162 henrik h. sørensen
the spells are rendered in Chinese phonetic Sanskrit, which may indi-
cate the growing familiarity of Chinese Buddhists with Indian-style
spell literature.
In the early third century dhāraṇīs and spells in Mahāyāna literature
begin to change. This shift—at first imperceptible—is marked by a new
type of sūtra, the so-called dhāraṇī sūtra. Now dhāraṇīs and spells no
longer play a secondary role in the scripture but have displaced, if not
replaced, the traditional doctrinal discourse with one evolving around
the dhāraṇī itself. In this new class of Mahāyāna sūtras, the central
purport of a given scripture is no longer, or at least not primarily, a
doctrinal one, but instead focuses on magic effected through ritual.
For example, Zhiqian translated a series of sūtras during the period
ca. 222–250 C.E., including the Asṭ̣abuddhaka sūtra, one of the earliest
sūtras in Chinese with the term “shenzhou ,” i.e., “divine spell,”
in its title (T. 427). The spells featured in Zhiqian’s scripture are not
magic words but the names of eight buddhas. The scripture itself now
functioned as a tool for empowerment^18 and thus stands as a bridge
between the idea of text as dhāraṇī/spell and the use of special words
of power.
Another early spell text translated by Zhiqian is the Agrapradīpadhā-
vidyārāja sūtra (T. 1351), which contains three short spells against
malevolent spirits, men, wild animals, poisonous insects, and disease
in transcribed Sanskrit. None of the spells in this scripture is named
but they are referred to as “spell-sentences for holding (chi juzhou
).”^19 Finally we have the short Puspakūṭ a-dhāraṇ ̣ī sūtra, also from
Zhiqian’s hand (T. 1356), which features one long spell in Chinese
transcription. It refers to stūpa worship in connection with the use of
the spell, as well as worship of a buddha image including a list of the
offerings to be used. This is probably the earliest Buddhist scripture
in Chinese with the combined term tuoluoni shenzhou
in its title.
Later examples of the dhāraṇī class of Mahāyāna scriptures include
the important but little studied Qifo bapusa suoshuo da tuoluoni shen-
zhou jing ( Dhāraṇī Spirit-Spell Sūtra
preached by the Seven Buddhas and Eight Bodhisattvas; T. 1332), the
Anantamukha-sādhaka-dhāraṇī (T. 1012), the Fo shuo hu zhu tongzi
(^18) Cf.. e.g., T. 427.14:72c.
(^19) T. 1351.21:865a.