use in their political aspirations (unlike many other powerful concubines/empresses in Chinese history): if anything she used others for her own purposes more than she allowed them to use her. She also didn’t let herself be controlled by her children and prevented them from gaining too much power by constantly removing the title of crown prince from one and giving it to another (or just killing the crown prince). While I realize that this "independence" isn’t a direct factor to contributing to her consolidation of power, I do think that it helps explain how she was able to rule and hold power as effectively as she did despite being a woman in a Confucian society (i.e., she maintained her place in a Confucian society by flouting/breaking many of the basic principles of Confucian thought/social relations).

I've noticed in modern sources (and in postings in this forum) on the Tang (and Zhou) Dynasty that Wu Zetian's elevation of Buddhism to state religion/philosophy over Daoism is often considered an act of political expedience and opportunism--Buddhism found an obscure sutra that could legitimate a woman taking the throne of Emperor and Wu Zetian, seeing this as meeting her own ends, made Buddhism the state religion so that she could make herself Emperor and found the Zhou Dynasty.

This certianly seems plausible, but isn't this explanation overly simplistic? The Daoists were certainly opportunists, too, and probably would have found a way to accomodate Wu Zetian's rise to the position of Emperor if she had insisted on it enough (and looked for the right opportunistic Daoists). The claim that the ruling family of the Tang Dynasty (the Li family) was related to Laozi (who had the same surname), after all, was a big stretch but the Daoists were quick to make it to secure thier religion as state religion of the Tang. I'm sure some other such "stretch" would have been made (and probably was proposed) to Wu Zetian.

When you take this reasoning and add to it the enormous (and extremely generous) patronage provided to Buddhism under Wu Zetian (and the great troubles she went to bring famous monks, such as Shenxiu, to the capital to give lectures for her), doesn't it seem plausible that her support of Buddhism went beyond merely political concerns--that she may have indeed been a fervent Buddhist? I ask this question because it seems that the usual justification of her motives for making Buddhism the state religion has the underlying intention of stressing Wu Zetian's political opportunism and downplaying what seems to be her lifelong spirituality and personal beliefs in the philosophy/religion. Is this the result of a historical bias against the female Emperor?

The larger question I want to leave open on this topic thread is how deeply bias colors historical accounts and understanding of Wu Zetian (or, if bias exists in that understanding at all). Particularly, I want to explore the idea that, since most Chinese historians in modern times have been Confucians (who dislike the idea of a woman rising to power and are historical opponents of Buddhism) the rise of Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Qing Dynasties have led to bias on discussions of the Emperor Wu that are deeply ingrained in Chinese thinking today.

Obviously, Wu Zetian worried that accounts of her life and deeds would be unfairly biased against her, too, that's why (the story goes) she asked that her tombstone be left blank...

You've introduced a very interesting topic.

There is usually not a single cause or motive for a person's actions. Using Buddhism to legitimize, or at least secure, her reign, was only one of Wu Zetian's motives for advocating Buddhism. I don't recall anyone saying it was the Only reason. Wu Zetian chose Buddhism, Buddhism didn't choose her, so Daoism had no chance of gaining her favor simply because she preferred Buddhism. So, Daoists couldn't be opportunistic, though I bet they wanted to. Going along with these lines, Wu Zetian was a Buddhist first and a ruler second--that is to say she was a Buddhist before she became Empress--so her use of Buddhism to secure power and her devotion to Buddhism were compatible and logical. Wu Zetian used the Commentary on the Meaning of the Prophesy about the Divine Emperor in the Grand Cloud Sutra because she was Buddhist, she didn't become Buddhist to create the female Maitreya.

I think that her other measures to secure power, which you finely outlined on this thread that included using secret police, publicly humiliating officials, and "extracting" confessions, combined with her devotion to Buddhism were dichotomous. These inconsistencies gave future Confucian historians ample ammunition to denounce Wu Zetian's character for their personal purposes. They could weave interesting tales of Wu Zetian, saying that she killed her daughter or tortured political opponents. As Wiki notes "Wu later had Wang and Xiao executed in a cruel manner -- their arms and legs were battered and broken, and then they were put in large wine urns and left to die after several days of agony."

When such things are said, how do we know if they are true or not? Really, contemporary historians have to weigh the reliability of all primary sources by examining their agendas and their employers agendas. In the case of most Chinese historians, the employers were the current ruling house, so, how much credibility does the Jin Shu have in criticizing the Han Dynasty? And consider how incredulous a post-Zhou Dynasty historian would be towards the female Wu Zetian. It's completely conceivable that Wu Zetian’s historians were extra biased and wrote more flavorful accounts to make her reign seem undeniably illegitimate. They had lots of incentive to demolish her reputation, so it's difficult to gauge what she was really like. Her ambiguity, cruel and clever vs. religious devotion, is further clouded in enigmatic history.

As you may have guessed.., I agree that she has received extra harsh treatment by Confucian court historians. But, it's not that modern historians were Confucian, but rather that they used Confucian and Neo-Confucian accounts of the Empress as primary sources that made their writing seem Confucian. I believe that contemporary historians (within the last 20 - 30 years) are aware of these biases and are beginning to treat Wu Zetian's legacy differently.

I have a feeling (OK, I'm fairly postive) that you know more about Wu Zetian than I do, and you may be able to explain How devout Wu Zetian was. I know she was Buddhist, but was she devout? Being a Buddhist in name and being a Buddhist in practice are two different things. She obviously had no qualms with lying, killing, and desiring power... so what did she do that makes you so sure that she led a spiritual life and that she personally believed in Buddhism?

Merged with the the "Wu Zetian and Buddhist Propaganda" thread.

I would recommend two other relevant books to those who can find them:

Mingtang and Buddhist utopias in the history of the astronomical clock: the tower, statue, and armillary sphere constructed by Empress Wu by Antonino Forte.
(Roma: Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente; Paris: Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, 1988)
[this one links Wu Zetian's patronage of Buddhism to the building of an astronomical clock under her reign]

also by Antonino Forte, Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century (Napoli: Instituto Unversitario Orientale, 1976) [this is a very important work about Wu Zetian's Buddhist political ideology]

There is actually no need to draw a line between 'sincere believers' and 'opportunistic manipulators', as if religion could only possibly be turned to ideological or political uses by those who don't really believe in it. The use of Buddhist political ideology began in the Age of Fragmentation, and was also seen in the Sui. So there was nothing really new at all about Wu Zetian taking the same course. For details on this (including some bits on Wu Zetian's use of Buddhist ideology), see my thesis at http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=2872