Esoteric Buddhism under the Koryŏ in the Light of ... - Buddhism.org

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Henrik H. Sørensen: Esoteric Buddhism under the Koryŏ
and carving the wood blocks for the first Koryŏ Tripi%aka during the
11th century that a complete and up-dated Buddhist canon for the first
time became available in Buddhists centres throughout the Korean
Peninsula. This is not the place to go into a discussion of the details
surrounding the creation of the first Koryŏ Tripi%aka, however a few
observations on its importance for the subsequent development of
Esoteric Buddhism may be in order.
The arrival of the printed Tripi%aka from Song China gave Korean
Buddhism a great stimulus and more easy access to Buddhist texts of
any kind, the large corpus of Esoteric Buddhist texts - which previously
had only been available to a very small circle of initiates - now became
available to all who could read. Moreover, with the printing of the first
Korean Tripi%aka the new translations of Esoteric Buddhist texts done
by the monks Dharmap2la (963-1058), D2nap2la (n.d.) and Dharmaraksa
(n.d.) during the early Northern Song became available. 24
There is one striking feature of Esoteric Buddhism under the
Koryŏ, which has been overlooked by most scholars, namely the absence
of an indigenous corpus of Esoteric Buddhist writings. When surveying
the East Asian Buddhist canons, we find virtually no original
compositions on Esoteric Buddhism by Koryŏ authors. The few existing
text-pieces, including some dh2ra!i, a handful of epigraphs, a variety of
panegyrics and one ritual manual hardly constitute an Esoteric Buddhist
text corpus. 25 This fact is noteworthy, since we have a least a handful
of extant Esoteric Buddhist texts, including extensive commentaries,
written by Silla monks. As we may safely rule out the impossibility that
there once was an extensive corpus of Esoteric Buddhist texts written
by Koryŏ monks which has somehow disappeared, we are left with the
obvious solution to the problem: it never existed! This means that the
Esoteric Buddhist canon used by practitioners during the Koryŏ was
essentially that found in the Kaibao Tripi%aka. In other words, it was the
24 See Pak (1975).
25 One may consult the excellent bibliography found at the back of the HMSY for verification.
Cf. ibid., pp. 637-42.