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Clay sealings from Perlis, Malaysia, and the wider world of the Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa-Dhāraṇī
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 September 2024
Abstract
Multiple copies of a particular clay sealing bearing the Buddhist Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa-dhāraṇī (mantra) inscription were discovered in Gua Berhala—a cave in Perlis, Malaysia. These sealings can be roughly assigned to the tenth century and they appear to have been stamped with an identical seal. However, critical reading of the textual rendition of the dhāraṇī had not yet been done despite several attempts to study it. Therefore, based on several fragments of these sealings, this article provides a detailed reading and translation of the dhāraṇī and considers the cultural significance of their production. The article also examines the textual structure of this Perlis dhāraṇī and compares it with similar dhāraṇīs preserved in a palm-leaf manuscript and other materials found across Asia. This includes a survey on the wider transmission of the dhāraṇī in the continent. In this comparative exercise, the physical characteristics of the Perlis sealing appear to be unique and express a distinct artistic style, while its textual tradition is slightly compressed compared with others, with no identical equivalent found elsewhere. This observation suggests that Perlis, with its proximity to the Bujang Valley, participated in the wider network of dhāraṇī culture rooted in Eastern India and was just not a passive recipient of this practice.
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References
1 We use the term ‘sealing’ instead of ‘votive tablet’ as these sealings are generally meant as objects for merit-making rituals rather than objects offered in fulfilment of vows. For further discussion on the word ‘votive’ in this context, see P. Skilling, ‘“Buddhist sealings”: reflection on terminology, motivation, donor's status, school-affiliation, and print-technology’, in South Asian Archaeology 2001. Proceedings of the Sixteenth International Conference of the European Association of South Asian Archaeologists, Collège de France, 2–6 July 2001, (eds.) C. Jarrige and V. Lefèvre (Paris, 2005), ii, pp. 677–685; Schopen, G., ‘Stūpa and Tīrtha: Tibetan mortuary practices and an unrecognized form of burial ad sanctos at Buddhist sites in India’, in Figments and Fragments of Mahāyāna Buddhism in India, More Collected Papers, (ed.) G. Schopen (Honolulu, 2005), p. 356Google Scholar. In this article, we use the terms ‘sealing’ and ‘tablet’ interchangeably.
2 Blagden, C. O., ‘A Buddhist votive tablet’, Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 39 (1903), pp. 205–206Google Scholar.
3 Evans, I. H. N., ‘A search for antiquities in Kedah and Perlis’, Journal of Federated Malay States Museums 15 (1931), pp. 43–50Google Scholar; Collings, H. D., ‘An excavation at Bukit Chuping, Perlis’, Bulletin of the Raffles Museum, Singapore, Straits Settlements, Series B, I.2 (1937), pp. 115–116Google Scholar.
4 Lamb, A., ‘Mahayana Buddhist votive tablets in Perlis’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 37.2 (1964), pp. 47–59Google Scholar.
5 Ibid.
6 Dhāraṇī is a text containing a mantra or mystical verse or charm. Some dhāraṇīs consist of only the mantra whereas others include prose passages as well. Davidson argues that ‘dhāraṇī is a function term denoting “codes/coding,” and therefore, the category dhāraṇī is polysemic and context-sensitive, capable of being applied within all the various activities so often included within the method of dhāraṇī: memory, recitation, protective mantras, inspiration, summary texts, and extended Mahāyānist works’ (p. 98); see Davidson, R. M., ‘Studies in Dhāraṇī literature. I: Revisiting the meaning of the term Dhāraṇī’, Journal of Indian Philosophy 37 (2009), pp. 97–147Google Scholar, https://doi-org.ejournal.mahidol.ac.th/10.1007/s10781-008-9054-8; see also G. Hidas, ‘Dhāraṇī Sūtras’, in Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Literature and Language, (ed.) J. A. Silk (Leiden and Boston, 2015), i, pp. 129–137; for another dhāraṇī that circulated in Southeast Asia, see Cruijsen, T., Griffiths, A., and Klokke, M. J., ‘The cult of the Buddhist Dhāraṇī deity Mahāpratisarā along the maritime silk route: new epigraphic and iconographic evidence from the Indonesian archipelago’, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 35 (2012) (1/2 (appeared in 2014)), pp. 71–157Google Scholar, https://doi.org/10.2143/JIABS.35.1.3078162.
7 Lamb, ‘Mahayana Buddhist’, p. 53, plates 19, 20; ye dharmā is a verse spoken by Aśvajit to Śāriputra, who requested the former to tell him the essence of the Buddha's teaching. This verse is found in canonical texts of various Buddhist schools. Quoting the Sanskrit Mahāvastu version, the stanza goes like this: ‘ye dharmā hetuprabhāvā hetun teṣāṃ tathāgato āha // teṣāṃ ca yo nirodha evaṃvādī mahāśramaṇaḥ //’, in E. Senart (ed.), Le Mahāvastu, texte sanscrit publié pour la première fois et accompagné d'introductions et d'un commentaire (Paris, 1897), iii, p. 62. It could be translated as ‘the states arise from a cause, their cause the Tathāgata declares, as well as their cessation: this is the teaching of the Great Ascetic’. The ye dharmā verse is called the ‘stanza’ (gāthā) or ‘heart’ (hṛdaya) of the doctrine of Dependent Origination that is a fundamental Buddhist concept usually expounded in a sequence of 12 linked factors, starting from ignorance in describing the causes of suffering, and the course of events that lead a being through rebirth, old age, and death. For further discussion on the different versions of this ye dharmā stanza, see P. Skilling, ‘A Buddhist inscription from Go Xoai, southern Vietnam and notes towards a classification of ye dharmā inscriptions’, in ๘๐ ปี ศาสตราจารย์ ดร.ประเสริฐ ณ นคร, รวมบทความวิชาการด้านจารึกและเอกสารโบราณ (on the occasion of the 80th-anniversary celebration of Professor Dr. Prasert na Nagara) (Bangkok, 1999), pp. 171–187. For the expression of Dependent Origination in the Buddha's discourse and its commentarial texts, see Bodhi, B. (trans.), The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, A New Translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya (Boston, 2000), pp. 516–520Google Scholar; and E. J. Ooi, 2022, ‘Why is the forward sequence of Dependent Origination the wrong path? An annotated translation of the Commentary to the Nidānasaṃyutta's Discourse of the (Two) Paths’, Journal of the Philosophy and Religion Society of Thailand 17.1 (2022), pp. 40–57; for further examples of ye dharmā in epigraphy, see Griffiths, A., ‘Inscriptions of Sumatra: further data on the epigraphy of the Musi and Batang Hari river basins’, Archipel 81 (2011), pp. 139–75Google Scholar, https://doi.org/10.3406/arch.2011.4273; and for its roles in medieval cult practices, see Boucher, D., ‘The Pratītyasamutpādagāthā and its role in the medieval cult of the relics’, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 14 (1991), pp. 1–27Google Scholar.
8 Reported in Collings, ‘Excavation at Bukit Chuping’, p. 116.
9 https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_As1864-1201-4 (accessed 8 May 2023). Sealing registration numbers in the British Museum: As1864,1201.1–6.
10 The British acquired the island of Penang from Kedah in 1786 and part of the mainland next to the island in 1800 as well. They were named the Prince of Wales and Province Wellesley, respectively. Penang became a part of the Straits Settlements of the British (together with Singapore and Melaka) in 1826 and later merged into the Federation of Malaya in 1948. The federation gained independence from the British in 1957.
11 Khaw, Nasha Rodziadi and Saidin, Mohd Mokhtar, ‘Votive tablets of Perlis deciphered and their parallelism with the Hund votive tablets from Gandhāra’, Gandhāran Studies 7.1 (2013), pp. 23–24Google Scholar.
12 Ibid., p. 38; Ali, Ihsan and Khan, Nasim, ‘Inscribed clay tablets and miniature stupas from Hund’, Ancient Pakistan 12 (1997), pp. 77–85Google Scholar; on the archaeological significance of Hund, see Zarawar Khan, M. A. Durrani, and Mir Muhammad Khan, ‘A note on the archaeological significance of Hund’, PUTAJ Humanities and Social Sciences 19.1 (2012), pp. 77–92.
13 S. D. Lawson, ‘Dhāraṇī sealings in British collection’, in South Asian Archaeology 1983, Papers from the Seventh International Conference of the Association of South Asian Archaeologists in Western Europe, Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels, (eds.) J. Schotsmans and M. Taddei (Naples, 1985), 2, pp. 703–717.
14 For the British Museum sealings that are identified with this dhāraṇī, see Lawson, ‘Dhāraṇī sealings’, pp. 709–711; and G. Hidas, ‘Dhāraṇī seals in the Cunningham Collection’, in Precious Treasures from the Diamond Throne: Finds from the Site of the Buddha's Enlightenment, (eds.) S. van Schaik, D. De Simone, G. Hidas, and M. Willis (London, 2021), pp. 87–94. For the Ashmolean Museum sealings, see S. D. Lawson, ‘A Catalogue of Indian Buddhist Clay Sealings in British Museums’ (D. Phil. thesis, Hertford College, Oxford, 1982), pp. 205–218.
15 See G. Schopen, ‘The Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs in Indian inscriptions: two sources for the practice of Buddhism in medieval India’, in Figments and Fragments, (ed.) Schopen, pp. 314–344; for a translation from Chinese by the Mongolian scholar mGon po skyabs dated 1743, see C. Scherrer-Schaub, ‘Some dhāraṇī written on paper functioning as dharmakāya relics: a tentative approach to PT 350’, in Tibetan Studies, Proceedings of the 6th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Fagernes 1992, (ed.) P. Kvaerne (Oslo, 1994), ii, p. 714. The Kanjur (bka’ ‘gyur) is a corpus of collected teachings of the Buddha, translated into Tibetan, and it is generally considered as the Tibetan Buddhist canon.
16 I. Strauch, ‘Two stamps with Bodhigarbhālaṃkāralakṣa dhāraṇī from Afghanistan and some further remarks on classification of objects with the ye dharmā formula’, in Prajñādhāra, Essays on Asian Art, History, Epigraphy and Culture in Honour of Gouriswar Bhattacharya, (eds.) G. J. R. Mevissen and Arundhati Banerji (New Delhi, 2009), pp. 37–56.
17 For selected Buddhist inscriptions found in Bujang Valley and its surrounding areas, see J. Allen, ‘An inscribed tablet from Kedah, Malaysia: comparison with earlier finds’, Asian Perspectives 27.1 (1986–1987), pp. 35–57; Nik Hassan Shuhaimi and Kamaruddin Zakaria, ‘Recent archaeological discoveries in Sungai Mas, Kuala Muda, Kedah’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 66.2 (1993), pp. 73–80; Nik Hassan Shuhaimi, ‘Buddhism in the Bujang Valley, Kedah (5th to 10th century)’, in Nalanda, Srivijaya and Beyond: Re-exploring Buddhist Art in Asia, (ed.) G. P. Krishnan (Singapore, 2016), pp. 101–128; P. Skilling, ‘Sāgaramati-paripṛcchā inscriptions from Kedah, Malaysia’, in Reading Slowly: A Festschrift for Jens E. Braarvig, (eds.) L. Edzard, J. W. Borgland, and U. Hüsken (Wiesbaden, 2018), pp. 433–460; H. G. Q. Wales, ‘Archaeological researches on ancient Indian colonization in Malaya’, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 18.1 (136) (1940), pp. iii–85, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41559946.
18 For more information on Bujang Valley, see Nik Hassan Shuhaimi and Othman Mohd. Yatim, Warisan Lembah Bujang (Bangi, 1992 [2006]); S. Murphy, ‘Revisiting the Bujang Valley: a Southeast Asian entrepôt complex on the maritime trade route’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 28.2 (2018), pp. 355–389; for its early socioeconomic importance, see Nasha Rodziadi Khaw, ‘Pensejarahan Kedah Tua: Satu Analisis Sosioekonomi’ (unpublished MA thesis, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2011).
19 See Nasha Rodziadi Khaw and L. J. Gooi, ‘The Sungai Batu Archaeological Complex: re-assessing the emergence of Ancient Kedah’, Kajian Malaysia 39.2 (2021), pp. 117–152.
20 Wheatley listed 11 possible trans-Peninsula routes in early times from the upper part of the Peninsula at Kra Isthmus down to Johor; see P. Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese (Kuala Lumpur, 1961 [2017]), p. xxvii and Figure 4, p. xxvi.
21 See also Figure 2 in M. Jacq-Hergoualc'h, ‘Archaeological research in the Malay Peninsula’, Journal of the Siam Society 85.1&2 (1997), p. 125.
22 In this article, we use the terms caitya and stūpa interchangeably.
23 This can be clearly seen from the different unbroken pear-shaped sealings preserved in the British Museum mentioned earlier.
24 These measurements were estimated based on the photographs with measuring scale taken by Lamb, ‘Mahayana Buddhist ’, plates 19, 20.
25 For example, we are not certain, at present, where the sealings discovered by Lamb and Collings are located. There are some sealings preserved at the National Museum (Muzium Negara) in Kuala Lumpur but, at the time of writing this article, they are not accessible to us.
26 G. Cœdès, ‘Siamese votive tablets’, Journal of the Siam Society, 20.1 (1926–27), p. 7, plates VIII, IX.
27 Ibid., pp. 11–13, 20, 21.
28 Syed Ahmad bin Jamal and Othman bin Mohd. Yatim, ‘Śrīvijaya art in Peninsular Malaysia’, in The Art of Śrīvijaya, (ed.) M. C. Subhadradis Diskul (Petaling Jaya, 1980), pp. 45–49.
29 Lamb, ‘Mahayana Buddhist’, p. 47; for further discussion on the art of Śrīvijaya, see Satyawati Suleiman, ‘The history and art of Śrīvijaya’, in The Art of Śrīvijaya, (ed.) Subhadradis Diskul, pp. 1–20.
30 R. Salomon, Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages (New York and Oxford, 1998), p. 39, n. 112.
31 Putu Budiastra and Wayan Widia, Stupika Tanah Liat Koleksi Museum Bali (Bali, 1980–1981), p. 56, photo 9, reproduced in A. Griffiths, ‘Written traces of the Buddhist past: mantras and dhāraṇīs in Indonesian inscriptions’, Bulletin of School of Oriental and African Studies 77.1 (2014), pp. 181–183 and Figure 12.
32 Griffiths, ‘Written traces of the Buddhist past’, p. 183.
33 It is stated in the display note in the museum that the sealing and miniature stūpas were presented to the National Museum of Thailand on 22 November 1931.
34 Salomon, Indian Epigraphy, pp. 39, 71; see J. F. Fleet, ‘Pattadakal Pillar inscription of the time of Kirtivarman II’, in Epigraphia Indica III, (ed.) E. Hultzsch (Calcutta, 1894–1895), pp. 1–7.
35 Note that some Sanskrit dhāraṇī inscriptions in Siddhamātṛkā (or Siddham) script or close to it are found on tombstones and pillars in Yunnan—a province in south-western China bordering some Southeast Asian countries to its west and south. For further discussion of these inscriptions, see B. M. Mak, ‘Sanskrit Uṣṇīṣavijayadhāraṇī inscriptions in Dali/Yunnan’, in Investigating Principles: International Aspects of Buddhist Culture, Essays in Honour of Professor Charles Willemen, (eds.) L. Shravak and S. Rai (Hong Kong, 2019), pp. 245–276; O. von Hinüber, ‘Two Dhāraṇī-inscriptions from tombs at Dali (Yunnan)’, Journal of the Siam Society 77.1 (1989), pp. 55–59.
36 Griffiths, ‘Written traces of the Buddhist past’, p. 161; for example, the Siddhamātṛkā inscriptions found on the back of the bronze Buddha of Rejoso image (~ninth century), discovered near Candi Plaosan, Central Java, and the stone inscription of Kalasan (circa eighth century) in Central Java; see A. Griffiths, N. Revire, and Rajat Sanyal, ‘An inscribed bronze sculpture of a Buddha in bhadrāsana at Museum Ranggawarsita in Semarang (Central Java, Indonesia)’, Arts Asiatiques, 68 (2013), Figures 19, 20.
37 We have selected certain readings from a sealing preserved at the British Museum (As1864-1201-2) when the readings of our sealings are not clear.
38 Cf. guṇi guṇavati MS1680 (G. Hidas, Powers of Protection: The Buddhist Tradition of Spells in the Dhāraṇīsaṃgraha Collections (Berlin and Boston, 2021), p. 40); guṇe guṇavate in Tibetan (Schopen, ‘Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs’, p. 352).
39 Gaganatala. The word prastiṣṭhite (established) is omitted versus other versions; cf. gaganatala-prastiṣṭhite MS1680; gaganatale pratiṣṭhite Tibetan critical edition; gagamatala-pratiṣṭite (sic.) Indonesian gold foil (Griffiths, ‘Written traces of the Buddhist past’, p. 163). But it is also omitted in the Tibetan PT555 manuscript (Scherrer-Schaub, ‘Some dhāraṇī’, p. 722, n. 67).
40 Lawson, ‘Dhāraṇī sealings’, p. 714.
41 Vipula-vadana, cf. T1369a:21.885c17 面貌廣大.
42 Ketu-mūrdha, cf. Thai Pathamasambodhi's ketu-mālā, a trail of brightly-ascending rays (raśmī) or flame upon the uppermost part of the Buddha's head; see H. W. Woodward, ‘The Buddha's radiance’, Journal of the Siam Society, 61.1 (1973), p. 188.
43 Read from the repetition sign ‘2’ or ‘२’ in the inscription.
44 Guṇavate, read as a feminine vocative, guṇavati, instead of a masculine/neutral gender.
45 Lawson, ‘Dhāraṇī sealings’, p. 714; Prajñāpāramitā, or the Perfection of Wisdom, designates a vast corpus of texts in Mahāyāna Buddhism. The Perfection of Wisdom in anthropomorphic form as a goddess can be seen in various representations. One of the earliest forms is the ninth-century Pāla-style stone Prajñāpāramitā sculpture found in Bihar state (perhaps in Nālandā), India (now preserved in the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco). In Southeast Asia, the Prajñāpāramitā deity sculptures can be seen in thirteenth-century East Javanese art through a statue uncovered in Cungkup Putri ruins near Singhasari temple, as well as in Khmer arts around the twelfth to thirteenth centuries found in both Cambodia and Thailand. For example, in Thailand, one Prajñāpāramitā statue of thirteenth-century Bayon style was found in Sai Yok District, Kanchanaburi Province (now preserved in the National Museum in Bangkok). For further discussion on Prajñāpāramitā in Southeast Asia, see Jinah Kim, ‘Prajñāpāramitā and Esoteric Buddhism in Jayavarman VII's Angkor’, in The Creative South: Buddhist and Hindu Art in Mediaeval Maritime Asia, (eds.) A. Acri and P. Sharrock (Singapore, 2022), pp. 168–191; Swati Chemburkar, ‘Prajñāpāramitā and Khmer Esoteric Buddhism in the 10th to 13th centuries’, in Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Religion (published online, 2022), https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.760.
46 J. N. Kinnard, Imaging Wisdom: Seeing and Knowing in the Art of Indian Buddhism (Delhi, 2001), pp. 156–157; he was referring to the clay sealings that were stamped with the Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa-dhāraṇī mentioned by Lawson.
47 Ibid., pp. 157–158.
48 For mūlamantra, hṛdaya, and upahṛdaya of this dhāraṇī, see Schopen, ‘Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs’, pp. 325–327.
49 https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-01680-00008-00003/1, folios 13 verso and 14 recto (accessed 15 December 2023).
50 This set of manuscripts has been edited by Hidas in Powers of Protection.
51 For the Tibetan critical edition of this dhāraṇī, yang chub kyi snying po'i rgyan ‘bum gyi gzungs, see Schopen, ‘Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs’, pp. 314–332.
52 The Sanskrit text and its translation were provided by A. Ghosh, ‘A Buddhist tract in a stone inscription in the Cuttack Museum’, in Epigraphia Indica 26, (ed.) N. P. Chakravarti (Delhi, 1941–1942), pp. 171–174; see also Schopen, ‘Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs’, pp. 327–329. Although the stone slab is now preserved in Bhubaneswar, we will still refer to it as the ‘Cuttack stone slab’ in this article, as it is commonly known in the literature.
53 T1369a and T1369b 百千印陀羅尼經 (Sūtra on the Dhāraṇī of a Hundred Thousand Seals).
54 Schopen, ‘Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs’, pp. 314–332.
55 Hidas, Powers of Protection, p. 40.
56 Indicating the eighteenth text in manuscript Add.1680.8.3.
57 *…* p.c. (post-correctionem) written in the lower margin of the manuscript.
58 -gocara- only occurs in the Cuttack and the Udayagiri II (reg. no. 70/01–02) stone slabs.
59 mūlamantraḥ … svāhā taken from Cuttack stone slab (observed side), lines 7 and 8; see Ghosh, ‘Buddhist tract’, p. 173; and Schopen, ‘Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs’, p. 327.
60 Tadyathā (is referring to the dhāraṇī). In the longer sūtra preserved in the Tibetan tradition, the Buddha tells his monks that ‘there is a dhāraṇī … that causes all roots of merit to be produced’ (see Schopen, ‘Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs’, p. 330). In the Chinese adaptation, the Buddha tells the gathering of monks that there is a dhāraṇī named the Dhāraṇī of a Hundred Thousand Seals, cf. T1369a:21.885c12.
61 Hṛdaya. Here, the palm-leaf manuscript is different from other versions, e.g. the Sanskrit version of the Cuttack stone slab and the one recorded in the Tibetan tradition. In these two versions, after the śuddhe svāhā (O pure one, svāhā), they have the word ‘mūlamantraḥ’ ([This is] the root mantra). It is then followed by, in Tibetan: ‘Oṃ sarvatathāgatavyavalokite | jaya jaya svāhā | This is the essence’ (Schopen, ‘Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs’, p. 325); in the Sanskrit Cuttack stone slab: ‘sarvatathāgatagocaravyavalokite jaya jaya svāhā | hṛdaye |’ (Ghosh, ‘Buddhist tract’, p. 173). Even the Chinese version has ‘爾時世尊。復為大眾說心呪曰。唵 薩婆怛他揭多吠婆盧吉帝 社耶社耶薩婆訶 (At that time, the Lord spoke the heart of the dhāraṇī (心呪) to the assembly: ‘Oṃ, sar va ta thā ga ta vi-ya lo ki te ja ya ja ya su-vā hā’) (T1369b:21.886b7). Therefore, there could be a lacuna in the Nepalese manuscript in which the sentence ‘mūlamantraḥ sarvatathāgatavyavalokite | jaya jaya svāhā |’ is omitted. Earlier in the manuscript, there is a post-correctionem reading due to a missing line and it was supplied by an insertion in the lower margin. A similar situation may have happened here but the redactor failed to pick it up.
62 Jayamūle, cf. jayamukhe in Tibetan (Schopen, ‘Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs’, p. 325) and Sanskrit version of the Cuttack stone slab (Ghosh, ‘Buddhist tract’, p. 173).
63 Cf. Divyāvadāna (divine stories); see E. B. Cowell and R. A. Neil (eds.), The Divyāvadāna: A Collection of Early Buddhist Legends—Now First Edited from the Nepalese Sanskrit Mss. in Cambridge and Paris (Cambridge, 1886), pp. 78–79, in which the Buddha is said to have uttered that the hundreds of thousands of gold coins or nuggets are not equal to one, faithful in mind, who places a single lump of clay, pearls, or lovely flowers at the caitya of a Buddha. The merit for placing oil lamps is worth more than hundreds of thousands of millions of gold pieces or nuggets, and for raising up umbrellas, flags, and banners, the merit is worth more than hundreds of thousands of gold mountains equal to Mount Meru; see A. Rotman (trans.), Divine Stories Divyāvadāna (Boston, 2008), i, pp. 155–159.
64 Yama = God of death.
65 Nālandā sealings (2-42 and 2-193) were found in Stūpa 2 (Ghosh, ‘Buddhist tract’, pp. 171–172); Ratnagiri sealings (RTR-1, 1111–4, and 1107–1110) were found in Stūpas 2 and 253, respectively (D. Mitra, Ratnagiri (1958–61): Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India 80 (New Delhi, 1981), pp. 44, 99–100).
66 Lamb, ‘Mahayana Buddhist’, p. 53.
67 P. Harvey, ‘The symbolism of the early stūpa’, The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 7.2 (1984), pp. 67–93.
68 Schopen, ‘Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs’, p. 317; and Scherrer-Schaub, ‘Some dhāraṇī’, pp. 717–718.
69 G. H. Luce, Old Burma: Early Pagan. Volume Two: Catalogue of Plates Indexes (New York, 1970), p. 41.
70 ׀ ׀ thero yathā nāgaseno pañāya adhirocati sahassa ׀ buddha kammena buddho tassa anāgate ׀׀ sumedho nāma bhikkhunā kato ׀ vimuttatthaṃ sahatthenevāti, translation adapted from Ibid., p. 42.
71 For more examples of donors’ aspiration to become future Buddhas recorded in Thai manuscripts, see E. J. Ooi, ‘Aspiring to be a Buddha and life before liberation: the colophons of the Siamese Questions of King Milinda’, Manuscript Studies: A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies 7.1 (2022), pp. 104–129.
72 Excerpt taken for a longer Tibetan text, Bodhimaṇḍālaṃkāra-nāma-dhāraṇī-upacāra (PT555), believed to be translated from Sanskrit to Tibetan, which has the Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa-dhāraṇī; see Scherrer-Schaub, ‘Some dhāraṇī’, p. 716.
73 Numerous examples of building stūpas or caityas inside caves can be seen in India, e.g. the rock-cut monuments in Bhaja and Karla (Western Deccan) in India.
74 P. Skilling, ‘Writing and representation: inscribed objects in the Nalanda Trail Exhibition’, in Nalanda, Srivijaya and Beyond, (ed.) Krishnan, p. 85.
75 The practice of creating caitya or stūpa of any sort, regardless of size and shape, is described in detail in several sūtras; see P. Skilling, Questioning the Buddha: A Selection of Twenty-Five Sutras (Somerville, 2021), pp. 260–262. A miniature stūpa has the same component parts as any stūpa. Thus, creating miniature stūpas and then installing sealings with an inscription inside became common practice across regions. For example, the Balinese Pejeng Village's miniature stūpas were inserted with sealings stamped with inscriptions of Vimaloṣṇīṣadhāraṇī (Griffiths, ‘Written traces of the Buddhist past’, p. 181) or ye dharmā inscription (which are now preserved in the National Museum of Thailand). Miniature stūpas are also found in Hund, Pakistan, with sealings inserted inside them (Ihsan Ali and Nasim Khan, ‘Inscribed clay tablets’, pp. 79–91). See also Titi Surti Nastiti, ‘Miniature stūpas and a Buddhist sealing from Candi Gentong, Trowulan, Mojokerto, East Java’, in Buddhist Dynamics in Premodern and Early Modern Southeast Asia, (ed.) D. C. Lammerts (Singapore, 2015), pp. 120–37, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/42001.
76 For further discussion of this title in the different editions of the Tibetan Kanjur, see Schopen, ‘Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs’, pp. 314–316.
77 Scherrer-Schaub, ‘Some dhāraṇī’, pp. 717–727, n. 67. We have standardised the Tibetan transliteration to Wylie style compared to the ones given in the references for easy comparison.
78 H. Hase (長谷寶秀), Daishi go-shōrai bonji shingon shū 大師御請来梵字真言集 (Tokyo, 1938 [1997]), pp. 343–345.
79 For further discussion on the authenticity of Sanskrit titles given in Tibetan translation, see P. Skilling, ‘Kanjur titles and colophons’, in Tibetan Studies, (ed.) Per Kvaerne, ii, pp. 768–780.
80 According to David Higgins, the term bodhigarbha is not attested in Indian Buddhist texts, although byang chub [kyi] snying po is used to render the Sanskrit bodhimaṇḍa, referring to the ‘seat of enlightenment’, as both an actual and metaphorical place where a Buddha attains awakening; see D. Higgins, The Philosophical Foundations of Classical rDzogs chen in Tibet: Investigating the Distinction Between Dualistic Mind (sems) and Primordial Knowing (ye shes) (Wien, 2013), p. 176, n. 449.
81 Cf. P. Skilling's opinion that ‘titles were conveniences; they were practical devices that identified texts. Different titles could be used by different local or textual communities or teacher's lineages, emphasising different aspects, purposes, or uses of the text. This is true for the anonymous sūtra, didactic, and narrative literature and especially for liturgical and ritual texts’ (personal communication by email, dated 1 July 2023).
82 Note that the kyi between chub and snying is the genitive particle within the compound bodhigarbha. As such, it may not always appear, as it could be easily understood through its grammatical usage.
83 In the Tibetan-Sanskrit Dictionary, byang chub snying po could be read as bodhigarbha, bodhimaṇḍa (the site of awakening), or bodhimūla (the root of awakening); see L. Chandra, Tibetan-Sanskrit Dictionary, Supplementary Volume 5, བ – ཙ. (New Delhi, 1993), pp. 1268–1269.
84 Higgins, Philosophical Foundations, pp. 173–182.
85 We would like to thank Peter Skilling for sharing his ideas on the interpretation of this title.
86 Eastern India in this article refers roughly to the region of today's states of Bihar, (West) Bengal, Odisha, and Jharkhand, including the Eastern Gangetic Plain (part of Utter Pradesh).
87 Umakanta Mishra, ‘Dhāraṇīs from the Buddhist sites of Orissa’, Pratnatattva, Journal of the Department of Archaeology, Jahangimagar University 22, June (2016), pp. 73–74.
88 Ghosh, ‘Buddhist tract’, pp. 171–174.
89 P. K. Trivedi, Further Excavations at Udayagiri-2, Odisha (2001–03): Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India 104 (New Delhi, 2012), no. 30, p. 255, and plate CLXVI.
90 Ibid., no. 27, p. 253 and plate CLXIII; for a revised Romanised transliteration of the inscription, see T. Kimiaki 田中公明, ‘オリッサ州ウダヤギリII出土の 石刻陀羅尼について’ [A newly identified Dhāraṇī-Sūtra from Udayagiri II], The Memoirs of Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia 166 (2014), pp. 134[151]–124[161]; Kimiaki identifies the other two dhāraṇīs as the Ārya-sarvatathāgatādhiṣṭhāna-hṛdaya-guyha-dhātu-karaṇḍa-mudrā-nāma-dhāraṇī and the Vimaloṣṇīṣa-dhāraṇī (Ibid., pp. 153–156). We want to thank Arlo Griffiths for bringing this inscription to our attention.
91 Mitra, Ratnagiri (1958–61), pp. 43, 99–100, and plates XVIII and L.
92 D. B. Spooner, Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey of India, Eastern Circle, 1915–16 (Calcutta, 1916), p. 36.
93 Schopen, ‘Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs’, p. 331.
94 Ghosh, ‘Buddhist tract’, pp. 171–172 and n. 1 on p. 172.
95 Scherrer-Schaub, ‘Some dhāraṇī’, pp. 715, 717.
96 A. Cunningham, Report of Tours in the Gangetic Provinces from Badaon to Bihar, in 1875–76 and 1877–78 (New Delhi, 1880 [2000]), pp. 88–89 and plate XXVIII.
97 Lawson, ‘Catalogue of Indian Buddhist Clay Sealings’, pp. 357–372. There is a similar terracotta sealing impressed with a stūpa image in the middle and 18 lines of text recovered in Kutila Murā stūpa complex in Maināmatī, Bangladesh. The text on the sealing has not been read or published. The date of the sealing is not yet clear but it was suggested to be around the seventh century; see V. Lefèvre and M. F. Boussac, Chefs-d'oeuvre du delta du Gange, Collections des musées du Bangladesh (Paris, 2008), p. 56.
98 Lawson, ‘Catalogue of Indian Buddhist Clay Sealings’, pp. 384–388, 390–397.
99 Hidas, ‘Dhāraṇī seals in the Cunningham Collection’, pp. 90–94.
100 Lawson, ‘Catalogue of Indian Buddhist Clay Sealings’, pp. 205–218.
101 Lawson, ‘Dhāraṇī sealings’, p. 709.
102 Hidas, Powers of Protection, p. 9.
103 Ibid.
104 Schopen, ‘Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs’, p. 318.
105 Spelling of the title as given in item 341 in A. Herrmann-Pfandt, Die Lhan Kar Ma: Ein früher Katalog der ins tibetische übersetzten buddhistischen Texte (Vienna, 2008), pp. 189–191. Note the different transliterations from Tibetan to Roman systems used by the author quoted here.
106 PT350 and PT555 in M. Lalou, Inventaire des Manuscrits tibétains de Touen-houang conservés à la Bibliothèque nationale (Fonds Pelliot tibétain), nos 1–849 (Paris, 1939), i, pp. 90, 428.
107 S. van Schaik, ‘The Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts in China’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 65.1 (2002), p. 129.
108 Ihsan Ali and Nasim Khan, ‘Inscribed clay tablets’, pp. 77–85.
109 Item 08.04.01 in Aman ur Rahman and H. Falk, Seals, Sealings and Tokens from Gandhāra (Wiesbaden, 2011), pp. 27–28, 119.
110 I. Strauch, ‘Seals, sealings and tokens from Gandhāra: by Aman Ur Rahman and Harry Falk. (Monographien zur indischen Archäologie, Kunst und Philologie, Band 21). Pp. 222. Weisbaden, Reichert, 2011’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 22.3–4 (2012), pp. 605–606.
111 https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1880-168 (accessed 15 December 2023).
112 Strauch, ‘Two Stamps’, pp. 37–56, plates 4.3, 4.4.
113 Ibid., p. 41; W. Zwalf (ed.), Buddhism: Art and Faith (London, 1985), p. 70.
114 Strauch, ‘Two stamps’, pp. 47–48. The stamp is in a private collection; we suspect that it could be the stamp that Fussman mentioned to Schopen in a letter dated 4 November 1984 regarding a stamp from Bactrian Afghanistan inscribed in Brāhmī of the fifth to sixth centuries CE (Schopen, ‘Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs’, p. 338).
115 P. Zieme, ‘Notes on the Uṣnīṣavijayādhāraṇī and the Bodhigarbhālaṃkāralakṣa dhāraṇī according to Old Uyghur versions’, Annual Report of The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University for the Academic Year 2022 (ARIRIAB) XXVI (2023), p. 273, Figure 3, and plate 25.
116 For the discussion of the names of the texts that carry this dhāraṇī, see Schopen, ‘Bodhigarbhālaṅkāralakṣa and Vimaloṣṇīṣa Dhāraṇīs’, pp. 314–317; and Scherrer-Schaub, ‘Some dhāraṇī, p. 712, n. 44. An edition for PT555 is forthcoming, Ibid., n. 66.
117 Scherrer-Schaub, ‘Some dhāraṇī’, pp. 711–727, n. 67; Lalou, Inventaire des Manuscrits, pp. 90, 428.
118 T2154:55.566a:17.
119 Fragment 3, plate 2, SI 6576, inventory no. 6632, Serindian Fund of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, Russian Academy of Sciences in O. Lundysheva, ‘Fragments of Dhāraṇī blockprints from Khara-Khoto (Serindian Fund of IOM, RAS) with appendix by Alla Sizova’, Written Monuments of the Orient 1.2 (2015), pp. 31–47.
120 Ibid., pp. 35–36.
121 Ibid., p. 35.
122 Bhikshu Huimin, A. Tu, B. X. Zhou, and Z. P. Wang, ‘Techniques for collating multiple text versions in the digitization of classical texts: the CBETA Taishō Buddhist Canon as an example’, Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal 8 (2005), pp. 301–302.
123 J. Wu and G. Wilkinson (eds.), Reinventing the Tripitaka: Transformation of the Buddhist Canon in Modern East Asia (Lanham, 2017), p. xv.
124 The Koryŏ edition was carved into more than 80,000 wooden printing blocks. In the fourteenth century, these blocks were sent to Haeinsa monastery (海印寺) for keeping and printing.
125 K. H. Nam and H. Y. Seok, ‘A bibliographical study of the Book of Texts 『百千印陁羅尼經(合部)』, which originated in 1284 with the wishes of King Wonseong and Princess Wonseong’, Bibliographical Studies 74 (2018), pp. 261–310.
126 T2161:55.1064a2.
127 Hase, Daishi go-shōrai bonji shingon shū, pp. 343–345; Y. Miyasaka, Indo koten ron インド古典論 (Tokyo, 1983), i, pp. 107–109; Giebel, R. W., ‘Notes on some Sanskrit texts brought back to Japan by Kūkai’, Pacific World, Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies 14 Fall (2012), p. 216Google Scholar.
128 Griffiths, ‘Written traces of the Buddhist past’, p. 161 and Figure 7 on p. 162.
129 Ibid., pp. 161–163.
130 For more examples of dhāraṇīs, mantras, and gāthās, see Griffiths, ‘Written traces of the Buddhist past’, pp. 137–194; see also A. Griffiths and C. D. Lammerts, ‘Epigraphy: Southeast Asia’, in Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism, (ed.) Silk, pp. 988–1009.
131 See G. P. Krishnan, ‘The roots and legacy of the art of Nalanda as seen at Srivijaya’, in Nalanda, Srivijaya and Beyond, (ed.) Krishnan, pp. 153–200.
132 Kulke, H., ‘Śrīvijaya revisited: reflections on state formation of a Southeast Asian Thalassocracy’, Bulletin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient 102 (2016), pp. 45–95Google Scholar.
133 Note that the regions of Bihar and Bengal in this article are considered parts of Eastern India; see n. 86.
134 Skilling, ‘Writing and representation’, p. 72; for further examples of ritual practices and merit-making in mainland Southeast Asia, see Revire, N., ‘Glimpses of Buddhist practices and rituals in Dvāravatī and its neighbouring cultures’, in Before Siam: Essays in Art and Archaeology, (eds.) Revire, N. and Murphy, S. A. (Bangkok, 2014), pp. 240–271Google Scholar.
135 This tablet is preserved in the Kota Kayang Museum, Perlis. Another example of this dharmacakra mudra sealing having multiple stamps of the ye dharmā stanza on the reverse side was recovered on the Trang coast of the Southern Thai Peninsula.
136 Allen, ‘Inscribed tablet from Kedah’, pp. 44, 47; Nasha Rozaidi Khow, ‘Pensejarahan Kedah Tua’.
137 Lawson, ‘Catalogue of Indian Buddhist Clay Sealings’, pp. 33–35; Skilling, P., ‘Buddhism and the circulation of ritual in early peninsular Southeast Asia’, in Early Interactions between South and Southeast Asia: Reflections on Cross-Cultural Exchange, (eds.) Manguin, P. Y., Mani, A., and Wade, G. (Singapore, 2011), pp. 371–384Google Scholar.
138 Skilling, ‘Writing and representation’, p. 59.