Dà Pílúzhēnà jīng guǎngdà yíguǐ 大毘盧遮那經廣大儀軌
Greater Ritual Manual on the Mahāvairocanasūtra (alt. Dàbēi tāizàng 大悲胎藏 — The Compassion-Born Womb-Treasury) by 善無畏 (Śubhakarasiṃha, 譯)
About the work
A three-fascicle Garbhadhātu ritual manual attributed to Śubhakarasiṃha 善無畏 (善無畏, 637–735), recorded in the Taishō with the alternative title Dàbēi tāizàng 大悲胎藏 (“The Compassion-Born Womb-Treasury”). The text is closely related to the Shè Dà Pílúzhēnà… yíguǐ (KR6j0006, T850) but offers a different, more elaborate (guǎngdà 廣大 “greater / extended”) arrangement of the Garbhadhātu sādhana. The opening verse of the text is identical to that of T850 — Jīshǒu Pílúzhēnà fó / Kāifū jìngyǎn rú qīngliàn 稽首毘盧遮那佛、開敷淨眼如青蓮 — confirming their cognate ritual tradition.
Prefaces
The Taishō text opens directly with the title and the alternate title parenthetical “(亦名大悲胎藏)” without separate translator-attribution colophon. The text is structured as three “scrolls” (上中下); the opening invocation establishes the ritual as drawn from the Dàrì jīng (i.e. KR6j0001).
Abstract
The Guǎngdà yíguǐ preserves an alternative recension — perhaps an earlier or differently-edited version — of the Tang Garbhadhātu ritual that is canonised in T850. Its three-fascicle structure expands the central sādhana with additional mudrā-mantra pairs, more detailed visualisation instructions for each of the principal Garbhadhātu deities, and a fuller liturgical sequence for the post-sādhana offerings. The alternate title Dàbēi tāizàng (“Compassion-Born Womb-Treasury”) translates the Sanskrit mahā-karuṇā-garbhodbhava — the technical term for the Garbhadhātu mandala in its iconographic-doctrinal aspect (the womb of universal compassion that contains all Buddha-fields).
The attribution to Śubhakarasiṃha is plausible chronologically (composition would fall within his Chángān period 716–735) and is supported by both the Korean Tripiṭaka witness and the variant editions. Modern scholarship (Hodge 2003, Orzech et al. 2011) treats T850, T851, and T852 as a closely related family of Tang-era Garbhadhātu ritual texts, all deriving from the Śubhakarasiṃha–Yīxíng translation activity at Chángān; the precise relations between them — recensions of one ritual codification, alternative arrangements for different ritual uses, or partly post-translation Chinese ritual elaborations — remain a matter of ongoing scholarly investigation.
The text’s continuous canonical transmission is attested by the Korean and (variant) Taishō witness; it is among the foundational ritual texts for the Garbhadhātu mandala practice in subsequent East Asian Esoteric traditions.
Translations and research
- Hodge, Stephen. The Mahā-Vairocana-Abhisaṃbodhi Tantra. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. — Discusses the relations among the Garbhadhātu ritual manuals.
- Orzech, Charles, et al. (eds.). Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia. Leiden: Brill, 2011. — Treatment of Tang Esoteric ritual literature.