Resumen de Ineffable Paths: Mapping Wutaishan in Qing Dynasty China
During the height of the Qing Empire (1644–1912), Manchu emperors embraced Tibetan Buddhism at Wutaishan with unprecedented vision and fervor. Wutaishan's consequent transformation is both revealed in and continually rearticulated by a widely disseminated map of the mountain, engraved on-site by a Mongolian lama in 1846. The map is so situated at the intersection of several different image-making traditions, each revealing its own criteria for truthful representations. Examining the particular rhetoric of history and revelations within these traditions illuminates how a sacred landscape is formed and inspires a new understanding about the relation between holy maps and territories.
