Fóshuō ānzhái tuóluóní zhòu jīng 佛說安宅陀羅尼呪經
Sūtra of the Dhāraṇī-Spell for Pacifying the Dwelling [anonymous translator]
About the work
A one-fascicle anonymous (shīyì 失譯) dhāraṇī sūtra for the pacification of dwellings — i.e. the apotropaic protection of houses, family compounds, and inhabited buildings against demonic and ill-omened influences. The text is preserved without recorded translator and conventionally classified within the broad pre-Tang dhāraṇī corpus (Hàn through Sui period, terminus ad quem in early Tang). CANWWW lists related texts T1351 (KR6k0019) and T1355 (also in the Mìjiàobù).
Abstract
The Ānzhái (“pacifying-the-dwelling”) dhāraṇī is one of the foundational texts of the Chinese household-protection ritual cycle. Together with related parallel texts (T1351 Ānzhái shénzhòu jīng 安宅神呪經, T1355 Yīngtóngshénzhòu jīng 嬰童神呪經, etc.) it provides the canonical authority for the practice of inscribing dhāraṇīs on or near dwellings to ward off demonic and ill-omened influences — a practice of immense importance in popular Chinese Buddhist religiosity from the late-Hàn period onwards and one that fed directly into Daoist and folk-religious household-protection traditions. The shīyì status places it within the pre-Tang anonymous translation corpus (broadly 220–600 CE); the precise translator is unrecoverable.
Translations and research
- Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins. Paris: Gallimard, 1996. — for the household-protection cycle.
- Hidas, Gergely. Powers of Protection. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021.