The Spread of Buddhism

tantric threads between india and china 257

development has to be understood within the context of a displaced

Buddhist community’s rather hopeless aspiration to regain lost authority

and attraction, against or through the brutal circumstances of social

disintegration, power politics and warfare in medieval India.

3. “Secret Teachings”: Tantric Policy at the Tang-court

Unable to avoid the manifold traps of worldly affairs while enjoying

imperial support, Buddhist monks assumed administrative and politi-

cal responsibilities. As translators or exegetes, they sometimes had to

change the wording of or to insert passages into Buddhist scriptures to

legitimise a certain political order, they served as media of diplomacy

and represented imperial power throughout pre-modern East Asia.^35

Under the reign of empress Wuhou (r. 690–705) for example,

scholar monks deliberately recon rmed the sacral status of the Son

of Heaven (Chin. tianzi ) in reference to the soteriological signi-

 cation of the cakravartin (“universal overlord”) and the bodhisattva as

saviour: the empress was styled as the incarnation of the future Bud-

dha Maitreya.^36

Texts and pragmatics bearing the apotropaic ritual stress of Tantric

Buddhism were already known in  fth century China. Due to further

activities of Central Asian and Chinese masters, the spread of Tantric

ritualism and imagery continued, and, in all probability, during the

seventh century, Korean monks who stayed in China became acquainted

with these forms of expression of Mahyna Buddhism.^37

In the course of the eighth century, the implementation of “secret

teachings” at the Tang-court reached a critical point. The “technology”

of Tantric ritualism developed in medieval India was introduced and put

into practice on a larger scale, serving a well de ned aim: sacralisation

(^35) The initial transmission of Buddhism from China to the Korean peninsula was,
for example, the concomitant of a diplomatic mission: Sent by the Earlier Qin
(351–394) to arrange an alliance with the kingdom of Koguryo against the northern
tribes, the monk Sundo arrived at the royal court in 372. There, he introduced
Buddhist scriptures and images. See the chapter by Pol Vanden Broucke.
(^36) Exemplary is the Buddhist advocacy of the proclamation of the Zhou dynasty
(690–705) by empress Wuhou/Wu Zetian (625–705); Guisso 1979, pp. 304–306;
cf. Forte 1976, pp. 125–170. See also Sen 2002, pp. 32–33; Chou 1945, p. 320. 37
On the transmission, range and social function of esoteric Buddhism in Korea,
see the chapter by Pol Vanden Broucke.
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