8. HOMA Richard K. Payne and Charles D. Orzech Overview And

8. HOMA

Richard K. Payne and Charles D. Orzech

Overview and Structure In addition to understanding the doctrinal bases upon which the esoteric traditions of Buddhism developed, we also need to know what they were doing—that is, what practices they employed that serve to delineate the esoteric forms of Buddhism. Indeed, some scholars have argued that for the most part tantric doctrine was not unique, and that it was the tantric ritual technology that demarcates the tradition (Sharf 2002). The idea of esoteric Buddhism comprising a set of cults employing related ritual practices is useful in this regard, using the technical meaning of the term “cult” and not its popular, derogatory connotation. Aside from the use of rituals such as homa in esoteric cults, ritual practices per se have their own history, the study of which can provide an important complement to doctrinal and art historical approaches of scholarship on the history of tantra. Rituals are very slow to change and thus provide a different temporal horizon. While the cult of some particular deity might arise and pass away in a relatively short time, practices such as homa are more continuous over time. In order to more deeply understand processes of religious change and adaptation, therefore, the history of ritual can provide an understanding of one of the most stable elements in those processes. Because homa is found across the tantric world (for example, see Brunner-Lachaux 1963), it provides an important tool by which com- parative studies may be advanced. Given the similarities in the per- formance of homa, it also challenges how sectarian boundaries are defined. What does it mean to say that Hindu and Buddhist tantra are different, if they employ the same practices? While Western religious studies focus almost exclusively on beliefs as markers of distinct religious identities, this presumption is based on the unique historical development of Western religious studies. More generally, although ritual studies require further development as an historical discipline, they have the potential to add further nuance to our understanding of history. In just the same way that art history provides additional 134 richard k. payne and charles d. orzech nuance to more traditional approaches, such as doctrinal and bio- graphical studies, an historical ritual studies approach can reveal aspects of the tradition otherwise obscured. Homa is a votive offering made in an act of exchange with a deity, and it is clearly identifiable by the use of fire, personified as the deity Agni, as the vehicle for making such votive offerings. The ritual use of fire and the symbolism of Agni as consumer and conveyor of offerings to the gods links homa to its origins in Vedic ritual culture. It can, however, be traced even further back to the ritual practices of Indo-European peoples more generally (Payne 2002). Based on Vedic ritual, practices such as homa were adapted to tantric contexts (Samuel 2008). Although other systems are known, the most fully developed cat- egorization of types of homa rituals is fivefold (wuzhongfa; goshuhō 五種法). Śāntika (xizaifa; sokusaihō 息災法) is employed for protection; pausṭ ikạ (zengyifa; sōyakuhō 增㦴法) for prosperity; ankuśȧ (gouzhaofa; kōchōhō 鉤召法) for captivating; vaśīkaraṇa (jingaifa; keiaihō 敬愛法) for gaining love and respect; and abhicāraka (zhoufufa; jōbukuhō 調伏法) for subjugating adversaries. Each of these five kinds is to be performed employing different colors, hearth shapes, and times of day, and descriptions of the pertinent details are a frequent element in tantric ritual texts.1 Each is also distinguished by the seed syllable, bīja mantra, appended to the mantras used in the different homa. For example, a homa for protection will have mantra ending in the bīja svāhā, while the mantra employed in a homa for prosperity end with namaḥ (Payne 2005b). As a form of ritual technology, homa can be adapted for any number of different cults, performed with different deities as the chief deity (benzun; honzon 本尊). There are instances ofhoma devoted to figures known throughout the Buddhist tantric world, such as Acalanatha Vidyārāja (Fudō Myōō 不動明王), also known as Candamahārosana,̣ as well more local cult figures such as Kūkai.2 The extent of this adaptability is evidenced by a modern homa devoted to Jesus (Payne 2010).

1 See, for instance, Amoghavajra’s Regulations for Homa for Vajra Pinnacle Yoga ( Jin’gang ding yuqie humo yigui 金剛頂瑜伽護摩儀軌, T. 908). 2 See Tinsley, “Kūkai and the Development of Shingon Buddhism,” in this volume.