What “The Golden Road” Taught Me About Empress Wu Zetian – and a Forgotten Global Cultural Moment
May 3, 2026 · Tripti Gore Chandorkar
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- A Chinese Empress in a Book About Ancient India
- The Empress Who Elevated Buddhism to State Importance
- Power, Strategy, and the Architecture of Influence
- The Exchange of Ideas Between India and China
- Art and Architecture as Expressions of Faith and Power
- A Vision That Outlived an Empire
- A Final Image That Lingers
Introduction
Sometimes, a single chapter in a book can quietly expand the way you see history!
For me, that moment came while reading The Golden Road by William Dalrymple – specifically, Chapter 5: The Fifth Concubine.
I expected to read about ancient India.
What I did not expect…
was to encounter one of the most powerful women in Chinese history – Empress Wu Zetian (624 AD – 705 AD, Tang Dynasty), not just mentioned, but given an entire chapter of her own.
And in that moment, something shifted.
Because this was no longer just Chinese history.
This was a story of connection, between India and China, between Buddhism and the state, between power and patronage, between politics and art.
A Chinese Empress in a Book About Ancient India
One of the most striking realizations from this chapter is this: Why is a Chinese Empress so central to a narrative about ancient India?
The answer reveals something profound. At the height of her reign, Wu Zetian presided over a period when the exchange of ideas, religion, art, and scholarship between India and China reached an extraordinary peak.
This was not incidental. It was actively shaped, encouraged, and institutionalized by her. According to this chapter, under her rule, India was not distant, it was intellectually and spiritually present in the heart of the Chinese empire.
The Empress Who Elevated Buddhism to State Importance
Before reading this chapter, I knew Wu Zetian as:
- A politically astute ruler
- A patron of the arts
- One of the most powerful women in Chinese history
But what astonished me after reading this chapter was this: She was instrumental in elevating Buddhism to a position of state importance.
Wu Zetian didn’t just support Buddhism quietly. But she:
- Used it as a philosophical and political framework to legitimize her rule
- Promoted Buddhist texts, rituals, and scholarship across her empire
- Invited scholars from Japan and Korea to her capitals – Luoyang and Chang’an to study and carry knowledge back to their homelands
And just as importantly, she strategically used Buddhism to counter the dominant Confucian ideology of her time. Confucianism, deeply embedded in imperial governance, prescribed rigid hierarchies, especially for women. It did not easily allow for the idea of a woman ruling as emperor. And Wu Zetian understood this. So rather than confront it directly, she shifted the ideological ground beneath it.
Through Buddhism, she:
- Aligned herself with spiritual narratives that allowed for a female ruler
- Elevated a belief system more fluid in its interpretation of power and gender
- Created a new moral and cosmic justification for her authority
In doing so, she wasn’t just adopting a religion, she was reframing power itself.
Power, Strategy, and the Architecture of Influence
Wu Zetian’s rise to power involved ambition, intelligence, and undeniably ruthless political strategy. But this chapter reveals something deeper. Her power was not sustained by strategy alone, it was reinforced through culture.
She understood that art, religion, and knowledge are instruments of influence.
So while she navigated court politics with precision, outmaneuvered rivals and consolidated authority, she also commissioned monumental artistic and architectural works, supported Buddhist scholars, translators, and intellectual networks, and invested in preserving and organizing this knowledge.
By the end of her reign, this vision culminated in something extraordinary – the creation of Hongwenguan in Chang’an—an institute (library) for the advancement of literature.
This vast library housed over 200,000 fascicles of hand-copied texts – A collection that surpassed even the greatest libraries of Byzantium.
This was empire-building of a different kind. Not just land or power. But memory, knowledge, and civilization itself.
The Exchange of Ideas Between India and China
One of the other fascinating insights from the chapter for me is this: The exchange of ideas between India and China reached its peak under Wu Zetian’s rule, and never quite returned to that level again.
During this period:
- Chinese scholars traveled to the Nalanda University in India, one of the greatest centers of learning in the ancient world
- Buddhist texts were translated from Sanskrit into Chinese
- Indian monks also traveled to China and lived in the monasteries built by Wu Zetian, to share knowledge of spirituality, medicine, science and philosophy
Art and Architecture as Expressions of Faith and Power
Wu Zetian’s patronage of Buddhism took powerful visual and spatial form. The caves of the Yungang Grottoes in Shanxi stand as enduring symbols of this era.
Within these grottoes:
- Monumental Buddha figures are carved into stone
- Sacred narratives unfold across cave walls
- Figures such as Buddha and his mother Maya are immortalized
Wu Zetian also commissioned the grand Mingtang complex in Luoyang (her empire’s capital city).
More than a structure, it represented:
- A symbolic center of cosmic and political order
- A fusion of Buddhist philosophy and imperial authority
- Surrounded by pagodas and temples that reflected both spiritual aspiration and state power
Architecture, in her reign, became a language. And through it, she communicated legitimacy, vision, and control.
Source of images: Wikipedia
Buddhist Architecture from Ancient India
You will notice many similarities between Tang dynasty Buddhist architecture (above) and the Buddhist forms I observed in India (below).
What begins as a visual observation slowly reveals something deeper—an architectural echo across geographies. These are not coincidences of form, but traces of exchange. Ideas, aesthetics, and spiritual philosophies once traveled these routes, shaping how devotion itself was imagined in stone and wood.
Ajanta Caves – Buddhist art and architecture from India originally built in the 2nd century BCE. Image source: Wikipedia
Bodh Gaya – Buddhist pilgrimage site in India, a place where Gautam Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment. Image source: Wikipedia
See actual photos of art and architecture from Empress Wu Zetian’s rule here.
Here is an interesting article on baidu.com with real and reimagined photos of MingTang Complex.
A Vision That Outlived an Empire
What makes Wu Zetian’s story even more remarkable is not just what she built during her lifetime…but what endured long after her.
As the author so strikingly notes:
- Never again would Buddhism receive the scale of imperial patronage devoted to it by Empress Wu
- Never again would the civilizations of India and China be bound together so intimately
And yet what she set in motion did not disappear. Much of it continued to shape the world for centuries. China did indeed become one of the great centers of the Buddhist world. According to this chapter, even today, China holds the largest Buddhist population on the planet.
And the connection she helped strengthen between India and China continues to echo. In recent years, the number of Chinese, and particularly Taiwanese pilgrims visiting sacred sites such as Bodh Gaya in India has reached unprecedented heights. It is a continuation of a journey that began over a thousand years ago—when monks, scholars, and seekers traveled between these two great civilizations in search of knowledge, meaning, and truth.
In many ways, that legacy continues not only through history, but through interpretation. Through art.
In Xiang Li’s portrait of Wu Zetian below, this civilizational force is captured not as a distant ruler, but as a presence, one that still carries the weight of vision, intellect, and quiet authority.
A Final Image That Lingers
And yet, after all this, after power, patronage, and the writing of history itself what remains at the end of her life is something unexpectedly quiet.
Wu Zetian’s tombstone stands bare.
No inscription.
No proclamation.
No recounting of achievements.
Instead, it is surrounded by carvings of oysters, dragons and an ostrich. And guarded by a silent procession of winged heavenly horses. The author, William Dalrymple, likens it to a tabula rasa—a blank slate. Which is perhaps the most surprising thing of all. For a woman who shaped narratives, commissioned knowledge, and influenced the course of history so profoundly, she chose, in the end, to leave her own story unwritten.
And maybe that is her final act of power. To let history speak for itself.
And perhaps…
to let each of us encounter her again, not only through history, but through the art that continues to reimagine her presence.
