Fóshuō guàndǐng jīng 佛說灌頂經
Sūtra of Consecration translated by 帛尸梨蜜多羅 Bóshīlímìduōluó (Śrīmitra, 譯)
About the work
The Fóshuō guàndǐng jīng 佛說灌頂經 (T1331) is a 12-fascicle compendium of dhāraṇī, ritual, and divinatory sūtras attributed to the Eastern Jìn translator Śrīmitra 帛尸梨蜜多羅 (帛尸梨蜜多羅; fl. ca. 317–343 CE), the Kuchean prince-monk who settled at Jiànkāng 建康 after fleeing the Xiōngnú invasions. It is a heterogeneous collection of twelve independent texts (each forming one fascicle) that the Liáng catalog Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 already treats as a single composite scripture. The twelfth and final fascicle is the famous Guàndǐng bá chú guòzuì shēngsǐ dé dù jīng 灌頂拔除過罪生死得度經 — the earliest Chinese version of the Bhaiṣajyaguru-sūtra, which scholarship since the Suí Lìdài sānbǎo jì has identified as a fifth-century Chinese composition (often attributed to Huìjiǎn 慧簡 of Lùyě sì 鹿野寺) rather than a translation by Śrīmitra. The collection as a whole is the cornerstone of medieval Chinese protective-dhāraṇī liturgy.
Prefaces
The CBETA text opens immediately with the first sūtra (No. 1331, Guàndǐng qī wàn èr qiān shénwáng hù bǐqiū zhòu jīng 灌頂七萬二千神王護比丘呪經卷第一), without a separate translator’s preface in the surviving witnesses. The colophon attributes the work to “東晉天竺三藏帛尸梨蜜多羅譯” (Śrīmitra, Tripiṭaka master from India, of the Eastern Jìn). The opening narrative frame describes a group of monks beset by Māra and various predatory creatures while practicing in the wilderness; the Buddha responds by transmitting the names of 172 protective spirit-kings (神王) to be invoked by the consecratory chant. Each of the twelve fascicles has its own internal proem and circumstantial setting.
A separately preserved preface to the twelfth fascicle (the Yàoshī or Bá chú guòzuì shēngsǐ dé dù jīng) — found in the Sōng-period Chū sānzàng jì jí — narrates that Huìjiǎn 慧簡 produced this particular text in 457 CE at Lùyě sì in the Sòng capital, which Sēngyòu 僧祐 already flagged as evidence that it was not Śrīmitra’s translation.
Abstract
The Guàndǐng jīng is one of the central documents of fourth- to fifth-century Chinese Buddhist ritual, transmitting protective dhāraṇī, exorcistic spirit-king lists, healing rites, divinatory practices, and rebirth-as-Bhaiṣajyaguru’s-disciple liturgies. Its twelve fascicles cover: (1) seventy-two thousand spirit-king protection of monks; (2) twelve thousand spirit-kings protecting bhikṣuṇīs; (3) three returns and five precepts (三歸五戒) protective dhāraṇī (= T1331/2, parallel to KR6i0002); (4) hundred-blessing dhāraṇī; (5) the great dhāraṇī of universal-protection; (6) the Guàndǐng mochizuki dhāraṇī; (7) protection from the seven categories of demons; (8) Mochizuki xìnsuǒ (信索); (9) the great Brahmā king of Vaśiṣṭha; (10) the Bóguān ròuyǎn dhāraṇī; (11) the Pǔguǎng (普廣) sūtra (an early Chinese composition on rebirth in the Pure Lands of Akṣobhya, Amitāyus, etc., crucial for Pure Land studies); and (12) the early Yàoshī (Bhaiṣajyaguru) sūtra.
The composite character of the text was already noticed in the Liáng. Modern scholarship — Strickmann (1990, 2002), Davis (2001), and Sørensen — treats the collection as the product of a Sòng-Qí Chinese editorial milieu that bundled multiple independent ritual texts under Śrīmitra’s prestigious name. Strickmann’s Mantras et mandarins (1996) and Chinese Magical Medicine (2002) gave the Guàndǐng jīng its key place in the historiography of Chinese Buddhist apocrypha and ritual studies. The eleventh fascicle, the Pǔguǎng jīng 普廣經, has been studied separately because it contains the earliest Chinese Pure Land guǐlù (rite-list) for Amitāyus and Akṣobhya and is a key source for sixth-century Pure Land thought; the twelfth fascicle has its own substantial bibliography as the proto-Yakuṣī sūtra (cf. KR6i0047–0050).
The catalog meta gives Śrīmitra (fl. early to mid-4th century) as translator, but for the eleventh and twelfth fascicles especially, modern consensus identifies a fifth-century Chinese compositional layer; the assigned bracket here (317–343 CE) covers Śrīmitra’s plausible translation activity at Jiànkāng for the early portions, while the prose body acknowledges later composition for the most prominent independent fascicles.
Translations and research
- Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: Le bouddhisme tantrique en Chine. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.
- Strickmann, Michel. Chinese Magical Medicine. Edited by Bernard Faure. Stanford University Press, 2002 — extensive treatment of T1331 fascicle 12 (proto-Yakuṣī).
- Davis, Edward L. Society and the Supernatural in Song China. University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2001 — uses Guàndǐng spirit-kings as background.
- Birnbaum, Raoul. The Healing Buddha. Shambhala, 1979 — covers fascicle 12.
- Tsukamoto Zenryū 塚本善隆, Chūgoku Bukkyō tsūshi 中国仏教通史 — discusses the apocryphal status.
- Mollier, Christine. Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face: Scripture, Ritual, and Iconographic Exchange in Medieval China (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2008) — uses the Guàndǐng spirit-king lists for comparison with Daoist talismanic texts.
Other points of interest
The status of the Guàndǐng jīng as a heterogeneous compendium under a prestigious translator’s name makes it one of the central case studies of Chinese Buddhist suíxí jīng (隨喜經, “ad-hoc scripture”) creation. Strickmann argued that the collection’s editorial history offers a window into the development of dhāraṇī liturgy in the south during the fourth to sixth centuries. The Fángshān stone-canon witness for the twelfth fascicle (preserved separately as KR6i0052) testifies to its special liturgical importance.