Bōrě shǒuhù shíliù shànshénwáng xíngtǐ 般若守護十六善神王形體
Iconographic Forms of the Sixteen Good-Spirit Kings Who Guard the Prajñā(-pāramitā) by 金剛智 (Jīngāngzhì, Vajrabodhi, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Esoteric iconographic manual (形體, “iconographic forms”) for the Sixteen Good-Spirit Kings (十六善神王) who serve as the protectors of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā (the Great Perfection of Wisdom; in East Asia primarily Xuán-zàng’s KR6c0001 大般若波羅蜜多經 in 600 fascicles, T220). The translation is attributed to Vajrabodhi (金剛智), the first of the Three Great Tantric Masters of Tang Esoteric Buddhism. The text is a purely iconographic compendium: each of the sixteen deities is described in turn — body-colour, facial expression, hair, garments, armour, weapons, and accessories — providing the practitioner or icon-painter with a normative description of the protectors’ appearance.
Abstract
The Sixteen Good-Spirit Kings of the Prajñāpāramitā (般若守護十六善神) form one of the most widespread Esoteric protector cycles in East-Asian Buddhism, surviving in numerous Japanese painted sets and in the famous “Sixteen Good Spirits guarding the Prajñā” (jūroku zenjin 十六善神) compositions of Heian-Kamakura date. Their textual basis includes the dhāraṇī chapters of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā sūtras and the various Tang Esoteric ritual manuals; the present text is the principal iconographic source for the visual tradition, prescribing what each deity must look like.
The opening four are the Four Heavenly Kings in their wisdom-protector aspect: Dhṛtarāṣṭra 提頭攞宅 (here: blue-green colour, open-mouthed wrathful, armoured, in red robes, right hand a great sword, left hand a spear, purple hair); Virūḍhaka 毘盧勒叉 (red-purple, wrathful with closed lips, right hand the vajra / 拔折囉, left hand at the waist, armoured, in white-and-blue robes, dark blue temple-locks); Cuī-fú dú-hài shàn-shén 摧伏毒害 (“Subduer of Poisonous Harm”; red flesh-colour, sword in right hand, left hand turned outward at chest, armoured, white robes); Zēng-yì shàn-shén 增益 (“Augmenter”; red flesh-colour, four arms with sword, sword-wheel, willow-branch, half-moon, green kāṣāya and red skirt, with a hanging-neck necklace).
The series continues through, inter alia, Huān-xǐ shàn-shén 歡喜 (“Joyful”; green, peacock on head, single-pronged hook, armoured, red robes, faintly wrathful); Chú-yī-qiè-zhàng-nán shàn-shén 除一切障難 (“Remover of All Obstacles”; yellow, six-armed, with trident, scripture-volume, śarīra-stūpa, red lotus, jewelled hook, jewelled conch, in kāṣāya); Bá-chú-zuì-gòu shàn-shén 拔除罪垢 (“Eliminator of Sin and Filth”; naked-bodied with a red-and-green kāṣāya, hair standing erect, red-yellow flesh, a five-pronged staff in right hand, left fist on head, glaring eyes and bared fangs — terrifying); and on through the remaining Good-Spirit Kings to the sixteenth.
The dating bracket (720 – 741) follows Vajrabodhi’s Cháng-ān period. The text is consistent with the iconographic conventions of his lineage and with the Prajñāpāramitā-protector tradition of his time, although, as with several short Esoteric xíng-tǐ manuals carried under his name, the catalog evidence for an autonomous Vajrabodhi translation is weak; the Taishō recension is followed and the attribution is preserved.
Translations and research
- ten Grotenhuis, Elizabeth. Japanese Mandalas: Representations of Sacred Geography. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999 — covers the jūroku zenjin visual tradition.
- Faure, Bernard. The Fluid Pantheon: Gods of Medieval Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015 — for protector pantheons.
- Sundberg, Jeffrey, with Rolf Giebel. “The Life of the Tang Court Monk Vajrabodhi.” Pacific World, 3rd ser., no. 13 (2011): 129–222.
- 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.