Dàfāngguǎng Mànshūshìlì tóngzhēn púsà Huáyán běnjiào zàn Yánmàndéjiā fènnùwáng zhēnyán Āpízhēlūjiā yíguǐ pǐn 大方廣曼殊室利童真菩薩華嚴本教讚閻曼德迦忿怒王真言阿毘遮嚕迦儀軌品
Chapter on the Abhicāra-Ritual Manual Praising the Yamāntaka-Wrathking-Mantra, from the Mahā-Vaipulya Mañjuśrī-Eternal-Youth Bodhisattva Avataṃsaka-Root-Teaching by anonymous
About the work
A one-fascicle anonymous Táng Yamāntaka manual, presenting itself as a parallel “chapter” (品) of the same Mahāyāna-Vaipulya Mañjuśrī-Avataṃsaka-Root-Teaching matrix as T1215 (KR6j0442). Numbered 第三十一 (chapter 31) in its title-line; the title also identifies the Abhicāra as the genre-classification of the rite (阿毘遮嚕迦 = abhicāra “subjugation/destruction”). 六足本尊 (“six-legged main-deity”) in the title-line names the iconographic form of Yamāntaka-Vajrabhairava.
Abstract
The frame-narrative: Vajrapāṇi the Lord-of-Secrets (金剛手祕密主) observes the great assembly and the Pure-Abode-Heaven seat-arrangement, and proclaims to those present: “You should listen to the Wrathking, of unsurpassed power, of whom Mañjuśrī now speaks, who can punish those who refuse to be tamed, going so far as to take their lives…”
This is the abhicāra chapter — a wrathful-rite class — focused on the six-legged Yamāntaka-Vajrabhairava (六足本尊), with explicit licence to “subjugate even unto the taking of life” (治罰難調者乃至斷命). This unusually direct formulation reflects the late-Indian Anuttara-yoga-tantra register of the abhicāra class, in which the wrathful subjugation extends in principle to the killing of demonic obstructors — a register that the more sober earlier Esoteric texts hedged with extensive disclaimers about its proper-and-improper application.
The text supplements T1215 (KR6j0442) — which gives the general Yamāntaka manual — with the abhicāra application specifically. The two should be read together as the wrathful-and-subjugatory pair of the Mañjuśrī-Yamāntaka cycle.
The dating bracket here is broader (746–850) because the text is unattributed; it is conventionally placed in the late-Táng 不空 Amoghavajra-school environment but its exact origin is uncertain.
Translations and research
- Siklós, Bulcsu. The Vajrabhairava Tantras. Tring: Institute of Buddhist Studies, 1996.
- Davidson, Ronald M. Indian Esoteric Buddhism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.