Jīngāngdǐng yújiā sānshíqīzūn chūshēng yì 金剛頂瑜伽三十七尊出生義
Doctrine of the Origination of the Thirty-Seven Worthies of the Vajraśekhara-yoga by 不空 (Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle exposition by Amoghavajra (不空) on the origination (chūshēng 出生) of the 37 Vajradhātu deities — the systematic doctrinal account of how each of the 37 deities arises from Mahāvairocana’s adhiṣṭhāna (empowerment) of his own Buddha-mind. Companion to KR6j0037 (the Xīnyào exposition of the same pantheon).
Prefaces
The colophon gives Amoghavajra’s full court-title-inscription. The text opens with a substantial doctrinal-narrative preface:
我能仁如來，憫三有六趣之惑，常由蘊界入等，受生死妄執，空華無而虛計，衣珠有而不知。於是乎收跡都史天宮下，生中印土。起化城以接之，由糞除以誘之。
— “Our Śākyamuni Tathāgata, taking pity on the delusions of the six destinies of the three realms — beings constantly subject to birth-and-death-grasping through the skandhas, dhātus, and āyatanas; the empty-flowers calculated where there are none; the jewel-in-the-robe possessed and unknown — therefore he descended from Tuṣita Heaven [都史天 = 都史多天 / Tuṣita] and was born in central India. He raised the city-of-illusion (Saddharmapuṇḍarīka parable) to receive [beings], and by the dung-cleaning [parable, Saddharmapuṇḍarīka] enticed them…”
Abstract
The Chūshēng yì presents the origination-doctrine of the 37 Vajradhātu deities: not their iconographic-mantric specifications (KR6j0037) but their cosmogonic generation from Mahāvairocana’s self-empowerment. The text is thus the doctrinal complement to the iconographic-mantric KR6j0037 — together they give the complete exposition of the 37-deity pantheon.
The narrative-doctrinal opening — drawing on the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra parables of the city-of-illusion and the dung-cleaning servant — establishes that the historical Śākyamuni’s trikāya-manifestation (taking nirmāṇakāya form in central India) is the exoteric expression of the cosmic dharmakāya’s self-disclosure, of which the Esoteric Vajradhātu pantheon is the inner reality. The 37 deities are then presented as the systematic articulation of the dharmakāya’s self-knowing wisdom (svasaṃvedana-jñāna) in mandalic-iconographic form.
The composition dates from Amoghavajra’s mature Chángān period (746–774). The work is foundational for East Asian Esoteric doctrinal exposition of the Vajradhātu pantheon.
Translations and research
- Snodgrass, Adrian. The Matrix and Diamond World Mandalas in Shingon Buddhism. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1988.
- Goble, Geoffrey C. Chinese Esoteric Buddhism: Amoghavajra. New York: Columbia UP, 2019.