25. THE PRESENCE OF ESOTERIC BUDDHIST ELEMENTS IN
CHINESE BUDDHISM DURING THE TANG
Henrik H. SørensenIntroduction
Elements of Esoteric Buddhist practice and belief had entered main-
stream Buddhism in China as early as the early fourth century, and
found ready and wide acceptance long before the rise of the Tang.
Nevertheless, the great importance of and influence wielded by the
Zhenyan tradition of the Tang, in religious as well as political
terms, left a lasting imprint on Chinese Buddhism well beyond the
Tang.
It is important to make a distinction here between those forms of
Esoteric Buddhism introduced to China as part of Indian mainstream
Mahāyāna, and those that developed in China, in particular those
that spread with the advent of the “Three Great Ācāryas” (san dashi
), Śubhākarasim ̣ha, Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra and their
successors.
Jingtu and Esoteric Buddhism
During the Tang dynasty the Jingtu , or Pure Land, tradition
continued as one of the most popular expressions of Chinese Budd-
hism.^1 Esoteric Buddhist elements in the context of Pure Land prac-
tice occur already during the Nanbeichao (381–589). Providing that its
provenance can be trusted, the Ba yiqie yezhang genben desheng jingtu
shenzhou (Divine Spell for Weeding
Out all Obstructive Karmic Roots for Obtaining Rebirth in the Pure
Land),^2 translated during the Liu Song (420–478), would appear to
be one of the earliest texts in Chinese in which a spell for obtain-
ing rebirth in Amitābha’s paradise can be found. Essentially this spell
(^1) For an overview of the history of the Pure Land tradition in China, see Kamata
1999, vol. 6, 778–92. See also Chappell 1988, esp. 184–90.
(^2) Cf. T. 368.12:351c–352a.