Qīxīng rúyìlún mìmì yào jīng 七星如意輪祕密要經
Essential Secret Sūtra of the Seven-Star Cintāmaṇi-Cakra by 不空 (Bùkōng, Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Tang Esoteric sūtra connecting the Cintāmaṇi-cakra Avalokiteśvara to the Seven Stars (七星, i.e. the Big Dipper / saptarṣi-tārā) — a syncretic deity-complex linking Buddhist Esotericism to the Chinese astral-deity tradition. Translated by Amoghavajra (不空); the colophon abbreviates his name as 三藏不空譯. The work is a major witness to the absorption of Chinese star-cult material into Tang Esoteric Buddhism — a process that culminated in the Tang star-deity texts (KR6f0002 etc.) and the Esoteric Hokuto (北斗) cycle that became prominent in Japanese Shingon.
Abstract
The opening situates the discourse at the Great Snowy Mountain at King-of-the-Nāgas Nālandā (大雪山伽王那蘭陀), with twelve hundred and fifty bhikṣus including Mahā-Maudgalyāyana, Śāriputra, Mahā-Kātyāyana, Vakkali, Ānanda, Mahā-Kāśyapa, Pūrṇa-Maitrāyaṇī-putra, and eighteen-thousand bodhisattvas all having attained the dhāraṇī of non-regression. The Cintāmaṇi-cakra Avalokiteśvara then expounds the seven-star form of his cult: each of the seven stars of the Big Dipper is correlated with a particular deity-emanation, mantra, mudrā, and ritual application. The seven-star material reflects a Tang Esoteric synthesis of Indian astral-deity (nakṣatra-cult) literature with the Chinese Běidǒu 北斗 tradition, mediated through 不空 Amoghavajra’s translation programme. As a piece of Tang astral-Esoteric literature it is closely related to KR6f0002 and the broader Tang xīngmìng (星命) corpus.
Translations and research
- Sørensen, Henrik. “The Spell of the Great, Golden Peacock Queen: The Origin, Practices, and Lore of an Early Esoteric Buddhist Tradition in China.” Pacific World, 3rd ser., 8 (2006) — adjacent material on Tang astral-Esoteric synthesis.
- Mollier, Christine. Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2008 — Tang Buddhist–Daoist astral-cult convergence.
Links
- CBETA T20n1091
- Kanseki DB
- 不空 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (750) — 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.