Fóshuō liùzì zhòuwáng jīng 佛說六字呪王經
Sūtra of the Six-Syllable Spell-King [anonymous translator, attributed to Eastern Jìn]
About the work
A one-fascicle anonymous Eastern-Jìn (shīyì 失譯 fù Dōng-Jìn lù 附東晉錄) translation of one of the earliest Liùzì (“six-syllable”) dhāraṇī-sūtras to enter China. This is the first of a small cluster of related early-transmission six-syllable dhāraṇī texts (KR6j0242–KR6j0245) that document the Chinese reception of the Liùzìzhāngjù dhāraṇī (a different six-syllable formula from the famous oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ).
Abstract
The “six-syllable spell” tradition that this text inaugurates in the Chinese canon is the Indic ṣaḍ-akṣarī-vidyā dhāraṇī tradition — the spell consisting of six characters — which is associated with multiple bodhisattvas and protective powers in different Indian and Buddhist sources. The Chinese transmission of this tradition is documented in four overlapping but distinct translations of the Eastern Jìn period and immediately afterward (T1044, T1045a, T1045b, T1046 = KR6j0242–KR6j0245); the textual history is complex and the four versions show significant variants. The Liùzìzhāngjù tuóluóní preserved in KR6j0241 (Nántí’s Qǐngguānyīn jīng) is a related but distinct six-syllable dhāraṇī. None of these early liùzì texts is the famous oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ mantra, which enters Chinese only with the Sòng translation of the Kāraṇḍavyūha-sūtra (KR6j0249).
Translations and research
- Hidas, Gergely. Powers of Protection. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021. — covers the early Chinese ṣaḍ-akṣarī tradition.
- Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.
- Yü Chün-fang. Kuan-yin. New York: Columbia UP, 2001.
Links
- CBETA T20n1044
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (420) — 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.