330 karénina kollmar-paulenz
religion. This subjugation is still an ongoing process. The local deities
at the fringes of Tibetan society are still being incorporated into the
ever growing Tibetan Buddhist pantheon. The taming of the indigenous
mountain deities promotes the transformation of the autochthonous
notion of space, gnas, into a Buddhist notion, the ma alisation of
the landscape. Tibetan indigenous territory is thus transformed into
Buddhist territory.
- The Cult of Vairocana
The transformation of the wilderness into a buddha-realm can also be
seen in the cult of Vairocana, that was prevalent during the royal period.
In the sBa-bzhed, one of our earlier sources of the phyi-dar dating to
the twelfth century, we nd a detailed description of the construction
of bSam-yas. In this rst Tibetan Buddhist monastery the Buddha
Vairocana was installed as the central divinity in the second storey. The
four-faced Sarvavid Vairocana was installed in the uppermost shrine,
whereas on the lowest storey kyamuni is the central divinity, here
considered as the nirmakya, an emanation of Vairocana. Already
H. Richardson pointed out the signi cance of Vairocana displayed
in a variety of temples in Central Tibet during the late royal and the
early post-royal period.^46 Vairocana was apparently associated with
the royal cult. Iconographical evidence points to the promulgation of
the cult of Vairocana throughout a wide part of the Tibetan empire, as
icons of Mahvairocana have been found recently in as many as three
different places in far Eastern Tibet by the art-historian A. Heller.^47
The accompanying inscriptions of the icons date them to the reign
of Khri-srong-lde-btsan’s son Khri-lde-srong-btsan. Murals and icons
of Vairocana closely resembling the ones found in Eastern Tibet have
also been found in cave 25 in the Yulin grottoes in Anxi
county of Gansu province and in cave 14 at Dunhuang.^48 The cult
of Vairocana was probably promulgated since the time of the emperor
Khri-srong-lde-btsan and actively promoted by him, as the king and
his empire were considered to be corresponding with the Buddha and
his buddhak etra. Therefore the omnipresence of Vairocana in the royal
(^46) Richardson 1990.
(^47) See Heller 1994, pp. 335–349.
(^48) See Kapstein 2000, p. 63.