Dàsuíqiú jídé dà tuóluóní míngwáng chànhuǐ fǎ 大隨求即得大陀羅尼明王懺悔法
Repentance Method of the Mahāpratisarā Great Vidyā-Rājñī Dhāraṇī by anonymous
About the work
A one-fascicle anonymous Tang Esoteric repentance-ritual manual on the Mahāpratisarā vidyā-rājñī. The Taishō prints the text under the composite number 1156, with two pieces (A and B); the present is the A portion, opening with the heading 隨求八印 (“Eight Mudrās of Mahāpratisarā”) and the first being 懺悔印 / 菩提心印 (Repentance-Mudrā / Bodhicitta-Mudrā). No translator-colophon. The text is bound up with KR6j0377 (T1156B), which records Sō-ei’s oral receipt of related instructions from the Tang Master (an Amoghavajra-school transmission). Closely linked to KR6j0371, KR6j0373, and KR6j0374 in the Mahāpratisarā cycle.
Abstract
The text presents an eight-mudrā cycle (Suíqiú bāyìn 隨求八印) for the Mahāpratisarā repentance-rite. The first mudrā, also called the Bodhicitta-mudrā (菩提心印), is formed by clasping both palms upward, with the right ring-finger curving behind the middle-finger, the index hooking the ring-finger tip, the left mirroring it, and the thumbs each pressing the small-finger nails. The remaining seven mudrās proceed through the standard repentance-and-empowerment sequence: confession of sins, bodhicitta-utpāda (arousing of bodhi-mind), invocation of the deity, etc. The text is a concise procedural manual rather than a doctrinal exposition. Its anonymous transmission is consistent with the Tang practice of producing brief manuals derived from Amoghavajra-school esoteric instruction without explicit authorial attribution. The dating bracket is broad: post-Amoghavajra (the Mahāpratisarā cycle stabilises after his T1153/T1155 productions of c.760s) through late-Tang transmission, but it is in any case Tang-period or earlier given Sō-ei’s reception of related material in 862–865.
Translations and research
- Copp, Paul. The Body Incantatory. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.
- Hidas, Gergely. Mahāpratisarā-Mahāvidyārājñī. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2012.