256 henrik h. sørensen
in Buddhism, were given protective roles, roles decidedly secondary in
nature from the perspective of the buddhas and bodhisattvas.
The growing presence of these demigods, spirits, and lesser beings
begins to crop up in the sculptural material in China as early as the
fourth century, although they already figure in the Chinese transla-
tions of Buddhist scriptures much earlier.^1 It would appear that in the
beginning these spirits and demonic personages, which also include a
host of nature spirits, were conceived of as a generic group of protec-
tive beings, but gradually they began to take on more concrete forms
and roles in the Chinese Buddhist pantheon. This development is evi-
dent in Buddhist steles from the sixth century, where they are both
grouped and identified by actual name or at least according to cat-
egory. Examples of these spirits can be found on steles as secondary
protectors, a good example being the image-stele with the front-side
image of Śākyamuni Buddha from 543 C.E. during the Eastern Wei.
The panels on the bottom of the back and two sides feature the images
of ten spirits, and cartouches identify them as “mountain spirit, tree
spirit, wind spirit, dragon spirit, bird spirit,” and so on.^2 A group of
yakṣas can also be found below the Buddha niche in cave no. 288 in
the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang (cf. Dunhuang wenwu yanjiu 1987, pls.
108, 111). Interestingly, this process whereby the spirits and demon
protectors are gradually named and contextualized is also reflected
in the Buddhist literature that became available in China during the
Nanbeichao. In this sense the rapprochement between shared or simi-
lar practices of the Daoist and Buddhist traditions manifested in the
development of a comprehensive and rapidly expanding spirit world.
Hence, we find many examples of lists and registers of demons and
demigods in the ritual literature of both traditions from this period, a
material that evidently formed the basis of the rise of a corresponding
iconography.^3 An interesting, small votive stūpa from the Cleveland
(^1) A group of four spirits can be found at the bottom backside of the celebrated 471
C.E. stone image of Maitreya Buddha found in Xingping, now at the Peilin Museum
in Xi’an. See, for example, Li Jingjie 1995, 80, pl. 60.
(^2) These adorn the sides and backside of the base of the stele Li 1995, 100, pl. 80. See
also Jin 1994, 234–235, pl. 169 [1–3].
(^3) A Daoist example of this type of scripture is the Dongyuan shenzhou jing
(Scripture on the Divine Spells of the Grotto of Profundity). See Mol-
lier 1990. Comparable Buddhist scriptures include the different versions of the
Mahāmāyūrīvidyārājñī and the apocryphal Mouniluotan jing (Maṇiratna
Scripture), T. 1393. Cf. Sørensen 2006b.