Buddhist iconographical texts often refer to Mahācīna as the source of some distinct form of the iconography of the images of divinities. For instance, in the Sādhanamālā there is the description of a form of goddess Tārā, composed by Shāśvatavajra, which the latter refers to as the Mahācīnakrama form. Both in the text of the Sādhanamālā and in the colophon; Mahācīnakrama evidently implies that the iconographic form concerned was popular in the geographical dispensation of Mahācīna, and, as the suffix ‘krama’ indicates, the composer of the sādhana introduced the aforesaid popular form to the Indo-Nepalese Buddhist pantheon.
An interesting illustrated manuscript of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, dated A.D. 1015 and now in the collection of the Cambridge University Library, there are several illustrations of Buddhist divinities along with inscribed labels not only disclosing the identity of the relevant images, but also associating them with a topographical placement. A parallel version of this manuscript, but bearing the date A.D. 1071, is there in the holding of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta. Interestingly, this manuscript contains the illustration of a male divinity with the accompanying inscribed label reading: Mahācīne Mañjughoṣaḥ. The inscription may have either of these two meanings. (i) Mañjughoṣa (a well-known form of the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī) while he was at Mahācīna (ii) Mañjughoṣa as he is known in Mahācīna. In both the interpretations, Mahācīna evidently bears a geographical connotation, and that being the case, the second of the above interpretations seems to be more valid because the objective of the Aāśṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā manuscript concerned ostensibly was to prepare a visual documentation of the distinctive iconographical forms of divinities which had acquired celebrity at the various shrines and centers of Buddhism.
The expression Mahācīna definitely refers to a land that could be regarded as ‘Greater China’, and not the ‘mainland’ of China. Stael Holstein discovered from the lamaistic establishment, Pao-hsiang Lou (Buaxianglou), in the city of Peiping (Beijing) in China as many as 787 Buddhist bronze images belonging to the pantheonistic community of Chinese Buddhism. These objects of visual representation were studied, along with a series of photographs from three manuscripts in Chinese, admirably by Walter Eugene Clark, and he published valuable materials in two volumes under the title ‘Two Lamaistic Pantheons’. Clark recovered the Sanskrit names from their Chinese counterparts. These materials not only throw significant light on the interrelationship between Indian and Chinese Buddhist iconography, but also offer information of much relevance in the history of Buddhist iconography in general. It is interesting to note that Clark’s list of images contains the names like Chīna Tārā and Chīnakrama Tārā, and none of the images bears the epithet Mahācīnakrama. It seems that the topographical epithets Cīna and Mahācīna were two distinct connotations.
That cīna and mahācīna referred to two separate geographical concepts is known from various other sources. Here we can refer to a glaring evidence to put the point across. In the Laghukalacakrarājatantra Tīkā there is the prescription for the composition of the canonical texts in the languages, and perhaps also in the scripts, prevalent in the respective lands. It has the following categorical statement:
tathā bhoṭaviṣaye yānatrayaṃ bhotabhāṣayā likhitaṃ, cīne cīnabhāṣayā, mahācīne mahācīnabhāṣayā |
Here three distinct geographical territories, Bhoṭaviṣaya, Cīna and Mahācīna are mentioned. This leaves no doubt that Cīna and Mahācīna are two seperate entities in terms of geo-cultural identities. Cīna is positively the present day China, and Mahācīna is the land where Chinese culture commuted notwithstanding the orthodoxy of the geo-political boundary. In that case, what is known as Central Asia or the Chinese Turkistan should really be that land referable by the expression Mahācīna or Greater China.
However, there is a wrongly upheld belief that Mahācīna stands for Tibet. In the above mentioned statement of the Laghukalacakrarājatantra Tīkā, there is the mention of a land called Bhoṭaviṣaya which is distinct from Mahācīna and Cīna. The sādhana number 127 of the Sādhanamālā is ascribed to the authorship of Nāgārjuna, and, as per the further information given in the colophon, the iconographical concepts delivered in the sādhana concerned are derived from the tradition of the Bhoṭa country. In this sādhana there is the description of three different presentations of the Ekajaṭā form of the goddess Tārā. Since all these presentations are quite distinct from the form of the Mahācīnakrama Tārā of the Sādhanamālā, referred to earlier, it seems that Bhoṭa and Mahācīna represent two distinct geo-cultural entities. Bhoṭa is, in fact, Tibet and Bhutan forming one cultural unit. The contribution of the Tibet-Bhutanese tradition of Bon-Po culture is of much significance in the evolution of Tantric Buddhist iconography and rituals. In the above mentioned colophon statement of the Sādhanamālā the reference evidently is to Tibet (Bhoṭa), and not to Central Asia (Mahācīna).
That Bhoṭa is Tibet, and Mahācīna is Central Asia or other than Tibet, can be known from other authorities as well. It is well-known that the Lamaistic form of Buddhism is primarily pertinent to Tibet. In a Nepalese Buddhist work entitled Tantratattvasamuccaya, there is an interesting observation which is as follows:
nepāladeśe sākyānāṃ śāśvatatantram | bhoṭadeśe lāmānāṃ kāmbojatantram | cīnadeśe cīnānāṃ pītatantram | mahācīnadeśe vrātyānāṃ miśratantram | siṃhaladeśe nāgānāṃ sthaviratantram ||
Here the people of the Bhoṭa country is associated with the Kāmboja Tantra, and they are called as the Lamas, and they seem to be distinct from the vrātyas who are associated with Mahācīna and with the Miśra Tantra. The ascription of the Kāmboja Tantra to Bhoṭa or Tibet is interesting because Amṛtānanda, the residency Pundit in Nepal in the nineteenth century under Brian Hodgson, associates the Lamaistic Buddhists of Tibet with the Kāmbojadeśa in his Dharmakośa Samgraha. In fact, cultural nomenclatures differed not merely on the change of time, but also on the personal interpretations of the individuals looking at a culture.
However, it is pertinent to mention that the reference to any culture does not necessarily imply its relevance only to the political boundary of the country of its origin. It is understood that because of the predominantly Chinese cultural traits, the presence of which is not the result of any force or motive, the vast land of Central Asia has been referred to by the ancients as Mahācīna or Greater China, and as Chinese Turkistan by the present day chroniclers. It is true that it is almost impossible to single out the Chinese features from the cultural complex of Central Asia. But the fact remains that the overall Chinese ethos there cannot escape notice. Minute and detailed analysis shows that the Indian, Persian, Turkish and Mongol elements are also present there in various modes and manners. Central Asia seems to be the land where various cultures seem to have stepped out of their respective playgrounds in order to revel in a composite game of give and take.
In view of the stepping out from the boundaries of the orthodoxy, and because of the participation in activities bereft of the consideration of who contributes what, Central Asian culture has been referred to by the Tantrasamuccaya, mentioned above, as Miśratantra, i.e., the amalgamated system, and the people involved in it as the vrātyas or the disconnected ones. Once one steps out of the protected realm of orthodoxy, one gets disconnected from the concerns of the mainstream culture. That is exactly what might have happened with the mendicants, monks and itinerant travelers and merchants traversing Central Asia through the so-called Silk Route. In their every footstep in the journey between China and India through Khotan, and in the reverse travel, they got themselves distanced from the culture of the land of the origin, and they adapted themselves to other itinerant cultural traits that they happened to meet en route. Being disconnected or distanced from the mainstream culture, they verily were the vrātyas, and because of their adopting alien cultural traits during transitory meetings with fellow itinerants, they imbibed a mixed culture which admittedly can be called Miśratantra. It is in the fitness of things that the Tantratattvasamuccaya has characterized the culture of Mahācīna or Central Asia as the Miśratantra followed by the vrātyas.