The Spread of Buddhism

230 stephan peter bumbacher

considered its appearance a good omen. Not knowing who had put
it there and why, it must have seemed nothing but natural that gods
or immortals deposited the scripture at this place. If indeed this were
the case, then presenting offerings to the text would also mean offering
to the gods, their former owners, who might in turn recompense the
villagers’ sacri ces by future blessings.
Not only probably poorly educated villagers living at the periphery
of the civilised world held scriptures in such a high esteem. The same
held true for intellectuals connected to the imperial court and at times
working in the centre of the Chinese culture as well: The famous
scholar and foremost Daoist of the late  fth and early sixth centuries,
Tao Hongjing ( zi Tongming , 456–536), also celebrated
a cult of the book as attested in the following passage of another frag-
ment of the Daoxue zhuan:

Moreover, [Tao Hongjing] took a ‘magpie-tail’ incense burner of real

gold, followed [those who carried] the scriptures and sacri ced [to] them

(i.e. the scriptures).^135

In so doing he followed what the Later Sage appearing in the fourth
century scripture Shangqing hou sheng daojun lieji
(Annals of the Lord of the Dao, the Later Sage, [from the Heaven of ]
Highest Purity) asked the prospective readers of sacred Daoist scripture
to do:

Each time you intone this scripture or put its content to use, you should

bow respectfully to them. Wash your hands and burn incense to the left

and right of the writing.^136

This sort of cult, this book cult, however, was not unique to the Dao-
ists, the Buddhists had it as well. We, therefore, now have to turn to
what McMahan has called “one of the most important aspects of early
Mahyna practice, that is, the worship of written stras”.^137

(^135) Daoxue zhuan fragment 159, Bumbacher 2000, p. 273. I don’t know more about
this ritual, yet we may imagine that Tao had the box with the scriptures carried to
the caves and followed the disciple who held it, himself swinging the incense burner.
Probably the sacri ces were performed within the caves. One should not forget that
caves were the places where holy scriptures were often found. It was not unusual to
sacri ce to books: When villagers found the Taiping jing in three parts they sacri ced
to it, see fragment 156.
(^136) Shangqing Housheng daojun lieji (Annals of the Lord of the Dao, the Later Sage of
[the Heaven of ] Shangqing”) 6b; cf. Bokenkamp 1997, p. 351.
(^137) McMahan 1998, p. 256.