The silk route between ancient India and China was a path of pilgrimage for seekers –a little dig into forgotten history can tell us that it was also a vector of cultural overlap between the Indian and Chinese civilisations. Cultures, languages, knowledge, religions, and spirituality travelled on the the Silk Route and its offshoots between the two civilizations.

The story of calligraphy is one overlooked aspect of this historical overlap and knowledge exchange. Within the extremely vast sphere of classical oriental calligraphy the history of Dharani scrolls, containing powerful sanskrit mantras, and also their phonetics and translations in Chinese, – all written in various styles of classical calligraphy – is the most dynamic.

Dharanis were important instruments for the spread of Buddhism from India to the linguistic Sinosphere. While there is a repository of scholarly knowledge on Dharani scrolls and a living culture of Chinese calligraphy, the tradition of Dharani calligraphy in India has disappeared. It would be interesting to reconstruct the process through which the Sanskrit and Chinese calligraphy juxtaposition on Dharani scrolls first started.

There is a rich centuries-long history to be explored by experts in the ancient Dharaniscrolls but for the easy comprehension of neophytes and enthusiasts, this article is focused on the “Siddham script”, the Sanskrit calligraphy used on Dharanis, and the connection between ancient Sanskrit and Chinese calligraphy revealed on these scrolls.

In esoteric Buddhism, Sanskrit mantras were written in Siddham calligraphy, a Brahmi-related script, and the Chinese text followed kǎi shū (楷書) and lì shū (隸書)two of the five Chinese classical calligraphy styles employed to translate and depict the phonetics of the Sanskrit mantras.

What’s very important here is that these Sanskrit and Chinese calligraphy styles have a history of their own, which means that each of these styles has a different origin, a period of development and a cultural context before sharing space on the Dharani scroll somewhere in medieval China.

While Chinese calligraphy continues to be a part of Chinese culture and is practiced in the same styles in China, Taiwan and other places, the art of Sanskrit calligraphy practice has almost disappeared in India. As a result the deeply historic connection between the Chinese and Sanskrit calligraphies has been forgotten and that period of history is mostly left to one-sided interpretations.

Siddham: Forgotten Science of Sanskrit Learning

Siddha is a well-known word for Indians. In India’s south particularly, it can even denote a culture–there is Siddha medicine and a whole lot of geographical nomenclatures in the region, particularly in the Nilgiri mountain range between Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala where one can come across hills and mountains associated with a lost culture of Siddhas: practitioners of certain esoteric disciplines of yoga. Mentions of their Siddhis or yogic attainments are numerous in the folklore of the region.

The word Siddham for Sanskrit calligraphy comes from the same Sanskrit root “Sidh” as the word Siddha, and it means “to attain or to accomplish”. Since Siddham script even during its golden age was practiced only by those who possessed very refined literary and linguistic skills; it certainly also denoted a “Siddhi” or yogic attainment.

Tensho David Schneider, an author and a rare practitioner of Siddham calligraphy translates “Siddham” as“perfected” and mentions on his website that Siddham was widely popular during the classical Gupta period (4th-7th century AD) and when Chinese pilgrims reached Nalanda for the first time, they saw that calligraphy in religious texts, meaning short sutras, mantras, seed syllables (bijas)  etc. of tantric or esoteric Buddhism.

“These were the letters used to write down the Buddhist canon for the first time,” said Schneider. “These were the letters–principally Siddham–they [Chinese pilgrims] used to copy essential tests before walking back to China with them.”

Components of Siddham Learning

Chinese scholar, Zhou Guanhrong from the Institute of World Religions of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences wrote in a paper titled “The Origin of Siddham Learning in India” that Siddham learning had two components: Siddhirastu (phoneme) and Siddhamatrka (script).

Zhou mentions a work by the same name, “Siddhirastu” in medieval China. It was a textbook of Sanskrit alphabet, semantics, and phonetics. The Siddhirastu had a twofold research focus–one that studied the connection of sanskrit phonetics with Buddhist doctrines (much like what still exists in India focussed on the manifesting impact of Sanskrit sounds or the relation between form and sound) and another which connected Sanskrit phonetics to Chinese and Chinese-influenced languages in South East Asia.

Zhou mentions in his paper that I-Ching, a Chinese monk spent eleven years in Nalanda and that according to him “Siddhairastu” was also the first word of a book  that taught sanskrit alphabet and spellings. Siddhairastu is made up of two Sanskrit roots: Siddhi (fसदfध) meaning attainment and Astu (अस्त¸) meaning ‘may it be achieved’. The word indicates the purpose of Siddham scrolls meant to help manifest what the text is about.

Multiple systems of Sanskrit phonetics in Chinese existed in different periods and Zhou quotes sources citing another school of Siddham learning originally taught by a South Indian monk called Prajabuddhi that found its way into the Chinese book, His-Tan-Tzu-Chi (an account of Siddham letters).

The second component of the Siddham scrolls, the Siddhamatrka or the way of the Siddham script was based on Brahmi, the alphabet believed to have originated from Brahma, the creator. Siddham scrolls were thus written in Brahmi script–in fact Siddham calligraphy in medieval times was a Brahmi alphabetic style known as Xi-Tan (in Chinese) or Siddham.

It was considered sacred in China, held to be the “base” of all Indian scripts and  was popular in Chinese Buddhism.

Siddham’s Impact on Chinese Language

The Buddhist-propagated Sanskrit contributed nearly 35,000 new words to the Chinese language, according to Guang Xing, the writer of the paper, “Buddhist Impact on Chinese Language.” Many words entered through translation and many were created through transliteration.

There are two kinds of transliterated Sanskrit words in Chinese–one is the category of proper name such as Sheng for sangha and Shijiamoni for Sakyamuni. The second category is vaster and more varied and according to the Buddhist monk Xuanzang, this category was characterised by five factors and one was “secrecy” that the dharani required.

Guang mentions in his paper that the phonetic nature of Sanskrit studies also inspired phonetics in the Chinese language. “The linguistic study of Sanskrit inspired the Chinese to examine the phonetics in their language. At least Chinese people became aware of the four tones in their language due to the influence of Sanskrit used in Buddhist scriptures.”

Siddham particularly contributed to “dengyunxue”–a system for studying Chinese phonology; and to “Qieyun”–a technique to  analyse and categorise syllables.

The Siddham scrolls were a combination of both the form and the sound of the sacred message they contained. The form was denoted by the Siddham calligraphy written with bamboo brushes and the sacred sound was phonetically transliterated in Chinese written on the scroll in Chinese calligraphy. The use of the latter demanded proficient skill and prescribed rules for the calligraphers.

Even today students of Chinese calligraphy spend decades mastering five styles of classical calligraphy: Zhuanshū, lì shū (隸書), Cau shū, Xing shū, kǎi shū (楷書). Each of these has  come into being through a long period of evolution as visible in Chinese paleography.

The Siddham scrolls used only two styles of Chinese calligraphy: kǎi shū (楷書), the fifth or the most advanced style, and lì shū (隸書), the clerical style. Zhou mentions that Chinese calligraphy impacted the Siddham writing styles which acquired new styles and instruments in China.

“These changes include the up-to-down writing way which replaced the left-to-right Indian script. Another change is that the Chinese brush made the Siddham script appear more free and richer in expressive force,” said Zhou.

Reviving the lost Tradition of Siddham

While it’s possible today to learn the Chinese calligraphy styles practiced for 2500 years   with teachers proficient in the art, the art of Siddham calligraphy and general Sanskrit calligraphy has practically vanished in India.

The Chinese calligrapher still meticulously writes with ink and bamboo brushes in five classical styles, preserving an important aspect of the culture and civilization. The Indians need to bring the Siddham calligraphy back to life, just like the classical dance, music, and art schools.

Some institutions in Varanasi, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu where ancient Sanskrit teaching is taught could help popularise Sanskrit calligraphy among the Indian public.

The phonetical revival of Siddham should also be encouraged.

Kerala’s tradition of Kadavallur anyonyam (a sign language-based debate and examination of the Rig Veda between two historic Vedic schools in Kerala) and a school of Rig Veda recitation in Thrissur called Brahmaswam Madhom have kept the sanskrit tradition of oral learning alive. Its highly scientific and codified method of oral recitation passed down since Shankracharya’s time could throw some light into the lost phonetical traditions of Siddham.

Once Indians revive the lost tradition and practice of Siddham calligraphy and phonetics, efforts could be made to rekindle the classical connection between Sanskrit and Chinese learning systems and thereby throw light on some historical enigmas.

Tibetan Buddhists still practice Siddham calligraphy in the Tibetan script, often in two specific styles like Uchen or Umeh. A joint project to revive Siddham learning and popularise Siddham calligraphy in India would be culturally very fruitful.

Bibliography

The Origin of Siddham Learning in India https://www.asianscholarship.org/asf/ejourn/articles/Zhou.pdf

Buddhist Impact on Chinese Language by Guang Xing (Buddhist Conference 2012) https://hub.hku.hk/bitstream/10722/149321/1/Content.pdf

The Influence of Buddhist Sanskrit on Chinese

https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/38607/chapter-abstract/334720186?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Siddham Across Asia, How Bhuddha Learned his ABC by Richard Solomon (23rd J. Gonda Lecture 2015) https://storage.knaw.nl/2022-06/20161128-GondaLecture_23-2015-salomon.pdf

Tensho David Schneider

https://www.tenshodavidschneider.space/siddham

This Unique 6th Century Script Vanished From India But Is Still Preserved in Japan!

https://thebetterindia.com/155862/siddham-india-japan-sanskrit-buddhism