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大乘瑜伽金剛性海曼殊室利千臂千鉢大教王經

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Text ID
KR6j0401
Date
740–774
Dynasty
唐

Dàshèng yújiā jīngāng xìnghǎi Mànshūshìlì qiānbì qiānbō dàjiàowáng jīng 大乘瑜伽金剛性海曼殊室利千臂千鉢大教王經

Mahāyāna-Yoga Sūtra of the Vajra-Nature-Ocean and the Thousand-Arm, Thousand-Bowl Mañjuśrī, the Great Teaching King by 不空 (Bùkōng, Amoghavajra, 譯)

About the work

A ten-fascicle Tang Esoteric mahāyoga sūtra translated by Amoghavajra (不空, 705–774), commonly cited under the abbreviated titles Qiān-bì qiān-bō dà-jiào-wáng jīng 千臂千鉢大教王經 or Wén-shū dà-jiào-wáng jīng 文殊大教王經. The text presents the cosmic Mañjuśrī as the visionary embodiment of the Vajra-Five-Crown / Five-Wisdom (金剛五頂五智) configuration of Vairocana, manifesting a thousand arms, a thousand bowls and a thousand Śākyamuni emanations on the consecration-maṇḍala — a thoroughgoing Esoteric reconfiguration of Mañjuśrī as the central deity of an entire mahāyoga cycle. Its long autobiographical preface is one of the most important sources for the lineage history of Tang Esoteric Buddhism.

Abstract

The text’s preface (敘曰) furnishes a remarkably detailed lineage account: Vajrabodhi (金剛智, 金剛三藏) personally transmitted the Mahāyāna-Yoga Vajra-Five-Crown Five-Wisdom Thousand-Arm Thousand-Hand Thousand-Bowl Thousand-Śākyamuni Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva Esoteric Bodhi-Samādhi Method-Teaching to the monk Huìchāo (慧超) in the Jiànfú-sì 薦福寺 chapel on the first day of the first month of Kāi-yuán 21 (癸酉 = 733); Huìchāo studied with him for eight years, and the actual translation of the present text began under imperial decree in Kāi-yuán 28 (740), the fifth month, fifth day, with Vajrabodhi reciting the Sanskrit and Huìchāo as scribe (筆授). It was completed in the twelfth month of the same year, but the original Sanskrit manuscript was sent back to South India / Sri Lanka by Vajrabodhi’s hand in Tiānbǎo 1 (742). The Chinese version was lost from the imperial libraries until Dàlì 9 (774), when Huìchāo, then aged, brought the old draft to Amoghavajra (不空, 大廣智三藏和尚) at Dàxìngshànsì for re-examination, then carried it to Mt. Wǔtái in Jiànzhōng 1 (780) where Huìchāo finally completed a clean re-edition (再錄) at the Qiányuán Pútísì 乾元菩提寺 — that re-edition is the ten-fascicle text we possess.

The text is structured as five Doctrinal Gates (法本五門 — Non-arising 無生, Non-moving 無動, Equality 平等, Pure-Land 淨土, Liberation 解脫) and nine Teaching Chapters (經教九品), beginning with the Esoteric Root-Teaching of All Tathāgatas and culminating in the practice-stages of the bodhisattva path. The work is doctrinally intermediate between the Mahāvairocana-tantra line and the later Yoga-tantra Sarvatathāgata-tattva-saṃgraha line; it functions as a comprehensive Esoteric Mañjuśrī-cosmology built on the architecture of the Vajraśekhara cycle.

The dating bracket given here (740 – 774) brackets the original translation and Amoghavajra’s re-examination; the final clean re-edition by Huìchāo (Jiànzhōng 1 = 780) post-dates Amoghavajra’s death by six years and is therefore strictly speaking the work of Huìchāo, but the text is conventionally and rightly classed as an Amoghavajra-school translation.

Translations and research

  • Osabe, Kazuo 長部和雄. Tōdai mikkyōshi zakkō 唐代密教史雜考. Kobe: Kobe Shōka Daigaku, 1971.
  • Goble, Geoffrey C. Chinese Esoteric Buddhism: Amoghavajra, the Ruling Elite, and the Emergence of a Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.
  • Birnbaum, Raoul. Studies on the Mysteries of Mañjuśrī. Boulder: Society for the Study of Chinese Religions, 1983.

Other points of interest

The autobiographical preface is a primary source for Huìchāo’s career — the same Korean pilgrim-monk who in 727 wrote the Wǎng wǔ Tiānzhú guó zhuàn 往五天竺國傳 (recovered from Dūnhuáng) and who emerges here as Vajrabodhi’s senior disciple and the principal redactor of the present text. The text’s pronounced Mt. Wǔtái connection — rendition completed there in 780 — is also a key piece of evidence for the consolidation of Wǔtái as a Mañjuśrī cult centre under Tang Esoteric patronage.

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