Dàshèng mìyán jīng 大乘密嚴經
Mahāyāna Sūtra of the Densely-Adorned [Buddhaland] (Ghanavyūhasūtra) translated by 不空 (Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
T682 in three fascicles is the second Chinese translation of the Ghanavyūhasūtra, produced by the great Esoteric / Tantric (Mìjiào 密教) translator 不空 / Amoghavajra (705–774) at Cháng’ān in the late Táng. The Taishō witness opens with an imperial preface “大唐新翻密嚴經序” by Emperor Dàizōng 代宗 (r. 762–779) — “朕聞西方有聖人焉，演不言之言、垂無教之教” (“I have heard that in the western [land] there is a sage, who pronounces the speech that does not speak, who hands down the teaching that does not teach”) — establishing that the work was translated under direct imperial patronage. By internal coherence with 不空’s other dated translations and Dàizōng’s reign-period interest in Buddhist patronage, the work is conventionally dated to Yǒngtài 1 (765 CE).
Abstract
不空’s 765 version of the Ghanavyūha-sūtra differs from Divākara’s earlier T681 (KR6i0359) in two significant ways: first, the Sanskrit terminology is more consistently realized in the developing tantric / esoteric register that 不空 standardized; second, the doctrinal apparatus is more explicitly aligned with the Yogācāra-Tathāgatagarbha synthesis that prevails in the eighth-century esoteric milieu. The sūtra’s account of the Ghanavyūha buddhaland, the eight consciousnesses, the three self-natures, and the Tathāgatagarbha — particularly the equation of the ālayavijñāna with the amalavijñāna (無垢識) and the womb-of-the-tathāgata (如來藏) — reads here in close coordination with the great Yogācāra-Tathāgatagarbha summae of the eighth century, especially the Yogācārabhūmi (T1579) and the Awakening-of-Faith commentaries.
The relationship to KR6i0359 (T681): both versions translate the same Sanskrit Ghanavyūhasūtra (Tib. Stug-po bkod-pa’i mdo); the chapter divisions match (eight pǐn: Mìyánhuì, Miàoshēnshēng, etc.); the doctrinal substance is identical; but the verbal register differs systematically.
Related canonical texts: earlier version KR6i0359 (T681, by Divākara, 676–688); commentary KR6i0361 (X368 by Fǎzàng).
Translations and research
- Orzech, Charles D., Henrik H. Sørensen, and Richard K. Payne (eds). Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia. Leiden: Brill, 2011 — comprehensive on Amoghavajra’s translation programme, of which this is a key Mahāyāna-doctrinal work.
- Goble, Geoffrey C. Chinese Esoteric Buddhism: Amoghavajra, the Ruling Elite, and the Emergence of a Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.
- Suzuki, Daisetz T. Studies in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra. London, 1930.
No book-length English translation located.