Fódǐng dàbáisǎngài tuóluóní jīng 佛頂大白傘蓋陀羅尼經
Sūtra of the Great-White-Parasol Buddha-Crown Dhāraṇī by 沙囉巴 (Sherap, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Yuán-period Chinese translation of the Sitātapatra-dhāraṇī by Sherap (沙囉巴) — the Tibetan-trained translator who served the Yuán imperial Buddhist establishment under Khubilai and Temür Khan. The text is one of the principal Yuán Sitātapatra recensions and provided the canonical Sino-Tibetan parallel to the Tang Tángmì Sitātapatra tradition (T975, KR6j0158) and to the contemporary Tibetan Bka’-‘gyur recensions of the Ārya-tathāgatoṣṇīṣa-sitātapatre-aparājitā-mahāpratyaṅgirā-paramasiddhā-nāma-dhāraṇī.
Abstract
Sherap (1259–1314, Tib. Shes rab) was a Tangut who studied under the Sa-skya hierarch Phags-pa (‘Phags-pa Blo-gros rgyal-mtshan, 1235–1280) at the Yuán court and became one of the principal Sino-Tibetan translators of the Yuán Esoteric programme. The Yuánshǐ 元史 records his appointment as imperial preceptor and his translation activity ca. 1294–1314 under Temür Khan (Chéngzōng) and Khaishan Khan (Wǔzōng). His Sitātapatra translation supplements the Tang anonymous T975 (KR6j0158) with a Tibetan-Indic recension that preserves the full ten-epithet goddess invocation and the elaborated aparājitā (the “unconquered”) sequence absent from the Tang abbreviated form. The text became the standard YuánMíng Sitātapatra reference and forms the canonical pair with KR6j0160 (Zhēnzhì’s T977) — the two Yuán Sitātapatra recensions transmitted from Sa-skya.
Translations and research
- Lokesh Chandra. Sanskrit Texts from the Imperial Palace at Peking. New Delhi: Sharada Rani, 1969–1976. — for parallel Mongolian-Yuán Sitātapatra texts.
- Sørensen, Henrik H., and Charles Orzech, eds. Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia. Leiden: Brill, 2011. — for the Yuán Sino-Tibetan transmission.