Wénshūshīlì púsà jí zhū xiān suǒ shuō jíxiōng shírì shànè xiùyào jīng 文殊師利菩薩及諸仙所說吉凶時日善惡宿曜經
Sūtra on the Auspicious and Inauspicious Times, Days, and Constellations Spoken by Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva and the Seers (the Xiù-yào-jīng 宿曜經) by 不空 (Bùkōng, Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A two-fascicle sūtra-form astrological treatise — the single most important text of Sino-Buddhist astrology and the conduit by which the Indian nakṣatra-system, the seven-day planetary week, and the twelve-zodiacal-sign (rāśi) framework entered the Sinitic ritual and calendrical world. Translated by Amoghavajra (不空) at Dà-xìng-shàn-sì 大興善寺 in Qián-yuán 2 = 759 CE, the text was edited and supplied with extensive interlinear commentary by Bù-kōng’s lay disciple 楊景風 Yáng Jǐngfēng in Guǎng-dé 2 = 764 CE under the master’s personal supervision. From this expanded recension descend all later East Asian Buddhist astrological literature, including the Japanese Sukuyō-dō 宿曜道 tradition that ultimately gave the modern Japanese days of the week their planetary names (日 月 火 水 木 金 土).
Abstract
The sūtra is a Buddhist astrological digest based on Indian materials, framed as a discourse by Mañjuśrī 文殊師利 and a council of ṛṣi-seers (諸仙). The translator’s preface (carried verbatim by Yáng Jǐng-fēng 楊景風) explains that the original was first translated rather opaquely by Bù-kōng in 759 (translation done at the order of Sù-zōng) but the text proved unusable through the disciple 史瑤 Shǐ Yáo’s stiff drafting; in 764 Yáng Jǐngfēng was authorised to revise and annotate it. The colophon dates the redaction precisely: “suì cì xuán-xiāo, dà Táng Guǎng-dé zhī èr nián yě” 歲次玄枵大唐廣德之二年也.
The text is a patchwork translation-cum-summary of one or more Sanskrit prototypes — most likely a digest in the jyotiṣa tradition close to the lost Sanskrit original of an Atharvavedaparipariśiṣṭa-type compilation — interleaved with Chinese astrological harmonisation. Its principal contents (CANWWW Structural Division, see below) are: (1) the 27/28 nakṣatra 系列 (here called 二十八宿 or 二十七宿) with its starting point at Mǎo 昴 (Skt. Kṛttikā) — the classical Indian system, not the Chinese system that begins with Jiǎo 角; (2) the twelve zodiacal palaces (十二宮, rāśi) each governed by one of the seven planets and named for the Greek-Indian zoomorphic figures — siṃha 師子 / Leo, kanyā 女 / Virgo, tulā 秤 / Libra, vṛścika 蝎 / Scorpio, dhanus 弓 / Sagittarius, makara 磨竭 / Capricorn, kumbha 瓶 / Aquarius, mīna 魚 / Pisces, etc.; (3) the seven-day planetary week, given with their Iranian / Sogdian transcriptions in interlinear notes (mì 密 = Sunday, mò 莫 = Monday, etc.) — the classic textual evidence for the Hellenistic-Iranian planetary week reaching China through Buddhist intermediaries; and (4) detailed nativity, electional and muhūrta astrology rules, days of birth and dispositions, the dark and light halves of the month (śuklapakṣa / kṛṣṇapakṣa = 白分 / 黑分), tailoring and travel taboos, etc.
The text is the principal source for the planetary week-day names in classical East Asia. The famous Iranian / Sogdian transliterations preserved in the Yáng Jǐngfēng glosses are now the standard data-point for tracing the eastward movement of the Hellenistic seven-day planetary week through Sogdian Buddhists. From the Xiùyàojīng the system entered Japan through 空海 Kūkai (who carried the text back from Chángān in 806) and gave Sukuyōdō 宿曜道 its name and its core technical apparatus; the planetary day-names 日曜日 月曜日 火曜日 水曜日 木曜日 金曜日 土曜日 are direct lineal descendants.
A second pillar of the text’s contents is the Indian lunar-mansion ordering (beginning with Kṛttikā / 昴) which conflicts with the indigenous Chinese sequence (beginning with Jiǎo 角); the Xiù-yào-jīng’s persistent use of the Indian sequence is the reason the work is sometimes called the Xī-guó 西國 / “Western Country” calendar. Yáng Jǐng-fēng’s interlinear notes repeatedly try to reconcile the two systems for Chinese readers.
Structural Division
Following the CANWWW (Wittern) sub-structure for T21N1299:
Juan 1 — Xùfēn 序分 (Introduction):
- 定宿直品 Dìng sù zhí pǐn — Setting the directing nakṣatra
- 日宿直所生品 Rì sù zhí suǒ shēng pǐn — Births under each day-nakṣatra
- 三九秘宿品 Sān-jiǔ mì sù pǐn — The “Three-Nines” secret-nakṣatra system
- 七曜直日品 Qīyào zhí rì pǐn — Days governed by the Seven Planets
- 秘密雜占品 Mìmì zá zhān pǐn — Miscellaneous secret divinations
- 黑白月分 Hēibái yuè fēn — Dark and bright halves of the lunar month
- 日名善惡品 Rìmíng shànè pǐn — Auspicious and inauspicious day-names
Juan 2 — Xīguó měi yī yuè fēn wéi báihēi liǎng fēn 西國每一月分為白黑兩分 (the “Western country” division of each month into bright and dark halves):
- 擇日．擇時 Zé rì, Zé shí — Selection of days and hours
- 白黑月所宣吉凶曆 Báihēi yuè suǒ xuān jíxiōng lì — Calendar of auspicious/inauspicious days in each half-month
- 二十七宿十二宮圖 Èr-shí-qī sù shí-èr gōng tú — Diagram of the 27 nakṣatras and 12 palaces
- 二十七宿所學吉凶曆 Èr-shí-qī sù suǒ xué jí-xiōng lì — Calendar of nakṣatra-related auspice
- 行動禁閉法 Xíngdòng jìnbì fǎ — Travel and confinement rules
- 裁縫衣裳服[zhuó]用宿曆 Cái-féng yī-cháng fú-zhuó yòng sù lì — Tailoring-by-nakṣatra calendar
- 三必秘要法 Sānbì mìyào fǎ — Three Essential Secret Rules
- 七曜直日曆品 Qīyào zhírì lì pǐn — Calendar of days governed by the Seven Planets
- 七曜占 Qīyào zhān — Seven-planet divination
The text contains no explicit cross-references to other canonical works in CANWWW.
Translations and research
- Yano Michio 矢野道雄. Mikkyō senseijutsu: Sukuyōdō to Indo senseijutsu 密教占星術 — 宿曜道とインド占星術. Tokyo: Tōkyō bijutsu, 1986; rev. & expanded ed., Tokyo: Tōyō shoin, 2013. The definitive monograph; chapter-length commentaries on every section of T1299 with critical apparatus.
- Yano, Michio. “The Ch’i-yao jang-tsai-chüeh and Its Ephemerides.” Centaurus 29 (1986): 28–35 — controlling source on Greek-Indian planetary models in T1308 with implications for T1299.
- Mak, Bill M. 麥文彪. “The Date and Nature of Sárdūlakarṇāvadāna — Investigation Through the Earliest Source.” History of Science in South Asia 3 (2015): 1–31, and his “The Transmission of Greek Astral Science into India Reconsidered.” Historia Mathematica 41 (2014): 408–429.
- Kotyk, Jeffrey 郭傑福. “Buddhist Astrology and Astral Magic in the Tang Dynasty.” DPhil dissertation, Universiteit Leiden, 2017; revised as The Sinicization of Indo-Iranian Astrology in Medieval China (Sino-Platonic Papers 282, 2018), and “Yixing and Pseudo-Yixing: A Misunderstood Astronomer-Monk.” Journal of Chinese Buddhist Studies 31 (2018): 1–37.
- Niu Weixing 鈕衛星. Xī wàng Fàn-tiān: Hàn yì Fó-jīng zhōng de tiān-wén-xué yuán-liú 西望梵天 — 漢譯佛經中的天文學源流. Shanghai: Shanghai jiāotōng dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2004 — chapter on the Xiù-yào-jīng.
- Sivin, Nathan. Granting the Seasons: The Chinese Astronomical Reform of 1280. Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences. New York: Springer, 2009 — for the broader Chinese astronomical context within which the Indian transmission was received.
Other points of interest
The Iranian/Sogdian planetary week-day transcriptions preserved in Yáng Jǐngfēng’s interlinear glosses (mì 密 = Mihr = Sunday; mò 莫 = Māh = Monday; yúnhàn 雲漢 = Bahrām = Tuesday; dímìshā 滴密剎 = Tīr = Wednesday; yúnshǐmòshī 鶻勿斯 = Ohrmazd = Thursday; etc., on which see Yano 1986: 51–56) are the principal Chinese textual evidence for the eastward transmission of the Hellenistic-Iranian planetary week. The text was carried to Japan by 空海 Kūkai in 806 and is the proximate source of Japanese 七曜 (七曜日) day-names still used today.