274 charles d. orzech
followed by Vajrabodhi and his disciple, Amoghavajra, who arrived
in the Tang capital in 721.^45 Often treated together as constituting a
“school,” Śubhākarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra introduced
not only the MVS and the STTS but also a broad range of mantric
texts, deities, and practices, the most advanced of which were accessed
through abhisekạ that ritually constituted disciples as the cosmic Bud-
dha Mahāvairocana.^46
We must be aware that the teachings available to us through docu-
ments and images do not provide an unmediated view of South Asian
esoteric Buddhism. Moreover, the teachings and practices brought by
the “three great ācāryas” underwent further development in the pro-
cess of their propagation in China. In the course of the eighth century
mantric practices gained currency and patronage, and under Emperor
Daizong (r. 762–779) Vajrabodhi’s and Amoghavajra’s “Yoga” or
“Mantra Buddhism” (zhenyan jiao ) became state-sanctioned
teaching (Strickmann 1996; Orzech 1998, 2006b). Further, these teach-
ings became the foundation of the various lineages of Chinese, Korean,
and Japanese esoteric Buddhism.^47
The most significant impact of the work of Śubhākarasiṃha, Vajra-
bodhi, and Amoghavajra in the mid-Tang court was twofold. First,
they translated a large body of recently circulated South Asian texts
representing the latest developments in Indian Buddhism. With these
texts came commentaries, ritual manuals, and, ipso facto, the introduc-
tion of numerous divinities and their associated practices.^48 Second,
the activities of Amoghavajra under the patronage of Daizong resulted
not only in institutional and programmatic development (altars for
abhiṣeka in the palace and at Daxingshan and Qinglong
argument that Śubhākarasiṃha was in fact Mādhyavarāja III of the Śailodbhava
dynasty. See 45 Hodge 2003, 19–20.
See Orzech, “Vajrabodhi,” and Lehnert, “Amoghavajra: His Role in and Influence
on the Development of Buddhism,” in this volume. For the biographies of the three
teachers, see Chou Yi-liang 1945, 241–332 (reprinted in Payne 2006, 33–60, without
its detailed appendices). Osabe’s text-critical treatment of Amoghavajra is still the
most comprehensive. See Osabe 1971b.
(^46) Texts involving abhiṣeka were not new to China; what was new were the particu-
lar genealogical and soteriological claims of some of the new imports. See below.
(^47) For Japan, see Tinsley, “Kūkai and the Development of Shingon Buddhism”;
Dolce, “Taimitsu, the Esoteric Buddhism of the Tendai School”; and Drummond,
“Looking Back and Leaping Forward: Constructing Lineage in the Shingi Shingon
Tradition of Japan” in this volume. For Korea, see Sørensen, “Early Esoteric Buddhism
in Korea: Three Kingdoms and Unified Silla (c. 600–918),” in this volume. 48
See Sørensen, “Central Divinities in the Esoteric Buddhist Pantheon in China,”
in this volume.