Yújiā jīngāngdǐng jīng shì zìmǔ pǐn 瑜伽金剛頂經釋字母品
Chapter on the Explanation of Mātṛkā-Letters from the Vajraśekhara-yoga-sūtra (Skt. mātṛkā — letter-mother) by 不空 (Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle exposition by Amoghavajra (不空) on the Sanskrit alphabet (zìmǔ 字母, Skt. mātṛkā) and its Esoteric significance, framed as an explication of the relevant chapter of the Vajraśekhara-yoga tradition. The work is one of the principal Tang Chinese expositions of the Sanskrit-letter Esoteric doctrine — the central Esoteric doctrine that holds the 50 Sanskrit akṣara (letters) to be the bīja (seed-syllables) of the dharmakāya and to encode the entire Buddhist doctrine in their phonetic-graphic form.
Abstract
The Shì zìmǔ pǐn presents the Sanskrit alphabet — the mātṛkā of 50 letters in their canonical sequence — and unfolds the Esoteric bīja-doctrine of each letter. The exposition follows the classical Sanskrit varṇa-mātṛkā order: the 16 vowels, then the 25 consonants of the five vargas (gutturals, palatals, retroflexes, dentals, labials), then the 8 sibilants and semi-vowels, then the special letters. For each letter, Amoghavajra gives: (i) its Sanskrit form (typically in transliteration); (ii) its associated dhāraṇī-fragment (a Sanskrit word beginning with the letter that yields a doctrinal meaning); (iii) the doctrinal-Esoteric significance derived from the dhāraṇī-fragment.
The text is foundational for the East Asian Esoteric siddham (悉曇 xītán) tradition — the systematic study of Sanskrit script and phonetics that became central to Japanese Shingon scholasticism (with the Shittan-zō 悉曇藏 of Annen as the locus classicus). Amoghavajra’s text gives the core doctrinal-Esoteric framework that later Chinese and Japanese siddham scholars elaborated.
The composition dates from Amoghavajra’s mature Chángān period (746–774).
Translations and research
- van Gulik, R.H. Siddham: An Essay on the History of Sanskrit Studies in China and Japan. Nagpur: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1956. — Foundational study of the East Asian siddham tradition.
- Yamasaki Taikō. Shingon: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism. Boston: Shambhala, 1988.