Fóshuō zuìshèng Miàojíxiáng gēnběn zhì zuìshàng mìmì yīqiè míngyì sānmódì fēn 佛說最勝妙吉祥根本智最上祕密一切名義三摩地分
Section on the Samādhi of all Names and Meanings — the Supreme, Most-Secret Root-Wisdom of the Most-Excellent Mañjuśrī, Spoken by the Buddha by 施護 (Shīhù, Dānapāla, 譯)
About the work
A two-fascicle Sòng-period Esoteric exposition of the Mañjuśrī root-wisdom as the totality of names-and-meanings (sarva-nāma-saṃgīti / sarva-nāma-artha), translated by Dānapāla (施護, d. 1017) at the imperial Translation Institute. This is the first of three Chinese renderings of what is fundamentally the same Esoteric scripture — the Mañjuśrī-jñāna-sattva-paramārtha-nāma-saṃgīti (Recital of the Names of Mañjuśrī, the Wisdom-Being) — the others being KR6j0414 (金總持 Jīnzǒngchí, Sòng), KR6j0415 (沙囉巴 Shāluóbā, Yuán) and KR6j0416 (釋智 Shìzhì, Yuán).
Abstract
The text opens with the standard Mañjuśrī-Nāmasaṅgīti exordium: Vajrapāṇi (renamed in this translation 大吉祥最勝金剛手 “Great-Auspicious Most-Excellent Vajrapāṇi”) leads a great assembly of bodhisattvas to request from Vairocana the supreme secret of names — the paramārtha-nāma — by which the cosmic Mañjuśrī can be invoked. The Buddha consents and then expounds the nāma-saṃgīti itself in verse: a long enumeration of Mañjuśrī’s titles, in each of which a metaphysical or doctrinal principle is condensed into an epithet (e.g., jñāna-kāya “Wisdom-Body”, advaya “Non-Dual”, śūnyatā-mūrti “Form of Emptiness”).
The Mañjuśrī-Nāmasaṅgīti is one of the most influential Yoga-tantra / Anuttara-yoga-tantra texts of late-Indian Buddhism — the standard Tibetan version ‘Jam dpal mtshan brjod is recited daily in many Tibetan ritual contexts, and the Mongol/Yuán court patronage of the work led to its three independent Chinese translations within a span of about 250 years. Dānapāla’s version — the present T1187 — is the first Chinese translation and the most prosaic, with the ritual frame transposed into Sòng court translation Chinese.
The dating bracket follows Dānapāla’s tenure at the Translation Institute (982–1017).
Translations and research
- Davidson, Ronald M. “The Litany of Names of Mañjuśrī: Text and Translation of the Mañjuśrīnāmasaṃgīti.” In Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honour of R. A. Stein, ed. M. Strickmann, vol. 1, 1–69. Brussels: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1981.
- Wayman, Alex. Chanting the Names of Mañjuśrī: The Mañjuśrī-Nāma-Saṃgīti, Sanskrit and Tibetan Texts. Boston: Shambhala, 1985.
- Tribe, Anthony. Tantric Buddhist Practice in India: Vilāsavajra’s commentary on the Mañjuśrī-nāmasaṃgīti. London: Routledge, 2016.
Other points of interest
The cluster of four Chinese Mañjuśrī-Nāmasaṅgīti translations (KR6j0413 Sòng, KR6j0414 Sòng, KR6j0415 Yuán, KR6j0416 Yuán) is one of the most striking examples of trans-period multiple translation in the Chinese canon and is a key window onto the changing institutional patronage of Esoteric Buddhism between the Northern Sòng (Indian-direct, Sanskrit-source) and the Yuán (Tibetan-mediated, Tibetan-source) traditions.
Links
- CBETA T20n1187
- Kanseki DB
- 施護 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (1000) — 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.