180 paul copp
The impact of dhāraṇī scriptures on Buddhist practical traditions
was profound. Most famously, and as explored by Ronald Davidson in
his contribution to this volume, dhāraṇī literature was a strong con-
tributing factor of and resource for the rise of Buddhist tantrism in
India in the first half of the seventh century. In the brief flourishing
of formal esoteric Buddhist lineages in Tang China, dhāraṇī scriptures
were often rewritten and their ritual imperatives transformed from the
relatively simple procedures of earlier dhāraṇī traditions into much
more conceptually elaborate productions, complete with ancillary rit-
ual manuals and commentaries. Within tantric schools, dhāraṇī texts
such as the Uṣṇīṣavijayā, for example, were rewritten and reconstrued
as the centers of elaborate ritual and commentarial practices, eventu-
ally becoming full-fledged tantric sub-traditions of their own.
More narrowly within China, however, it is crucial to understand
that the practical traditions in part inspired by dhāraṇī scriptures were
not limited to those absorbed within the high esoteric Buddhist dis-
pensations—the older heritage of dhāraṇī techniques continued to be
a resource in simpler and more widespread incantatory practices. This
fact is perhaps most vividly illustrated by material dhāraṇī practices,
such as those centering on incantation amulets worn on the bodies
of the living and the dead, usually featuring the Suiqiu dhāraṇī, and
those focused on the creation and placing of dhāraṇī-inscribed pillars,
most famously the Zunsheng dhāraṇī. These inscribed realia of Bud-
dhist spell practice have been discovered in practical contexts such as
tombs and temple courtyards, where they clearly bore little if any rela-
tion to the high monastic traditions of Buddhist tantrism in medieval
China.^7 Related to these practices, and perhaps even more prevalent,
was the use of dhāraṇīs as “textual relics” of the Buddha within stūpas,
images, and other reliquary contexts.^8
(^7) On amulets of the Mahāpratisarā in medieval China, see Ma Shichang 2004. On
“dhāraṇī pillars” in the same period, see Liu Shufen 2008.
(^8) See, for example, Shen Hsueh-Man 2001.