. mudrā, mantra, mandala 87
Devices: Mudrās, Mantras, and Mandalas
Mudrās, mantras, and mandalas were potent devices, and these
“devices” have come to permeate East Asian Buddhism and even East
Asian religion more generally. The ritual system introduced to China
in the Mahāvairocanābhisaṃbodhi sūtra, patronized by the Tang
court, and spread by initiates throughout East Asia produced certain
devices that have transcended their ritual settings.^43 The most obvious
example of this are the mandalas drawn from the MVS, the STTS and
other esoteric scriptures and manuals that were translated and pro-
duced from the eighth century onward. Indeed, as the Japanese master
Kūkai noted on presenting a list of the items he brought back to Japan
from the Tang court,
The dharma is fundamentally wordless, but without words it is not
manifest... As the esoteric treasury is deep and mysterious and difficult
to record, [the teachings] are revealed for the unenlightened through
pictures. The various devices and mudrās are produced of the great
compassion [of Mahāvairocana]. A single viewing can transform one
into Buddha. The secrets of the sūtras and commentaries are inscribed
in these pictures and images, and the essential realities of the esoteric
repository is contained therein.^44While the relationship between specific texts and the mandalas drawn
from them is complex, a brief look at the ritual process involved with
the “Womb world” conveys some sense of the grand conception of
these ritual devices.^45 Chapter two of the Mahāvairocanābhisaṃbodhi
sūtra first sets out preliminary practices (including the purification
of the practitioner and site), then the process of constructing of the
Garbha mandala and its use in practices that result in the attainment
of union, and then the use of various attainments for a variety of com-
munal and personal needs.^46
(^43) On esoteric Buddhism and the Tang court see Orzech, “Esoteric Buddhism in the
Tang: From Atikūta to Amoghavajra (651–780),” and “After Amoghavajra: Esoteric ̣
Buddhism in the Late Tang,”in this volume.
(^44) T. 2161.55:1064b23–29. See translation by Hakeda 1972, 145–146.
(^45) Several essays in this collection treat the topic of mandala in esoteric Buddhism,
notably those of Sørensen, Winfield, Mack, and Bogel. Much of the classic scholarship
on the mandalas has been sketched out in English in ten Grotenhuis 1999, Snodgrass
1988, and Mammitzsch 1991. 46
T. 848.18:6b–9b; T. 1796.39:630c–642c For a discussion helpful in understanding
the coherence of these ritual elements see Hodge 2003, 29–40.