Pǔxián pútísà xíng yuàn zàn 普賢菩薩行願讚
Eulogy on Samantabhadra Bodhisattva’s Practice and Vow by 不空 Amoghavajra (譯)
About the work
This one-fascicle text by 不空 Amoghavajra (705–774, the great Tang Tantric / Esoteric Buddhist translator) is a verse-eulogy on Samantabhadra’s bodhisattva-practice and vow. Per the Taishō apparatus, it is parallel to T0296 (Buddhabhadra’s earlier Wén-shū-shī-lì fā yuàn jīng) and corresponds to fascicle 40 of T0293 (the closing chapter of the 40-fascicle Avataṃsaka, the Pǔ-xián xíng-yuàn pǐn).
The opening verse reads:
Within all the world-systems of the ten directions; / The Buddha-Tathāgatas of the three times… (所有十方世界中，…)
The text consists of the famous Pǔxián shí dà yuàn 普賢十大願 (“Ten Great Vows of Samantabhadra”) set in elegant tetra-syllabic Chinese verse — the version that became most widely chanted in East Asian Buddhist devotional liturgy.
Prefaces
The Taishō print preserves Amoghavajra’s elaborate official Tang court title-line: “開府儀同三司特進試鴻臚卿肅國公食邑三千戶賜紫贈司空諡大鑑正號大廣智大興善寺三藏沙門不空奉 詔譯” — a string of Tang imperial honorifics: Opener of the Office (開府儀同三司), Specially Promoted (特進), Acting Director of the Hónglú [Bureau] (試鴻臚卿), Duke of Sù State (肅國公), Enfeoffed with 3000 Households (食邑三千戶), Granted Purple Robes (賜紫), Posthumously Granted [the Office of] Director of Works (贈司空), Posthumous Title Dà-jiàn (大鑑), Formal Posthumous Title Dà guǎng zhì (大廣智), of the Dà Xìng-shàn-sì 大興善寺, Tripiṭaka śramaṇa Bùkōng, [translated] by imperial command. This array of titles attests Amoghavajra’s exceptional stature in the Tang court and effectively constitutes a single-line biographical tribute.
Abstract
不空 Amoghavajra (Bùkōng 不空, “Inexhaustible”; Skt. Amoghavajra — DILA A000465, 705–774) was the most consequential translator of Tantric / Esoteric Buddhist texts in Chinese history and the principal architect of the Tang court Esoteric Buddhist establishment. Of mixed Sogdian-Indian descent (his father a Brahmin, his mother Sogdian), he was brought to China as a youth, ordained as the disciple of 金剛智 Vajrabodhi, travelled to South Asia (Sri Lanka and possibly elsewhere) for further training, and returned to Cháng’ān in 746. Between 746 and 774 he produced more than 130 translations totalling over 200 fascicles, including the Mahāvairocana-sūtra (T0848, the foundational Sino-Japanese Esoteric Buddhist scripture), the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha (T0866), and the present Pǔ-xián xíng yuàn zàn.
The translation of the Pǔ-xián xíng yuàn zàn is conventionally placed in the period 746 – 774, the bracket of Amoghavajra’s translation activity at Cháng’ān. This Esoteric-Buddhist version of the Pǔ-xián xíng-yuàn — separate from, but closely related to, the corresponding chapter (fascicle 40) of [[KR6e0041|Prajñā’s 40-fascicle Avataṃsaka]] of c. 798 — exists in fact as the closer witness to the Sanskrit Bhadra-cary-praṇidhāna of the Indo-Tibetan Mahāyāna tradition. The zàn / “eulogy” form reflects the genre’s classification in the Esoteric-Buddhist canon as a devotional praise-text, parallel to similar Esoteric Buddhist eulogies of the bodhisattva-stages and the cosmic Buddhas.
The Taishō text (T0297) is established on the standard apparatus.
Translations and research
- Cleary, Thomas. The Practice of Bodhisattva Samantabhadra (often included with his Avataṃsaka translations). Boston: Shambhala, various editions.
- Tatz, Mark. “The Vow of Samantabhadra,” in Asian Religions and Society in Asia (1980).
- Suzuki, D. T. Essays in Zen Buddhism, Third Series, 1953 — substantial discussion.
- Hamar, Imre. “The History of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra,” in Reflecting Mirrors (2007).
Other points of interest
- Amoghavajra’s version of the Pǔ-xián xíng yuàn zàn preserves the verse-form of the Sanskrit Bhadra-cary-praṇidhāna more faithfully than the prose-and-verse mixed format of T0293 (the 40-fascicle Avataṃsaka); his text is therefore the preferred basis for Sanskrit-Chinese-Tibetan comparative study of this material.
- The Pǔxián shí dà yuàn in Amoghavajra’s verse-form became one of the most widely chanted texts in East Asian Buddhist devotional liturgy from the Tang onwards, reflecting the work’s parallel transmission as both a Huáyán canonical text and an Esoteric-Buddhist devotional liturgy.