Zhuǎnfǎlún púsà cuīmóyuàndí fǎ 轉法輪菩薩摧魔怨敵法
Method of the Dharma-Wheel-Turning Bodhisattva for Crushing Māra and Enemy-Foes by 不空 (Bùkōng, Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Tang Esoteric ritual manual on warfare-protection translated by Amoghavajra (不空, 705–774). Colophon: 大興善寺三藏沙門大廣智不空奉詔譯. The text is one of the explicit guójiā fǎ (state-protection rituals) characteristic of Amoghavajra’s late-career work for the Tang court.
Abstract
The text opens with Cuīmóyuàn Bodhisattva (摧魔怨菩薩, “Crusher of Māra and Foes”) addressing the Buddha: the various bodhisattvas have each spoken their secret-mantra teachings; I, for the time of dharma-decline (末法), to safeguard kings and the sentient beings of the realm, will now expound the Method of the Dharma-Wheel-Turning Bodhisattva for Crushing Māra and Enemy-Foes — most secret, most superior, most secret-within-the-secret. The Buddha grants permission. The text then prescribes a battlefield-protection ritual: when a neighbouring state harasses the borders, or one’s own forces are few and weak, or seditious vassals revolt, one is to take kuṭhāra (苦揀木, hard-wood) and fashion a dhvaja-banner ten zhàng tall, install it on the battlefield, and recite the mantras inscribed on it. This is one of the most explicit military-tantric texts in the Chinese Buddhist canon — an apotropaic war-magic ritual integrated with Tang-court statecraft. Amoghavajra’s role as state-protection ritualist for the Sùzōng 肅宗 and Dàizōng 代宗 courts (especially after the An Lushan rebellion 755) provides the historical-political context for this text’s production.
Translations and research
- Orzech, Charles D. Politics and Transcendent Wisdom: The Scripture for Humane Kings in the Creation of Chinese Buddhism. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998.
- Goble, Geoffrey. Chinese Esoteric Buddhism: Amoghavajra, the Ruling Elite, and the Emergence of a Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.
- Reis-Habito, Maria. “The Repentance Ritual of the Thousand-Armed Guanyin.” Studies in Central and East Asian Religions 4 (1991): 42–51.
Other points of interest
The text is a salient example of Esoteric warfare-ritual in Tang Buddhism: a battlefield-magic procedure formally framed as bodhisattva-method. It belongs with KR6j0298 Rénwáng jīng (T245) and the Liúzì jīng T1180 cycle in the politically-active corpus that Amoghavajra produced under court patronage.
Links
- CBETA T20n1150
- 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.