ABSTRACT
I began this genealogy with a discussion of the 14th Dalai Lama, noting the ways in which the Mahāyāna doctrine of emptiness and the Dharma Body, drawing on a long Tibetan precedent, provided an image for those attending dharma talks and tantric initiations of a cosmic apex upon which to model a new Tibetan constitution. I also argued that there were a number of factors at play in the 20th century that eventually rendered the political importance of Mahāyāna for the legitimation of sovereign authority superfluous – a countercurrent that would eventually overwhelm and occlude the formerly political stream of Mahāyāna authorizations. At present, the countercurrent appears to have won the day; in 2011 the Central Tibetan Administration has accepted the Dalai Lama’s renunciation of any future political role regarding the Tibetan people and has again declared that the very institution of the Dalai Lama will end with him. By the end of the 20th century, it had become difficult for anyone to see the political implications of the image of emptiness for political sovereignty. In the second chapter, I went back to the 16th and 17th centuries to show just how important Mahāyāna in its tantric and Zen forms were to two of the most powerful Qing Dynasty emperors (emperors whose dominion spanned Tibetan, Chinese and Mongolian–speaking peoples). I showed that the ideas of emptiness and the ultimacy of mind were crucially important not only as a way to frame the Qing dynast as emperor, but to consolidate Qing rule with Mongolian Buddhists, Tibetan Buddhists and Chinese Confucian scholars. The fourth chapter went on to argue that emptiness and to some extent mind were important components of “internal colonialism” or, if you prefer, “nation building” within China historically insofar as the images of emptiness and primordial mind coded authority. The coded image proved to be authoritative not only across “religions” but allowed for the absorption of independent populations and cults into the imperial regime. The fifth chapter, then, went on to show how each of these processes was operative in India right up until the late 19th century. Through a discussion of Maitrīpa and Bhāviveka, I then showed that 247the Perfection of Wisdom – and especially its first chapter – stood out as prototypical of Mahāyāna, and that those who objected to Mahāyāna thought that it came too close to the Brahmanical thinking referred to as “vedānta.”
