Bādàpúsà màntúluó jīng 八大菩薩曼荼羅經
Sūtra of the Mandala of the Eight Great Bodhisattvas (Aṣṭamaṇḍalaka-sūtra) by 不空 (Bùkōng, Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Tang Esoteric mandala-sūtra translated by Amoghavajra (不空, 705–774). Sanskrit title (per CANWWW): Aṣṭamaṇḍalaka(sūtra). Colophon: full Amoghavajra titulature with 大廣智大興善寺三藏法師不空奉詔譯. Taishō head-note: No. 1167 [No. 1168]. Closely related to KR6j0391 (T1168A, Făxián’s Dàshèng bādà mànnáluó jīng) and KR6j0392 (T1168B, anonymous Bāmàntúluó jīng) — together the three constitute the principal Chinese textual tradition for the Eight Great Bodhisattvas mandala.
Abstract
The sūtra opens with the Buddha (薄伽梵 Bhagavān) abiding in Potalaka-mountain (補怛落伽山, Potalaka-parvata) — the canonical residence of Avalokiteśvara — within the Holy-Avalokiteśvara-Bodhisattva Palace (聖觀自在菩薩宮殿), surrounded by koṭi-nayuta hundreds-of-thousands of bodhisattvas. Ratnagarbha-Candraprabha (寶藏月光), a bodhisattva in the assembly, rises from his seat, arranges his robe, bares his right shoulder, kneels, joins his palms, and addresses the Buddha respectfully. The text proceeds to expound the mandala-procedure for the Eight Great Bodhisattvas (八大菩薩, aṣṭa-mahā-bodhisattva): the Indic canonical eight (Mañjuśrī, Avalokiteśvara, Vajrapāṇi, Maitreya, Ākāśagarbha, Sarva-nivaraṇa-viṣkambhin, Kṣitigarbha, and Samantabhadra) arranged in a cardinal-and-subordinate mandala-configuration. The text is the principal canonical authority for the eight great bodhisattvas iconographic group in Tang and post-Tang East Asian Buddhist art — including the famous Dūnhuáng cave murals (e.g. Mogao Cave 76) and the Liáo and Dali-kingdom mandala paintings. CANWWW’s structural-division note here (which mentions 大明成就分 only in T1169, not in T1167) supports treating this text as a single continuous mandala-treatise without internal chapter-divisions.
The dating bracket follows Amoghavajra’s late translation activity at Cháng’ān (746–774).
Translations and research
- Granoff, Phyllis. “Other People’s Rituals: Ritual Eclecticism in Early Medieval Indian Religions.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 28 (2000): 399–424. (For the Indic Aṣṭamaṇḍalaka background.)
- Goble, Geoffrey. Chinese Esoteric Buddhism: Amoghavajra. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.
- Howard, Angela F. The Imagery of the Cosmological Buddha. Leiden: Brill, 1986.
Other points of interest
The text is one of the major canonical sources for the Eight Great Bodhisattvas iconographic group widely depicted in Tang, Liáo, Dali-kingdom, and Yuán mandala paintings. The Aṣṭamaṇḍalaka iconography of Vairocana surrounded by the eight bodhisattvas became foundational for both Garbhadhātu and broader East Asian Mahāyāna mandala-art.
Links
- CBETA T20n1167
- 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.