Fóshuō yīqiè fó shè xiāngyīng dàjiàowáng jīng shèng Guānzìzài púsà niànsòng yíguǐ 佛說一切佛攝相應大教王經聖觀自在菩薩念誦儀軌
Recitation Ritual Manual of Noble Avalokiteśvara from the Sūtra-King of the All-Buddha Compatibility-Yoga Great Teaching by 法賢 (Fǎxián, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Northern-Sòng Esoteric ritual manual translated by Fǎxián (法賢) — the renamed Tiānxīzāi 天息災 in his later phase — extracting from a larger jiàowáng jīng 教王經 (sūtra-king / kalpa-rāja) text the recitation-ritual procedure for Ārya-Avalokiteśvara. The “All-Buddha Compatibility-Yoga” (yīqiè fó shè xiāngyīng 一切佛攝相應, Skt. sarva-buddha-saṅgraha-yoga) framing places the text within the yoga-tantra tradition.
Abstract
By 989, the year Tiānxīzāi received the imperial honorific name Fǎxián 法賢, the Sòng Yìjīng yuàn had been productive for nearly a decade and was producing increasingly technical yoga-tantra literature alongside the more general dhāraṇī and Mahāyāna sūtra translations. The present Avalokiteśvara niànsòng yíguǐ extracted from a Yīqiè fó shè xiāngyīng dàjiàowáng jīng — i.e. a Sarva-buddha-saṅgraha-yoga-mahā-kalpa-rāja tantra — represents the late-tenth-century Chinese reception of a yoga-tantra tradition that had been flourishing in Pala India for some 200 years. The text is significantly more technically Esoteric than the broader Kāraṇḍavyūha / Avalokiteśvara dhāraṇī material that Tiānxīzāi/Fǎxián otherwise translated; it points toward the developing engagement of Sòng Buddhism with mature Indian yoga-tantra and anuttara-yoga-tantra literature that the Yìjīng yuàn would continue to mediate up to its closure in 1082.
Translations and research
- Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003.
- Orzech, Charles D., Henrik Sørensen, and Richard Payne, eds. Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia. Leiden: Brill, 2011.
Links
- CBETA T20n1051
- Kanseki DB
- 法賢 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (1001) — 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.