Shuō Jǔlǐjiā lóngwáng xiàngfǎ 說矩里迦龍王像法
Method on the Iconography of the Kulika Nāga-King by anonymous
About the work
A one-fascicle anonymous Esoteric iconographic manual on the Kulika Nāgarāja (矩里迦龍王, alternative transcription of Kulika; the title-line note 唐作尊勅 indicates the Táng-era rendering 尊敕 = “honoured/ordained”). The text gives the visual-iconographic specifications for painting or sculpting the Kulika dragon-deity. Companion to the doctrinal/dhāraṇī text T1206 (KR6j0433) and the ritual handbook T1208 (KR6j0435).
Abstract
The text gives two iconographic forms of the Kulika dragon-king:
Snake-form (蛇形): “Like a snake assuming the posture of thunder-and-lightning, body gold-coloured, bearing a cintāmaṇi on its body. Flaming with samādhi-fire, the four feet treading-and-trampling. The back rears up with seven golden vajra-needles. From the forehead grows a single jade-horn. Coiled around the sword, the syllable a is painted on the sword. With one’s mind one penetrates the [vision], each detail being clearly distinct. If [drawn] in human form…”
Human-form (人相): “His face shows joy-and-anger across the whole body in armour, like the Virūpākṣa-king (毘嚕博叉王 = West-quarter Lokapāla). The left hand at the hip holds the noose; the right hand bends the elbow towards…”
The text is a compact visual specification — the xiàngfǎ genre, “icon-method” — of the kind that was used by Táng-Sòng Esoteric image-makers as a normative reference. It is closely related to the visualizations prescribed in the Acala manuals (T1199, T1200, T1201) but treats Kulika as the principal subject in its own right, rather than as a sub-element of Acala’s iconography.
The dating bracket (750–950) follows the late-Táng to mid-tenth-century range conventionally given to the anonymous Kulika-cycle texts.
Translations and research
- Faure, Bernard. Protectors and Predators. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2016.