Fóshuō chūshēng wúbiānmén tuóluóní yíguǐ 佛說出生無邊門陀羅尼儀軌
Ritual Manual for the Sūtra of the Dhāraṇī of the Boundless Gate of Origination by 不空 (Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Esoteric ritual manual (yíguǐ 儀軌, Skt. vidhi) compiled by Amoghavajra (不空) as the practice-companion to his Anantamukha-dhāraṇī translation KR6j0202 (T1009). The text supplies the prescribed mudrā-, maṇḍala-, and recitation-sequences for the dhāraṇī’s liturgical performance and is one of a series of yíguǐ manuals Amoghavajra produced to systematise the practice of his individual dhāraṇī-translations within the Tángmì sacramental framework.
Abstract
A yíguǐ of this type takes a sūtra-text (here KR6j0202 T1009) and supplies the surrounding ritual apparatus: invocations, mudrā-instructions, maṇḍala layout, recitation counts, homa (fire-offering) procedures, and so forth. Amoghavajra produced ritual manuals for many of his dhāraṇī-translations, recognising that the dhāraṇī alone — without the accompanying ritual apparatus — was incomplete from an Esoteric point of view. The systematic yíguǐ-pairing of dhāraṇī-sūtras with their practice manuals is one of his characteristic contributions to Tang-period Esoteric Buddhism, modelled on the Indian kalpa / vidhi literature of the contemporary yoga-tantra tradition. The text survives via the Tang and Sung canons and was transmitted to Japan as part of the Shingon ritual canon.
Translations and research
- Goble, Geoffrey C. Chinese Esoteric Buddhism: Amoghavajra, the Ruling Elite, and the Emergence of a Tradition. New York: Columbia UP, 2019. — the most comprehensive recent treatment of Amoghavajra’s yíguǐ-corpus.
- Orzech, Charles D., Henrik H. Sørensen, and Richard K. Payne, eds. Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia. Leiden: Brill, 2011.
Links
- CBETA T19n1010
- Kanseki DB
- 不空 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (750) — T = CBETA [Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association]. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924-1932. CBReader v 5.0, 2014.