Jīngāngdǐng yújiā lüèshù sānshíqīzūn xīnyào 金剛頂瑜伽略述三十七尊心要
Brief Account of the Heart-Essence of the Thirty-Seven Worthies of the Vajraśekhara-yoga by 不空 (Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A short Esoteric exposition by Amoghavajra (不空) on the thirty-seven deities (三十七尊) of the Vajradhātu mandala — the canonical pantheon of the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha tradition: 5 Buddhas + 16 Vajra-bodhisattvas + 4 Pāramitā-devis + 8 Pūjā-devis + 4 Dvārapāla = 37. The text presents the xīnyào (“heart-essence” — the essential meaning) of each deity: their iconographic identity, their bīja (seed-syllable), their mudrā, their mantra, and their soteriological significance.
Prefaces
The colophon reads: 大廣智三藏和上於含暉院承明殿道場說 — “Spoken by the great-wisdom Tripiṭaka-master upādhyāya at the Hányīyuàn Chéngmíngdiàn dàochǎng” — locating the discourse at one of the imperial dàochǎng halls. The text proper opens with the cosmological setting: Mahāvairocana arrives at the Sumeru-vajra-maṇi-jewelled-peak pavilion and the Vajradhātu Tathāgatas establish the abhiṣeka-empowered Five-Buddha enthronement.
Abstract
The Sānshíqīzūn xīnyào is a working exposition of the Vajradhātu pantheon, organising the 37 deities into a coherent doctrinal-iconographic system. Each deity’s “heart-essence” is presented in concise form — making the text a portable reference for the Esoteric ācāryā who needed to know the iconographic-mantric specifications of all 37 mandala deities for the Vajradhātu abhiṣeka and sādhana practices.
The thirty-seven-deity pantheon is one of the foundational doctrinal-iconographic structures of East Asian Esoteric Buddhism. Its complete preservation in the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha tradition (KR6j0024 and parallels) and in the Vajradhātu mandala paintings (the Genzu-mandara at Tō-ji and parallels) makes the 37-deity pantheon the most-studied Vajradhātu iconographic system. The Xīnyào is one of two principal Tang Chinese expositions of this pantheon (the other is KR6j0038, the Sānshíqīzūn chūshēng yì by the same translator).
The composition dates from Amoghavajra’s mature Chángān period (746–774).
Translations and research
- Snodgrass, Adrian. The Matrix and Diamond World Mandalas in Shingon Buddhism. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1988. — Detailed iconographic survey of the 37-deity pantheon.
- Toganoo Shōun. Mandara no kenkyū. Kōyasan: Kōyasan Daigaku, 1927. — Foundational study.