248 martin lehnertstill tends to understand the manifold developments of Buddhism in
China in terms of sini cation, misappropriation, religious propaganda,
cultural encounter or assimilation of collective identities, altogether
conceptual matrices based on historical knowledge about the twentieth
century^3 which insinuate a prevalence of modern thought, judgement
and criticism of ideology in the context of medieval Indian or Chinese
culture. But perceptions of alterity and the related processes of “amal-
gamation” do not necessarily imply formations of cultural, political,
ideological or racial identities, as may be inferred for instance from
the anti-Buddhist polemic of Han Yu (768–824)^4 or the Lingbao
attempt to confront Buddhism by mimicking its “exotic” imagery
and mantric speech.^5
Whereas such inquiries tend to drift along metaphysical categories
when they refer to the self-institution of a religion or the initial founda-
tions of traditions, the heterogeneity of references as well as research
interests does not allow a responsible discussion without paying close
attention to the various frameworks of scholarship in which they are
reproduced. In any case, such discussion would lead us beyond the
scope of the following pages. Instead, I propose to regard nothing as
fundamental—which seems to be particularly helpful for the case of
Buddhism in China—as one faces a cauldron of dynamic becoming
in thought and praxis rather than a repository of stable traditions and
self-identifying denominations.
To begin with, what could be cautiously termed the “secret teachings”
of Buddhism—a makeshift rendering of the rather ambiguous Chinese
designation mijiao^6 —actually consists in variable assemblages of(^3) Cf. the discussion in Sharf 2002, pp. 4–25.
(^4) See Gernet 1995, pp. 237–241.
(^5) They seem to be concomitants of aesthetic strategies as well as re-formations of
“technical” knowledge motivated by differing cosmological frames of reference. This
objection, however, does not mean to deny that there was in China a sense of threat,
foreignness, politically motivated instrumentalism and adaptation related to Buddhist
teachings, as can be seen in the writings of Han Yu. The “anti-Buddhist” Lingbao
scriptures referred to the linguistic indeterminacy of a “Hidden Language of the Great
Brahm” (Chin. da fan yin yu ), deliberately locating the origin of divine signi-
ers in an “Indian” context by using graphs that were chosen by Buddhist translators to
transcribe Sanskrit terms and spells, thus mechanically creating some sort of Sanskrit
sounding hierolalia. Bokenkamp 1997a, pp. 63–67; 1997b, pp. 8, 385–392.
(^6) I refer to the Tantric Buddhist textual corpus and the related praxis as transmit-
ted in Chinese language by conventionally using the expression “secret teachings” for
Chinese mijiao. For a brief discussion on the term mijiao as a post facto categorisation
and its historical background, see Sharf 2002, pp. 267–273.
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