Gòngyǎng shíèr dàwēidétiān bàoēn pǐn 供養十二大威德天報恩品
Chapter on Repayment of Kindness through Offering to the Twelve Mighty-Virtue Heavens by 不空 (Bùkōng, Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Esoteric scripture-style chapter (品) on the doctrinal warrant for offering to the Twelve Mighty-Virtue Heavens (十二大威德天 = the jūniten 十二天 of Mikkyō: the eight directional gods plus Sun, Moon, Brahmā, and Pṛthivī). The text is attributed to Amoghavajra (不空) with the simple formula 不空譯. Unlike the strictly procedural manuals KR6j0525 – KR6j0527 and KR6j0529, the present text is doctrinal: it frames the offering to the Twelve Heavens as repayment of kindness (報恩), grounded in the cosmological observation that the four great elements and the heavenly bodies are the internal and external nourishers of all sentient beings.
Abstract
The chapter is preached by Samantabhadra 普賢菩薩, who, observing the manifold sufferings of gods and humans and pitying all beings, of his own accord declares: all sentient beings are constituted from the four great elements (pṛthivī, ap, tejas, vāyu = earth, water, fire, wind) which are subject to far-reaching transformation, giving rise to the various sicknesses; or else demons and mara afflict them with sicknesses, deluding the world and shortening lifespans. The remedy for these internal and external sicknesses lies in gratitude — recognizing the kindness shown by the four elements, the sun, the moon, and the various heavens, all of which have rendered services of internal and external nourishment (內外養育之恩) to beings.
The Twelve Heavens are then enumerated: Pṛthivī 地天, Varuṇa 水天, Agni 火天, Vāyu 風天, Īśāna 伊舍那天, Indra 帝釋天, Yama 焰魔天, Brahmā 梵天, Vaiśravaṇa 毘沙門天, Rākṣasa 羅剎天, Sun 日天, Moon 月天. For each, the text gives the two benefits when pleased and the two losses when angered, in a strikingly systematic and almost medical register. Thus when Pṛthivī is pleased, (1) human bodies are firm with growing colour-strength, and (2) the earthen flavour and strength of the elemental world increase; when angered, (1) human bodies are disordered and weakened, and (2) the earthen flavour of the world is corrupted. Varuṇa pleased: human bodies are not thirsty, and the rains come timely; angered: bodies are parched and the world stricken with drought (or alternatively flooded). Agni pleased: bodily heat is balanced through the seasons, the seasons are not contrary; angered: bodily heat is disordered, and spontaneous wildfires consume things. Vāyu pleased: the body is light and at ease, free in motion, the elemental world is at peace and tranquil, with cool winds and harmony for all living things; angered: the body and voice do not follow the will, and great winds blow scattering and breaking the world.
When the four-elemental Mighty-Virtue Heavens are angered, the only remedy for kings and commoners is to enter the five-wheel stūpa of the Tathāgata (入於如來五輪塔中, the pañca-cakra-stūpa of the elements), to receive and uphold the precepts, take refuge in the Three Jewels, and pacify the mind for the contemplation: earth depends on water; water’s nature is empty, so earth too is impermanent; water depends on wind; wind’s nature is empty, so water too is impermanent; fire depends on water and wind, since these are empty so fire too is impermanent; wind depends on empty space, since space has no body, wind too is impermanent. The cosmological-elemental contemplation thus passes from the Mighty-Virtue Heavens to the emptiness of the elements, in classical Mikkyō pañca-cakra doctrine.
The dating bracket follows Amoghavajra’s mature Cháng-ān period (746 – 774). As with several Twelve-Heavens texts, the catalogue evidence for an autonomous Bù-kōng translation is weak, and the text — phrased as a chapter (品) extracted from a larger context — may be a section translated or expanded by his lineage; its doctrinal vocabulary (五輪塔, the pañca-cakra-stūpa) is unmistakably Tang-Esoteric.
Translations and research
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