Calamity-Pacifying Ceremonies and the Rise of Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism in Early Twentieth Century China

The paper investigates the calamity-pacifying ceremonies 息災法會 conducted by Tibetan esoteric Buddhists in Chinese cities from the 1920s to the 1940s. It examines a series of ceremonies conducted by Lama Bai Puren 白普仁 (1870 –1929), who conducted the Dharma Ceremony of Golden Light 金光明法會 in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hubei, and Hunan as these regions endured natural disasters and wars between 1916 and 1927. In particular, it focuses on his performing ceremonies to cope with a severe drought in Hunan in 1926. Drawing from influential newspapers and Buddhist periodicals, the paper suggests that these ceremonies played a crucial role in the dissemination of Tibetan esoteric Buddhism in Chinese Buddhist communities. It also argues that the popularity of esoteric rituals in Chinese cities in the first decades of the twentieth century challenges the common assumptions of de-ritualization and demythologization in Buddhist modernity.