368 neil schmid
The placement of esoteric deities in the corridors and antechambers
of the Dunhuang caves highlights their role of powerful facilitators in
everyday life for the well being of individuals, family, communities,
and the nation. Dhāraṇī literature, the textual genre connected with
these and other deities, also comes to include sets of related ritual prac-
tices and additional images and objects, all of which together forms
the most extensive body of esoteric materials from Dunhuang.^9 The
cache of manuscripts contains numerous collections of dhāraṇī that
are smaller and unorganized compared to canonical compilations such
as Atikūta’s ̣ Collection of Coded Instructions (Tuoluoni ji jing
; Dhāraṇīsaṃgraha sūtra, T. 901). Most of these manuscripts date
from the ninth and tenth centuries and contain invaluable information
about their creation, use, and functions.
Such collections of seemingly unrelated scriptures, which are by no
means limited to dhāraṇī, are especially significant because they likely
represent liturgical traditions. Termed “chain scriptures” (lianxie jing
) by contemporary scholars, they tend to lack dedicatory colo-
phons and are typically “apocrypha.”^10 A fascinating example of such
an assemblage is S.2498, which consists of 29 dhāraṇī-like incantations
(^9) Lin and Shen 2000a, 2000b, 2003 provide a selection of edited esoteric manu-
scripts from Dunhuang. Li Xiaorong 2003 surveys Dunhuang esoteric Buddhist texts
in her volume Dunhuang mijiao wenxian lungao. This work includes titles and discus-
sion of texts and manuscripts omitted in the two collections by Lin and Shen (2000a,
2000b, 2003), which only take account of documents from the Stein, Pelliot, and Bei-
jing collections, omitting those from collections in St. Petersburg and China. Li also
contains a large number of edited materials. Numerous edited esoteric scriptures from
Dunhuang are also found in T. 85, however caution is necessary due to the large num-
ber of textual errors. Dunhuang manuscripts in general are divided among a number
of major and minor collections. Primary collections are located in London (“Stein
Collection”), Paris (“Pelliot Collection”), Beijing, and St. Petersburg. See the appen-
dix for a list of catalogues, reproductions, and edited compilations. Many Dunhuang
and other Central Asian manuscripts are now digitized and available online through
the International Dunhuang Project (IDP): http://idp.bl.uk/. The site also includes an
extensive amount of ritual and visual materials from archaeological sites along the Silk
Road beyond that of Dunhuang.
(^10) This term was coined in Makita 1976, 39. Examples include P.3915, P.3920;
S.5506 S.5532, S.5533, S.5537, S.5607, S.5608, etc. Drège 1996 discusses the various
formats of such compilations, notably the butterfly and pothi styles that are charac-
teristic of these manuscripts. Kuo 2000, 694–95, situates these compilations within
the larger context of apocryphal texts and their various usages at Dunhuang, while
Mollier 2008, 16–17, 113–14, demonstrates the format, contents, and ritual use they
share with similar Daoist texts.