Fó shuō Wúliàngshòu fó huàshēn dà fènxùn jùmóluó jīngāng niànsòng yújiā yíguǐ fǎ 佛說無量壽佛化身大忿迅俱摩羅金剛念誦瑜伽儀軌法
Yoga-Recitation Ritual Manual of the Great Wrathful Vajra-Kumāra, Manifestation-Body of Buddha Amitāyus by 金剛智 (Jīngāngzhì, Vajrabodhi, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Esoteric ritual manual translated by Vajrabodhi (金剛智), the first of the Three Great Tantric Masters (三大士) of Tang Esoteric Buddhism, who arrived in Chángān in 720 and worked there until his death in 741. The colophon reads: 南天竺國三藏金剛智奉詔譯 (“the tripiṭaka-master of South India, Vajrabodhi, translated by imperial decree”). The opening verse-frame announces the text’s lineage: 我今順瑜伽，金剛頂經說，熾盛金剛部，西方念誦法 (“I now follow the Yoga, expounding from the Vajraśekhara, the blazing-vajra division, the Western-direction recitation method”).
Abstract
The text identifies its protagonist deity, Vajra-Kumāra 金剛童子 (the “Vajra-Youth”), as a wrathful manifestation-body (nirmāṇakāya) of Amitāyus 無量壽佛 — that is, the wrathful expression of the western Buddha of Infinite Life. Vajrapāṇi, on the framing-narrative model of the Vajraśekhara cycle, expounds the rite to Buddha śākyamuni: visualisation of Vajra-Kumāra in his fènxùn 忿迅 (“furiously-quick”) form, the maṇḍala arrangement, and the recitation programme. The ritual derives from the Vajraśekhara (Jīngāngdǐng jīng 金剛頂經) corpus that Vajrabodhi was beginning to render in China, and from which Amoghavajra would subsequently extract the more elaborate Krodha-Vajra-Kumāra material of KR6j0449 / KR6j0450 (T1222a/b).
The dating bracket follows Vajrabodhi’s translation activity at Chángān (720–741).
Translations and research
- Orzech, Charles D., Henrik H. Sørensen, and Richard K. Payne, eds. Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia. Handbook of Oriental Studies 24. Leiden: Brill, 2011 — chapter on Vajrabodhi.
- Sundberg, Jeffrey, with Rolf Giebel. “The Life of the Tang Court Monk Vajrabodhi as Chronicled by Lü Xiang (呂向): South Indian and Śrī Laṅkān Antecedents to the Arrival of the Buddhist Vajrayāna in Eighth-Century Java and China.” Pacific World, 3rd ser., no. 13 (2011): 129–222.