Pínàyèjiā Énàbōdǐ yújiā xīdì pǐn mìyào 毘那夜迦誐那鉢底瑜伽悉地品祕要
Secret Essentials of the Yoga-Siddhi Chapter for Vināyaka-Gaṇapati by 含光 (Hán Guāng, 記)
About the work
A short one-fascicle Tángmì digest recorded (記) by Hán Guāng (含光), the senior disciple of Amoghavajra (不空). The colophon at the head of the text states explicitly: “Past and present masters, on account of the depth of the secret, have not entered [these matters] in their scriptures, or, where they have set forth the mantra, have not displayed its principle. Late-age students are much obstructed thereby. Hence Hán Guāng fǎ-shī, having received the secret meaning of this method directly from Bù-kōng-zhì hé-shàng (= Amoghavajra), now briefly records its outline.” The text is therefore a primary witness to the oral teaching of Bù-kōng on the Gaṇapati-Vināyaka cycle.
Abstract
The text gives the Gaṇapati-rāja mantra (alias Vināyaka) in transliteration with phonetic glosses, followed by the mantra-substitution rules for the four ritual ends — śāntika (pacification), pauṣṭika (prosperity-augmentation), vaśīkaraṇa (affection / subjugation), and ākarṣaṇa (summoning) — together with the appropriate root-mudrā (mūla-mudrā) and a sequence of subsidiary mudrās for each rite. The doctrinal point of departure is that the mantra-syllable group remains constant while the operative phrase (息災 / 增益 / 敬愛 / 鉤召) is substituted into a fixed slot — a methodological abstraction generic across the Vajraśekhara (Diamond-Realm) cycle.
The text is the canonical Tángmì digest of the Vināyaka siddhi-rite as taught by Bùkōng, and was transmitted to Japan as one of the foundational pieces of the Tō-ji 東寺 Esoteric ritual library. Dating bracket follows Hán Guāng’s discipleship under Bùkōng (746 – 774).
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, 1991.
- Goble, Geoffrey. Chinese Esoteric Buddhism: Amoghavajra, the Ruling Elite, and the Emergence of a Tradition. New York: Columbia UP, 2019 — for Hán Guāng’s place in the Tángmì lineage.
- Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: le bouddhisme tantrique en Chine. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.