. central divinities 131
Doumu cults, mentioned above, and that of Vaiśravaṇa and
Marshal Li Jing.^132
The Sino-Tibetan Pantheon
Although Chinese Buddhists first came into contact with Tantric Bud-
dhist art in Central Asia and Shazhou (Dunhuang) during the
period of the Tibetan occupation of the western parts of the Tang
empire from 781–848 C.E., it appears that the formation of the Sino-
Tibetan Buddhist pantheon took place under the Tanguts at the begin-
ning of the eleventh century.^133 The cult of the personified Uṣṇīṣavijāya
spell was a prominent feature in the territories controlled by the Xixia.^134
However, the divinities of the Tibetan Tantric Buddhist pantheon were
introduced to the central provinces on a massive scale at the time of
the Mongol invasions of China in the thirteenth century.^135
Among the chief monuments that reflect the early presence of the
Tibetan Buddhist pantheon in Yuan China are the many sculptural
groups carved in the rock formation known as Feilaifeng at
West Lake in Hangzhou, dating from the end of the thirteenth
century.^136 Nearly all of these images conform to Buddhist iconography
typical of the Indo-Tibetan pantheon. While many divinities of the
Tibetan Tantric Buddhist pantheon were known to the Chinese, they
met them here in new and more strange forms.^137 New divinities, and
old divinities in new forms, included Tārā, Vajrapāṇi/Acala, Jambala
(Caishen ), Vajradhāra, Mahākāla,^138 and deified Tantric masters
such as Padmasambhava, among others.
During the first century of the Ming, Esoteric Buddhism in its
Tibetan Tantric form continued to be in vogue. Close relations existed
between important lineage-holders of different sects and the Ming
(^132) It is interesting to observe that both gods appear separately in the Shuilu sets of
paintings, even though they overlap in function as protectors.
(^133) For a useful overview of the Tangut representation of the Buddhist pantheon, cf.
Piotrovsky, ed. 1993. See also the review of this book by Sørensen 1994b.
(^134) For information on the cult of Usṇ̣īṣavijayā under the Xixia, see Linrothe 1996
and 1988.
(^135) See Shen, “Tibetan Buddhism in Mongol-Yuan China (1206–1368),” and Schmid,
“Esoteric Buddhism in the Provinces: Dunhuang and Central Asia,” in this volume.
(^136) See Li 1998, 94–109.
(^137) Cf. Karmay 1975, 21–71.
(^138) Cf. Wang 1994.