Trend Analysis of Rainfall Time Series in Shanxi Province, Northern China (1957–2019)

Changes in rainfall play an important role in agricultural production, water supply and management, and social and economic development in arid and semi-arid regions. The objective of this study was to examine the trend of rainfall series from 18 meteorological stations for monthly, seasonal, and annual scales in Shanxi province over the period 1957–2019. The Mann–Kendall (MK) test, Spearman’s Rho (SR) test, and the Revised Mann–Kendall (RMK) test were used to identify the trends. Sen’s slope estimator (SSE) was used to estimate the magnitude of the rainfall trend. An autocorrelation function (ACF) plot was used to examine the autocorrelation coefficients at various lags in order to improve the trend analysis by the application of the RMK test. The results indicate remarkable differences with positive and negative trends (significant or non-significant) depending on stations. The largest number of stations showing decreasing trends occurred in March, with 10 out of 18 stations at the 10%, 5%, and 1% levels. Wutai Shan station has strong negative trends in January, March, April, November, and December at the level of 1%. In addition, Wutai Shan station also experienced a significant decreasing trend over four seasons at a significance level of 1% and 10%. On the annual scale, there was no significant trend detected by the three identification methods for most stations. MK and SR tests have similar power for detecting monotonic trends in rainfall time series data. Although similar results were obtained by the MK/SR and RMK tests in this study, in some cases, unreasonable trends may be provided by the RMK test. The findings of this study could benefit agricultural production activities, water supply and management, drought monitoring, and socioeconomic development in Shanxi province in the future.

Mañjuśrī

Mañjuśrī (“Gentle Glory”) is one of the oldest and most significant bodhisattvas of the Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist pantheon. Mañjuśrī is the personification of the Mahāyāna notion of prajñā (wisdom): discriminating insight into the nature of reality, and the hallmark philosophical insight that distinguished the Mahāyāna movement from earlier Buddhist schools (Nikāya) of thought. Like discriminating insight, Mañjuśrī is ever new. He is typically portrayed as a golden-complexioned, sixteen-year-old crown prince holding in one hand a flaming sword that cuts through ignorance, and a Perfection of Prajñā book (Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra) in the other. In Mahāyāna sutras, Mañjuśrī is often cast as the interlocutor whose pointed questions to the buddha elicit the teachings their audience needs to finally understand the subtlest points of doctrine. His earliest known appearance is in the corpus of early Mahāyāna works translated into Chinese by the Indo-Scythian monk Lokakṣema (b. 147 ce). In these, the vivid contrast between Mañjuśrī as wonder-working bodhisattva and the slower-witted Nikāya monks implicitly legitimates the early emerging Mahāyāna movement; clearly, Mañjuśrī’s insight into reality is superior even to that of the disciples who sat at Śākyamuni Buddha’s feet and heard him teach. This rhetorical strategy was developed in subsequent Indian Buddhist sūtras and commentaries, especially those that promulgated new or controversial teachings. Scholars from all of its schools claimed direct visions of the bodhisattva of wisdom; “to see Mañjuśrī” denoted the subject’s unmistaken insight into the buddha’s teaching. Mañjuśrī worship entered esoteric Buddhism (Tantra) in the 7th-century Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa—one of the earliest extant Indian Tantras—and reached its zenith in the early 8th-century Mañjuśrīnāmasaṃgīti, a liturgical text praising Mañjuśrī in all his forms. Its close association with the 10th-century Kālacakra Tantra, perhaps the last Tantric text to be composed in India, underscores how thoroughly Mañjuśrī pervaded esoteric Buddhism in South Asia. As a figure of cult worship, Mañjuśrī was most prominent outside of India. By the 5th century, the Chinese Wutai shan (“Five Terrace Mountain”) was understood to be his earthly residence, and a magnet for pilgrims who sought a vision of the crown prince. Mañjuśrī became identified as the patron deity of China during the Tang dynasty, thereby setting a pattern for subsequent rulers of China, who often linked their own legitimacy to Mañjuśrī, and visibly promoted his worship at Wutai shan. This practice crystallized during the long reign of the Manchus (1611–1912), who not only portrayed their rulers as emanations of the crown prince, but fostered the folk etymology of their ethnonym as deriving from Mañjuśrī. Tibetan Buddhism was at its apex there, and Mañjuśrī and his mountain home become important to Tibetans, Nepalese, Khotanese, and Mongols.

Reimagining the Buddhist Universe: Pilgrimage and Cosmography in the Court of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama (1876–1933)

During his exiles from Lhasa in the 1910s, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama visited the holy places of Wutai Shan in China and Bodh Gaya in India. After his return, he commissioned paintings of these two places in cosmological mural programs of his palaces. While conforming to earlier iconographic traditions, these paintings employed empirical modes of representation unprecedented in Tibetan Buddhist paintings, revealing a close connection to the Dalai Lama's prior travels. This essay traces how these “modernized” renditions were incorporated into an existing pictorial template, and examines the deft rearticulation of a Buddhist cosmology in light of the Dalai Lama's own encounter with the shifting geopolitical terrains of the early twentieth century. I show that painting served as a powerful medium through which the Dalai Lama asserted his spiritual sovereignty and temporal authority over modernity's work of boundary making. The study elucidates a sphere of agency and creativity in the court of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama that has evaded historical inquiries to date.