Jiānláo dìtiān yíguǐ 堅牢地天儀軌
Ritual Manual of the Firm-Steady Earth-Goddess by 善無畏 (Shàn Wúwèi, Śubhakarasiṃha, 譯)
About the work
A short one-fascicle Esoteric ritual manual on the Firm-Steady Earth-Goddess (堅牢地天, Skt. Pṛthivī / Dṛḍhā Pṛthivī), the indigenous Indian earth-deity who appears in the Mahāvairocana-sūtra maṇḍala and in the Vajraśekhara tradition as the great earth-spirit who attests to the Buddha’s enlightenment. The text is attributed to Śubhakarasiṃha (善無畏), the first of the Three Great Tantric Masters of Tang Esoteric Buddhism, with the colophon glossing his Sanskrit name as Śubhakarasiṃha 輸娑迦羅三藏.
Abstract
The frame: the Earth-Goddess 堅牢地天 together with the Goddess of Great Merit (大功德天 Mahāśrī / Lakṣmī) rise from their seats and address the Buddha. They vow that for any monk, nun, upāsaka, upāsikā, boy, or girl who concentrates the five senses, holds the cintāmaṇi of mindfulness, makes offerings, and recites the goddess’s vidyā, the Earth-Goddess shall constantly bring forth the essence of the earth (地味) to nourish them. The body of the practitioner shall be filled with the earth-essence, his lifespan extended, his complexion and strength augmented, and he shall obtain mindfulness, joy, energy, great wisdom, eloquence, and the triple-bright six-supernormal-powers (三明六通); he shall be loved and respected by gods and humans and obtain the merit of a cakravartin-king.
The text then prescribes:
- the icon-painting of the Earth-Goddess (typically a beautiful goddess in princess attire holding a flower-bowl);
- the mantra of the Earth-Goddess;
- the mudrā and recitation programme;
- the altar for the rite, including offerings of fragrance, flowers, and food.
The rite is the classical Esoteric form of the Earth-Goddess cult and was foundational for its onward East Asian reception, where the Earth-Goddess (Jpn. Jiten 地天 / Kenrō Jishin 堅牢地神) became one of the standard junitenshō 十二天 (Twelve Devas) of the Esoteric pantheon. The dating bracket follows Śubhakarasiṃha’s Cháng-ān period (716 – 735).
Translations and research
- Yamamoto Chikyō 山本智教. “Kenrō Jishin shinkō no kenkyū” 堅牢地神信仰の研究. Mikkyō kenkyū 密教研究 (various) — on the Earth-Goddess cult in Japanese Esoteric Buddhism.
- Faure, Bernard. The Fluid Pantheon: Gods of Medieval Japan, vol. 1. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015.
- Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: le bouddhisme tantrique en Chine. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.
- Orzech, Charles D., Henrik H. Sørensen, and Richard K. Payne, eds. Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia. Leiden: Brill, 2011.