Móhē Pílúzhēnà rúlái dìnghuì jūnděng rù sānmèiyēshēn shuāngshēn Dàshèng Huānxǐtiān púsà xiūxíng mìmì fǎ yíguǐ 摩訶毘盧遮那如來定惠均等入三昧耶身雙身大聖歡喜天菩薩修行祕密法儀軌
Ritual Manual of the Secret Method for Cultivating the Dual-Bodied Great Holy Joyful-Heaven Bodhisattva, the Equal-Concentration-and-Wisdom Samaya-Body of the Great Vairocana Tathāgata by 不空 (Bùkōng, Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A short one-fascicle Esoteric ritual manual (儀軌) for the Dual-Bodied Joyful-Heaven Bodhisattva (雙身歡喜天菩薩 = Conjugal Vināyaka / Nandikeśvara), translated by Amoghavajra (不空). The text is the doctrinal companion to KR6j0501 — where Śubhakarasiṃha’s manual gave the iconographic and ritual programme, this text frames the dual-body cult within the samaya-body (三昧耶身) doctrine of Mahāvairocana and works out its equation of the two figures with dhyāna-and-prajñā equality (定惠均等). The two were transmitted together in Japan as the foundational Tángmì pair for the Shōten 聖天 / Kangiten 歡喜天 cult of the Tō-ji 東寺 lineage. The colophon records two Japanese transcriptions: 永曆元年 (1160) 10/8 by 俊乘 Jùnshèng / Shunjō (transcriber), and 建久四年 (1193) 4/29 by 寬俊 Kuānjùn / Kanshun (transcriber), both from the Tō-ji 東寺 manuscript.
Abstract
The text identifies the dual-bodied Joyful-Heaven Bodhisattva as the samaya-body (三昧耶身) of Mahāvairocana, in which dhyāna (定 = the meditative concentration personified by the husband-figure) and prajñā (惠 = the discriminating wisdom personified by the wife-figure) are perfectly equal. It prescribes that the practitioner first offer treasure, food, robes, and ritual implements to his dharma-transmission master (傳法師) and ācārya (阿闍梨) until they are pleased; only then may the secret instruction be requested.
The core rite then proceeds: heat one shēng of sesame oil in a white-bronze patra over a charcoal-net brazier, repeatedly empower it with 108 recitations of the root dhāraṇī (the body-mantra is given in two-syllable transliteration with phonetic glosses), and anoint the dual-body icon three times in the morning and four at midday for seven days. Auxiliary offerings — radish-roots, joy-balls (歡喜團), seasonal fruits — and a heart-mantra (唵只里虐娑婆賀) are prescribed; each rite ends with a praise-verse to the deity.
The text distinguishes three grades of efficacy: superior offering yields royal majesty; middle offering yields the seven treasures and abundance; inferior offering yields sufficient food and clothing. The doctrinal closing equates the two grades of practice with fortune-and-wisdom completeness (福智圓滿), citing the Bǐnízōng 毘尼宗 and the Tiāntái Zhìzhě 天台智者 智顗 Zhǐguān xīnyào jì 止觀心要記 (“merit without wisdom — the foolish are no different from dragon-beings and ghosts; wisdom without merit — the heretic-deluded are not the heart of the worthies”), to argue that the offering of wine (the “joy-water” 歡喜水) and aconite (附子) — toxic in ordinary use, medicinal in proper hands — perfects both. The deity is treated as wine-loving because the food-medicine equation is itself the doctrine of the dual-body samaya.
The dating bracket follows Amoghavajra’s mature Chángān period (746 – 774). Like its companion KR6j0501, this text is not entered independently in his early Táng catalogue records; it is one of the so-called “lost-name” transmissions associated with the Tángmì lineage and may be a redacted record of his oral teaching. Cf. Sanford (1991), Strickmann (1996), and Faure (2015).
Translations and research
- Sanford, James H. “Literary Aspects of Japan’s Dual-Gaṇeśa Cult.” In Ganesh: Studies of an Asian God, edited by Robert L. Brown, 287–335. Albany: SUNY Press, 1991.
- Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: le bouddhisme tantrique en Chine. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.
- Duquenne, Robert. “Gaṇapati Rituals in Chinese.” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 77 (1988): 321–354.
- Faure, Bernard. The Fluid Pantheon: Gods of Medieval Japan, vol. 1. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015.