3 - SaṇHyanKamahāyanikan, Borobudur, and the Origins of Esoteric Buddhism in Indonesia

Summary

RESEARCH INTO THE Sanskrit-Old Javanese Buddhist compendium SaṇHyaṇKamahāyānikan (hereafter SHK) has been going on for over a century. Despite the long history of scholarship, however, a number of pertinent questions still linger. We are yet to identify the date when this scripture was compiled. We also are far from being able to map its relationship with other Buddhist scriptures or to appreciate its role in the development of Buddhism, particularly in Indonesia. Suggested answers to these questions from previous studies are generally conflicting. The status quo is thus intriguing and urges this study to re-examine this unique Buddhist scripture. This time I will necessarily limit the report to providing preliminary answers to some key questions, namely the origins of the SHK, its date and relationship with other textual as well as visual materials, and its role in the development of Esoteric Buddhism in premodern Indonesia.

My report is briefly sketched as follows. Having summarized the inherited issues on dating and origin of the SHK, I will retrace the prototypical sources from which the text drew its teachings. My reassessment individuates some Sanskrit texts that were previously not deemed to have any relationship with Buddhist developments in the premodern Indonesian Archipelago. Those newly identified sources help confirm the SHK's claim that its own teachings came from Dignāga–perhaps through oral tradition. I will then argue that bits and pieces of data from the Indonesian Archipelago contribute in recovering a still poorly documented stage in the development of ‘hidden’ Buddhist teachings that, as suggested by Chinese Buddhist sources, might have already started as early as the 3rd century AD.

Having explored a range of possibilities with regard to the transmission of Esoteric Buddhist teachings to Sumatra and Java, I argue that the advanced ‘hidden’ teachings recorded in the SHK may be dated to the 8th century at the latest. Because of the long period of incubation occurring between the earliest attestations of those teachings and their appearance in the SHK, I venture to suggest that this text has preserved components of esoteric doctrines attributable to a Buddhist lineage that died out, and has thereby been forgotten ever since.