SEEING CHEN-YEN BUDDHISMand Taoist performances of the P'u-tu rites. John Lagerwey quotes a Taoist
master as asserting the identity of the rites.^74 I have watched the simultaneous
performance of these rites in Hong Kong, and I too noted the similarities. Yet
the rites are not the same. While it is apparent that the P 'u-tu rites contained in
Lin Ling-chen's and Ning Ch'uan-chen's Hsiian-tu ta-hsien yii-shan ching-kung
i in outline resemble the Yii-chia chi-yao yen-k 'au shih-shih i, the meditations,
visualizations, and cosmology are strikingly different.^75
And then, what of the men and women who, during the ghost festival, bum
"hell-money" on the streets of Hong Kong? Should we restrict our researches
only to those "orthodox" manifestations of the Vajrayana? I think not.
Jacques Gemet has said that "the death of Amoghavajra in 774 symbolizes in
its way the end of the Chinese middle ages."^76 I will put it this way: the rise of
Amoghavajra and the dissemination and assimilation of Vajrayana rites signal
the beginning of modem Chinese religion. It is time we return Chen-yen to the
place it has actually occupied in Chinese religions and in the Vajrayana. We
must begin to see Chen-yen.
Notes
An earlier version of this article was presented in the panel "Historical Explorations of
the Diamond Path" at the Association of Asian Studies in San Francisco, April 1988. For
Chinese characters, see fig. I.
* Author's 2005 note: It is a humbling experience to revisit an article written fifteen
years ago, and there are many things one is tempted to reconsider and revise. Chief
among them would be a more problematized application of the terms Vajrayana,
Chen-yen, Esoteric Buddhism, and tantra. Nonetheless, the main thesis - that the
impact of esoteric texts, rituals, and hermeneutics on T'ang and Sung religion has
been under studied and under represented, and that sectarian scholarship played a key
role in creating and perpetuating this situation-remains valid. For more recent work
on the topic the reader should consult my Politics and Transcendent Wisdom ( 1998),
Michel Strickmann's Mantras et Mandarins (1996), and Chinese Magical Medicine
(2002), as well as Appendix A of Robert Sharfs Coming to Terms with Chinese Bud-
dhism (2002), and my review of the same in Journal of the American Academy of
Religion (2005).
Quoted in Yoshito S. Hakeda, Kukai: Major Texts (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1978), pp. 31-32. Original in Ki5bi5 daishi zenshii, comp. and ed. Center of
Mikky6 Cultural Study of Koyasan University, 3d printing with additions (Tokyo:
Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1965), 1:99.
2 Several fine works on Shingon promote this view of Chen-yen or remain bound by
the sectarian categories of "pure" (tun mi) and "miscellaneous" (tsa mi). See, e.g.,
Minoru Kiyota, Shingon Buddhism (Tokyo and Los Angeles: Buddhist Books Inter-
national, 1978); Tajima Ryiijun, Les deux grandes mw:u:falas et Ia doctrine d'esoter-
ism Shingon (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959), and also his Etude sur le
Mahiivairocana Siitra (Dainichikyo) (Paris: Adrien Maisonneuvre, 1936); Omura
Seigai, Mikkyo Hattatsu-shi, 5 vols. (Tokyo, 1918, reprint, 1972); Matsunaga Yukei,
Mikkyo no rekishi (Kyoto: Heiraku-ji shoten, 1969), and his "Tantric Buddhism and
Shingon Buddhism," Eastern Buddhist 2 (November 1969): 1-14; and Osabe
Kazuo's Todai mikkyoshi zakkO (Kobe: Kobe Shoka Daigaku Gakujutsu Kenkyiikai,