Fóshuō shèng Guānzìzài púsà fànzàn 佛說聖觀自在菩薩梵讚
Brahmā-style Hymn to the Noble Avalokiteśvara, Spoken by the Buddha by 法賢 (Fǎxián, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle fànzàn 梵讚 (Skt. brahma-stotra or vandanā) on Avalokiteśvara, prefaced in the Taishō text by an imperial yùzhì preface from Míng Tàizōng wénhuángdì 大明太宗文皇帝 (朱棣, Yǒnglè 永樂, r. 1402–1424) — the Guānyīn zàn 觀音讚 — that was added when the work was incorporated into the Yǒnglè-bĕi 永樂北 / Yǒnglènán 永樂南 zàng in the early fifteenth century. The translation itself is by Fǎxián (法賢), the post-989 designation of Tiānxīzāi 天息災, in the late Sòng Yìjīng yuàn.
Prefaces
The Yǒnglè preface at the head of the Taishō text is editorial paratext, not part of the original tenth-century rendering. A literal translation of the opening: “The great noble, free in self-manifestation, Avalokiteśvara — in hundreds of thousands of millions he responds to all beings without exhaustion. His supernormal power is unobstructed and rests nowhere; his great compassion sympathises with sentient beings; the six sense-faculties are mutually employed and his wisdom is deep…“. The preface frames the hymn as an aid to imperial edification and authorises its inclusion in the canon.
Abstract
The hymn proper is a relatively short Sanskrit-style stotra opening with refuge in the bodhisattva, then a sequence of epithets — padma-pāṇi (蓮華手), abhaya-dada (施無畏), karuṇā-mūla (悲根本) — and closing with a request for the bodhisattva’s protection. The “梵讚” of the title indicates that the underlying text was understood by the translation bureau to be a proper Sanskrit stotra in brahma- register (i.e., metrical, classical, learned), as opposed to the more vernacular gāthā style used in many yíguǐ. Sanskrit parallels are unidentified in any extant Indic manuscript collection; comparison with the KR6j0252 Gōngdé zàn (Dānapāla, 施護) suggests the two derive from related but not identical Sanskrit manuscript exemplars circulating in late-tenth-century North India. With KR6j0252 and KR6j0253, this hymn forms a small Yìjīng yuàn corpus of Avalokiteśvara hymnic literature.
Translations and research
- Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003.
- Jan Yün-hua. “Buddhist Relations between India and Sung China.” History of Religions 6 (1966).
Links
- CBETA T20n1055
- 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.