Dàshèng jīngāng fódǐng niànsòng yíguǐ 大勝金剛佛頂念誦儀軌
Recitation Ritual Manual of the Great-Victorious Vajra Buddha-Crown by 金剛智 (Vajrabodhi, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Esoteric ritual manual by Vajrabodhi (金剛智) for the Mahā-jaya-vajra-uṣṇīṣa — the Mahā-vijaya “Great-Victorious” form of the Vajra-uṣṇīṣa practice within the Vajraśekhara mandala system. The text presents the yoga-tantra formal practice of the dhāraṇī, integrating it with the Vajradhātu maṇḍala visualisation and the standard Vajrabodhi ritual sequence (saṃvara-vow, four-fold offerings, pañca-mudrā, recitation, dedication).
Abstract
The Dàshèng jīngāng fódǐng identifies the uṣṇīṣa as the Mahā-vijaya (Great-Victorious) Vajra-form, distinguishing it from the Sitātapatra and Uṣṇīṣa-vijaya uṣṇīṣa-forms within the broader Buddha-Crown family. The text is one of Vajrabodhi’s smaller ritual translations from the Cháng’ān period (720–741) and supplies a yoga-tantra-grade ritual context for an uṣṇīṣa practice that in other recensions appears only as a stand-alone kriyā-tantra dhāraṇī. The work is a representative specimen of Vajrabodhi’s translation method — terse, ritually precise, and aligned with the Vajraśekhara sūtra (KR6j0030) framework.
Translations and research
- Sundberg, Jeffrey, and Rolf Giebel. “The Life of the Tang Court Monk Vajrabodhi as Chronicled by Lü Xiang 呂向: South Indian and Śrī Lankan Antecedents to the Arrival of the Buddhist Vajrayāna in Eighth-Century Java and China.” Pacific World, 3rd ser. 13 (2011): 129–222.
- Giebel, Rolf W., trans. Two Esoteric Sutras. Berkeley: BDK, 2001. — for the Vajraśekhara tradition translation context.