Jīngāngdǐng jīng Pílúzhēnà yībǎibāzūn fǎshēn qìyìn 金剛頂經毘盧遮那一百八尊法身契印
Mudrās of the Dharmakāya 108 Worthies of Mahāvairocana from the Vajraśekhara-sūtra by 善無畏 (Śubhakarasiṃha, 譯) and 一行 (Yīxíng, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle compilation of the mudrās (qìyìn 契印, “seal-mudrās”) of the 108 deities of the dharmakāya Mahāvairocana from the Vajraśekhara-sūtra tradition. Attributed to Śubhakarasiṃha (善無畏) and Yīxíng (一行) — the same translation team that produced the foundational Mahāvairocana-sūtra (KR6j0001). The text is one of the few Vajradhātu materials translated by Śubhakarasiṃha (whose principal translation activity was the Garbhadhātu Mahāvairocana-sūtra); its presence in the Vajradhātu corpus is significant as documentation of the early Tang Esoteric tradition’s awareness of the Vajradhātu material before Vajrabodhi’s translations.
Abstract
The 108-deity pantheon expands the canonical 37-deity Vajradhātu mandala (KR6j0024 / KR6j0037-38) by adding subsidiary deities: the vajra-bodhisattvas of the eight directions, the gatekeepers, the offering-goddesses, and the protective deities at the perimeter of the mandala. The text gives each deity’s mudrā with its accompanying mantra (where applicable). It is a working iconographic-ritual reference for the more elaborate Vajradhātu abhiṣeka practices.
The translation team of Śubhakarasiṃha + Yīxíng dates the work to the Chángān period 716–735 — earlier than Vajrabodhi’s principal Vajradhātu translations (720–741) and significantly earlier than Amoghavajra’s (746–774). The text thus represents an early Tang awareness of the Vajradhātu pantheon, filtered through the Śubhakarasiṃha–Yīxíng Garbhadhātu-trained translation team.
Translations and research
- Snodgrass, Adrian. The Matrix and Diamond World Mandalas in Shingon Buddhism. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1988.
- Hodge, Stephen. The Mahā-Vairocana-Abhisaṃbodhi Tantra. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.