Dà suíqiú tuóluóní kānzhù 大隨求陀羅尼勘註
Philological Annotations to the Mahāpratisarā Dhāraṇī (Jp. Daizuigu darani kanchū) by 明覺 (Myōkaku, 撰)
About the work
A one-fascicle Japanese Siddham 悉曇 philological commentary on the Mahāpratisarā dhāraṇī — extracted from Amoghavajra’s Pǔbiàn guāngmíng qīngjìng chìshèng rúyì bǎoyìn xīn wúnéngshèng dà míngwáng dàsuíqiú tuóluóní jīng (KR6j0371, T20n1153) — by Myōkaku 明覺 (明覺, 1056–after 1106), the foremost Japanese Siddham scholar of the late 11th century. The work is the earlier of Myōkaku’s two surviving Siddham annotations, the companion being the Dàfódǐng rúlái fàngguāng xīdátā bōdáluō tuóluóní kānzhù (KR6j0183, T61n2235, dated 1096 CE).
Prefaces
The work has no formal author’s preface; the title-line opens directly with the editorial header:
“Dà suíqiú tuóluóní kānzhù — principally relying on Amoghavajra’s translation; supplemented by the other external texts.” 大隨求陀羅尼勘註 正依不空譯 傍外諸文助
The first scholastic gloss is given on the title itself:
“[Buddha-spoken] general-light, pure-and-radiant blazing-glow — ‘as-you-wish, jewel-imprinted heart, none-can-surpass.’ Or, according to the Tang-yard Mañjuśrī Eulogy: ‘…one’s-thought-comprehending true-seal heart, none-can-equal’. The two recensions [thus differ on this point]; we follow the present one. — Dhāraṇī: ‘total holding-up’. — Or written Sui-qiú dàmíngwáng 隨求大明王.”
The colophon at the end (lines 199–206 of the source text) records the autograph dating and the subsequent transmission:
- “The original book reads: On the 11th day of the 3rd month of Kanji 6 [寛治六年三月十一日, = 1092 CE], the monk Myōkaku has finished annotating it; checkpointing also completed.” 書本云 寛治六年三月十一日沙門明覺勘注了 交點了
- “The base manuscript reads: On the 4th day of the 8th month of Angen 2 [= 1176 CE], copying completed at the Sakurai-bō 櫻井房.”
- “On the upper-tenth of early-winter (= 10th month), year five of Bunji [文治第五之歳初冬上旬之候, = 1189 CE], copying completed at a hermitage 菴室 in Kamakura.”
- “On the 25th day of the 10th month of Enpō 2 [延寶二年寅十月二十五日, = 1674 CE], copied from the daibakko manuscript of the Mou-bi Mountain Sekisui-in Sūtra-Storehouse 梅尾山石水院經藏臺箱. — Vajra-Master Kenshō 金剛司顯證.”
Abstract
The Kānzhù (Jp. kanchū) is Myōkaku’s mature philological treatment of the Mahāpratisarā dhāraṇī, designed as a working scholar’s apparatus for restoring and parsing the underlying Sanskrit text from Amoghavajra’s Chinese transliteration in T1153. Where Amoghavajra had supplied a single Chinese transliteration with brief semantic equivalents, Myōkaku — working three centuries later with access to multiple manuscript recensions and to the parallel translations by 寶思惟 Manicintana (寶思惟, Bǎo sīwéi) and other Tang Esoteric figures — provides a fully developed philological-and-doctrinal commentary.
Each phrase of the dhāraṇī is supplied with:
- the underlying Sanskrit syllabic form, often with explicit phonological qualifiers (twin-syllable 二合, extension 引, anusvāra-point 空點);
- the Chinese semantic equivalent;
- comparative-textual notes distinguishing variant readings between Amoghavajra’s text, Manicintana’s translation (思惟本), the standard Tang text (唐本), and the divergent forms found in alternative transliteration practice;
- doctrinal-and-iconographic context placing each segment within the Shingon Esoteric apparatus.
Myōkaku is willing to flag passages where the witnesses disagree — sometimes writing “these phrases [vary] across the various recensions, whether in their presence or absence, [and] the matter is undetermined” 凡此句衆本在無不定也 — and to record both his own preferred reading and the alternatives.
The text is dated by its own colophon to Kanji 6 = 1092 CE, when Myōkaku was approximately 36 years old; it is the earliest dated work of his Siddham scholarship. The base manuscript was preserved at Kōzan-ji’s Sekisui-in 高山寺石水院 (the same Kōzan-ji preservation-site responsible for the transmission of his other dhāraṇī commentary, KR6j0183), passed through medieval Sakurai-bō and Kamakura transcripts, and entered modern editorial recovery via the 1674 transcript of Kenshō.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. (Myōkaku’s Siddham works are referenced in modern Japanese-language Shittan-gaku 悉曇學 studies but have not received dedicated Western-language treatment.)