Zuìshàng dàshèng jīngāng dàjiào bǎowáng jīng 最上大乘金剛大教寶王經
Supreme Mahāyāna-Vajra Great-Doctrine Jewel-King Sūtra (Mahāyāna-anuttara-Vajra-mahā-tantra-rāja-sūtra) by 法天 (Fǎtiān, Dharmadeva, 譯)
About the work
A two-fascicle Northern Sòng dàjiàowáng (大教王 — mahā-tantra-rāja) sūtra translated by Dharmadeva (法天). The zuìshàng dàshèng (最上大乘 = anuttara-mahāyāna) of the title indicates that the text belongs to the late-tenth-century Indian Vajrayāna anuttarayoga-tantra (or its proto-form) — i.e., the doctrinal stratum that postdates the yoga-tantra of the Vajraśekhara and represents the developed Vajrayāna of the Pāla-period North Indian Buddhist tradition. The text is one of the most important Sòng-period witnesses to anuttarayoga-tantra-class material in the Chinese canon.
Abstract
The discourse is set at Vipula-pura (廣嚴城 Guǎngyánchéng, Vaiśālī) at the Mango-Grove (菴羅樹園 Ānluó-shùyuán, Āmrapālī-vana) — a celebrated Buddhist site associated with the courtesan-disciple Āmrapālī — with a great audience of six-hundred-thousand bhikṣus headed by Mahā-Kāśyapa (大迦葉). The text expounds the anuttara-mahāyāna doctrine of the Vajra-mahā-tantra-rāja, the central deity-cycle (likely a Vajrasattva or Vajradhara form), the maṇḍala-construction, the abhiṣeka sequence, the vidyā-formulae, and the siddhi-applications. As one of the principal Sòng-period imperial-translated anuttarayoga-tantra-class texts, the work represents the late-tenth-century Sòng court’s reception of the developed Indian Vajrayāna of the Pāla-period.
Translations and research
- Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2003 — Sòng imperial translation programme.
- Jan Yün-hua. “Buddhist Relations between India and Sung China.” History of Religions 6 (1966): 24–42, 135–168.
- Davidson, Ronald M. Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002 — Pāla-period Vajrayāna context.
Links
- CBETA T20n1128
- Kanseki DB
- 法天 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (980) — 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.