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The corridor-enclosed cloister characterized Buddhist monasteries during the Sui and Tang periods. This architectural form was first introduced by Emperor Liang Wudi from the palace and continued to prevail until the eleventh century, when a gradual transformation occurred, resulting in the corridor evolving into a long, narrow image hall. This paper examines the ritual and pictorial programs of the Sui-Tang Buddhist corridor to gain insight into this transformation and its ceremonial significance. Specifically, it explores how the corridor was empowered by the state-sponsored maigre feast as a place of worship and how the monastic community of a particular school appropriated the space to celebrate an unbroken dharma-transmission lineage from the Buddha to a specific group of Chinese patriarchs. Lastly, the paper aims to comprehend the adaptation of the corridor into an image hall, which was influenced by political and religious shifts in the eleventh century when Buddhist monasteries were no longer designated as the ritual arena for the state-sponsored maigre feast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The religious worldview of the mantranaya (esoteric Mahāyāna or Vajrayāna) can arguably be seen as rooted in the perspective that reality (tattva) is to be self-experienced (svasamvedya) through contemplative practices, serving as both their means (upāya) and expression (caryā). The tantric path-model of Padmavajra's Guhyasiddhi, an exegetical text in the Guhyasamāja tradition, supposedly enables individuals to rapidly realize reality, a state also referred to as mahāmudrā or other, within a single lifetime. This path-model describes a transformation leading to the revelation of ultimate realization leaving behind conventional means. These two levels correspond to two stages, the stage of arising (utpattikrama), serving as the foundation for the stage of the arisen (utpannakrama). While the first stage is like a supporting framework giving rise to the correct view, in the second stage, the practitioner cultivates the view that has arisen. The practices of the latter stage eventually become inseparable from the view itself, meaning they are practical expressions of the view exemplified in doctrines like unmattavrata and other forms of observances integral to the mahāmudrā doctrine. Thus, contemplative practices and the established worldview mutually inform each other in a reciprocal relationship. Simultaneously, this system of practice and view continues to influence and shape religious practices and rituals as they are transmitted, e.g., through teacher–disciple lineages (guruparaṃparā). In this paper, I will explore this relationship through the critical edition and annotated translation of Guhyasiddhi's first chapter by Padmavajra (ca. late 8th and early 9th century), in which a clear exposition of the relationship in question is presented. My analysis of it, thus connecting the work to more general Buddhist concepts, follows a two-level framework, that is, the well-known two-fold system of conventional/implicit (a) and definitive/explicit (b), which can be seen as equivalent to utpatti- (a) and utpannakrama (b). The efficiency of promoted practices accords with the practitioner's correct assessment of tattva which, following Padmavajra, is the basis for engagement in tantric practices per se. The first part provides the analysis, given in 1.1–1.5, of Padmavajra's system and is based on the second part, the annotated translation (2.1) and critical edition (2.2) of Padma-vajra's Guhyasiddhi chapter one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]