Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia

4. TEXTUAL MATERIAL RELATING TO ESOTERIC

BUDDHISM IN CHINA OUTSIDE THE TAISHŌ, VOLS. 1821

Henrik H. Sørensen

Introduction

While the great majority of Esoteric Buddhist texts in Chinese can be
found in the Taishō and Zokuzōkyō, and therefore are now available in
electronic form for download or perusal through the CBETA (Chinese
Buddhist Electronic Text Association) site, neither of these two impor-
tant collections are comprehensive.^1 In order to get a more complete
picture of the actual material available, we have to look farther afield
and in diverse text collections.
Since the mid-1990s a new series of publications from China, the
Zangwai fojiao wenxian (Buddhist Texts Outside the
Tripitakas; hereafter ̣ ZFW) has appeared.^2 The Esoteric Buddhist
material contained in this collection is highly diverse and includes
manuscripts from Dunhuang, works from the hoard of texts found
in Yunnan during the 1950s, and other texts. Recently an important
site operated by the Chinese Buddhist Tripitaka Electronic Text Col-
lection, Taipei Edition, has started providing downloads of the texts
found in ZFW (hereafter EWZF). This new site is an important addi-
tion to the electronic resources relating to Esoteric Buddhism already
available; however it is still in its initial stages and it may take some
years before full access to new material not previously available to the
general public will be afforded.^3
This essay is primarily devoted to a brief discussion of the Esoteric
Buddhist works in Chinese not contained in the four volumes of the
Taishō dedicated to Esoteric Buddhism, i.e., vol. 18–21. It therefore

(^1) For the material contained in the “esoteric” volumes of the Taishō canon see
Giebel, “Taishō Volumes 18–21,” in this volume. 2
This collection of extracanonical texts has been published in two series: Fang
Guangchang, ed. 1995–2003 and 2008–. In addition to presenting primary source
materials, both series also feature high-standard research articles.
(^3) Cf. At the time of this writing, seventy-seven texts in nine volumes, correspond-
ing to the first nine volumes of the ZFW, First Series, have been made available for
download. New texts are being added ad hoc.