Jīngāng mìmì shànmén tuóluóní zhòu jīng 金剛祕密善門陀羅尼呪經
Vajra-Secret Beneficial-Gate Dhāraṇī Spell Sūtra (Sumukhanāmadhāraṇī-sūtra, alternate redaction) by 失譯
About the work
A one-fascicle anonymous dhāraṇī sūtra catalogued in the Eastern Jin (東晉錄). The colophon: 失譯人名今附東晉錄. The Taishō head-note: No. 1138 [Nos. 1137, 1139, 1140]. This is one of two recensions Taishō prints under no. 1138 — the present a recension differs in opening framing from the b recension, KR6j0355 — both belong to the same Sumukhanāmadhāraṇī cycle as KR6j0353 (T1137), KR6j0356 (T1139), and KR6j0357 (T1140).
Abstract
The sūtra opens at the Bodhi-tree assembly (菩提樹下元吉道場) with Śāriputra, Ānanda, and the great-bodhisattva company including Vajra-banner, Vajra-treasury, and Maitreya. Vajra-Secret-Tracks Bodhisattva (金剛密迹菩薩) requests the Buddha to expound the Beneficial-Gate Dhāraṇī (善門陀羅尼) as a light for sentient beings, protecting them from devas, nāgas, yakṣas, rākṣasas, kumbhāṇḍas, those who steal vital essence (奪人精氣者), poisoned weapons, and gu-poison-witchcraft (方道蟲). The text is thus an apotropaic dhāraṇī formula in the same Indic Sumukha tradition as T1137, but cast under the alternate Chinese title jīngāng mìmì — a translation choice that brings out the Vajra-class associations of the formula. The four T1137–T1140 versions together preserve four overlapping but distinct Chinese renderings of the formula across Jin, Tang, and Sòng.
The dating bracket follows the Eastern Jin attribution (317–420 CE).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located on this specific recension; see Davidson (2014) on dhāraṇī pragmatics generally.