Stages and perspectives of the development of Dhāraṇī Studies as a branch of Buddhist studies

Abstract

The author points out the three stages of Dhāraṇī Studies since the beginning of 19th c. up to the present day. Thus, the first stage (the beginning of 19th c. — the first third of the 20th c.) is characterized by the fact that the study of dhāraṇīs’ texts occurs within the framework of Buddhist written sources publication in general. The article emphasizes the significant contribution of Acad. V. P. Vasiliev in Dhāraṇī Studies: ideas on the study of Buddhist sacral invocations formulated by Vasiliev, defined the main vectors of Dhāraṇī Studies. The second stage of these Studies (the first third — the end of 20th c.) is marked by a specification — the emphasis of researchers’ attention directly on Buddhist written sources containing dhāraṇīs. Analyzing the second period’s researchings devoted to Dhāraṇī Studies, the author singled out four main streams: ‘Historical’ (the dhāraṇīs’ functioning in a certain historical period); ‘Cultic’ (praxeological aspect of Buddhist dhāraṇīs); ‘Iconographic’ (studies of artifacts connecting with dhāraṇī tradition); ‘Conceptual’ (analysis of terminology and concepts associated with the practice of reciting dhāraṇī). The article points out the prospects of using the interdisciplinary method, which allows to use the results of not only adjacent oriental disciplines (Indology — Jan Gonda, Tatiana Elizarenkova), but also to involve methods used in Slavic/Indo-European spells Studies (Vladimir Toporov, Svetlana Tolstaia, Aleksey Iudin).