Vajrayana Buddhism in Southeast Asia - History

History

The Buddhist empire of Srivijaya in Palembang, Sumatra was for more than 600 years, the centre of Vajrayana learning in the Far East. Yi Jing (635-713) praised the high level of Buddhist scholarship in Srivijaya and advised Chinese monks to study there prior to making the journey to the great institution of learning, Nalanda Vihara, India. He wrote:

In the fortified city of Bhoga, Buddhist priests number more than 1,000, whose minds are bent on learning and good practice. They investigate and study all the subjects that exist just as in India; the rules and ceremonies are not at all different. If a Chinese priest wishes to go to the West in order to hear and read the original scriptures, he had better stay here one or two years and practice the proper rules.

The temple complex at Borobudur was built as a Mandala, a giant three dimensional representation of Vajrayana Buddhist cosmology. All of the buddha statues on each of its four sides have the same mudra, corresponding to one of the Dhyani Buddhas of the cardinal compass directions.

Another line of thought points to the depiction of the Gandavyuha, the last chapter of the Flower Garland or Avatamsaka sutra on the median levels of the Borobudur stupa (and Buddha's birth story from the Lalitavistara on the lowest). Since the English language translation of the entire Avatamsaka sutra was completed in the early nineties of the 20th century (Thomas Cleary, ed. Shambala) one surmises that the as yet unidentified upper bas-reliefs on the Borobudur depict episodes of this sutra. The Avatamsaka sutra does not preach a specific group of Dhyana Buddhas but rather insists on innumeral identical Buddhas throughout the universe.