308 richard d. mcbride ii
popular religions. Before I briefly assess the impact of this new strand
of Mahāyāna literature and practice in China, I must present some-
thing of the historical context.
The destructive An Lushan -Shi Siming rebellion
(755–763) severely weakened Tang imperial power and prestige. Pre-
viously, the Sui and early Tang governments had patronized several
large monastic complexes in Chang’an and Luoyang, many other mon-
asteries empire-wide, and, of course, sponsored the Sūtra-Translation
Bureau that executed the translations of these new sūtras under the
direction of émigré monks. During the seventh and eighth centu-
ries, scholarly monks installed in government-sponsored monasteries
produced a wealth of commentarial and other literature that provide
scholars with a relatively clear picture of the range of intellectual posi-
tions supported by the Chinese court. Practical applications of the
doctrine of tathāgatagarbha successfully penetrated Buddhist intellec-
tual spheres as a result of the success of the Huayan master Fazang
(643–712) and the Chan master Shenxiu (606–706), both of
whom were supported by Empress Wu Zetian (r. 690–705).
There was a preexisting tendency among Chinese Buddhist monas-
tics toward ritual—for penance, protection, and wish-fulfillment—and
increasing popularity in the devotional practices of the Pure Land cult
of Amitābha, which gradually transformed the hitherto popular cult of
Maitreya; as well, there was universal interest in Avalokiteśvara. After
the destructive and divisive rebellion, there is little evidence of inter-
est in esoteric Buddhist scriptures outside of the court and the ritual
center of Mt. Wutai (Birnbaum 1983, Gimello 1994), although
there is also evidence that the preexisting conventional tradition of
iconographic worship also continued (Wong 1993).
Doctrinal Innovations
There are essentially three areas in which this mass of newly translated
material either influenced or was influenced by doctrinal concerns in
medieval East Asian Buddhism: first, subitism; second, the theory of
buddha bodies; and third, dualism. In the late seventh and eighth
centuries, the soteriological question of subitism—in other words, the
question of whether enlightenment can be attained suddenly or is a
gradual process accomplished over eons of lifetimes—was a concern
addressed in some translations of dhāraṇī procedures and tantric ritual
manuals, and among Chan practitioners and Huayan proponents. For