Fóshuō yǔbǎo tuóluóní jīng 佛說雨寶陀羅尼經
Sūtra of the Jewel-Raining Dhāraṇī Spoken by the Buddha (Vasudhāra-dhāraṇī-sūtra, Amoghavajra version) by 不空 (Bùkōng, Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Tang Esoteric dhāraṇī sūtra translated by Amoghavajra (不空, 705–774). Sanskrit title: Vasudhāradhāraṇī(sūtra). Colophon: 唐三藏沙門大廣智不空奉詔譯. Taishō head-note: No. 1163 [Nos. 1162, 1164, 1165]. Amoghavajra’s version of the Vasudhārā dhāraṇī, complementing Xuánzàng’s earlier T1162 (KR6j0384) and the Sòng versions T1164 (KR6j0386, Făhuán) and T1165 (KR6j0387, Dānapāla).
Abstract
The sūtra opens at Kauśāmbī (憍睒彌國) in the Kauntakī-vana (建吒迦林) with the Buddha amid five hundred bhikṣus and a great-bodhisattva assembly. A gṛhapati of Kauśāmbī named Sucandra (妙月) — calm in faculty and mind, with many sons, daughters, and servants, accomplished in pure faith — approaches the Buddha, prostrates, and circumambulates a hundred-thousand times before posing his question. Amoghavajra’s translation is more elegant and idiomatic in literary Chinese than Xuánzàng’s: where Xuánzàng prefers the precise carnal-detail technical-philological style (容範溫華志韻閑遠), Amoghavajra uses the standard jìjìng 寂靜 (calm-and-still) Esoteric idiom (諸根寂靜心意寂靜), more in line with the Yogatantra-school’s contemplative diction. The Amoghavajra version is one of three Chinese translations he made of texts in this prosperity-cult cycle, reflecting the high importance of the Vasudhārā formula at the Tang Esoteric court.
The dating bracket follows Amoghavajra’s translation activity at Cháng’ān (746–774).
Translations and research
- Hidas, Gergely. “Dhāraṇīs: A Brief Introduction.” Tantric Communities in Context, ed. Nina Mirnig et al. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2019.
- Goble, Geoffrey. Chinese Esoteric Buddhism: Amoghavajra, the Ruling Elite, and the Emergence of a Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.
- Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.
Other points of interest
The Vasudhārā dhāraṇī cult subsequently became one of the most important wealth-rituals in Newar Buddhist practice in Nepal, where the goddess Vasundharā (Newar Basundhara) is one of the principal ritual deities; the Tang Chinese-text tradition is a separate branch of the same Indic core formula.
Links
- CBETA T20n1163
- 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.