Qīnglóngsì guǐjì 青龍寺軌記
Record of Ritual Procedures at the Qīnglóng Monastery
About the work
A short one-fascicle ritual-procedure record (guǐjì 軌記) deriving from the Qīnglóngsì 青龍寺 — the Chángān imperial Esoteric monastery that housed the lineage of Huìguǒ 惠果 and his successors Yìcāo 義操 (義操) and Fǎquán 法全 (法全). The text records the daily liturgical sequence — the entry into the monastery shrine, the constructions of the protective boundary, the mudrā-mantra-visualisation triplets for the principal Garbhadhātu deities, and the closing ritual procedures — as practiced at this central Tang Esoteric establishment.
Prefaces
The text opens directly with the title and the first ritual instruction: “xiān yújiāzhě, cháng kě zhù běnzūn guān” 先瑜伽者、常可住本尊觀 (“The yoga-practitioner should first abide in the contemplation of the iṣṭa-devatā”). No author-attribution colophon survives.
Abstract
The Qīnglóngsì guǐjì is a unique textual witness to on-the-ground Tang Esoteric monastic practice at one of the principal Chángān establishments. Most Esoteric ritual texts in the Taishō are either translated scriptures (sūtras) or systematic ritual codifications by the great translators; the guǐjì genre differs in being a monastery-specific liturgical record that documents how the rituals were actually performed in a particular establishment. As such, it is an important historical-anthropological source for the Tang Esoteric tradition.
The text describes the ritual sequence of approaching the shrine: (i) the practitioner walks to the monastery gate while visualising himself stepping on lotuses; (ii) at the gate snaps the fingers, recites hūṃ three times, visualises the seed-syllables MA in the right eye and ṬA in the left eye, identifying the eyes with the sun and moon; (iii) enters and performs the five benefits — joy of the Buddhas, removal of defilement, illuminated manifestation, exclusion of obstacles, and sīmā (boundary) consecration. The text continues with the vajra-mudrā sequence and the central sādhana practice.
The dating is uncertain; the text refers to practices at the Qīnglóngsì in its post-Huìguǒ period (after 805) and is conventionally placed in the 9th century — the period of the Yìcāo–Fǎquán transmission — but no firm date survives. The bracket 800–859 reflects this consensus.
Translations and research
- Orzech, Charles, Henrik Sørensen, and Richard Payne (eds.). Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia. Leiden: Brill, 2011. — Discusses the Qīnglóngsì establishment.
- Reis-Habito, Maria. Die Dhāraṇī des Großen Erbarmens des Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. Nettetal: Steyler, 1993.