Běifāng Píshāmén Duōwén bǎozàng tiānwáng shénmiào tuóluóní biéxíng yíguǐ 北方毘沙門多聞寶藏天王神妙陀羅尼別行儀軌
Separate-Practice Ritual Manual of the Marvellous Dhāraṇī of the Northern Heavenly King Vaiśravaṇa, Lord of the Treasury of Hearings-Many by 不空 (Bùkōng, Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Esoteric ritual manual on Vaiśravaṇa 毘沙門 — here in his Bǎozàng tiānwáng 寶藏天王 (Wealth-Treasury Heavenly King) wealth-bestowing aspect — translated by Amoghavajra (不空). The qualifier biéxíng 別行 (“separate practice”) denotes a distinct ritual programme separate from the general manual: this text isolates and elaborates the wealth-bestowing (bǎozàng) function of the deity, which is treated only briefly in KR6j0477 (T1249). This is the fourth and final of Amoghavajra’s Vaiśravaṇa cluster.
Abstract
The text presents Vaiśravaṇa specifically as Duōwén 多聞 (“Hearings-Many”, the Chinese gloss of Vaiśravaṇa) — the bodhisattva-like figure of the Sūtra of Vaiśravaṇa’s Boundless Hearings tradition — and as Bǎozàng tiānwáng 寶藏天王, the lord of the inexhaustible treasury who bestows wealth on devotees. The dhāraṇī expounded is the shénmiào tuóluóní 神妙陀羅尼 (“marvellous dhāraṇī”), distinct from the suíjūn battlefield mantra. The rite is structured as: practitioner-purification, altar-construction with offerings of gold and jewels, mantra-recitation, visualisation of the deity dispensing wealth, and the yāc-anu-jñā (request-and-grant) for the practitioner’s specific desideratum.
This wealth-aspect Vaiśravaṇa would become especially prominent in Heian and medieval Japan, where Bishamonten 毘沙門天 was widely worshipped as one of the Seven Lucky Gods (七福神 Shichi-fukujin) — the bǎozàng aspect transmitted via the present text being the principal Buddhist warrant for that wealth-cult. Date: Amoghavajra’s Chángān activity, 746–774.
Translations and research
- Goble, Geoffrey C. Chinese Esoteric Buddhism: Amoghavajra. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.
- Faure, Bernard. The Fluid Pantheon: Gods of Medieval Japan, Vol. 1. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015 — chapter on Bishamonten and the wealth-cult.