What Was in the “Precious Casket Seal”?: Material Culture of the Karaṇḍamudrā Dhāraṇī throughout Medieval Maritime Asia

Seunghye Lee

doi:10.3390/rel12010013

Abstract

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.

Highlights

The Sanskrit term dhāran.ı—derived from a verbal root meaning to hold, to support, to maintain—refers to mnemonic devices, spells, and incantations.1 The dhāran.ıs are usually embedded in short Buddhist scriptures that center on instructions for their enactment and descriptions of their religious efficacies
I contribute to the scholarship on the cult of dhāran.ıs as relics of the dharma across Buddhist Asia
This group of sutras promulgates that their dhāran.ıs are equivalent to the bodily relics of the Buddha when enshrined within stūpas and empower Buddhist statues when enshrined within or inscribed onto them

Summary

Introduction

The Sanskrit term dhāran.ı—derived from a verbal root meaning to hold, to support, to maintain—refers to mnemonic devices, spells, and incantations. The dhāran.ıs are usually embedded in short Buddhist scriptures that center on instructions for their enactment and descriptions of their religious efficacies. Archaeological finds from Sri Lanka and East India, though they postdate Amoghavajra’s translation of the Karan.d.amudrā Sūtra, still demonstrate the prevailing practice of inscribing a clearly identifiable group of dhāran.ıs inside stūpas or onto the surface of Buddhist images. They further suggest that such a practice was transferred eastward along with the movement of Buddhist monks, who crossed the seas and acted as cultural agents. While the retranslation of the Karan.d.amudrā Sūtra in the tenth century reflects the continued popularity of the dhāran.ıin the Indic Buddhist sphere, where Dānapāla hailed from, Dānapāla’s new translation under Northern Song imperial patronage did not find purchase in East Asia.

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Conclusions