40. BUDDHIST TANTRAS AND CHINESE CULTURE
George A. KeyworthThere are two oft-repeated assumptions regarding Chinese Buddhism
and Indian tantric Buddhist literature. First, Chinese social and ethi-
cal sensibilities were unreservedly offended by the frequent demands
in the tantras to employ the passions—breaking taboos—in carefully
administered ritual contexts utilized to expedite the path to liberation.
Second, Chinese translations of some tantras, first made during the
late tenth- and early eleventh-centuries at the Institute for the Trans-
lation of Buddhist Scriptures (Yijing yuan , quickly renamed
the Institute for Disseminating the [Buddha-]Dharma (Chuanfa yuan
), which was newly established at Taiping xingguo Monas-
tery in the Bianjing capital in 982, are unequivo-
cally misleading, corrupt, and too late (Chou 1945; Jan 1966; Tucci
1971b, 338 n. 1; Brough 1964; Huang 1997; Sen 2002; Orzech 2006a,
2006b). Consequently, the two inherently erroneous categorizations of
Chinese religion as primarily Confucian and, following modern phi-
lologists’ fixation with Sanskrit and Pāli textual antecedents, that Chi-
nese Buddhism can only be the product of reliable Indian-language
translations, have clouded the lens through which we might view Chi-
nese tantra.
In the latter misconception, one might take heed of the fact
that nearly all of the most popular Buddhist scriptures upheld in
China are poor translations. Kumārajīva’s (344–413) Lotus Sūtra
(Saddharmapuṇḍarīka sūtra, Miaofa lianhua jing , T. 262)
is, beyond a doubt, admired precisely because it is a Chinese text, eas-
ily comprehensible for a Chinese reader, with little to no knowledge
of Sanskrit. The reception of tantric literature in China, therefore, like
other forms that preceded it, was diffuse and only became viable in
means that responded to Chinese religious and cultural concerns.
There is a further, perhaps larger, problem that colors Chinese tan-
tra, which needs to be addressed. The sine qua non for the study of
Buddhist tantras is the anachronistic grading of Chinese, Tibetan,
Mongolian, and even Tangut (Xi Xia ) fragments, using the
coupling of Sanskrit- and Tibetan-language texts under the fourfold