BUDDHIST STATUES AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT: POKCHANG AS THE BUDDHA-MOTHER AND MANDALA IN LATE CHOSŎN PERIOD KOREA (original) (raw)

2020, CAHIERS D'EXTRÊME-ASIE

Individual items chosen to be installed inside a Buddhist statue combine meaningfully and express religious significance. Only when these objects are combined in a specific way based on a proper ritual can they turn into efficacious pokchang objects that endow the statue with sacredness. The pokchang ritual tranforms a material statue into a Buddha. The ritual is not a simple act of installing votive items inside Buddhist statues. Correct recitation of dhāraṇīs and the inscription of siddhaṃ letters are essential to guaranteeing the sacralization of a Buddhist statue. During the late Chŏson period, the Sūtras on the Production of Buddhist Images (K. Chosang gyŏng) became the ritual manual for the practice of the pokchang ritual. Throughout this essay, I explain three main points. First, the cosmology of Esoteric Buddhism is reflected in the items installed inside a throat-bell container, the five grouping of these items, the five mirrors symbolizing the Buddha's five kinds of wisdom, and siddhaṃ letters. Second, the inscription of the five-wheel seed syllables from the throat-bell container and the Dhāraṇī of the Jewel Casket Seal enshrined in pokchang deposits symbolize the whole-body relics of the Buddha, which transcend the three bodies of the Buddha, as well as the Buddhas of the past, present, and future. The whole-body relics surpass other relics of the Buddha. Thus, the Dhāraṇī of the Jewel Casket Seal becomes the result of the Buddha's nirvana, and the throat-bell container symbolizes the Buddha-mother or the begetter of all Buddhas (K. pulmo). Third, the correct performance of the rite of the altar for the three-siddhi, a rite included in the pokchang ritual, is required for the completed pokchang deposit to properly function as a sacred entity that represents Buddhist cosmology. Through the particular combinations of siddhaṃ letters and dhāraṇī inscriptions, pokchang rituals play a central role in transforming ordinary materials into sacred beings.