330 charles d. orzech(T. 1246) concerns Vaiśravaṇa; the second, Sheng huanxitian shi fa
( T. 1275) focuses on Gaṇeśa. I discuss these below.
A few other practitioners appear fleetingly in the historical record.
At the end of the Tang a certain Yanmi ācārya was teach-
ing the “Yoga” in Chengdu. His disciple Shouzhen followed in
his footsteps, bridging the Tang and Five Dynasties periods (Lü 1995,
436). Certainly the best known proponent of the Yoga in the late Tang
was Liu Benzun , whose ascetic exploits were later rendered in
stone as a centerpiece of the Southern Song grotto at Baodingshan
(Howard 2001; Lü 1995, 437–39; Sørensen 2001, 57–100). How-
ever, accounts of Liu date from two centuries after his activities and
do not recount a direct lineage link between him and Amoghavajra.
There is also some notice of proponents of the “Yoga” active in the
Five Dynasties in the tenth century. These include Daoxian , the
Vajra Tripitaka ̣ in Loyang, his disciple Zhitong , and
others (Lü 1995, 432–34).Penumbra: Esoteric Buddhism’s Wider Impact as Reflected in
Late Tang TextsThe production of an institutionally favored elite under Daizong
was controlled and perpetuated through abhiṣeka and administered
through an infrastructure of government abhisekạ altars and imperi-
ally sanctioned translation projects. This was nothing less than an effort
to winnow and canonize preexisting streams of ritual practice through
the imposition of the new systems represented by the MVS, the STTS,
and the Susiddhikara. It is clear that esoteric transmissions based on
abhisekạ continued through the ninth century, and Haiyun mentions
the yearly construction of government abhiṣeka altars.^72 Though they
wielded considerable influence, these ācāryas accounted for a small
number of disciples compared to the number of Chinese Buddhists
using and promulgating dhāraṇī texts.
Despite lingering patronage and the prestige of the “Yoga,” an impor-
tant but understudied dimension of late-Tang Buddhism involved the
wider circulation of deities and practices the “yoga” helped to popu-
(^72) Contrary to commonly repeated comments that government patronage was
withdrawn in the ninth century, there is evidence that not only did the government
continue to support the abhiṣeka altars at the Xingshan and Qinglong monasteries,
but also erected temporary altars for abhiṣeka at these and other monasteries on a
yearly basis. See Haiyun, Liangbu dafa, T. 2081 51.785b23–26.