Fóshuō shèng liùzì dàmíngwáng tuóluóní jīng 佛說聖六字大明王陀羅尼經
Sūtra of the Noble Six-Syllable Mahā-Vidyārāja Dhāraṇī by 施護 (Dānapāla, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Northern-Sòng translation by Dānapāla (施護) of a Sòng-period Indic recension of a six-syllable dhāraṇī under the title Shèng Liùzì Dàmíngwáng (“Noble Six-Syllable Mahā-Vidyārāja”). The use of Dàmíng 大明 (“great vidyā / great mantra”) in the title is significant: it brings the text into terminological proximity with the Dàshèng zhuāngyán bǎowáng jīng (= Kāraṇḍavyūha-sūtra, KR6j0249), which is the foundational text of the famous Liùzì dàmíng mantra oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ in Chinese transmission.
Abstract
By the late tenth century when Dānapāla was working at the Northern-Sòng Yìjīng yuàn, the Kāraṇḍavyūha-sūtra and its central oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ mantra had become a major Indic-Buddhist tradition (especially in Pala India and the Tibetan transmission). Dānapāla’s translation of the Shèng Liùzì dàmíngwáng tuóluóní should be read in conjunction with Tiānxīzāi’s parallel translation of the full Kāraṇḍavyūha (KR6j0249 = Dàshèng zhuāngyán bǎowáng jīng T1050, also 980s) — together these two texts brought into Chinese the Liùzì dàmíng (= ṣaḍ-akṣarī mahā-vidyā = oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ) tradition for the first time, some 600 years after the unrelated earlier Liùzì texts (KR6j0242–KR6j0245).
Translations and research
- Studholme, Alexander. The Origins of Oṃ Maṇipadme Hūṃ: A Study of the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra. Albany: SUNY Press, 2002. — the foundational modern study, covering this Sòng translation cycle.
- Hidas, Gergely. Powers of Protection. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021.
Links
- CBETA T20n1047
- Kanseki DB
- 施護 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (1000) — 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.