Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

of power political concerns nor from executing other family members when these opposed her will.
Her generals were engaged with varying success in the most bloody battles with the Tibetans and
other bordering peoples.
Probably because she was a woman, her unscrupulous and despotic art became proverbial for later
historians. The outrageousness which radiated out from this “monstrous” Grande Dame upon the
Dragon Throne still echoes today in the descriptions of the historians. The German Sinologist, Otto
Franke, for example, characterizes her with what is for an academic exceptionally strong emotions:
“Malicious, vengeful, and cruel to the point of sadism, thus she began her career, unbridled addiction
to power, insensitivity even to the natural maternal instinct, and a unquenchable desire for murder
accompany her on the stolen throne, grotesque megalomania combined with religious insanity distorts
her old age, childish helplessness in the face of every form of charlatanism and complete lack of
judgement in administration and politics lead finally to her fall and bring the state to the edge ... A
demoness in her unbridled passion, Wu Zetian allied herself with the dark figures of Chinese
history” (Franke, 1961, p. 424).
Wu Zetian supported Buddhism fanatically, so as to establish it as the state religion in place of Doism.
“The Empress who takes God as her example”, as she called herself, was a megalomaniac not just
about political matters but also in religious ones, especially because she let herself be celebrated as
the incarnation of the Buddha Maitreya, of the ruler of the of the coming eon. Her she appealed to
prophecies from the mouth of the historical Buddha. In the Great Cloud Sutra it could be read that,
700 years after his death, Shakyamuni would be reborn in the form of a beautiful princess, whose
kingdom would become a real paradise. “Having planted the germs of the Way during countless
kalpas [ages], [she as Maitreya] consents to the joyous exaltation by the people”, it says of the
Empress in one contemporary document. (Forte, 1988, p. 122). According to other sources, Wu Zetian
also allowed herself to be worshipped as the Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara, and as the Sun Buddha,
Vairocana.
As Buddhist she oriented herself to the Abhidharmakosa’s cyclical conception of the four ages of the
world we have described above, and which we also find in the Kalachakra Tantra. Thus, at end of the
dark and at the dawn of the new age to come, stood this Chinese Empress in the salvational figure of
the Buddha Maitreya. Her chiliastic movement, which she led as a living Buddhist messiah, had no
small following among the people, yet came into hefty conflict with established Buddhism and the
Confucian powers at court, above all because this savior was also a woman.
From the Buddhist teachings Wu Zetian also adopted the political doctrine of the Chakravartin, the
wheel turner who reigns over the entire globe. She would lead her people, we may read in a prophesy,
by “turning the golden wheel” (Forte, 1988, p.122). One of her titles was “The Golden Wheel of
Dominion Turning God-Emperor”. (Franke, 1961, p. 417). But even this was not enough for her. Two
years later she intensified her existing epithet and let herself be known as “ The Holy God-Emperor
Surpassing The Former Golden Wheel Turning God-Emperor” (Franke, 1961, p. 417). The “golden
wheel”, along with the other appropriate emblems of the Chakravartin were hung in her hall of
audience.
So as to visibly demonstrate and symbolically buttress her control of the world, she ordered the entire
kingdom to be covered with a network of state temples. Each temple housed a statue of the Sun
Buddha (Vairocana). All of these images were considered to be the emanations of a gigantic
Vairocana which was assembled in the imperial temple of the capital and in which the Empress