Remembering China’s Empress Dowager Ling, a Buddhist who paved the way for future female rulers

A sketch of Empress Dowager Ling from 1793

In sixth-century China, a woman known to history as Empress Dowager Ling ruled over an empire called the Northern Wei. Historians do not know her birth name or in what year she was born, but they do know that she served as empress dowager between 515 and 528. As the spouse of a ruling emperor prior to his death, she retained the title of empress dowager in her widowhood.

She ruled on behalf of her young son, the heir to the throne; however, her regency was interrupted by a coup d’etat from 520 to 525. Although the empress dowager was expected to rule only as a regent, historical records indicate that she administered court in her own name. These same records also reveal that she adopted a personal pronoun – zhen 朕, otherwise known as the Chinese “royal we” – that was reserved for the exclusive use of the emperor.

In my recent book, “The Women Who Ruled China,” I offer an overview of these historical sources and records that document her life, including a translation of her biography retained in the official chronicle of the Northern Wei. Using these sources, I argue that even though the Empress Dowager’s rule was problematic and short – resulting in her assassination – she laid the foundation for other, more successful female rulers across medieval East Asia.

Capitalizing on different cultural traditions

In the late fifth century, the capital city of the Northern Wei was moved from its northern location in modern-day Datong, China, to its southern location in Luoyang, a city at the very heart of Han Chinese culture and history; however, the people who ruled the empire were not ethnically Han Chinese.

Known as the Taghbach, this group migrated south from the Mongolian steppe and ruled a multiethnic and multicultural empire from Luoyang, the world’s largest city and the former capital of the Eastern Han dynasty. The Northern Wei empire adopted laws, institutions and policies from both Taghbach and Han Chinese traditions.

This cultural hybridity enabled the empress dowager to rule directly: On one hand, the Chinese court system rooted in the Han dynasty had long included the position of empress dowager, even though none of the women who held it had ruled directly. On the other, Taghbach culture had no formal position of empress dowager prior to its adoption of court ranks in the Northern Wei, but it did have a long tradition of women in public life. These women served in the military and advised on political matters.

Multiple sources of evidence indicate that Taghbach women had a high degree of personal autonomy and political power, with no source suggesting otherwise.

A well-known story about Taghbach woman appears in the legend of Mulan, who is said to have dressed as a man so that she could serve in the military in place of her father. The Mulan legend is widely recounted in Chinese literature and inspired a fictional character in two Walt Disney movies based on the Chinese fable.

As a historian of gender in this period, I believe that the Mulan legend does not accurately depict Taghbach women. Instead, it is a Chinese story that emphasizes a form of gender transgression that makes sense only within Chinese and Confucian culture. Unlike Chinese culture, Taghbach culture had long known women warriors who could ride horses and shoot arrows without concealing their gender.

Empress Dowager Ling was not a warrior, but she embraced martial symbols of her own power that were available to women in Taghbach culture but not in Chinese culture. For example, she was an accomplished archer and famously drove her own horse cart, which was just as splendid and imposing as was the emperor’s cart.

In the Confucian culture of Han China, such actions were considered highly inappropriate for women, but Empress Dowager Ling carried them out while holding the Chinese title of empress dowager. Her rule, like her empire, was culturally hybrid. That blend of cultural traditions enabled her to take power in a way that neither Chinese nor Taghbach women had done before.

A Buddhist ruler

By the time of the reign of the Northern Wei empire, both Taghbah and Chinese cultures had become deeply familiar with Buddhism, a religion that they had inherited from India in a long process of cultural exchange along the Silk Road. The empire had integrated methods of Buddhist statecraft into its own forms of governance.

Simply put, what this meant was that the ruler of the empire legitimized his reign through Buddhism, portraying himself either as a Buddha or as a patron of Buddhists – their texts and institutions. This was a type of governance that was widely practiced in premodern East Asia.

Even though Buddhist statecraft was widespread in the empress dowager’s time, she was the first woman to directly legitimate her independent rule through Buddhism. As a patron of Buddhism, she commissioned majestic Buddhist architecture. Perhaps seen by her populace as a Buddhist figure herself, she symbolized her co-rule with her son by using a Buddhist visual motif of two Buddhas sitting side by side, a representation that came to be known as the rule by “Two Sages,” meaning tandem rulers depicted in the guise of buddhas. The source for the image was the popular Buddhist text, the “Lotus Sūtra.”

She also attempted to put her own granddaughter on the throne after the death of her son. As I argue in my book, she did so by capitalizing on the idea that first her son, and then her granddaughter, were thought of as the bodhisattva Maitreya, a being of infinite compassion who is believed to be the future Buddha.

The empress dowager’s legacy

Empress Dowager Ling was largely unsuccessful in her bid for power. Her rule was short and contested. She was murdered, and her empire was toppled within 13 years of her rule. For five of those years, she was not in power because of a coup d’etat.

However, about 150 years after the assassination of the empress dowager, another woman would rise to rule China independently, this time taking the title of “emperor.” That woman is known as Empress Wu, or Emperor Wu Zhao, and she is undoubtedly the most famous woman in all of Chinese history. Numerous historical sources attest to her life, work and rule.

What those sources tell us, however, is that she ruled using the very same strategies as Empress Dowager Ling. Investing her own family heritage in distant links to the Taghbach, she also positioned herself as a “Two Sage” ruler alongside the emperor in precisely the same way that Empress Dowager Ling did. She was also able to successfully establish herself as the bodhisattva Maitreya by using Buddhist texts known to Empress Dowager Ling and her court.

She patronized the very same Buddhist structures as did Empress Dowager Ling, including the Buddhist caves at Longmen, just outside of Luoyang. However, she accomplished what Empress Dowager Ling could not – holding onto power successfully. I argue her success was possible because Empress Dowager Ling had paved the way. Stephanie Balkwill, University of California, LA, MDT/The Conversation