Qiānshǒu qiānyǎn Guānzìzài púsà guǎngdà yuánmǎn wúài dàbēi xīn tuóluóní zhòuběn 千手千眼觀自在菩薩廣大圓滿無礙大悲心陀羅尼呪本
Spell-Text Recension of the Vast, Perfect, Unobstructed Great-Compassion-Heart Dhāraṇī of the Thousand-Hand Thousand-Eye Avalokiteśvara by 金剛智 (Jīngāngzhì, Vajrabodhi, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle zhòuběn 呪本 — a “spell-only” extract giving the Mahā-karuṇā-dhāraṇī in pure transliteration without its narrative frame. Translated by Vajrabodhi (金剛智, 671–741), the South-Indian master and teacher of Amoghavajra, who introduced the Vajra-śekhara cycle into Tang Buddhism. The spell-text is parallel to the dhāraṇī embedded in KR6j0260 (Bhagavaddharma’s full sūtra) but reflects a slightly different Sanskrit Vorlage and a more rigorous Esoteric Indic phonology.
Abstract
The zhòuběn gives the Mahā-karuṇā-dhāraṇī alone — the eighty-four-pada spell — preceded only by the standard refuge (“namo ratna-trayāya, namo āryāvalokiteśvarāya bodhisattvāya mahāsattvāya …”) and followed by no further narrative or ritual matter. The work was produced as a practical recitation aid for cultivators of the Vajra-śekhara cycle: rather than a full sūtra, it furnishes the spell formula cleanly transcribed for liturgical use. Its principal scholarly value is as an independent eighth-century witness to the Nīlakaṇṭhaka-dhāraṇī in Tang transcription, supplementing the seventh-century rendering by Bhagavaddharma in KR6j0260 and informing subsequent Tángmì Sahasrabhuja manuals (KR6j0269, KR6j0272, KR6j0273). The transliteration shows that Vajrabodhi was working from a reasonably classical Sanskrit recension rather than a Prakritised one, and his spelling-conventions correspond to the standard Tángmì scribal apparatus of the Vajra-śekhara school.
Translations and research
- Reis-Habito, Maria. Die Dhāraṇī des Großen Erbarmens. Nettetal: Steyler, 1993 — collation of the eighty-four-pada recensions including this one.
- Chandra, Lokesh. The Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, 1988.
Links
- CBETA T20n1061
- Kanseki DB
- 金剛智 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (730) — 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.