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最勝王經開題

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Text ID
KR6i0321
Date
813–835
Dynasty
日本

Zuìshèngwáng jīng kāití 最勝王經開題

Opening the Topic of the Sūtra of the Most Victorious King (J. Saishō-ō-kyō kaidai) by 空海 (Kōnghǎi / Kūkai, 撰)

About the work

A one-fascicle Shingon kaidai 開題 by Kūkai 空海 (774–835), the founder of Japanese Shingon — a short doctrinal-introductory exposition of Yìjìng’s translation of the Suvarṇaprabhāsa-sūtra, the Jīnguāngmíng zuìshèngwáng jīng 金光明最勝王經 (KR6i0303 = T665). The kaidai genre is one of Kūkai’s signature literary forms: a short doctrinal frame for a sūtra, recasting the text’s significance in terms of the Esoteric mantra-yāna and the Mahāvairocana / Vajraśekhara mandala-theory. Preserved at T56n2199A in one juan; the Taishō recension reproduces the Ninna-ji 仁和寺 imperial-temple manuscript collated against a Mount Kōya 高野山 (Yasan 野山) variant.

Structural Division

  • 最勝王經開題 Kaidai — Shingon doctrinal preface to KR6i0303 金光明最勝王經 (Yìjìng translation of the Suvarṇaprabhāsa-sūtra, T665).

Prefaces

The text opens with no separate preface — the kaidai itself is the preface to the sūtra. The opening sentence (fū dúzūn dàkōng chāo jīgēn 夫獨尊大空超機根 — “The Solitary-Honoured of the Great-Emptiness transcends the spiritual capacities”) inaugurates the Esoteric reading: the Suvarṇaprabhāsa is presented as a sūtra of the trikāya 三身 doctrine read through the lens of the Esoteric trinity-becoming-one — the trikāya in oneself (sānshēn zài jǐ 三身在己) and the sìdé wǒyǒu 四德我有 (the four virtues that I myself possess).

A late woodblock-print preface by Tokuhito 得仁 (Jōgō) of Kongōbu-ji, dated Tenpō 丙申 7 (1836), records the printing history: the woodblock was cut from the Ninna-ji 仁和寺 imperial recension with the diacritic kunten 訓點 marks removed, and supplemented from a Mount Kōya manuscript where the Ninna-ji text was deficient. A biographical note on the late-Heian risshi Shin’en 眞圓 follows, recording that Shin’en — a Tendai-Hossō convert to Shingon and disciple of Kūkai — in Kōnin 4 (813), 12th month lectured on the Suvarṇaprabhāsa at imperial command and sought a gāthā (伽陀) from Kūkai (= KR6i0322 Jīnshèngwáng jīng mìmì gātā 金勝王經祕密伽陀, T56n2200). The 813 imperial Saishō-ō-e 最勝王會 ceremonial event is therefore the immediate occasion of Kūkai’s Suvarṇaprabhāsa doctrinal corpus, of which the present kaidai is the principal exegetical statement.

Abstract

The Kaidai is one of the central documents of early-Heian Shingon Esoteric reading of the exoteric canon — Kūkai’s programme of recasting the standard Mahāyāna sūtras through the mantra-yāna / mandala-theoretic lens. Its principal doctrinal moves are:

  • The Suvarṇaprabhāsa’s trikāya doctrine is read as the same trikāya of the Mahāvairocana 大日 / Dainichi programme, with the four virtues (cháng / lè / wǒ / jìng 常樂我淨 — permanence, joy, self, purity) of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-doctrine identified as intrinsically present in every being (sìdé wǒyǒu 四德我有, “the four virtues belong to me myself”).
  • The sūtra’s central revelation — that the Suvarṇaprabhāsa itself is “the secret treasury of all buddhas, the dense canon of all the sūtras” (shì zhū fó zhī mìbǎo / zhòngjīng zhī mìzàng 是諸佛之祕寶／衆經之密藏) — is reframed as the standard Esoteric topos: every exoteric Mahāyāna sūtra contains an Esoteric inner-sense (mìhào míngzì bùkě bù zhī 密號名字不可不知, “the secret name and word cannot be left unknown”).
  • The “Wonderful-Banner Bodhisattva” 妙幢 (Miàozhuàng, the principal interlocutor of the sūtra) and “Space-Treasury” 空藏 (Ākāśagarbha) are identified as the figures who, in posing their questions to the Buddha, draw out the four buddhas in the chamber (室中之四佛, i.e. the four Esoteric buddhas of the cardinal directions) and the three bodies in the heart-palace (心宮之三身, i.e. the trikāya of the Vajradhātu mandala). This is the standard Esoteric hermeneutic of identifying scriptural protagonists with mandala-deities.

Composition is anchored to the Kōnin 4 (813) imperial Saishō-ō-e event, which is the manifest occasion of Kūkai’s Suvarṇaprabhāsa corpus (the kaidai, the kada T2200, and the himitsu kada T2201). The work cannot have been composed after Kūkai’s death in 835. The bracket is therefore 813–835.

The Kaidai is short (about ten pages of Taishō text), and exemplifies the characteristic features of Kūkai’s kaidai corpus as a whole: dense parallelism, abundant daśabhūmi-style metaphor (cloud-veils, jewel-treasuries, lions, dragons), abrupt transitions between exoteric and Esoteric registers, and pervasive use of the Esoteric vocabulary of dharma-body teaching (hosshin seppō 法身説法), four-buddha mandala structure, and innate Buddhahood (honnu hokushō 本有北性).

Translations and research

  • Hakeda, Yoshito S. Kūkai: Major Works. New York: Columbia University Press, 1972. — Foundational English-language anthology of Kūkai’s writings; the introduction situates the kaidai corpus.
  • Abé Ryūichi. The Weaving of Mantra: Kūkai and the Construction of Esoteric Buddhist Discourse. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. — Detailed study of Kūkai’s hermeneutic programme of reading the exoteric canon through Esoteric categories; treats the kaidai corpus as the principal vehicle of that programme.
  • Watanabe Shōkō 渡邊照宏 and Miyasaka Yūshō 宮坂宥勝, eds. Sangō shīki, Shōryōshū 三教指帰・性霊集. Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei 71. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1965. — Annotated edition of Kūkai’s literary writings; provides context for the kaidai corpus.
  • Toganoo Shōun 栂尾祥雲, ed. Kōbō Daishi zenshū 弘法大師全集. Kōyasan: Mikkyō Bunka Kenkyūjo. — Standard Kūkai-collected-works edition; includes the kaidai corpus with full annotation.
  • No full Western-language translation of the present text has been published.

Other points of interest

The present kaidai is the principal component of a small Kūkai sub-corpus on the Suvarṇaprabhāsa triggered by the 813 Saishō-ō-e — together with KR6i0322 Jīnshèngwáng jīng mìmì gātā 金勝王經祕密伽陀 (T2200), Kūkai’s verse-gāthā on the same sūtra produced at the request of the lecturer Shin’en 眞圓. The two works should be read together as the Esoteric exegetical apparatus of Kūkai’s Suvarṇaprabhāsa programme. The Taishō also preserves a parallel 2199B redaction of the kaidai, transmitted independently of the present 2199A line.

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