Sùjí lìyàn Móxīshǒuluótiān shuō āwěishē fǎ 速疾立驗魔醯首羅天說阿尾奢法
Method of the Āveśa Spirit-Possession Rite, Taught by Maheśvara, of Swiftly Established Efficacy by 不空 (Bùkōng, Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Esoteric ritual manual translated by Amoghavajra (不空) on the āveśa 阿尾奢 (“descent” / spirit-possession) rite, in which a child medium is possessed by a deity-messenger to deliver oracular pronouncements. The frame puts the teaching in the mouth of Maheśvara 魔醯首羅 (= 摩醯首羅, Skt. Maheśvara / Śiva), addressed to Nārāyaṇa 那羅延 on Mount Gandhamādana (香醉山頂).
Abstract
The narrative frame opens with Nārāyaṇa ascending Mount Gandhamādana and approaching Maheśvara at the Self-Existing Palace (自在宮), prostrating, and requesting from him a swift-efficacy rite for future beings. He notes that his own Garuḍa-vehicle messenger 迦樓羅使者 (KR6j0507) can accomplish worldly aims but is not swift; he therefore asks Maheśvara to teach the āveśa rite. Maheśvara responds with the bulk of the manual.
The rite is the classical Esoteric child-oracle: the master selects four well-formed boys, ritually purifies them, anoints their eyes with añjana paste empowered with the deity-messenger’s mantra, and through mantra-recitation causes the messenger-spirit to descend (āveśa) into the child, who then answers questions about future events — auspicious-or-inauspicious omens, drought and flood, neighbouring-state invasions, rebellions, calamities. The text gives the formulae for the four operative goals (息災 śāntika, 增益 pauṣṭika, 降伏 abhicāra, 敬愛 vaśīkaraṇa) and notes that the rite can also dispatch the messenger to the Yāma realm (夜摩界) for back-and-forth errands.
The text is a key witness to the assimilation of pan-Indian Śaiva āveśa technology into the Tángmì kriyā-tantra corpus, with Maheśvara himself functioning as the licensing authority for a procedure that is then re-deployed under Buddhist auspices. The dating bracket follows Amoghavajra’s mature Cháng-ān period (746 – 774).
Translations and research
- Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: le bouddhisme tantrique en Chine. Paris: Gallimard, 1996 — extended treatment of āveśa in Tang Esoteric Buddhism.
- Strickmann, Michel. “The Consecration Sūtra: A Buddhist Book of Spells.” In Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha, edited by Robert E. Buswell Jr., 75–118. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1990.
- Smith, Frederick M. The Self Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature and Civilization. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006 — for the Indian āveśa / āveśana background.
- Orzech, Charles D., Henrik H. Sørensen, and Richard K. Payne, eds. Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia. Leiden: Brill, 2011.