. esoteric buddhism in the tang 279
they must have been apprised of the translation efforts underway. They
had come by sea, apparently on a trading vessel from Śrīvijaya, a Malay
kingdom on the island of Sumatra where the new Buddhist teachings
were in vogue. Ensconced in Jianfu Monastery , Vajrabodhi
spent much of the next twenty years training disciples, translating,
and performing ritual services for the court. Yixing gravitated to him
quickly and his signal importance was to begin to render a portion of
the STTS into Chinese and to propagate the teachings of the scripture
and its ritual cycle. This text, the Scripture Outlining Recitations and
Contemplations of the Yoga of the Peak of the Vajra (Jin’gangding yuqie
zhong lue chu niansong jing , T. 866), though
only a sketch of the larger Sanskrit corpus, marked the introduction of
what became referred to throughout East Asia as the “Yoga.”^69
Like the MVS (but developed separately), the STTS presents a total
system accessed by abhiṣeka. In contrast to the system of the MVS,
the STTS is organized around five families: Tathāgata, Lotus, Vajra,
Ratna, and Karma, corresponding to the five central buddhas of the
great mandala: Mahāvairocana, Amitābha, Aksobhya, Ratnasaṃ ̣bhava,
and Amoghasiddhi.^70 Thus the system is often referred to as the “five
families” or the “fivefold wisdom.” Although Vajrabodhi’s transla-
tion was the first, it was Amoghavajra’s translation completed in 754
that became the standard for much of East Asian esoteric Buddhism.^71
Amoghavajra says it is only the first “assembly” (hui ) of a great
scripture consisting of eighteen assemblies, and his translation covers
only the first chapter of the first assembly.^72
Amoghavajra’s text (which I follow here) consists of four parts: an
introduction; a discourse on abhisekạ ; a discussion of various types of
siddhi and types of mudrā; and finally a section on various regulations.
(^69) There are two other Chinese translations: T. 865 by Amoghavajra and T. 882, a
full Song dynasty translation produced by Dānapāla in 1015, which agrees with the
Tibetan translation of Śraddhākaravarma and Rin-chen bzang-po (To. 479). A San-
skrit original is also extant. 70
For mandalas, see note 59 above.
(^71) Giebel renders the title: The Adamantine Pinnacle, the Compendium of Truth
of all the Tathāgatas and the Realization of the Great Vehicle, Being the Scripture of
the Great King of Teachings , T. 865. For
a discussion of the title, see Giebel 2001, 8–9 For a recent discussion of the sources
and manuscripts, see Weinberger 2003, esp. 6–12. A facsimile edition with extensive
introduction can be found in Chandra and Snellgrove 1981. There are critical editions
by Yamada, ed. 1981 and Horiuchi 1983. 72
For a translation of Amoghavajra’s discourse on these eighteen assemblies see
Giebel 1995, 107–201.