Jīngāng mìmì shànmén tuóluóní jīng 金剛祕密善門陀羅尼經
Vajra-Secret Beneficial-Gate Dhāraṇī Sūtra (Sumukhanāmadhāraṇī-sūtra, second recension) by 失譯
About the work
A one-fascicle anonymous dhāraṇī sūtra, the second recension that the Taishō editors printed under no. 1138 (alongside KR6j0354 = T1138a). The colophon: 失譯人名附東晉錄. Same Indic Sumukha-dhāraṇī underlies KR6j0353 (T1137), KR6j0354 (T1138a), KR6j0356 (T1139), and KR6j0357 (T1140) — the present text is the variant of T1138 that drops the zhòu (呪) in the title.
Abstract
The sūtra opens with the Buddha at the Bodhi-tree, attended by Śāriputra, Maudgalyāyana, and a large bodhisattva-assembly including Vajra-banner, Vajra-treasury, Maitreya, and “the great worthies of the Bhadrakalpa”. Vajra-Secret-Tracks Bodhisattva (金剛密迹菩薩), supported by the Buddha’s prabhāva, asks him to expound the Beneficial-Gate Dhāraṇī (善門陀羅尼) as a great illumination for the world: it removes the malice of enemies, repels devas, nāgas, yakṣas, rākṣasas, kumbhāṇḍas, persons and non-persons, vital-essence stealers, perverse spell-craft (左道蠱毒), and the slanders of dissemblers. The formula is to be invoked for protection while walking, sitting, sleeping, and dreaming, securing the practitioner’s longevity (令其堅固功德智慧不退之行), and warding off the dread of untimely death. The b-recension is shorter and more idiomatically Chinese in its prose than the a-recension; both circulated as standalone protection scriptures in early-medieval Chinese Buddhism.
The dating bracket follows the Eastern Jin attribution (317–420 CE).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located on this recension specifically.