Fǎhuá shí luóshà fǎ 法華十羅剎法
Method of the Ten Rākṣasīs of the Lotus Sūtra (anonymous Tang Esoteric ritual manual)
About the work
A short anonymous one-fascicle Tang Esoteric ritual manual (法) prescribing mudrās and dhāraṇī for the Ten Rākṣasīs of the Lotus Sūtra (法華十羅剎 = the ten rākṣasī daughters who appear in the Dhāraṇī chapter of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, KR6d0001 juan 7, ch. 26: 藍婆 Lambā, 毘藍婆 Vilambā, 曲齒 Kūṭadantī, 華齒 Puṣpadantī, 黑齒 Makuṭadantī, 多髮 Keśinī, 無厭足 Acalā, 持瓔珞 Mālādhārī, 皋帝 Kuntī, 奪一切眾生精氣 Sarva-sattvojohārī). The text gives no translator’s preface and no compiler’s name; the Taishō recension is followed.
Abstract
The text consists of a sequence of mudrā-and-mantra entries — explicitly the Ritual-platform mudrā (道場印), the Lotus-Dharma mudrā (法華印, with the mantra “sarva-dharmā puṇḍarīka anye manye” — 薩嚩達摩奔荼梨伽安爾曼爾, transliterating the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka’s opening dhāraṇī formula), and a numbered series of rākṣasī-mudrās: the third mudrā gives the dhāraṇī “tadyathā mili mili muru muru hu svāhā” (怛姪他弭履弭履母樓母樓護娑婆賀); the fourth a variant of it; the fifth invokes the “Eighty-thousand Vajra-kumāra” (八萬金剛童子), with the Ven, kana kana hu suhu suhu vat vat vat dhāraṇī, marked as a “rear-gate-thunder-and-lightning-strike mudrā”; the sixth is the “Rākṣasī-binding mudrā” (羅剎縛印); and the sequence continues, with mudrā-iconographic notation embedded in interlinear marginal glosses.
The text functions as a Tang Esoteric yī-guǐ programme grafted onto the Lotus Sūtra: it takes the Lotus’s Chapter 26 dhāraṇī material (in particular the rākṣasī Hārītī cycle, Hárītī = 鬼子母 Guǐ-zǐ-mǔ, the children-eating ogress converted by the Buddha and made the protectress of children, who appears alongside her ten daughters) and provides the systematic ritual machinery — mudrās, bīja, paired sword-and-thunderbolt-and-rope mudrās, and a binding-mudrā — by which an Esoteric practitioner of the Lotus rite invokes the rākṣasīs as protectresses. In this respect the text is a key witness to the Esoteric Lotus (mì-jiào fǎ-huá) liturgy that reached its full development in Japanese Tendai (Taimitsu) circles, where the Ten Rākṣasīs (jū-rasetsu-nyo 十羅刹女) became a central object of cult.
The text bears no translator’s name. The Taishō prints it among the Tang Esoteric texts (vol. 21, the Mìjiào 密教 section), and the lineage features (Sino-Japanese mudrā-and-bīja sequencing, Esoteric-Lotus framing) place it within the Tang Esoteric milieu transmitted to Japan in the early-to-mid 9th century by 最澄 Saichō (Tendai), 空海 Kūkai (Shingon), and the later Tendai pilgrims 圓仁 Ennin and 圓珍 Enchin, whose teacher in Chángān was 法全 Fǎquán. A more precise dating cannot be established; the bracket here (750 – 900) covers the plausible Tang composition window.
Translations and research
- Stone, Jacqueline I. Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999 — esp. on the Esoteric-Lotus tradition.
- Dolce, Lucia. Esoteric Patterns in Nichiren’s Interpretation of the Lotus Sutra. PhD diss., Leiden University, 2002 — for the jū-rasetsu cult.
- Stone, Jacqueline I., and Lucia Dolce, eds. Hokke Bukkyō no kenkyū / Studies in the Lotus Sūtra Cult. Multiple volumes, 2000s–2010s.
- Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: le bouddhisme tantrique en Chine. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.
- Hurvitz, Leon (trans.). Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976; rev. 2009 — for the Lotus chapter 26 source dhāraṇī.