370 neil schmidof Bewitchments was often copied together with nine other Buddhist
sūtras, a practice done in the hope of assuring the deceased’s rebirth
in the Pure Land (in the context of the “feast of the seven sevens,”
qiqi zhai ), as in the case of Zhai Fengda’s (fl. 902–966)
efforts for his deceased wife, for example.^16
Similar to esoteric images integrated into the pictorial programs of
Dunhuang caves, dhāraṇī and related materials appear in conjunction
with sūtras. An example of this is manuscript no. 5444, dated 905 from
the Stein collection, containing Kumārajīva’s version of the Diamond
Sūtra (Jin’gang bore boluomi jing , T. 235), which
is embedded in an esoteric liturgical format otherwise excluded from
canonical sūtras.^17 The scripture begins with an invocation of the eight
diamond guardians of Vairocana, specifying the benefits of each, fol-
lowed by a “ritual invocation” (qiqingwen ) frequently found as
prefaces to dhāraṇīs. This brief ritual genre is significant for instantiat-
ing the efficacy of the scripture through its description of the recita-
tion’s results.^18 Closing the Vajracchedikā is a series of mantras, i.e.,
Dashen zhenyan , Suixin zhenyan , and Xinzhong
xinzhen yan.^19
The manuscript ends with a colophon written by a layman: “In the
second year of the Tianyou era on the twenty-third of the fourth
lunar month (May 29, 905) the hand of an eighty-two-year-old man
wrote this sūtra in order to spread it among the faithful.” Remark-
ably, this same elderly man goes on to write a total of four such texts,
Shengjiani fennu jin’gang tongzi pusa chengjiu yigui jing
( 16 Vajrakumāra tantra), T. 1222.
For an examination of the life of Zhai Fengda, a prominent local official, see
Teiser 1994, 102–121. Teiser 1994, 102–117, Kuo 2000, 692–694, and Mollier 2008,
68–70 all examine the ten sutras copied.(^17) Although translated by Kumārajīva, the scripture is the first example of the Dia-
mond Sūtra in 32 sections, a version which would become standard.
(^18) See Copp, unpublished manuscript, chapter 5. Li 2003, 234–49 discusses this
genre at length and also provides numerous edited invocation texts from Dunhuang
manuscripts, especially those associated with the Uṣṇīṣavijayādhāraṇī sūtra (Li 2003,
56–64) and with the Scripture of Great Compassion (Da cibei jing , T. 380)
(Li 2003, 84–89). 19
The first mantra appears in Amoghavajra’s Akṣobhyatathāgatādhyāyapūjākalpa
(Achurulai niansong gongyang fa ( T. 921.19:19b). The same
three mantras conclude other texts, though combined with additional mantras (e.g.,
S1846, “Liang Dynasty Mahāsattva Fu’s Odes on the Diamond Sūtra” Liangchao Fu
dashi song Jin’gang jing ( T. 2732.85:8c) and P.2094, Chisong
Jin’gang jing lingyan gongde ji ( T. 2743.85:160a).