Texts and Ritual: Buddhist Scriptural Tradition of the Stūpa Cult and the Transformation of Stūpa Burial in the Chinese Buddhist Canon

Wen Sun

doi:10.3390/rel10120658

Abstract

Chinese translations of Buddhist sūtras and Chinese Buddhist literature demonstrate how stūpas became acknowledged in medieval China and how clerics and laypeople perceived and worshiped them. Early Buddhist sūtras mentioned stūpas, which symbolize the presence of the Buddha and the truth of the dharma. Buddhist canonical texts attach great significance to the stūpa cult, providing instructions regarding who was entitled to have them, what they should look like in connection with the occupants’ Buddhist identities, and how people should worship them. However, the canonical limitations on stūpa burial for ordinary monks and prohibitions of non-Buddhist stūpas changed progressively in medieval China. Stūpas appeared to be erected for ordinary monks and the laity in the Tang dynasty. This paper aims to outline the Buddhist scriptural tradition of the stūpa cult and its changes in the Chinese Buddhist Canon, which serves as the doctrinal basis for understanding the significance of funerary stūpas and the primordial archetype for the formation of a widely accepted Buddhist funeral ritual in Tang China.

Highlights

The Sanskrit term stūpa, originally referring to a funerary mound, pre-dates the flourishing of Buddhism in India
This paper aims to outline the Buddhist scriptural tradition of the stūpa cult and its changes in the Chinese Buddhist Canon, which serves as the doctrinal basis for understanding the significance of funerary stūpas and the primordial archetype for the formation of a widely accepted Buddhist funeral ritual in Tang China
Apart from serving as containers for the cremated relics of the Buddha and the saints, stūpas subsequently developed new variants, such as commemorative stūpas erected for marking places of vital events or occasions during the Buddha’s life and votive stūpas erected by clerics or laypeople to accumulate merit

Summary

Introduction

The Sanskrit term stūpa, originally referring to a funerary mound, pre-dates the flourishing of Buddhism in India. As Buddhist shrines, represent the presence of the Buddha, symbolizing the truth of the dharma Such an analogy reveals the typical perceptions of stūpas in medieval Chinese literature. The connection established between tombs and stūpas in Chinese perceptions and the significance of stūpa cult in Buddhist sūtras functioned together to facilitate the acceptance of erecting funerary stūpas as a funeral ritual among ordinary clerics and the laity. With the ascendancy of Buddhism and more and more Buddhists sūtras being translated into Chinese Buddhist works, such as treatises, commentaries, historical records, and the literature of various Chinese schools compiled by the contemporary Chinese clerics, can remind us of the perceptions produced in the new cultural context. Unlike the scarcity of textual evidence in early medieval China, stūpa inscriptions unequivocally provide the epigraphic evidence about the erection of funerary stūpa in the Tang dynasty. For more on the stūpa forest on Mount Bao, see (Ōuchi 1997; Adamek 2016)

The Stūpa Cult in Chinese Versions of Buddhist Sūtras

The Stūpa Cult in Chinese Translations of Vinayas

The Stūpa Cult and Buddhist Funerals in Chinese Buddhist Works

Concluding Remarks