Chinese Esoteric Buddhism

Amoghavajra, the Ruling Elite, and the Emergence of a Tradition

Geoffrey C. Goble

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN:
  9780231550642
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Chinese History

Chinese Esoteric Buddhism is generally held to have been established as a distinct and institutionalized Buddhist school in eighth-century China by "the Three Great Masters of Kaiyuan": ?ubh?karasi?ha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra. Geoffrey C. Goble provides an innovative account of the tradition's emergence that sheds new light on the structures and traditions that shaped its institutionalization.

Goble focuses on Amoghavajra (704–774), contending that he was the central figure in Esoteric Buddhism's rapid rise in Tang dynasty China, and the other two "patriarchs" are known primarily through Amoghavajra's teachings and writings. He presents the scriptural, mythological, and practical aspects of Chinese Esoteric Buddhism in the eighth century and places them in the historical contexts within which Amoghavajra operated. By telling the story of Amoghavajra's rise to prominence and of Esoteric Buddhism's corresponding institutionalization in China, Goble makes the case that the evolution of this tradition was predicated on Indic scriptures and practical norms rather than being the product of conscious adaptation to a Chinese cultural environment. He demonstrates that Esoteric Buddhism was employed by Chinese rulers to defeat military and political rivals. Based on close readings of a broad range of textual sources previously untapped by English-language scholarship, this book overturns many assumptions about the origins of Chinese Esoteric Buddhism.

Notes

Introduction

1. Ōmura 大付西崖, Mikkyō hattatsu-shi 密教発逹史, 2 vols. (1918; reprint, Tokyo: Bukkyō Kankōkai Zuzōbu, 1972), 353. Toganō 栂尾祥雲, Himitsu Bukkyo Shi 秘密佛教史 (Kyoto: Koyasan Daigaku Mikkyo Bunkaa Kenkyujo, 1982), 101.

2. Michel Strickmann, “Homa in East Asia,” in Agni: The Vedic Ritual of the Fire Altar, ed. Frits Staal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 436.

3. Michel Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine, ed. Bernard Faure (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002), 198.

4. Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine, 229. See also Michel Strickmann, Mantras et Mandarins: Le Boudhisme Tantrique en Chine (Paris: Gallimard, 1996), 80–81.

5. Robert H. Sharf, Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002), 263–78, 269.

6. Sharf, Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism, 263–64.

7. Sharf, Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism, 269.

8. Sharf, Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism, 275.

9. Sharf, Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism, 269.

10. Hugh Urban, “The Extreme Orient: The Construction of ‘Tantrism’ as a Category in the Orientalist Imagination,” Religion 29 (1999): 139–40.

11. Charles D. Orzech, “The ‘Great Teaching of Yoga,’ the Chinese Appropriation of the Tantras and the Question of Esoteric Buddhism,” Journal of Chinese Religions 34 (2006): 29–78.

12. Ronald M. Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002).

13. Orzech, “The ‘Great Teaching of Yoga,’ the Chinese Appropriation of the Tantras and the Question of Esoteric Buddhism,” 69–70.

14. “The ‘Great Teaching of Yoga,’ the Chinese Appropriation of the Tantras and the Question of Esoteric Buddhism,” 70.

15. “The ‘Great Teaching of Yoga,’ the Chinese Appropriation of the Tantras and the Question of Esoteric Buddhism,” 71.

16. Koichi Shinohara, Spells, Images, and Mandalas: Tracing the Evolution of Esoteric Buddhist Rituals, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).

17. Shinohara, Spells, Images, and Mandalas, xxi.

18. Paul F. Copp, The Body Incantatory: Spells and the Ritual Imagination in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).

19. Copp, The Body Incantatory, 199–200, 212–18.

20. Misaki Ryōshū 三崎良周, Mikkyo to jingishiso 密教と神祗思想 (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1992), 137–41. Xiao Dengfu 蕭登福, Daojia yu mizong 道教與密宗 (Taibei, Taiwan: Xinwenfeng chubangongsi 新文豐出版公司, 1994), 63. Fukunaga Mitsuji 福永光司, Dōkyō to Nihon Shisō 道教と日本思想 (Tōkyō: Tokuma Shoten 徳間書店, 1985), 256.

1. The Three Great Masters of Kaiyuan and the Teaching of the Five Divisions

1. This view can be found in general introductions to Buddhism, as in Rupert Gethin’s widely used The Foundations of Buddhism: “a tradition of esoteric practice was introduced into China in the eighth century by the Indians Śubhākarasiṃha (637–735) and Vajrabodhi (671–741) and the Sri Lankan Amoghavajra (705–774).” Rupert Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 260–61. It is also represented in more specialized scholarship. For example, Charles Orzech writes in his Politics and Transcendent Wisdom: “This piecemeal transmission [of pseudo-esoteric Buddhist ritual texts] continued until Śubhākarasiṃha arrived in Chang’an in 716. Shortly thereafter (721) Vajrabodhi and his disciple Pu-k’ung arrived in the T’ang capital to propagate and articulate comprehensive systems of Buddhist Esotericism (tantra).” Charles D. Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom: The Scripture for Humane Kings in the Creation of Chinese Buddhism (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), 137.

2. Xia, Guangxing 夏广兴, Mijiao chuanchi yu Tangdai shehui 密教传持与唐代社会 (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe 上海人民出版社, 2008), 46.

3. Lu, Jianfu 吕建福 Zhongguo Mijiao Shi 中國密教史 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe: Xinhua shudian jingxiao, 1995), 74.

4. Kaiyua...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Conventions and Abbreviations
• Introduction
• One: The Three Great Masters of Kaiyuan and the Teaching of the Five Divisions
• Two: Esoteric Buddhism in Context: Tang Imperial Religion
• Three: Esoteric Buddhism in Context: The An Lushan Rebellions and Tang War Religion
• Four: Amoghavajra and the Ruling Elite
• Five: The Institutional Establishment of Esoteric Buddhism
• Six: The Consolidation of Amoghavajra’s Legacy
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index