Wénshū suǒshuō zuìshèng míngyì jīng 文殊所說最勝名義經
Sūtra of the Most-Excellent Names-and-Meanings Spoken by Mañjuśrī by 金總持 (Jīnzǒngchí, 等譯)
About the work
A two-fascicle late-Northern-Sòng translation of the Mañjuśrī-Nāmasaṅgīti, the second of four Chinese renderings of the Indian-Tibetan Esoteric scripture Mañjuśrī-jñāna-sattva-paramārtha-nāma-saṃgīti. Translated by Jīnzǒngchí (金總持, the Bǎolún dàshī 寶輪大師) and his collaborators (等譯 indicates a team translation under his direction). Title page reads 宋西天三藏明因妙善普濟法師金總持等奉詔譯.
Abstract
The text gives a verse-rendering of the Nāmasaṅgīti parallel to Dānapāla’s T1187 (KR6j0413). The opening hymn proclaims: “I take refuge in the Auspicious One / The supreme meaning that he has spoken / The Vajra-Palm Bodhisattva / Who subdues the hosts of māras / Whose body extends through the three realms / The Lord of Secrets in his mastery…”
Jīnzǒngchí’s translation is more elegant and poetically realized than Dānapāla’s prosaic rendering. The verse-architecture is closer to the Sanskrit original: each cluster of names is gathered into a four- or five-character verse-line that mimics the Sanskrit anuṣṭubh meter. Where Dānapāla retains the prose-frame around the verses, Jīnzǒngchí’s recension renders the entire body in continuous verse — the form in which the Nāmasaṅgīti circulates in its Tibetan and Sanskrit recitational tradition.
The choice to retranslate the Mañjuśrī-Nāmasaṅgīti two generations after Dānapāla likely reflects (a) the increased Sòng imperial patronage of Tantric Mañjuśrī-cycle materials in the second half of the eleventh century, and (b) ongoing dissatisfaction with Dānapāla’s prose rendering as a recitation-text. The dating bracket here (1050–1100) is conjectural: Jīnzǒngchí’s documented activity falls in the second half of the eleventh century, after the death of the founding generation (施護 Dānapāla d. 1017, 法賢 Fǎxián d. 1000, 法天 Fǎtiān d. 1001).
Translations and research
- See the references for KR6j0413.
Links
- CBETA T20n1188
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (1115) — 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.