39. ESOTERIC BUDDHISM IN SONG DYNASTY SICHUAN
Paul CoppAs it was in the Tang and Five Dynasties periods, Buddhism in Song
Dynasty Sichuan was deeply infused with elements of esoteric Bud-
dhism—broadly construed here as encompassing not only the system-
atic high ritual traditions introduced into eighth-century China from
India and elsewhere, but also the looser and older heritage epitomized
in dhāraṇī literature and its enactments across medieval China.^1 Yet,
despite the pervasiveness—and, in the case of the Buddhist sites of
Baodingshan and Anyue, the great prominence—of these elements,
Song Sichuan seems to have lacked a fully self-aware or systematic
esoteric tradition.
Given the lack of much evidence pointing to specific esoteric circles
or frames of reference (aside from scattered references to Liu Benzun’s
“Yoga” and Diamond Realm practices), it might be safer to take the
proliferation of apparently esoteric images as the realia of local tradi-
tions; the precise nature and histories of the practices of these local
traditions are not yet well understood, but they all seem to have been
seen mainly as forms of mainstream Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism.
In this light, and though it dates from early in the Song and does not
cover any Sichuan phenomena, a text like Zanning’s (919–1001)
brief late tenth-century account of the transmission of esoteric prac-
tices, the Chuan mizang (Transmission of the Mystic Store),^2
which presents an elliptical image of post-Tang esoteric practice as
a diffuse heritage of occult techniques and shadowy figures, bears a
remarkable resemblance, at least in broad strokes, to surviving traces
of Sichuan esoteric Buddhism in Song times.
A prominent Chinese scholar of Sichuan Buddhist visual culture,
in a recent study covering the seventh–twelfth centuries, lists a wide
(^1) For a discussion of the entry of the high Esoteric tradition into Sichuan, see
Sørensen. “Esoteric Buddhism in Sichuan During the Tang and Five Dynasties
Periods,” in this volume. For a brief discussion of the nature of early dhāraṇī tradi-
tions and their later life in Tang, Five Dynasties, and early Song China, see Copp,
“Dhāraṇī Literature,” in this volume.
(^2) Da Song sengshi lüe T. 2126.54:240a–b.