Table of Contents

Preface Acknowledgments 1: Introduction 1.1 Aims 1.2 Methods 1.3 The Text: Manjusrimulakalpa 1.4 The Ritual 2: The Source of Power: The Assembly (sannipata) 2.1 Cosmology 2.2 Mmk 1: vision and cult 2.3 The text as cult image 2.4 Revelation and transmission 3: The Refraction of Power: The Cult Image (pata) 3.1 The pata as image and animated object 3.2 Creation of the cult object (patavidhana) 4: The Empowered Practitioner (sadhaka) 4.1 The practitioner in the text 4.2 The sadhaka 4.3 Epithets and space 5: Summary and Conclusion Appendices Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author

Glenn Wallis is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Georgia.

Reviews

"Wallis sheds much new light on the transition between 'sutra' and 'tantra' literature of Buddhist India." - John J. Makransky, author of Buddhahood Embodied: Sources of Controversy in India and Tibet "Wallis brings alive the world of the Manjusrimulakalpa and its ritual practitioner, and he draws on a variety of medieval and modern sources to illuminate the text. The Manjusrimulakalpa is a crucial text for understanding medieval Indian Buddhism, yet, because of its immensity, it has been studied rather sparingly and incompletely-and never before with the particular ritual studies-cum-comparative-Indological perspective that Wallis brings to bear." - Roger Jackson, coeditor of Buddhist Theology: Critical Reflections by Contemporary Buddhist Scholars