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仁王護國般若波羅蜜多經

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Text ID
KR6c0203
Date
765–766
Dynasty
唐

Rénwáng hùguó bōrě bōluómìduō jīng 仁王護國般若波羅蜜多經

Sūtra of the Humane King, State-Protecting, of the Perfection of Wisdom by 不空 Amoghavajra (譯)

About the work

A two-fascicle Tang-period revised translation of the Rénwáng jīng (Humane King Sūtra) by 不空 Amoghavajra (705–774), produced in 765–766 under the patronage of the Tang Dàizōng emperor. Preserved in the Taishō as T246. Companion to the earlier Kumārajīva-attributed T245 (KR6c0202); the Taishō head-note “[No. 245]” cross-references the Kumārajīva version. Two fascicles.

The full title — Rénwáng hùguó bōrě bōluómìduō jīng 仁王護國般若波羅蜜多經 — adds the explicit hùguó 護國 (“state-protecting”) epithet to the Rénwáng title of the earlier translation, marking the work’s explicit positioning as a state-protective scripture.

Prefaces

The Taishō witness opens with the standard evaṃ mayā śrutam nidāna (parallel to T245 but with substantial textual variations) and proceeds through the standard Rénwáng dialogue between the Buddha and the assembly of Mahāyāna kings.

Abstract

T246 is Amoghavajra’s revised translation of the Rénwáng jīng, undertaken at the explicit request of the Tang Dàizōng emperor in 765 (Yǒngtài 1) and completed in 766. The translation was undertaken explicitly to provide an updated state-Buddhist ritual scripture, with the hùguó (state-protecting) emphasis foregrounded.

The relation between T245 and T246 is one of the more intricate cases in Chinese Buddhist textual history. Modern scholarship (Charles D. Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom) has shown that:

  • T245 is most likely a Chinese composition of the late-5th or early-6th century, attributed to Kumārajīva.
  • T246 is Amoghavajra’s revision/updating of T245, with substantial expansion of the esoteric ritual material (the dhāraṇī sequences, the Five Tathāgata mappings, etc.) appropriate to the mid-Tang esoteric Buddhist political-ritual programme that Amoghavajra was constructing under imperial patronage.

T246 is therefore not a fresh translation from a Sanskrit original but an esoteric-revised version of an earlier Chinese composition. This double-pseudepigraphic genealogy (Chinese composition attributed to Kumārajīva, then revised under esoteric Buddhist auspices and promulgated as new translation) is characteristic of mid-Tang esoteric textual production.

For the wider history of East Asian Buddhism, T246 became the standard Tang-and-later state-protective scriptural foundation, displacing T245 in many institutional contexts. The Tang Rénwáng huì 仁王會 imperial ceremony, the Heian-Kamakura Renwáng-e in Japan, and the Sòng-Yuán-Míng state-Buddhist political theology all draw primarily on T246’s revised form rather than T245’s earlier text.

The work is included here under KR6c (Prajñāpāramitā section) by virtue of its title’s Bōrě bōluómìduō element, though the actual content concerns state-Buddhist ritual and Mahāyāna royal ideology more than the Prajñāpāramitā short-sūtra tradition.

Composition date: 765–766 (Yǒngtài 1 to 2), per the well-documented Tang court records of Amoghavajra’s commission and completion.

Translations and research

  • Charles D. Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom: The Scripture for Humane Kings in the Creation of Chinese Buddhism (University Park: Pennsylvania State, 1998) — fundamental; complete translation of T246 alongside discussion of T245’s textual history.
  • Charles D. Orzech, “Mahāvairocana, Vajrasattva, and the Humane King,” in his various essays — for the esoteric framework of T246.
  • Robert H. Sharf, Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: A Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise (Honolulu, 2002) — peripheral but useful background.
  • For the Tang state-Buddhist context, Stanley Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang (Cambridge: CUP, 1987).
  • For the Japanese reception, Mikael S. Adolphson, The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers, and Warriors in Premodern Japan (Honolulu, 2000).

Other points of interest

The Tang Rénwáng huì 仁王會 (Humane King Assembly) ritual, conducted at the imperial court for state protection on the basis of T246, was one of the most elaborate and recurring imperial Buddhist ceremonies of the Tang period. The ritual involved the recitation of the sūtra by a hundred monks for seven days, with elaborate offerings, dhāraṇī recitations, and the Tathāgata-pentad visualisation programme.

The hùguó (state-protecting) explicit framing in T246 (versus T245’s simpler Rénwáng) is significant: it makes explicit what was implicit in T245, and signals the mid-Tang esoteric Buddhist re-positioning of state-protective ritual as a central Buddhist liturgical concern.

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