An illegitimate authority that knows no respect crumbles at the first signs of uprising. A revolt that dies down in a few days is a disturbance that did not have the people’s approval. The silence in my empire was a tacit recognition of my legitimacy. I had indeed worked tirelessly for the Tang dynasty for nearly thirty years, and everyone recognized that I was the source of its prosperity. Why should I go on reigning behind an incompetent son and reducing him to a puppet emperor? I had already changed banners, renamed ministers, and made Luoyang my capital. I had squashed revolutions and subdued the Tatars. I had allowed poetry and the arts to flourish and had seen justice triumph. The people were well fed. The world had me to thank for its beauty. Why let the hazy title of Divine Mother Sacred Emperor and the shadowy suggestion of usurpation hover over me? Why should I not formally and enthusiastically take up the mandate offered to me by Heaven?
On the fifteenth day of the twelfth month in the fourth year of the Era of Lowered Arms and Joined Hands, two months after the insurrection led by the royal princes, I broke the ancestral law that forbade women to officiate in the rites of celebration. In the name of the Sacred Emperor, I raised the great imperial parade that had once served my husband. Followed by my son, the Emperor, and his heir, by officials and governor delegates, Barbarian kings, foreign ambassadors, and an entire people in a state of feverish, exalted excitement, I traveled to the banks of the River Luo. There I stepped up onto the altar to the strains of ten thousand musicians playing the fourteen verses of Rejoicing and Veneration-, which I had composed. At the top of this great monument, there were a thousand wild birds, a thousand game birds, a thousand sheep and goats, a thousand bulls and cows, a thousand jars of grain, a thousand jugs of wine, and countless rare creatures sent as gifts by vassal kingdoms; these made up my offering to the goddess of the River Luo who had sent me the divine message.
The very next day Scribe of Loyalty announced that the Temple of Clarity had been completed. The Morning Salutation became an audience granted to the Barbarian ministers and kings.
The sacred building was made up of three circular sections, one on top of the other; it was built on a square platform and looked liked a pagoda on a massive scale. Inside, two hundred and forty millennial trees had been used to support a network of horizontal beams that acted as a base for the pillars on the floor above. Beams and rafters painted with powdered gold were interwoven in an increasingly complicated pattern to reach the vaulted ceiling covered in frescoes depicting the marvels of the gods. Its substantial system of curving roofs covered in varnished blue-green tiles unfurled into the sky. The top of the roof looked down on the entire world from a height never before achieved: 280 cubits, which was twice as high as the tallest imperial palace. Upon it, nine seething golden dragons-gods of the seas and symbols of masculine strength-held up a scarlet phoenix, king of birds and the emblem of the Empress Mother of Heaven. The creature’s wings were set with gemstones that caught the sun’s rays and twinkled dazzlingly up to the clouds.
The sanctuary consecrated to Heaven, to the Kings of the Five Directions, and to the spirits of emperor ancestors, was forbidden to profane eyes; I therefore revealed only the front area intended for imperial receptions. There were twenty-four windows on the third floor representing the twenty-four winds of the four seasons, and twelve on the second floor representing the twelve earthly cycles. The beams of light from these converged on a stage consisting of a disc of celestial turquoise laid on a square of earthly yellow. I climbed the steps and sat on the throne, a simple seat low on the ground, draped with a mat of woven, white satin. But the rays of sunlight playing around me were so bright they might have been hideous dragons, fearless warriors, or an entire celestial army begat by the breath of the gods. The ministers and kings were terrified, and they threw themselves to their knees and prostrated themselves, crying: “The Sacred Emperor is truly a divinity!”
Brimming with pride, I announced, “In his lifetime, the previous emperor wanted to raise the Temple of Clarity. On the day of the sanctification on Tai Mountain, that wish received Heaven’s blessing. But the propitious time was a long time coming. Today peace reigns throughout the world, and the people live in plenty. The gods have given me their permission. I have dared to resurrect ancient religion and to turn myth into reality. The Temple of Clarity is a sanctuary intended for Supreme Celebration, a solemn place that shall be venerated by the people. It has been built according to the laws of nature to represent Heaven and Earth, and it drives away demons and absorbs impurities. That is why I shall call it the Sacred Temple of the Ten Thousand Elements. May every man, beast, plant, and mineral on our Earth be protected by it!”
The cheers were still echoing when the year came to an end. Snow fell tender on Luoyang. On New Year’s Day, with my ministers’ approval, I overstepped ancestral law again.
After the purification, I put on the ink-red emperor’s tunics and men’s-style shoes. On my man’s topknot, I wore my husband’s crown decorated with twenty-four tiers of jade pearls. With the jade scepter in my hand and hugging the hopes of an entire people to my breast, I stepped into the heart of the Temple of the Ten Thousand Elements and communed with Heaven and the spirits of the ancestors. After the ceremony, I stood high up by the Gate of Celestial Law to announce the Great Remission of sins and to inaugurate the Era of Eternal Prosperity. Two days later, I gathered my officials in the temple and sat on the sacred throne. In the name of Heaven, I instructed them in the nine virtues. A few days after that, I ordered that the temple be opened to the public and invited my people to visit it. From the top of the Pagoda of Contemplation, I observed with pride a continuous stream of pilgrims form outside the Forbidden City. The previous emperors had all failed. But I, a woman, had been capable of raising the highest temple in history. The rebel princes were right: I was the usurper of men’s dreams.
SCRIBE OF LOYALTY threw himself at my feet: The master monk, Clarity of Law, had just translated the sutra of the Great Cloud in which certain passages justified my position as the master of the earthly world.
“While he was preaching,” Scribe of Loyalty took the scroll from his sleeve and read, “Buddha addressed a celestial daughter named Purity of Heavenlight and said: ”In a former life you once heard the sutra of Great Nirvana. Because of this providential incident, you have taken the form of a celestial being. Now, having heard my teachings, you shall abandon this ethereal body and assume the mortal flesh of a woman. You shall reign over the earth and shall be the bodhisattva who redeems the lowly world.“”
“Sacred Majesty,” my lover cried, “ever since I was called to your service, I have wondered who you were. You are proud yet humble, tormented yet naive. You are deep as the night, limpid as a mirror, ardent as the sun, and icy as the moon. You restore traditions and reinvent codes. You are in the present and navigate through the past while already projecting yourself into the future. You are a woman and a man, one and several, movement and immobility. The better I know you, the more I am amazed by the infinity that lies within you. This sutra of the Great Cloud that has come from India has just revealed your origins: You are that celestial daughter! You are the Savior of the World; you are the bodhisattva of the Future!”
Seeing that I gave no reply, he drew closer on his knees.
“Majesty, do you not remember the distant past when you lived in the kingdom of the skies?”