Qiānshǒu qiānyǎn Guānshìyīn púsà guǎngdà yuánmǎn wúài dàbēi xīn tuóluóní jīng 千手千眼觀世音菩薩廣大圓滿無礙大悲心陀羅尼經
Sūtra of the Vast, Perfect, Unobstructed Great-Compassion-Heart Dhāraṇī of the Thousand-Hand Thousand-Eye Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara by 伽梵達摩 (Jiāfàndámó, Bhagavaddharma, 譯)
About the work
The single most influential Chinese Avalokiteśvara dhāraṇī-sūtra: this is the parent text of the Dàbēizhòu 大悲咒 (“Great Compassion Spell” or Mahā-karuṇā-dhāraṇī), which became the most widely chanted Esoteric formula in East-Asian Buddhism. Translated by Bhagavaddharma (伽梵達摩) of West India in the mid-seventh century. The Taishō print is prefaced by the Yǒnglè 永樂 imperial yùzhì preface (大悲總持經呪序) of Míng Tàizōng Zhū Dì 朱棣 (r. 1402–1424), incorporated when the text entered the Yǒnglèběizàng; the imperial framing made the Dàbēizhòu a signature Ming-court devotional formula.
Prefaces
The Yǒnglè preface frames the bodhisattva’s vow to “enter the dust-mote countries to rescue all beings from the suffering paths” and certifies the dhāraṇī as the formula by which devout men and women may “cross the sea of waves” (i.e., transcend saṃsāra). It is editorial paratext, not part of the seventh-century rendering.
Abstract
The body of the sūtra opens at the Pātāla-palace of Avalokiteśvara, where Avalokiteśvara discloses to the Buddha that countless kalpas ago, when he was a bodhisattva of the first bhūmi, he received the Mahā-karuṇā-dhāraṇī from the Tathāgata 千光王靜住 (Sahasra-raśmi-rāja-sthita) and instantly advanced to the eighth bhūmi. He vowed that any being who recites the dhāraṇī shall obtain countless benefits — escape from the eight perils, healing, good rebirth, and ultimate anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. The text then presents the dhāraṇī itself in eighty-four pada segments (the Tang transcription preserves the Nīlakaṇṭhaka family of mantras), with detailed instructions on the forty-two associated mudrā / mantra pairs corresponding to the bodhisattva’s forty-two principal arms. The forty-two-arm iconography of the Tang–Sòng Sahasrabhuja image-cycle derives directly from this text, which is the iconographic locus classicus.
The CANWWW Related texts note for T20N1060 cross-references KR6j0255 (T20N1056, Amoghavajra’s Vajra-śekhara manual), KR6j0256/KR6j0257 (T20N1057a/b, Zhìtōng), KR6j0258 (T20N1058, Bodhiruci), and the lineage of subsequent Mahā-karuṇā-dhāraṇī witnesses (KR6j0262 T20N1061, KR6j0269 T20N1064).
Translations and research
- Reis-Habito, Maria. Die Dhāraṇī des Großen Erbarmens des Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara mit Tausend Händen und Augen — eine Untersuchung zur sino-japanischen Tradition des Mahā-karuṇā-dhāraṇī. Nettetal: Steyler, 1993 — the definitive monograph (German); critical edition of the text, Sanskrit reconstruction, and analysis of cult.
- Yü, Chün-fang. Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokiteśvara. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001 — chapter on the Mahā-karuṇā-dhāraṇī.
- Chandra, Lokesh. The Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, 1988.
- Lokesh Chandra. “The Origin of the Avalokiteśvara of Potala.” Kailash 8 (1981): 5–32.
Other points of interest
The eighty-four-pada dhāraṇī is the basis of the daily monastic Dàbēizhòu recitation practiced throughout East Asia, and the forty-two arms with their respective mudrās are the iconographic basis of the canonical Tang–Sòng Sahasrabhuja image and its many derivatives.
Links
- CBETA T20n1060
- Kanseki DB
- Wikipedia
- 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.