something essentially different from “true” Buddhism
(however defined). Negative views consider the wor-
ship of local gods as a deluded, superstitious practice.
In general, however, divinities are treated as skillful
means (UPAYA), as a concession to popular beliefs that
can be useful to guide the unenlightened toward sal-
vation. Only in some cases are there specific attempts
to give doctrinal legitimacy to local deities as full-
fledged components of the Buddhist universe.
Despite the ambiguous doctrinal position of deities
in the Buddhist system, it is important to emphasize
that interaction with local divinities was a key factor
in the diffusion of Buddhism, both inside and outside
of India. Unfortunately, little information is available
on the relationship between Buddhism and local
deities in premodern times. Wherever Buddhism is the
dominant or state religion, folkloric practices and tra-
ditions concerning local deities have often been down-
played as mere “superstition.” Nativist movements in
East Asia, in contrast, have tended to reduce the role
of Buddhism in their countries and to emphasize in-
stead the autochthonous tradition, with the result of
often rendering invisible the connections between
Buddhism and local divinities.
The difficulty of describing the relationship between
Buddhism and local deities has also affected scholars.
Buddhologists, on the one hand, tend to focus more
on the translocal (orthodox doctrines and rituals),
rather than on the local (actual Buddhism as it is prac-
ticed in specific historical and cultural contexts); as a
consequence, they have paid little attention to local
deities. Anthropologists, on the other hand, focus on
contemporary cultural situations, without much em-
phasis on the history of the relationship between Bud-
dhism and local cultures. Furthermore, the dominant
tendency for many years among scholars of religious
phenomena was that of privileging separate traditions,
based on an emphasis on textualized doctrines and
“faith,” rather than on living religiosity, which often
cannot be reduced to canonical, doctrinal scriptures.
Buddhist appropriation of local deities:
motifs and models
From the beginning, Buddhism appears to have dealt
with Indian deities in positive terms by incorporating
them within its own system, rather than by ignoring
or persecuting them. In fact, according to the Buddhist
interpretation, the Indian gods need the appearance of
a buddha among the humans before they can be taught
the way to attain salvation; in this way, the Buddhists
made deities into subordinates of the Buddha and, by
extension, his emissaries.
Many stories about the establishment and the dif-
fusion of Buddhism involve the conversion, subjuga-
tion, or control of local deities. Discreet but crucial
interventions by the Indian gods accompany the spir-
itual career of S ́akyamuni Buddha as told in classical
narratives such as the BUDDHACARITA(Acts of the Bud-
dha) or the JATAKAtales. The scriptures often present
the Buddha as the teacher of gods. One of the earli-
est sutras, the Ekottaragama(Numerically Ordered Col-
lection) describes a famous scene in which Buddha
ascends to heaven and preaches to INDRAand the other
gods of the classical Indian pantheon, who were gath-
ered together with the Buddha’s mother, Queen Maya.
In some cases, gods were reluctant to convert, which
made recourse to violent methods necessary. Particu-
larly famous is the subjugation of Mahes ́vara (S ́iva), in
which a bodhisattva entered the samadhi of adaman-
tine anger and killed Mahes ́vara; the latter was then re-
suscitated as a buddha in a distant world system. On
special occasions, the Buddha did not object to trans-
forming himself into a frightening and powerful de-
mon in order to subjugate other demons. Stories also
recount the conversion of hostile local deities, which
then turned into protectors of the dharma and its
adepts. Early tales of interaction with divinities have
set the standard for subsequent strategies employed by
Buddhists to spread their teachings in foreign lands.
Buddhism was often propagated by monks travel-
ing with traders. These monks addressed the political
and economic elites of the new lands they visited. Their
goal was to replace (or, at least, restructure) the pre-
existing cosmology and its related pantheon with the
Buddhist worldview, with the Buddha on top. How-
ever, the spread of Buddhism among the commoners
was to a large extent the work of saintlike figures who
went around subjugating territorial guardian spirits,
while at the same time establishing monasteries,
schools, and other infrastructures, and preaching the
Buddhadharma.
In an important sense, then, the diffusion of Bud-
dhism in a country often began with the taming of
local deities, usually described as hostile, violent, and
dangerous. This practice started in India and was based
on scriptural precedents. A number of local deities and
spirits were thus included in the Buddhist pantheon as
protectors of the dharma. The naga (serpents/dragons),
symbols of water and fertility, were worshiped by the
original inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent prior
to the Aryan invasions. Particularly well known are theLOCALDIVINITIES ANDBUDDHISM