Fóshuō dàshèng zhuāngyán bǎowáng jīng 佛說大乘莊嚴寶王經
Mahāyāna Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra (Sūtra of the Mahāyāna-Adornment Jewel-King) by 天息災 (Tiānxīzāi, 譯)
About the work
A four-fascicle Northern-Sòng translation by Tiānxīzāi (天息災, later renamed 法賢 Fǎxián, see 法賢) of the Kāraṇḍavyūha-sūtra (Skt. Kāraṇḍavyūha-sūtra) — one of the most historically important Mahāyāna Avalokiteśvara texts and the canonical source for the famous six-syllable mantra oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ in Chinese (and East-Asian) Buddhist transmission. Translated at the Northern-Sòng Yìjīng yuàn 譯經院 in Chángān, ca. 983.
Abstract
The Kāraṇḍavyūha-sūtra is one of the foundational sūtras of the Avalokiteśvara cult in late-Indic Mahāyāna Buddhism. Probably composed in Kashmir in the 4th–5th centuries, it elaborates Avalokiteśvara as a cosmic figure who descends into the various hells, the realms of demons, and other realms of suffering to liberate beings — and as the deity from whose pores entire universes manifest. Crucially, the sūtra is the first Indic Buddhist text to formulate and propagate the ṣaḍ-akṣarī mahā-vidyā mantra oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, presenting it as Avalokiteśvara’s quintessential mantra and the most efficacious of all dhāraṇīs. Tiānxīzāi’s late-tenth-century translation (ca. 983, during his pre-法賢 phase) is the first Chinese-language witness to the Kāraṇḍavyūha and hence the first Chinese-language attestation of oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ. The mantra had been current in Pala Indian Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Tangut Buddhism considerably earlier; its Sòng-period entry into the Chinese canon marks the late-tenth-century reception of an already-flourishing Avalokiteśvara cult.
The standard modern study is Studholme 2002, which traces the textual history, the philological problem of the mantra (the puzzle that maṇi-padme is grammatically a vocative Maṇipadmā — i.e. a feminine deity Maṇipadmā — rather than the conventional “jewel-in-the-lotus” reading), and the reception history.
Translations and research
- Studholme, Alexander. The Origins of Oṃ Maṇipadme Hūṃ: A Study of the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra. Albany: SUNY Press, 2002. — the foundational modern monograph; includes a partial translation of the Sanskrit.
- Lokesh Chandra. “Avalokiteśvara in the Kāraṇḍa-vyūha.” In Buddhist Iconography of Tibet, vol. 1, ed. Lokesh Chandra (New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1986), 65–73.
- Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003.
- Yü Chün-fang. Kuan-yin. New York: Columbia UP, 2001.
Other points of interest
The Kāraṇḍavyūha is the principal canonical text behind the immense Tibetan and Mongolian maṇi-mantra cult (Avalokiteśvara as 千手千眼 thousand-hand-and-eye deity, the maṇi-stones, the prayer-wheels, etc.). Its delayed reception in China (tenth century vs. far earlier in Tibet) is one of the more striking features of the comparative reception-history of the Avalokiteśvara cult.
Links
- CBETA T20n1050
- Kanseki DB
- 天息災 DILA
- Wikipedia (Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra)
- Dazangthings date evidence (990) — 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.