3 - Computing in the Humanities and Social Sciences

senjimon), was compiled by Yiijing (635-713) toward the end of the seventh century.
However, this important work is a list of Sanskrit words (it does not contain sentences)
written in Chinese transliteration: again, no Sanskrit letters were used. We may
conclude that during all these centuries, Indian and Central Asian characters were
treated, coherently with standard Buddhist conceptions of language, as mere tools to
transmit the sense of the spoken words of Buddha and other masters or to reproduce
the sound of mantras. Indian characters do not appear to have had any specific
significance beyond these purely instrumental functions.
This situation began to change with the emergence, toward the end of the seventh
century, of a more systematic form of esoteric Buddhism, known in Chinese as the
Zhen’yan school (Jp. Shingon). The esoteric teachings, diffused in China by the three
charismatic figures of Subhakarasiµha (Ch. Shanwuwei, 637-735), Vajrabodhi (Ch.
Jinggangzhi, 669-741), and Amoghavajra (Ch. Bukong, 705-774), attributed a new and
special status to writing. To them, the transliterated sound of mantras was no longer
enough; they required a higher phonetic accuracy that could only be guaranteed by the
study of original texts—and, therefore, of the Sanskrit writing system. One of the most
striking features of the texts in the esoteric canon, in fact, is the presence of several
passages written in Siddhaµ characters, either mantric seeds or longer dhåra√∆,
together with their transliterations and explanations in Chinese. Furthermore, the
Zhen’yan school developed religious practices which integrated mantra chanting and
the visualization of Siddhaµ characters in which the mantras were written. Thus,
Siddhaµ, which until that moment were known only to a limited circle of experts
engaged in translations, became an indispensable subject of study for monks in general
(at least, those interested in esoteric Buddhism).
The term xitan seems to have been used predominantly during the Tang period;
the most common appellation in the Northern Song dynasty was fanzhi (Jp. bonji), a
translation of the Sanskrit Bråhm∆. During the Song period, however, the most used
Indian characters in China were no longer the Gupta, but the Nagar∆. Even though the
use of Gupta-type xitan is reported until the Ming period (1368-1644), the Llan-tsa script
of Indo-Tibetan origin began to gain prominence since the Yuan period (1271-1341), to
the point that by the Qing period (1662-1912) it was the only writing system used in
Buddhist ritual in China. 16 Significantly, however, Indian characters used in China after
16 On the history of the developments of Buddhist esoteric scripts in China, see Takubo and
Kanayama 1981.
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