Qiānshǒu qiānyǎn Guānshìyīn púsà zhìbìng héyào jīng 千手千眼觀世音菩薩治病合藥經
Sūtra on Curing Illness and Compounding Medicines of the Thousand-Hand Thousand-Eye Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara by 伽梵達摩 (Jiāfàndámó, Bhagavaddharma, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Avalokiteśvara yíguǐ in medical genre, ascribed in the colophon to Bhagavaddharma (伽梵達摩), the West-Indian (西天竺國) translator best known for the standard recension of the Mahā-karuṇā-dhāraṇī-sūtra (KR6j0260). The text excerpts and elaborates the medical-cure portion of the larger Mahā-karuṇā-dhāraṇī-sūtra, which was understood in Tang practice as the materia-medica of the Sahasrabhuja cult.
Abstract
The Buddha addresses Ānanda, recommending recitation of the Great Compassion Dhāraṇī for the cure of disease and the compounding of efficacious medicines. The text gives a series of recipes — combinations of dhāraṇī-recitation with herbal preparations, agarwood (沈香), frankincense (薰陸), white mustard seed, ghee, etc. — for specific ailments: fevers, possession, piṣāca attack, parturition difficulties, aurum potabile-style longevity preparations, and so on. The work is a major early witness for the integration of Buddhist dhāraṇī-recitation with the Indian āyurveda and Chinese yīfāng 醫方 traditions in the seventh century, and it had a documented influence on subsequent Chinese Buddhist medical literature including the Sūxīdìjiéluó 蘇悉地羯羅 (KR6j0061) compendia and the Dūnhuáng therapeutic manuals. Bhagavaddharma’s dates are not externally fixed; the floruit 650–661 follows from the 武則天–高宗 provenance of the colophons. Cross-reference: KR6j0260 (the parent Mahā-karuṇā-dhāraṇī-sūtra).
Translations and research
- Reis-Habito, Maria. Die Dhāraṇī des Großen Erbarmens. Nettetal: Steyler, 1993.
- Salguero, C. Pierce. Translating Buddhist Medicine in Medieval China. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014 — reference to Avalokiteśvara medical-dhāraṇī material.
Links
- CBETA T20n1059
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (655) — 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.