This article belongs to the Section Religions and Humanities/Philosophies
關鍵詞
Buddhism; dhāraṇī; Karaṇḍamudrā Sūtra; relics of the dharma; cult of textual relics; pratītyāsamutpādagāthā; complete-body relics; Amoghavajra; stūpa; consecration
摘要
Material evidence from late medieval China attests that Buddhist of the Wuyue kingdom and Liao empire participated in the pan-Buddhist practice of dhāraṇīs and, more specifically, the cult of textual relics. What formed the basis of the cult is the Sūtra of theDhāraṇī of the Precious Casket Seal of the Concealed Complete-body Relics of the Essence of All Tathāgatas. I argue that the rhetoric of completeness, which is brought to the fore in the sutra’s title and reiterated throughout the text, lay at the heart of the success that it achieved. I trace the transfer of the text from South Asia to East Asia along the maritime routes, while closely examining designs and material forms, and various structuring contexts of the text. By doing so, I contribute to the scholarship on the cult of dhāraṇīs as relics of the dharma across Buddhist Asia.
目次
1. Introduction 2. The Karaṇḍamudrā Sūtra and the Rhetoric of Completeness 3. Transfer of the Karaṇḍamudrā Sūtra across Medieval Maritime Asia 4. The Karaṇḍamudrā Sūtra in Tenth-Century China 5. Conclusions
