Liying Kuo
EFEO
The Sūtra entitled Buddhoṣṇīṣa vijayā dhāraṇī arrived in China in the second part of the 7th century. Its diffusion and popularization owe much to the legend of a Kashimirian monk, Buddhapālita, said to have come to the Wutai (shan) mountains in order to see Mañjuśrī. His story is told in a preface of the sūtra attached to the version said to have been translated into Chinese by Buddhapālita himself. That story and the sūtra itself are often found engraved on the dhāraṇī pillars from the 8th century on. They are also painted in a few caves in Dunhuang/Mogao. In this paper, I shall first review the textual evidence of the association of Mañjuśrī and the Wutai mountains and the Buddhapālita story itself, then the related paintings in Mogao and try to find a political and religious background for their invention and diffusion.
(Presented in the 2012 Chulalongkorn-EFEO International Conference on Buddhist Studies : Imagination, Narrative, and Localization, 6-7 January 2012, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, organized by Faculty of Arts and Institute of Thai Studies, Chulalongkorn University In conjunction with The Buddhist Studies Group, EFEO)