Bǎozàng tiānnǚ tuóluóní fǎ 寶藏天女陀羅尼法
Method of the Dhāraṇī of the Treasure-Treasury Goddess by anonymous translator (失譯, shīyì, “translator’s name lost”)
About the work
A very short anonymous one-fascicle Esoteric ritual manual on the dhāraṇī of the Treasure-Treasury Goddess (寶藏天女, “Treasure-Storehouse Goddess”). The Taishō transmits the text under the rubric 失譯 (“translator’s name lost”), so its catalogue identity rests on internal evidence alone. The deity is the consort or female emanation of the wealth-deity Bǎo-zàng tiān-wáng 寶藏天王 (= Jambhala / Vaiśravaṇa-as-treasure-king), and the text functions as a standalone female-counterpart to the Jambhala manuals translated under 法天 (KR6j0514 and KR6j0515).
Abstract
The frame: Maheśvara 摩醯首羅天王 (here as “lord of the Trāyastriṃśa heaven 三十三天主” — a doctrinally loose substitution for Indra) and the deva-women praise the Treasure-King named Ṭālakha 寶藏天王名吒羅佉, who possesses surpassing power and form, performs unmatched deeds in the world, can rotate the heavens, shake the earth, topple mountains and overturn oceans, decide victory and defeat in arms, and pile up gold, silver, jewels, and silks like mountain ranges. The dhāraṇī is then given:
唵吒羅佉吒羅佉毘多羅儞莎嚩訶 oṃ ṭā-ra-kha ṭā-ra-kha vi-tā-ra-ṇi svāhā
The rite then prescribes:
- paint a goddess-image in a clay-altar shrine on the 5th day of the 5th month (端午 duānwǔ); for the seven preceding days the practitioner observes a strict fast of thin gruel (希粥) only;
- the practice site must be ritually pure, without need to “summon” the goddess — she comes of her own accord;
- the rite must be performed on the night of the 5th day of the 5th month, at which point the practice yields immediate fruit.
The strong Duānwǔ-festival anchoring is unusual and suggests the text is a Tang-period sinified redaction in which an Indian Treasure-Goddess dhāraṇī has been domesticated to the Chinese ritual calendar. Dating bracket: post-Amoghavajra, before Japanese transmission (c. 750 – 900).
Translations and research
- Faure, Bernard. The Fluid Pantheon: Gods of Medieval Japan, vol. 1. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015 — on the Jambhala / Vaiśravaṇa wealth-deity complex in East Asia.
- Bhattacharyya, Benoytosh. The Indian Buddhist Iconography. 2nd ed. Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1958 — for the Indian iconographic background of the Treasure-Goddess (Vasudhārā-related).
- Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: le bouddhisme tantrique en Chine. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.