Some Siddham inscriptions in China: palaeography and ritual function

РОССИЙСКАЯ АКАДЕМИЯ НАУК ИНСТИТУТ ВОСТОКОВЕДЕНИЯ РОССИЙСКАЯ АКАДЕМИЯ НАУК РОССИЙСКАЯ АКАДЕМИЯ НАУК ИНСТИТУТ ВОСТОКОВЕДЕНИЯ Том XXXVI (№ 3—4) Основан в 1947 году Москва ИВ РАН 2021 ISSN 0131-1344 Периодическое издание Рецензируемый научный академический журнал Учрежден Ученым советом Института востоковедения Российской академии наук Зарегистрирован в Национальном центре ISSN Российской Федерации Главный редактор Научный руководитель Института востоковедения РАН, академик РАН В. В. Наумкин Редакционная коллегия А. Аванцини М. А. Лебедев А. К. Аликберов М. А. Мусаев Ч. Алйылмаз В. Н. Настич А. С. Балахванцев Н. Небес Г. Бауэрсок С. Ратх В. Я. Белокреницкий К. Ж. Робин М. Д. Бухарин А. В. Седов А. Д. Васильев А. А. Столяров (зам. Д. Даялан главного редактора) Д. В. Дубровская Я. Хубен Э. Е. Кормышева В. В. Тишин А. В. Коротаев Р. Фуруи Редакция А. Ю. Волович (ответственный секретарь) К. Д. Чиркова (научный редактор) А. С. Якшибаев (научный редактор) E-mail: oriental.epigraphy@mail.ru Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences 12, Rozhdestvenka st., Moscow, Russia, 107031, room 115 Макет и верстка — А. Ю. Волович РОССИЙСКАЯ АКАДЕМИЯ НАУК РОССИЙСКАЯ АКАДЕМИЯ НАУК ИНСТИТУТ ВОСТОКОВЕДЕНИЯ Vol. XXXVI (№ 3–4) Founded in 1947 Moscow IOS RAS 2021  2021 Э П И Г Р А Ф И К А В О С Т О К А X X X V I DOI: 10.31696/0131-1344-2021-3-4-76-94 SOME SIDDHAM INSCRIPTIONS IN CHINA: PALAEOGRAPHY AND RITUAL FUNCTION n © 2021 Ja Houben, Saraju Rath1 Abstract The earliest stages in the history of the study of Indian palaeography, as perceived by A.H. Dani in the Introduction to his manual Indian Palaeography (1963, 1986), were the “period of the discovery of the inscriptions and the decipherment of the scripts used in them”(from the late eighteenth century onwards), culminating in the work of James Prinsep (1799-1840), and a period when “Indian palaeography became a recognized study,” with copies of numerous inscriptions accompanied by extensive studies being published in specialized journals, but this was also a period in which the evolutionary character of Indian scripts was discovered, analysed and explored. The third period started with Georg Bühler’s Indische Palaeographie (1896), in which this “evolutionary character of Indian scripts” is accepted but there is a further analysis of their “regional and chronological variations.” Here we make a small contribution to a specific regional variant of the ancient Indian Siddham script in China. From the research of scholars such as Walter Liebenthal (1886-1982) and R.H. van Gulik (1910-1967), we know that “the study of the Sanskrit language never flourished in either China or Japan” (van Gulik 1956: 5) but that nevertheless “the Indian script – in a variety of Brāhmī called Siddham – played an important role in Far Eastern Buddhism ever since the introduction of this script into China in the 8th century CE” (ibid.). In this presentation we will discuss and analyze a few objects which we encountered during a trip to the Yunnan province in China, in autumn 2016. As is usual, these inscriptions in Siddham have no “reporting” or “administrative” value, they do not report a remarkable political event or donation, etc. Frequently they express a prayer formula or brief text, a mantra or a dhāraṇī, which is connected to some ritual. We will here study the ritual context of the object and the palaeographic connection with scripts in India. Keywords: Sanskrit inscriptions in China, Siddham, Yunnan, Tomb inscriptions, Dhāraṇī. For citation: Houben, J., Rath, S. Some Siddham inscriptions in China:  1 Jan Houben – Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, PSL, Paris, France, jemhouben@gmail.com, ORCID: 0000-0002-6072-1761. Ян Хубен – правктическая школа высших исследований, Париж, Франция Saraju Rath - IIAS, Leiden, The Netherlands; sarajurath@yahoo.com, ORCID: 0000-0003-0632-501X. Cараджу Ратх – Международный институтазиатских исследованийб Лейлен, Нидерланды.  Some Siddham inscriptions in China: Palaeography and Ritual Function 77 Palaeography and Ritual Function. Oriental Epigraphy. 36. 3–4, 2021. C. 76–94. DOI: 10.31696/0131-1344-2021-3-4-76-94. НАДПИСИ НА СИДДХАМ В КИТАЕ: ПАЛЕОГРАФИЯ И РИТУАЛЬНЫЙ КОНТЕКСТ Я. Хубен, С. Ратх Аннотация Самыми ранними этапами в истории изучения индийской палеографии, как это понимал А.Х. Дани в введении к своему труду "Индийская палеография" (1963, 1986), были "период открытия надписей и дешифровки шрифтов, используемых в них" (начиная с конца 18-го века), кульминацией в изучении которого стали работы Джеймса Принсепа (1799–1840), а также период, когда "индийская палеография стала признанным исследованием", с копиями многочисленных надписей, сопровождаемых обширными научными работами, опубликованными в специализированных журналах, на этом же этапе был обнаружен, проанализирован и изучен эволюционный характер индийских письмен. Третий период начался с "Индийской палеографии" Георга Бюлера (1896), в которой вышеупомянутый "эволюционный характер индийских письмен" признается, но подвергается дальнейшему анализу "региональных и хронологический вариаций". Эта работа представляет собой некоторый вклад в изучение специфической региональной вариации древнеиндийского письменности сиддхам в Китае. Благодаря исследованиям таких ученых как Вальтер Либенталь (1886–1982) и Роберт ван Гулик (1910–1967), нам известно, что "изучение санскрита никогда не было особенно развито ни в Китае, ни в Японии" [van Gulik 1956: 5], тем не менее, "индийская письменность – в той разновидности брахми, которая называется сиддхам – сыграла важную роль в дальневосточном буддизме с тех самых пор, как она появилась в Китае в VIII в. [там же]. В предлагаемой работе рассматриваются несколько объектов, привлёкших внимание авторов во время их поездки в провинцию Юньнань в Китае осенью 2016 года. Как правило, надписи на сиддхам не несут никакой исторической информации: не отражают никакого политического события, не фиксируют никакое пожертвование и т.д. Зачастую они содержат молитвы или короткие тексты, мантру или дхарани, которые имеют отношение к каким-то ритуалам. Авторов интересует ритуальный контекст этих объектов и их палеографическая связь с индийскими письменами. Ключевые слова: китайская эпиграфика, санскритские надписи в Китае, письменность сиддхам, провинция Юньнань Для цитирования: Хубен, Я., Ратх, С. Надписи на сиддтхам в Китае: палеография и ритуальный контекст. Эпиграфика Востока. Т. 36. № 3–4. 2021. C. 76–94. DOI: 10.31696/0131-1344-2021-3-4-76-94. 78 Jan Houben, Saraju Rath 1. Introduction As is well known, the northwestern regions of the Indian world have been overlapping for many centuries and even millennia with the eastern regions of the Iranian world. The country of Gandhara, for example, was a province of the Persian Empire for a long time, but it was at the same time also the area where the grammarian Pāṇini was born who showed in his grammar awareness of numerous geographical, cultural and linguistic details of this area and of other parts of India.2 Has there been, similarly, an overlap with the Chinese world in the eastern regions of the Indian world? A cursory look at the map would suggest this to be likely, but not much is known about it. One area where there has been a significant overlap of the Chinese world and the Indian world over many centuries is found in the present – day Yunnan province of China. Although direct travel between this area and India has no doubt always been very difficult due to the geographic conditions of this mountainous area, probably much more difficult than between Gandhara and India or between Gandhara and the central provinces of the Persian Empire, some contacts and exchanges of people have evidently taken place, although it is often not certain through which route or routes. One group of cultural objects that attests of such an overlap of cultural worlds consists of the bricks and tomb stones with bi-lingual and bi- scriptual inscriptions: they contain a ritual and religious text in Sanskrit written in the ancient Siddham script, and brief documentary statements in Chinese in old-Chinese characters. The spread of an Indic script such as Siddham to China and Japan and elsewhere, was more than just a matter of copy and paste of elements of Indian civilization by Asian countries3: the Indian “syllabically organized alphabet”4 contains a phonetic analysis of the language, which was lacking in other contemporaneous scripts. When Buddhism came to China, the Indian Siddham script came along. Both Buddhism and the Siddham script, which in India was probably never called Siddham but rather Siddhamātṛkā [Rath, 2006], arrived in China primarily from Central Asia, via the highway of the Silk route. The Siddham script (Chinese: Xitan, in older studies transscribed as Hsi-t’an) found in use in the Yunnan province, in the area of the old Nanzhao-kingdom (8th to 10th centuries) and Dali-kingdom (10th to 13th centuries), can have arrived there and probably has arrived there partly or primarily from central China together with Dhyāna or Chan Buddhism and especially with Mantrayāna Buddhism (also known as Vajrayāna), which was introduced into central China in the 7th and 8th centuries and which had a “meteoric career” [van  2 It is in this area of overlap of the Iranian and Indian world that the earliest landmarks in the development of Indian linguistic thought emerge: the “word-for-word” version of the Veda (implying its phonetic and linguistic analysis), and the grammar of Pāṇini, which presupposes the work of Śākalya and other authors of “word-for-word” Vedic texts [Houben & Rath 2012: 30ff]. 3 As already Frits Staal explained in detail in his articles “The Sound Pattern of Sanskrit” (2006a) and “Artificial Languages Across Sciences and Civilizations” (2006b). 4 Rather than ‘alphasyllabary’ or ‘abugida’ [Bright, 1999], it is the term ‘alphabet’ which is suitable to refer to Indic scripts, including Siddham. After all, “Scripts of the type of Brāhmī, Grantha and Devanāgarī, which give – ideally – a one to one representation of each phoneme, consonant and vowel, are typologically far removed from other (non-alphabetic) syllabaries, where characters do not show any particular resemblance to each other if the syllable referred to shares certain phonemes (vowels or consonants). ... [T]he term alphasyllabary , which is perhaps suitable for old-Persian cuneiform and Aramaic ... would suggest the script is basically a syllabary that shares some characteristics with the alphabet. ... From a functional point of view ... Brāhmī etc. are better characterized as ‘syllabically organized alphabetic writing systems’, or, more compactly, as ‘syllabic alphabets’ ...” [Houben, Rath 2012: 9 note 23].  Some Siddham inscriptions in China: Palaeography and Ritual Function 79 Gulik 1956: 50f] in Tang Dynasty China (7th to 9th century).5 The practice of Mantrayāna Buddhism went hand in hand with the practice of Siddham calligraphy in the context of ritual and religion. Both Mantrayāna Buddhism and the practice of Siddham calligraphy were particularly strong in Yunnan, where they also apparently remained much longer in active use and visible than in central China, till long after the Dali-kingdom had lost its indepence, as it was conquered by the Mongols under Yuan Emperor Kublai Khan in 1253, and later, from the 14th century, integrated into Ming Dynasty China. The problem of a special influence from India in Yunnan, apart from or next to the Indian cultural bagage that came with Buddhism and Mantrayāna from central China, was clearly formulated by P. Pelliot (1904), and ca. 50 years later Walter Liebenthal concluded a summary of the problem as follows [Liebenthal, 1955a, note 68]: In the whole, Nan-chao [i.e., Nanzhao] civilisation was imported from China. We must not forget that the country was occupied already a hundred years B. C. and reconquered in A. D. 69. Since then able and idealistic educators entered Nan-chao with the armies, brought craftsmen, new methods and objects of worship and religion along, so that, whatever came from other directions is, in comparison with this broad and continual stream of influence pouring into Yünnan from the East [i.e., from central China] rather accidental. Yünnan is a typical instance of Chinese colonisatory ability and cannot, therefore, be classified with Śrīvijaya, Funan, Pyū and Indonesian countries dependent on India for their civilisation. Liebenthal was no doubt right as far as the large outlines are concerned, he himself mentioned nevertheless several facts which have clearly not resulted from “Chinese colonisatory ability” but from very different influences. First of all, Liebenthal points out that, where concrete Chinese influence on the area is historically attested from the first century BCE onwards, traces of Indians coming to Yunnan are found only from around 800 CE – but this may be due to the fact that the influence from possible earlier Indians was cultural and religious rather than, as in the case of the Chinese influence, first of all military and political. Especially under these circumstances, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Be that as it may, after ca. 800, apart from brief references to foreigners who may have been Indians, there is mention of an Indian monk Candragupta from Māgadha who is said to have founded a monastery north of Dali. 6 With regard to this Candragupta he further remarks that he “is first mentioned in Ho-ch ing, not far from Li-kiang in the utmost north of Yünnan province. This suggests that he entered Yünnan from the North” [Liebenthal 1955a, note 66]. In other words, he does not seem to have come either from central China or from Prome or  5 Whereas this “sinified” Tantrism or Chen-yen Buddhism soon lost its popularity in China, it remained important in Japan “where it was introduced in the 9th century under the name of Shingon” [van Gulik 1956: 50]. Although less visible in China, its impact on Chinese Buddhism has been considerable [Orzech 1989]. Unlike in other parts of China, Chen-yen Buddhism was never much suppressed in Yunnan. 6 “Candragupta, an Indian monk from Mgadha who built a monastery, Yüan-hua Ssu ... four days north of Tali” [Liebenthal, 1947a, 15]; “824. Candragupta founds Yüan-hua Ssu at Ho-ch ing. 857. He is in Tali, fighting a mountain spirit who has eloped with a princess” [1955a: 64] 80 Jan Houben, Saraju Rath one of the ancient kingdoms in central and south Burma. Liebenthal further observes that “the script of the brick-inscriptions seems to derive from Nālanda rather than from Prome,” adding that “Many bricks stamped with the ‘Buddhist Creed’ and bījākṣaras have been found in Nālanda. The script of these finds is almost exactly the same as that on the bricks. This I found when I visited the museum there” [Liebenthal 1955a, notes 66 and 67]. Another fact that apparently derives from other than central Chinese influence is the remarkably strong cult of specific divine figures attested in Yunnan, first of all Mahākāla, “Great Time.” A temple was constructed for a “City–God” with Mahākāla as “Local Ruler” as early as in the eighth century, at the time of the Nanzhao [Liebenthal 1955a, 38]. As the temple was Taoist in character, this Mahākāla does not appear to be a Buddhist deity here and could as well have derived directly from a Śaiva background. Mahākāla worship, which entered into Yunnan before the massive arrival of Chinese Buddhism in the 9th century [Liebenthal 1947a, 38], has remained important throughout the time of the Dali-kingdom and afterwards. Liebenthal: “Today the worship of Avalokiteśvara has been replaced by the cult of the Dhyāna Sect. But Mahākāla and the Local Rulers have survived in many places” [Liebenthal 1955a, note 64). The characteristics of Mahākāla worship in the Dali kingdom were explored by Megan Bryson (2012) on the basis of a meticulous study of a Chinese text of that era, the Dahei tianshen daochang yi, which postdates the earlier evidence of Mahākāla with at least two centuries.7 The Mahākāla cult appears in this text, not surprisingly, as entirely integrated into sinified Buddhism. Bryson suggests that Indian influence on this cult was a matter of rhetorics of the rulers [Bryson 2012, 44]. Rhetorics were no doubt important, but other indications show there was indeed an Indian or at least a non-Chinese influence of which the exact itinerary, however, is not known. The Yunnan area is also famous for the remnants – for instance in the form of statues – of a very extensive cult of Guanyin (to whom Liebenthal refers as Kuan-yin pu-sa or Avalokiteśvara8 Bodhisattva). While the cult of Guanyin is very widespread in east Asia [Tay, 1976], a special Guanyin was adored in the Yunnan area, Ajaya Avalokiteśvara, the Invincible, also known as Acuoye Guanyin, whose importance was not only religious and ritual – expressed in numerous art objects – but also political, as is clear from an analysis by Howard in her study of the “dhāraṇī-pillar” of Kunming [Howard, 1997]. Moreover, although he emphasized almost exclusively the predominance of “colonizing” influences from central China in Yunnan [Liebenthal 1955a, note 68], Liebenthal himself also consulted those whom he called “Indian” monks in Dali who could explain him details about the texts he found on bricks and tombstones. The very presence in Yunnan of these Buddhist masters with in some sense an Indian background point to an Indian influence next to or on top of the Chinese influence which is also attested over many centuries. We assume that Liebenthal’s “Indian” monks were in fact Azhali masters – that is, they were Buddhist Tantric ācārya ‘masters’ or, in Chinese, azhali (with the -zh- and the -l- in azhali directly corresponding to the Sanskrit -c- and -r- in ācārya). Since Azhali masters can have families, some of them may indeed have had Indian family roots at the time Liebenthal met them. Even in 1997 Howard writes that “today a few Azhali, descendants of ancient lineages, are still active in the Dali area. They perform initiation  7 On the “difficult problem” of the date of this text:[Bryson, 2012, 15ff]. 8 In fact, Guanyin, or, in the older transcription, Kuan-yin, translates avalokita-svara ‘by whom sound is perceived’ rather than avalokiteśvara ‘the lord who looks down’: C.N. Tay 1976.  Some Siddham inscriptions in China: Palaeography and Ritual Function 81 rites (abhiśeka) and rituals for the dead for whom they write magic formulas.” Although we do not know on what material these “few Azhali” were writing in Howard’s time almost twenty five years ago, this shows that the practice of which the inscription of tomb stones with dhāraṇīs was a part need not have been very far removed in time. The association of the texts known as dhāraṇīs and funerary practices is well-established in Indian Buddhism [Schopen, 1997b], and it spread from there to the Asian Buddhist world,9 including China and the Nanzhao and Dali kingdoms. In connection with Buddhist funerary practices, the use of dhāraṇīs is prescribed in texts such as the Sarvadurgatipariśodhanatantra [Skorupski, 1983] and the Sarva- karmāvaraṇaviśodhanidhāraṇī. According to a passage in the latter text, translated from the Tibetan version by G. Schopen: If one, reciting this (dhāraṇī) over earth or sesame or white mustard or water, were to scatter it over the corpse, or if, having washed (the body) one afterwards were to either cremate it or deposit and preserve it in a stūpa, writing this dhāraṇī and attaching it to the top (or head), then the deceased – already reborn in an unfortunate destiny – being freed, would without a doubt after seven days be reborn in a blessed heaven… [Schopen, 1997b, 121] Similarly, according to a passage in the Raśmivimalaviśuddhaprabhādhāraṇī, translated from the Tibetan version by G. Schopen: Morevover, if someone were to write this dhāraṇī in the name of another (who is deceased) and were to deposit in a stūpa and earnestly worship it, then the deceased, being freed (by that) from his unfortunate destiny, would be reborn in heaven. Indeed, being reborn in the region of the Tuṣita gods, through the empowering of the Buddha he would (never again) fall into an unfortunate destiny. [Schopen, 1997b, 121] Extraordinary powers are attributed even just to the written dhāraṇī being present and visible11: 10 Śākyamuni ... preaches that anyone who recites or reads this powerful dhāraṇī (incantation), or writes it upon a pillar, on a mountain summit, on top of a building, or on top of a stūpa, will be spared from any evil destiny. Moreover, he will be cleansed of moral defilement and all obstacles created by  9 See, for instance, for Central Asia: Hinüber 2009b, 2009d; for (current) Indonesia: Griffiths 2014; for (current) Afghanistan: Schopen 1997 p. 142 note 31: “The same dhāraṇī is also found on at least two plaques from Nālandā and on a ‘cachet’ from Qunduz.” 10 The dhāraṇī as a “powerful presence” in Indian and Asian religion would deserve a special comparative study in the wider context of Indian and Asian rituals and religious practices. In some of its versions, the Śivamahimnastotra [Gonda, 1977, 259f] contains the following concluding verse: śrīpuṣpadantamukha- paṅkajanirgatena stotreṇa kilbiṣahareṇa harapriyeṇa | kaṇṭhasthitena paṭhitena gṛhasthitena suprīṇito bhavati bhūtapatir maheśaḥ ||, which has been translated as: “If a person learns by heart, reads or keeps in the home this hymn, which came out of the lips of Pushpadanta, and which destroys sins and is dear to Śiva, Śiva, the lord of creation, becomes very pleased.” [Pavitrananda, 1938, 82f]. 11 In this context Schopen justly refers to the study Eye and Gaze in the Veda by J. Gonda (1969): “J. Gonda has [in this study] clearly demonstrated the antiquity of many of the ideas that most secondary literature associates with the much later ‘classical’ bhakti conception of darśan ...” 82 Jan Houben, Saraju Rath evil karmas will be destroyed. Even longevity will be granted! So powerful is the incantation that one will reap all the advantages by merely walking in the shadow thrown by a pillar bearing such a text on its surface [Howard, 1997, 34].  In the ancient kingdoms and polities of Yunnan this ritual employment of Buddhist dhāraṇīs, the reception of which was facilitated by the use of prayers in Taoist ritual,12 appeared and continued with a specific “couleur locale” and special characteristics, which remain to be determined in more detail but which include, in any case, the peculiarly “mushroom-shaped” bi-lingual and bi-scriptual tombstones of Dali and surroundings [Liebenthal, 1955a; Hinüber 2009c (1989)]. For Pelliot and Liebenthal and even for Bryson the main underlying question was whether the observed cultural objects in Yunnan should be attributed to sinified Buddhism in which Indian influence is integrated and which entered from the East, or to more direct Indian influences arriving in Yunnan from the West: from central or upper Burma, or from Assam via Tibet. Apart from the Chinese and the Indians, two different agents appear on the scene in the analysis of the context of tomb stones and other objects inscribed with dhāraṇīs in Yunnan in the work of Howard ( 1997). First there are the Bai people, present in the Yunnan area since millennia. Both in the Nanzhao kingdom and in the Dali kingdom, the Bai people, called Minjia by the Chinese, formed an important part of the population and were also strongly represented in the political elite. Their language, Bai, is classified within or together with the Yi group of Tibeto-Burman languages, but the position of these within larger linguistic families such as Sino-Bodic, Sino-Tibetan or Trans-Himalayan remains highly controversial. And second there are the Azhali-masters already mentioned. To study the political and ritual-religious context of the tombstones etc. as Howard did in 1997 is a significant step forward, although terms such as ‘atavistic’ and ‘eclectic’ applied by her, respectively, to ancestral beliefs of the Bai and to the integration of artistic elements, show that independent local selection, creativity and innovativeness have still been insufficiently appreciated. Against this background, we propose to study, in a series of articles, a number of bi-lingual and bi-scriptual inscriptions which we could investigate on several occasions, including a brief stay in Yunnan in the autumn of 2016. In the present article we study a brick and a “mushroom-shaped” tomb stone against the background of the detailed philological studies already done on these objects which have been briefly reviewed above. 2. An inscribed brick at Lijiang We first discuss a brick which we saw in a museum exhibition in Lijiang, autumn 2016 (plate 1), with an inscription in Chinese and Sanskrit. The dimensions were, approximately, 12x7x2 cm (length x breadth x height), the date was given as 8th -10th CE. The Sanskrit inscription, in Siddham script, from top to bottom in two columns arranged from right to left, can be read as: (auspicious symbol, “siddham”) ͦ ĝęŊćĈĭú(-ć) ...˟ ĝĒ ˢĭĞĭ ͦ  12 Liebenthal 1947a: 38, 1955a: 64; on the influence of Taoist ancester worship on Chinese Buddhism see Liebenthal 1955b and Cole 1996.  Some Siddham inscriptions in China: Palaeography and Ritual Function 83 The word at the end of the first, righthand column is apparently incomplete and the last letter, ga, is not entirely clear. This does not continue smoothly with the top character of the second, middle column. Perhaps at the bottom of the first, righthand column only a ta is missing. The syllables saya make no sense, but if we assume some syllables are left out the full expression could have been something like āśvāsaya13 ‘cheer up’. The Chinese characters in the left-most column, from top to bottom, can be read14 as follows : 檿帗➵⑳檿㔦 This text too seems to be incomplete at the end (bottom). It apparently refers to two names, namely, Gao Yucheng and Gao Zheng. The inscription and the script match those found on inscribed bricks discussed by Liebenthal (1947a), whose bricks were generally larger and had longer texts inscribed on them. Liebenthal’s observation that “even the oldest of the bricks carry Chinese headlines and gāthās together with the Sanskrit” [Liebenthal, 1947b, 10] applies to this brick as well. Although the exact words used in the text of the brick-inscription cannot be identified, the pattern of oṁ sarvatathāga-.... and svāhā at the end is very common in prayers on bricks and in dhāraṇīs. Paleographically, the characters in this small sample of text are similar to those of the Yunnan brick inscriptions studied by Liebenthal, for instance Liebenthal 1947a, Plate VI, but with an even more pronounced sharp angle at the lower right corner of the character, as also seen in the ancient Indian Siddhamātṛkā script. Liebenthal’s conclusion would also apply to this brick, namely that “the script of the brick-inscriptions seems to derive from Nālanda ...” 1955a: 66 and note 67). The date of the script of this brick could be the 10th century, which corresponds to the later part of the range estimated by Liebenthal for his bricks which he thinks were “manufactured between 800 and 1000” CE [Liebenthal, 1947b, 10]. 3. “Mushroom-shaped” tombstones As we have pointed out, peculiarly “mushroom-shaped” tombstones with bi- lingual and bi-scriptual inscriptions have been found in Yunnan, mainly in the area of the ancient Dali kingdom. They have been studied in a detailed way for the first time by Liebenthal and a few additional ones later on by von Hinüber. Liebenthal considered them more recent than the bi-lingually and bi-scriptually inscribed bricks found in the main area, the latter having been “manufactured between 800 and 1000” CE. [Liebenthal, 1947b, 10]. The tombstones which he studied carry dates from the end of the 13th to the end of the 17th centuries,15 which means they are from when the Dali-kingdom had already lost its political independence. During our brief stay in Yunnan in the autumn of 2016, we  13 Cf. āśvāsayaṁtu at the end of line 22 (in fact line 23) of von Hinüber’s “Inscription no. 1 (Plate 1)”, [Hinüber 2009c, 117 (97)]. 14 Our sincere thanks and appreciation go to our colleague Dr Xiasen Song, who kindly helped in reading, interpreting and briefly discussing the old Chinese characters in our material. 15 Liebenthal 1947b; 1955a: 58: “They have dates ranging from the Sung to the Ming dynasties,” adding in a footnote: “I have seen only three Sung stones, all later than 1050. But this does not prove that there were no earlier ones. Even Yüan stones were often illegible and only the Ming stones are clearly preserved.” 84 Jan Houben, Saraju Rath encountered in a field in the district of Dali a number of such “mushroom-shaped” tombstones, clearly belonging to the same group of monumental objects. We have selected 16 one of these tombstones, tombstone 1 in our collection of photographed tombstones, for a detailed study here, and compare its head part with those of other ones. Our tombstone (plate 2) consists of a single piece of stone of about 1,25 meter high and 45-50 cm broad, and it has the characteristic mushroom shaped head, but left and right the protuding parts of the “mushroom” head, up to ca. 20-25 cm on each side, are broken off. The text is in several respects faulty – with mistakes in grammar, and especially with auditive and visual mistakes in the letters – as is usual for this type of inscriptions,17 hence practically untranslatable,18 but a careful transcription is nevertheless required for textcritical and palaeographic purposes. It can be read as follows: Transcription: line 01: [Chinese script19: ష㡬ᑛ຾㝀⨶ᑽ⚄࿺᭣]20. line 02: [*auspicious symbol*] uṣṇīṣa hṛdaya mahāmantra svāhā line 03: om̐ namo bhagavate sarva trailokya prativisaṣṭāya line 04: buddhāya te namaḥ tad yathā om̐ trām̐ suddhayaṁ sā dvaya vi line 05: [..]suddhaya visoddhaya mocaya mocaya vimocaya vi line 06: mucaya asamasamaṁ samantāvabhasa sphuraṇa gati nānā line 07: na bhava bhava visuddhenabhiṣiñcantu māṁ sarvatathāgatā sugatā line 08: varavacanāmṛtābhisattvaiḥ mahā drā mantra padai ahara ahara line 09: āyuḥ ssad dharāṇi su(o)ddhaya soddhaya gagana visu(o)ddhe uṣṇīṣavija line 10: ya parisoddho sahasra ra(ṣmi?) saṁcodite sarvatathāgatā trai line 11: loka ni(vat) pāramitā paripṛ(.)ṇi sarva tathāgatā man(tre) dasa line 12: bhūmi pratiṣṭhite sarva tathāgatā hṛdaya dhiṣṭhānādhiṣṭhite mu line 13: dremudre mahāmūdre vajrāka(ā ?)ya saṁgha ta na pasuddhe sarva ka mā line 14: caraṇa parisuddhe pratinivarttāya yurvisuddhe sarva tathāgatā  16 This one attracted our attention because it contains a second line in Chinese in the body of the text, absnt in the others we encountered. 17 [Liebenthal 1947a]: “These [dhāraṇīs] were copied from blockprints that were cut and recut and became more and more faulty because there was nobody able to correct them. This faultiness and the kinds of the mistakes that are made sometimes enable us to establish the age of a Hsi-t’an [Siddham] inscription, vague as it may be.” 18 [Liebenthal 1955a]: “Following a suggestion of the editor that for the benefit of those readers who are unacquainted with Tantric literature one of these dhāraṇīs should be translated, I chose no. 5A because it is more definite in its purpose than the others. ... But ... in order to to investigate the content we naturally should begin with those pieces that are fully preserved in Sanskrit or in Chinese transliteration. This is beyond the aim of this article. ... Further, a thorough cleaning of the text from mistakes that are legion should precede a translation. But this also connot be done with the means at my disposal. So the reader must be content with a translation that conveys an impression of this kind of literature but is not meant to be final.” [Hinüber 2009c: 57]: “No reading of the complicated mystical syllables surrounding these Buddhas has been attempted here, nor have the dhāraṇīs been translated, as these magic formulas do not normally give any coherent text.” 19 According to Dr Song, “There are different orders to read Chinese according to various type settings, like from left to right or just the reverse, from right to left or from up to down. In this case, we should read from left to right.” 20 The English translations proposed by Dr Song for the first Chinese line is: “The Buddhoṣṇīṣaḥ Dhāraṇī spell says.”  Some Siddham inscriptions in China: Palaeography and Ritual Function 85 line 15: samaya dhiṣṭhite muni muni mahāmuni vimuni mu vimuni mahā line 16: muni mati mati mamati mahāmamati sumati tathotā bhūtāko line 17: ṭi parisuddhe vispṛṣṭā buddhi suddhe he he jaya ja vijaya vijaya line 18: smara smara spṛra spṛra( ?) sarva buddhā dhiṣṭhānādhiṣṭhite suddhe suddhe vajre va line 19: jre mahāvajre suvajre vajra garbhe jaya garbhe vijaya garbhe vajre vajraṁ bha line 20: vatu mama [in Chinese script21 ㏣Ⅽஸேᥭ፠⨶ໃ⚄㐨]22 sarīri sarva sattvānā line 21: ñca kāya parisuddher bhavatu me sada sarvagati pasuddhe sva sarva sattvā samā line 22: svāsu dhiṣṭhite sarvatathāgatāsva māṁ samasvāsayantu vodhya vodhya siddhya line 23: bya buddhāya buddhāya vivuddhāya vivuddhāya sudhaya suddhaya visuddhaya visuddhaya line 24: mocaya mocaya vimocaya vimucaya sa mantra parisuddha sarvatathāgatā hṛ line 25: daya dhiṣṭhānādhiṣṭhite mahāmudrā [sthā?] uṣṇīṣavijaya namaḥ dhārani samavadyani Ž‹‡ʹ͸ǣ–‹‘ҬȋšǫȌ•˜¢Š¢ A. Paleographical observations: (1) Line 2, The text in Sanskrit here starts23 from the second line with the well- known auspicious symbol and then om. In Buddhist inscriptions and specially those written in Siddham script, this sign is mostly found before om. It is sometimes said to represent the word siddham. (2) The syllable ñca (line 21) is similar to and apparently directly borrowed from the eastern variety of Indian late Gupta or Siddhamātṛkā (the script which became Siddham in China etc.), so also the tha (in ) , om̐ ( ), the bīja-•›ŽŽƒ„Ž‡trām̐ ( ). (3) We see a transitional phase in the use of the e kāra / o kāra in line 22. First of all, there is a slanting line, used as śiromātrā on va in the word vodhya ( ) which is seen in the later style of Siddham and early varieties of Nāgarī for the e-kāra. Then again in vodhya ( ) a double curved horizontal head line is seen, which is a normal style of Siddham characters for centuries. This phase continues for ca. half a century till the style changes irreversibly to the later form. Here both are used, which shows we are in a transitional phase, corresponding to the 12th century Indian Siddhamātṛkā. (4) In padai (line 8): ai-mātrā, is presented in two manners in different periods. In early Siddhamātṛkā, only a double curved horizontal headline represents ai kāra and in a later phase, a single curve as e-kāra and another e-kāra as a slanting line above the syllable  21 The Chinese characters in this stone inscriptions are in traditional Chinese, in a somewhat archaic style, different from the simplified Chinese that is in use now (from 1950s onwards). So far as the date of this tomb stone is concerned, as per the condition and quality of the stone, it could be only after 12 th CE. 22 Translation proposed: Posthumously awarded to the deceased person for the propagation of the sacred religion of Bharat. 23 It is a usual practice in Eastern and Northern India to start any writing with om and in Western and Southern India with śrī. 86 Jan Houben, Saraju Rath is used to indicate ai-kāra. In this Siddham inscription we see the later form. (Even this later form is archaic in comparison to the familiar way to indicate ai in current Devanāgarī through a set of two curved lines above the headline.) (5) In gagana in line 9 the syllables ga-ga are not side by side, which would have been the normal style, but they are placed one on top of the other: (6) A stylistic peculiarity of the text is that we sometimes find numerous repetitions of the words in this dhāraṇi mahāmantra, which is normally not done beyond three times. B. Errors in Sanskrit orthography The following are errors if we assume the scribes were trying to write Sanskrit – which is not certain or rather unlikely, as they were probably aiming at Prakritic Sanskrit, so-called Buddhist Sanskrit or “approximative Sanskrit” (Houben 2018). (1) In place of śa, always sa is used; for instance, in place of śarīraṁ, śvāsa, viśuddhena, viśiṣṭāya, pariśuddha (with palatal śa), sarīraṁ, svāsa, visuddhena, visiṣṭāya, parisuddha etc. (with dental sa) are used. (2) Sometimes va is used in place of ba, and na is used in place of ṇa, for example: vṛddhāya for buddhāya, dhārani for dhāraṇi. (3) Two vowel mātrās at a time are sometimes given to a single consonant, for example, su in suddhe (line 9), with the u-mātrā below and the e-mātrā above (a slanting horizontal line as śiromātrā). In India, scripts for Sanskrit, Prakrit, etc. never allow two different mātrās to be put on a single consonant. (4) Moreover, if we consider that the e-mātrā which we see in visuddhe on the sa is in fact meant for the next syllable, then also it is not correct, since ddhe has already an e- mātrā, though one which is a little more difficult to recognize: as a śiromātrā curved horizontal line. (5) In the mushroom shaped head part, we see seed syllables. There, we find several times ām̐ ḥ (anunāsika and visarga together to the vowel ā, as in ) which is a faulty orthography for Sanskrit and other Indian languages. Correct are either ām̐ or āḥ. (6) The head or śiromātrās (wavy or curved lines which represent e, ai, o, au) are sometimes halfway done or even left out completely, which results in the loss of the expression of the case ending of a Sanskrit word. (7) Ligatures of multiple consonants (conjunct consonants) are sometimes left out. 4. Description and discussion of the upper part of “mushroom-shaped” tombstones A most interesting feature of these tombstones is that they have an upper part which is half round in structure. Here we show the head part of a few tombstones (plates 3- 5) in order to give an impression of the style and arrangement of various “seed syllables” and the different varieties of images of Buddhas and other figures and their hand gestures (mudrās). With regard to these “seed syllables” (bīja, bījākṣara) and their use in Tantric Buddhism, and especially Chinese Tantric Buddhism, we refer first to a paragraph in van Gulik’s Siddham: [T]hose Tantric adepts who had been initiated into the inner mysteries of the sect considered the most important Siddham letters of all the so-called  Some Siddham inscriptions in China: Palaeography and Ritual Function 87 bījākṣara (Chinese: chung-tzu ...) or “germ-letters” [or “seed syllables”], which represent the essence of each particular god, and often also indicate the essence of a particular sūtra, mantra or dhāraṇī ... In most cases these bījākṣara are abbreviations of the Sanskrit name of the deity, or of one of his epithets. Thus bhai is the germ-letter of Bhaiṣajyaguru, and vi of Gaṇeśa referring to his other name Vināyaka. But many bījākṣara, especially those of very powerful gods, are based on mystic considerations and not easily explained. Written or pronounced in the right way and in the right spirit the bījākṣara will set into motion the cosmic vibrations that rouse the deity they belong to, and permit the worshipper to visualize ... his iṣṭadevatā in its full splendour. He who mastered the bījākṣara can dispense with all other mantra and dhāraṇī. To this we should add two paragraphs quoted in Howard 1997 from the “Ming gazetteer Yunnan zhi by Jing Tai” in order to show how Buddhist funerary practices among the Bai community in Yunnan developed in a specific political and religious configuration in which the Azhali priests – a category which includes, as we assume, Liebenthal’s “Indian monks” – played a significant role: When a [Bai] man dies then one washes his corpse, binds it with a rope and places it in a square coffin, either seated or reclining. On a square cotton cloth the Azhali master writes eight letters in Sanskrit, the equivalent of the words “Earth, Water, Ether, Fire, Self, Permanenc, Joy, Purity.” The last four characters are Buddhist terms characterizing the state of Nirvāṇa as expressed in the Mahāparinirvāṇa sūtra. The Azhali decorates the cloth with the five colors and places it in the coffin. Then without asking [for the intervention] of other religious people or laymen, one proceeds to cremate the body outdoors. After five or seven days, the ashes and bones are placed in an urn and a day is selected for its burial. After a man dies he is placed in a room, then the Azhali master recites incantations; three days after [the death], the corpse is cremated outdoors; golden foil is then attached to the bones and spells are written in Sanskrit on them, thereupon they are placed in an urn and interred [Howard, 1997, 47]. Although the text does not elaborate further, the role of the Azhali master must have continued also in one possible extension to the ritual: the production of memorials and monuments in stone for the deceased, which was no doubt something possible only to those belonging to the Bai elite. According to Howard, therefore, “This particular Buddhist teaching was transmitted from India and/or Tibet. In the Erhai area, the locus of early Yunnanese Buddhism and of its royal patrons, it grafted onto indigenous shamanistic beliefs” [Howard, 1997, 47].  Observations on tombstone head part №1: (1) This “half circle” mushroom shaped head is the upper part of the tombstone of which we have discussed the inscription just now. Seated on a lotus-throne in the middle of 88 Jan Houben, Saraju Rath the half round space (above the center of the imaginary full circle of which the upper half is realized), a Buddha-like figure, with a small circle with a seed-syllable in front of him, is surrounded by some decorative designs of flowers or clouds and several circles with a syllable or bīja inside. Usually these bījas are 5 or 7 or 9 in number: for the half circle around the central figure we expect 7 (six plus one on the part that broke off at the right), in addition there is the seed-syllable in front of the central figure. (2) The Buddha-like figure in the middle may be Amitāyus: he has a crown on the head, is sitting cross legged, on a lotus flower with hands perhaps in añjali mudrā (the relievo is very shallow here). (3) These ‘seed syllables’ (bījas), as we have seen, are mystic syllables, mostly used in Tantric Buddhism including in the special form current in ancient Yunnan, and they are meant to provide protection, to liberate from evils and fear, etc., to the deceased. (4) Our tombstone head no. 1 had seven bījas around the central figure, one has entirely disappeared on the part that is broken off at the right, of two others only the edge is seen, the visible ones can be read as hṇām̐ , om̐ , bhrūm̐ , gum̐ Ǥ One additional one in front of the central figure is, again, bhrūm̐ .24  Observations: (1) There are nine bīja-syllables arranged in some pattern. The syllables includetrā m̐, om̐ , mhām̐ ȋmāhām̐ ǫȌ, drṛm̐ ,miǤǤǤThis head part does not have any Buddha or other figure in the middle. (2) The text starts below the bīja-syllable arrangement, in the part that is broken off: first there is a part of one line in Chinese, next are parts of two lines in Siddham and the top part of a few letters of the third line. Observations: (1) In the center there is a seated Buddha as monk, perhaps Amitābha, whose face is damaged, perhaps wilfully at some point of time because the rest of the Buddha and of the entire relievo is in excellent condition. (2) The bīja syllables here are five in number, in a half-circle around the central Buddha. Thebīja•ƒ”‡ǣhnām̐ , trām̐ , ām̐ ḥ, aḥ, hrīḥ.  (3) We see here a bīja syllable, ām̐ ḥ, having candrabindu and visarga simultaneously, which is never possible from regular Sanskrit language and writing point of view. 5. Conclusion, discussion and outlook With regard to our brick-inscription we repeat here that Liebenthal’s conclusion would also apply to this brick, namely that “the script of the brick-inscriptions seems to derive from Nālanda ...” 1955a: 66 and note 67), without any specific affinity to western Gupta or early Śāradā. According to the script its date would be not earlier and not later than the 10th century. As for the inscriptions on the “mushroom-shaped” tombstones, out of the numerous observations given above, we highlight here first the statement in the Chinese line (line 20) – “Posthumously awarded to the deceased person for the propagation of the  24 Cf. Liebenthal’s brick inscription no. 9 [1947a: 33] and the corresponding Plate VI, end of first line.  Some Siddham inscriptions in China: Palaeography and Ritual Function 89 sacred religion of Bharat” – which confirms that India and the religion of India were highly regarded at the time of the production of the tombstone, which can be assumed to be between the late 13th to late 17th century. In addition to the findings of Liebenthal, who remained hesitant regarding any final conclusion, we found that some characters in the tombstone inscriptions which we studied have a close affinity to and are apparently directly borrowed from the eastern variety of Indian late Gupta or Siddhamātṛkā25: the ligature ñca, the syllables tha and om̐ ǡ the bīja-•›ŽŽƒ„Ž‡ trām̐ Ǥ In view of the transitional phase in the writing of dependent e-kāra and o-kāra, we can also conclude that the script derives from a 12th century Indian variety of Siddhamātṛkā. It is of course possible that this transitional phase continued for a longer time in Yunnan under the specific conditions of a script exclusively used for prayers and dhāraṇīs. We could further confirm that the writing of Sanskrit (or approximative Sanskrit) took always place in association with Chinese, never independently or in isolation, because both the brick and the tombstones show always both scripts and both languages with a strict functional division: Sanskrit for the prayers and dhāraṇīs, Chinese for documentary statements. What do these findings mean for the question which influence contributed more to the cultural and religious objects of ancient Yunnan, sinified Buddhism entering Yunnan from the East, or some direct Indian influence from the West? Although this is the way questions regarding phenomena of cultural and political influence and exchange are posed even today, it is based on a simple and in fact far too simplistic analysis of the problem. If the entire “field of production” of tombstones and of religious and cultural objects in ancient Yunnan is first analysed, it should be possible to ask better questions. After all, in order to understand ancient or classical “civilizations,” and even more so how they interact, it is necessary to understand processes as well as products, interactions as well as inventions and innovations.26 This is of course far beyond the scope of our present paper and also of our research plans, but a more complete overview of the field of production in ancient and pre-modern Yunnan should minimally include as agents the indigenous communities such as the Bai, and the Azhali masters. The selection and arrangement of bīja-syllables on the tombstones is almost certainly the work of successive generations of these specialists of esoteric Buddhism, the Azhali masters. For a long time, this not too strictly defined group of important agents in the field of production of these objects must have remained an easily accessible niche for individual newcomers from India. Arriving in this niche, they could become personally influential but were never able to introduce entirely new texts and rituals in the heavily sinified complex of Indo-Chinese Buddhism. But they could impress their environment through their understanding and mastery of the Siddham script, which was easy for them on account of their familiarity with similar forms of the script in India and on account of their grasp of the underlying language. In his evaluation of the evidence Liebenthal wrote in 1955 (58) :  25 According to a recent study a number of rare script-varieties in Tibet, associated with Bon and with the name Zhang-zhung, show affinities with scripts of the eastern areas of the Indian subcontinent [Blezer, Rath, Kalsang, 2013]. 26 Applied to the study of classical India: Pollock 2014. Bourdieu’s sociological concept of the “field of production” has from the beginning a historical dimension [Steinmetz, 2011]. 90 Jan Houben, Saraju Rath The script [on the tombstones] is a later edition of that found on the bricks... It seems that the habit to write a dhāraṇī ... on the back of tomb-stones developed slowly, and became common around the end of the 14th century. Since similar tombs are absent in India this habit must have developed in China. If so, why is the script not the northern type of Hsi-t’an [i.e., Siddham]? Because in Yünnan there existed already a tradition of writing Sanskrit when the northern Chinese migrated there and the craftsmen of Tali used their own copy-books to write dhāraṇīs on tomb-stones. That might explain the difference in script [between Siddham in China and in Yunnan]. Or does there exist another reason? In this first part of our study of the Sanskrit inscriptions in Yunnan, we could preliminarily confirm the affinity of the Siddham script in Yunnan with that in use in eastern India. In that light we can now also suggest that it was not only an existing tradition of writing Sanskrit that contributed to the special, in our view east Indian characteristics of the Siddham script in Yunnan, but also the reinforcement of the Indian element in the existing cultural and religious complex through the occasional arrival of all types of newcomers from India. So how did these Indians arrive? The outlines of an answer are here again already given, very hesitatingly, by Liebenthal, who could not reach a final conclusion as he was working with an underlying model of the complex situation which was far too simplistic. [B]efore 800 A.D. no mention is made in the records of any Indian coming up from Burma. Yet we are told that there were paths leading from the Erh-ho (area around Dali) to Yung-ch’ang and on to a place in Upper Burma from where one route led to Kāmarūpa (Assam), one to Śrīkṣetra (Prome) and the coast. Where there are ways, there should be people walking on them. As there were none, it seems doubtful that any Burma road existed even as late as the seventh century... [Liebenthal, 1955, 62]. The argument that there were no paths because no people were walking on them is of course not valid: it only means that they have not been recorded. With regard to the worship of Mahākāla, attested already in the time of the Nanzhao-kindom in the connection with a Taoist temple before it is later integrated into Yunnanese Budhism, Liebenthal asks [Liebenthal, 1955, 66]: Whence could it have been brought to Yünnan? Over the high passes leading from north-east Assam into Tibet ? From there paths descended to Szechwan and probably also to Likiang. ... [This route] is still used and is, according to modern descriptions, relatively easy. Did perhaps all the painters, sculptors, calligraphers and miracleworkers come to Tali this way? A better sketch of the scenario would be as follows : in an existing and evolving predominantly Chinese Indo-Chinese cultural and religious complex, the Indian component was reinforced and nourished, in any case as far as the writing of the Siddham script was concerned but probably in other respects as well, by individuals coming from India,  Some Siddham inscriptions in China: Palaeography and Ritual Function 91 through unknown routes. This reinforcement and nourishment of the Indian element continued also when it diminished or was suppressed in central and north China. These individuals remained largely under the radar of perception in historical sources and were not in a position to introduce entirely new texts, rituals and traditions. They did not arrive in the wake of mighty armies, did not represent powerful neighbours; individually they did not and probably could never aspire to any political influence, as they slowly trickled into the Yunnan area through routes such as the one from Assam [Liebenthal, 1955, 66]. Further study of various aspects of the field of production of the “mushroom- shaped” tombstones and related objects found in Yunnan is required. This should include not only the further study of the texts and a paleographic study of the Siddham script, but also a further study of historical sources regarding Yunnan written in Chinese or in various other, partly still undeciphered scripts, a better study of the role of the Azhali masters over several centuries, and of the roles and relationships of communities in this area such as the Bai. There has indeed been an overlap of the Indian world and the Chinese world and what is now the Yunnan province of China was one of the areas where such overlap continued over many centuries. In the predominantly Chinese Indo-Chinese cultural and religious complex of Yunnan, there was a niche for occasionally arriving individual Indian contributors who remained largely under the radar of historical records. The meeting of the Indian and the Iranian world in the western part of India facilitated the development of linguistic and grammatical thought. In the eastern regions of the Indian world the meeting with the Chinese world facilitated the development of linguistic speculation and of esoteric and spiritual thought and practices. PLATES      Plate 1 Plate 2 Inscribed brick, Lijiang. Tombstone 1: “mushroom-shaped.” Dali (Photograph by authors) district.  (Photograph by authors)  92 Jan Houben, Saraju Rath     Plate 3 Tombstone head № 1. Head part of tombstone № 1, with seated Buddha and seed- syllables. (Photograph by authors)         Plate 4 Plate 5 Tombstone head №2. Head part of Tombstone head № 3. Head part of tombstone tombstone 2, seed-syllables. 3: central Buddha and five bīja-syllablesǤ (Photograph by authors) (Photograph by authors) References Blezer, Henk, Kalsang Norbu Gurung, and Saraju Rath. 2013. “Where to Look for the Origins of Zhangzhung-Related Scripts?” Journal of the International Association for Bon Research, vol.1 Inaugural Issue (JIABR_01_09), 99–174. London, 2013. Bright, William. 1999. “A Matter of Typology: Alphasyllabaries and Abugidas.” Written Language and Literacy, 2. Pp. 45–56. Bryson, Megan. 2012. “Mahākāla Worship in the Dali kingdom (937–1253)–A Study of the Dahei tianshen daochang yi.” Journal of the Association of Buddhist Studies, vol. 35. 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Электронные ресурсы http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/jiabr/pdf/JIABR_01_09.pdf 2021 Э П И Г Р А Ф И К А В О С Т О К А X X X V I СОДЕРЖАНИЕ КАВКАЗ И КРЫМ Гаджиев М. С. Эпиграфические памятники Дербента: 7 открытия ХХI века (к 300-летию изучения) Тахнаева П. И. Атрибуция и эпиграфика памятников шахидов 22 Кавказской войны кладбища с. Дышни-Ведено (1845–1857) Хапизов Ш. М. Аварские грузинографические надписи из Дагестана 29 (X–XIV вв.) ЮЖНАЯ АЗИЯ Тарасюк Я. В. Эпиграфические источники южноиндийской династии 49 Паллавов: к интерпретации образа и роли правителя Dayalan D. The Nexus of Buddhism with Trade and Traders 60 Houben J., Rath S. Some Siddham Inscriptions in China: Palaeography 76 and Ritual Function ВОСТОЧНАЯ АЗИЯ Долин А. А. Ishii Rogetsu a Haiku Memorial in Stone 95 Куликов Д. Е. Гендерный вопрос в позднешанских гадательных 111 надписях из восточной части Хоуцзячжуана Сафин Т. А. Пиктограммы в надписях на гадательных костях 120 (часть 1) 166 Содержание МЕСОАМЕРИКА Беляев Д. Д. Полевой сезон 2019 г. проекта «Эпиграфический атлас 134 Петена»: иероглифические надписи Йашхи Сафронов А. В. Цари Акʹе, Шукальнаха и Сакцʹи: проблема 150 реконструкции династических списков древних майя классического периода по материалам эпиграфики   Содержание 167 CONTENTS CAUCASUS AND CRIMEA Murtazali S. Gadjiev. Epigraphic monuments of Derbent: . 7 discoveries of the 21st century (on the 300th anniversary of study) Patimat I. Takhnayeva. Attribution and epigraphy 22 of the monuments of the Shahids of the Caucasian War cemetery of the village of Dyshni-Vedeno (1845-1857). Khapizov Sh.M. Avar inscriptions on Georgian 29 scripts from Dagestan (X-XIV centuries). SOUTH ASIA V. Tarasyuk Y. V. Epigraphic Sources of the South Indian 49 Pallava Dynasty: Towards Interpretation of Image and Role of Ruler. Dayalan D. Role of Trade and Traders in the promotion 60 of Buddhism Houben J., Rath S. Some Siddham Inscriptions in China: Palaeography 75 and Ritual Function EAST ASIA Dolin А. А. Ishii Rogetsu a Haiku Memorial in Stone 95 Kulikov, D. Yev. Gender in the Late Shang Oracle Bone 111 Inscriptions from Huayuanzhuang-East. Safin. T. A. Pictograms in the Oracle Bone Script (part 1) 120 168 Содержание MESOAMERICA Beliaev D. D. Epigraphic Atlas of Peten Field Season 134 of 2019: Hieroglyphic Inscriptions of Yaxha. Safronov A. V. Kings of Akʹe, Xukalnaah and Saktzʹi: the problem 151 of reconstruction of the Classic Maya dynastic lists by epigraphic evidences. 2021 Э П И Г Р А Ф И К А В О С Т О К А X X X V I Статьи, опубликованные в журнале «Эпиграфика Востока», прошли процедуру анонимного рецензирования и экспертного отбора. 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