Where text meets flesh: burning the body as an apocryphal

practice in Chinese Buddhism

by James A. Benn

History of Religions

Vol.37 No.4

May 1998

Pp.295-322

Copyright by University of Chicago


INTRODUCTION At first glance, burning, branding, and other forms of what we might today call "body modification" would appear to have little to do with Buddhism, a religion whose avowed focus is on the mind. In fact, burning the body is one of the most obvious and commonplace features of Sinitic Buddhism, since all Chinese and Korean monks and nuns are burned at ordination, or at least were until recently.(1) The scars of these burns are highly visible in the Chinese case, since it is the head that is burned. This article investigates the recommendation of burning the body (shao shen) in two apocryphal texts that were well known and extremely influential in the Chinese Buddhist tradition--the Fanwang jing (The Book of Brahma's Net)(2) and the Shouleng'yan jing (Suramgama-sutra, The Book of the Heroic-march Absorption)(3)--and demonstrates that these two texts, used in combination, not only justified such extreme acts as autocremation and the burning of fingers but were also used to establish burning at ordination.(4) Focusing on such practices not only adds to our knowledge of Buddhism as a way of fife in China, but it may also allow us to identify some specific reasons for the creation of apocryphal texts. To date, the study of Chinese Buddhist apocrypha has consisted, for the most part, of identifying and analyzing the contents of such works. Scholars have hardly begun to search for specific reasons for their creation.(5) The use of passages from these two texts to justify self-immolation (she shen) first came to my attention in a defense of self-immolation written by the eminent and influential tenth-century Chinese monk Yongming Yanshou (904-75).(6) Upon further readings in the primary sources, it became evident that the use of these two texts by Yanshou was no accident: in no surviving Chinese scripture other than the Fanwang jing and the Shouleng'yan jing do we find burning the body defined and endorsed as a practice for Buddhist monks and nuns, as opposed to advanced mahasattvas (great beings). The term shao shen, while it may in some contexts indicate cremation of the corpse--most notably, of course, that of the Buddha himself--also covers a range of practices applied to the living bodies of Buddhist monks and nuns in East Asia. These practices extend from the least common and most spectacular--autocremation of the living body, through the burning off or branding of limbs (usually the arms), and the burning off of fingers--to the most common practice, the burning of incense or moxa (i.e., Artemisia tinder) on the body (the crown of the head or the forearm) at ordination. The primary source of information on autocremation is that contained in collections of biographies of Chinese monks and nuns, where self-immolators merited a biographical category all of their own, and it is clear that the Lotus Sutra was by far the most common legitimating text for this type of ritual suicide.(7) However, although heroic autocremation as an offering to the buddhas is extolled in this and other texts of Indian origin and endorsed in Chinese commentaries on them, a justifiable objection could be made that the practices described and advocated therein are those of the mahasattva rather than those of monastics bound by the Vinaya. This is precisely the argument made in Buddhist circles by those monks who were critical of autocremation, branding, and burning. The primary motivation for the creation of statements made in the Fanwang jing and the Shouleng'yan jing should therefore be clear from the outset; no clear and unambiguous justification for burning the body could be found in texts of non-Chinese origin, hence texts (or parts of texts in this case) were created in order to provide one. Burning the body is an "apocryphal practice" in a number of different senses.(8) As I shall demonstrate, the practice existed in China long before the composition of the Fanwang jing or the Shouleng'yan jing, and indeed before the translation of the Lotus Sutra itself, in the forms of (1) moxibustion and (2) ritual autocremation in praying for rain.(9) Hence, burning the body can be considered an apocryphal practice in the sense of an indigenous (non-Buddhist) practice. Passages in the Fanwang jing and the Shouleng'yan jing were specifically created in order to endorse the practice as it developed in a Buddhist context from the early part of the fifth century. Having been created, these two apocryphal texts were in turn productive of more practices, including burning of ordination, which was not an immediate effect but rather took some centuries to evolve. These practices are thus "apocryphal" in the sense of being inspired and justified by apocryphal texts. Whether Buddhists burned their bodies in India or not is a moot point, but what is clear is that some textual justification was required in China, beyond that contained in the Lotus Sutra.(10) Just as some apocryphal sutras were created in order to endorse doctrinal innovation, so I would suggest that passages in these two texts were created to endorse practices that were at times the subject of controversy within the tradition and the subject of censure from without. Moreover, although critics of self-immolation within the Buddhist tradition were never entirely won over by these texts, burning at ordination at least emerged as a fully vindicated practice. BURNING THE BODY IN THE FANWANG JING AND SHOULENG'YAN JING The apocryphal nature of these two texts is not in question, and it is not my intention to repeat or revise arguments made elsewhere by more able scholars.(11) What this study aims to do is to examine one particular reason for the creation of these texts and to encourage the application of the findings to other apocryphal texts. It is worth beginning with the two passages in question, since, when considered in isolation, they appear rather remarkable. First, let us examine the earlier of the two texts, the Fanwang jing, which appeared in China sometime between 440 and 480 C.E., in other words, not long after the first recorded cases of self-immolation by fire, which occurred in the early fifth century.(12) The Fanwang jing in time became the major text used in China and Japan for ordination to the bodhisattva precepts. The sixteenth of the forty-eight lesser precepts given in this text is that known in the Tiantai tradition as weili daoshuo jie (the precept on making inverted statements for [one's own] gain). I mention this fact in order to show that the precept was understood, for the most part, as a commitment not to make misleading statements rather than as a vow to burn one's own body. Many of the precepts contained in the Fanwang jing can be clearly traced back to earlier Mahayana texts, and Ono Hodo, who has done the most extensive work on the subject, is of the opinion that this precept derives from the Pusa dichi jing (Bodhisattvabhumisutra).(13) He is probably correct as far as the sense of the precept goes, but the wording of the two texts is entirely different, and there is no mention of burning the body in the earlier of the two. The inspiration for this particular part of the precept is most likely drawn from the Lotus Sutra, since the other potential culprit, the Yuedeng sanmei jing (*Samadhiraja[candrapradipassutra]), which also contains a story of a bodhisattva who burned his arms, was not translated until 557.(14) Another explanation might be that the precept directly reflected cultic practice and is not explicitly modeled on a textual antecedent. Here is the Fanwang jing precept in its entirety: If a son of the Buddha is to practice with a good mind, he should start by studying the proper decorum, the scriptures and the regulations (lu) of the Mahayana so that he thoroughly understands their meaning and sense. Later he will meet bodhisattvas who are new to this study and who have come a hundred or a thousand li in search of the scriptures and regulations of the Mahayana. In accordance with the dharma he should explain to them all the ascetic practices, such as setting fire to the body, setting fire to the arm, or setting fire to the finger. If one does not set fire to the body, the arm or the finger as an offering to the Buddhas, one is not a renunciant bodhisattva. Moreover, one should sacrifice the feet, hands and flesh of the body as offerings to hungry tigers, wolves, and lions and to all hungry ghosts. Afterwards to each and every one of them one should preach the true dharma, so that one causes the thought of liberation to appear in their minds. If one does not behave in this way, then this is a lesser wrongdoing.(15) Body burners and their exegetical champions (such as Yanshou) could point to this text with some confidence and say that as "renunciant bodhisattvas" they were merely doing as the Buddha had told them. The Shouleng'yan jing, unlike the Fanwang jing, is a meditation sutra rather than a precepts sutra, but the following extract appears in a section of the text that is certainly disciplinary in intent. The Buddha speaks to Ananda about the Vinaya and explains to him those prohibitions against lust, stealing, lying, and killing that he deemed particularly appropriate during the period of the decline of the dharma (mofa).(16) Right in the middle of the discussion of the prohibition against stealing, and (seemingly) apropos of nothing in particular, we find the f6flowing passage: The Buddha said to Ananda, `After my Nirvana, if there is a bhiksu who gives rise to a mental state wherein he is determined to cultivate samadhi, and he is able to burn his body as a torch or to set fire to a finger joint before an image of the Tathagata, or even to burn a stick of incense on his body, then in a single instant he will have repaid the debts of his previous existences since the beginningless past. He will always avoid [being reborn] in the world and he will be eternally free of all outflow (lou, Skt. asrava). Even if he has not yet understood the supreme path of awakening, such a person has already focused his mind on the dharma. But if he does not have this secret underlying cause for sacrificing the body, then even if he attains the unconditioned he must be reborn again as a human in order to repay the debts from his previous lives. Just as when I [had to] eat horse-fodder.'(17) The above passage provides an excellent example of the typically reductive nature of Sinitic apocrypha in the positing of a single practice that leads to enlightenment-described here in terms of being free from rebirth and from the outflows.(18) By extension, a body that is free from outflows or "cankers" is the perfect body of a buddha. The scholar of Chinese religions will see here immediate parallels with "deliverance from the corpse" and "postmortem immortality" in Taoism, but I fear this line of inquiry must await a fuller exploration elsewhere.(19) It is evident from the above that even before we consult the commentarial literature, these two passages explicitly permit or require the burning of the body by renunciates, be they renunciate bodhisattvas (chujia pusa) or fully ordained monks (biqiu, bhiksu). It is tempting to leap straight from what we know about ordination now--where "incense" (in fact moxa as we shall see) is burned on the head or arm--back to a point in time when these two texts first came together and to conclude that ordination practice is based on the simple conjunction of these two texts, that is, that burning incense on the body is equivalent to burning the body and is symbolic of the ascetic practices of the bodhisattva. While this may in fact be true, the story of how this came about is perhaps a little more complicated than it might first appear. BURNING AT ORDINATION We must perforce begin with an account of burning at ordination as we know it today. There may well exist earlier Chinese accounts of ordination that give the kind of procedural and ritual detail beloved of the anthropologist, but if they do exist I have so far been unable to locate them.(20) However, for ordination as practiced from the late nineteenth century onward we do have some very useful descriptions from outside observers such as J. J. M. de Groot, Johannes Prip-Moller, and Holmes Welch and for modern-day Korea, the unique insights of a participant-observer, Robert Buswell, who was ordained and spent some years in a Korean monastery.(21) Chinese and Korean monks and nuns may also be questioned on their own experiences of ordination. The consensus of opinion of scholars and monastics alike is that there is some connection between the sixteenth minor precept of the Fanwang jing and burning at ordination. But what, precisely, is this connection? Where and when was it first made? One particularly significant fact that emerges when looking at East Asia as a whole is that monks and nuns in Japan are ordained to precisely the same bodhisattva precepts of the Fanwang jing, but they do not burn their arms or heads, and there is no evidence that they ever did.(22) De Groot's chapter "Acceptation des Commandements des Bodhisatwas" in his erudite and detailed study of the Fanwang jing is based on the observations he made over a number of years at ordination ceremonies conducted at Yongquan si on Gushan in Fuzhou. As he notes, this particular ceremony was one that was first established there by Yuanxian (1578-1657). Yuanxian in turn is said to have borrowed it from that in use at Yunqi si in Hangzhou, the abbot and founder of which was the eminent Ming monk Zhuhong (1532-1612).(23) De Groot quotes the relevant part of the sixteenth minor precept at the beginning of his discussion of the burning of the head, which follows that part of the ceremony that he terms "acte de penitence et serment" (an act that is penance and vow).(24) What exactly happens at this point in the proceedings, and how is it described? According to de Groot, terms in use for burning the head at ordination in this particular monastery at the end of the nineteenth century were ranxiang (burning incense) and jiuxiang (calcination by incense). As far as I have been able to ascertain, these terms are not attested in the Taisho edition of the Buddhist canon, and I have not seen them attested in ordination manuals before the mid-seventeenth century. This may indicate that there was an ordination vocabulary, which was not drawn from canonical sources, and that terms and techniques for ordination might well have been transmitted orally from teacher to student. The ordinands knelt in front of the masters of ceremonies, who marked their heads with ink in the places where they were to be burned. De Groot notes that the following numbers of burns were administered: three, nine, twelve, and eighteen. Apparently these were all in use at Yongquan si, the number being burned at the request of the ordinand; compare this with Prip-Moller's observation that nine was the usual number of burns for monasteries around Chengdu in the 1920s and 1930s and the fact that he saw only one monk with eighteen burns on his head.(25) Nine burns are clearly visible in the photographs of recently ordained monks in Prip-Moller's book.(26) The significance of the number of burns was explained to de Groot as follows: three for the Three Jewels (san bao, Sanskrit triratna); nine in the square of three, hence the power is redoubled; no one could explain the significance of twelve; and finally, eighteen represented the eighteen arhats.(27) Again, this would seem to be an example of oral ordination lore, since I have not seen the burns explained in any way in a Chinese source. Having had their heads marked, the ordinands knelt in front of tables, their heads were grasped from behind by an officiating monk, and a small pastille of dried pulp (gui yuan) from the fruit nephelium longan (longyan, "dragon's eye") was placed on each inked spot.(28) Then, cones of moxa were placed on top of the pulp.(29) Each cone was then lit with a burning stick of incense, and the cones were allowed to burn down into the skin. As this was happening, the ordinand recited the name of Amitabha, while the monk holding the ordinand's head pressed on his temples in order to lessen the pain.(30) If we imagine this procedure divorced from its context, it bears a remarkable similarity to a type of therapy that has been practiced in China for centuries, moxibustion. MOXIBUSTION "Moxibustion" is the term used in the West for the Chinese practice of burning moxa, that is, Artemisia tinder (ai), on or near the skin, for therapeutic or prophylactic purposes.(31) The traditional term in Chinese was ai rong jiu. The character jiu is the same as that which we have seen used by monks for burning at ordination, jiuxiang. There are three main methods of moxibustion, all of which are mirrored in ordination burning in China or Korea.(32) In the first technique, a small cone of moxa is allowed to burn down to the skin, resulting in a blister and leaving a scar. In some cases this was modified so that a layer of vegetable tissue was placed between the cone and the skin. This is precisely the technique used at ordination in China, which was described above and which is common in Taiwan today. The third technique was to use a burning cylinder of moxa, either to provide mild radiant beat or to administer a light burn. This last technique mirrors that used in Korea to administer a light burn on the arm to laypeople who receive the Fanwang jing precepts (Korean yonbi).(33) Why use moxa for ritual burning? Why not simply use incense (xiang), which is what is specified in the Shouleng'yan jing? The answer seems to be that the intention is not to cause pain, simply to leave a visible scar. Moxibustion practitioners all claim that the pain of moxibustion is not an unpleasant one but instead produces a deep glowing sensation (chang kuai, kuai gan).(34) Ordained Chinese monks and nuns whom I questioned about their experiences at ordination agreed that the sensation was "not unpleasant." Moreover, if we think back to the text, the presence of the term ai would have immediately looked suspect in a text of supposedly Indian origin, as the substance was not known or used there. As we shall see, incense was (and still is) used to burn off fingers in their entirety. Moxibustion points largely mirrored those used in acupuncture, and just as with acupuncture, there were loci on the body where use of burning moxa was contraindicated. There are three moxibustion points on the head above the hairline that correspond to the three points commonly used in ordination burning. These are tou hui in the center and two points named zheng guang flanking it.(35) I have, as yet, not found these particular terms attested in Chinese Buddhist texts, which speak only of shao ding (burning the crown of the head). Again, such terminology would look more orthodox by analogy with the Tantric rite of consecration (abhiseka, Chinese guanding) during which the crown of the head is anointed, whereas the presence of specifically Chinese medical terminology in a text of supposedly Indian origin would have immediately looked suspect. As with some other Chinese inventions, moxibustion is not quite as ancient as is sometimes claimed. The oldest extant works on moxibustion date from between the third and fifth centuries C.E., well before the Shouleng'yan jing speaks of burning incense on the body in the early eighth.(36) Certainly moxibustion was widely practiced during the Tang, and works were produced with diagrams of moxibustion points on the body.(37) At the time of the composition of the text, the idea of a fragrant substance being burned on the body was not only known, it was widely practiced and had overwhelmingly positive connotations. Against this background, our passage, which at first glance looks quite bizarre, begins to look a lot less strange. My contention is that when the Shouleng'yan jing speaks of burning incense on the body, it is to the indigenous Chinese practice of moxibustion that it refers, albeit perhaps indirectly. Even if we discount this suggestion, it is beyond dispute that ordination burning as it has been known for the last hundred years or so draws more or less explicitly on a well-established Chinese medical technique. That Buddhism and healing could be linked in such a manner is hardly a great revelation, but it leads me to wonder what deeper symbolic links might exist between burning and healing. For example, the bodhisattva who burned himself in the Lotus Sutra, Bhaisajyagururaja, was known in China as Yaowang (Medicine King) and as such was the center of a cult of significant proportions.(38) This kind of symbolic link might prove to be a profitable line of inquiry for further investigation of the practice. THE FANWANG JING AND SHOULENG'YAN JING AND THE HISTORY OF BURNING AT ORDINATION De Groot sees a clear connection between the sixteenth minor precept of the Fanwang jing and the act of burning at ordination, and Chinese monks and nuns whom I questioned also felt that there was a connection between the two. None of my informants was able to point me toward a text that actually made that connection explicit. There is such a text, but compared to the Fanwang jing, it is both fairly obscure and fairly late. The eighteenth-century monastic gazetteer Wulin dazhaoqing lusi zhi (Gazetteer of the Great Zhaoqing Vinaya Monastery in Wulin) contains an entry on receiving the bodhisattva precepts that reads: Those who wish to receive the great bodhisattva precepts first give rise to a great aspiration. The burning of the crown of the head is taken as the vow. After the burning one receives the precepts. The Fanwang jing says, "Bodhisattvas who are new to study come a hundred or a thousand li in search of the scriptures and regulations of the Mahayana. In accordance with the dharma one should explain to them all the ascetic practices, such as setting fire to the body, setting fire to the arm, or setting fire to the finger. If one does not set fire to the body, the arm or the finger as an offering to the Buddhas, one is not a renunciant Bodhisattva." On this precedent, out of compassion one burns the head and vows to cultivate the four dhyanas and samadhi and to uphold the dharma. This has now been established.(39) The significance of this passage, beyond its explicit explanation of when and why monks' heads were to be burned, lies in the fact that Vinaya monasteries in late imperial China were responsible for training monks to give ordinations. It is highly likely, then, that these instructions applied not to one particular institution but to many, perhaps even to all ordinations performed in China at this time. It is hard to be sure if this is true, since an extensive search of other monastic gazetteers; has failed to turn up anything similar. This does not mean that the monastery in Wulin was unusual, but rather that the gazetteer itself is unusual in that it devotes any attention at all to living monks. Most so-called monastic gazetteers were in fact literary-cum-topographical guidebooks rather than records of mundane Buddhist activities.(40) The Fanwang jing contains precepts but does not contain instructions on how to administer those precepts. Moreover, the sixteenth minor precept does not say anything about vows, burning the head, or burning incense on the body. Clearly, the model for ordination burning is drawn from the Fanwang jing and the Shouleng'yan jing used in conjunction. We can very easily confirm that the two passages were so linked by looking at commentaries on the Fanwang jing. The Fanwang jing pusa fie zhu by the Song monk Huiyin (dates unknown) cites the Shouleng'yan jing in support of the sixteenth minor precept of the Fanwang jing, as does the Fanwang jing pusa fie lueshu by Hongzan (1611-85).(41) However, neither of these texts makes any mention of burning at ordination as such. One theory that might be advanced is that the passage from the Shouleng'yan jing was composed in the early eighth century in order to validate some preexisting ordination practice based on the Fanwang jing. This is certainly a reasonable supposition, but one that is not borne out by the textual evidence. Although we have evidence that people burned or branded their heads in the centuries after the composition of the Shouleng'yan jing, it was never explicitly linked to ordination, nor to the bodhisattva precepts. In his infamous Memorial on the Buddha Relic (Lun fo gu biao) of 819, Han Yu (768-824) complained to the emperor that if he should honor the Buddha's relic, the people, being easily misled, would "in their tens or hundreds burn the crowns of their heads and burn off their fingers in sacrifice." Furthermore, "unless there is an immediate prohibition to check and control the various monasteries, there will inevitably be those who will cut off their limbs or slice up their bodies in making offerings which will pervert our customs and destroy normal usages, making us a laughing stock to the world. This would be no small matter."(42) Han Yu is not simply waxing rhetorical here, since there are accounts of laypeople burning the crown of the head (shao ding) and branding their arms (zhuo bi) when the relic of the Buddha was brought to Chang'an despite his protests, and the biography of Li Wei speaks of common people cutting off their fingers in 873 when the relic was again brought to the capital.(43) In fact, Tang sources never speak of any burning practice associated with the ordination of monks. Given what we know of Han Yu, had such ordination practices existed they would have been ideal ammunition for his anti-Buddhist polemic. If anything then, burning or branding of the head and arms is associated with what we might call overzealous cultic practice. It is not the sanctioned or controlled violence that occurs in ritual burning at ordination. Nor is there any evidence that burning the body was associated with ordination in the tenth century; witness, for example, this edict of 955 promulgated by the (Later) Zhou emperor Shizong: "Hitherto, samgha and laity have been practising self-immolation, burning their arms and igniting their fingers, or cutting off their hands and feet and then carrying them on pikes like flaming torches, hanging burning lamps from hooks ... all this must now cease. These are very serious offences as defined in the Vinaya."(44) This edict is reproduced in the later administrative compendium Zizhi tongjian (A Comprehensive Mirror for the Aid of Government), where it merits some informative annotation by Hu Sanxing (1230-87), the Yuan commentator. He writes, "Burning the finger (lian zhi) means wrapping incense around the finger and igniting it.(45) Hanging lamps (gua deng) means being naked and piercing the skin with small iron hooks, from which are suspended small lamps. The lamps are filled with oil and then lit. These are commonly known as `burning body lamps' (ran roushen deng)."(46) This indicates, to me at least, that such practices were either known in the Yuan and had been witnessed by the commentator or that he is drawing on textual materials now lost or that are perhaps simply obscure. There is no indication in the original edict, or in the Yuan commentary, that these burning practices were in any way associated with ordination. Even assuming that the evidence is missing, or has been deliberately expunged from the record, we are faced with incontrovertible fact that there is no burning at ordination in Japan, where Buddhists were notoriously fascinated by precepts, especially those of the Fanwang jing. Accounts by Japanese pilgrims who visited Tang and Song China such as Ennin, and Eisai, and even Sakugen, who visited China as late as the 1530s make no mention of any such practice in China. Had such practices existed, they would surely have been exported wholesale to Japan, along with every other aspect of continental Buddhist practice. Previous attempts to find a date for the introduction of ordination burning in China have tended to peter out into speculation. De Groot, noting a claim that Zhuhong had based his ordination ritual on one of Song date (not a claim I have been able to trace, let alone substantiate) concludes, "cet rituel semble donc avoir un age respectable" (this ritual seems to be of a respectable age).(47) Both Prip-Moller and de Groot note a substatute of 1649 in the Qing legal code that says that ordination certificates are required before any burning takes place, which at least gives us a terminus ante quem for the practice.(48) Is it possible that this edict alone was responsible for burning at ordination? I am inclined to doubt it, since the wording of the text, which speaks rather vaguely of "the burning practice by the abbot" (zhuchi fenxiu) implies that this was a practice that was already known and did not have to be explained and that it was already part of ordination procedure. The term fenxiu employed here normally refers to the ritual burning of incense in general rather than any kind of burning of the body. De Groot's Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China provides a very useful compendium of legislation that applied to the Buddhist and Taoist clergy, but there is no discussion of burning at ordination in edicts or legal codes prior to that of the Qing. An electronic search of the historical materials now available online through the good offices of Academia Sinica has also failed to reveal any earlier legislation that even mentions ordination burning. In fact, the earliest reference to burning at ordination dates to the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). It occurs in the biography of Zhide (1235-1322), in Ming gaoseng zhuan (Biographies of Eminent Monks compiled under the Ming), and would put the earliest recorded use of burning at ordination at around 1280: "Whenever he bestowed the precepts on the seven assemblies (qi zhong), he thought it necessary to make the fathers, mothers, older and younger brothers teach each other so that they would not transgress.(49) So with burning incense he burned the crowns of their heads and their fingers, as a vow that would last to the end of their lives."(50) The idea of burning the body to "seal a vow" that is present both in Zhide's biography, and in the eighteenth-century gazetteer seems to have been already familiar in a slightly different context--that of the bodily practices of Song Tiantai masters. Zunshi (964-1032), for example, who seems to have had rather a reputation for making powerful vows, burned his head as he swore to "exert himself in the practice of the four forms of samadhi until the end of his life," which is extremely close to the vow taken by those burned at ordination, according to the monastic gazetteer quoted above.(51) We now have a starting point for burning at ordination, but we are still faced with the problem of understanding by precisely what means this practice grew from (apparently) a single monastery and a single teacher in the Yuan, to become an empirewide phenomenon in the early Qing. The obvious sources--ordination manuals for the bodhisattva precepts--are, for the most part, frustratingly silent on the matter. This is largely due to the fact that such manuals largely prescribe speech rather than action, and as de Groot's account indicates, there were no ritual words that accompanied ordination burning. The earliest explicit references in these materials that I have been able to find are (1) in a Qing commentary by Chaoyuan (1631-87) that inserts "stage directions" into the Chuanshou santan hong jiefayi by Hanyue (1573-1635) and (2) in an ordination manual completed in 1650 by Duti (1601-79), which does draw on the Fanwang jing to account for the burning that ordinands undergo.(52) The fact that the latter text appeared one year after the Qing regulation that speaks of burning at ordination makes one immediately suspicious that burning at ordination may have been a sudden innovation, as much as the product of gradual evolution. Yet, as Duti's manual reveals, and as I have tried to indicate here, it was an innovation that could be doctrinally supported by texts. Here, I can do no more than introduce another suspect, the fascinating late Ming monk Zhixu (1599-1655), a man highly regarded by his contemporaries, whatever their religious inclinations. Not only was Zhixu profoundly influenced by the Shouleng'yan jing and the Fanwang jing, but also his collected writings allow a remarkable insight into the practices of an eminent monk. Many of those practices involved writing scriptures in his own blood and burning the crown of his head and his arms. Between the ages of 26 and 56 Zhixu burned incense on his head on six occasions and on his arms twenty-eight times.(53) Whether his personal practices had any effect on ordination in general is unknown, but the possibility is an intriguing one that deserves further exploration. More attention needs to be focused on Zhixu, Duti, and the agenda of the Qing state in order to settle this question. But burning at ordination remains an apocryphal practice, one that is purely Sinitic and that is firmly grounded in two apocryphal texts. PRAYING FOR RAW Given the predominance of references to the Lotus Sutra in the biographical literature, there is an understandable tendency to attribute the inspiration for the act of autocremation solely to this particular non-Chinese textual model. While it is true that there is a strong case for claiming that Chinese Buddhist autocremators found inspiration and justification for their acts in the Lotus--a justification that was of course reinforced by our two apocryphal texts--there was in fact a well-attested Chinese model for autocremation that was sometimes explicitly mimicked in Buddhist autocremation. It is a historical fact that autocremation was known and practiced in China long before the translation of the Lotus Sutra. Shao shen can therefore be considered an apocryphal practice in the sense of being an indigenous practice that clearly predated the translation of the Lotus Sutra. Leaving aside for the moment the early mentions of "burning shamans" (fen wu) to produce rain in times of drought that appear in such texts as the Zhou li, Zwo zhuan, and the treatises on rainmaking contained in the Chunqiu fan lu, let us now turn to early accounts of non-Buddhist autocremators. Rainmaking was normally practiced by the emperor or one of his representatives exposing his body to the rays of the sun, causing rainfall by a kind of reverse sympathetic magic.(54) But when this ritual exposure failed to produce a result, stronger measures were called for. Our first account comes from the biography of an official called Dai Feng in the Hou Han shu (History of the Later Han): "That year (90 C.E.) there was a great drought. Feng prayed and petitioned [for rain] without success. So, he piled up firewood and sat on top in order to burn himself, as the fire rose, thereupon there was a heavy downpour of rain."(55) The rain presumably extinguished the fire, since Feng survived. The second account, also from the Hou Han shu, nicely demonstrates that autocremation was considered a further stage after the failure of ritual exposure of the body. Liang Fu first "exposed himself in the courtyard" but this did not bring rain, so, "He piled up firewood, and gathered water-chestnut reeds together, making a circle of them around him and set fire to the edge. He was about to burn himself when ... it rained."(56) This ritual is attested not only in the Han, even as late as the Song people vowed to burn themselves alive in order to bring rain. In 991 the empire was suffering from drought and plagues of locusts. When praying for rain failed to work, the emperor himself, Song Taizong (r. 976-97), vowed to burn himself alive. The next day it rained and the locusts died.(57) In all these cases the threat of autocremation was enough to produce a result, but sometimes it did not rain in time, and the vow was carried out so that the participant actually burned to death.(58) Such acts did not remain the prerogative of the state; Buddhists also burned themselves in order to bring rain. In the year 1000, there was a great drought: The master (Zhili 960-1028) together with the repentance master of Tianzhu (Tianzhu chanzhu, i.e., Zunshi) prayed for rain and obtained a result.(59) The Xingye ji says, "The master together with Zunshi jointly performed the Luminous and Bright Repentance (guang ming chan). They prayed for rain for three days. When it did not rain, they resolved to burn one hand as an offering to the Buddha. Before this act for the Buddha was complete, there was a great downpour of rain. The Ciyun Xingye ji says "[That year] there was a great drought in Siming.(60) The master commenced repentance, and prayed for rain for three days. When it did not rain he resolved to burn himself. Then he obtained a result. The Prefect Su thought this was extraordinary and erected a stele recording the event."(61) Other accounts of Buddhists who vowed to burn themselves to bring rain can be found in Yudi jisheng.(62) A Ming dynasty monk who followed through on the vow and did burn himself can be found in Xin xu gaoseng zhuan si ji (Four Collections of New Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks).(63) Buddhist scriptures say many interesting things, but even apocryphal sutras do not permit monks to burn their bodies in order to bring rain. So it is interesting to see this intersection between indigenous and Buddhist practice, legitimated in the acts of eminent monks. These monks themselves had two sources of legitimation: on the one hand they did what any self-respecting emperor or official would have done; on the other they were aware that "burning the body as an offering to the Buddha" (explicitly marked in the text here) was a legitimate Buddhist act. THE FANWANG JING AND SHOULENG'YAN JING AS TEXTUAL JUSTIFICATION FOR BURNING THE BODY BY MONKS AND NUNS CREATION AND FUNCTION OF THE SHOULENG'YAN JING My thesis is that the function of these few lines from the two texts was to provide textual justification for burning practices by members of the Chinese samgha, but what further evidence can be found to indicate that the texts were understood in this way? The Fahua jing san da bu buzhu (Supplementary notes on the Three Great Divisions of the Lotus Sutra) was compiled by the Song Tiantai monk Congyi (1042-91) as a supplement to the three commentaries on the Lotus by Zhiyi (538-97). The autocremation of the Bodhisattva Bhaisajyagururaja in the Lotus prompts the following exegesis: Some people say that the Vinaya prohibits the burning of the body to bring deliverance and the burning of the finger to bring good fortune.(64) But this is to confuse the greater and lesser [vehicles]. Nanshan (Daoxuan 596-4667), citing the four-part and five-part [Vinayas], says that suicide is sthulatyaya (a major transgression). Furthermore he cites the ten-recension [Vinaya] to say that inflicting injury on the self or mutilating the body, which includes cutting off the fingers, are all transgressions. Therefore suicide to attain deliverance is the transgression of murder. This is broadly what the text of the Hinayana Vinayas state. But, according to the Fanwang [jing], "if you do not burn your body then you are not a renunciant bodhisattva." This is approved in the commentaries on this precept [which state] that having attained the stage of the clan (xingdi, Sanskrit gotra-bhumi) one has the ability for this requirement.(65) The venerable Yijing (635-713) in his Jigui zhuan (Nanhai jigui neifa zhuan) says, "Burning the body is not fitting. Among all renunciates those who are commencing their studies want to be brave and keen. They consider burning the fingers as the practice of vigor (jingqin, Sanskrit, viriya) and the burning of the body as the production of great merit. Although they do occur in the sutras, such actions are for the laity who may offer their own bodies, not to mention any external possessions which they have. Renunciates, on the other hand should abide by the Vinaya. If they transgress the precepts then they have not correctly perceived their significance. Thus for Sarvasattvapriyadarsana [i.e., Bhaisyagururaja], who is classed as a lay person, to burn his arms et cetera, is considered perfectly permissible. Bodhisattvas may give up their sons and daughters, but bhiksus need not seek for sons and daughters to surrender:(66) And so on. But I would say that Yijing has made a false analysis, which is neither Hinayana nor Mahayana. If one sides with the Hinayana, how can one recognize Sarvasattvapriyadarsana? Likewise if one sides with the Mahayana how can one not cite the Fanwang jing, but perversely use the Hinayana Vinaya? Presumably he had not yet read the Fanwang jing! In recent times Master Cheng's Yaolan [i.e., Shishi yaolan (Essential Readings for Buddhists), comp. Daocheng, fl. 10 17, T.54.21271 also fails to cite the Fanwang jing. This is quite wrong and mistaken.(67) There follows a discussion of Hinayana versus Mahayana precepts, and then Congyi cites both passages from the Fanwang jing and Shouleng'yan jing to demonstrate that the practices of burning the body are justified and that Yijing and his kind are sadly mistaken to believe otherwise.(68) The mention of Yijing and his extraordinarily heartfelt attack on shao shen, from which Congyi merely extracts a few lines, may now help us to identify a very specific reason for the creation of part of the Shouleng'yan jing. Yijing returned to China after his peregrinations around India and the southern seas in 695. Although the Kaiyuan shijiao lu (Kaiyuan Catalogue of Buddhist Teachings)(69) states that his travel record, Nanhai jigui neifa zhuan (An Account of the Dharma Sent Back from the Southern Seas) was compiled between 700 and 710, there is evidence from within the text that Yijing must have completed it before 705. At the end of the text he sends his respects to "the worthies of the Great Zhou," Da Zhou.(70) The Zhou was of course the name of Empress Wu's dynasty, and it would not have been used after she abdicated on February 22, 705. Moreover, Wang Bangwei's recent study of the text confidently ascribes the text to 692, the year in which it was "sent back" to China.(71) We can be fairly sure then that the text was in circulation before the alleged translation of the Shouleng'yan jing. The last section of his work, which is only partly a travel diary and partly a discourse on the minutiae of the Vinaya, consists of a sustained attack on the illegitimacy of burning the body. We have seen his first line of attack above, and Yijing goes on to argue as follows. Human rebirth is hard to attain, and one should not give up the body before one has really begun to study.(72) Second, suicide is not permitted in the Vinaya.(73) The Buddha did not even permit castration but encouraged the "releasing of living beings" (e.g., releasing fish into ponds).(74) If one takes refuge in this practice, one contravenes the teachings of the Buddha, although this does not apply to those who follow the bodhisattva path without being ordained to the Vinaya.(75) Those who burn their bodies are guilty of a sthulatyaya offense, but those who then imitate them are guilty of parajika (since their intention is worse).(76) There were suicides in India at the time of the Buddha, and he declared them "heretics" (waidao).(77) The rest of his argument, which takes some seven frames of Taisho text, can be summed up quite succinctly as follows: my teachers were all wise and virtuous men; they never burned their bodies and they told me it was wrong.(78) We should not suppose that Yijing's diary was merely a curiosity to his Tang audience; where earlier Chinese pilgrims had been keen to seek out new and better texts from India, Yijing's purpose was to find out exactly what Indian Buddhists did and to relay that knowledge to an expectant audience in China.(79) The fact that Indian Buddhists did not burn themselves would have been a matter of no small impact on his contemporaries, and we have already seen that his words continued to be cited hundreds of years later. A response to this unsettling news was not long in coming. The Shouleng'yan jing purports to be a translation by the otherwise unknown Paramiti or Pramiti (Banlamidi) dating from the twenty-third day, fifth month, first year of Shenlong (June 18, 705) at Zhizhi si in Guangzhou.(80) According to another catalog of Buddhist scriptures, the XU gujin yijing tuji,(81) the man who assisted this alleged monk was a certain ex-official of Empress Wu's court called Fang Rong, toward whom the finger of suspicion has pointed ever since.(82) Internal evidence from the text would suggest that the part of Yijing's text that attacks shao shen would have been known to him, since it was presented to Empress Wu. Fang is described as "a disciple of the Bodhisattva Vinaya:' which might mean nothing more than that he had received those particular precepts, hardly uncommon for laymen in the Tang. But, suppose that he had some particular interest in the validity of those precepts that he saw as being under attack from Yijing's work? What if he knew monks who themselves were missing the odd finger, again hardly unlikely in the Tang, when even elite exegetes such as Fazang (643-712) burned off their fingers?(83) Burning the body was always on somewhat shaky ground doctrinally speaking, and Yijing's polemic attacked the practice from many angles. But, what could better answer Yijing's charge that the Buddha never said that monks could burn their bodies than the creation of a text in which the Buddha says "a monk may burn his body"? Also, consider where in the text of the Shouleng'yan jing the passage occurs--in the middle of the Buddha's discussion of Vinaya. Is this not the first place a Vinaya master would turn when presented with a newly "translated-sutra? Moreover, there is additional evidence that other parts of the Shouleng'yan jing were composed as a direct response to statements made in Yijing's work. I can hardly claim to have made a close comparative study of the two texts, but there are a number of lines that immediately leap off the page. Here, for example, is a quotation from Yijing: "As to fine and rough silk, these are allowed by the Buddha. What is the use of laying down rules for the strict prohibition of silk? ... Such a rule may be classed with the forcible prohibitions that have never been laid down (by the Buddha)."(84) And, "If one attempts to protect every being there will be no means of maintaining oneself, and one has to give up life without reason. A proper consideration shows that such a practice is not right. There are some who do not eat ghee or cream, do not wear leather boots, and do not put on any silk or cotton. All these are in the same category as above."(85) Here is the Shouleng'yan jing: "If bhiksus do not wear garments made of silk from the East, boots of leather and furs and refrain from consuming milk, cream and butter, they will really be liberated from the worldly; after paying their former debts, they will not transmigrate in the three realms of existence."(86) Yijing says that monks may eat the three pure kinds of meat.(87) The Buddha, speaking in the Shouleng'yan jing, says, "You should know that those who eat meat, although their minds may be open and realize a semblance of samadhi, are but great raksasas who, after this life will sink back into the bitter ocean of samsara and cannot be my disciples."(88) So, the section on morality in the Shouleng'yan jing seems to have been composed in part as a response to definitive opinions expressed on the Vinaya by Yijing, which occurred in a text available to the forgers. On the basis of the close textual relationship between the two texts I conclude that the lines relating to burning the body were most likely placed in the text of the Shouleng'yan jing in direct response to Yijing's attack on the practice. The vindication of shao shen by the Buddha himself was an unanswerable argument that would have effectively topped any of Yijing's objections. USE OF THE TEXTS BY AUTOCREMATORS The fact that the Fanwang jing and Shouleng'yan jing were directly referred to by self-immolators themselves helps us to understand why they were originally composed. The Song Tiantai master Zhili, whom we have already encountered in the context of praying for rain, used the two passages to justify his own proposed autocremation. In 1017 he vowed to burn himself alive and to attain rebirth in the Pure Land on completion of the fahua repentance.(89) He did not do so, being eventually persuaded to "remain in the world" by a series of letters written to him by the well-known Song literatus Yang Yi (974-1020), who also memorialized the emperor, asking him to persuade Zhili to change his mind.(90) Yang Yi's letters and Zhili's replies are preserved in Siming zunzhe jiaoxing lu.(91) In the reply to Yang Yi's first letter Zhili explicitly cites both the Fanwang jing and the Shouleng'yan jing as justification for his actions.(92) Self-immolators in biographies of eminent monks very rarely get to speak in their own voices, and there is little discussion of motivation or justification other than the formulaic "wish to imitate the Medicine King." This letter by Zhili is probably as close to the mind of a self-immolator as it is possible for us to get. And it indicates that apocryphal texts affected the motivations and beliefs not just of the less talented members of the monastic community but also of the scholastic elite. The Shouleng'yan jing could be used to justify autocremation, but did it effectively silence critics of self-immolation? Well, perhaps not. As noted above, Daocheng was unwilling to admit the legitimacy of self-immolation (she shen) in his Shishi yaolan some three hundred years after the creation of the apocryphon. In the Ming, the eminent cleric Zhuhong wrote an extremely critical piece on the practice of burning the body, contained in his Zheng'e ji (Rectification of Errors, 1614). It is titled Huo fen (Burning Alive). There are demonic people (moren) who pour on oil, stack up firewood and burn their bodies while still alive. Those who look on are overawed, and consider it the attainment of enlightenment. This is erroneous. In the thoughts of all humans there is attachment, and this is where Mara arises. If one has a single moment of thought of admiration for the wonder of this burning while alive, then before this [thought of] admiration is complete, Mara enters the mind and one is no longer self-aware. As they sit upright in the midst of the fire, it seems as if they have no suffering. They do not realize it is Mara's power which aids them. They temporarily attain suchness, but when their life-force is exhaused Mara departs. Then they are miserable and in pain which is quite indescribable. For hundreds of kalpas and thousands of rebirths they are always in the midst of flames, screaming and waiting as they run. So that they are dead ghosts to whom one should give compassionately. Some might say, "The sutras extol the Medicine King who burned his body, so what of that?" Alas! How can a green insect surpass [a bird with] golden wings? When the Medicine King burned his body, the radiance was illuminating. It lasted for many kalpas and extended to the ten directions. But these people who burn themselves alive, their light is negligible. For the followers of Guifeng [Guifeng Zongmi 780-8411 burning the arm in praise of the dharma is not permitted by the pure precepts, so how much worse for burning the living body?(93) This is what Wenling calls "a cause of suffering returning as an effect of suffering."(94) CONCLUSION Both the Fanwang jing and the Shouleng'yan jing were popular and influential texts. I have merely indicated some ways in which they distinctively shaped Chinese Buddhism even many centuries after their composition. Chinese monks and nuns continued to burn their bodies throughout the imperial and republican periods, but one particular form of burning, that done at ordination, became orthodox, ironically enough on the basis of texts that were not orthodox at all. I have suggested some ways in which text and practice were locked in a cycle of production, and in doing so have, I hope, shed a little light on some aspects of Chinese Buddhist history that have hitherto remained obscure. On the actual production of these texts I have been able to add tittle, other than to indicate what seems at least a plausible motive for the inclusion of those very few lines in the Shouleng'yan jing that relate to the burning of the body. Moreover, while burning practices were "apocryphal" in the medieval period, there was nothing odd or unprecedented about burning the body, due to the existence of non-Buddhist analogues: moxibustion and burning the body to bring rain. The concept of "apocryphal practice" as I have defined and applied it in this study seems to be a workable hermeneutical tool that might be applied to other investigations of Sinitic Buddhist practices and texts. I hope that others more skilled and more patient than myself might like to apply it to other practices and other texts. Parts of this article were presented to the China Workshop at the University of California, Los Angeles, in May 1997 and at the Needham Research Institute, Cambridge, in September 1997. My thank to the participants of both these seminars, and to Robert Buswell, William Bodiford, and T. H. Barrett who commented on earlier drafts of the article. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own (1) In December 1983, the Chinese Buddhist Association (Zhongguo fojiao xiehui), which is nominally in charge of the religion in the People's Republic, declared that burning the head at ordination was "a ritual Practice which was not of Buddhist origin, and since it was damaging to the health was to be abolished forthwith" (Wang Jinglin, Zhongguo gudai siyuan shenghuo [Xi'an Xi'an xinhua yinshuchang, 1991]), p. 39. It remains to be seen whether this has had any discernible influence on ordination practice in China. (2) See Taisho shinshu daizokyo, ed. Takakusu Junjiro et al., 100 vols. (Tokyo: Taisho Issaikyo Kankokai, 1924-32), 1494; cited as T hereafter, with volume, text, page number, register, and line number given in that order. Chinese characters for texts, personal names, and technical terms appear in a glossary in the appendix. (3) T.945. (4) The term "apocryphal text" and the translation of the tides of apocryphal texts ("The Book of ...") is consistent with that used throughout Robert E. Buswell, Jr., ed., Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990). (5) There are of course exceptions, and notable among them is Antonino Forte. See, e.g., his Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century: Inquiry into the Nature, Authors and Function of the Tunhuang Document S 6502, Followed by an Annotated Translation (Napoli: Instituto Universitario Orientale, 1976). (6) See my "Is Self-Immolation a `Good Practice'?: Yongming Yanshou's Endorsement of Relinquishing the Body in His Wanshan tonggui ji" (paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, San Francisco, November 25, 1997). For the passage in question, see Wanshan tonggui ji (Treatise on the Common End of the Myriad Good Practices), T48.2017.969b26-c19. (7) The biographical sources for self-immolators are many, but significant collections may be found in the following: Gaoseng zhuan (Biographies of Eminent Monks), comp. Huijiao, ca. 531, T.50.2059; Xu gaoseng zhuan (Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks), comp. Daoxuan, preface dated 645, T.501060; Song gaoseng zhuan (Song Dynasty Biographies of Eminent Monks), comp. Zanning, 988, T.50.2061; Bu xu gaoseng zhuan (Supplementary Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks), comp. Minghe, Xuzang jing (Continued Canon), 150 vols. (Taipei: Xinwen feng, 1968-78; reprint of Dai Nihor Zokuzokyo, Kyoto: Zokyo shoin, 1905-12), 134.320b-326a, cited as "XZJ" hereafter Xin xu gaoseng zhuan (New Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks), Dazang jing bubian (Buddhist Canon: Supplementary Section), (Taipei: Xinwen feng, 1994--86), vol. 27, cited as "Supplement" hereafter Biqiuni zhuan (Biographies of Nuns, ca. 501. T.50-2063); Fayuan zhulin (A Grove of Pearls in a Dharma Garden), comp. Daoshi, preface dated 669, T.53.2122; Fozu tongji (Comprehensive Account of the Buddhas and Patriarchs), comp. Zhipan (active 1258-69), T.49.2035; Siming zunzhe jiaoxing lu (Record of the Teachings and Practices of the Worthy of Siming), comp. Zongxiao, 1151-ca. 1214, T.46.1937; Fahua lingyan zhuan (Biographies which Attest the Miraculous Power of the Lotus), comp. Liaoyuan, Do date for text or compiler, but the title appears in a catalogue of 1094, XZJ.134.387-407; Fahua jing chiyan ji (Accounts of Testimonies to the Lotus), re-edited by Zhou Kefu, 1644-61, XZJ. 134.449-95. See my forthcoming dissertation, "Burning for the Buddha. Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism," for a discussion of these sources and a fuller account of the history of self-immolation in Chinese Buddhism. (8) My term "apocryphal practice" is one that owes an obvious debt to the term "apocryphal word" coined by Lewis Lancaster. See his paper, "The Question of `Apocryphal' Words in Chinese Buddhist Texts" (delivered at the Annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Atlanta, November 24, 1986). (9) The date of the first complete translation was 286 C.E.; see Erik Zurcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China (Leiden: Brill, 1959), pp. 69-70, although Buddhist autocremation appears not to be attested before the early fifth century. (10) There is some evidence that the practice was not unknown in India, but a fuller discussion of this must perforce be left to my colleagues in Indian Buddhism. (11) On the Fanwang jing, see Paul Groner, "The Fan-wang ching and Monastic Discipline in Japanese Tendai: A Study of Annen's `Futsu jubosatsukai koshaku,'" in Buswell, ed., pp. 251-90, and the scholarship cited therein. On the Souleng'yan jing, see Paul Demieville's masterly footnote in Le Concile de Lhasa: une controverse sur le quietisme entre bouddhistes de l'Inde et de la Chine au VIIIe siecle de l'ere chretienne (Paris: College de France, Institut des hautes etudes chinoises, 1952), Pp. 42-52; and Mochizuki Shinko, Bukkyo kyoten seiritsu shiron (Kyoto: Hozokan, 1946), pp. 493-509. Robert Buswell, in The Formation of Ch'an Ideology in China and Korea The Vajrasamadhi Sutra a Buddhist Apocryphon (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 114, n. 125, notes a dissertation by Ronald Epstein that attempts to prove an Indian origin for the text. I have not seen this, but I would say that the presence of a recommendation of burning the body spoken by the Buddha would alone argue for the apocryphal nature of the text. (12) On the date of the Fanwang jing, see Groner, p. 255. See Jacques Gernet, "LA-s suicides par le feu chez les bouddhistes Chinois du [V.sup.e] au [X.sup.e] siecle," in Melanges publies par l'Institut des hautes etudes chinoises (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1960), 2:527-58, on this "first wave" of autocremation. (13) T.30.1581.916b. See Ono Hodo, Daijo kaikyo no kenkyu (Tokyo: Risosha, 1954), p. 271. (14) T.15.639.598a-599c. See Jean Filliozat. "La mort voluntaire par la fen et la tradition bouddhique indienne," Journal Asiatique, 251, no. 1 (1963): 21-51, The passage from the Lotus Sutra that was so inspirational is Miaofa lianfula jing, T.9.262.53b, trans, in Leon Hurvitz, Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma: Translated from the Chinese of Kumarujiva (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), p. 295. (15) T.24.1484.1006a. (16) T.19.945.131c-132c. Compare Charles Luk's translation, The Surangama Sutra (London: Rider, 1966), pp. 151-57. (17) T.19.945.132b. Mamai (Sanskrit yava-tandula), literally, "horse-wheat." The reference is to an incident when King Agnidatta invited the Buddha to spend the summer retreat in Veranja. There was a famine, and so the Buddha and 500 bhiksus survived on horse fodder for three months. See Shanjianlu piposha (Samantapasadika), T.24.1462.706a-707a, trans. in R V. Bapat and A. Hirakawa, Shan-chien-p'i-po-sha; a Chinese version by Sanghabhadra of Samantapasadika (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1970), p. 128. (18) An excellent example of this would be the "single practice" of charity (dana) recommended in the Xiangfia jueyi jing (The Book of Resolving Doubts Concerning the Semblance Dharma), a Chinese apocryphon particularly associated with the Three Stages sect. See Mark Edward Lewis, "The Suppression of the Three Stages Sect: Apocrypha as a Political Issue," in Buswell, ed. (n. 4 above), p. 217. (19) This topic is given a fuller treatment in my forthcoming dissertation, but see, e.g., Isabelle Robinet, "Metamorphosis and Deliverance from the Corpse in Taoism," History of Religions 19 (1979): 37-70; and Anna Seidel, "Post-mortem Immortality; or, the Taoist Resurrection of the Body," in Gilgul, ed. S. Shaked, D. Shulman, and G. G. Stroumsa (Leiden: Brill, 1987). (20) A satirical view of a late Qing ordination scene may be seen illustrated in Dianshizhai huabao, set. 2 (Guangdong: Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 1983), 3:51b-52a. I am indebted to Meng Yue of the University of California, LA)s Angeles, for this reference. (21) J. J. M. de Groot, Le Code du Mahayana en Chine, son Influence sur la Vie Monacale et sur le Monde Laique (Amsterdam: J. Muller, 1893); Johannes Prip-Moller, Chinese Buddhist Monasteries: Their Plan and Its Function as a Setting for Buddhist Monastic Life (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1937; reprint, 1967); Holmes Welch. The Practice of Chinese Buddhism 1900-1950 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967); Robert Buswell, The Zen Monastic Experience: Buddhist Practice in Contemporary Korea (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1992). (22) Matsuo Kenji, cited in personal communication from Jacqueline Stone, March 11, 1997. (23) De Groot, Le Code du Mahayana, p. 210. (24) Section titled "Brulure du crane" in ibid., p. 217. (25) Prip-Moller, p. 318. (26) Ibid., p. 319. (27) De Groot, Le Code A Mahayana, p. 218. (28) Prip-Moller, p. 318. (29) De Groot's account does not mention moxa specifically, but what he describes as being placed on the head can only be moxa. It was clearly not incense. (30) De Groot, Le Code du Mahayana, pp. 218-19. (31) See Lu Gwei-Djen, Celestial Lancets: A History and Rationale of Acupuncture and Moxa (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 291-92, for the etymology of the word "moxa." (32) An illustration may be found in Lu, p. 172. (33) Buswell, The Zen Monastic Experience (n. 21 above), p. 142. (34) Ibid., p. 171. (35) See the diagram of moxibustion points in ibid., pp. 173-74. (36) Ibid., pp. 175-76 for these and earlier references. (37) Ibid., p. 177. See also the illustrations reproduced from Tang moxibustion texts in Guo Shiyu, Zhongguo zhenjiu ski (Tianjin: Tianjin kexue ji shu chubanshe, 1989), pp. 119, 121-22. (38) See Raoul Birnbaum, The Healing Buddha (Boulder, Colo.: Shambala, 1979). (39) Wulin dazhaoqing lusi zhi (Gazetteer of the Great Zhaoqing Vinaya Monastery in Wulin), comp. Zhuanyu, preface dated 1742 (reprinted as vol. 16 of Zhongguo fosi zhi [Taipei: Mingwen shuju, 1980]), p. 253. (40) See Timothy Brook, Geographical Sources of Ming-Qing History (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 1988), pp. 49-466. (41) XZJ.60.277a and W.60.422b-c. (42) Han Changli wenji, jiaozhu (Annotated Complete Works of Han Changli [Han Yu]), ed. Ma Qichang (Shanghai: Gudian wenxue chubanshe, 1957), p. 615. See the discussion of this text and its repercussions in Charles Hartmen. Han Yu and the T'ang Search for Unify (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 94-86; 135; 139-40; 158; 251; 258; 304, n. 166; 325, n. 58. Compare the translation by Homer H. Dubs, "Han Yu and the Buddha's Relic: An Episode in Medieval Chinese Religion," Review of Religion 11 (1946): 11-12, which misleadingly overtranslates the characters shoo ding as "set fire [to incense] on the tops of their heads [in becoming monks]." (43) For accounts relating to 819, see Tang Huiyao (Essentials of the Tang), comp. Wang Pu [961 ] (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1955), 47/838; Au Tang shu (Old History of the Tang), comp. Liu Xu [945] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), 160/4198, 15/466; and Hartman, pp. 94-85. For 873, see the biography of Li Wei in Xin Tang shu (New History of the Tang), comp. Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi [10601 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), 181/5354. (44) Wudai huiyao (Essentials of the Five Dynasties), comp. Wang Pu (922-82) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1978), 12/202; Au Wudai shi (Old History of the Five Dynasties), comp. Xue Juzheng (912-81), (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1976), 115/1530. (45) This sounds very similar to techniques used for burning of the finger as witnessed in twentieth-century China. See Welch (n. 21 above), pp. 324-25. Compare this with the slightly different technique used in Korea, as described by Buswell in The Zen Monastic Experience (n. 21 above), p. 196. (46) Zizhi tongjian jinzhu (A Comprehensive Mirror for the Aid of Government; with Contemporary Annotation) (Taipei: Taiwan Shangwuyin shuguan, 1966), pp. 292, 789. (47) De Groot, Le Code du Mahayana (n. 21 above), p. 210. (48) Prip-Moller (n. 21 above), p. 317; and J. J. M. de Groot, Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China (Amsterdam: J. Mallet, 1903), p. 110. The edict in question is at Qing huidian shili (Essential Legislation of the Qing with Sub-statutes) (1899; reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1991), 501.793a (49) The seven assemblies are traditionally given as (1) bhiksu (biqiu) fully ordained monks, (2) bhiksuni (biqiuni fully ordained nuns), (3) siksamana (shichamona) nuns preparing for full ordination who follow only six of the novice's ten precepts, (4) sramanera (shami) male novices, (5) Sramanerika (shamini) female novices, (6) upasaka (youposai) laymen who took the five precepts, (7) upasika (youpoyi) laywomen who took the five precepts. The category of siksamana seems not to have existed in Chinese Buddhism and was replaced by other categories, such as tongxing (monastic laborer). (50) T50.2062.907c. (51) Fozu tongji (Comprehensive Account of the Buddhas and Patriarchs), comp. Zhipan (fl. 1258-69), T49.2035.207a; and Shimen zhengtong (True Record of the Buddhist Order) 1237] by Zongjian, XZJ. 130.834a. (52) XZJ. 107.9c. See Hasebe Yukei, Min Shin Bukkyo kyodanshi kenkyu (Kyoto: Dohosha Shuppan, 1993), pp. 192-215. Hanyue's dharma name was Fazang, but he is more commonly known by his hao in order to distinguish him from his more famous predecessor. See the ordination manual in question, Quanjie zhengfan (The Correct Method for Transmitting the Precepts), XZJ. 107.413-14. (53) Lingfeng zonglun (Lingfeng's Discussion of the Teachings), Supplement 23, 477-97. See Shen-yen, Mingmo Zhungguo fojiao zhi yanjiu [translation of Minmatsu Chugoku bukkyo no kenkyu] (Taipei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1988), pp. 265-67, for the information reproduced in tabular form. (54) See Edward Schafer, "Ritual Exposure in Ancient China," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 14 (1957): 130-84; and Alvin P. Cohen, "Coercing the Rain Deities in Ancient China," History of Religions 17 (1978): 244-465. (55) Hou Han Shu (History Of the LAW Han), comp. Fan Ye (398-445) (Beijing: Zhonghua shiyu, 1965), 81/2684. (56) Ibid., 81/2694. (57) Song shi (History of the Song), comp. Tuotuo et a]. (Beijing and Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1977), 5/87. (58) See Taiping yulan, by Li Fang [9831, ed. Wang Yunwu (1935; reprint Taipei: Yangwu yinshuguan, 1980), 35.8b. (59) Zunshi was himself Do stranger to body burning, as I noted above. (60) In present-day Zhejiang. (61) Siming zunzhe jiaoxing IN (Record of the Teachings and Practices of the Worthy of Siming), comp. Zongxiao 1151-ca. 1214, T.46.1937.8576 14-19. Prefect Su can be identified as one Su Qi. See Siming tujing, ed. Zhang Jin [1169], 12. 1 a (reprinted in Song Yuan Siming liuzhi, in the series Song-Yuan difangzhi sanshiqi zhong [Taipei: Guotai wen hua shiye youxian gongsi, 19801). My thanks to Bruce Rusk of the University of California Los Angeles, for this information. (62) Yudi jisheng, comp. Wang xiangzhi (Beijing: Zhonghua shiyu, 1992). (63) Supplement 27.3036-304a. (64) Compare Fahua jing shu, by Jizang (549-623), T.34.1721.620c26-27. (65) The second stage of the bodhisattva career, at which the practitioner determines his future path, performing either the practices of the sravaka, pratyekabuddha, or bodhisattva. Texts in which this stage appears are discussed in Hirakawa Akira. A History of Indian Buddhism: From Sakyamuni to Early Mahayana tram. and ed. Paul Groner (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990), pp. 305-6. (66) This is a paraphrase of Yijing's text; cf. T.54.2125.231a28-b9. See Junjiro Takakusu, Record of the Buddhist Religion as Practised in India and the Malay Archipelago (A.D. 671-695) by I-tsing (London: Clarendon, 1898), p. 195. (67) Fahua jing san da bu buzhu, M. 54.157b-c. (68) XZJ.54.157c. (69) T.55.2154.569a19. (70) T.54.2125.233c24. (71) Wang Bangwei, Nanhai jigui neifa zhuan jiaozhu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1995), p. 159, n. 17. (72) T.54.2125.231b14-17; English translation in Takakusu, p. 196. (73) T.54.2125.231b23-24; Takakusu, p. 197. (74) T.54.2125.231b25-26; Takakusu, p. 197. (75) T.54.2125.231b26-28; Takakusu, p. 197. (76) T.54.2125.231c3-4; Takakusu, pp. 197-98. (77) T.54.2125.231c101-12; Takakusu, p. 198. (78) T.54.2125.231c-233c; Takakusu, pp. 198-215. (79) Yijing was, it seems, not above doctoring his words to suit the political climate in China. See I H. Barrett, "Did I-ching Go to India?-paper delivered at the annual meeting of the United Kingdom Buddhist Studies Association, London, June 6, 1997. (80) Kaiyuan shijiao lu, T.55.2154.371c28. (81) T.55.2152.371c. (82) Fang Rong, as a loyal servant of Empress Wu, has suffered the unfortunate fate of being almost entirely erased from the official historical record. However, his traces can be found in Buddhist material. In addition to the catalog entries cited in Mochizuki (n. 11 above), pp. 493-509, see also the biography of Wei Que in Song Gaoseng zhuan, T.50.2060.738b, which also indicates that Fang was up to some distinctly shady business. (83) All biographies of Fazang are consistent on this point; see, e.g., T.50.2054.280b 11-12, 283b10,284a1-2. (84) T.54.2125.212c22-26; English translation in Takakusu, p. 58. (85) T.54.2125.213a3-4; Takakusu, p. 58. (86) T.19.945.132a22-24; English translation in Luk (n. 16 above), p. 154. (87) T.54.2125.213a6; Takakusu. p. 58. (88) T.19.945.132a14-16; Luk, p. 153. (89) Siming zunzhe jiaoxing lu, T.46-1937.858a6-16. (90) Chan Chi-wah, "Chih-li (960-1028) and the Formation of Orthodoxy in the Sung T'ien-t'ai Tradition of Buddhism" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1993), pp. 242-44. Yang Yi's biography is at Song shi, 305/10079. (91) T.46.1937.898a-901a. (92) T.46.1937.899c14-16. (93) Zhuhong claimed lineal descent from Zongmi through the Huayan school. (94) Supplement 23.291a-b. Wenling is Jiehuan (n.d.), a Song commentator on the Lotus Sutra. I have not traced the source of the quotation. APPENDIX GLOSSARY ai ai rong jiu Banlamidi biqiu biqiuni Biqiuni zhuan Bu xu gaoseng zhuan Bukkyo kyoten seiritsu shiron chang kuai Chaoyuan Chengdu Chuanshou santan hong jiefayi chujia pusa Chunqiu fan lu Ciyun xingye ji Congyi Da Zhou Dai Feng Daijo kaikyo no kenkyu Daocheng Daoshi Daoxuan Dianshizhai huabao Duti Eisai Ennin Fahua jing chiyan ji Fahua jing san da bu buzhu Fahua jing shu Fahua lingyan zhuan fahua Fang Rong Fanwang jing pusa jie lueshu Fanwang jing pusa jie zhu Fanwang jing Fayuan zhulin Fazang fen wu Fozu tongji Fozu tongji Fuzhou Gaoseng zhuan gua deng guanding guang ming chan Guangzhou gui yuan Guifeng Zongmi Guo Shiyu Gushan Han Changli wenji jiaozhu Han Yu Hangzhou Hanyue hao Hasebe Yukei Hongzan Hou Han shu Hou Zhou ji Hu Sanxing Huijiao Huiyin Huo fen Jiehuan Jigui zhuan (Nanhai jigui neifia zhuan) jingqin Jiu Tang shu Jiu Wudai shi jiu jiuxiang Jizang Kaiyuan shijiao lu kuai gan Li Fang Li Wei lian zhi Liang Fu Liaoyuan Lingfeng zonglun Liu Xu longyan lou Lun fo gu biao lu Ma Qichang Mamai Min Shin Bukkyo kyodanshi kenkyu Ming gaoseng zhuan Minghe Mingmo Zhongguo fojiao zhi yanjiu Mochizuki Shinko mofa mojen Nanhai jigui neifa zhuan jiaozhu Nanshan Ono Hodo Ouyang Xiu Pusa dichi jing Qing huidian shili Quanjie zhengfan ran roushen deng ranxiang Sakugen san bao shami shamini Shanjianlu piposha shao ding shao shen she shen Sheng-yen Shenlong shichamona Shimen zhengtong Shishi yaolan Shizong Shouleng'yan jing Siming tujing Siming zunzhe jiaoxing lu Siming Song gaoseng zhuan Song Qi Song shi Song Taizong Song-Yuan difangzhi sanshiqi zhong Song-Yuan Siming liuzhi Su Qi Taiping yulan Tang Huiyao Tiantai Tianzhu chanzhu tongxing tou hui Tuotuo waidao Wang Bangwei Wang Jinglin Wang Pu Wang Yunwu Wanshan tonggui ji Wei Que weili daoshuo jie Wenling Wudai huiyao Wulin dazhaoqing lusi zhi xiang Xiangfa jueyi jing Xin Tang shu Xin xu gaoseng zhuan si ji Xin xu gaoseng zhuan xingdi Xingye ji Xu gaoseng zhuan Xu gujin yijing tuji Xue Juzheng yonbi Yang Yi yaowang Yijing Yongming Yanshou Yongquan si youposai youpoyi Yuan Yuanxian Yudi jisheng Yuedeng sanmei jing Yunqi si Zanning Zhang Jin Zhejiang zheng guang Zheng'e ji ZhLide (sometimes written) Zhili Zhipan Zhixu Zhiyi zhizhi si Zongguo fojiao xiehui Zhongguo gudai siyuan shenghuo Zhongguo zhenjiu shi Zbou Kefu Zhou li Zhou zhuchi fenxiu Zhuhong zhuo bi Zizhi tongjian jinzhu Zizhi tongjian Zongjian Zongxiao Zunshi Zuo zhuan