Iain Sinclair. 2016. ‘The appearance of tantric monasticism in Nepal: a history of the public image and fasting ritual of Newar Buddhism, 980-1380’. Monash University, Melbourne: PhD diss. 418 pp., 90 illustrations, 27 tables. DOI:10.4225/03/58ab8cadcf152
Contents
Abstract … 3
Declaration … 4
Publications during enrolment … 5
Acknowledgements … 6
Contents … 8
Abbreviations … 13
Text title abbreviations 14
Palaeographic symbols used in transcription 15
Text-critical symbols 15
Foreword: Scholarly conventions and caveats … 16
1 INTRODUCTION: THE PREDICAMENT OF SANSKRITIC BUDDHISM IN TRANSITION
Précis: How does tantric monasticism appear? … 19
1.1.1 The aims, methods and contexts of the thesis in brief 21
1.2 The conceptual setting: monasticism with tantrism … 22
1.2.1 Part-time monasticism: the life of an intermittently tantric monk 24
1.2.2 The big tent: divergent implementations of the tantras 27
1.2.2.a Transgressive tantras 29
1.2.2.b Chaste tantrism 29
1.2.3 The role of Brahmanism and Hindu tantra 31
1.2.4 Sanskritic Buddhism versus nikāya or ethnonational Buddhism 33
1.3 The geographic and cultural setting: Nepal and Newar Buddhism … 36
1.3.1 Newar tantric, part-time monasticism and the global Buddhisms 38
1.3.2 The clergy and laity of Newar Buddhism 42
1.3.2.a Monks (Śākya), monk–officiants (Vajrācārya) and ‘caste’ 43
1.3.2.b Lay and tantric Buddhism 45
1.3.3 The Nepalese bāhāḥ & bahī monastery types 47
1.4 The temporal setting: the long Transitional Period … 50
1.4.1 The import of the 980–1380 period 51
1.4.2 980: Tantrism and phyi dar 52
1.4.3 1380: Nepal as the last bastion of Sanskritic Buddhism 54
1.5 A selective historiography of tantric monasticism in Nepal … 57
1.5.1 Victors’ history: Svayambhūpurāṇas & Śāntikara/Vāgīśvarakīrti 57
1.5.2 A dissonant voice in the Guṇānanda vaṃśāvalī 61
1.5.3 Colonial and postwar histories of Buddhism in Nepal 63
1.5.3.a Locke (1985): ‘vajrācāryas… presumably married’ 65
1.5.3.b Nepal and ‘Indian’ tantric Buddhism in recent scholarship 67
1.5.3.c Prima facie: Snellgrove’s standpoint (1957–1987) 68
1.6 The hypothesis: a deliberate, principled change … 71
1.6.1 Brief chapter summaries 72
2 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE TANTRIC POṢADHA
2.1 Early poṣadha ceremonies: monastic, lay/octopartite, prototantric … 77
2.1.1 The Prātimokṣa recitation in the Vinaya-based poṣadha 78
2.1.2 The octopartite and proto-tantric poṣadha ceremonies 80
2.1.2.a The proto-tantric poṣadha’s sources and innovations 82
2.2 The poṣadha in the indoctrination program of the Hevajratantra … 84
2.2.1 The lay ādikarmika & gṛhapati in Advayavajra’s Kudṛṣṭinirghātana 86
2.2.1.a The gṛhapati as an ideal non-monastic Buddhist practitioner 88
2.2.2 The poṣadha as prelude to generic rites of tantric initiation 90
2.2.2.a Jagaddarpaṇa’s poṣadha ritual in brief 91
2.3 The winnowing of the canon, the basis of the monastic poṣadha … 92
2.3.1 The debris of the Sanskritic śrāvaka canons 93
2.3.2 The mini-canon described by Ratnākaraśānti 96
2.4 A formerly monastic ritual in worldly settings … 99
2.4.1 Defining the bounds (sīmā) of the non-tantric poṣadha 100
2.4.2 The ground grab and gurumaṇḍala before the tantric poṣadha 101
2.4.3 Porting the poṣadha through the three jewel maṇḍalas 105
2.4.3.a The Buddhamaṇḍalaka of gnostic Buddhas and consorts 106
2.4.3.b The Dharmamaṇḍalaka of Mahāyānasūtras—the mini-canon 108
2.4.3.c The Saṅghamaṇḍalaka of bodhisattvas 112
2.4.4 Self-administered vows in Bhavabhaṭṭa’s Poṣadhavidhi 114
2.5 Vratinisation: the adoption of theist ‘look and feel’ … 115
2.5.1 Poṣadha and vrata in the śrāvaka canon 117
2.5.2 Kashmir, “a special place” where the poṣadha became a vrata 119
2.5.2.a Kāvyanisation: the poṣadhavrata in the Avadānakalpalatā et al 120
2.5.2.b The poṣadhavrata and its timing according to Śākyaśrībhadra 123
2.5.3 The legal status of poṣadhavrata as a penance (pārājikā) in Nepal 124
2.5.3.a The Pāpaparimocana’s vrata and the Nāradasmṛti 126
2.6 Conclusions: Religious abstinence outside the monastery … 129
3 TANTRIC POṢADHA PERFORMANCE TRADITIONS IN NEPAL
3.1 Yampi-vihāra and Sunayaśrī’s *Upāsakasaṃvarāṣṭaka on lay vows … 131
3.2 Dharmadhātu-vihāra, Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna and the poṣadha … 134
3.2.1 The relation of the Poṣadhavidhāna ritual to Dharmadhātu-vihāra 139
3.2.1.a The preliminaries and gurumaṇḍala in the Poṣadhavidhāna 141
3.2.1.b The three jewel maṇḍalas in the Poṣadhavidhāna 142
3.2.1.c The bodhicittotpādana in the Poṣadhavidhāna 143
3.2.2 Amoghapāśa and the poṣadha at Dharmadhātu-vihāra 146
3.2.2.a The eight-armed Amoghapāśa in the Malay Archipelago & Nepal 146
3.2.2.b The Eleven-faced (Ekādaśamukha), nyungne and Thaṃ Bahī 154
3.2.2.c The twelve-armed Amoghapāśa deprecated in Nepal 159
3.2.2.d Amoghapāśa as the saviour of monks with broken śīla 162
3.2.3 The remains of poṣadha performance at Dharmadhātu-vihāra 164
3.3 The non-tantric upāsakasaṃvara ritual of MS Cambridge Or.728-3 … 167
3.4 Testimony of the pre-initiatory poṣadha: MS IASWR MBB-II-150-153 … 169
3.5 The Bengali gomin according to Tatakaragupta’s poṣadhagrahaṇa … 172
3.6 Trends in Nepalese poṣadha rites after the Transitional Period … 175
3.6.1 Contexts of the Poṣadhānuśaṃsā (MS NGMPP B23/33), c.1400 176
3.6.1.a Some other texts copied by the scribe Prajñāmitra 176
3.6.1.b Newar vernacularisation aimed at non-Sanskritic participants 178
3.6.2 An Amoghapāśapūjā (NGMPP H 314/10), 1650 179
3.6.3 The Newar Buddhist aṣṭamīvrata in relation to the tantric poṣadha 181
3.7 Conclusions: the evolution of a cosmopolitan ritual of asceticism … 183
4 THE APPEARANCE OF THE TANTRIC MONK
4.1 The Newar tantric monk as artisan and entrepreneur … 197
4.1.1 The Tibetan market for Newar art 198
4.1.2 The image-maker bhikṣu versus the caste-born artisan 199
4.1.3 Hiraṇyavarṇa-mahāvihāra, the Kriyāsaṃgraha and image making 202
4.1.4 The apex of tantric artisanship: Ānígē and his impacts 207
4.1.4.a The Kathmandu Valley as a destination for international pilgrims 211
4.2 Principles for renunciants appearing as worldlings, and vice versa … 213
4.2.1 The priority of tantrism: the guru, secrecy and the Kālacakra 214
4.2.1.a The model śrīguru and śrībrahmacarin in the Paramārthasevā 216
4.2.1.b Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna’s persecutions of immoral (*duḥśīla) monks 219
4.2.1.c The secret tantric saṅgha: the gaṇacakra and the cakreśvara 221
4.2.1.d The newly tantric Mānadeva-vihāra / Cuka Bāhāḥ, 1050s–1063 223
4.2.2 Monks & tantric dress in Jagaddarpaṇa’s Vajrācāryalakṣaṇavidhi 224
4.2.3 The hierarchy of vows in Vibhūticandra’s *Trisaṃvaraprabhāmālā 228
4.3 Makeshift attempts at codifying the status of part-time monastics … 231
4.3.1 Dīparuci Bhāro, vajrācārya-monk-nobleman at Bu Bāhāḥ, 1198 232
4.3.2 Vibhūticandra’s dedication to a ‘laywoman nun’, 1248 236
4.3.3 The non-monastic texts copied by the śrībhikṣu Devamāna, 1271 237
4.3.4 Sugatarakṣita, a ‘monk at the householder stage’, 1284 239
4.3.5 Jagadānandajīvabhadra and son Mahābodhibhadra, 1338–1391 241
4.3.6 Monks’ wives and the paramopāsakabhikṣus in the mid-Malla era 243
4.4 Epilogue: the disrobing rite after the Transitional Period … 244
4.4.1 The śikṣāvrata at Vajrakīrti-mahāvihāra, 1441 245
4.4.2 The śiṣyapratiṣṭhā at Guṇakīrti-vihāra, 1603 246
4.5 Conclusions: How the Newar tantric monk appeared … 247
5 PORTRAITS OF NEWAR TANTRIC MONKS AND PRACTITIONERS
5.1 Principles of South Asian donor portraiture … 254
5.1.1 Sujātabhadra’s āriṣa sthāna miniatures, MS Add.1643, 1015 255
5.1.2 Directions for realistic portraiture in the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa et al. 257
5.1.3 The painted icon: paṭa, N. paubhāḥ (*pratimābhaṭṭāraka) 259
5.1.3.a The general composition of the painting on cloth 260
5.2 The corpus of painted period portraits of tantric Buddhists … 263
5.3 A vajrācārya portrait in an Aṣṭasāhasrikā MS at the Potala, c. 1020s … 264
5.4 Shaven-headed yogins in the Wellcome Sampuṭa, c. 12–13th cent … 267
5.5 Monks and their wives on Prajñāpāramitā MS covers, 14th cent … 270
5.6 The donors of a painting of Seven-Syllabled Saṃvara, 12th cent … 274
5.6.1 The appearances of the donors of the Saptākṣara painting 276
5.6.2 Sources for the invocation of the Seven-Syllabled Saṃvara 280
5.6.3 The deities, the monk, his wife and their union 284
5.7 Portraits of tantric monks with donors in the 14th century … 287
5.7.1 Portraits of monks dressing up to perform tantric ritual 288
5.7.2 Part-time monks in red robes worn over white lay dress 290
5.7.3 The significance of the cīvara worn over white lay dress 294
5.8 Conclusions: depicting the ascendance of part-time monasticism … 295
6 CONCLUSIONS: THE SAṄGHA ON SABBATICAL
6.1 The beginnings of tantric monasticism in Nepal … 313
6.1.1 A short account of the appearance of tantric monasticism 313
6.2 Reconsidering prior hypotheses on Indo-Newar Buddhism … 314
6.2.1 Tantric monasticism as parochial Buddhism 315
6.2.2 Tantric monasticism as Hinduisation 316
6.2.3 Tantric monasticism as superficial or undirected Buddhism 317
6.2.4 Accidentals in the formation of part-time monasticism 319
6.3 Possible directions for future research … 319
6.4 In conclusion … 320
Summary in fifty words … 320
Appendix: Textual Criticism of the Poṣadhavidhāna … 323