204 henrik h. sørensen
response” (ganying in the Esoteric Buddhist context means that
the magic/rite is working, i.e., that the “gods have heard you.” In other
words, there is a direct connection between the performance of a given
rite, the divine response it elicits, and the attainment of siddhi, which
is the fulfillment and apex of the adept’s (ritual ) efforts and intent. In
cultural terms this reflects the ancient Indian belief in divine boons that
the devas are believed to bestow on those faithful ones who engage in
acts of extreme asceticism and self-mortification.^18
The Esoteric Buddhist scriptures contain a plethora of magical prac-
tices meant to enable the practitioner to attain supernatural powers,
such as the ability to become invisible (T. 1972.21:311b), to levitate (T.
893.18:614a, etc.), to raise the dead (vetāla-siddhi; for this practice, see,
for example, T. 1334.21:565b), to command ghosts (T. 1060.20:109c),
to subjugate various human and non-human enemies (T. 1060.20:738b;
see also T. 890.18:572b), to cause spirit possession,^19 etc. An important
text from the mature phase of Esoteric Buddhism recently translated
into English, the Susiddhikara sūtra (T. 893), describes a variety of
magical feats ranging from invisibility to flying through the air. It even
includes the discussion of a method of destructive magic whereby an
adept of Esoteric Buddhism may use an effigy meant to represent the
person against whom the rite is being directed, similar to a practice in
Brazilian voodoo (see Giebel 2001, 113–331).
The Spell as “Magical Trigger”
Although the Esoteric Buddhist literature abounds in directions for
the use of virtually any form of magic and magical concerns per se,
even to the point that we may understand it as constituting a dis-
course on magic in its own right, there is one all-dominating factor
serving as the primus motor for virtually all the operating notions of
the supernatural, and this is the divine spell or dhāraṇī.^20 In Esoteric
(^18) Liu Benzun (855–907), the celebrated lay-Buddhist thaumaturge, is a
good example of this type of practice in the Chinese cultural context. See Sørensen,
“Esoteric Buddhism in Sichuan during the Tang and Five Dynasties Period,” in this
volume. 19
See the excellent account of this practice in connection with divination in Strick-
mann 2002, 194–227. See also the review article by Sørensen 2004a, 319–332. 20
For the use of spells in Chinese Buddhism, see Copp 2005, 1–38, 147–150.
A thought-provoking discussion of the spell-literature in China can be found in
Strickmann 2002, 89–122. Although Strickmann refers to magic and magical prac-
tices throughout this work, he has does not provide his readers with a useful work-