R I VIS TA DEGL I S TU D I O RI E NTALI

NUOVA SERIE
 RIVIS TA DEGL I S TUDI O RI E NTALI
NUOVA SERIE

SAPIENZA UNIVERSITÀ DI ROMA

ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI STUDI ORIENTALI

*
Direttore responsabile
Raffaele Torella

*
Direttore scientifico
Raffaele Torella

Comitato scientifico
Prof. Pia Brancaccio (Drexel University)
Prof. Cristina Scherrer-Schaub
(Université de Lausanne, École pratique des hautes études, Paris)
Prof. Phyllis Granoff (Yale University)
Prof. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi (École pratique des hautes études, Paris)
Prof. Ghanshyam Sharma (inalco, Paris)
Prof. Lawrence Wang-chi Wong (Hong Kong University)
Prof. Cécile Michel (cnrs, Paris)
Prof. Barbara Pizziconi (soas, University of London)
Prof. Carter Eckert (Harvard University)
Prof. Florian Schwarz (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien)

Comitato editoriale
Alessandra Brezzi, Antonetta Bruno, Vanna Calasso,
Leonardo Capezzone, Federica Casalin, Mario Casari,
Claudia Angela Ciancaglini, Franco D’Agostino, Arianna D’Ottone Rambach,
Ciro Lo Muzio, Matilde Mastrangelo, Giorgio Milanetti, Luca Milasi,
Donatella Rossi, Lorenzo Verderame

Segretarie di redazione
Carmela Mastrangelo, Giulia Buriola

*
Pubblicato con il contributo
di Sapienza Università di Roma
anvur: a
 S A P I E N ZA UN I VE R S I TÀ DI ROMA
IS T ITUTO I TA LI A N O D I S T UDI OR IE NTALI

RIVISTA
DEGLI

STUDI ORIENTALI
NUOVA SERIE
VOLUME XCII
Fasc. 1-2
(2019)

PISA · ROMA
FABRIZIO SERRA EDITORE
2019
 RIVIS TA DEGL I S TUDI O RI E NTALI
NUOVA SERIE
Trimestrale

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 CONT ENT S

linguistica
Marianna Pozza, Valentina Gasbarra, Methodological premises for a sociolin-
guistic analysis of Greek-Anatolian contact 11

vicino oriente
Laurent Colonna d’Istria, Two new Ur III letters in the Louvre Museum 29
Lluís Feliu, Cuneiform Texts from the Lizana Collection 37
Jana Mynářová, A Note on KUB 3.39 in Light of a LBA Diplomatic Practice. An Ad-
dendum 47
islam
Federico Stella, Religion as Law: Meaning and Context of Law in al-Fārābī’s Philos-
ophy 57
Cristiana Baldazzi, Memorie resistenti: le Mudhakkirāt dell’avvocato palestinese
Ḥannā Dīb Naqqāra 73

india
Ādikāvyāni: regional Rāmāyaṇas in early medieval South and Southeast Asia
( Jesse R. Knutson ed.)
Ādikāvyāni: Regional Rāmāyaṇas in Early Medieval South and Southeast Asia 91
Robert P. Goldman, Vālmīki’s Children: Adulation, imitation and ethical critique in
Poets of the Rāmakathā 93
Thomas M. Hunter, The Old Javanese Uttarakāṇḍa as a Commentary on the Vālmīki
Rāmāyaṇa 103
Jesse R. Knutson, An Orgy of Order: the Bhaṭṭikāvya’s scientific experiment and the
Reproduction of Aesthetic and Political Life in Early Medieval South Asia 121
Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, Revamping the rākṣasa: The Critics and Bhava-
bhūti’s Mahāvīracarita 137

Malgorzata Sacha, The guru-disciple relationship psychoanalytically: from imitation

to self-transformation 151
Vera Lazzaretti, Making the story new. Individuals, variations and embodiment in
local urban pilgrimage 165
Phyllis Granoff, The silent sage and the noisy puppet: a Jain performance of Bhakti 183

Recensione
Around Abhinavagupta. Aspects of the Intellectual History of Kashmir from the Ninth to
the Eleventh Century, ed. by E. Franco, I. Ratié (Marco Ferrante) 201
8 contents [2]

arte e archeologia · india e asia centrale

Yutaka Yoshida, Hiroshi Kumamoto, The Discovery of the South Chinese Mani-
chaean Painting “Hagiography (3)” and its contents 209
Luca M. Olivieri, The early-historic funerary monuments of Butkara IV. New evidence
on a forgotten excavation in outer Gandhara 231
Monika Zin, Cosmological aspects. Representations of deities holding sun and moon in
Kucha and beyond 259

cina
Gloria Gabbianelli, Awareness of dialectal variations in Chinese foreign language
teaching 289

Recensione
Chinese and Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism, ed. by Yael Bentor, Meir Shahar (Giacomella
Orofino) 309

giappone
Noemi Lanna, The China problem as a «Japan problem»: Takeuchi Yoshimi and Japan’s
post-war debate on China 319
Cristian Pallone, Geisha yobukodori. Verbal and visual narration in late eight-
eenth-century Japan 335

corea
Giovanni Volpe, Punctuation signs (kudujŏm 句讀點) in 15th century Chosŏn texts:
origin, function, and significance 353
Chinese and Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism, ed. by Yael Bentor, Meir Shahar, Leiden, Brill, 2017
(«Studies on East Asian Religions»», 1), xxi + 450 pp., isbn 978-90-04-34049-7.
The study of esoteric Buddhism and its diffusion in Asia is still largely to be explored and elab-
orated on, even though there is a growing scientific interest for this religious movement which was
born in India, then spread widely in the Asian continent and became an important factor of cultural
transmission.
This captivating volume, edited by Yael Bentor and Meir Shahar, contributes considerably to the
understanding of such complex and multifaceted phenomena and it certainly sets a base for very in-
teresting future elaborations, not only in the field of religious studies, but also for enriching our
understanding of Asian civilizations in general.
The volume’s multidisciplinary structure and the great variety of topics addressed by the different
scholars makes this text particularly fascinating. The deep interest aroused by esoteric Buddhism is
also due to the growing understanding of the great impact it had on extremely wide geographical
areas. It is well known that Vajrayāna was the prevalent form of Buddhism in Tibet, and that in Japan
the esoteric schools of Shingon and Tendai were very important, but only recently has it been
proven that esoteric Buddhism’s expansion was actually much wider, as it spread to the North, from
the Central Asian Steppes, and to the South, in the Indonesian archipelago, interweaving with local
cultures everywhere and giving rise to rites and cults in which the deities of the Indian pantheon
played a significant role.
The impact of the tantras in China has been remarkable. Esoteric Buddhism spread during the
Tang era, it expanded widely and even though various scholars have questioned the possibility that
tantric Buddhism in China was organized as a different school, it is generally accepted that this
form of Buddhism influenced considerably the other Buddhist schools and Chinese religiosity as
a whole.
The volume is divided into seven parts. The first, “Chinese Perspectives on the Origins of Esoteric
Buddhism” is very interesting and it gives us a glimpse of a topic that to this day has not been
researched in depth, that of Chinese translations of Indian esoteric Buddhist texts between the iii
and the viii century CE.
The first contribution by Charles Orzech: “Tantric Subjects: Liturgy and Vision in Chinese Ritual
manuals” analyses, among others, some early ritual treatises, disappeared in India but translated into
Chinese in the vii and viii centuries, that preserve a record of the early development of Buddhist
tantras. The author notes that while the treatises translated in the vii century describe rites that in-
clude mantra recitations, hand gestures and deity visualizations, in the following century we see the
use of the lunar disc and bījas to be enacted simultaneously “in the mind’s eyes” with the perform-
ance of hand gestures (mudrā), mantra recitation, and contemplation activating the tantric practice
of transformation of the “three esoterica”, referring to the yogin’s body, speech and mind. Though
aware of the fact that the visualization of images is not a prerogative of Buddhism’s esoteric phase,
for example many Pāli texts describe viewing and calling to the mind the Buddha’s major and minor
iconographic characteristics, Orzech examines the progressive development of visualization in eso-
teric Buddhism and the turning point, which was around the viii century, when the use of mantra,
mudrā and bīja during visualization practices became systematic. Ritual texts describe firstly the use
of mudrā in coordination with the recitation of mantra, with accurate descriptions of how to per-
form the gestures, and secondly how to visualize the seed syllables and moon disc in the deity’s body
and in one’s own. Orzech suggests that while manuals in which much space was given to the prac-
tice of mudrā started to circulate in China around 600 CE, only one century later, at the beginning
of the viii century, instructions related to inner visualizations of moon discs and bīja started to be-
come widespread. Moreover, considering the social dimension of tantric practitioners, Orzech ob-
serves that in the liturgies of the early manuals preserved in Chinese we see that those who took
part in the abhiṣeka ritual and took the samayas, entered the dimension of divine beings, as part of
https://doi.org/10.19272/201903802020 · «rso · n. s.», xcii, 1-2, 2019
310 recensione [2]

the maṇḍala liturgy, and became a virtual extension of the liturgical process, members of the great
tantric liturgical community.
Henric H. Sørensen in his contribution “Spells and Magical Practices as Reflected in the Early Chi-
nese Buddhist Sources (c. 300-600 CE) and their Implications for the Rise and Development of Eso-
teric Buddhism” discusses the process according to which the first forms of esoteric Buddhism
started spreading in China in the Nanbeichao period (317-581 CE) and outlines the ways in which eso-
teric Buddhism developed as a distinct form of Buddhist practice, not only in India but also in China.
The most ancient translations of Buddhist scriptures date back to the period between 200 CE and
600 CE and are very important for deepening the understanding of the evolution of esoteric Bud-
dhism. This interesting material in Chinese also represents a missing link in the history of Bud-
dhism’s evolution in India, being greatly made up of lost texts in original Sanskrit. These are pre-
served either in Sanskrit manuscripts from much later, or in their Tibetan translations, also from a
later date. The author starts his discussion with a semantic clarification distinguishing between two
different definitions of Indian Buddhism’s last phase: “esoteric Buddhism” being the first stage and
“tantric Buddhism” being its more mature evolution, actually based on Buddhist tantras.
Sørensen outlines a conceptual template for the development of esoteric Buddhist practices
based on Chinese sources that divides, starting from the later period and going backwards in time
towards the initial period, into 1) esoteric/tantric Buddhism (from 600 to 800 CE), 2) esoteric Bud-
dhism 500-600 CE, very well represented in Chinese sources 3) early esoteric Buddhism from 300 to
500 CE when a rich spell-literature started to develop and 4) magic Mahāyāna/proto esoteric Bud-
dhism between 150 and 350 CE, a literature that is typical of Mahāyāna, but with an ever-growing
interest for magic and the supernatural, which then led to the esoteric forms of Buddhism. In his
model he identifies a number of elements, typical of Buddhist esoteric literature: mantra/dhāraṇī,
mudrā, maṇḍala, homa, visualization, ritual soteriology, exorcism, protection, etc. and he points out
in which phase of the diachronic process they appear in Chinese sources. What the author mentions
and what appears clearly from his template is that tantric Buddhism didn’t arise out of nowhere in
the vii century, but it represented a long process of evolution of Mahāyāna. This slow evolution is
well known to scholars of the history of Buddhism in India, but Sørensen compares this historical
view with some sinologists’ theories, in particular McBride, Copp and Sharf, who stated that eso-
teric Buddhism as such never existed in China. The scholar, though aware of the fact that rituals
form a very important element in all Buddhist schools, including the ancient ones and Chan/Zen,
examines early Buddhist sources in detail, also taking into consideration the most ancient main-
stream literature which forbade the use of magic spells and charms. In his examination he manages
to recognize a growing emphasis on the importance given to the recitation of charms and spells in
rites of liberation, protection, cure of illnesses, exorcisms as well as in rites of propitiation and ac-
cretion, both material and spiritual. In short, in the diachronic development of Buddhism we see
the progression of the idea that liberation can also be the result of a ritual performance. The pro-
gressive integration of magic formulas, symbolic hand gestures, visualizations, is a characteristic of
esoteric Buddhism that is not found in the earlier Mahāyāna Buddhist practices. The esoteric Bud-
dhist material differs significantly from Buddhist mainstream schools. Gradually, the entire salvific
process became very ritualized. To conclude, Sørensen points out that it’s the specific manner in
which dhāraṇīs or spells occur in a given Buddhist scripture that classifies it as esoteric Buddhism or
simply as Mahāyāna. The search for supernatural powers became an important topic in the devel-
opment of Mahāyāna and its transformation into esoteric Buddhism. The development of the
dhāraṇī literature, between 200 and 400 CE can be seen as a reflection of this tendency. This state-
ment is confirmed by the first Chinese translations of Indian Buddhist sūtras. Sørensen gives a
number of highly illuminating examples about this, highlighting the great scholarly value of early
esoteric Buddhist material transmitted in China.
The next contribution by Lü Jianfu, “The Terms “Esoteric teaching” (“Esoteric Buddhism”) and
“Tantra” in Chinese Buddhist Sources” (translated by Ilia Mozias and Meir Shahar), resumes the
previous topic about the definition of late Indian Buddhism. The author starts his contribution by
[3] recensione 311

identifying what he defines as the great terminological confusion characterizing the studies about
this topic. Some define the last phase of Indian Buddhism as “esoteric Buddhism”, others as “tantric
Buddhism”, others still use both terms, alternating them without making a distinction. The author
then examines the evolution and changing semantic meanings of the terms “esoteric teaching” and
“tantra” in Chinese Buddhist sources of the medieval period. While “esoteric teaching” (mijiao) ap-
pears in Mahāyāna texts of the iii and iv century to distinguish exoteric from esoteric teachings, it
was thereafter used by Buddhist teachers of the Tang epoch mostly to define teachings which had
as central fulcrum the practice of mudrās, mantras and maṇḍalas in the esoteric transfiguration of the
practitioner’s body, speech and mind. It was referred to as the “School of the three esoterica”(san’mi,
or san mimi men) becoming a new Buddhist movement, with its specific connotation. The word ‘tan-
tra’, initially, in the first half of the viii century, was simply transliterated into Chinese (tandaluo,
tanduoluo, dandaluo, daduoluo). Later on, after 750, it was translated by Amoghavajra into the term
Dajiaowang lit. “King of the Great Teaching”, where king denotes the foremost of sacred texts. Lü
Janfu surmises that this term was first coined to translate into Chinese the Sanskrit title
Mahātantrarāja or Mahākalparāja, where “da” is the translation of mahā, great, “wang” is the trans-
lation of rāja, king, and “jiao” (literally teaching) is the translation of tantra or kalpa. In time the term
Dajiaowang, “King of the great teaching”, was identified with the entire new Buddhist movement
and it became the term that designated not only tantric texts, but their doctrines as well. Then the
Chinese transliteration of the Sanskrit “yoga” was added to this term, resulting in the new epithet
Yujia dajiaowang, “King of the great teaching of yoga” and the abbreviated terms “great teaching”
or “great teaching of yoga” became the general designation for the esoteric Buddhist tradition, both
for insiders and outsiders to the tradition. With this analysis Janfu outlines the diachronic devel-
opment of Buddhist’s last phase in China, reflecting the history of Buddhism at large. Juanfu also
claims that the majority of Buddhist texts authored in India survive only in Chinese translations,
while he doubts the importance, and even the existence of Tibetan translations. On page 72, in fact,
we find this rather staggering and disconcerting statement: “The overwhelming majority of Bud-
dhist texts that were authored in India during the first millennium CE survive in Chinese trans-
lations only. Tibetan translations (if they exist) date from many centuries after the Chinese
ones”. This sentence is completely erroneous, considering the importance of the Tibetan Buddhist
literary heritage and the great value of the thousands of texts translated from Sanskrit as a result of
the intense and careful work carried out in Tibet since the VIII century, during the imperial epoch.
It is also surprising that such a misleading statement has been overlooked by the editors of this, in
other respects, admirable volume. As Matthew Kapstein already finely remarked (The Tibetans, 2006,
Blackwell Publishing, 72): “In both quantitative and qualitative terms the achievement of Tibetan
translators must be ranked among the cultural monuments of the medieval world and the hundreds
of texts translated into Tibetan by the imperial translation committees may be counted among the
finest achievements of the art of translation at any place or time”. I therefore asked one of the editor,
Yael Bentor, to clarify the issue and in a personal communication with her (26th May 2019) I received
confirmation that the statement is totally incorrect and an errata corrige will be issued to eliminate
it completely.
The second part of the volume: “Chan, Chinese Religion, and Esoteric Buddhism” contains three
contributions by Robert Sharf: “Buddhist Veda and the Rise of Chan”, by Lin Pei-ying on “A Com-
parative Approach to Śubhakarasiṃha’s (637-735) ‘Essentials of Meditation’: Meditation and Pre-
cepts in Eight-Century China”, and by Meir Shahar on “The Tantric Origin of the Horse King:
Hayagrīva and the Chinese Horse Cult. These three contributions investigate the Tantric influence
on the wider context of Chinese religiosity.
In his essay Sharf reformulates his previous (2002) assumption that esoteric Buddhism in China
was not and independent or self-aware tradition, set apart from other forms of Mahāyāna. He reit-
erates his opinion that there is little evidence that Indian masters, mainly Śubhakarasiṃha, Vajra-
bodhi and Amoghavajra, who transmitted esoteric Buddhism in China in the viii century, character-
ized their teachings as an independent stream of Buddhism. He deems that only later on, during the
312 recensione [4]

Song Dynasty, esoteric Buddhism became a self-aware tradition, following the Buddhist devel-
opments in East Asia. Moreover, in his title, Sharf labels esoteric Buddhism as “Buddhist Veda,” a
term appearing in Yixing’s commentary to the Mahāvairocanābhisaṃbodhisūtra” where the Chinese
commentator, who was a student of both Śubhakarasiṃha and Vajrabodhi, explains that Buddha
Śākyamuni intentionally took the Brahman homa or fire rituals, which were very popular rites, and
configured them with Buddhist meanings, thus differentiating an outward form of Buddhism, that
used Brahmanical rites, and an inward form of Buddhism, corresponding to Mahāyāna orthodox
teachings. Sharf then points out that secret transmission in Chan Buddhism and the importance of
the master-disciple empowerment within this movement might have originated from the contact
with esoteric Buddhism in the vii-viii centuries. In the same manner, he hypothesizes that the
identification of buddha-nature with mind, featured in early Chan Buddhism, and the consequent
notion of an inherently pure and luminous nature of consciousness as well as the associated doc-
trine of sudden awakening and awakening in one’s own body might also be in part influenced by
the tantric Buddhist texts imported from India in the vii and viii centuries. Another point of con-
gruence between Buddhist Tantra and Chan indicated by Sharf is the importance of the altar (Chi-
nese: tan). This congruence was not clear before, due to the way in which the Chinese term tan was
translated into English. While in Chan texts it was translated as “platform” in tantric texts it was
translated as “altar” or ritual “maṇḍala”. In his conclusion the author posits that Chan doctrines and
rituals owe much to the tantric “brahmanized” form of Buddhism, taught by Indian Buddhist tantric
masters during the Tang dynasty in China.
The next contribution by Lin Pei-ying analyses, in a comparative approach, Śubhakarasiṃha’s
manual Essentials of Meditation on the steps that an esoteric Buddhist practitioner must achieve and
practice in order to receive bodhisattva precepts. She compares this text with three other manuals
about Bodhisattva precepts authored by the Indian Buddhist master Amoghavajra, the Chan master
Shen xiu and the Sixth Patriarch of the Tiantai school Zhanran. Her analysis sheds light on the com-
mon ground between esoteric Buddhism and Northen Chan doctrines in the precept-conferral
procedures while she evidentiates the differences between the Chan and Tiantai Schools. Zhanran’s
manual, in fact, shows an integrated view of precepts, but excludes meditational practices, con-
versely found at the very end in both Śubhakarasiṃha’s and Shan xiu’s manuals. This is yet another
evidence of the doctrinal affiliation between esoteric Buddhism and Northen Chan school.
The last article of the second part of the volume by Meir Shahar analyses the mythology and
iconography of the Chinese cult of the Horse God, one of the most popular deities among Chinese
officials in Ming and Ching dynasties, also found in Daoism and in Chinese literature and historical
treatises, as well as in popular religion. Shahar traces its origin to Hayagrīva the wrathful manifes-
tation of Avalokiteśvara whose image was widespread in China during the Tang period through the
translations of esoteric Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit. Since, as is well-known, Hayagrīva’s
image was a readaptation of the ancient Hindu mythology of a fire-emanating mare, the author
demonstrates the important role played by tantric Buddhism in the spreading of Indian ancient cul-
ture and iconographic motifs within Chinese religions, literature and folk traditions.
The third part of the book on “Scriptures and Practices in their Tibetan Context” deals with Tibe-
tan tantric traditions. In the first contribution, “Crazy Wisdom in Moderation: Padampa Sangye’s
Use of Counterintuitive Methods in Dealing with Negatives Mental States”, Dan Martin analyses
some passages from the Zhi byed Collection by Pha dam pa Sangs rgyas, a very interesting late XI
century itinerant yogin who was born in South India, studied at Vikramaśīla Monastery, travelled
around the Indian subcontinent and spent several years on the Five Peaked mountain of Wutai Shan,
before settling in a cave in Ding ri in Western Tibet where he died, presumably in 1117. Martin ana-
lyses some passages of a text belonging to the Zhi byed Collection (Gya log gnad kyi skor). The word
gya log, or ja log (tricky, deceitful, cunning or reverting) is found in tantric rNying ma context as well
as in Tibetan medicine where it refers to the reversal treatment or opposite, counterintuitive treat-
ment, such as giving cold-powered medicine to treat cold disorders. In Pha dampa’s text the term
gya log rather indicates the idea that external actions can result in internal transformations. Martin
[5] recensione 313

enriches his contribution with a brief comparisons between tantric Buddhist counterintuitive
methods and the early psychoanalytical ones, promising his readers to come back to the meaning
of the term gya log in the Zhi byed Collection in the (hopefully near) future.
The second article in this section is a contribution by Eran Laish: “Perception, Body and Self hood:
The Transformation of Embodiment in the Thod rgal Practise of the ‘Heart Essence’ Tradition”.
The author provides an overview of the esoteric practices of thod rgal (leap over) as found in Klong
chen rab ’byams pa’s (1308-1364) fundamental works. The thod rgal esoteric practices of photism in
rNying ma pa and Bon po rdzogs chen traditions represents the culmination of contemplative medi-
tation through which the yogins actualize the fundamental aspects of natural awareness by directly
experiencing the transparent and luminous essential nature of phenomena, without divisions and
discriminations between inner self and outer existence.
The third part of the volume is concluded by Yael Bentor’s contribution on “The Tibetan Inter-
pretation of the Opening Verses of Vajraghaṇṭa”. In this chapter Bentor analyses the various inter-
pretations of Vajraghaṇṭa lines on the body maṇḍala practice as found in Tibetan polemical works
from the xii century to the xv centuries. Their controversial analysis helps to identify the intense
dialogue that fostered the philosophical systematization of Sa skya and dGe lugs schools in Tibetan
intellectual history.
The fourth part of the volume deals with Tibetan Buddhism in China. The first chapter by Shen
Weirong analyses “Ming Chinese Translations of Tibetan Tantric Buddhist Texts and the Buddhist
Saṃgha of the Western Regions in Beijing”. In this contribution the author demonstrates, on the
basis of textual analysis and careful study of Sa skya transmission lineages, that bSod nam grags, the
famous and very erudite translator of many Buddhist ritual texts from Tibetan into Chinese, who
might have been a Chinese monk considering the extraordinary quality of his Chinese translations,
was not, as previously thought, a direct disciple of ’Phags pa Bla ma Blo gros rgyal mtshan (1235-
1280) but lived later on, during the early Ming dynasty. On the basis of this historical analysis, Shen
Weirong observes that Tibetan Buddhism was very popular in China during the early Ming period,
even more than during the Yuan dynasty, and that Sa skya teachings and practises were still very
widespread in those times.
The second chapter by Ester Bianchi concerns “Sino-Tibetan Buddhism: Continuities and Discon-
tinuities: The Case of Nenghai’s Legacy in the Contemporary Era”. In the context of what Bianchi
calls “Chinese contemporary fever for Tibetan Buddhism” she delineates a continuity between the
interest of Han Chinese people in Tibetan tantric teachings of the Republican period, during the first
part of ’900, and its revitalization in present times, after a long period of decline due to well-known
political events. In particular Bianchi explores the legacy of the Chinese “Lama” Nenghai (1886-1967)
who made an interesting synthesis of Chinese and Tibetan elements combining them into one doc-
trine, and developing what Bianchi, following the steps of the late scholar Monica Esposito, defines
the “Sino-Tibetan” Buddhist system. Nenghai’s tradition is commonly referred to in China as a fusion
of exoteric (xian) and esoteric (mi) Buddhism, where esoteric refers almost exclusively to the Tibetan
Vajrayāna tradition and exoteric is a blend of Chinese and Tibetan features. Bianchi describes the role
played by Nenghai in creating a specific tradition that is preserved in various monasteries in China.
She also introduces the reader to Zhiming, one of his main disciples and the last one still living, who
is trying to continue his master’s work, adapting its tradition to contemporary Chinese society and
combining Nenghai’s original tantric teachings with other new practices of the Tibetan dGe lugs pa
lineage, in spite of the more conservative attitude held by others among Nenghai’s disciples, which
could turn out to be dangerous for the preservation of the tradition itself.
The last section of the volume deals with a very interesting field of research that still needs to be
further investigated: the development of esoteric Buddhism in historical sites on the borders between
China, India and Tibet including Dun huang, the Ningxia region and the Dali region of Yunnan.
The fifth part focuses on the development of esoteric Buddhism in Dun huang. Jacob Dalton in
his chapter “On the Significance of the Ārya-tattvasaṃgrahā-sādhanopāyikā and Its Commentary”
makes a fine analysis of a corpus of five Tibetan manuscript copies of the Sarvatathāgatatattva-
314 recensione [6]

saṃgrahasādhanopāyikā and one commentary found at Dun huang. He deems that, from a paleo-
graphical point of view, these manuscripts can be dated no later than the early ix century, while it
has been demonstrated that the vast majority of Mahāyoga Tibetan tantric manuscripts from Dun
huang date back to the x century. Moreover, on the basis that a Sanskrit title is provided at the
beginning of the mss, Dalton argues that the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgrahasādhanopāyikā could be a
direct translation of an Indic original that itself may date back to the second half of the viii century,
and not a Tibetan composition written on the basis of an early Tibetan translation of the
Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgrahā. So this sādhana could be an interesting piece of evidence for under-
standing the evolution of early Yogatantra ritual practices. Once established that the manuscripts
and commentary date back to the IX century, Dalton thoroughly analyses the sādhana’s ritual struc-
ture, and examines the common elements between this ritual practice and the ritual procedures per-
formed nowadays in the Shingon School of Japanese Buddhism. It is well known that the Shingon
School retains elements of the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha tradition found in Amoghavajra’s and
other early tantric masters’ writings, active in viii century China. In particular, as noticed by Robert
Sharf, the fundamental Shingon ritual sequence of the eighteen methods appears to be a Japanese
systematization of a ritual procedure found in a group of Chinese manuals associated with Amogha-
vajra. Considering the interesting similarities between the Āryatattvasaṃgrahasādhanopāyikā and the
“eighteen methods” of the Shingon tradition, Dalton points out that these ancient Tibetan manuals
from Dun huang represent a link between the early Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha tradition in India
and Tibet and Amoghavajra’s viii century Chinese tantric writings. Their temporal contiguity to
Amoghavajra connects these manuscripts to the early textual tradition representing the foundation
of Japanese Shingon practices.
In the next chapter, “Avalokiteśvara and the Dun huang Dhāraṇī Spells of Salvation in Child-
birth”, Li ling and Ma De examine several dhāraṇī and rituals found at Dun huang whose function
was to protect pregnant women. The authors analyse the development of Avalokiteśvara/Guany-
ing’s cult in Chinese medieval Buddhism where the Bodhisattva assumed a special importance in as-
sisting women during childbirth and for women’s fertility. This specific aspect and the relevance
Avalokiteśvara acquired among female devotees might have played a role in the Bodhisattva’s trans-
formation from a male deity in India to a female deity in China.
The sixth part of the volume deals with the evolution of esoteric Buddhism in the Tangut Xixia
and Yugur spheres. The first contribution by Hou Haron, “Notes on the Translation and Trans-
mission of the Saṃpuṭa and Cakrasaṃvara Tantras in the Xixia Period (1038-1227)”, deals with the im-
portant discovery of more that thirty Tangut and Chinese documents from Baisigou Pagoda dating
back to 1075, during the Xixia period, located in the area of Mount Helan in the Ningxia Hui Auton-
omous Region. Most of these documents are tantric scripts related to the Saṃpuṭa and Cakrasaṃvara
tantras, translated from Tibetan to Tangut during the twelfth century. In his study Hou Haron points
out the importance of the new discovery of tantric manuscripts translated from Tibetan to Tangut
dating back to the Xixia period. They shed new light on the Tibetan influence on Tangut Buddhist
culture and on the development of Tibetan tantric Buddhism in Xixia kingdom. With his attentive
philological analysis he is able to reconstruct the Cakrasaṃvara and Saṃpuṭa lineages from Tibet to
Xixia. These lineages cross at the point of Cog ro Chos kyi rgyal tsan, the Tibetan master born in
mDo sman in 1108, disciple of Mar pa Do pa Chos kyi dbang phyug and rNgog Zhe sdang rdo rje,
of the rNog bKa’ brgyud pa tradition. Haron confirms previous researches that identify Cog ro Chos
kyi rgyal tsan as Śākya Bhikṣu Zhuang lang Fachuang. The title Śākya Bhikṣu, usually found in titles
of monks of Tangut of Chinese origin, reveals the complex political scenery and the change of
power predominance in the mDo smad area during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. As Haron
points out, further research is needed on Tibetan tantric works found in the Xixia kingdom’s archae-
ological sites in both Tangut and Chinese languages, such as the very important findings of Khara
Khoto and others.
The second contribution by Yang Fuxue and Zhang Haijuan on “Mongol Rulers, Yugur Subjects
and Tibetan Buddhism” (translated by Ilia Mozias and Meir Shahar) outlines the history of the Yugurs
[7] recensione 315

ethnic group, Tibetan Buddhists who reside in the modern Gansu Province. They differ from the Uig-
hur Muslim population who live in the Xinjiang Province. Their origins can be traced back to the Yuan
Period when the local Uighur population was ruled by a Mongolian clan, fervent supporters of Tibe-
tan tantric Buddhism. Under their influence the local Mongol and Uighur populations converted to
the Tibetan Buddhist faith, creating the Yugur identity, nowadays officially recognized as one of the
fifty-six national minorities of the People’s Republic of China. Their faith in Tibetan Buddhism is the
unifying factor of the Mongol and Turkish Uighur and the root of all Yugurs’ national identity.
The seventh and last section of the volume deals with esoteric Buddhism in the Dali Kingdom
where Buddhist esoterism is still alive. Hou Chong in “The Chinese Origins of Dali Esoteric Bud-
dhism” (translated by Ilia Mozias and Meir Shahar) deals with a debated historical problem that has
long puzzled scholars. Esoteric Buddhism in this area is called Azhali jiao or Asheli jiao, the “Religion
of the Ācārya”. Some scholars believe that it was transmitted to Yunnan directly from India, through
the Southern branches of the Silk Road, during the middle of the VII century, others have argued
that the Buddhist esoteric tradition in Yunnan is rooted in medieval China, others believe that it de-
rives from the neighbouring Tibetan Buddhist traditions, while others claim that it is a distinct au-
tonomous system. Analyzing hand-written manuscript ritual sources that can be dated to the Dali
kingdom period and the inscriptions on the Kunming Dhāraṇī sculpted pillar, Hou demonstrates
their relation to Chinese antecedents of the Tang period, reaching the conclusions that the Dali Bud-
dhist tradition can be traced back to Chinese Buddhism. Hou chong completes his contribution with
a colophon including the Chinese text of the Kunming Dhāraṇī Pillar.
The next contribution by Megan Bryson, “Between China and Tibet, Mahākāla Worshop and
Esoteric Buddhism in the Dali Kingdom” coincides with Hou Chong’s conclusions. In her chapter
she takes into consideration Mahākāla, a tutelary deity that had a minor position in the Tang-Song
Chinese esoteric pantheon but became prominent during the Dali Kingdom (937-1253). Due to its
importance within Tibetan Buddhism, it would apparently seem possible that Dali kingdom Bud-
dhists absorbed it from their neighbours, especially considering the Tibetan sources of the Tangut
Mahākāla cult, as found in documents from the Western Xia kingdom. Bryson demonstrates how-
ever that there is no evidence that this cult, in its Dali Buddhism’s declination, derived from Tibetan
contacts. Rather it can be shown that sources from the Dali kingdom depended on Chinese texts
and Indian iconography, with some local innovations. Bryson examines texts and images related to
Mahākāla in Chinese Buddhism, from Tang to Song periods, including its transmission to Japan. She
also examines Mahākāla worship in Tibet and Tangut Xia dynasty. Although the Mahākāla cult in
China and Japan presents several points of continuity with Tibetan and Tangut Buddhism, these
two traditions are quite divergent. The first seems to have appeared in China during the Tang dy-
nasty while Tibetan and Tangut Mahākāla iconography appears to be drawing more from its later
Indian developments, during the Pāla dynasty. In Dali Buddhism Mahākāla cult took on a prominent
role as a consequence of the Dali royal house’s necessity to demarcate the difference between them
and the Chinese dynasty. They adopted Chinese textual sources to model their own Mahākāla cult,
blending it with Indian, rather than Chinese iconography and local practices, thus creating a hybrid
tradition, with its specific features, which served their political interests.
Due to the complexity and importance of the themes it deals with, this volume represents a
groundbreaking work. It investigates the dynamics of transmission of late Indian Buddhism in
China and Tibet, both in medieval and more recent times, focusing on the multifarious aspects of
dissemination of a religion that was deemed as universal but that has paradoxically taken on count-
less philosophical, ritualistic and iconographic features. It developed in a myriad of different tradi-
tions which from India reached the Far East, through processes that are essential for our understand-
ing of Asian cultural history as a whole, as shown by the various chapters that make up this
outstanding publication.
Giacomella Orofino
gorofino@unior.it
University of Naples “L’Orientale”
 co m p o sto i n c a r att e re se rr a da nte da lla
fa b ri z i o se rr a e d i to re, pisa · ro m a .
sta m pato e ri l e gato nella
ti p o gr a f i a d i agna n o, ag nano pisa no (pisa ).

*
Finito di stampare nel mese di
Dicembre 2019
(cz 2 · fg 21)

*
Periodico iscritto alla Cancelleria del Tribunale di Roma
in data 7 marzo 2006 n. 121/06
Raffaele Torella, Direttore responsabile
Periodico già registrato in data
30 aprile 1958 n. 6299