Fó shuō Jiùbá Yànkǒu Èguǐ tuóluóní jīng 佛說救拔焰口餓鬼陀羅尼經
Sūtra of the Dhāraṇī for Saving the Burning-Mouth Hungry-Ghost, Spoken by the Buddha by 不空 (Bùkōng, Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Esoteric scripture translated by Amoghavajra (不空) under imperial commission. The text is the foundational Burning-Mouth (焰口) scripture of East Asian Buddhism — the canonical narrative behind the Yúqié yàn-kǒu shī-shí 瑜伽焰口施食 ghost-feeding rite still performed throughout the Sino-Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese spheres. Its Sanskrit reconstruction Pretamukhāgnijvālayaśarakāradhāraṇī(sūtra) (so CANWWW) is otherwise unattested in extant Indian sources; the earliest tangible evidence for the cult is the Chinese transmission itself.
Abstract
The narrative frame: while the Buddha is teaching at the Nyagrodha park near Kapilavastu, Ānanda, sitting alone at his meditation, is visited at the third watch of night by a hideous emaciated preta with a needle-thin throat and a mouth wreathed in fire — the eponymous “Burning-Mouth” ghost (焰口 / Yàn-kǒu; also rendered 面然 Miàn-rán “Burning-Face” in the variant translation KR6j0545 T1314). The ghost announces that Ānanda has only three days to live and will be reborn as a preta; the only way to escape is to feed “百千那由他恒河沙數” — many hundreds of koṭi multiplied by Ganges-sands — of hungry ghosts and brāhmaṇa-sages, each a droṇa of food. Terrified, Ānanda runs to the Buddha, who reassures him and reveals that he himself, in a former life as a brāhmaṇa, received from Avalokiteśvara 觀世音菩薩 and from the Tathāgata Lokeśvararāja the Wúliàng wēidé zìzài guāngmíng shūshèng miàolì tuó-luó-ní 無量威德自在光明殊勝妙力陀羅尼 (“Dhāraṇī of the Limitless-Power Sovereign-Light Surpassingly Marvellous Force”). One recitation of this dhāraṇī over a vessel of pure water and rice-grains, followed by the names of four Tathāgatas — Prabhūta-ratna 多寶 (which destroys the ghosts’ miserly karma), Surūpa-kāya 妙色身 (which restores their disfigured bodies), Vipula-kāya 廣博身 (which expands their needle-thin throats), and Abhayaṃkara 離怖畏 (which removes their terror) — feeds an immeasurable host of pretas and brings them rebirth in the heavens.
The Buddha goes on to specify the additional applications of the same dhāraṇī: when sprinkled on water for brāhmaṇa-sages, it produces a divine offering; when used to consecrate offerings to the Three Jewels, it amounts to making offering to all Buddhas in the ten directions and “fulfils the Perfection of Giving” (滿足檀波羅蜜). The text closes with the title-formula Jiù Yàn-kǒu è-guǐ jí kǔ zhòngshēng tuó-luó-ní jīng 救焰口餓鬼及苦眾生陀羅尼經.
The text is conventionally dated within Bù-kōng’s principal Cháng’ān translation period (746–774), under imperial commission of Xuán-zōng, Sù-zōng, and Dài-zōng. There exists a parallel translation KR6j0545 (T1314) by Śikṣānanda (實叉難陀) of the same source-text under the variant title 救面然 Jiù-miàn-rán — confirming that an Indic original (or originals) for this Avalokiteśvara → Ānanda → Buddha tradition was in circulation at least from the late seventh century. The companion ritual manual KR6j0546 (T1315) Shī zhū è-guǐ yǐn-shí jí shuǐ fǎ expands the same dhāraṇī into a step-by-step liturgy with mudrās, and KR6j0549 (T1318) and KR6j0550 (T1319) integrate the narrative into the full Yúqié yàn-kǒu yoga ritual.
Translations and research
- Orzech, Charles D. “Saving the Burning-Mouth Hungry Ghost.” In Religions of China in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez Jr., 278–283. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. (Annotated translation of T1313.)
- Orzech, Charles D. “Fang Yankou and Pudu: Translation, Metaphor, and Religious Identity.” In Daoist Identity: History, Lineage, and Ritual, edited by Livia Kohn and Harold Roth, 213–234. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002.
- Lye Hsiao-Lan, Hun Yeow. Feeding Ghosts: A Study of the Yuqie Yankou Rite. PhD dissertation, University of Virginia, 2003.
- Teiser, Stephen F. The Ghost Festival in Medieval China. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. — for the broader Yúlán-pén / preta ritual context.