P.T. 7A, P.T. 108, P.T. 240 AND BEIJING BSTAN 'GYUR 3489: ANCIENT TIBETAN RITUALS DEDICATED TO VAIROCANA by Amy Heller, Nyon E. Gene Smith has been most influential in Tibetan studies in many ways yet foremost among his scholarly achievements remains his vast bibliographic research throughout Asia to discover Tibetan xylographs and manuscripts. His efforts resulted in their publication and inclusion in the United States Library of Congress and its catalogue, thereby accessible to Tibetans and to scholars of Tibetology for generations to come. By virtue of his research, E. Gene Smith may justly be compared to the heroic explorers such as Paul Pelliot who recovered the Tibetan manuscripts from Dunhuang, now preserved for future scholars in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. In a small gesture of homage, here will be presented a brief analysis and texts of two unpublished rituals for Vairocana from the Dunhuang manuscripts now in Paris. 1 The importance of the cult of Vairocana in Tibet during the sPu rgyal dynasty has been well demonstrated by previous studies based on ancient artistic representations of Vairocana extant in the twentieth century and on research of the translations made during this period. 2 We propose to present preliminary analysis here of two Dunhuang manuscripts which constitute a ritual of praise to Vairocana and his entourage of the eight Bodhisattvas (P.T. 7a, P.T. 108) and a ritual dedicated to a mand ala of Vairocana (P.T. 240), with reference to the description of Vairocana developed in a ritual text attributed to rGyal ba'i 'od, one of the authors mentioned in the early ninth century lDan kar catalogue. 3 1 This paper is adapted from my presentation at the 1997 Beijing Tibetology Seminar and revised for the 1999 IABS Lausanne conference, which I attended thanks to support from the C.N.R.S., Paris, UMR 8047. 2 See in particular H.E. Richardson, "The Cult of Vairocana in Early Tibet," in Tadeusz Skorupski, ed., Indo- Tibetan Studies. Tring: The Institute of Buddhist Studies (Buddhica Britannica, II), 1990, pp. 271-274; Tadeusz Skorupski, The Sarvadurgatipari_odhana Tantra - Elimination of All Evil Destinies. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1983; Alex Wayman and Ryujun Tajima, The Enlightenment of Vairocana. Vol. 1: Study of the Vairocanabhisambodhitantra (by A. Wayman); vol. 2. Study of the Mah_vairocana-S_tra (by R. Tajima). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass (Buddhist Tradition Series, 18), repr. 1992; and, most recently, Matthew T. Kapstein, The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism - Conversion, Contestation, and Memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 3 rGyal ba'i 'od is listed in the lDan kar catalogue as author of the Byang chub kyi sems sgom pa (609); see Marcelle Lalou, "Contribution à la bibliographie du Kanjur et du Tanjur - Les textes bouddhiques au temps