Jīngāngdǐng yúqié qīngjǐng dàbēi wáng Guānzìzài niànsòng yíguǐ 金剛頂瑜伽青頸大悲王觀自在念誦儀軌
Recitation Ritual Manual of the Blue-Necked Great-Compassion-Sovereign Avalokiteśvara of the Vajraśekhara Yoga (Vajraśekhara-yoga-Nīlakaṇṭha-Mahā-Karuṇika-rāja-Avalokiteśvara-sādhana) by 金剛智 (Jīngāngzhì, Vajrabodhi, 譯) (recorded by 一行 Yīxíng)
About the work
A one-fascicle yíguǐ (儀軌, ritual manual) on Nīlakaṇṭha-Avalokiteśvara as the Great-Compassion-Sovereign, drawn from the Vajraśekhara yoga-tantra cycle. Translated by Vajrabodhi (金剛智, 671–741), the South-Indian master who founded the Tang Esoteric yoga-tantra lineage and was Amoghavajra’s teacher. The colophon: 南天竺國三藏法師金剛智奉詔譯(一行筆受) — “Translated by Imperial Decree by Vajrabodhi, Tripiṭaka-master of South India; recorded in writing by Yīxíng (一行).” The Yīxíng-as-amanuensis attribution dates the translation to before Yīxíng’s death (727) — making this an early-Tang witness to the yoga-tantra form of the Nīlakaṇṭha cycle. Companion to KR6j0321 (T1111), KR6j0323 (T1113A), and KR6j0324 (T1113B).
Prefaces
The text opens with the standard Tang Esoteric vandanā (稽首) verses:
稽首雄猛阿閦尊… “I bow to the heroic, fierce Akṣobhya, Honoured-One…”
— invoking the Five Tathāgatas of the Vajraśekhara maṇḍala, anchoring the Nīlakaṇṭha sādhana within the yoga-tantra framework.
Abstract
The text expounds the Vajraśekhara-class sādhana-procedure for Nīlakaṇṭha-Avalokiteśvara as the Great-Compassion-Sovereign (青頸大悲王觀自在). The procedure includes the deity-visualisation in the Vajraśekhara maṇḍala, the mūla-mantra (the Nīlakaṇṭha-dhāraṇī in its core yoga-tantra-class form), the mudrā-repertoire, the abhiṣeka sequence, the homa offerings, and the closing dedication. As Vajrabodhi’s most important Avalokiteśvara yíguǐ and as the yoga-tantra form of the Nīlakaṇṭha material, the text is doctrinally a more developed companion to the simpler dhāraṇī-form of KR6j0321 (which is in the kriyā-tantra class).
The text reflects Vajrabodhi’s distinctive approach to integrating earlier kriyā-tantra deity-cycles (such as the Nīlakaṇṭha-Avalokiteśvara material translated in Tang and pre-Tang times) into the systematic yoga-tantra framework of the Vajraśekhara — the project that Amoghavajra would continue and complete. As the recording amanuensis, Yīxíng’s role here is parallel to his much more famous role as the recorder of Śubhakarasiṃha’s exposition of the Mahāvairocana-sūtra (KR6j0080).
Translations and research
- Reis-Habito, Maria. Die Dhāraṇī des Großen Erbarmens. Nettetal: Steyler, 1993.
- Orzech, Charles D. Politics and Transcendent Wisdom. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998 — Vajrabodhi-Amoghavajra translation programme.
- Sundberg, Jeffrey, with Rolf Giebel. “The Life of the Tang Court Monk Vajrabodhi as Chronicled by Lü Xiang (呂向): South Indian and Śrī Lankan Antecedents to the Arrival of the Buddhist Vajrayāna in Eighth-Century Java and China.” Pacific World, 3rd ser., 13 (2011): 129–222.
Links
- CBETA T20n1112
- 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.