¹ Harris, I., Cambodian Buddhism: History and Practice (Honolulu, 2005), p. 6Google Scholar.

² A. Sanderson, ‘The Śaiva religion among the Khmers (Part I)’, Bulletin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient. Tome 9091 (2003), p. 427.

³ Reichle, N., Violence and Serenity: Late Buddhist Sculpture from Indonesia (Honolulu, 2007), p. 55Google Scholar.

⁴ See Herni, P. (ed.), Pusaka aksara Yogyakarta: alih aksara dan alih bahasa prasasti koleksi Balai Pelestarian Peninggalan Purbakala Yogyakarta (Bogem, Kalasan, and Yogyakarta, 2007)Google Scholar.

⁵ See Conze, E., ‘The iconography of Prajñāpāramitā’, in Oriental Art, (ed.) W. Cohn, (London, 1949), vol. II, pp. 47–51Google Scholar.

⁶ J. Kim, ‘Goddess Prajñāpāramitā and Esoteric Buddhism in Jayavarman VII's Angkor’, in The Creative South: Buddhist and Hindu Art in Mediaeval Maritime Asia, (eds.) A. Acri and P. Sharrock (Singapore, 2022), vol. 1, pp. 167–191, https://doi.org/10.1355/9789814951494-005.

⁷ This is a broader portrayal of Buddhism in Nusantara. Chapter 3 deals specifically with Prajñāpāramitā images and allied sources.

⁸ For South Asia, see the now classic study of J. N. Kinnard, Imaging Wisdom: Seeing and Knowing in the Art of Indian Buddhism, Curzon Critical Studies in Buddhism (Richmond, 1999). On Cambodia, see O'Naghten, H. Multzer, ‘Prajñāpāramitā dans le bouddhisme du Cambodge ancien’, Arts Asiatiques 71 (2016), pp. 31–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; as well as S. Chemburkar, ‘Prajñāpāramitā and Khmer Esoteric Buddhism in the 10th to 13th centuries’, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion (2022), https://oxfordre.com/religion/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-760 (accessed December 2022).

⁹ The concept of Monsoon Asia has a long and complex historiography going back to at least the early twentieth-century French intellectual circles. For a discussion of its recent revival and its application to the study of premodern Asia, see Henley, D. and Wickremasinghe, N., Monsoon Asia: A Reader on South and Southeast Asia (Amsterdam, 2023)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, https://doi.org/10.1515/9789400604360, ‘Introduction’ as well as chapter by A. Acri). Here, the concept helps me to connect vast areas that include not only South and Southeast Asia, but also parts of Eastern Asia.

¹⁰ These are mentioned in Kim, J., Receptacle of the Sacred: Illustrated Manuscripts and the Buddhist Book Cult in South Asia. South Asia across the Disciplines (Berkeley, 2013)Google Scholar. See also F. Bianchini, ‘Tradition and Innovation in Late South Asian Buddhism: The Impact of Spell Practices on the Recasting of Prajñāpāramitā Scriptures’ (unpublished DPhil dissertation, University of Oxford), pp. 259–260.

¹¹ Kim, ‘Goddess Prajñāpāramitā’, pp. 167–191.

¹² Green, P. S. E., ‘The many faces of Lokeśvara: tantric connections in Cambodia and Campā between the tenth and thirteenth centuries’, History of Religions 54.1 (2014), pp. 69–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar, https://doi.org/10.1086/676513.

¹³ See Acri, A. and Wenta, A., ‘A Buddhist Bhairava? Kṛtanagara's tantric Buddhism in transregional perspective (thirteenth–fourteenth centuries CE)’, Entangled Religions 13.7 (2022)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, https://doi.org/10.46586/er.13.2022.9653.

¹⁴ See Dalton, J. P., Conjuring the Buddha: Ritual Manuals in Early Tantric Buddhism (New York, 2016)Google Scholar.

¹⁵ For the former, see Bianchini, F., ‘Insight for everyone? On the role of spells in later Prajñāpāramitā sources’, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 44 (2021), pp. 53–76Google Scholar. As for the latter, it is based on an interesting suggestion by Peter Skilling: Skilling, P., ‘Ānisaṃsa: merit, motivation and material culture’, Journal of Buddhist Studies, XIV (2017), pp. 1–56Google Scholar.

¹⁶ For recent discussions on these sources, see Bianchini, ‘Tradition and Innovation’, as well as Bianchini, ‘Insight for everyone?’, pp. 53–76.

¹⁷ See the recent contributions of Kim, ‘Goddess Prajñāpāramitā’, pp. 167–191; and Chemburkar ‘Prajñāpāramitā and Khmer Esoteric Buddhism’.

¹⁸ Some of these references can be problematic. It is not certain that the epithet vidydhāraṇī refers to Prajñāpāramitā.

¹⁹ See P. S. E. Green, ‘The Vat Sithor Inscription: Translation, Commentary, and Reflections on Buddhist Traditions in Tenth-Century Cambodia’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Florida, 2014).

²⁰ This is discussed and translated in P. Conti, ‘Tantric Buddhism at Prasat Hin Phimai: a new reading of its iconographic message’, in Before Siam: Essays in Art and Archaeology, (eds.) N. Revire and S. A. Murphy (Bangkok, 2014), pp. 375–395.

²¹ See, among the titles previously mentioned, Kim, ‘Goddess Prajñāpāramitā’, pp. 179, 186.

²² ‘vraḥ kaṃmrateṅ ’añ (3) ekādaśamukha nu vraḥ kaṃmrateṅ ‘añ lokeśvara nu (4) vraḥ kaṃmrateṅ ’añ bhagavatī tai kañcī tai kaṃvī’ (IC 6, pp. 168–169); see Chemburkar, ‘Prajñāpāramitā and Khmer Esoteric Buddhism’.

²³ See Chemburkar, ‘Prajñāpāramitā and Khmer Esoteric Buddhism’, section on Bat Chum.

²⁴ IC 7, pp. 104–105.

²⁵ ‘prajñāpāramitākhyāyai bhagavatyai namo stu te // yasyāṃ sametya sarvvajñatvam upeyuṣaḥ’ (IC 2, p. 202).

²⁶ IC 5, p. 97.

²⁷ See also stanza 72, Coedes, G., ‘La stèle de Ta-Prohm’, BEFEO 6 (1905), pp. 44–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ Coedès, G., ‘La stèle du Preáh Khān d‘Angkor’, BEFEO 41 (1942), pp. 255–302Google Scholar.

²⁹ ‘pāyād apāyād vo varīyasaḥ // jinānām apy ajātānāṃ yā jātā jananī satī’ (IC 3, pp. 66–69).

³⁰ ‘Tatsthāne sthāpitā sthityai sarvvavidvaṅśabhāsvataḥ prajñāpāramitā tārī jananī yena tāyinām’ (‘In that place the protector Prajñāpāramitā, the mother of protectors, was established by him for the sake of continuing the luminous lineage of the Omniscient [Sarvavid- Buddha Vairocana?] one’), Green's translation, quoted by Chemburkar).

³¹ ‘prajñāpāramitā pātu pātakād vo varīyasaḥ’ (Green, ‘Many faces’, p. 298).

³² ‘so sthāpayad vipuladhīr avalokiteśaṃ // rūpadvayam suvidhinā saha devīrūpaṃ […] yat taṭākakam // triṣkālabhūtasatvānāṃ hitārtham akarod ayam saṃsthāpitāmarāṇāñ ca trayāṇāṃ snānakarmmaṇe //’ [list of kṣetras] (IC 6, pp. 123–127); see Green, ‘Many faces’, pp. 131–134.

³³ Kim, ‘Goddess Prajñāpāramitā’, p. 178.

³⁴ See the edition and discussion in Skilling, P., ‘An Oṃ Maṇipadme Hūṃ. inscription from South-East Asia’, Aséanie 11 (2003), pp. 13–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁵ See Kim, Receptacle of the Sacred.

³⁶ The catalogue is V. Văn Thắng, T. Kỳ Phương, and P. Sharrock (eds), Vibrancy in Stone: Masterpieces of the Đà Nẵng Museum of Cham Sculpture. Photographs by Paisarn Piemmettawat (Bangkok, 2018). Images are reproduced and introduced in Chemburkar, ‘Prajñāpāramitā and Khmer Esoteric Buddhism’.

³⁷ Reichle, Violence and Serenity is a compelling and yet accessible monograph study that devotes much space to the history of Prajñāpāramitā in Indonesia.

³⁸ Ibid., chapter 3.

³⁹ See the edition and translation in P. Skilling, ‘The Wat Maheyong inscription (NS 10, K 407): the Thai-Malay peninsula in the wide world of Buddhist material and cultural exchange’, in Peninsular Siam And Its Neighborhoods: Essays in Memory of Dr. Preecha Noonsuk, (ed.) Wannasarn Noonsuk (Nakhon Si Thammarat, 2017), pp. 55–80.

⁴⁰ Note that similar references are attested in some post-Gupta inscriptions from Northern India. Schopen, G., Figments and Fragments of Mahāyāna Buddhism in India: More Collected Papers (Honolulu, 2005), pp. 223ffGoogle Scholar.

⁴¹ For a recent argument in favour of this theory, see Sinclair, I., ‘Dharmakīrti of Kedah: his life, work and troubled times’, Temasek History Research Centre Working Paper 2 (Singapore, 2021)Google Scholar.

⁴² See, for example, J. A. Schoterman, ‘Traces of Indonesian influences in Tibet’, in Esoteric Buddhism in Mediaeval Maritime Asia: Networks of Masters, Texts, Icons, (ed.) A. Acri (Nalanda-Sriwijaya Ser. 27) (Singapore, 2016), pp. 113–122.

⁴³ Again, these themes were discussed in Green, ‘Many faces’.

⁴⁴ Reichle, Violence and Serenity, p. 58 (with image).

⁴⁵ See de Jong, J. W., ‘Notes on the sources and the text of the Sang Hyang Kamahāyānan Mantranaya’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 130 (1974), p. 469Google Scholar for the actual identifications.

⁴⁶ ‘saṅ hyaṅ advayajñāna sira ta devī bharālī Prajñāpāramitā ṅaranira, sira ta ibu de bhaṭāra hyaṅ Buddha’ (‘The divine knowledge of non-duality is the Divine Lady Prajñāpāramitā. She is the mother of the Lord Buddha’), Ensink, J., ‘Sutasoma's teachings to Gajavaktra, the snake and the tigress’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 130 (1974), p. 203Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Bianchini, ‘Insight for everyone?’.

⁴⁸ ‘āhan hetu bhaṭāra Buddha kahiḍĕp putrāprameyeṅ jagat / saṅ hyaṅ Advaya [Ensink has Hadvaya] rāma tattva nira de saṅ paṇḍitāṅhayvani / Prajñāpāramitebu tan sah i sĕḍĕṅniṅ yoga sānusmṛti /’ (41.4), Ensink, ‘Sutasoma's teachings to Gajavaktra’, p. 221.

⁴⁹ See the Introduction in Acri (ed.), Esoteric Buddhism in Mediaeval Maritime Asia; see also Acri and Wenta, ‘Buddhist Bhairava?’.

⁵⁰ Reichle, Violence and Serenity, p. 61.

⁵¹ Canto 69.1-2: ‘Prajñāpāramitāpurī is the name by which the holy sanctuary is generally known, and a Prajñāpāramitā-ritual was performed [= prajñāpāramitākriyā inulahakĕn]’; see Pigeaud, T., Java in the 14th Century: A Study in Cultural History: The Nāgara-Kĕrtāgama by Rakawi Prapañca of Majapahit, 1365 A. D. (The Hague: 1960), p. 53Google Scholar] by Śrī Jñānawidhi to establish it’, S. Robson, Deśawarṇana (Nāgarakṛtāgama) by Mpu Prapañca, [Verhandelingen Van Het Koninklijk Instituut Voor Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde 169] (Leiden, 1995), p. 75.

⁵² Canto 67.2: ‘Prajñāpāramitā tĕmah nira n umantuk ring Mahābuddhaloka’ (‘Prajñāpāramitā is what she [i.e. Rājapatnī] finally became as she returned to the realm of the Great Buddha’).

⁵³ The king ‘in his old age, only performed steadfastly all sorts of rituals which pertain to the spiritual realm (or: rituals and spiritual undertakings), primarily the Tantra Subhūti, whose essence, so they say, was remembered and summarised in the heart’ (‘ndan riṅ vṛddha nireki mātra rumĕgĕp sarvakriyādhyātmika, mukhyaṅ tantra subhūti rakva tineṅĕt (teniṅĕt? [ta iniṅĕt]) kempĕn rasanya i hati’) (based on Pigeaud, Java in the 14th Century, p. 32.

⁵⁴ P. V. Van Stein Callenfels, Stukken betrekking hebbend op Oud-Javaansche opschriften in de Bibliothèque Nationale te Parijs (Oudheidkundig Verslag, Bijlage B., 1924), pp. 23–27.

⁵⁵ C. Bautze-Picron and A. Griffiths, ‘Review of violence and serenity: late Buddhist sculpture from Indonesia by Natasha Reichle’, Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde/Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia 166.2/3 (2010), pp. 359–361.

⁵⁶ T. Cruijsen, A. Griffiths, and M. Klokke, ‘The cult of the Buddhist dhāraṇī Deity Mahāpratisarā along the maritime silk route’, JIABS 35.1 (2014), pp. 71–157.

⁵⁷ G. Schopen, ‘The text on the “Dhāraṇī Stones from Abhayagira”: a minor contribution to the study of Mahāyāna literature in Caylon’, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 5.1 (1982), pp. 100–108.

⁵⁸ K. M. Powell, ‘Rituals and Ruins: Recovering the History of Vajrayāna Buddhism in Sri Lanka’ (unpublished MA dissertation, UC Berkeley, 2018).

⁵⁹ For bibliographic references, see Bianchini, ‘Tradition and Innovation’.

⁶⁰ J. Sundberg and R.Giebel, ‘The life of the T'ang court monk Vajrabodhi as chronicled by Lu-xiang: South Indian and Śrī Laṅkan antecedents to the arrival of the Buddhist Mantranaya in 8th century Java and China’, Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, third series, 12 (2012), pp. 25–118.

⁶¹ A. Griffiths, ‘Written traces of the Buddhist past: mantras and dhāraṇīs in Indonesian inscriptions’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 77.1 (2014), pp. 137–194.

⁶² I translate this way following S. Zacchetti, ‘Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras’, in Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism, (eds.) J. Silk, O. von Hinüber, and V. Eltschinger (Leiden, 2015), vol. 1, p. 181.

⁶³ Sanderson, ‘Śaiva religion’, p. 377.

⁶⁴ Goudriaan, T. and Hooykaas, C., Stuti and Stava (Bauddha, Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava) of Balinese brahman priests (Amsterdam and London, 1971), p. 306.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Ibid., p. 388.

⁶⁶ Ibid., p. 388.

⁶⁷ This term was, to my knowledge, introduced in ibid., p. 11. Since then, the discussion has evolved significantly. Ongoing work by Acri on the Bhuvanakośa, recently presented at the 2023 World Sanskrit Conference, is set to be a major contribution to this issue.

⁶⁸ See H. H. Sørensen, ‘Esoteric Buddhism under the Nanzhao and Dali kingdoms (ca. 800–1253)’, in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, (eds.) H. H. Sørensen, C. D. Orzech, and R. K. Payne (Leiden, 2011), pp. 379–392, https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004184916.i-1200.144, as well as H. H. Sørensen, ‘Esoteric Buddhist art under the Nanzhao and Dali kingdoms’, in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, (eds.) Sørensen, Orzech, and Payne, pp. 487–497, https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004184916.i-1200.210.

⁶⁹ B. Mak, ‘Sanskrit Usṇīsavijayādhāraṇī inscriptions in Dali/Yunnan’, in Investigating Principles: International Aspects of Indian Cultures, (eds.) L. Shravak and S. Roy (Mumbai, 2020), pp. 247–278.

⁷⁰ On Prajñāpāramitā in Dali Buddhism, see M. Bryson, ‘Images of humane kings: rulers in the Dali-kingdom painting of Buddhist images’, in Buddhist Kingship, (eds.) S. Balkwill and J. Benn (Leiden, 2022); and M. Bryson, ‘The great kingdom of eternal peace: Buddhist kingship in tenth-century Dali’, Asia Major, Third Series 32.1 (2019), pp. 87–111.

⁷¹ Bryson, ‘Images of humane kings’, p. 108.

⁷² Bianchini, ‘Tradition and Innovation’, Appendix G: ‘namo bhagavate āryavairocanāya tathāgatāyārhate samyaksaṃbuddhāya | namo bhagavate āryyasamantabhadrāya bodhisatvāya mahāsatvāya mahākāruṇikāya | tadyathā | oṃ jñānapradīpe akṣayakośe pratibhānavati sarvabuddhāvalokite yogapariniṣpanne gambhīraduravagāhe tryarthapariniṣpanne bodhicittasaṃjanani sarvābhiṣekābhiṣikte sarvatathāgatabhāṣite dharmasāgarasambhūte amoghaśravaṇe mahāsamantabhadrabhūminiryāte | vyākaraṇapariprāpaṇi | sarvasiddhanamaskṛte | sarvabuddhabodhisatvasaṃjanani bhagavati buddhamāte | oṃ araḍe karaḍe araḍakaraḍemahāprajñāpāramite svāhā |.’ This spell appears in a composite Pāla manuscript that was brought to Tibet from Bengal and is now available through the China Tibetology Research Centre in Beijing (Tomabechi 2009). It is also found in a modern Dhāraṇīsaṃgraha from Nepal. For further details, consult the above publication.

⁷³ Gellner, D., ‘Sheldon Pollock and Max Weber: why Pollock is more Weberian than he thinks’, Max Weber Studies 17.2 (2018), pp. 212–234Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ See, in particular, Shulman, D., ‘Review essay on Pollock 2006’, The Journal of Asian Studies 66.3 (2007), pp. 819–625CrossRefGoogle Scholar, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20203206.

⁷⁵ See T. Hunter, ‘Exploring the role of language in early state formation of Southeast Asia’, NSC Working Paper Series 7 (2011); and D. Ali, ‘The early inscriptions of Indonesia and the problem of the Sanskrit Cosmopolis’, in Early Interactions between South and Southeast Asia: Reflections on Cross-Cultural Exchange, (eds.) P.-Y. Manguin, A. Mani, and G. Wade (Singapore, 2011), pp. 277–298, https://doi.org/10.1355/9789814311175-016.

⁷⁶ See, for example, Gellner, ‘Sheldon Pollock and Max Weber’, p. 222. Acri has also discussed this point at various places, including in Acri, A., ‘Local vs. cosmopolitan in the study of premodern Southeast Asia’, Suvaṛnabhūmi 9.1 (2017), pp. 7–52Google Scholar.

⁷⁷ For an overview of the structure of epigraphic donations, see Chhabra, B. C., ‘Diplomatic of Sanskrit copper-plate grants’, The Indian Archives 5 (1951), pp. 1–20Google Scholar.

⁷⁸ J. Van den Veerdonk, ‘Curses in Javanese royal inscriptions from the Singhasari-Majapahit period, AD 1222–1486’, Bijdragen Tot de Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde 157.1 (2001), pp. 97–112, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27865699.

⁷⁹ On the important concept of ‘localisation’, one may refer to the writings by Oliver Walters.

⁸⁰ This diffusionist model is also known as the ‘Greater India paradigm’, which has roots in Indian historiography of the 1920s and 30s; see H. Kulke, ‘The concept of cultural convergence revisited: reflections on India's early influence in Southeast Asia’, in Asian Encounters: Exploring Connected Histories, (ed.) U. Singh (Delhi, 2014), pp. 3–19.

⁸¹ For more precise terminology and typological classification of Southeast Asian inscriptions, see Griffiths, A. and Lammerts, C., ‘Epigraphy: Southeast Asia’, in Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism (Leiden, 2015), vol. 1, pp. 988–1009Google Scholar.

⁸² A. Acri, ‘Tantric traditions and state formation in Indonesia’/‘Il Tantrismo e la formazione dello Stato in Indonesia’, in The Souls of Development: Religions and Economy in Southeast Asia, (ed.) R. Orlandi (Bologna, 2018), pp. 163–176/167–181.

⁸³ See, in particular, Acri, ‘Local vs. cosmopolitan’.

⁸⁴ Acri (ed.), Esoteric Buddhism in Mediaeval Maritime Asia.

⁸⁵ This can be seen as an adaptation of Neelis's ‘network model’ for the transmission of Buddhism; see Neelis, J. E. (ed.), Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks: Mobility and Exchange Within and Beyond the Northwestern Borderlands of South Asia (Leiden, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁶ For this text in the Theravāda traditions, see, for example, T. Walker, ‘Echoes of a Sanskrit past: liturgical curricula and the Pali Uṇhissavijaya in Cambodia’, in Katā me rakkhā, katā me parittā: Protecting the Protective Texts and Manuscripts, Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka Vol. 14, (ed.) C. Cicuzza (Bangkok and Lumbini, 2018), pp. 49–116; for the Yunnan tombstones, see Mak, ‘Sanskrit Usṇīsavijayādhāraṇī inscriptions in Dali/Yunnan’.

⁸⁷ See Cruijsen, Griffiths, and Klokke, ‘Cult of the Buddhist dhāraṇī Deity Mahāpratisarā’.

⁸⁸ On this and allied materials from the Philippines, see R. Orlina, ‘Epigraphical evidence for the cult of Mahāpratisarā in the Philippines’, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 35.1-2 (2012), pp. 159–169; and Clavé, E. and Griffiths, A., ‘The Laguna copperplate inscription: tenth-century Luzon, Java, and the Malay world’, Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, 70.2 (2022), pp. 167–242CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁹ See Green, ‘Many faces’.

⁹⁰ See I. Sinclair, ‘From Melayu to Thamel and back: the transmigration of the eight-armed Amoghapāśa’, in Creative South, (eds.) A. Acri and P. Sharrock, pp. 9–65, https://doi.org/10.1355/9789814951494-002.