Yàoshī liúlíguāng qī fó běnyuàn gōngdé jīng 藥師琉璃光七佛本願功德經
Sūtra on the Original Vows and Meritorious Qualities of the Seven Medicine-Master Lapis-Lazuli-Radiance Buddhas translated by 義淨 Yìjìng (譯)
About the work
The Yàoshī liúlíguāng qī fó běnyuàn gōngdé jīng 藥師琉璃光七佛本願功德經 is 義淨’s expanded translation of the Bhaiṣajyaguru scripture, notable for incorporating six additional Medicine Buddhas (making seven in total, rather than one) along with their individual vow-sets. Translated at Fóguāng nèi-sì 佛光內寺 in 707 CE — the colophon reads 大唐三藏沙門義淨於佛光內寺譯 — the text is in two fascicles. The Taishō cross-references T449 and T450 as parallel texts. The Qìshā Canon (【大→磧砂】) witness confirms wide Sòng-era distribution.
Prefaces
The text opens directly with the sūtra without a separate preface or translator’s introduction. The colophon identifies the translation venue (Fóguāng nèi-sì) and translator (義淨). No date-year appears in the text body itself, but the Kāiyuán shìjiào lù 開元釋教錄 (T2154) records the translation in the Shènglì 聖曆 period, generally assigned to 707 CE.
The opening of the sūtra expands significantly on the assembly description relative to KR6i0047 and KR6i0048, listing many named bodhisattvas (曼殊室利, 觀自在, 慈氏, 善現, 大慧, 明慧, etc.) in addition to the standard monastic assembly. The first Medicine Buddha described is 善名稱吉祥王如來 (“Goodly-Name Auspicious-King Tathāgata”) in the world 無勝 (“Undefeated”), rather than the Bhaiṣajyaguru of the main tradition — indicating a substantially expanded cosmological framework.
Abstract
義淨’s translation represents the latest and most cosmologically elaborate stratum of the Bhaiṣajyaguru scripture tradition. The expansion from one to seven Medicine Buddhas reflects a wider systematic tendency in late Indian and Central Asian Buddhism to extend individual Buddha cults into groups of seven (or other auspicious numbers). The six additional Buddhas each have their own world-fields and vow-lists, culminating in Bhaiṣajyaguru himself as the seventh. He returned from his 24-year journey to India and Southeast Asia in 695 CE and was active as a translator until his death in 713 CE; this translation dates to 707 CE, placing it among his mature output. The two-fascicle structure accommodates the longer expanded text. In Japanese Tendai and Shingon traditions, this seven-Buddha recension was particularly important for ritual calendars associating each of the seven Buddhas with the seven days of the week.
Translations and research
- Birnbaum, Raoul, The Healing Buddha (Shambhala, 1979) — treats all three Yàoshī texts (T449, T450, T451) as a tradition.
- Dhammajoti, K. L., various studies on Sarvāstivāda and related translation traditions.