SEEING CHEN-YEN BUDDHISM11 It is noteworthy that Korea has been almost totally overlooked in this regard.
12 While earlier scholars, such as Tajima Ryujun, Omura Seigai, and Toganoo Shoun
used comparative Vajrayana materials, it is only in the last fifteen to twenty years that
the Indo-Tibetan Vajrayana tradition has become a major context for the exploration
of East Asian Vajrayana. Comparative Iconography of the Vajradhatumal)cjala and
the Tattva-smigraha by Dr. Mrs. Shashibala, Sata-pitaka Series, vol. 344 (New Delhi:
Mrs. Sharada Rani, 1986) presents a summary of much Japanese scholarship relevant
to the Indo-Tibetan context of the STTS and its mal)cjalas. But most encouraging is
the work coming out of the French school-R. A. Stein and his students (see below,
nn. 14 and 15).
13 While such investigations can be useful for heuristic purposes, we should be careful
in finding the key to all East Asian Vajrayana in Indo-Tibetan doctrinal constructs.
See, e.g., Shashibala, pp. 24-25, where the reason for the ninefold schema of the East
Asian Vajradhatu mal)cjala is found in the "Tibetan taxonomy and topical analysis of
the tantras" as being the six sub-mal)<;lalas of the STTS with "the seventh mal)<;lala rep-
resenting the exegesis from the prajiia standpoint and the eighth and the ninth mal)-
<;lalas betoken[ing] the upaya viewpoint." Not only is such an analysis possible both in
East Asian and in Indo-Tibetan traditions, but it ignores possible and obvious influ-
ences from Chinese religions.
14 For the best of the French school, see Michel Strickmann, ed., Tantric and Taoist
Studies in Honor of R. A. Stein, vols. 1-3 which constitutes vols. 20-23 of Melanges
Chinois et Bouddhiques (Brussels: lnstitut Beige des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 1981,
1983, 1985); vol. 23 is forthcoming.
15 These are mostly brief reports found in Annuaire de !'Ecole pratique des Hautes
Etudes, Section des Sciences Religieuses, and Annuaire du College de France, espe-
cially from 1973 to 1981. The situation is beginning to change with the publication of
Tantric and Taoist Studies (n. 14 above) and with the ongoing work of Hobogirin: see
lyanaga, "Recits" (n. 5 above), p. 646.
16 I am referring to Kiyota (n. 2 above). Yamasaki Taiko, Shingon: Japanese Esoteric
Buddhism, trans. and adapted by Richard Peterson and Cynthis Peterson, ed.
Yasuyoshi Morimoto and David Kidd (Boston: Shambala, 1988) contains what is by
far the most careful portrayal of the development of the Chen-yen school in China
that is available in English, though it too ignores recent work by French sinologists
and gives a largely orthodox presentation of the Shingon school.
17 Typical of such judgments is that of Liu Hsu, the compiler of Chiu T'ang shu ( CTS),
"Most of the fertile land and much of the wealth in the capital region passed to the
Buddhist monasteries and Taoist temples, and the officials were powerless to control
the Buddhist clergy. Tai-tsung's faith in Buddhism remained unshaken even in the
face of recurrent corruption, rebellion, and military defeats"; CTS 118, p. 3417,
quoted in Stanley Weinstein, Buddhism under the Tang (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1987), p. 89.
18 Kenneth Ch'en, Buddhism in China: A Historical Survey (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1964), pp. 213-40, 389-408.
19 Ibid., p. 389.
20 Ibid., pp. 336-37. For similar appraisals, see Arthur F. Wright, Buddhism in Chinese
History (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1970), pp. 86-127.
21 Weinstein, Buddhism under the T'ang, p. 63.
22 It was fortuitous for the Chen-yen masters that they appeared at the court in the early
to mid-T'ang. Until the reunification of North and South under the Sui, there had been
two disparate emphases in Chinese Buddhism. Buddhism in the South was dominated
by intellectuals. It was literate and aimed at the acquisition of insight. Buddhism in
the North, under the non-Han rulers, emphasized the pragmatic benefits of healing,