634 henrik h. sørensen
way of writing the symbols/talismans in question degenerated over
the years. The fact that the Korean practitioners of Esoteric Buddhism
understood these symbols as talismans or magical diagrams also indi-
cates that their original meaning as mantric symbols of spiritual power
had been partly lost in the course of the Chosŏn dynasty. In fact, it
is obvious from the accompanying text that whoever compiled the
Chosŏn version of the Ṣaḍakṣaravidyā sūtra did not understand that
these symbols originally derived from Tibetan tantric Buddhism.
Proficiency in the writing of Sanskrit and Siddham is a tradition
that came down from the Koryŏ. In light of the many sources in the
form of spell collections and other documents, we know that the mas-
tery and knowledge of Sanskrit, at least as far as the writing and tran-
scription of dhāraṇīs goes, was relatively high during the Chosŏn and
continued to be in vogue until the very end of the dynasty. Thus we
find Siddham used both for ritual and ornamental purposes. Print-
ing blocks for Sanskrit bīja have been found in several temples, which
indicates that they were used as templates for decorations and embel-
lishments of religious objects (figure 4).
How and in which contexts the knowledge of Siddham was trans-
mitted is still unclear. However, in light of the fact that it was closely
related to the use of spells and mantras, we must surmise that it was a
certain type of ritual specialist monk, probably including professional
monk-painters, who taught it. Given that only a few monks were able
to write Siddham it would appear that the knowledge of this special-
ized form of Sanskrit was taught only in the temple schools of certain
monasteries.
Esoteric Buddhism Reflected in the Writings of the Sŏn Masters^33
At the beginning of the Chosŏn dynasty Sŏn Buddhism was divided
into two separate lineages or traditions. The first was the orthodox
Imje Sŏn following Chinese Chan Buddhism of the Yuan, with its
stress on sudden enlightenment (tono ) according to so-called
Patriarch Sŏn (Chusa Sŏn ). The second was the earlier ecu-
menical and local tradition tracing itself back to Chinul (cf. Buswell
1983). Eventually the Imje interpretation came to dominate Korean
Sŏn and the manner in which practitioners came to perceive the path
(^33) This part is a modified version of a section originally published in Sørensen
1993c, 529–37.