. tantric buddhism in ming china 553
bones (relics). Altogether, one hundred and sixty-nine gilt and silver
Buddha statues and over thirteen thousand jin of Buddha relics, skulls
and teeth, were destroyed.^10 At the same time, Tibetan Buddhism was
also persecuted outside the palace. The extremely prosperous Da Ci’en
monastery, along with its statues of Buddha of Great Bliss and other
“barbarian ghosts and evil icons,” was destroyed.^11
About the spread of Tibetan Buddhism among ordinary people out-
side the court during the Ming, we can only make inferences from some
scattered writings of Ming literati. There were certainly Han Chinese
who took vows and studied Tibetan Buddhism. Many commoners let
their children study Tibetan language and practice Tibetan Buddhism
in order to avoid labor service and to seek for status and imperial
favor.^12 One report says, “There are Tibetan monks who have short
hair, wear tiger skin and call themselves the disciples of living Buddha
of the West; men and women in the capital filled the street to worship
them.”^13 Even Tibetan clerics of obscure origin could have many wor-
shipers, not to mention those Dharma kings and state preceptors offi-
cially recognized by the court. The number of commoners who were
keenly fond of Tibetan tantric Buddhism was large enough to make
it a profitable business to sell Tibetan style Dharma instruments in
the capital. There were people who exhumed tombs to take skeletons
and skulls for making skullcups, alms bowls and prayer beads, passing
them off as having been produced in Tibet.^14 In the late Ming and early
Qing, gilt statues of Buddha from dBus gTsang, especially, the statue
of the Buddha of Bliss that came out of the palace, became
attractive items for connoisseurs of antiques in South China.^15
It is quite obvious that the Buddha of bliss, the practice of tantric
sex and other Tibetan Buddhist icons and rituals, notorious at the end
of the Yuan, did not vanish from China during the Ming. Rather, these
elements of Tibetan Buddhism spread to wider circles in the soci-
ety. During the early Ming cases were reported in which nuns lured
concubines of meritorious ministers to practice the “golden heaven
(^10) Yu 1981, 310; Shen 1959, 916.
(^11) Ming Shilu (MSL), 77, Shizong shilu , juan 121, p. 9; MSL, 83, Shizong
shilu, juan 272, p. 5.
(^12) MSL, 51, Xiaozong shilu , juan 2, p. 11; MSL, 52, Xiaozong shilu, juan
59, p. 6.
(^13) MSL, 37, Yingzong shilu , juan 299, p. 2.
(^14) Yu 1981, juan 15, 278–279.
(^15) Inoue 2004, 42, note 5.