Bùkōng juànsuǒ pílúzhēnà fó dàguàndǐng guāngmíng zhēnyán jùyì shì 不空羂索毘盧遮那佛大灌頂光明眞言句義釋
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation of the Amoghapāśa-Vairocana Great-Abhiṣeka Mantra of Light (Jp. Fukū kenjaku Birushana butsu daikanjō kōmyō shingon kugi shaku) by 高辨 (Kōben, 撰)
About the work
A one-fascicle Kamakura-period Japanese commentary on the Bùkōng juànsuǒ pílúzhēnà fó dàguàndǐng guāngmíng zhēnyán — the so-called Mantra of Light 光明眞言 of Amoghavajra (KR6j0191, T19n1002) — by Myōe Kōben 明惠 高辨 (高辨, 1173–1232), founder and abbot of Kōzan-ji 高山寺 at Toganoo. The catalog meta gives his name as 高辧 (non-standard form of bian); DILA and modern scholarship use 高辨, the form adopted here. The work is one of the principal medieval sources for the Japanese Mantra of Light cult that Myōe championed and that became, after him, a major feature of Japanese popular Buddhism.
Prefaces
The work opens with Myōe’s own preface explaining his exegetical method:
“I have carefully considered the meaning of the commentarial school. The Tathāgata’s secret words have two senses: the intentionally-explicable (可釋義) and the not-to-be-explained (不可釋義). The first responds to the disciple’s faculties (應機縁): from the immeasurable depth of meaning, one summarizes a single portion, in order to generate wisdom-understanding (惠解). The second is the Tathāgata’s secret speech (如來密語) — not the domain of conception. There, one only gives rise to faith and recites.”
He then states that, in this work, he is pursuing the first mode — drawing out a single explication from the dhāraṇī’s vast latent meaning — “in order modestly to encourage the faith of the reciter; may [the work] kindle the light of the Buddha’s wisdom so as to dispel the long night of ignorance.” The preface is signed and dated:
“On the 19th day of the 4th month of Jōō 1 [貞應元年, = 1222 CE], the dhāraṇī-recitation monk Kōben has compiled this.” 于時貞應元年四月十九日。持念沙門高辨集
The work’s terminal colophon — “Selected and excerpted by Vajra-Buddha-son Kōben” 金剛佛子高辨抄出之 — is followed by transmission notations:
- “On the 7th day of the 4th month of Karoku 3 [= 1227 CE], the Mou-bi honored manuscript was bestowed; copying completed.” 嘉祿三年四月七日賜拇尾御本書寫了
- “On the 17th day of the 6th month of Kanki 1 [= 1229 CE], at Hōko-dai 法鼓臺, the work was discussed with Mikawa-Sōzu 三川僧都 and others.” 寛喜元年六月十七日於法鼓臺與三川僧都等御披談了
Abstract
The Mantra of Light 光明眞言 — the syllabic Sanskrit formula oṃ amogha-vairocana-mahā-mudrā maṇi-padma-jvala pravarttaya hūṃ — is the eight-syllable dhāraṇī appearing within Amoghavajra’s translation of the Amoghapāśa-Vairocana short scripture (KR6j0191, T19n1002). Although the canonical scripture itself is brief, the mantra acquired enormous independent importance in medieval Japan as an apotropaic-and-soteriological formula, recited both for the protection of the living and (especially) for the salvation of the deceased, the dosha-kaji 土砂加持 (sand-blessing) rite — in which sand consecrated by the mantra is sprinkled on the dead — having become a major feature of medieval-and-modern Japanese funerary practice.
Myōe was the principal medieval Japanese systematizer of the Mantra of Light: he produced multiple commentaries on it, championed its use within the Kegon-Shingon synthesis he developed at Kōzan-ji, and is the figure most responsible for its passage from Esoteric scholastic apparatus into vernacular Japanese religious practice. The Jùyì shì — composed at the height of his career (1222), only a decade before his death — is his definitive phrase-by-phrase exposition of the mantra. He proceeds syllable-by-syllable:
- oṃ — analyzed as a four-syllable composite (a-u-ma-bindu) embodying the three Buddha-bodies (三身) and the standard cosmological-doctrinal triad;
- amogha-vairocana-mahā-mudrā — “the non-empty great-seal of Vairocana,” identified with the dharmadhātu-svabhāva-jñāna (法界體性智), the foundational wisdom of the central Buddha of the Vajradhātu maṇḍala;
- maṇi-padma-jvala — “jewel-lotus-flame,” identified respectively with the merit-accumulation (福徳) of all Tathāgatas, the great-compassion dharmakāya (法身) and great-compassion (大悲), and the great-wisdom (大智) and great-light of all Tathāgatas, the three together constituting the threefold body of the non-empty great-seal;
- pravarttaya hūṃ — “turn-forth” + the seed-syllable of the active wisdom-aspect.
Throughout, Myōe re-frames the mantra in Kegon-doctrinal terms (the six-marks-and-ten-mysteries apparatus, the one-is-many hua-yan logic), demonstrating the methodological synthesis of Esoteric and Kegon scholarship that is his distinctive contribution.
The work was much-copied and remained a principal Japanese-Esoteric reference on the Mantra of Light through the Edo period and into modern times.
Translations and research
- George J. Tanabe Jr., Myōe the Dreamkeeper: Fantasy and Knowledge in Early Kamakura Buddhism (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 1992) — the principal English-language monograph on Myōe and his Kōzan-ji project, with substantial treatment of the Mantra of Light commentaries.
- Mark Unno, Shingon Refractions: Myōe and the Mantra of Light (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004) — a dedicated study of Myōe’s Mantra-of-Light corpus with substantial extracts from the Jù-yì shì and from his other related commentaries in English translation.
- Frédéric Girard, Un moine de la secte Kegon à l’époque de Kamakura: Myōe (1173–1232) et le “Journal de ses rêves” (Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1990) — comprehensive French-language scholarly study of Myōe.