The Manchu emperor's role as Manjushri incarnate followed the Yuan pattern of the Mongol rulers when Khubilai Khan — like his predecessors — was regarded as an incarnation of the bodhisattva Manjushri. In an inscription at the famous Juyong Guan ('Cloud Terrace') north of Beijing, one of the foremost decorated Buddhist monuments of the Yuan period of 1342/45, the Mongol ruler Toghon Temur (r. 1333-68) is named the 'Emperor Bodhisattva', and in a colophon to a Buddhist text translation a 'reincarnation of the teacher Buddha'. A similarly unusual epithet for a Chinese ruler has been written by the Qianlong emperor in the Yonghegong temple at Beijing in honour of his father Yongzheng who as 'King Shakyamuni... has manifested himself in his real shape'. More...