Fóshuō dàshèng shèng jíxiáng chíshì tuóluóní jīng 佛說大乘聖吉祥持世陀羅尼經
Sūtra of the Mahāyāna Holy Auspicious Vasudhārā Dhāraṇī Spoken by the Buddha by 法天 (Fǎtiān, Dharmadeva, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Northern Sòng dhāraṇī sūtra translated by Făhuán/Făhuá-tiān (法天, Dharmadeva, d. 1001). Sanskrit title (per CANWWW): Vasudhāradhāraṇī(sūtra). Alternate title 聖吉祥持世陀羅尼經. Colophon: 西天中印度摩揭陀國那爛陀寺傳教大師三藏賜紫沙門臣法天奉詔譯 — preserving Făhuán’s distinctive Magadha/Nālandā provenance titulature. Taishō head-note: No. 1164 [Nos. 1162, 1163, 1165].
Abstract
The sūtra opens with the Buddha at Kauśāmbī (憍睒彌國) in the Mahā-kaṇṭaka-vana (大棘林中), with a fixed assembly of four hundred and fifty bhikṣus, all great-arhats well-known to the assembly, together with bodhisattvas and the various Buddha-dharma communities. The merchant Sucandra (妙月) of Kauśāmbī then approaches as protagonist of the dhāraṇī-request narrative. Făhuán’s translation provides a fuller Mahāyāna doctrinal frame than Xuánzàng’s T1162 or Amoghavajra’s T1163 — the title preserves the Indic Ārya-Vasudhārā with both its holy (聖) and auspicious (吉祥) epithets, suggesting Făhuán worked from a more elaborate Pāla-period redaction of the Vasudhārā-sūtra than the Tang versions. The dating follows Făhuán’s translation activity at the Sòng Imperial Translation Bureau (Chuánfǎyuàn 傳法院, 973–1001).
Translations and research
- Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2003.
- Bowring, Richard. “Brief Notes on the Sung Buddhist Translation Project.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 7 (1993): 137–146.
- Hidas, Gergely. “Dhāraṇīs: A Brief Introduction.” Tantric Communities in Context. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2019.
Links
- CBETA T20n1164
- Kanseki DB
- 法天 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (980) — 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.