610 henrik h. sørensen
Empowerment of Buddhist Images during the Koryŏ
The practice of empowerment of Buddhist images in Korea can be
documented as far back as the early Unified Silla.^45 However, at that
time there were evidently no fixed or uniform rules laying down the
exact ritual procedures for empowerment. It would appear that vari-
ous types of relics were used, scriptures as well, but as far as we can
tell there were no orthodox textual guidelines for how this was to be
done. This means that rites of empowerment were carried out unsys-
tematically and with great variance. In the course of the Unified Silla
this changed, probably with the arrival of Amoghavajra’s translations
towards the end of the Tang dynasty. From that time onwards, the
empowerment of Buddhist images came to be entirely based on Eso-
teric Buddhist lore and beliefs going back to the texts of the mature
Esoteric Buddhist tradition of the mid-Tang.
Under the Koryŏ the ritual procedures used in the empowerment
of Buddhist images would appear to have been quite varied: as far as
we can tell, they followed a variety of scriptural sources. This becomes
evident when comparing the extant pokchang , the abdominal
stuffing of images, all dating from the second half of the Koryŏ.^46 The
pokchang were ritually created through the use of printed mandalas and
dhāraṇī-charts, as well as through relics (śarīra), holy scriptures, and
other precious objects empowered through the ritual. Although part
of the physical objects placed inside a given image, the mandalas and
dhāraṇī-charts used in these rites constituted a sort of micro-cosmic
element, in effect an internalized or incorporated representation of the
Dharmadhātu, the Buddhist sphere of universal enlightenment.^47
As far as we can gather from the Koryŏ material at our disposal,
there was no standardized or uniform ritual guiding the making of
of sexual yoga (karma-mudrā), which he evidently considered a perversion (see T.
2089.51:983b). From his hand we have two short texts; the popular Nīlakaṇṭhaka-
dhāraṇī and an appendix entitled Kwanseŭm posal sisik (Offering
Food to Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva), both of which consist entirely of dhāraṇīs in
transliterated Sanskrit (cf. T. 1113a.20:497c–498c).
(^45) See Sørensen, “Early Esoteric Buddhism in Korea: Three Kingdoms and Unified
Silla (ca. 600–918),” in this volume.
(^46) I have been unable to locate the use of this term in Chinese Buddhist lore, and
suspect that its use may reflect a Korean Buddhist tradition. For a discussion of the
general use of pokchang in Korean Buddhism, see Sørensen 2003. Information on the
pokchang from the Koryŏ can be found in Hŏ 1994, 212–51; and in Kang 1975.
(^47) See Sørensen forthcoming.