More importantly, Buddhist manuscripts from medieval South Asia have the dharma relic at the ends of their texts before the donor colophons. Whether it is a doctrinal text like the AsP or an apotropaic text like the Pañcarakṣā sūtra, this dharma verse appears in the same manner regardless of the doctrinal affiliations. In fact, this verse is found not only in illustrated manuscripts of the Mahāyāna sūtras but also in non-illustrated manuscripts of various Buddhist texts, including tantras, such as the Heruka tantra,40 the Abhidhānottara,41 and the Guhyasamāja,42 and ritual manuals, such as the Sādhanasamuccaya.43 If the Buddha’s teaching contained in any of these manuscripts is to be understood as the Buddha’s dharma body, it seems rather redundant to have this dharma verse added at the end of each manuscript. The inclusion of the dharma relic in Buddhist book production seems to affirm a book’s status as a physical container of the Buddha’s true relic, that is, his teaching. Its presence ultimately contributes to a book’s qualification as a Buddhist cultic object par excellence.
Just as the inscription of the dharma verse on an image is often paired with a donor inscription, a donor colophon often follows the dharma verse in a manuscript. Although this configuration becomes rather formulaic, the motivation behind such pairing of the dharma relic and the donor colophon might have been to increase the religious efficacy of the donation, be it an image or a manuscript. The dharma verse also marks the end of a text, as if sealing the text with a magical, invincible guard. In this regard, the dharma verse is not too different from dhāraṇīs and protective mantras. It gets classified as one of the “Five Great Dhāraṇīs” in the Tibetan tradition.44
The rigorous use of the dharma verse in manuscript production also affirms a book’s cultic status as a physical container of a complete unit of the Buddha’s teaching. Perhaps with the advent of so many different types of text relics, such as seals and slabs with the dharma verse and other dhāraṇīs, the status of a Buddhist manuscript was in need of reconfirmation as an object of worship by itself. Adopting the ways of using the dharma relics in the production of sacred objects, such as images and stūpas, could have been a good strategy to this end. While the seals and the slabs with the dharma verse on them were frequently deposited inside a stūpa and sometimes in an image, the illustrated Buddhist manuscripts from medieval India and Nepal were rarely put inside stūpas. They remained in the custody of monastic communities and of families if they were nonmonastic productions, often serving as cultic foci. As we will see at the end of this study, a thirteenth-century manuscript of the AsP has survived in worship until today, partly thanks to the hidden and not-so-hidden signs of piety that have been accumulated on the body of a manuscript. These ample signs of piety contributed to the survival of the Buddhist book cult in South Asia.
A BOOK AS A CULTIC OBJECT
In the context of the South Asian Buddhist book cult, a book consistently tries to retain its identity as an object of worship while its production and cult are modeled after those of stūpas and images. Perhaps there was a concern for losing its cultic status and slipping into the realm of the dharma relics, since the Buddhist book cult and the cult of the dharma relic are quite similar in terms of acknowledging the importance of the materiality of the text. In fact, the fusion of the two did happen and Buddhist books did slip into the realm of relics, as seen in the Tibetan practice of depositing manuscripts inside stūpas and images.45 The tradition of the Buddhist book cult, however, did not disappear. It survives today in Nepal in the Golden Temple with the worship of a thirteenth-century Prajñāpāramitā manuscript. I think the cult’s survival attests to the cultic power of a book.
Although I draw a parallel comparison between the dharma relic–donor colophon formula in a manuscript and the dharma relic–donor inscription sequence on an image, a book occupies a special place in the sphere of Buddhist cultic objects. In terms of its cultic potential, a book may be even more powerful than any other cultic object, for it embodies the paradox of the absent presence through the interplay between the visibility and the invisibility of that presence. It is important to remember that a book as an object presents a very dynamic spatial structure in regards to the definition of inside and outside. As a material object, a book is a collection of many movable parts, that is, palm-leaf folios, which can be flipped and turned. There is a sense of inside and outside, but the sense of space in a book is more fluid and flexible than in a stūpa or in an image. It is not as confined.
One could open a book and leave the first two pages open during a ritual. Many traces of worship, such as drops of sandalwood paste and red vermillion paste, on the first two folios of many illustrated manuscripts suggest this. When a book is open to its last pages at the conclusion of a ritual, the dharma verse and the donor colophon are as visible as on an image with inscribed dharma relics. When a book is closed and put on a pedestal for worship, as represented in many steles and slabs surviving from eastern India (see fig. 1–4, web 1–2), the dharma verse and the donor colophon are completely hidden from view, just like a hidden dharma seal on an image and relic deposits in a stūpa.46 A book, then, is in itself a relic as a sacred text, and at the same time, it encases a true relic of the Buddha, his teachings written in beautiful letters. In other words, a book can be a relic and a reliquary simultaneously.
Although drawing heavily on other cultic trends of the time, especially the relic cult, the Buddhist book cult found its niche for patronage in medieval eastern India, thanks partly to its multilayered cultic potential. The realization of the innate spatial fluidity of its three-dimensional structure, perhaps similar to the ideas on space and time expressed in the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa, seems to have contributed to a book’s elevated status as the cultic object par excellence of the time. As we will see in subsequent chapters, the iconographic programs in the illustrated Buddhist manuscripts are often designed to emphasize the three-dimensional nature of a book as an object, and they help transform a manuscript into a physical container of the Buddha’s dharma body.
2
INNOVATIONS OF THE MEDIEVAL BUDDHIST BOOK CULT
Opening an illustrated manuscript of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā sūtra (AsP) now in the Asia Society, New York, we encounter six brilliantly painted panels on the first two pages (fig. 2–1).1 Four decorative bands divide each folio into three compartments, and a rectangular panel is placed in the middle of each section. The colorful painted panels shine like studded jewels against the earthy color of palm leaf, although the pigments used on these panels are not luminous. Despite their miniature size, each panel measuring only roughly 2 by 2 inches, the paintings’ presence is visually powerful and commands our attention. The sea of black letters seems a purposeful backdrop for these stunning pictures. Written in siddhamātṛkā script with very controlled and pronounced hooks on the bottom of each letter, the calligraphy presented in this manuscript also showcases the masterful skill of Ānanda, who wrote this manuscript. Ānanda was no ordinary scribe, as the colophon tells us: he was a dharmabhāṇaka (reciter or preacher of the doctrine) at the illustrious Nālandā monastery.2 Both the text and the images on these folios suggest that achieving outstanding visual quality was a main concern for the makers of this manuscript. Perhaps, the purpose of including images in a manuscript of a philosophical treaty like the AsP was just to embellish a book. Whoever commissioned a book of the Buddhist scripture would want it made beautifully, especially when the text explains the great merit one acquires from copying and worshipping the book, as in the AsP. Then, it seems reasonable to assume in the context of the Buddhist book cult that the paintings were added to increase the religious merit (puṇya)3 of the donor.
FIGURE 2-1Five folios (1v–2r, 299v–300r, 301v) from the AsP Ms (Ms