Dàshèng Huānxǐ shuāngshēn Pínàyèjiātiān xíngxiàng pǐn yíguǐ 大聖歡喜雙身毘那夜迦天形像品儀軌
Ritual Manual: Iconographic Chapter on the Great Holy Joyful Dual-Bodied Vināyaka-Heaven by 憬瑟 (Jǐng Sè, 集)
About the work
A one-fascicle iconographic-ritual manual compiled (集) by Jǐng Sè (憬瑟) from the oral teaching of Hán Guāng (含光) — explicitly so stated in the opening line: “I now, on the oral transmission from Hán Guāng, set forth this secret ritual manual.” Because Hán Guāng received his Vināyaka teaching from Amoghavajra (不空), the text is at one remove from Bùkōng’s living lineage, and is the single most detailed surviving Tang account of the iconography of the dual-bodied Joyful Heaven (歡喜天 / Shōten 聖天) — the textual basis for the painted and sculpted Kangiten (歡喜天) of Japanese Shingon, including the secret-buddha (祕佛) effigy of Hōzan-ji 寶山寺 and Matsuchiyama 待乳山.
Abstract
The text fixes the iconography of the dual-bodied Vināyaka in unprecedented detail. Both figures are five-to-seven inches tall, elephant-headed and human-bodied, white-fleshed, wearing red skirts. The male figure stands with his face against the right shoulder of the female so that her back is shown; the female faces his right shoulder so that his back is shown. They embrace with the right hand laid over the back of the left. The composition encodes six points of love (六處之愛): nose-against-back, breast-against-breast, hand-around-waist, belly-against-belly, foot-on-foot, and the shared red skirt symbolizing 敬愛 kei-ai. A practitioner who makes offering to the six-loves icon thereby gains the love of rulers, ministers, queens, royal women, and all people.
The manual then enumerates the six-armed, four-armed, and other multi-armed forms used for adhibhautika rites of harmonization and obstacle-removal — bowl, cudgel, vajra, hook, axe, sword, modaka-plate, wheel — with the mudrā, mantra, and altar-procedure for each. The text concludes with the anuśaṃsā catalogue: protection against tigers, robbers, fire, water, snakes, evil spirits, hostile officials, and ill-fortune in undertakings.
Dating bracket: after Hán Guāng’s reception of Bùkōng’s transmission and within the late-Tang Esoteric flourishing (c. 765–800).
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. — translates portions and analyses the iconographic programme.
- Faure, Bernard. The Fluid Pantheon: Gods of Medieval Japan, vol. 1. Honolulu: U. of Hawai’i Press, 2015 — for the Japanese cult.
- Duquenne, Robert. “Gaṇapati Rituals in Chinese.” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 77 (1988): 321–354.