Dàshèng fāngguǎng Mànshūshìlì púsà Huáyán běnjiào Yánmàndéjiā fènnùwáng zhēnyán dàwēidé yíguǐ pǐn 大乘方廣曼殊室利菩薩華嚴本教閻曼德迦忿怒王真言大威德儀軌品
Chapter on the Great-Power Ritual Manual of the Yamāntaka-Wrathking-Mantra, from the Mahāyāna-Vaipulya Mañjuśrī-Bodhisattva Avataṃsaka-Root-Teaching by 不空 (Bùkōng, Amoghavajra, 譯) — colophon disputed
About the work
A one-fascicle Táng Esoteric Yamāntaka manual presenting itself as a chapter (品第三) extracted from a larger Mahāyāna-Vaipulya Mañjuśrī Avataṃsaka-Root-Teaching (大乘方廣曼殊室利菩薩華嚴本教). The Taishō header carries the editorial note 此下明本甲本俱有唐三藏沙門大廣智不空奉詔譯十三字 (“[the editions:] the Míng and Jiǎ editions both add the thirteen-character translator’s-line: Translated by the Táng Tripiṭaka-Master Dàguǎngzhì Bùkōng by imperial decree”). The translator-attribution to Amoghavajra is therefore present in the Míng-Jiǎ tradition but not in all witnesses.
Abstract
The frame-narrative: Vajrapāṇi the Great Yakṣa-General (金剛手大藥叉將) arises in the assembly, prostrates himself, and asks the Buddha why Mañjuśrī the Eternally-Pure-Youth has not expounded the Yamāntaka mantra — i.e., the wrathful protector mantra — at greater length, and requests that he do so now. The text then sets out Yamāntaka’s zhēn-yán dà-wēi-dé (great-power mantra) and its ritual application.
The text is doctrinally classified as a chapter (品) of a larger Mañjuśrī Esoteric scripture aligned with the Avataṃsaka tradition (華嚴本教). This designation reflects the Táng Esoteric school’s tendency to align its Mañjuśrī materials with the broader Avataṃsaka-tradition of the bodhisattva, in which Mañjuśrī is the central figure of the Gandavyūha narrative and the interlocutor of the visions of the bodhisattva-path. The Yamāntaka mantra is here framed as Mañjuśrī’s own wrathful-protective epithet within the Avataṃsaka register.
The body of the text gives the vidhi of the Yamāntaka rite: maṇḍala-construction, abhiṣeka, mantra-cycle, mudrā-cycle, visualization, and the abhicāra application against premature death and demonic obstruction.
The dating bracket follows Amoghavajra’s translation activity at Cháng’ān (746–774).
Translations and research
- Goble, Geoffrey C. Chinese Esoteric Buddhism: Amoghavajra. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.