Yèyī Guānzìzài púsà jīng 葉衣觀自在菩薩經
Sūtra of the Leaf-Clad Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva (Parṇaśavarī-Avalokiteśvara-sūtra) by 不空 (Bùkōng, Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Tang Esoteric sūtra on Parṇaśavarī Avalokiteśvara (葉衣觀自在 Yèyī Guānzìzài, “Leaf-Clad Avalokiteśvara”), one of the wrathful retinue-forms of Avalokiteśvara in the developed Tang Esoteric pantheon. The deity Parṇaśavarī (literally “Leaf-Clad-One”, originally a Northeast-Indian forest-goddess incorporated into the Buddhist Tantric pantheon as a healing-deity associated with the cure of plague and pestilence) is here presented in her Avalokiteśvara-emanation form. The colophon gives Amoghavajra’s full court titulature: 開府儀同三司特進試鴻臚卿肅國公食邑三千戶賜紫贈司空諡大鑒正號大廣智大興善寺三藏沙門不空奉詔譯.
Abstract
The discourse is set at Sukhāvatī (極樂世界) — the Pure Land of Amitābha — with Vajrapāṇi as the principal interlocutor. Vajrapāṇi rises from his seat, prostrates at the feet of Avalokiteśvara, and addresses him as “the Holy One who abides in the great-compassion-deliverance-illusion-samādhi” (聖者住大悲解脫如幻三昧), who can dispel all suffering of sentient beings. The text expounds Parṇaśavarī Avalokiteśvara’s iconography (clad in vegetation/leaves, multi-armed, holding the vajra, the parṇa — leaf-bough — and various ritual implements), her mūla-mantra, the maṇḍala-construction, the sādhana procedure, and the siddhi-applications: the cure of all diseases (especially plague and epidemic), protection from the eight calamities, the eight aṣṭa-mahā-bhaya dangers, and the standard Tang Esoteric kriyā-tantra repertoire.
The deity is one of the principal Esoteric healing-divinities and her cult was particularly prominent in Tang and Heian-period esoteric medicine. The text was the principal canonical reference for the Japanese Shingon Yō-e Kannon (葉衣觀音) iconographic and ritual cycle.
Translations and research
- Bühnemann, Gudrun. “The Goddess Mahācīnakrama-Tārā (Ugra-Tārā) in Buddhist and Hindu Tantrism.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 59 (1996): 472–493 — adjacent material on the wrathful Avalokiteśvara emanation cycle.
- Mallmann, Marie-Thérèse de. Introduction à l’iconographie du tântrisme bouddhique. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1975 — Parṇaśavarī iconography.
- Sørensen, Henrik H. “On Esoteric Buddhism in China: A Working Definition.” In Orzech, Sørensen, and Payne (eds.), Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia. Leiden: Brill, 2011.
Links
- CBETA T20n1100
- 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.