444 charles d. orzech
(T. 885) and summarizes its contents. But aside from a mention of yogini
(mingfei ), the Catalogue says nothing about its iconography.^23
What’s more, the Catalogue classifies as “esoteric” everything from dhāraṇī
texts to the Guhyasamāja tantra. The compilers of the Catalogue
apparently regarded all dhāraṇī as “esoteric.”
It is also noteworthy that the Catalogue is as interesting for what
it does not record as for what it does. When compared with records
of canons produced from the Song printings in Liao, Korea, and else-
where, the Catalogue has obvious glaring omissions. The missing texts
include Devaśāntika’s translation of the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa (T. 1191),
translated between 983 and 1000; as well as Dharmabhadra’s transla-
tion of a text dedicated to Vajrabhairava (T. 1242) and his transla-
tion of the Vināyaka sūtra (T. 1272), both of which were translated
between 989 and 999. What are we to make of this? Are these mere
oversights or do they reflect official suppression? Or are they perhaps
indicative of special treatment—scriptures deliberately kept out of the
official books?
Too Risqué?
Jan Yün-hua and more recently Tansen Sen have noted that the new
Song translations appeared to have stimulated little or no exegeti-
cal work, and both see the lack of commentary as evidence that the
new translations had no impact.^24 The assumption is that the lack of
commentary indicates that such texts offended the Chinese audience.
The only concrete evidence pointing to such a reaction appears in the
Chronicle of the Buddhas and Patriarchs (Fozu tong ji ) com-
piled by Zhipan in 1269.^25 It claims to quote an imperial edict of
1017 defending translation subsidies but with a warning against mix-
ing “heterodox and orthodox.” It says,
(^23) ZDJ, vol. 73: 472. Indeed, the Guhyasamāja is rendered in a way that without
the explanation of an ācārya there is little that would set it apart from previously
translated works. 24
Though some of the translations did stimulate considerable imperial preface
writing and some commentary, the newer cemetery texts apparently did not. This
issue is treated in greater detail in Orzech 2006a.
(^25) For Zhipan, see Jan 1964, 371–72.