Miàojíxiáng píngděng mìmì zuìshàng guānmén dàjiàowáng jīng 妙吉祥平等祕密最上觀門大教王經
Sūtra-King of the Supreme Visualization-Gate, the Equality-Mystery of Mañjuśrī by 慈賢 (Cíxián, Maitribhadra, 譯)
About the work
A five-fascicle Esoteric Mañjuśrī sūtra translated under the Liáo (Khitan) court by the Indian Tripitaka-master Cíxián (慈賢, floruit 1030–1080), with the colophon 宋契丹國師中天竺摩竭陀國三藏法師慈賢譯 — although the catalog meta gives 宋, the colophon explicitly identifies him as Liáo State Preceptor (大契丹國師), and the text is properly classed as a Liáo translation. Note: the text is now preserved only in the Qíshā 磧砂 edition (which the Taishō prints), having been lost from the main canonical recension; cf. Cíxián’s two companion ritual handbooks T1193 (KR6j0419) and T1194 (KR6j0420).
Abstract
The text is set in Śrāvastī (舍衛國), in the Hua-lin Park (華林園), where the Buddha is taking refreshment after the alms-round. The bodhisattva Maitreya and his retinue rise and ask whether — beyond the three vehicles whose deep doctrines they have already heard — there is yet another teaching. The Buddha replies that there is the Mahā-samaya supreme secret (摩訶三昧耶祕…), and proceeds to expound the eponymous Equality-Mystery Visualization-Gate — a guān-mén (visualization-gate) instruction in which the practitioner generates Mañjuśrī through a series of abhiṣeka-stages, then identifies with him to actualize the equality of all dharmas (dharma-samatā).
The five fascicles structure the Mahāsamaya programme into:
- The request and exposition (Maitreya’s question, the Buddha’s promise);
- The maṇḍala-architecture of the Mañjuśrī Equality-Maṇḍala — its forty-eight assistant-deities, mudrā-cycles, and bīja-arrangement;
- The abhiṣeka and guru-yoga of the cycle;
- The central visualization — Mañjuśrī’s body-sphere generated from the syllable dhīḥ, the practitioner’s identification with Mañjuśrī as jñāna-sattva;
- The homa-fire ritual and post-rite dispersal of the maṇḍala.
The text reflects the late-Indian / early-Tibetan Yoga-tantra → Anuttara-yoga-tantra transition: it deploys the standard Mahāsamaya terminology of the late Indian tantras and presents Mañjuśrī as a jñāna-sattva in the manner of the Nāmasaṅgīti tradition. Cíxián’s two companion manuals T1193 (KR6j0419) and T1194 (KR6j0420) are practical extracts: T1193 the recitation/visualization handbook, T1194 the homa-extract.
The dating bracket (1030–1080) follows Cíxián’s documented Liáo-period activity. The text is one of the most important documents of Liáo-period Esoteric Buddhism, a corpus much smaller and less studied than the Tang or Sòng programmes, but representative of the eleventh-century Indian Tantric transmission to North China through the Khitan court.
Translations and research
- Forte, Antonino. “Sui due maestri indiani Subhakarasimha (637–735) e Bodhiruci (?–727).” In L’Asia Centrale, ed. M. Lazzaroni, 1976. (Background on Indian-Buddhist transmission to East Asia.)
- Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: le bouddhisme tantrique en Chine. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.
- See further references for the Liáo Esoteric corpus in KR6j0419 and KR6j0420.
Other points of interest
The Liáo Esoteric corpus — represented in the Taishō by the small cluster of Cíxián translations (T1090, T1192, T1193, T1194, T1416) — is one of the least-studied bodies of canonical Buddhist literature in East Asia. The Liáo court patronized Indian Tantric translators on a scale comparable to (though much smaller than) the contemporary Sòng programme, but the political collapse of the dynasty in 1125 prevented institutional consolidation, and most of Cíxián’s corpus was preserved only through the Fángshān shíjīng 房山石經 (the Buddhist stone-canon at Mt. Fang) and the Qíshā edition.
Links
- CBETA T21n1192
- Kanseki DB
- 慈賢 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.