Yànluówáng gòng xíngfǎ cìdì 焰羅王供行法次第
Procedure for the Performance of the Offering-Rite to King Yama by 阿謨伽 (Āmójiā, Tang-period Esoteric ācārya, 撰)
About the work
A short one-fascicle Esoteric ritual procedure (xíngfǎ cìdì 行法次第) for the offering to Yama, King of the Dead (焰羅王 / 閻羅王 = Skt. Yama-rāja), composed (撰) by Āmójiā Sānzàng 阿謨伽三藏. The name Āmójiā 阿謨伽 (Skt. Amogha, “Unfailing”) is sometimes treated by later catalogues as an alternate transliteration of Amoghavajra (不空); the Kanripo catalog meta records the author of this text under the form 阿謨伽 with a 唐 dynasty designation, and the present knowledgebase preserves the catalog form. See the disambiguation note in 阿謨伽.
Abstract
The text frames Yama as having five manifestations (五變之身): (1) Yán-luó Fǎwáng 焰羅法王 (“Yama Dharma-king”), his fundamental designation; (2) the Death-King (死王, Mṛtyu-rāja); (3) the Yellow-Springs Realm Saṃvara-rāja 黃泉國善賀羅王 (Saṃvara of the Underworld); (4) the Wrathful King who Adjudicates Sin (料罪忿怒王); and (5) the Daṇḍa Lesser-Wrathful King 檀拏少忿怒王 (Daṇḍa = “staff” — the daṇḍa-deva who appears in many Esoteric Yama paintings as the blood-staff-bearer). His palace lies north of the Iron-Encircling Mountain 鐵圍山 in the underworld (冥道宮), surrounded by 50,000 retainers; the daṇḍa-banner in the courtyard, surmounted by a small wrathful face, allows Yama to see the gravity of human sins and merits. From the mouth of the wrathful face on the banner emerges a fire of black ropes that warns of grievous sin and identifies the offender on a wooden tally; from the same mouth a white lotus blooms when good is done, and its fragrance pervades Tài-shān-fǔ-jūn 大山府君 and the Wǔ-dào jiāng-jūn 五道將軍 (Five-Path General) who execute Yama’s edicts.
The ritual is to be performed by kings, princes, ministers, and commoners alike, in a clean open-air spot, with offerings of sesame oil, the five grains, paper money and silks (zhǐ-qián bì-bó 紙錢幣帛), incense, and herbs; sesame, honey, and añjana incense-and-herbs are mixed into a porridge. The principal context is plague and serious illness (疫病氣病一切病惱時): when an individual’s allotted lifespan (正報) is exhausted and the death-register has marked him, the ritual entreats the King to “strike out the death-register and assign a life-register” (削死籍付生籍). At a plague-stricken house, the rite recites the Tài-shān-fǔ-jūn mantra many times.
The procedure unfolds in standard Tang Esoteric form: the practitioner takes his seat, anoints the hands and arms, and recites Śākyamuni’s name seven times; sprinkles the ground with empowered fragrant water using bamboo leaves; intones the Amṛta dhāraṇī (唵阿蜜利帝賀曩賀曩吽娑縛賀); and progresses through “single-mind without distinction of self and other — therefore called the unobstructed mind” (運一念離自他之異故曰無遮心), severing enmity, reciting further mantras, and presenting the offerings. The text shows strong syncretic features: the assimilation of Yama with the Chinese Tài-shān-fǔ-jūn (the Mount-Tai underworld magistrate), the inclusion of paper money (紙錢) — a feature of Tang and post-Tang Chinese mortuary ritual — and the figure of the Wǔ-dào jiāng-jūn (an originally Daoist underworld officer absorbed into Buddhist hells) make this one of the most clearly Sinicized of the Tang Esoteric Yama rituals.
The dating is uncertain. The author Āmójiā 阿謨伽 may be Amoghavajra himself (不空, 705 – 774) under an alternate name, but the strong syncretism with Chinese Tàishānfǔjūn / Wǔdàojiāngjūn material and the use of paper money suggest a slightly later, perhaps mid-to-late Tang composition by an ācārya within the Bùkōng lineage rather than by Bùkōng himself. The dating bracket here (750 – 900) is intentionally broad to span both possibilities; see Strickmann (1996) on Tang Esoteric Yama / Tàishān material.
Translations and research
- Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: le bouddhisme tantrique en Chine. Paris: Gallimard, 1996 — fundamental on Tang Esoteric Yama, plague, and underworld ritual.
- Strickmann, Michel. Chinese Magical Medicine. Edited by Bernard Faure. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002 — esp. on dhāraṇī-and-medicine for plague.
- Teiser, Stephen F. The Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1994 — on the Sinicization of Yama and the underworld magistracy.
- Faure, Bernard. Rage and Ravage: Gods of Medieval Japan, vol. 3. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2021 — esp. ch. on Enma / Yama.
- Orzech, Charles D. “Esoteric Buddhism and the Shishi (施食) in China.” In The Esoteric Buddhist Tradition, edited by Henrik H. Sørensen, 51–72. Copenhagen: Seminar for Buddhist Studies, 1994 — for the food-offering and ghost-feeding context.