Mediating the Power of Buddhas

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Mediating the Power of Buddhas
By: Wallis, Glenn

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Author: Wallis, Glenn
Format: Paperback

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Ritual of the Manjusrimulakalpa
Mediating the Power of Buddhas offers a fascinating analysis of the seventh-century ritual manual, the Manjusrimulakalpa. This medieval text is intended to reveal the path into a ritual universe where the power of a buddha abides. Author Glenn Wallis traces the strategies of the Manjusrimulakalpa to enable its committed reader to perfect the promised ritual, uncovering what conditions must be met for ritual practice to succeed and what personal characteristics practitioners must possess in order to realize the ritual intentions of the Buddhist community. The manual itself was written at a key point in Buddhist history, one when Hindu forms of practice were still imitated and on the cusp of the shift from Mahayana to Vajrayana (or Tantric) Buddhism. In addition, the Manjusrimulakalpa presents a rich compendium of Buddhist life in an earlier era, containing information on a variety of its readers' concerns: astrology, astronomy, medicine and healing, ritual practice, iconography, devotion, and meditation.

Mediating the Power of Buddhas, Glenn Wallis, SUNY, Paperback, 265 pages, $29.95

Glenn Wallis is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Georgia.

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1

Aims 1

Methods 5

The Text: Manjusrimulakalpa 9

The Ritual 23

The Source of Power: The Assembly (sannipata) 55

Cosmology 59

Mmk 1: vision and cult 61

The text as cult image 67

Revelation and transmission 68

The Refraction of Power: The Cult Image (pata) 87

The pata as image and animated object 87

Creation of the cult object (patavidhana) 91

The Empowered Practitioner (sadhaka) 127

The practitioner in the text 127

The sadhaka 128

Epithets and space 129

Summary and Conclusion 159

Appendices 171

Notes 229

Bibliography 251

Index 259

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