Fó shuō huíxiànglún jīng 佛說迴向輪經
Buddha-Pronounced Sūtra of the Wheel of Dedication by 尸羅達摩 (Śīladharma, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle short dhāraṇī-sūtra translated by Śīladharma (尸羅達摩) — the Tocharian-Khotanese monk active at Cháng’ān in the late-eighth century. The text presents a compact dhāraṇī-recitation scripture focused on the parināmana / “dedication-wheel” — the formal merit-transfer that closes Mahāyāna ritual practice — and is one of the principal late-Tang Esoteric extensions of the parināmana tradition.
Abstract
Śīladharma (尸羅達摩 / Śīladharma) was a late-Tang translator whose principal attested work is the Suvarṇaprabhāsa-uttamarāja-sūtra retranslation (T665, KR6i0180). His translation activity falls within the Zhēnyuán era (785–805) at Cháng’ān. The Huíxiànglún jīng presents the Buddha’s pronouncement of a parināmana dhāraṇī by which the merit of any practice can be sealed and dedicated to the bodhicitta-aspiration of all beings — a scripturalised form of the standard Mahāyāna dedication-of-merit verse. The text is a representative specimen of the late-Tang dhāraṇī-extraction practice in which key liturgical elements of longer Mahāyāna sūtras were extracted and circulated as independent ritual scriptures.
Translations and research
- Nattier, Jan. “The Heart Sūtra: A Chinese Apocryphal Text?” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 15.2 (1992): 153–223. — methodological context for late-Tang parināmana-sūtra extraction.
- Hidas, Gergely. Powers of Protection: The Buddhist Tradition of Spells in the Dhāraṇīsaṃgraha Collections. Beyond Boundaries 9. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021.