Pure and faithful

Medieval Buddhist of the Day: Yang Jingyuan 陽景元, who sponsored a Guanyin image in 523 for no particular reason that he recorded. (His inscription is recorded in the collection 金石補正，卷13.)

Buddhist monuments that are commissioned by groups of donors, usually organized into Buddhist charitable societies called yiyi 邑義 or yishe 邑社, often have long lists of donors’ names which include the officers of the society, people whose responsibility was to lead or advise or solicit donations or provide incense and candles for ritual use, or who paid extra to be the special patron of a particular image among the many on the monument. But there are also plenty of ordinary members of any society, not distinguished by any special contribution.

The most typical way these ordinary patrons are designated is with the title yizi 邑子, “member of the yi-society.” This can be a gender-neutral title, since 子 is often a general nominalizer; but given that it can also mean “son,” it’s not surprising that this title is sometimes reserved for the male members of the group. In those cases, the most common way to describe the female members is 清信女, “pure and faithful daughter.” It’s interesting because you could easily have coined a parallel term to 邑子, which would be 邑女 – “son of the yi-society” and “daughter of the yi-society” respectively. But that’s not the solution that was actually used, and in fact, although there are a range of alternate titles that turn up when people have decided not to go with the default, I don’t think I’ve seen 邑女 (I have been collecting terms for female patrons for a while now and this one hasn’t turned up).

Why “Pure and Faithful?” You could also render the title as “woman of pure faith” or “pure female believer,” but the core themes are purity and faith, or faithfulness, regardless. We can imagine that there might have been a kind of extra concern for female purity, given Buddhist themes about the impurity of the female body, and perhaps some need for the female believer to emphasize her commitment to the faith. But purity and faith are hardly strictly female concerns, so it seems odd that these themes get attached to female Buddhists so frequently. There are some men who claim the descriptor 清信, but here too they avoid constructing a strictly parallel term; what you see most commonly is 清信佛弟子 “pure and faithful disciple of the Buddha.” I’m not sure this is a case of one-upsmanship precisely, but there seems to be an odd resistance to plain parallels between men and women, even though men and women, in theory, had equal access to the role of patron.

That’s why I appreciate Yang Jingyuan, whose dedication, which was probably attached to a donor figure, reads 正光四年三月廿三日，清信男佛弟子陽景元供養觀世音佛時 “[In 523], when the pure and faithful SON, the Buddhist disciple Yang Jingyuan, offered worship to Avalokiteśvara.” Emphasis mine, in case it’s not obvious. The parallel to 清信女 is in fact 清信男, but it’s so rare that I’ve never seen it before this, and I’ve read hundreds of inscriptions.

I really need to do a post on gendered terms for patrons in general, don’t I?