15. ESOTERIC BUDDHISM AND ITS RELATION TO
HEALING AND DEMONOLOGY
Richard D. McBride IIIn medieval China, people generally understood sickness and malady
to be the result of problematic connections and complex interrelation-
ships with the shadowy world of spirits, the returning souls of the
departed (gui ). Long before the emergence of a distinctly esoteric
Buddhist tradition in the Tang, monks specializing in therapeutic and
thaumaturgic practices left an indelibly memorable mark on the main-
stream Buddhist tradition. These monk thaumaturges from India and
Central Asia introduced a host of ritual practices. These rituals, many
of which depict procedures for the efficacious use of dhāraṇī to control
demons associated with illnesses, were described in newly translated
Buddhist scriptures. Some of these practices may be indicative of a
distinctive esoteric Buddhist tradition, and some were classified by
later practitioners as belonging to what scholars refer to as esoteric
Buddhism. These ritual practices, closely associated with mainstream
worship and the use of dhāraṇī in penance practices (chanhui ),
were met with great enthusiasm by monks and laypeople in a reli-
gious milieu primed by preexisting ritual practices and popular theo-
ries about spirits, ghosts, and demons (Kuo 1994).
The dhāraṇī sūtras that were translated into Chinese prior to and
during the early Tang period (618–712) primarily introduced ritual
means by which noxious entities and demons were subordinated to
the Buddha and whose powers may be used to heal Buddhists and
protect the Buddhadharma. Because non-Buddhist, Indian (including
animistic, shamanic, Vedic, and Hindu) religious rituals and healing
practices associated with the numerous gods and demons of the Hindu
pantheon were gradually assimilated into Mahāyāna Buddhism, many
scholars agree with the idea that “Buddhism was Hinduism for export.”^1
(^1) The expressions “Buddhism is Hinduism for export” and “Buddhism was Hindu-
ism for export” are, according to Robert E. Morrell, offhand remarks attributed to
T. R. V. Murti, which are often cited as being found in Murti 1955. Neither expres-
sion, however, is found in either the original 1955 edition or the 1960 revised edition