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不空羂索神變真言經

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Text ID
KR6j0300
Date
707–709
Dynasty
唐

Bùkōng juànsuǒ shénbiàn zhēnyán jīng 不空羂索神變真言經

Mantra Sūtra on the Spirit-Transformations of Amoghapāśa by 菩提流志 (Pútíliúzhì, Bodhiruci, 譯)

About the work

A monumental thirty-fascicle Tang Esoteric sūtra — by far the largest Avalokiteśvara kalpa-rāja in the Chinese canon — devoted to Amoghapāśa-Avalokiteśvara (不空羂索觀世音, “the Avalokiteśvara of the Unfailing Noose”), one of the principal eight bodily forms of Avalokiteśvara in the Tang Esoteric pantheon. Translated by Bodhiruci (菩提流志, d. 727) and presented to the Tang court between 707 and 709 (the dating is fixed by Bodhiruci’s “submission memorial” and the contemporary catalogues), this is the magnum opus of his career and one of the longest single texts of Tang Esoteric Buddhism. The text supersedes a series of earlier shorter Amoghapāśa sūtras translated by 闍那崛多 Jñānagupta, 玄奘 Xuánzàng, 寶思惟 Bǎosīwéi, and 李無諂 Lǐwúchǎn (cf. KR6j0301–KR6j0307 = T20N1093–T20N1099, all parallel translations or partial witnesses subsumed in Bodhiruci’s full thirty-fascicle redaction).

Abstract

The opening fascicle, Mǔtuóluóní zhēnyán xùpǐn dìyī 母陀羅尼真言序品第一 — “Introductory Chapter of the Mother-Dhāraṇī-Mantra” — situates the discourse at Avalokiteśvara’s mahā-prāsāda on Mt. Potalaka (補陀洛山觀世音菩薩摩訶薩大宮殿中), the palace built entirely of innumerable jewels, mahā-precious-objects, and miraculously interwoven jewels emitting great rays of light. The thirty fascicles unfold a comprehensive Esoteric kalpa-rāja on Amoghapāśa: the deity’s iconography (multiple-armed, holding the pāśa / noose, the triśūla, the cintāmaṇi, etc.), the mūla-mantra and the various vidyā-spell families (the mātṛ-dhāraṇī, the uttara-mantra, the sādhāraṇa-mantras), the maṇḍala-arrangements (multiple maṇḍala-types for the various ritual operations), the consecration / abhiṣeka procedures, the homa operations, the vyākaraṇa and prophetic chapters, the iconometric specifications for image-construction, and the closing dedication. The work is the most comprehensive single-text reference for the Amoghapāśa cycle in the Tang canon and is a primary source for the iconography of Tang and Heian-period Amoghapāśa images.

The parallel and partial Amoghapāśa translations are: T20n1093 (闍那崛多 Jñānagupta, KR6j0301), T20n1094 (玄奘 Xuánzàng, KR6j0302), T20n1095 (菩提流志 Bodhiruci, KR6j0303), T20n1096 (李無諂 Lǐwúchǎn, KR6j0304), T20n1097 (寶思惟 Bǎosīwéi, KR6j0305), and T20n1098 (阿謨伽 阿目佉, KR6j0306), together with the 阿地瞿多 Atikūṭa compendium (KR6c0098 T901, fasc. 5).

Translations and research

  • Forte, Antonino. “The Activities in China of the Tantric Master Manicintana from Kashmir and of his Northern Indian Collaborator Bodhiruci.” East and West 34 (1984): 301–345 — definitive on Bodhiruci and the dating of his Amoghapāśa programme.
  • Kapstein, Matthew T., ed. Buddhism Between Tibet and China. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2009 — Amoghapāśa cycle in pan-Asian Esotericism.
  • Reis-Habito, Maria. Die Dhāraṇī des Großen Erbarmens. Nettetal: Steyler, 1993 — comparative discussion of the Avalokiteśvara kalpa-rājas.
  • Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins. Paris: Gallimard, 1996 — major chapter on the Tang Esoteric synthesis in which the Amoghapāśa cycle is central.
  • Howard, Angela F. and Giuseppe Vignato. Archaeological and Visual Sources of Meditation in the Ancient Monasteries of Kuča. Leiden: Brill, 2014 — adjacent iconographic background.

Other points of interest

The thirty-fascicle scope and the comprehensive kalpa-rāja organisation make this Tang sūtra one of the most important single works for understanding the development of Indian Esoteric Buddhism on the eve of the systematised yoga-tantra of the 金剛智 Vajrabodhi – 不空 Amoghavajra lineage: it represents the late-7th / early-8th-century kriyā-tantra / caryā-tantra synthesis at its most elaborate scale. The text was a primary canonical reference for Heian and Kamakura Japanese Shingon iconography of Fukū-kenjaku Kannon (不空羂索觀音).

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