Huntington Notes on a Chinese Text Demonstrating the Earliness of Tantra

8/14/2019 Huntington Notes on a Chinese Text Demonstrating the Earliness of Tantra

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THE JOURNALOF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF

BUDDHIST STUDIES/ ^ r ^ / > . .A > ^rQ?3>N '-;;. ,

I ^Ifi |jC O - E D I T O R S - I N - C H I E F > > J :

Gregory Schopen Roger Jackson ; Q OIndiana University Fairfield Unive rsity

Bloomington, Indiana, USA Fairfield,Connecticut, USA

E D I T O R SPeter N.Gregory FJrnstSteinkellnerUniversityof Illinois Universityof Vienna

Urbana-Cham paign, Illinois, USA Wien, AustriaAlexander W. Macdo nald Jikido Takasaki

UniversitydeP aris X Universityof TokyoNanterre, France Tokyo,Japan

Robert ThurmanAmherst College

Amherst, Massachusetts, USAA S S I S T A N T E D I T O R

Bruce Cameron HallCollege of William and MaryWilliamsburg, Virginia, USA

Volume 10 1987 Num ber 2


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C O N T E N T S

I . ARTI CLES1. P ure La nd Bud dhi s t H e rm e ne u t i c s :Hone n ' s I n te rp re ta t ion o fNembuLsu,byAllan A . Andrews 72. Sa-skya Pancli ta , the W hite Pan acea an d the H va -sh angDoct r ine ,byMichaelBroido 273 . I nd ia n Com me nta r i e s on theHeart Sutra: The Politicsof I n te rp r e ta t ion ,byMalcolm David Eckel 6 94 . Notes on Na gar jun a an d Zen o in M ot ion,byBrianGalloway 805. No te on a Chine se Te xt D em on s t ra t in g the Ear l inessofTantra, by JohnC.H untington 886. T h e Insc r ip t ion on the Kusan Imag e of Am itabha andthe C har acte r of the Ear ly M ahay ana in Ind iaby Gregory Schopen 997. Ba ck gro un d Mater ia l for the First Seventy To pics inMditreya-nathzi sAbhisamayalarhkdra,by GarethSparham 13 9

II . B O O K R E V I E W S1. TheGenesisof anOrientalist:Thoma s WilliamRhysDavidsand Buddhism in Sri Lxinka,by A na nd a W ic kre me ra tne(A.P.K ann ang ara) 1612. The Legend of King Asoka: A Study and Translationof the Asokavadana, by Jo h n S . S t ro ng(Bardw ell Sm ith) 165


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3 . Ndgdrjuna: ThePhilosophyoftheMiddle W aybyDavid J. Kalupa hanaKaren Christina Lan g) 14 . Tibet Bon Religion: ADeathRitual of the Tibetan Bonpos,byPer KvaerneM ichael Aris) 1

III. SPECIAL SECTIONTit le /Au thor Index ofVols. 1-10, compiledby Bruce Cam eron Hall 1


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Note on a Chinese Text Demonstrat ingthe Earliness of Tantra

byJohn C. Huntington

I. IntroductionAlthough divided by two closely re la ted opinions, mostscholars working on the his tory of Buddhism resolve the issueof the date of the beginning of Tantra by placing e i ther i tsor ig in or its em erg en ce in the seven th or e igh th cen tury .For one subs tant ia l group of schola rs , the seventh century da tehas beco m e tan tam ou nt to the absolute da te for the or ig in ofTant ra , and sugges t ions of ea r l ie r Tant ra mee t wi th ca tegor ic

re jec t ions by them. For a second la rge group, pe rhaps even amajor i ty of Bu dd ho log ists , it is accep ted tha t T an tr a prob ablyexis ted p r ior to the seventh cen tury , bu t the re is not en ou ghevidence for i t to be studied and i t is accepted as one of thoseareas of hu m an know ledge tha t is beyo nd o ur reach . For th i sse c ond g r oup , sugge s t ions o f p r e - se ve n th c e n tu r y T a n t r a me e twith skeptical interest but strong reservations as to the possibil i tyof real ly knowing anything substant ia l about i t . In ef fect , thesescholars a lso seem to deny the existence of ear ly Tantra on thegrounds that any possible study of i t is , by definit ion, epis-temological ly unacceptable . For a remaining few individuals ,a m o n g w ho m I n u m b e r myself, the idea of either a seventhc e n tu r y o r ig in o r e m e r ge n c e is s imply e r r o ne o us . T a n t r aappears to these few individuals to have conspiciously t raceableroots even in the pre -Sakyamuni per iod and, f rom both textua land iconographic s tudies , would seem to have been in tegra tedinto some aspects of Buddhism at a ver ly ear ly date .I t i s my purpose in this ar t ic le to support the posi t ion ofthe few in an epistemological ly acceptable manner by br ingingto the a t tent ion of the schola r ly communi ty a Buddhis t t extua l

88


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TH E EARLINESS OFT AN TRA 89passage that i r refutably places ful ly developed Mahavairocanacyc le Tant ra and known Tant r ic medi ta t iona l prac t ices in to amuch ear l ie r t ime- f rame than the seventh century .T h e passage in qu est ion is adevayogamancjalic m ed itatio ncontained in the version of the Suvarnaprabhdsasutra (SPS) thatwas t rans la ted in to Chinese be tween the th i rd and tenth yearsof the H suan -shih e ra un d er the Bei L iang (i .e ., 41 4-4 21 ) a ndnow listed as no. 663 of theTaishodaizokyo. The passage conta insevidence of an advanced unders tanding of the prac t ices of thepancajinamarulala f rom the Mahdvairocanasutra (MVS) cycle andacceptance of those pract ices as second nature . While i t doesnot prove the existence of the practices in East Asia, i t doesconclusively demonstra te that such pract ices were known in theplace of origin of the SPS version th at served as th e source forthe Bei L iang t rans la t ion , presumably India proper or the Indienor thwest (specif ical ly the Bactro-Gandharan regions orKashmir ) .

/ / . The Problem oftheSeventh Century EmergenceT he c on t inu ing a t t r i bu t ion o f t he de ve lopme nt o f T a n t r ato the seventh or even e ighth century seems to have or ig ina tedin T o ga no o Shou n ' s a r g um e n t ba se d on ne ga tive e v ide nc e ,that i f Fa-hsien (f i f th century) , Hiu-shen (s ixth century) , andHsi ian- t sang (seventh century) d id not ment ion the MVS, butI- tsing (second half of the seventh century) did, the text had to

have been wr i t ten in the mid-seventh century .1 I n h i s a r gume nt ,Toganoo ignores the fac t tha t an Indian pan


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9 J IABSVOL. 10NO.2in secret from the t ime they were first revealed. Thus, i t wouldseem that there would be l i t t le reason for the Chinese pi lgr ims,who were not specifical ly searching for ini t iat ion to the Tantras,to find them, and i t was only after he had become well knownto the Tant r ic mas ters a t Nalanda tha t I - t s ing was in t roducedto them.A no the r aspect o f To ga no o ' s reaso ning reflect s a comm onlyheld op in ion w i th which I am in com ple te d i sagre em ent . Heholds that , in general , very short ly after any given text wascrea ted , i t was wr i t t en dow n a nd t rans la ted in to Chin ese . A ccording to him, 3 the on e vers ion of theA moghapdsa-sutra (APS) whichm en t i ons t he MVS several t imes and must therefore be latert han t heMSV, was in Louy ang no la te r than 6 93 . M oreover , heholds the APS to be the model for the Sarvatathagatatattvasarh-graha-sutra (STTSS). Ho wev er , poss ib ly un kn ow n to To ga no o,the grea t Ind ian t eacher of Vai rocana cycle Tant ras , Subhakaras i rhha brought the i l lus t ra t ions for the STTSS (knownto the academic world as the Gobushinkan from the Onjo-j i copyof 855) wi th him to China in 716. This would have compressedthe crea t ion of the th ree sutras into less than a fifty year span.4Yet, by any me asu re we can d i scover , w he the r in Ja p an , N epa l ,or Tibet , the esoter ic teaching t radi t ion was ext remely conservat ive in the dev elop m ent of r i tua l an d in t rod uct ion of newteachings . How then could the whole system have developedanew and spread to his torical ly-documented locat ions fromKashmir (where Subhakaras i rhha s tud ied the STTSS), to SriLanka (where Amoghavaj ra was in i t i a ted in to the MSV), andfrom Nalanda (where Subhakaras i rhha and I - t s ing s tud iedeso ter ic Buddhism) to the Konkan (where the MSV/STTSS waspract iced)virtual ly al l of the Indie subcont inentin less thanfifty years?I t i s my opin ion tha t th i s rap id development d id no t occurand that , in fact , there had been a very long period of development . My research in to a r t and iconography sugges t s tha t Tant r ic systems developed very s lowly, taking centuries rather thandeca des . For ex am ple , re la t ive toM ahavairocana practices, I haveshown that specif ic iconographic character is t ics demonstratetha t the s ix th cen tury Aurangabad Caves numbers 6 , 6A, and7, very probably const i tute a dual mandala, virtually identical inconcept to the dual manfala o f Sh i ngon B uddh i s m .5 This fact


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T H E E A R L I N E S S O F T A N T R A 91alone p laces the deve lopment of the text two centur ies ea r l ie rthan Toganoo 's theory and ra i ses se r ious doubts about the wholeidea of the Eas t Asian deve lopment of the union of the twomandalas. Moreover , i f , as I bel ieve, Chen Yen/Shingon esoter i -c ism was t ransmit ted intact to China based on sixth centuryIndian prac t ices , the whole problem of deve lopment in theMahdvairocana cycles is pushed back into a much ear l ier t imeframe, the f i f th or even the four th century a t the la test , wi thm u c h p r o t o Vairocana cyc le de ve lop m en t having h ad to takeplace even ear l ier .

/ / / . The Manclala ofthe S u v a r n a p r a b h a s a - s u t r aSimply s ta ted , the re i s unequivoca l textua l evidence tha t thebasic maridalaof the MVS was kn ow n in th e ear ly f ifth cen tur y.Even the most conserva t ive infe rences to be drawn f rom theevidence that wil l fol low demand that theMVS itself be assignedan ear ly four th century date . And, I insis t , based on internalevidence of the man4alas in the texts, that there is at least ast rong possibi l i ty that i t might be ear l ier , even much ear l ier .6The vers ion of the Suvarrpaprabhdsottamardja-sutra{SPS) that wasf i r s t t r ans la ted in to Chinese be tween the th i rd and tenth yearsof H s i i a n Sh ih (41 4 - 42 1) u nd e r t he N or the r n L ia ng by D h a r -m a k s e m a 7 conta ins an unmis takable medi ta t ion in ( I emphas izein, not on) am aniala. W hi le m ost of thesutrais a len gth y polem icon the benef i ts that wil l accrue to an ear thly king who supportsBuddhi sm a nd the t e a c h ings o f t hesutra by vir tue of the protect ion of the four heavenly kings (lokapala), th e sutra's pr ima r ybud dho logica l co nten t is the universa li ty of Sak yam uni , in wh ichhis life is said to be eternal.8 I n the in t r oduc t ion to Cha p te r 2 ,whi le the Bodhisa t tva Mah asa t tva r ad dh ak e tu is m edi ta t in g onthe length of l i f e of the Buddha Sakyamuni , h i s house becomesvas t, extens ive , m ad e of lapis lazul i, ad or ne d wi th t reasur es , an dthere appear four d iv ine sea ts and on those sea ts appear , in theeas t Aksobhya , in the south Ratnake tu , in the west Amitayusan d in th e no r th (? )- su$abda [Divy adun dub isvara ] . T h e n theBuddhas of the four d i rec t ions impar t the i r esote r ic knowledge(about the length of Sakyamuni ' s l i f e ) to h im through medi ta -t iona l means .9


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92 JIABSVOL. 10NO.2To anyone knowl edgeab l e abou t t he mancfalasof the MVSand t he STTSS, t hi s a r r an ge m en t and ap pa re n t s equence o f t hem edi ta t ion is imm edia te ly famil ia r . T h e ho use was t ran sform edinto the palace of the eight-pe tal led lotus hal l , the B ud dh asare essential ly the tathagatas of the manaala of Mahavai rocanaand, t rue to s t i l l current medi tat ional pract ices , the pract i t ioner ,in this case the Bodhisat tva Sraddhaketu, i s to envis ion himselfin the center of the mandalaidentical to V airo can a w her e hereceives the offe ring ofthe jndna of the Bu ddha s .1 0T h e w ho lepassage in question reads as fol lows:

At on e time, in Rajagrha, therewasa M ahasattva Bodhisattvanamed Sraddhaketu who had done many good deeds. He wondered why Sakyamuni Buddha's life span was so short that heonly lived for eighty years. The Mahasattva remembered thatSakyamuni Buddha had said that there were two virtues thatgive long life spans. The first virtue was not to kill anything andthe second one was to give food to others . [Yet, du rin g his fo rm erlives], Sakyamuni Buddha had obtained many virtues. He didnot kill anything and also gained the ten virtues. He gave unlimited public food and even satisfied beings with his own flesh andblood. [Therefore, how could it be that his life span was so limited?] The Mahasattva prayed. At that instant, the floor of theroom he was in suddenly became filled with gems and, as inbuddhak$etras, the room became filled with clouds of fragrance.From the four walls, there appeared the four BuddhasAksobhya on the east, Ratnaketu on the south, Amitayus on thewest and (?)susabda (Ch. W ei-miao-sheng, Tor re nt of Excellent Sound ) on the north. [The four Buddhas] radiated greatlight over Rajagrha, the three thousand great chiliocosms, andall buddhak^etras in all directions. At that time, because of the[four] Buddhas' divine power, the people in the three thousandgreat chiliocosms gained heavenly happiness; and, even thosepossessing not a single virtue, attained all virtues. All the benefitsof the world were distributed. The Mahasattva, seeing the fourBu ddhas , piously madeanjalimudrd and prayed to them . He askedthe four Buddhas, why, if Sakyamuni Buddha possessed innumerable virtues, did he live only eighty years? They said, Youshou ld no t con cern [literally stick ] yourself with this questio n.Have you not seen that no one can tell the life span of a Buddhaexcept for the Buddhas themselves? 11

I t wi l l be noted that the names for the Buddhas of the mandala


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T H E E A R L I N E S S O F T A N T R A 93of the SPS are s l ightly different from those of e i ther the MVSor i t s companion, the STTSS, bu t they a re c lose en ou gh tha tthere can be no e r ror in recogniz ing the in tent ion of representing the manclalaof M ahava iro cana in th eSPS.

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T h e SPS ha s :Direction:C e n t e rEastSouthWestN o r t hT h eMVS has:C e n t e rEastSouthWestN o r t h

The S7TSS ha s :C e n t e rEastSouthWestN o r t h

Chinese : Sanskr i t :(practitioner [Sraddhaketu] identical to Vairocana)A-c h 'u A AksobhyaP a o - h s i a n g B Ra tna ke tuW u - l i a n g - s h o u c Amita yusW e i - m i a o - s h e n g D (?)-susabdaPi- lu-che-naEP a o - c h ' u a n g FK'a i- fu-hua-wang^W u - l i a n g - k u a n gT'ien-ku-le i-yin 1

Pi-lu-cheA-ch 'uPa o-she ng JShih- tzu- tsa i -wang KP u - k ' u n g - c h e n g - c h i u L

VairocanaRa tna dhva jaSa mkusumi ta ra jaA m i t a b h aD i v y a d u n d u b h i m e -gha n i rghoaVa i roc a naAk$obhyaR a t n a s a m b h a v aLokesvarra ra jaA m o g h a s i d d h i

At f irs t reading, these names may not seem to be very c loselyre la te d . How e ve r , bo th D ivya dun dub him e gh a ni rg ho sa , Voic eof the Div ine Ke t tl e D ru m Cloud , a n d W e i -mia o-she ng , Tor rent of Excellent Sound , convey essentia l ly the same meaning,a nd bo th re fe r to the te a c h ing na t u r e o f Am ogh a s iddh i . K ai-fu-hu a-w ang or Sam kusam ita ra ja , Ru le r of the Blossom ingFlower , is an explan a t ion for the na tu re of R a tna sam bh ava ,Gem (or Treasure) Born , who demonstra tes the abi l i ty of theindividual to practice as a monk, which is symbolized by themetaphor of rebi r th on a newly opening lo tus b lossom. And, inth e Sukhavatlvyuha-sutras, Lok esvararaja is th e na m e of theBuddha be fore whom Dha rma ka ra , the you th who wa s to be come Amitayus /Amitabha , took the vows which were to lead tothe predic t ion of h is B ud dh ah oo d, an d is thu s a d i rec t re fe ren ce


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94 JIABSVOL. 10NO.2to Am itabha/A mitay us. G iven this info rm ation , it is easy to recognize that the a l ternate names are s imply epithets of the familiarB u d d h a s o f t h e mandala and that actually there are no realdisc repanc ies .The descr ip t ion of Sraddhake tu 's room, the pos i t ion ot thefour Buddha s , a nd the i r impa r t ing knowle dge to S ra ddha ke tuin unison para l le ls the impar t ing of thejnana of the four B uddhas to the ini t ia te in the Shingon r i tual . In the Shingon r i tual ,the ini t ia te , dressed as Vairocana and seated before a marxfala,has the wate r ( symbol iz ing the i r respec t ive ;nan) f rom the foursubsidiary vases of the manjala poured in to the centra l vasewhich is, in tu rn , em pt ied over the in i tia te ' s he ad , thu s im pa r t in gthe knowledge f rom the four Buddhas di rec t ly in to h im. Indeed,the medi ta t ion in the SPS is so close to being identical to thepractice of the Mahavairocana tha t the SPS could not have beenwrit ten without knowledge of i t . Regrettably, the deta i ls of themandala are not spelled out , so i t is not possible to determinejust how close to the deta i led Shingon version of the mantfalath e SPS man4ala really is . However, that is the nature of references to manialas in Buddhis t l i te ra ture , where they a re f re que n t ly re fe r re d to by jus t na m ing the p rog e n i to r {Arya) or, atthe most, a few of the central deities.What we are lef t with is the problem of the earl iness of theVairocana cycle . Since the marrfala of Vairocana is ment ionedin the Bei Liang version of the SPS, i t must be assumed tha tknowledge of the maniala pre-exis ted the form ula t ion of tha tversion of the SPS and that by the t ime of the formulation ofth e SPS the medi ta t iona l prac t ice had a l ready become so wel laccep ted th at its inclusion was m ean ing ful to a t least th e c om m unity of monks in which the SPS wa s fo rm ula te d . Th u s , a s sumingtha t the SPS had a t least a modest his tory during which i t gainedimportance and acceptance before be ing taken off to China tobe t rans la ted ( see my co m m en ts above) , we can char t the h is toryof the concept of the SPS maniala as follows:

Bei Liang translation 414-421minim um of abou t fifty years

Formulation of SPS version (mid 4th century){mar$ala in accepted practice)m inim um of abo ut fifty years?


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T H E E A R L IN E S S O F T A N T R A 9 5formulation of Vairocanamandala text (early 4th century)

(some sort of proto-Mahdvairocanasutra?)minimu m of about fifty years?formulation of Vairocana meditations (mid-third century)

I minimu m of about fifty years?Core concepts(probably much earlier butearly third century at the latest)While this proposed date wil l be an anathema to some, forothers i t s imply fal ls into a pat tern of accumulat ing evidencefor an increasingly ear l ier date for Tantra . 1 3 One r ea l p rob lemfor the study of the ear l iness of the l i terature of Tantra is thatthe versions of the texts tha t we have are no t ear ly but are ra th erla te . But , as anyone who has worked on the MVS knows, it isobviously a great compilat ion of concepts and ideas, some ofthem p resumably belonging to remote an t iqui ty . I do not propose to suggest here that the MVS, intact , as we know it fromeighth century t ranslat ions into Chinese, existed in the thi rd orfour th cen tury . O n th e con t rary , whi le I do th ink tha t the or ig inof the MSV is m uch ear l ie r tha n the seventh cen tury da te pr oposed by Toganoo (discussed above), I argue that the ci rca f i f thor sixth ce ntu ry text pres ent ly kn ow n is an ou tgr ow th of com pi lat ions an d accre t ions tha t sp an ne d cen tur ies . In it ia lly the rewere sets of not necessar i ly related pract ices which, in turn, hadbee n de velo ped from diverse core co nc ep ts of vastly gr ea terant iqui ty .T h at th is de velo pm en t took p lace is dem ons t rable even f romth e MSV manfala of th e Mahavairocana itself. It is generallyaccepted th a t ther e is a seque nce of de velo pm en t to the Ta nt r icl i tera ture co nsist ing of th eMVS, followed by th eAm oghapdsasutra(which ment ions the MVS several t imes), followed by the Tatt-vasamgrahasutra However , in the MVS mandala, theBodhisa t tva AmoghapaSa f igures prominent ly in the quar te r ofAvaloki tesvara.15 Presum ably , he was ad de d af te r the formu lation of hisAmoghapdsasutra and th erefo re long af te r the form ulat ion of the cor e or basic MVS. W hile the MV S m us t awai ta detai led analysis before i ts layers may be understood, I thinkthat i t is appropriate to insist that i t is unrealist ic to see i t as amonolithic enti ty with a discrete point of origin. Simply put, i t


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96 JIABSVOL.1 NO.2makes m uch m or e sense to un de rs t an d a long per iod of development and to expect a layering of accret ions to the text . Such aview of the l i terature would solve many problems.

If such a view is accepted, then it is possible to account forthe mid-second cen tury image of a Buddha a t t endedit hasbeen arguedby Padmapani and Vaj rapani , an iden t i fy ingcharacter is t ic of the MVS, found a t Ah icchat t ra . '6 Dated in theyear 32 of the Kusana era (about 152 C.E.) , i t would be icono-graphical ly problemat ic in the ext reme i f the whole concept ofthe p art icu lar esoter ic t r inity is de nied unt i l the seven th c entu ry.H ow ever , by acc ept ing the idea of pro to -M aha vair oca na cyclepractices in Buddhism, the figure fal ls into a pattern of the earlydevelopment and ex i s tence in the Mathura reg ion of severa lrecog nizable cul ts of Bu dd his m . M oreo ver, i f it is acce pted forwh at I th ink i t is , a tr ini ty of a B ud dh a (pres um ably Sak yam uni /Vai rocana) wi th Padmapani and Vaj rapani Bodhisa t tvas as a t te nd an ts, it is arch aeo logica l ev iden ce that at least the coreconc ept o f M ahavai roca na cycle p rac t ices in Bu dd hism hadeven earl ier or igins than the second century date of the s toneimage. While i t is not widely known by art historians, there isan early l i terary t radi t ion in Buddhism that refers to the makingof images in a variety of materials , except , however, monol i thics tone.1 7 Accordingly, a l though the date of the image of ca. 152C.E. i s tentat ive pending the f inal resolut ion of the date of theKusana era, i ts existence in stone suggests a relat ivley long tradi t ion of making such images in other materials before i t wasappropr ia te to t rans la te i t in to monol i th ic s tone .

How old was this t radit ion? I am convinced that the art ist icrecord wi l l demons t ra te a pervas ive presence of Tant r ic , o rpe r hap s p ro t o Ta n t r i c m e t hodo l og i es hav i ng em erged inthe second century B.C.E. At that point , i t i s not too much ofan act of fai th to suggest that the Atharvavedic pro to types ofTantra did indeed have real s ignif icance in early Buddhism andin the formula t ion of ear ly Buddhis t Tant ra .

IV. ConclusionsI t i s surpris ing that th is passage on the four tathagatas ofth e mandala has gone un no t ice d u nt i l now . Wh at it doe s for


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THEEARLINESSOFTANTRA 97Ta ntr ic studies is to provide a textua l basis for insisting thatthe origin of Tantra was much earlier than the usually citedseventh centu ry em erge nce . Obviously, since this text was

translated between 414 and 421 and contained this informationat that time, the origin of the M ahavairocana mancfala per sehad to be earlier than that. Since the SPS cannot be later thanfourth century, yet it obviously implies that the man^ala ofMahavairocana is already in well established practice, it mustbe that theMSVor at least the core ideas foritwere in existenceno later than the early fourth century and probably earlier.

NOTES1. Toganoo Shoun,Himitsu bukkyo-shi [History of Esoteric Buddhism](Kyoto: 1933), 17. There is ample reason to believe that I-tsing would havebeen introduced to the esoteric Tantric tradition whereas others who hadgone before him might not have had the opportunity. He stayed at Nalandafor ten years, certainly long enough to win the confidence ofaTantric master.For an English version of this widely accepted theory, see M. Kiyota, Shingon

Buddhism: Theoryand Practice, (Los Angeles and Tokyo: 1978) 19-20.2. See K. Ch'en,BuddhisminChina:AHistorical Survey (Princeton: 1964)332. 3 . Ibid. pp. 19-20.4. A full analysis of the texts will demonstrate that there are actuallymany p roblems withthis,especially since theAmoghapaAa-dhdranlsutra(T.1096,translated by Li Wu-ch'an in C.E. 700) has a fullmandalacycle of its own, onewhichisclearly an outgrowth of the system of secondarymandalasof individualdeities that grew up around the deities in the various quarters of theMahava irocana -sutra.5. See my Cave Six at Aurang abad; A Tan trayana M onum ent? inKalddarsana:American Studiesinthe ArtofIndia,J.G.Williams (ed.) (New Delhi,Bombay and Calcutta: 1981) 47-55.6. 1h ope to produ ce a comp arative study of certain Buddh ist and o therproto-Buddhist mandalas demonstrating my arguments on this point in therelatively near future.7. T. 663; K 1465.8. T. 663, Chapt. 2.

9. T 663 , p. 326, A.10. Ryujun Tajima.Deux grands mandalas et la doctrine deI'esoterisme Shingon, (Tokyo: 1959) 170-172.11. See footnote 8.1 wish to express by gra titude to my student Yin-fenHung for her preliminary draft of the translation; however, the final translation and any faults it may contain are my responsibility.


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98 J I A BSV O L . 10N O . 212. It is not relev ant to the thesis of this article whe the r anyof the laterversions of theSPShave similar nam es or not. N either J. Nobel,Suvarnabhdsot-tamasutra,Das Goldglanz-Sutra, einSanskrittexl des Mahayana-Buddhismus (Leipzig: 1937); Suvarna bhasottamusutra, Das Goldglanz-Sutra, ein Sanskrittext desMahayana-Buddhismus,Die tibitischen Ubersetzungen mit einem Wbrterbuch,2vols.(Leiden and Stuttgart: 1944 and Leiden: 1950); and Suvarnabhasottamasutra,DasGoldglanz-Sutra,ein Sanskrittext desMahd ydna-Bud dhismus, I-tsing'schinesischeVersion undihreUbersetzung, 2 vols. (Leiden: 1959) nor R.E. Emmerick(TheSutraofGolden Light(L ondon : 1970)) have dealt with the earliest extant Chineseversion in any detail. However, it is only the Bei Liang version that presentsthe necessary documentation of the earlymandala.A ccordingly, in this article,no notice is taken of alternate readings and expanded sections that exist inthe later versions.13. See, for example, A. Wayman's arguments for the date of theGuhyasamdjatantra in hisYogaofthe Guhyasamdjatantra:The Arcane Loreof FortyVerses (Delhi: 1977) 97-99.14. Kiyota,op .cit.,23 -24.15. Ryujun Tajima, op.cit.,87-89.16. For the trinity from Ah ichattra, see S.L. Hun ting ton with J.C . H un tington, TheA rt ofAncientIndia:Buddhist, Hindu and Jain (Tokyo: 1985) 153-155. 17. 1 have dealt at length with these traditions concerning early imageselsewhere. See Origin of the Bud dha Im age, Early Imag e Trad itions and

the Concept of BuddhadarSanapunya , inStudies inBuddhistArt ofSouth Asia,A.K. Narain (ed.) (New Delhi: 1985) 24-58. For a specific list of materialssee, L. Hurvitz, trans., Scripture ofthe Lotus Blossom oftheFineDharma (TheLotus Sutra) (New York: 1976) 39.

List of Significant Characters

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Huntington Notes on a Chinese Text Demonstrating the Earliness of Tantra

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