270 martin lehnertorder that had to be realised, cultivated and to which the emperor and
his administration should obey.
Around mid eleventh century, one may suspect similar dialectics to
be at work in favour of Chan practice and a Confucian revival, now
displacing the “secret teachings” considered to be a rather obsolete
“technology” of state protection: how to entangle a political centre
into a master grid governed by divine forces of capture, which could
be realised, shared and instrumentalised by the sovereign/hierophant,^84
ceased to be a fundamental problem of polity. Lacking the universalist
context of state protection and imperial patronage, however, Tantric
pragmatics still were suitable for a practitioner’s own prestige and pro t,
a situation conditioning further developments.- The Turn to “Profanation”
Since the Tang dynasty, Tantric pragmatics increasingly spread into
local forms of religious Daoist practice. Ground for such developments
was already paved centuries earlier when apotropaic rituals became a
part of Buddhist lay practice. So-called proto-Tantric texts, such as
Atik a’s Chinese Tuoluoni ji jing (Collection of Dhra
Scripture, tr. 653–654)^85 and the Guanding jing (Consecration
Scripture, tr. 5th century),^86 helped to constitute some sort of Buddho-
Daoist ritual praxis. Buddhist ritual pragmatics in uenced and were
in uenced by Daoist ones, which in turn resonated in their respec-
tive doctrinal coinage. Topoi such as the operability of the human
body, water and re in rituals concerning consecration, immolation
and spirit-possession furthered common grounds for Daoist as well as
Buddhist praxis and doctrine.^87 Some parts of the Guanding jing, which
are in uenced by Daoist initiation documents (Chin. lu ), suggest
a rather pragmatic interchangeability of Daoist and Buddhist rituals.
Besides an apocalyptic rhetoric, the promise of therapeutic aims and(^84) Cf. White 2000, pp. 34–36.
(^85) On this text, see Strickmann, 1996, pp. 133–136. Atik a is said to be the rst
monk who performed the Tantric consecration ritual (Skt. abhieka) in China; see the
chapter by Pol Vanden Broucke.
(^86) See Strickmann 1996, pp. 78–87; cf. the chapter by Pol Vanden Broucke.
(^87) Strickmann 1996, pp. 49–52; on homa ritual in Chinese and Japanese context,
see ibid., pp. 337–368.
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