Abstract
Tenth-century China's political instability extended beyond Tang territorial boundaries to reach the Dali region of what is now Yunnan province. In Dali, the void left by the fallen Nanzhao kingdom (649–903) was filled by a series of short-lived regimes, the longest of which was Da Changhe guo (903–927), or“The Great Kingdom of Eternal Peace.”Though studies of the“Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms”omit Changhe, its rulers’diplomatic strategies, and particularly their representations of Buddhist kingship, aligned with the strategies of contemporaneous regimes. Like their counterparts to the east, Changhe rulers depicted themselves as heirs of the Tang emperors as well as the Buddhist monarchs Liang Wudi and Aªoka. This article uses understudied materials, including a 908 subcommentary to the Scripture for Humane Kings (Renwang jing) only found in Dali, to argue that Changhe belongs in discussions of religion and politics in tenth-century China, and tenth-century East Asia.
Keywords
Dali, Yunnan, Changhe kingdom, Scripture for Humane Kings, Buddhism, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, tenth century
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