Mànshūshìlì zhòuzàng zhōng jiàoliàng shùzhū gōngdé jīng 曼殊室利呪藏中校量數珠功德經
Sūtra Comparing the Merit of Rosaries from the Mantra-Treasury of Mañjuśrī translated by 義淨 (Yìjìng, 譯)
About the work
T787 in one fascicle is a Tang Chinese rendering by 義淨 (Yìjìng, 635–713) of an Indian japa-mālā (rosary) merit-doctrinal text, one of the early texts on rosary-practice within the Mañjuśrī cult. The title attributes the doctrine to the Mantra-Treasury of Mañjuśrī (曼殊室利呪藏 Mànshūshìlì zhòuzàng = Mañjuśrī-mantra-piṭaka), an Indian-Buddhist textual category of mantra-and-tantric materials associated with the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī.
Abstract
The text expounds the comparative merit (校量功德 jiàoliàng gōngdé) of rosaries made from various materials. The Buddha (or Mañjuśrī acting as Dharma-spokesman) enumerates a graded list of rosary materials — soapberry seed (muktā), iron, copper, crystal, lapis lazuli, bodhi-vrkṣa seed, and finally the mokṣa-bīja — and assigns to each a karmic merit-multiplier. Reciting one mantra-formula on a soapberry-seed rosary yields a certain merit; reciting the same formula on an iron rosary yields a certain multiple of that; reciting on a copper rosary yields a higher multiple; and so on, culminating in the bodhi-bead rosary which yields incalculable merit. The doctrinal point is to encourage devotees to use the more meritorious materials and to recite mantras in greater number on more meritorious rosaries.
The text is a foundational scripture of the rosary-merit doctrine in Indian-Chinese Buddhism, paralleled in Fó shuō jiàoliáng shùzhū gōngdé jīng 佛說校量數珠功德經 (KR6i0492) by Ratnacinta and supplemented in the esoteric tradition by Jīngāngdǐng yújiā niànzhū jīng 金剛頂瑜伽念珠經 (KR6i0493) of 不空 Amoghavajra. The placement within Mañjuśrī’s mantra-piṭaka reflects the late-Indian and early-medieval association of rosary-merit doctrine with Mañjuśrī as the Bodhisattva of Wisdom whose practice was systematised in the proto-tantric Mañjuśrī-mūla-kalpa.
Translations and research
- Kieschnick, John. The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. (For the rosary in Chinese Buddhism.)
- Wang Bangwei 王邦維. 『南海寄歸內法傳校註』. Beijing: Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1995. (For Yìjìng’s biography and translation programme.)
Links
- CBETA online
- Dazangthings date evidence (705): [ T ] T = CBETA [Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association]. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924-1932. CBReader v 5.0, 2014. Dazangthings
- Kanseki DB
- 義淨 DILA
- 不空 DILA