3 - Computing in the Humanities and Social Sciences

as Siddhaµ (see also Shirakawa 1976, 1978). Accordingly, within the Chinese cultural
sphere the Siddhaµ script was treated not as an alphabet, but as another set of
ideograms; furthermore, those “ideograms” had a peculiarly mystic nature. Staal also
writes:
The Chinese were not only ready to receive such sacred noises [sic; he
refers here to Buddhist mantras of Indian origin] because they sounded
mysterious, resembled the magical formulas of popular Taoism, and
were suitable for recitation and meditation; but they also conformed
precisely to their own idea of language (Staal 1979b: 7).
As van Gulik explains: “when confronted with the Indian script, the Chinese
decided that each Indian syllables was an ideograph in itself, with its own independent
meaning,” and found a confirmation in the fact that “in Indian mysticism every letter
has indeed its own meaning” (van Gulik 1980: 39). As a consequence, religious practices
developed based not only on chanting of mantras but also on the writing and
visualization of Siddhaµ characters.
The Chinese graphic system, in particular its oldest characters, was considered not
as a mere transcription of verbal language (as in fact it is), but as a full-fledged system of
representation of reality, constituted by expressive forms harmonizing sounds and
colors. On this subject, K¥kai wrote:
When [the ancient rulers] had observed the changing of the seasons in
the sun, moon, and stars, and the process of transformation at work on
the nine continents, then with the sounds of metal and jade, of pipes and
reeds, they forged their patterns (wen, Jap. mon) in order to nurture the
common man (K¥kai, Bunkyø hifuron, in Købø Daishi Zensh¥ vol. 3: 1.
English translation in Bodman 1978: 162).
Kakuban expanded this ancient Chinese idea in his mandala of the five-element
stupa (gorin mandara), in which the five syllables of the mantra a bi ra un ken are part of a
rhyzomatic network of cosmic codes based on Chinese traditional cosmology and the
world view of esoteric Buddhism (on this subject, see lecture 4). In this way, Shittan
were definitively consacrated as “multivalued icons” (Luis Gomez), microcosms,
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