Dàfāngguǎng púsàzàng jīng zhōng Wénshūshīlì gēnběn yīzì tuóluóní jīng 大方廣菩薩藏經中文殊師利根本一字陀羅尼經
Sūtra of the Root One-Syllable Dhāraṇī of Mañjuśrī, from within the Mahāvaipulya-Bodhisattva-Piṭaka by 寶思惟 (Bǎo-sīwéi, Maṇicintana, 譯)
About the work
A short scripture (1 fasc.) excerpted from a larger Esoteric Bodhisattva-Piṭaka matrix, translated by the North-Indian monk Maṇicintana (寶思惟, d. 721). It teaches a single-syllable bīja-mantra of Mañjuśrī, identified by the title (and apparatus T1181 = “compare T1191”) as the gēn-běn yī-zì zhòu — the “root one-syllable spell”. The text exists in a parallel translation by Yìjìng (義淨) as T1182 (KR6j0407), and both are excerpted from the same matrix as T1191 (KR6j0417 Mahā-vaipulya-bodhisattva-piṭaka Mañjuśrī-mūla-kalpa).
Abstract
The setting is the Tuṣita Pure Abode (淨居天 Akaniṣṭha); the Buddha addresses an assembly of bodhisattvas and Pure-Abode devas, declaring that he will reveal Mañjuśrī’s “cakra-mantra” (童子行輪呪法) — the secret heart-mantra-king (祕密心大神呪王) of all Tathāgatas. Whoever recites it is “established as having recited all mantras at once” (則為已持一切諸呪悉皆圓滿), and Mañjuśrī himself appears to protect the practitioner.
The single-syllable mantra itself is the seed-syllable of Mañjuśrī (variously oṃ or, in this cycle, the pra-bīja ṣṭriḥ — see the parallel in T1182, KR6j0407). The text proceeds to exposition of the vidhi: meditation, fasting, painting of the icon, and the conditions under which the mantra grants worldly and supramundane attainments.
The bracket given here brackets Maṇicintana’s documented translation activity at Cháng’ān (c. 690–721). The text is one of three closely linked Tang renderings of the Mañjuśrī single-syllable cycle: the present T1181 (Maṇicintana), T1182 (義淨 Yìjìng, KR6j0407), and the Sòng version inside T1191 (天息災 Tiānxīzāi, KR6j0417). The header note in the Taishō prints “[No. 1182, cf. No. 1191]” precisely to register this parallel-translation cluster.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Links
- CBETA T20n1181
- Kanseki DB
- 寶思惟 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (700, 703, 710, 750) — Forte, Antonino. “The Activities in China of the Tantric Master Manicintana (Pao-ssu-wei 寶思惟: ?-721 A.D.) from Kashmir and of His Northern Indian Collaborators.” East and West, n.s. 34 (1984): 301–345, at 310–311.