Chinese Esoteric Buddhism AMOGHAVAJRA, THE RULING ELITE, AND THE EMERGENCE OF A TRADITION
GEOFFREY C. GOBLE
Introduction
Esoteric Buddhism and esoteric Buddhism This book is about the emergence of Esoteric Buddhism as a Chinese Buddhist school and as an object of consciousness in Tang Dynasty China. There is no scholarly consensus as yet regarding terminology, so I will begin with some basic operational terms and concepts. In the pages that follow, “esoteric Buddhism” indicates a body of early Mahāyāna ritual and spell texts in Chinese translation. This amorphous body of East Asian sources is often understood to stand in some relation to a self-conscious tradition or “school” that emerged in the second half of the eighth century in Tang Dynasty China. It is generally understood that this teaching was transmitted to Japan and established as the Shingon 真言 or “mantra” school of Japanese Buddhism, but the Tang Dynasty Buddhist school has been referred to by various names in modern scholarship—“pure esotericism,” “high esotericism,” “mature esotericism,” “Zhenyan,” the “Great Teaching of Yoga”—a nd it has almost invariably been identified with the persons and texts of Śubhākarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra. I refer to this teaching and object of the historical imagination as Esoteric Buddhism. For early scholars, the crux of the problem was this: Śubhākarasiṃha (Chn. Shanwuwei 善無畏, 637–735), Vajrabodhi (Chn. Jin’gangzhi 金剛智, 671– 741), and Amoghavajra (Chn. Bukongjin’gang 不空金剛, 704–774) were understood to have established a new teaching in China in the second half of the [1]
Introduction eighth century, but Amoghavajra, who was easily the most prominent and prolific of these “patriarchs,” produced texts containing this new teaching and also retranslated Mahāyāna spell texts that had been transmitted to China in previous centuries. In other words, Amoghavajra produced both esoteric and Esoteric Buddhist texts and teachings in China, thereby creating an ambiguous relationship between esoteric and Esoteric Buddhism. In the imaginations of early scholars, esoteric and Esoteric Buddhism were different, but the basis of the distinction was not always clear. As a result, one guiding concern of early scholarship was the relationship between the new teaching (Esoteric Buddhism) and the old one (esoteric Buddhism). One finds this basic concern in the foundational work of early twentieth-century Japanese scholars, who tended to trace the genealogical development of Esoteric Buddhism from early esoteric Buddhist antecedents in the fourth century to the Esoteric Buddhism transmitted from China to Japan by Kūkai 空海 (774–835) in the ninth century and to differentiate those antecedents and later texts and practices by invoking a distinction between “mixed” or “miscellaneous esotericism” (zōmitsu 雜密) and “pure esotericism” ( junmitsu 純密). This is the approach in Ōmura Seiga’s Mikkyō hattatsushi 密教発逹史 (History of the Development of the Esoteric Teaching), published in 1918, and in Toganō Shoun’s 栂尾祥雲 Himitsu bukkyo shi 秘密佛教史 (History of Esoteric Buddhism) from 1933. For Ōmura and Toganō, the distinction between “miscellaneous esotericism” (read: esoteric Buddhism) and “pure esotericism” (read: Esoteric Buddhism) was predicated on Shingon orthodoxy, according to which “miscellaneous esotericism” was taught by the Manifestation Body (Skt. nirmaṇakāya) Buddha Śākyamuni for achieving a variety of mundane results—rainfall, healing, supernormal personal abilities, etc.— while “pure esotericism” was revealed by the Dharma Body (Skt. dharmakāya) Buddha Vairocana for soteriological attainments. The scriptures in which Vairocana’s teaching could be found were principally the Great Vairocana and the Diamond Pinnacle Scriptures, introduced to China in the eighth century by Śubhākarasiṃha and by Vajrabodhi respectively. Amoghavajra was understood to have incorporated these two different texts into a single teaching.1 The distinction between esoteric and Esoteric Buddhism established by the early twentieth-century Japanese scholars informed early English- language scholarship, most notably Michel Strickmann’s. Strickmann argued that Esoteric Buddhism emerged in eighth-century India as the result of the progressive incorporation of non-Buddhist elements and also as a [2]
Introduction progressive development within Buddhism. This incorporation and development resulted in what he referred to as a “mature Tantric system” (i.e., “pure esotericism,” Esoteric Buddhism). He locates the emergence of this “system” in India with the production of the Mahāvairocana and the Susiddhikara Sūtra, texts translated into Chinese under the aegis of Śubhākarasiṃha. Among the characteristic elements of this “mature Tantra” that I have been able to piece together from Strickmann’s works are the centrality of Vairocana Buddha, ritual practices of abhiṣeka (“consecration” or “initiation”), and homa fire offerings. Strickmann identifies the works of Śubhākarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra as representative of this system.2 Based on his model of progressive development, he posited a relationship between Esoteric Buddhism or “mature Tantrism” and what he labeled “proto-Tantra.” Strickmann’s “proto-Tantra” is not qualitatively different from “mixed Esotericism”; both refer to the object of historical consciousness that I am calling esoteric Buddhism. Reflecting Shingon orthodoxy, Ōmura and Toganō identified “mixed esotericism” as a dispensation of the historical Buddha and “pure esotericism” as the teaching of Vairocana found in the scriptures of Śubhākarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra. Strickmann was an empirical historian, but his identification of “mature Tantrism” with the persons and products of Śubhākarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra indicates that this is the historical object I am referring to as Esoteric Buddhism. For Strickmann, the value of the Chinese “proto-Tantric” texts was, in part, that they provided dateable and localizable evidence for Indian Buddhist developments. 3 But while he tends to treat Śubhākarasiṃha and Vajrabodhi as translators or transmitters of Indic material, Strickmann casts Amoghavajra as an innovator, saying: The most curious feature of Amoghavajra’s scholarly activity concerns his 167 “translations.” Properly speaking, many of these were not translations at all. Instead, they might better be called “adaptations”: essentially, he refurbished them into line with his own terminology and ritual practice. This becomes even more striking in those cases where texts “translated” by Amoghavajra are known to have been written in China centuries earlier, and directly in Chinese. A substantial part of Amoghavajra’s output thus comprises revisions of books already known in China, rather than new materials. Among the remaining, a good many cannot be found either in corresponding Sanskrit manuscripts or in Tibetan translation—at least not in the form in which Amoghavajra presents them. Much [3]
Introduction of what his texts tell us unquestionably goes back to Indian sources; he was clearly working fully within the Tantric Buddhist tradition, but often more as an author or compiler than as a translator in our sense of the term.4
Although Strickmann’s motivation tended toward mining the Chinese works as sources for local traditions, his interest in the pan-Asian tradition of “Tantrism” informed his attempts to determine the cultural provenance of the scriptures attributed to Amoghavajra in the modern East Asian canon. In many respects Strickmann’s work departed from earlier Japanese scholarship insofar as he perceived the value of “proto-Tantric” scriptures and the texts that he attributed to Amoghavajra as sources for local religious traditions that otherwise are obscured from view, but his model is an attempt to understand the relationship between “proto-Tantra” and “mature Tantra” (esoteric Buddhism and Esoteric Buddhism by another name) by a priori privileging an imagined Indian system of Esoteric Buddhism in order to identify Chinese accretions and contributions. That is to say, Strickmann posited a vision of Indian Esoteric Buddhism based on Chinese sources in order to consider esoteric Buddhism. The fundamental question that motivated early scholars was the relationship between esoteric Buddhism (“mixed esotericism,” “proto-Tantra”) and the Esoteric Buddhism (“pure esotericism,” “mature Tantra”) of Śubhākarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra, but Robert Sharf introduced another dimension to this project by pushing for a more nuanced view predicated on greater attention to historical detail and local episteme while rejecting a priori assumptions derived from sectarian and academic prejudices.5 Sharf begins his analysis by noting the scholarly consensus concerning the existence of a school of Buddhism associated with the persons of Śubhākarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra.6 Against this view, he argues that “It was not until the end of the tenth century, well after the eminent Indian masters of the Tang had come and gone, that Chinese commentators began to group certain practices, doctrines, and teachers under the explicit rubric of esotericism.”7 Sharf identifies the earliest Chinese representation of Esoteric Buddhism, an indigenously recognized Chinese “school” associated with Śubhākarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra, in eleventh- century sources. However, he notes that the image of Esoteric Buddhism in these Song Dynasty sources is conflicted and ambiguous, leading him also to reject the sources as evidence of local recognition of Esoteric Buddhism [4]
Introduction as a distinct school. He reads later sources as idiosyncratic and anachronistic appraisals: these post-Tang sources do appear to be improvising. . . . Moreover, there is little consonance between Daozhen’s approach to esotericism and that found in the earlier writings of Zanning, and even Zanning’s own oeuvre contains considerable discrepancies. Such evidence suggests that these authors were charting out new territory with very limited historical, doctrinal, or scriptural precedent on which to draw.8
The basis for Sharf’s reading is that in Zanning’s sources one finds representations of Esoteric Buddhism as a school called the Great Teaching of Yoga that originated with Vairocana Buddha and was transmitted by a lineage consisting of Vajrapāṇi, Nāgārjuna, Nāgabodhi, Vajrabodhi, Amoghavajra, and Huilang (read: Esoteric Buddhism). However, Zanning elsewhere identifies Amoghavajra as one scripture translator in a series who transmitted dhāraṇī spell practices from a teaching that Zanning calls the Esoteric Canon (mizang 密臧) (read: esoteric Buddhism). Sharf reads Zanning’s presentation of Esoteric Buddhism to be an anachronism based on the author’s knowledge of the development of Esoteric Buddhism in Japan. On Sharf’s reading, there was no Esoteric Buddhism in China, only esoteric Buddhism.9 By revealing the manner in which scholars had inherited the imported prejudices and assumptions of early Japanese authors, Sharf questioned the early construction of Esoteric Buddhism and pushed for a more nuanced view, calling for greater attention to historical detail and to historical Chinese representations of Śubhākarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra from Tang sources. In this regard he echoed Hugh Urban’s call to those working with related materials in the Indian context to “ground those traditions which we wish to call ‘Tantric’ very concretely within their historical, social, economic and political contexts.”10 Recent scholarship on Esoteric Buddhism in China has consequently been informed by two basic questions. The first, introduced by Sharf, is whether there is Chinese evidence that Śubhākarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, Amoghavajra, or their contemporaries understood them to represent Esoteric Buddhism, a self-consciously distinct and new teaching. The second concerns the relationship between esoteric Buddhism and Esoteric Buddhism. Charles Orzech has shown that Amoghavajra understood himself to possess and transmit a [5]
Introduction distinct teaching and that Zanning’s terminology reflects Amoghavajra’s. By reading Amoghavajra’s works in relation to the Song Dynasty constructions of Zanning, Orzech demonstrates that references to Esoteric Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty are not entirely predicated on a priori suppositions of later scholiasts and scholars.11 Orzech then turns to the question of Esoteric Buddhism and esoteric Buddhism. He locates the origins of Esoteric Buddhism in India according to Ronald Davidson’s model:12 These traditions are rooted in the texts that were spawned by medieval Indian sāmanta feudalism of the seventh and eighth centuries, as well as those texts associated with the later siddha movement of the ninth century and following. In the first case we find as a dominant organizing trope the notion of the rājādhirāja (supreme overlord), while in the second the trope of the body and the antinomian behavior of the siddha takes precedence. Although based upon the Mahāyāna, Esoteric Buddhism is distinct from it, though even the most “sectarian” of these movements seldom repudiate the Mahāyāna. Esoteric Buddhism puts forward a coherent ritual and ideological program with a distinctive polity and pantheon (vidyārājas). Like the Mahāyāna and other new religious movements, its proponents often portray their teachings both as “new” and as “old,” specifically as being the “secret” or deeper truth of the Mahāyāna and of the “teaching of all of the Buddhas.” In the case of Esoteric Buddhism, we can see that in South Asia these texts were accompanied by definite cultic, material, and sociological markers. Access to the ritual knowledge was through initiation (abhiṣeka) by a teacher (ācārya) with claims to authority legitimated through lineage transmissions. The ritual knowledge and the material culture of the system were structured by the mandalic system presented in the texts (five kula or Buddha families, etc.).13
As for Esoteric Buddhism in China, Orzech summarizes its history in reference to three basic themes or movements. First is the promotion of Indian Esoteric Buddhism (following Davidson’s model) by Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra and referred to by Amoghavajra as the “Great Teaching of Yoga.” Adopting a view similar to Strickmann’s, he asserts that Amoghavajra produced a novel form of Esoteric Buddhism by adapting earlier esoteric texts and traditions from Chinese tradition to conform to the practical and ideological aspects of the Diamond Pinnacle Scripture. Following this, there was [6]
Introduction an exclusively Chinese development of an ecumenical nature and characterized by the “use of the Susiddhimahākara-tantra to integrate the Mahāvairocana Sūtra [i.e., Great Vairocana Scripture] and the Vajresekhara Sūtra [i.e., Diamond Pinnacle Scripture].”14 Finally, elements of South Asian Esoteric Buddhism were borrowed and incorporated into “established intellectual and ritual systems, predominantly those of the Huayan and Chan varieties.”15 In Orzech’s model, Indian Esoteric Buddhism was transmitted to China by Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra, but Amoghavajra created a local Chinese Esoteric Buddhism by refiguring earlier esoteric Buddhist texts. On this view, Chinese Esoteric Buddhism is an amalgam of esoteric and Indian Esoteric Buddhism crafted according to Sinitic norms and influences. The ambiguous relationship between esoteric and Esoteric Buddhism is resolved by asserting a “pure” Esoteric Buddhism arising in India and transmitted to China, where it was subsequently sinified through the incorporation of esoteric Buddhism according to Huayan and Chan norms. Koichi Shinohara has mined the Chinese sources to trace the Indian development of Esoteric Buddhism from earlier, esoteric Buddhist ritual traditions.16 He identifies the earliest of these ritual traditions as dhāraṇī spells, which later incorporated physical images of deities as material loci of ritual performance. Eventually, these spell rituals came to emphasize mental visualization practices over physical images. He also identifies the creation of a maṇḍala initiation ritual as a crucial moment in the development of a self- aware Esoteric Buddhist movement, insofar as it establishes a pantheon of previously independent deities. Shinohara argues that rather than an established, coherent tradition emerging with and represented by the textual products of Śubhākarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra, Esoteric Buddhism is better understood in terms of a series of phases within a long process of ritual development. Departing from the view of Orzech and others, Shinohara is concerned with the historical development of Esoteric Buddhism and his close reading of esoteric Buddhist texts by Bodhiruci in comparison to Amoghavajra’s translation of the same texts; this leads him to conclude that the Chinese setting in which these and other texts were produced “appears to be only of peripheral importance.”17 Focusing on late esoteric Buddhist materials, he resolves the ambiguity between esoteric and Esoteric Buddhism by positing a longue durée genealogical relationship between them. Paul Copp also focuses on dhāraṇī spell techniques in China [7]
Introduction (read: esoteric Buddhism) that preceded the “high Esoteric traditions” associated with Śubhākarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra (read: Esoteric Buddhism) and persisted well after their lives.18 This longer tradition of dhāraṇī spell practices in China, he argues, provided the practical and conceptual framework for the incorporation of Esoteric Buddhist scriptures and practices in the eighth century. Although not exclusively focused on Chinese practices and worldviews, Copp’s work is guided by a commitment to understanding the dhāraṇī spell practices and Esoteric Buddhism primarily in terms of their Chinese location. Accordingly, on his view, the Buddhist texts and practices presented in China by Śubhākarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra were received as articulations of the dhāraṇī spell tradition rather than as a new, previously unknown teaching of the Buddha. Like Sharf, he reads the Song Dynasty representations of esoteric/ Esoteric Buddhism found in Zanning’s works as evidence that there was not a local, Chinese understanding of Esoteric Buddhism. Instead, Copp suggests that it was received and understood in terms of established dhāraṇī spell practices.19 As in Sharf’s reading, Esoteric Buddhism vanishes as an object of historical consciousness, leaving behind only esoteric Buddhism. The historical image that we have of esoteric/Esoteric Buddhism in China is in part the product of our textual sources. The sources from the Tang and Song indicate that Esoteric Buddhism, as a locally recognized new teaching of the Buddha, flourished in the second half of the eighth century, but by the eleventh century it appears to have receded into historical memory. The historical image that these sources present tends to be read as indicating a sudden and dramatic flourishing of Esoteric Buddhism in the second half of the eighth century followed by an equally sudden and dramatic disappearance. By the Song Dynasty, Esoteric Buddhism seems to have vanished, absorbed into the larger esoteric Buddhism that preceded it. In order to understand how and why Esoteric Buddhism became established as a Buddhist school and as an object of consciousness in Tang China, the teachings and practices of this school, and why our textual sources say the things that they do, and in order to uncover the complicated relationship between esoteric Buddhism and Esoteric Buddhism, it is necessary to shorten our focal length. Rather than approaching Esoteric Buddhism with a temporal frame of centuries, in this book I attend closely to available textual sources concerning its origin as an object of Chinese consciousness. I do so with an [8]
Introduction awareness that those texts both reflect historical events and create historical images, and I assess this material with an understanding of the larger historical and sociocultural environments within which the events occurred and the texts were produced.
Synopsis The first step in this project is to provide evidence of local recognition of Esoteric Buddhism as a new teaching and to delineate as clearly as possible what that teaching was. This is the subject of the first chapter. We have no evidence that Śubhākarasiṃha was seen as presenting a new teaching and no reliable way of knowing how he presented himself and his Buddhism. We only have access to others’ representations. In sources produced prior to 755, Śubhākarasiṃha is identified as transmitting the dhāraṇī teaching rather than something new in his scriptural translations. Although there is some indication that Vajrabodhi represented his Buddhism as new, it does not appear to be clearly distinguished as such in early, contemporary sources. Otherwise, the best evidence that Vajrabodhi presented a new teaching in China is his disciple Amoghavajra. Unlike for Śubhākarasiṃha and Vajrabodhi, we have access to Amoghavajra’s own presentation of himself and his Buddhism. We are able to affirm that Amoghavajra represented himself as possessing and presenting a new Buddhist teaching in Tang China and that this teaching was received as such by his contemporaries, and we can reconstruct it to a fair degree on the basis of surviving textual evidence, of which there is a tremendous amount. The size of Amoghavajra’s textual corpus is second only to Xuanzang’s in the Chinese canon. On the basis of this evidence we can ascertain what his teaching was—its scriptures, myths, and practices. The Diamond Pinnacle Scripture was the foremost in a core canon of five scriptures. The other four were the Great Vairocana Scripture, the Sussiddhikara, the Questions of Subahu, and the Trisamaya Scripture. The hybridity of Esoteric Buddhism as a textual object was present from the beginning, as three of these five texts were translated in China by Śubhakarasiṃha. Amoghavajra’s Esoteric Buddhism was perhaps a hybrid product of his own invention, but it appears to have been predicated entirely on Indic sources. We can construct some of the mythological, ideological, and practical aspects of the [9]
Introduction teaching on the basis of these scriptures, and we also have practice manuals by Amoghavajra that outline the rituals. In the first chapter I introduce the five central Esoteric Buddhist scriptures, the mythological basis of Esoteric Buddhist soteriology, and basic soteriological techniques. In the second chapter I consider other practical aspects of Amoghavajra’s Esoteric Buddhism, focusing on homa rites. Amoghavajra performed ritual services for the Tang emperors, and we have evidence that many of these were homa rites. They are presented by Amoghavajra and recognized by Suzong 肅宗 (r. 756–762) and Daizong 代宗 (r. 762–779) as being for the benefit of the Tang and its rulers. Only in a few cases can we be certain what specific ritual Amoghavajra performed for the Tang, but the fact that he and his imperial patrons understood Esoteric Buddhism in this way indicates the context in which his services were employed: within and as part of a much larger system of ritual performances for the benefit of the emperors and their dominion. In the second chapter, I introduce this larger ritual system, referring to it as “Imperial Religion,” and then consider Esoteric Buddhist homa rites in relation to the established rites of Imperial Religion in the mid- eighth century. It has been suggested that some significant Esoteric Buddhist practices are consciously modeled on practices and traditions found in Imperial Religion, but comparing Esoteric Buddhist homa rites to the rites of Imperial Religion demonstrates that Amoghavajra’s Esoteric Buddhism was Indic in origin.20 The practical similarities between Esoteric Buddhism and Imperial rites are superficial and do not suggest any conscious imitation of established Chinese religious practices. The superficial similarities between their performative aspects may have facilitated the adoption of Esoteric Buddhism by elite Chinese patrons, but I suggest that the performative aspects were not as important as their effective outcomes: Esoteric Buddhism was held to produce benefits for the person of the emperor and the imperium that were nearly identical to those put forward by established traditions of Imperial Religion. The fact that we have sufficient evidence to construct a model of Amoghavajra’s Esoteric Buddhism is itself a reflection of the fact of his tremendous influence in China. We have sufficient textual evidence also to reconstruct his career and to ask how he came to attain such significance. This was the result of a number of factors. In the third chapter, I introduce the context in which Amoghavajra first appears as an historical actor in the textual record: the rebellion of An Lushan 安祿山 in 755/6 and its aftershocks, [ 10 ]
Introduction a period ranging from 755/6 to about 765. When Emperor Xuanzong 玄宗 (r. 713–756) fled the capital for Sichuan and the crown prince assumed the throne in exile from the capital in 756, Amoghavajra remained in Chang’an and performed rituals to aid in the defeat of the rebels. These appear to have been Esoteric Buddhist abhicāra rites, “subjugation” rituals that brought disease, disaster, and death to one’s enemies. In chapter 3 I introduce the historical context and frame of the Rebellion Period and consider Amoghavajra’s abhicāra rites in relation to Imperial war rituals. As with homa more generally, Amoghavajra’s abhicāra rites were Indic in origin. They were set apart from Chinese Imperial war rituals by their mythical basis, performative elements, and expected effects, most notably in that Esoteric Buddhist rites were explicitly and aggressively lethal. I suggest that one of the most significant reasons Amoghavajra attained prestige and patronage was that he possessed a teaching of the Buddha that was wielded to kill enemies both singly and in numbers. In the fourth chapter, I consider the social dimension of Amoghavajra’s rise to power. Although his most prominent patrons were emperors, their support occurred within established social networks and institutions. Consideration of Amoghavajra and Esoteric Buddhism during the reigns of Xuanzong, Suzong, and Daizong requires more than an examination of only these individual men. Following his arrival in Tang China, Vajrabodhi established relationships with members of the ruling elite. Following Vajrabodhi’s death in 741, Amoghavajra inherited his master’s social capital and relationships. Upon his return from the Southern Indic regions, Amoghavajra cultivated those relationships and established patronage networks of his own among members of the civil and martial elite, including the crown prince and members of his establishment. An Lushan’s rebellion provoked a large- scale turnover in the institutions of the Tang government as Suzong assumed the throne and installed a new government. Many of Amoghavajra’s disciple- patrons assumed powerful positions in the central government following the An Lushan rebellion and through much of Daizong’s reign. As they assumed these institutional positions, their patronage of him became institutionalized. This culminated in the appointment of Amoghavajra as an official in the Tang government’s Ministry of Rites and Esoteric Buddhism being incorporated into the institutions of Tang Imperial Religion. Esoteric Buddhism was established in China as Imperial Buddhism, the Buddhist component of Tang Imperial Religion. In the fifth chapter, I [ 11 ]
Introduction introduce the Chinese tradition of state support and control of Buddhist activities within a system of imperially sponsored, official Buddhist institutions. I refer to this tradition and system as “Imperial Buddhism.” Its monasteries were established by the state over several centuries in order to supernormally benefit the Chinese imperium. The material support that Buddhist practitioners and establishments received from the state came with a measure of control over the activities in these establishments, often in the form of supporting scripture translations and ritual performances. The state alternately encouraged or restricted such activities depending on circumstance and the interest of a given ruler and members of the central bureaucracy. From 765 until the end of his reign, Emperor Daizong invested heavily in the Imperial Buddhist establishment, committing state funds to build new temples, refurbish old ones, staff official monasteries with practitioners, and produce and disseminate Buddhist scriptures. These activities were effectively guided by Amoghavajra, who installed his leading disciples in several of the most important locations and institutions of Imperial Buddhism. There, they and others performed Esoteric Buddhist rites on behalf of the emperor and the imperium, initiated and trained others in Esoteric Buddhism, and translated scriptures. Although Esoteric Buddhists were institutionally and functionally Imperial Buddhists, they nevertheless maintained their discrete sectarian identities and the identity of their teaching. Access to Amoghavajra’s Esoteric Buddhism was strictly controlled by initiation procedures that entailed vows of secrecy, and this served in part to establish and maintain the identity of Esoteric Buddhism and Esoteric Buddhists. In chapter 5, I introduce Imperial Buddhism and Esoteric Buddhist initiation rites. I then introduce Amoghavajra’s six lineal disciples and the Imperial Buddhist institutions in which they were installed, followed by the commissioner of merit and virtue, an official position in the Tang imperial government created to maintain oversight and interaction with Esoteric Buddhists. Although Esoteric Buddhists performed exclusive service to the throne, they were also beholden to the traditions of Imperial Buddhism: Amoghavajra and his disciples filled the roles of both Esoteric and Imperial Buddhists, performing both Esoteric rites and services based on Imperial Buddhist precedent, most significantly ritual services and scripture translation. As a result, Amoghavajra’s legacy was twofold. On the one hand, he established an exclusive teaching understood in terms of initiation, [ 12 ]
Introduction restriction, and secrecy. On the other hand, he produced a large textual corpus that he submitted to the Tang court shortly before his death. Containing Esoteric Buddhist scriptures, compendia, and ritual manuals alongside dhāraṇī spell texts and Mahāyāna teachings, Amoghavajra’s textual corpus reflects his dual identity as Esoteric Buddhism master cum Imperial Buddhist administrator. The dual aspect of his legacy is the source of the ambiguous relationship between esoteric and Esoteric Buddhism posited by later authors. I conclude the book by examining the manner in which Amoghavajra’s dual legacy was consolidated and preserved in the Tang and how these projects shaped the historical image of Amoghavajra and his Buddhism. Following Amoghavajra’s death, his patrons and disciples took action to preserve the master’s memory and his teaching. The first of these emphasized the lineal dimension of Amoghavajra’s legacy through the production of commemorative accounts of the master that articulated his Buddhism as a restricted teaching passed down by a series of authorized masters from India to China. This image of Esoteric Buddhism reflects his heirs’ investment in preserving their own status and identity, but the Esoteric Buddhist lineages that were written down following Amoghavajra’s death in 774 also reflect his own representations and the historical reality of Esoteric Buddhist initiation procedures. In other words, the articulation of Esoteric Buddhism as a sectarian school defined in part by a transmission lineage reflects an insider’s view. However, moves to consolidate Amoghavajra’s textual legacy in the Tang Dynasty reflect an outsider’s understanding of Amoghavajra and Esoteric Buddhism. Although he represented his textual corpus as heterogonous, his works were incorporated into the Chinese Buddhist bibliographic tradition as a homogenous collection that tended to be represented by terms he employed. As a consequence, in the bibliographies produced at the end of the Tang Dynasty, Esoteric Buddhism is conflated with the teachings of earlier Chinese texts and traditions. This is one of the principal causes of the ambiguous relationship between Esoteric and esoteric Buddhism that vexed later authors. When Song Dynasty authors looked to construct the history of the Tang and Amoghavajra’s role in the eighth century, they did so as outsiders to the Esoteric Buddhist teaching and on the basis of specific textual resources. As a result, their constructions reflect the historical image created through the consolidation of Amoghavajra’s lineal and textual legacy. The former sources depict Amoghavajra as the important lineal founder [ 13 ]
Introduction of a distinct sectarian teaching; the latter depict Amoghavajra as a translator of texts, some of which predated him and some of which were previously unknown. On the basis of these sources, Zanning and later generations of scholars struggled with the ambiguous relationship between these two Amoghavajras and the relationship between his Esoteric Buddhism and esoteric Buddhism.
[ 14 ]