Qiānshǒu Guānyīn zào cìdì fǎ yíguǐ 千手觀音造次第法儀軌
Manual on the Method of Producing the Thousand-Hand Guānyīn Image, in Sequenced Stages by 善無畏 (Shànwúwèi, Śubhakarasiṃha, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle iconographic yíguǐ 儀軌 on the construction (造) of the Sahasrabhuja-Avalokiteśvara image, attributed to Śubhakarasiṃha (善無畏) of central India (中天竺國三藏). The text functions as a craftsman’s manual coupled with a ritual-consecration manual: it gives the iconographic specifications for sculpting, painting, or modelling the deity, ordered in a definite sequence (次第).
Abstract
The opening describes the central image: 上首正體身大黃色 — “the principal embodied figure is golden-yellow in color” — seated cross-legged on a great jewelled lotus pedestal, the lotus having thirty-two principal petals each with smaller leaves between them, each leaf adorned with countless mahā-maṇi gems. The chief face of the deity is then described, with the supplementary heads (eleven-headed iconography), the forty-two principal arms each with their attribute (the vajra, the cintāmaṇi, the padma, the cakra, the bow and arrow, the willow branch, the noose, etc.), the colors and mudrā of each, and the maṇḍala-attendants. The text is the locus classicus for the iconographic specification of the Sahasrabhuja deity in Tángmì practice and represents the Śubhakarasiṃha lineage’s approach — distinct from but harmonious with the Vajrabodhi / Amoghavajra lineage manuals (KR6j0255, KR6j0273). It is one of the most-cited yíguǐ in subsequent Japanese Shingon sculptural traditions concerning the Senjū-Kannon (千手觀音).
Translations and research
- Chandra, Lokesh. The Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara. New Delhi: IGNCA, 1988 — extended discussion of the iconographic prescriptions.
- Howard, Angela F. The Imagery of the Cosmological Buddha. Leiden: Brill, 1986 — Tang Esoteric image-cycles.
- Yü, Chün-fang. Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokiteśvara. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.
Links
- CBETA T20n1068
- Kanseki DB
- 善無畏 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (720) — 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.