Abstract: During the 18th century, Mount Wutai gradually became a trans-local sacred center, attracting visitors and pilgrims from China proper, Tibetan and Mongolian regions, India, Japan and Korea. Its popularity gained the patronage and frequent visits from Qing emperors. Consequently, writings about Mount Wutai mushroomed in various versions, editions, and languages, such as the Chinese, Tibetan, and Mongolian pilgrimages guides composed by Buddhist monks of different Chinese and Tibetan traditions, as well as the imperially approved mountain gazetteer compiled by the Qing officials. This study, by comparing four 18th century texts on Mount Wutai, analyzes the Chinese Buddhist, Tibetan Buddhist and imperial narratives in the texts, investigates their imaginations of the world and the empire, analyzes their conceptualizations of space, landscape, and power, and discusses the relationship between knowledge production, sacred space and imperial formation. This article demonstrates the process in which the sacred landscape of Mount Wutai was shaped by various knowledge traditions and fluid actors across the boundaries of the region, ethnicity, and religion in the 18th century. It points out that the openness of space and the fluidity of actors gave birth to the multiple identifications and belongings through the diverse spatial imaginations of Mount Wutai as transcendent space or mandala, which at the same time contributed to the emerging sense of "our holy empire". In unfolding this process, this article endeavors to untangle the bundle of ethnicity, nation, state, language and culture by highlighting the multiple identifications and expressions. This article also tackles the dichotomy of marginality and centrality, arguing that instead of the imperial center "civilizing" the peripheries and transforming the landscapes, it is the knowledge traditions and the landscapes in the margins that generated the sacredness of the imperial sovereignty.

Key words: Mount Wutai, space, landscape, imperial formation