The Forces Stir

The strange phenomenon at Mang Mountain was clearly visible throughout the area around Luoyang.

Ten li from Dragon Gate Inn stood the world-famous Longmen Grottoes.

These grottoes had been carved before Emperor Xiaowen moved the capital to Luoyang, and construction had continued through the Eastern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Qi, Sui, Tang, and Five Dynasties. They had received especially strong support during Wu Zetian's reign.

The most famous statue, the Vairocana Buddha, had been sculpted in Wu Zetian's likeness.

There was a story behind it.

One morning, Wu Zetian was dressing her hair while Gaozong praised her from the side. "My empress, your features are dignified and graceful, with the bearing of a bodhisattva."

Upon hearing this, Wu Zetian immediately wiped away her tears and said, "Even if everything before me is beautiful, after a hundred years I will still be nothing but a pile of dry bones. Who will know what I looked like?"

Gaozong said, "What's so difficult about that? I'll order a painter to make a fine portrait of you."

Wu Zetian said, "Though a portrait is beautiful, it is only a thin sheet of paper and cannot survive for a thousand years."

"Since Your Majesty says I have the features of a bodhisattva, why not carve a grotto and create a statue on Longmen Mountain?"

Thus, Gaozong ordered people to carve an open-air Buddhist shrine the size of nine rooms into the cliff halfway up the western mountain of Longmen, naming it the Great Vairocana Shrine.

Wu Zetian named herself "Zhao," meaning that light shone over heaven and earth.

The translated meaning of Vairocana was precisely "light shining everywhere."

The two names complemented each other perfectly, and even the Buddha's features had been carved after Wu Zetian's appearance.

To make the statue famous for all eternity,