Dàsuíqiú tuóluóní 大隨求陀羅尼
Mahāpratisarā Dhāraṇī (Khitan Liáo recension) by 慈賢 (Cíxián, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Khitan-Liáo dhāraṇī text translated by Cíxián (慈賢), the Liáo State Preceptor (大契丹國師) from Magadha. The colophon: 大契丹國師中天摩竭陁國三藏法師慈賢譯. Unique among the Mahāpratisarā corpus in the Kanripo as a Liáo (and not Tang or Sòng) production, transmitted via the Fangshan stone canon 房山石經 — the Liáo-period stone-engraved canon at Yúnjūsì 雲居寺 in Fángshān 房山, north of Beijing.
Abstract
The text is a dhāraṇī-only redaction of the Mahāpratisarā formula, opening namaḥ sarva-tathāgatānāṃ namo-namaḥ sarva-buddha-bodhisattvebhyaḥ tadyathā oṃ vipula-garbhe vipula-vimale vimala-garbhe jaya-garbhe vajra-jvāla-garbhe gati-gahanī gagana-viśodhanī sarva-pāpa-viśodhanī oṃ guṇavati gagana-vicāriṇi gagana-vidhāriṇi gaṇi-riṇi giri-giri gambhari-gambhari gaha-gaha gargari-gargari gagari-gagari gambhari-gambhari… — i.e. the standard Indic Mahāpratisarā formula, transliterated in the rigorous late-tenth/early-eleventh-century Khitan-Liáo Sanskrit-Chinese transliteration system. Cíxián’s translation is preserved uniquely in the Fángshān shíjīng (房山石經), the Khitan-period stone canon, where it survives engraved on stone tablets at the Yúnjūsì cave-temples; this is one of relatively few Liáo Buddhist texts not preserved in any of the standard Tripiṭaka editions but recovered from the Fángshān corpus.
The dating bracket follows Cíxián’s translation activity in Yānjīng / Liáo Nánjīng under the Khitan court (active c. 1024–1051 per Liáo-period sources). For Cíxián’s career see Wáng Bǎolíng 王寶玲 (1995) and Sen 2003.
Translations and research
- Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2003.
- Hidas, Gergely. Mahāpratisarā-Mahāvidyārājñī. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2012. (For Indic source-text comparanda.)
- Copp, Paul. The Body Incantatory. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.
Other points of interest
The text is one of the small but significant body of Khitan-Liáo translations in the Kanripo corpus. It documents the late survival and re-translation of Mahāpratisarā material under non-Sòng (Khitan) dynastic patronage, and the importance of the Fángshān stone canon as a witness to traditions otherwise lost. Compare the Liáo sūtra-printings recovered at the Yìngxiàn 應縣 wooden pagoda for parallel Liáo Buddhist productions.