Shifting Identities in Wu Bin’s Album of the Twenty-five Dharma-gates of Perfect Wisdom

Abstract

Through a close reading of the Śūraṃgama Sutra (Lengyanjing) and an iconographic study of the images, the author concludes that many of the current labels in Wu Bin’s Hua lengyan ershiwu yuantong foxiang ce (Album of the twenty-five dharma-gates of perfect wisdom) are erroneous and proposes new identifications for these Buddhist sages. This paper modifies the well-accepted scholarly opinion that the album is a ‘‘free fabrication of absurdities’’ and shows that Wu Bin, a devoted jushi (Buddhist layman) of the late Ming dynasty, correctly visualized the methods of enlightenment as described in the sutra with his album.