1044 richard k. payne
different forms depending upon local conditions. Vedic practices, for
example, form an important source of tantric practice, but this adap-
tation did not take place in any single location or event. As with the
category “Mahāyāna” itself, the unity now perceived has been retro-
spectively constructed.
Thus, what we have is something more akin to the diffusion of an
understanding of practice that reshaped existing practices as well as
creating new ones, but largely in the context—at least for Buddhist
tantra—of the religious teleology of Mahāyāna. Before examining one
particular ritual practice, a few examples of the spread of tantric Bud-
dhist religious culture into East Asia will suggest the nature of this
process.
Abhiṣeka
It makes sense that abhisekạ , the tantric rite of initiation, would not be
modeled after the “second birth” of the Brahmans, that is, an initiation
closed to those not born of Brahman fathers. Instead the themes of
kingship and ascent to royal power inform tantric initiations (David-
son 2002a; Orzech 1998). The consecrations that involve the anointing
of kings would seem to have their roots in medieval India.
Homa
If there is any one element that comes close to being the defining
characteristic of tantra, it is homa (goma ), a votive ritual in
which offerings are made to a deity by burning them ritually. Homa is
found in all forms of tantra—geographically across the entirety of the
“tantric world” and in all sectarian forms, whether Hindu or Bud-
dhist. It is one of the tantric practices that are most clearly part of a
continuity of ritual practice dating from Vedic India and lasting into
the present day.
In what we have been calling in this volume the penumbra of Bud-
dhist tantra, we find two instances of homa revealing different direc-
tions of appropriation. One of these is the homa of the Northern
Dipper (Mollier 2008, 141–46). While the Northern Dipper played no
role in Indian Buddhism, it was a very important constellation in Chi-
nese religious culture. Thus, the existence of a homa of the Northern
Dipper in the Shingon ritual corpus indicates a new creation within
tantra responding to its surrounding religious culture, that of China,
in this case.