. stūpas and relics in esoteric buddhism 147
Asia these are often found enshrined in stūpas and depicted in images
or inscribed on pillars.^3
The earliest canonical description of the use of a stūpa is found in
the Mahā pari nibbāna sutta and concerns the internment and worship
of the Buddha’s relics in a stūpa.^4 The worship of stūpas has been a
central feature of Mahāyāna Buddhism from the time of its inception
during the second century BCE. Some scholars even hold the cultic
origin of Mahāyāna to have been intimately linked with stūpa wor-
ship.^5 The primary mode of worshipping stūpas is clockwise circum-
ambulation (Skr. pradaksiṇ ̣a), which was later extended by the practice
of installing buddha images in them as well as relics of various kinds,
scriptures, dhāraṇīs and mementos.^6
In East Asia these practices were taken over from early on and
became primary modes for expressing veneration and devotion in
Buddhism. The veneration of relics and the creation of stūpa reliquar-
ies is intimately tied to the creation and maintainence of religious,
social, political, and economic relationships throughout South and
East Asia.^7
Relics and stūpas played a key role in the propagation of the Buddhist
teaching in South and East Asia. Accounts of the introduction, spread,
and influence of Buddhism in China, Korea, and Japan repeatedly testify
to the importance of the presence of the “true body” (Ch. zhenshen ),
or actual body of the Buddha, and of its extensions in iconography
and architecture for worshippers of all backgrounds and social classes,
right into the present.^8
(^3) For these dhāraṇī or sūtra pillars (tuoluoni jingchuang see note 11,
below. 4
For scholarship on this text, complexities of its dating, and its importance as a
paradigm for Buddhist worship see Trainor 1997, 45–54. 5
For material on the Mahāyāna worship of stūpas, see Handurukande 2000. See
also Hirakawa 1990, 270–74. For a critique of Hirakawa’s theory see Schopen 1975,
147–181; reprinted in Schopen, 2005, 25–62.
(^6) The predominant custom is to circumambulate in a clockwise direction, with
one’s right sholder nearest to the object of veneration, though Jain and Bon practitio-
ners circumambulate in the counterclockwise direction. Yijing appears to argue that
the proper direction is not necessarily to the right. His argument is decidedly obscure
and open to interpretation, and Takakusu’s translation is of little help. For Yijing’s
original, see T. 2125.54:225b17–b29. Takakusu’s attempt to make sense of the original
is in I-tsing 1896, 141–142. 7
For an analysis and bibliography on this, see Ruppert 2000, 16–42.
(^8) See, for instance, Ruppert 2000 and Aptilon, “Goddess Genealogy: Nyoirin Kan-
non in the Ono Shingon Tradition,” in this volume. Wang 2004, 79–118 takes up the
topic of the “true body.”