. mudrā, mantra, mandala 79
it was the use of dhāraṇīs that eventually led to the develoment of
esoteric Buddhism.^12 In contrast, mantras have often been regarded as
hallmarks of esoteric Buddhism and the tantras and for all intents and
purposes to be absent from the Mahāyāna and earlier Buddhism. Yet it
is arguable that mantras are found in some early materials, including
Vinaya, though they are absent from Pali works.^13 A common theory is
that dhāraṇīs have a mnemonic function.^14 The intelligibility or unin-
telligibility of mantras and dhāraṇīs has been hotly contested, with
some scholars drawing on recent work in speech act theory to advance
their positions.^15
Not all of the confusion between mantras and dhāraṇīs stems from
scholarly bias or myopia. A long history of interaction and influence
virtually insures overlap. As Davidson points out, “mantras seemed to
have become associated with dhāraṇīs first [as] an important subset
and then through synecdoche each came to stand for each other in
many environments.”^16
It is therefore difficult to draw categorical distinctions between
mantras and dhāraṇīs. Both are used for the invocation of Buddhist
divinities and various kinds of spirits, both may and may not carry
semantic significance, although most feature a combination of power
syllables and proper intelligible and translatable meaning.
(^12) See Sørensen, “On Esoteric Buddhism in China: A Working Definition,” and
Copp, “ 13 Dhāraṇī Scriptures,” in this volume.
Davidson 2009, 20–24. Davidson’s essay includes a detailed history and examina-
tion of the defnitional debate. 14
A position held by Lamotte and others. For a summary of the argument see
Davidson 2009, 8–12. For Davidson’s proposal concerning dhāraṇīs as encoding
devices see 56–58.
(^15) Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century arguments that dhāraṇīs and spells are
essentially unintelligible nonsense words strung together has been revisited with more
linguistic and theoretical sophistication within the broader contexts of the “meaning”
or “meaninglessness” of ritual and the nature of speech acts. See Staal 1979, 1989, and
Wheelock 1982, as well as their respective essays in Alper, 1989. 16
Davidson 2009, 24. He continues, “We occasionally see that a mantradhāraṇī
was an appositional compound indicating a dhāraṇī that was a mantra (mantra
eva dhāraṇī), demonstrating the grammatical understanding of identity of refer-
ence (samānādhikaraṇa). This is most tellingly seen in various texts when the term
“mantra words” (mantrapadāni) is used interchangeably with “dhāraṇī words”
(dhāraṇīpadāni), and such interchangeability is a hallmark of semantic identity, as
we have seen.” These usages are found in Bodhisattvabhūmi, Saddharmapuṇḍarīka,
etc. See Davidson 2009, 24–25, n. 68.