. the presence of esoteric buddhist elements 301
(Scripture of the Vajra
Pinnacle, Vajraśekhara, All Tathāgatas’ Deep and Wonderful, Secret
Vajradhātu, Great Samaya, Scripture for Cultivating the Forty-two
Kinds of Altar Methods, Employing the Awesome Methods of Ritual
Proceedings, the Mahāvairocana Vajra Mind Ground Dharma Door,
Esoteric Dharma Precepts Altar Methods of Ritual Proceedings),^49
an apocryphal work attributed to Amoghavajra. This Esoteric Bud-
dhist work was originally used by Chan Buddhists affiliated with the
Baotang school to combine their own teachings, and the history of
their patriarchal lineage in particular, with the doctrines of the Zhe-
nyan tradition.^50
Following its list of Chan patriarchs ending with Huineng, the Fu
fazang features two short Esoteric Buddhist texts. Both deal with the
proceedings of ritualized meditation, including bīja visualization much
like that found in S. 6958, discussed above. The first text, which lacks
a title, deals with the liberation of suffering beings in the three impure
gatis, i.e., the realms of animals, pretas, and the hells. It is important
for its description of how the practitioner achieves identification with
the buddhas. The second text bears much resemblance to the well-
known text on meditation of the bīja Ā ascribed to Śubhākarasiṃha.^51
The attribution of the Fu fazang to Amoghavajra is of course a clever
trick used by the compilers of the text, with the purpose of provid-
ing a degree of official sanction to their transmission. Whatever the
inner logic behind the text, it is obvious that we are here dealing with
a ritual cum meditation text combining the invocation of the patriar-
chal lineage of Southern Chan Buddhism with an Esoteric Buddhist
sādhana.
At least one early Korean source indicates that Esoteric Buddhist
teachings were transmitted within Southern Chan during the first
(^49) P. 3913.
(^50) Cf. Tanaka 1983, 135–66. For a résumé of this chapter in English, see Tanaka
- The sectarian affiliation of the Fu fazang pin 35 is not immediately clear, how-
ever, although it clearly reflects an attempt to integrate Southern Chan with Esoteric
Buddhism of the Zhenyan sectarian variety. However, it is also important not to over-
look the fact that the text in question dates from 899 C.E. At that time, the Baotang
school had long since ceased to play any role in Sichuan, which at the end of the Tang
was dominated by Chan lineages tracing themselves back to the immediate followers
of Huineng (638–713), the Sixth Patriarch of Southern Chan.
(^51) As taught in the Mahāvairocana sūtra, T. 848. See also the Da Piluzhe’na jing
achali zhenshi zhi pin zhong achali zhu azi guanmen
(The Ācārya’s Method of Contemplating the Letter Ā), T. 863.