178 paul copp
first enchanting material such as oil or ash and then rubbing it onto
the body—by the eighth century had themselves, just as much as par-
ticular incantations, come to be emblematic of certain dhāraṇī cults.
Thus, the practices described in the Foshuo suiqiu jide da zizai tuoluoni
shenzhou jing ( Mahāpratisarā
dhāraṇī sūtra; Scripture of the Dhāraṇī of Wish Fulfillment; T. 1154)
center on the wearing of inscribed (and thereby enchanted) objects,
while the most emblematic practices recounted in the Foding zunsheng
tuoluoni jing (Uṣṇīṣavijayā dhāraṇī sūtra; Scrip-
ture of the Superlative Dhāraṇī of the Buddha’s Crown; T. 967, et al.)
involve the infusion into the body of the inscribed spell’s power. By
the seventh century at the latest, what had simply been small compo-
nents of the standard incantatory repertoire had become the emblem-
atic logics of widely popular individual cults.
Just as there is great range in the forms and structures of these scrip-
tures, the natures of the dhāraṇīs on which they are centered also vary.
Crucial to any attempt to describe the overall character of dhāraṇī
scriptures is the fact that the term dhāraṇī, taken over the long history
of its use, refers to quite different kinds of texts, as understood through
the practices associated with them. Not only did they figure in these
practices as the potent incantations most widely associated with the
term dhāraṇī today, but also as brief runs of syllables construed as the
foci of various kinds of contemplative practice. It is crucial, in fact, to
understand that the terms tuoluoni, zongchi , chi , and most of
the other words used to render dhāraṇī and its close cognates, espe-
cially in early dhāraṇī texts and in Buddhist philosophical explorations
of every age, meant most basically “to hold,” “to grasp” (including
the sense of “to understand how”), and “to wield” (as in a spell, etc.)
rather than “incantation,” and that in such usages these terms could
refer both to the capacity to employ incantations and also to the very
practice of doing so.^4
Some of the earliest extant dhāraṇī scriptures, including Zhi Qian’s
(fl. 223–253) early third-century translation of the Anantamukha-
dhāraṇī-sūtra, the Foshuo wuliangmen weimichi jing
( Scripture of the Sublime Grasp of the Immeasurable Portal;
T. 1011), featured dhāraṇīs that were not incantations at all in the
(^4) On the meanings of dhāraṇī in Buddhist practice, see Davidson 2009; and Copp
2008.