esoteric buddhism at the crossroads 279
brand of Esoteric Buddhism.67 This has been done by inserting the phrase
“Ascend Mahāvairocana’s Vajradhātu” (Chin. deng dapilu jingang jie 登大毘盧
金剛界) into each verse of transmission. By doing this, the patriarchal succes-
sion of Chan Buddhism from Mahākaśyāpa to Huineng (638–713, 惠能),68 was
being consciously used to enhance the transmission of the Vajraśekhara tradi-
tion. Furthermore, the verses themselves refer both to the ‘secret transmission
of the Buddha Mind’ (Chin. michuan foxin 密傳佛心), i.e. Chan Buddhism, and
to the ‘highly secret and comprehensive transmission’ (Chin. bimi xuan chuan
祕密宣傳), i.e. Esoteric Buddhism.69 This conflation of Chan and Esoteric
Buddhism may have been the result of lacking knowledge at Dunhuang of the
history of the correct transmission of Esoteric Buddhism during the second
half of the Tang, perhaps occasioned by the interruptions in information and
teachings caused by the Tibetan rule over Dunhuang on the one hand and that
of the Huichang suppression of Buddhism in Tang China on the other.
Another interesting aspect of the interchange between Chan and Esoteric
Buddhism at Dunhuang has an interface to the Tibetan Tantric tradition.
Kenneth Eastman, whose name I have invoked several times, was among the
first to understand the significance of the collapse and integration of certain
aspects of Tibetan Tantric lore and Chinese Chan in his presentation of the
issue.70 He envisaged the conflation between the two traditions as an exam-
67 Amoghavjara is mentioned as the translator of the Esoteric Dharma Precepts Altar
Methods of Ritual Proceedings. Cf. Zangwai fojiao wenxian, vol. 11, 99, etc.
68 Zangwai fojiao wenxian, vol. 11, 106, etc.
69 Zangwai fojiao wenxian, vol. 11, 105; 113.
70 This issue has also been discussed with varying degrees of success and erudition in the past
by Broughton, Jeffrey L., “Early Ch’an Schools in Tibet,” in Studies in Ch’an and Hua-yen,
ed. Robert M. Gimello and Peter N. Gregory (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983),
1–68; Luis O. Gómez, “The Direct and Gradual Approaches of of Zen Master Mahayana:
Fragments of the Teachings of Mo-ho-yen,” in Studies in Ch’an and Hua-yen, ed. Robert M.
Gimello and Peter N. Gregory (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983), 69–167; and
more recently in Meinert, Carmen, “Chinese Chan and Tibetan Rdzogs Chen: Preliminary
remarks on two Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts,” in Religion and Secular Culture in Tibet,
ed. Henk Blezer (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 289–307; “Structural Analysis of the bSam gtan mig
sgron: A Comparison of the Fourfold Correct Practice in the Aryāvikalpapravesa-nama-
dhāraṇī and the Contents of the Four Main Chapters of the bSam gtan mig sgron,” in
Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 26.1 (2003): 175–195. See also
Faber, Flemming, “A Tibetan Dunhuang Treatise on Simultaneous Enlightenment: The
dMyigs su myed pa tshul gcig pa’i gzhung,” in Acta Orientalia 46 (1985): 47–77. For a
somewhat apologetical and essentialist discussion of this issue see also Norbu, Namkhai,
Dzog Chen and Zen, ed. and annotated by Kennard Lipman (Oakland: Zhang Zhung
Editions, 1984).