Fóshuō Miàojíxiáng púsà tuóluóní 佛說妙吉祥菩薩陀羅尼
Dhāraṇī of the Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva, Spoken by the Buddha by 法賢 (Fǎxián / Tiānxīzāi, 譯)
About the work
A short one-fascicle Esoteric Mañjuśrī dhāraṇī text translated under the early Sòng by Fǎxián (法賢, d. 1000, originally Tiānxīzāi 天息災) at the imperial Translation Institute (譯經院) at the Tàipíng-Xīngguó Monastery in Kāifēng. The colophon reads 西天譯經三藏朝散大夫試光祿卿明教大師臣法賢奉詔譯, marking it as an imperial-decree translation under the title 明教大師.
Abstract
The text is a hymn-frame followed by a dhāraṇī. The opening verses (in Chinese seven-character couplets) extol the universal Buddha-mind and Mañjuśrī as the great teacher who guides beings according to their faculties: “I bow to the supreme universal wisdom / The Tathāgata, Worthy-of-Offerings, Perfectly-and-Completely-Enlightened / Whose mind is pure and unparalleled / Whose powers are unobstructed and unprecedented / Who pervades all the worlds of the ten directions / Universally responding to and rescuing the multitudes / I bow to Mañjuśrī, the great guide…”
The hymn-portion is followed by the dhāraṇī of Mañjuśrī in transcribed Sanskrit, and a brief efficacy-clause stating that the dhāraṇī delivers practitioners from rebirth in the lower destinies and grants Mañjuśrī’s protection. The text is a representative product of the Sòng Translation Institute’s kriyā-tantra programme, of a piece with the broader Sòng-period interest in Mañjuśrī dhāraṇīs (cf. KR6j0413, KR6j0414, KR6j0417 from the same period).
The dating bracket (982–1000) brackets Tiānxīzāi/Fǎxián’s tenure at the Sòng Translation Institute (982 onwards) and his death (Xiánpíng 3 = 1000).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Links
- CBETA T20n1186
- Kanseki DB
- 法賢 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (1001) — 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.