Fódǐng zūnshèng tuóluóní 佛頂尊勝陀羅尼
Buddha-Crown Victorious Dhāraṇī [anonymous]
About the work
A one-fascicle bare-text recension of the Uṣṇīṣa-vijaya-dhāraṇī preserved in Taishō vol. 19 as T974B without translator attribution. The text gives only the dhāraṇī itself in Chinese transliteration without any sūtra frame or ritual instructions — essentially a textual specimen extracted for liturgical use. It belongs to a wider category of “free-standing” dhāraṇī texts that circulated independently of their canonical sūtra contexts in Tang–Sòng China for inscription on stūpa-pillars (jīngchuáng 經幢), amulets, and engraved stone monuments.
Abstract
T974B is a translator-anonymous dhāraṇī-only recension of the Uṣṇīṣa-vijaya-dhāraṇī, preserving the same dhāraṇī as appears in the canonical Tang translations T967–T971 (KR6j0144–KR6j0148) and Dharmadeva’s T974A (KR6j0151) but without the Devaputra Susthitamati narrative frame. The transliteration conventions place it broadly in the Tang–early-Sòng range. The bare-text format reflects the Tang-onward devotional practice of inscribing the Uṣṇīṣa-vijaya-dhāraṇī on stone jīngchuáng 經幢 pillars, where the dhāraṇī alone — not the sūtra context — was the object of veneration and merit-generation. Compare Liú Shūfēn’s reconstructions of the Tang jīngchuáng cult and Copp’s analysis of dhāraṇī as material objects.
Translations and research
- Copp, Paul. The Body Incantatory. New York: Columbia UP, 2014. — chapter on the Uṣṇīṣa-vijaya pillar cult.
- Liu Shufen 劉淑芬. Mièzuì yǔ dùwáng — Fódǐng zūnshèng tuóluóní jīngchuáng zhī yánjiū 滅罪與度亡——佛頂尊勝陀羅尼經幢之研究. Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2008.