Chapter 10: The Dharma's Many Faces

This chapter is part of the book The Sacred Editors: Buddhism.

View the entire book

Buy on Amazon

"To understand Buddhism's past, we must learn to see in many directions at once."

The Mogao Caves near Dunhuang stretch along a cliff face like a honeycomb of devotion, each chamber telling a different story of Buddhist faith. Cave 17, sealed in the eleventh century and rediscovered in 1900, contained what Aurel Stein called "the world's oldest printed book"—the Diamond Sutra, dated 868 CE. But this famous text was just one manuscript among nearly 40,000 others, written in seventeen different languages and representing traditions that spanned a millennium of Buddhist development.

Standing in that cave library, surrounded by scrolls in Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Sogdian, Khotanese, and Uighur, a modern visitor confronts a startling reality: there was never just one Buddhism, never just one canon, never just one way of preserving what the Buddha taught. Instead, there were countless communities, each adapting the Dharma to their languages, cultures, and spiritual needs, each making editorial choices about which texts to copy, which teachings to emphasize, and which voices to preserve for future generations.

This extraordinary diversity—revealed dramatically in the Dunhuang manuscripts but evident throughout Asian Buddhist history—challenges every assumption about canonical unity and textual authority. The story we have traced through Part II demonstrates that Buddhist scripture, far from being a fixed collection transmitted unchanged across time and space, represents one of history's most remarkable examples of creative adaptation and editorial innovation.

The Great Transformation: From Oral Teaching to Global Literature

When we began this exploration in Chapter 6, we witnessed the monumental translation efforts that transformed Buddhism from a regional Indian tradition into a pan-Asian religion. The image of Xuanzang's translation workshop at Da Ci'en Temple, with its teams of scribes working to render Sanskrit philosophical concepts into classical Chinese, captures both the scale and complexity of this transformation. But as we discovered, translation was never merely a technical process—it was an act of cultural interpretation that inevitably changed the meaning and emphasis of the texts being transmitted.

The challenges that Xuanzang and his contemporaries faced—how to translate untranslatable concepts like śūnyatā(emptiness) or dharmadhātu (realm of phenomena)—required them to make countless decisions that would shape Buddhist thought for centuries. When Chinese translators chose to render the Sanskrit buddha as "enlightened one" (覺者) rather than "awakened one" (醒者), they subtly emphasized intellectual understanding over spiritual realization. When Tibetan translators decided to create entirely new vocabulary for Buddhist technical terms rather than borrowing Sanskrit words, they produced a philosophical language that enabled new forms of systematic analysis.¹

These translation choices reveal that the early dissemination of Buddhism involved not passive transmission but active editorial work. Each linguistic transition offered opportunities for innovation, adaptation, and creative synthesis that produced distinctly regional forms of Buddhist literature. The Chinese emphasis on practical ethics, the Tibetan focus on systematic philosophy, and the Southeast Asian integration of cosmological narratives all reflect translation decisions made by communities adapting Buddhist teachings to their particular cultural contexts.

The Plurality of Canons: Regional Priorities and Editorial Choices

Chapter 7 explored how these translation processes produced not one universal Buddhist canon but multiple regional collections, each reflecting different priorities about which texts deserved preservation and which teachings required emphasis. The comparison between the Pāli Tipiṭaka, the Chinese Tripiṭaka, and the Tibetan Kangyur reveals fundamental differences in how Buddhist communities understood the boundaries and purposes of canonical authority.

The Pāli tradition's emphasis on preserving the earliest discourses and monastic regulations reflected Theravāda communities' commitment to maintaining what they understood as the Buddha's original teachings. Yet even this "conservative" approach involved significant editorial decisions, as the Pāli commentarial tradition demonstrates. When Buddhaghosa composed his influential commentaries in the fifth century CE, he effectively reshaped how Theravāda communities would understand canonical texts for the next fifteen centuries.²

The Chinese Tripiṭaka, by contrast, emerged from a very different set of priorities. Imperial sponsorship enabled massive translation projects that preserved texts from multiple Indian schools, but Chinese editors also made deliberate choices about which texts to emphasize. The elevation of Mahāyāna sutras like the Lotus Sutra and the Pure Land texts reflected not just Indian sectarian preferences but Chinese cultural values about compassion, merit-making, and popular accessibility.

The Tibetan approach represented yet another editorial strategy. By distinguishing between the Kangyur (translated words of the Buddha) and the Tengyur (translated treatises), Tibetan editors created a hierarchical system that preserved both scriptural authority and interpretive tradition. This innovation enabled Tibetan Buddhism to maintain both textual conservatism and philosophical creativity, producing scholastic traditions that could engage in sophisticated debate while claiming canonical warrant for their positions.³

Each of these approaches reflected legitimate but different answers to fundamental questions about scriptural authority: Which texts preserve authentic Buddhist teaching? How should communities balance preservation of ancient wisdom with adaptation to contemporary needs? What role should translation and interpretation play in maintaining religious truth across cultural boundaries?

Sectarian Editing and Doctrinal Adaptation

Chapter 8 revealed how different Buddhist schools used commentary, selection, and subtle textual modification to advance their particular interpretations of Buddhist teaching. This process of "sectarian editing" was not deceptive manipulation but rather honest scholarly work that sought to clarify what each community understood as the Buddha's true intent.

The Sarvāstivāda emphasis on abhidharma (systematic philosophy) led to canonical collections that elevated analytical texts over narrative literature. Their Abhidharma-piṭaka became a sophisticated philosophical system that influenced Buddhist thought throughout Central and East Asia. The Theravāda focus on vinaya (monastic discipline) produced canonical collections that emphasized proper conduct and institutional authority. The Mahāsāṅghika openness to ongoing revelation created space for new sutras that claimed to preserve advanced teachings for future generations.⁴

Each school's editorial choices reflected genuine theological convictions about how Buddhist teaching should be understood and applied. When Madhyamaka philosophers like Nāgārjuna composed treatises that reinterpreted earlier sutras through the lens of emptiness, they were not abandoning canonical authority but rather claiming to reveal the deeper meaning that had always been present in the Buddha's teaching. When Yogācāra thinkers developed new psychological theories based on consciousness-only doctrine, they presented these innovations as faithful elaborations of canonical insights about the nature of mind and perception.

The cumulative effect of these sectarian editorial processes was the development of multiple legitimate Buddhist orthodoxies, each claiming canonical warrant while emphasizing different aspects of the tradition. This diversity created both richness and complexity, as later Buddhist communities inherited multiple interpretive traditions that sometimes conflicted with each other while all claiming scriptural authority.

Forgotten Voices and Alternative Pathways

Chapter 9 expanded our vision beyond the major canonical traditions to explore the forgotten routes and marginalized voices that also shaped Buddhist textual development. The discovery of Buddhist manuscripts in languages like Tocharian, Khotanese, and Sogdian reveals entire traditions of Buddhist literature that developed independently of the major Indian and Chinese centers.

These regional traditions were not merely passive recipients of teachings transmitted from prestigious monastic universities. Communities like those in Khotan developed sophisticated approaches to Buddhist literature that integrated local political structures, cultural values, and linguistic traditions. The Book of Zambasta, composed in Khotanese, represents a remarkable synthesis of Mahāyāna Buddhist themes with Iranian epic traditions and Central Asian royal chronicles—a creative adaptation that would have been impossible within the more conservative editorial frameworks of major monastic centers.⁵

Similarly, the maritime transmission networks that connected India with Southeast Asia produced distinctive forms of Buddhist literature that emphasized lay practice, merit-making, and ritual adaptation over the scholastic and monastic concerns that dominated overland transmission. Tamil Buddhist poetry, Javanese court literature, and Malay devotional texts all represent alternative approaches to preserving and transmitting Buddhist wisdom that were marginalized as canonical collections consolidated around particular linguistic and institutional authorities.

The recovery of these alternative traditions through archaeological discovery and manuscript study reveals how much of Buddhist literary diversity was lost through the historical processes that established canonical boundaries. Yet their survival in fragmentary form also demonstrates the persistent creativity of Buddhist communities in adapting core teachings to diverse cultural contexts.

What Would Have Changed? Alternative Canonical Histories

Understanding the contingent nature of canonical formation enables us to imagine how different historical circumstances might have produced very different approaches to Buddhist scriptural authority. These speculative explorations, grounded in the actual diversity that archaeological evidence reveals, illuminate both what was gained and what was lost through the particular editorial choices that shaped inherited traditions.

Scenario 1: Maritime Buddhism as the Dominant Tradition

Had the sea routes connecting India with Southeast Asia become the primary channels of Buddhist transmission, rather than the overland Silk Road connections to China and Central Asia, the resulting canonical traditions might have emphasized practical devotion over philosophical analysis. Maritime Buddhist communities showed greater concern with ritual efficacy, lay practice, and cultural adaptation than with preserving textual purity or maintaining institutional orthodoxy.

Buddhist scholar Anne Blackburn suggests that maritime transmission networks created "ritual ecumenes" that prioritized shared practices over shared texts.⁶ If these approaches had dominated canonical formation, the resulting collections might have included more vernacular literature, more texts addressing lay concerns, and more flexible approaches to doctrinal authority that could accommodate regional variation without losing essential unity.

Scenario 2: Central Asian Synthesis as the Canonical Model

The creative hybridization that characterized Central Asian Buddhism offers another alternative model for canonical development. Rather than the relatively conservative approaches to textual preservation that characterized major Indian and Chinese monastic centers, Central Asian communities demonstrated remarkable willingness to adapt, combine, and creatively reinterpret Buddhist teachings.

Paul Harrison argues that Central Asian Buddhist literature represents "Buddhist creativity at its most adventurous," producing texts that maintained soteriological coherence while radically reimagining cultural expression.⁷ Had kingdoms like Khotan or Kuqa achieved canonical authority comparable to Nalanda or Luoyang, the resulting Buddhist literature might have been more culturally diverse, politically engaged, and artistically innovative than the collections we have inherited.

Scenario 3: Preservation of Multilingual Textual Ecosystems

Perhaps most significantly, the preservation of full linguistic diversity in Buddhist textual transmission might have produced very different approaches to scriptural authority. Rather than the triumph of particular linguistic traditions—Sanskrit in India, Pāli in Theravāda countries, Classical Chinese in East Asia—Buddhism might have maintained genuinely multilingual canonical collections that preserved multiple versions of key texts alongside their diverse interpretive traditions.

Richard Salomon's studies of Gandhāri Buddhist literature demonstrate that the earliest Buddhist texts often preserve archaic features that illuminate the historical development of Buddhist doctrine in ways that later standardized versions obscure.⁸ A more inclusive approach to linguistic preservation might have maintained access to these historical layers while also preserving the diverse theological and cultural innovations that characterized regional Buddhist traditions.

Scenario 4: Female Voices in Canonical Authority

The marginalization of female authorship and leadership in canonical formation represents another significant alternative pathway. Archaeological evidence reveals substantial female participation in Buddhist literary production—through patronage, copying, and possibly composition—that was systematically excluded from official canonical recognition.

Had communities that preserved stronger traditions of female religious authority achieved greater influence in canonical formation, the resulting collections might have included more teachings attributed to female disciples, more texts addressing women's spiritual concerns, and more inclusive approaches to religious leadership that could have significantly altered Buddhist institutional development.

Scholar Debate: Interpreting Buddhist Textual Diversity

Contemporary scholarship on Buddhist canonical formation reflects ongoing debates about how to interpret the remarkable diversity that archaeological and manuscript discoveries have revealed. These debates have important implications for understanding both historical development and contemporary Buddhist practice.

Advocates for Inclusive Approaches

Scholars like Jan Nattier, Paul Harrison, and Gregory Schopen argue that understanding Buddhist textual history requires systematic attention to all forms of Buddhist literature, regardless of their canonical status or institutional origins. Nattier's groundbreaking work on Chinese Buddhist apocrypha demonstrates that texts traditionally dismissed as inauthentic often preserve important historical information about early Buddhist communities and their spiritual concerns.⁹ Harrison's studies of Mahāyāna manuscript traditions reveal that the boundaries between canonical and non-canonical literature were far more fluid than later institutional classifications suggest.

This inclusive approach emphasizes that all Buddhist texts—regardless of their language, authorship, or institutional provenance—represent legitimate responses to Buddhist teachings and therefore deserve scholarly attention. From this perspective, the traditional hierarchies that privileged certain transmission lineages over others reflect political and cultural biases rather than intrinsic spiritual or intellectual value.

Defenders of Canonical Coherence

Other scholars maintain that canonical boundaries, while historically contingent, served important functions in preserving doctrinal coherence and enabling institutional continuity. Scholars like Peter Skilling and Oskar von Hinüber argue that the processes of canonical formation, while certainly shaped by political and cultural factors, also reflected genuine scholarly discernment about which texts best preserved the essential teachings of the Buddha.¹⁰

These scholars emphasize that canonical formation was not simply a matter of political power but also involved sophisticated criteria about textual authenticity, doctrinal consistency, and pedagogical effectiveness. The survival of major canonical traditions across diverse historical and cultural contexts suggests that these collections possessed genuine spiritual and intellectual value that transcended their particular historical origins.

Contextual Pluralism and Middle Approaches

A growing number of scholars advocate for approaches that recognize both the value of canonical traditions and the importance of understanding excluded or marginalized alternatives. Scholars like Ronald Davidson and Susan Whitfield argue for "contextual pluralism" that examines how different Buddhist communities, facing different historical circumstances, developed appropriate textual traditions for their particular needs.¹¹

This approach emphasizes that there was no single "correct" way to preserve or transmit Buddhist teachings, since different communities faced different challenges and opportunities. From this perspective, the diversity of Buddhist textual traditions—including those that were eventually marginalized or lost—represents the natural evolution of Buddhist communities adapting to diverse cultural and historical contexts while maintaining essential soteriological commitments.

Contemporary Relevance: Digital Archives and Global Buddhism

The recovery of Buddhist textual diversity has profound implications for contemporary Buddhist communities and scholarship. Digital technologies now make it possible to access manuscript traditions that were previously available only to specialist researchers, while global Buddhist movements increasingly seek to understand the full scope of their inherited traditions.

Digital Reconstruction and Democratic Access

Projects like the International Dunhuang Project, the Buddhist Digital Resource Center, and the Gandhāri Buddhist Texts database are making previously inaccessible Buddhist literature available to global audiences. These digital archives preserve not only textual content but also material features—scripts, illustrations, colophons, and marginalia—that reveal crucial information about manuscript production, circulation, and use.

For contemporary Buddhist practitioners, access to these diverse traditions provides resources for understanding how Buddhist communities throughout history adapted core teachings to their particular circumstances. Tibetan Buddhist communities are using digital access to recover Bon and indigenous Tibetan textual traditions that were marginalized during the formation of orthodox Tibetan Buddhism. Southeast Asian Buddhist communities are exploring how medieval vernacular literature might inform contemporary approaches to Buddhist education and practice.

Global Buddhism and Cultural Authenticity

As Buddhism continues to spread to new cultural contexts in the twenty-first century, the historical example of successful regional adaptation becomes increasingly relevant. The creative syntheses achieved by Central Asian, Southeast Asian, and other regional Buddhist traditions demonstrate that authentic Buddhist practice does not require rigid adherence to particular cultural forms but rather thoughtful adaptation of core principles to new circumstances.

Contemporary Buddhist communities in Africa, Latin America, and other regions where Buddhism has recently arrived are finding inspiration in historical examples of Buddhist cultural adaptation. The Khotanese integration of Buddhist cosmology with local political structures, the Javanese development of Buddhist court literature, and the Sogdian synthesis of Buddhist and Zoroastrian imagery provide models for how Buddhist teachings can engage creatively with diverse cultural traditions without losing essential identity.

Implications for Scriptural Authority

The recovery of marginal and excluded Buddhist traditions also raises important questions about how contemporary Buddhist communities understand scriptural authority and canonical boundaries. If the major canonical collections represent historically contingent selections rather than divinely ordained assemblages, contemporary practitioners face new questions about which texts deserve attention and how to evaluate conflicting teachings or practices.

Some contemporary Buddhist communities are experimenting with more inclusive approaches to scriptural authority that incorporate previously marginalized traditions. Others are using historical understanding of canonical formation to develop more sophisticated approaches to scriptural interpretation that recognize both the value of traditional lineages and the limitations of any particular textual collection.

These developments suggest that understanding the historical processes of Buddhist textual transmission, rather than undermining traditional authority, can actually enrich contemporary Buddhist practice by providing access to the full diversity of wisdom that Buddhist communities have developed over two millennia of creative adaptation to changing circumstances.

Looking Forward: From Expansion to Consolidation

The journey we have traced through Part II—from the great translation projects of the Tang dynasty to the forgotten manuscripts of Central Asian caves—reveals Buddhism's remarkable capacity for cultural adaptation and creative synthesis. Yet this very diversity, which enabled Buddhism's successful transmission across vast geographical and cultural distances, also created new challenges for communities seeking to maintain doctrinal coherence and institutional authority.

As we prepare to explore Part III, we will see how Buddhist communities responded to this diversity through various forms of political and institutional control. Kings and emperors would sponsor particular textual traditions while suppressing others. Monastic institutions would develop elaborate systems for distinguishing authentic teachings from popular innovations. Scribal academies would work to standardize variant texts and eliminate regional peculiarities.

The story of Buddhist canonical formation is thus not only a tale of creative expansion but also one of deliberate consolidation—of communities making conscious choices about which voices to preserve and which to silence, which traditions to honor and which to forget. Understanding this dual process of expansion and control, diversity and standardization, provides crucial insight into how religious traditions balance the competing demands of cultural adaptation and institutional stability.

The Dharma's many faces, which we have celebrated in this section, would soon encounter pressure to speak with fewer voices, to conform to more restrictive definitions of authenticity, and to serve the political and religious agendas of increasingly powerful institutions. Yet even under these pressures, the creative spirit that enabled Buddhism's initial diversification would find new ways to adapt, innovate, and preserve the essential teachings that had first motivated communities to treasure these texts as sacred scripture.

The manuscripts hidden in Cave 17 at Dunhuang, sealed away as political and religious pressures mounted in medieval China, stand as monuments to both the extraordinary diversity that Buddhist textual transmission achieved and the historical forces that would eventually constrain that diversity. Their rediscovery in the modern era reminds us that the voices which powerful institutions seek to silence often find ways to speak across the centuries, waiting for communities ready to listen with appreciation for the full richness of their inherited traditions.

Notes

1. José Ignacio Cabezón, Buddhism and Language: A Study of Indo-Tibetan Scholasticism (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), 89-123.
2. Steven Collins, Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 156-189.
3. José Ignacio Cabezón, "The Canonization of Philosophy and the Rhetorization of Scripture in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism," in Changing Minds: Contributions to the Study of Buddhism and Tibet in Honor of Jeffrey Hopkins, ed. Guy Newland (Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 2001), 7-26.
4. André Bareau, Les sectes bouddhiques du petit véhicule (Saigon: École française d'Extrême-Orient, 1955), 234-267.
5. Prods Oktor Skjærvø, This Most Excellent Shine of Gold, King of Kings of Sutras: The Khotanese Book of Zambasta (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 45-78.
6. Anne M. Blackburn, "Buddhist Connections in the Indian Ocean: Changes in Monastic Mobility, 1200-1700," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 58, no. 3 (2015): 237-266.
7. Paul Harrison, "Mediums and Messages: Reflections on the Production of Mahāyāna Sūtras," The Eastern Buddhist35, no. 1/2 (2003): 115-151.
8. Richard Salomon, "Gandhāran Manuscripts in the British Library, Schøyen and Other Collections," in Buddhist Manuscripts, Volume III, ed. Jens Braarvig (Oslo: Hermes Academic Publishing, 2006), 1-17.
9. Jan Nattier, A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path According to The Inquiry of Ugra (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2003), 234-289.
10. Peter Skilling, "Scriptural Authenticity and the Śrāvaka Schools: An Essay towards an Indian Perspective," The Eastern Buddhist 41, no. 2 (2010): 1-47.
11. Ronald M. Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 158-189; Susan Whitfield, The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith (London: British Library, 2004), 89-134.

Further Reading

Buddhist Textual Transmission and Canon Formation

• Cabezón, José Ignacio. Buddhism and Language: A Study of Indo-Tibetan Scholasticism. SUNY Press, 1994.
• Harrison, Paul. "Sanskrit Fragments of a Lokottaravādin Tradition." In Buddhist Manuscripts, Volume I, edited by Jens Braarvig, 211-234. Hermes Academic Publishing, 2000.
• Lopez, Donald S., Jr. The Story of Buddhism: A Concise Guide to Its History and Teachings. HarperOne, 2001.

Regional Buddhist Traditions

• Blackburn, Anne M. Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka. University of Chicago Press, 2010.
• Davidson, Ronald M. Tibetan Renaissance: Tantric Buddhism in the Rebirth of Tibetan Culture. Columbia University Press, 2005.
• Sen, Tansen. "Buddhist Connections in the Bay of Bengal." In The Bay of Bengal: Commercial Networks and Cultural Exchanges, edited by Om Prakash, 134-167. Manohar, 2018.

Manuscript Studies and Archaeological Discoveries

• Nattier, Jan. Once Upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline. Asian Humanities Press, 1991.
• Salomon, Richard. Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra: The British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments. University of Washington Press, 1999.
• Whitfield, Susan. Life Along the Silk Road. University of California Press, 1999.

Digital Archives and Contemporary Buddhist Studies

• Buddhist Digital Resource Center: https://www.bdrc.io/
• International Dunhuang Project: http://idp.bl.uk/
• Gandhāran Buddhist Texts: https://gandhari.org/
• Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association: http://www.cbeta.org/