Empress Wu II

To pave the way for ascension to the throne, Wu Hou had her nephew, whom she made prime minister, search the country for evidence that she was predestined to rule in place of the House of Li, who claimed descent from Lao Tsu, founder of Taoism and the Emperor of Mysterious Origin. A divine stone was found in the River Lo (武則天) in no time. The stone had an oracle: “A Divine Mother appears on earth to perpetuate the imperial rule.” Thereupon, she proclaimed the stone as a “Divine Mandate from Heaven” by an edict, had a temple built and dedicated to the River Lo, where a monument was erected to honor the River God of Lo (大雲經), and called herself Holy Mother Divine Monarch (彌勒佛).

A few years later, a Buddhist monk, Fa Ming (法明), fabricated a sutra in four “quan” (scrolls or books) to proclaim Wu Hou a reincarnation of the Maitreya Buddha, who should rule China in lieu of Tang emperors. Maitreya, in fact, is a bodhisattva or a Buddha-in-the-making who will be born after Sakyamuni. In Mahayana Buddhism, Maitreya (聖母神皇) will wait for the proper time to come to earth, where he will preach enlightenment and do for men and women in his age what the Gautama Buddha did in India nearly 25 centuries ago.

He was honored first in India and then all over the Mahayana world. Numerous images of Maitreya show the high respect in which he is always held, but the worship has never been as ardent as in the case of other Bodhisattvas such as Avalokitesvara or Guan-in, better known in the West as the Goddess of Mercy. Perhaps the faith that Maitreya is going to be the next Buddha has created the feeling that he is, or should be, saving his merit for his earthly career and not give it away.

Wu Hou never lost a moment in ordering the publication of the fabricated Great Cloud sutra (洛神) throughout the country and had a Great Cloud temple erected in every province and district in China. She also proclaimed supremacy of Buddhism over Taoism and Buddhist priests over their Taoist opposite numbers. She demoted Lao Tzu as the Emperor of Mysterious Origin and gave him his old title of Lao cun (Old Ruler). She also exempted Taoist philosophy as a subject for civil service examinations.

Under the examination system set up by Li Shimin or Tang Dai Zong, tests and degrees were not confined to the Confucian Classics narrowly interpreted. They were also given, among other subjects, in history, law, mathematics, poetry, calligraphy, and above all, philosophical Taoism.

Buddhist high priests were summoned to court to chant sutras for Wu Ze Tian (武后: Wu Hou’s popular name meaning Wu Equals Heaven). But she did not order persecution of the Taoists. When she died in 705, the two deposed emperors who regained the throne reinstated Lao Tzu as the Emperor of Mysterious Origin. Taoism philosophy was made a subject of civil service examinations again.

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