3 - Computing in the Humanities and Social Sciences

hierarchy of differentiated languages according to the supernatural entity they address
(Tambiah refers to research by Wimal Dissanayake, in Tambiah 1985: 20). It would be
well worth pursuing and deepening this line of investigation, also in other cultural
contexts. In any case, in the Japanese arena mantras were usually considered the
language of the Buddha, but it is not clear whether there were hierarchical differences
among them according to the level of the invisible presence they were used to
communicate with. The particular status of mantras in East Asia can also be inferred
from the symbolism traditionally associated with the first Buddhists who brought them
there.
The first people who propagated Buddhism in China were called dharmakathika or
dharmabhå√aka (Ch. fashi, Jp. hosshi). Mostly originary from Central Asia, one of the
principal crossroads of the ancient world, these Buddhist “missionaries” may have
made a strong impression in China (not always and not necessarily in a positive sense...)
also because of their mastery of several disciplines, their memory, the ease with which
they handled often abstruse doctrines, and the eloquence they displayed (Ujike 1984: 77-
81). The oldest Mahayana sutras present fashi as envoys of the Buddha, sacred people,
sometimes even as “living buddhas” (see for example the Lotus Sutra, chapter
“Hosshibon”). Ujike Kakushø has showed that those scriptures were influential to
establish a close relationship between these preachers and mantric expressions. Ujike
even argues that the conceptual core of dhåra√∆, as they are understood in East Asia,
may have been elaborated precisely by the fashi in China (Ujike 1984: 80).
In order to protect themselves fashi used charms and spells to summon the deities.
This practice is described in detail in the Daijikkyø (Ch. Daiji jing fasc. 5, T. 13 nr. 397).
Now, one of the possible ways to communicate with the deities is to speak their own
language. In fact, one of the skills that were originally defined as dhåra√∆ was the
capacity to understand the tongues of the deities (On this point, see in particular Daiji
jing fasc. 2, “Darani jizaiø bosatsu bon”). It was easy, thus, to see mantras as expressions
of a “foreign language”—the language of the supernatural world. This attitude was
later transmitted to Japan with the arrival of Buddhism (Ujike 1984: 86). It is perhaps
worth noting that, in the collective imaginary of China and Japan, foreigners were often
envisioned as not clearly distinct from beings from the other world, of which they could
be the messengers and with which they might communicate. (On the ideas concerning
foreigners (ijin) in traditional Japanese folkloric culture, see for example Komatsu 1985,
1989; Yamaguchi 1975.) In other words, the boundaries between the other world (takai)
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