Yújiā jíyào jiù Ānán tuóluóní yànkǒu guǐyí jīng 瑜伽集要救阿難陀羅尼焰口軌儀經
Yoga Compendium Ritual-Procedure Sūtra of the Burning-Mouth Dhāraṇī for Saving Ānanda by 不空 (Bùkōng, Amoghavajra, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle integrated ritual sūtra (guǐ-yí jīng 軌儀經) attributed to Amoghavajra (不空). This is the foundational integrated text of the Yúqié yàn-kǒu (瑜伽焰口) ghost-feeding tradition: the document in which the Avalokiteśvara → Ānanda narrative of KR6j0544 (T1313) is wedded to the mudrā-and-mantra apparatus of KR6j0546 (T1315) and to a complete ācārya-led liturgical framework — maṇḍala construction, summoning, breaking-the-hells, throat-opening, sin-confession, bodhicitta-arousing, samaya-precept conferral, food-bestowal, and dispatching. The text is the proximate ancestor of the standard Yuan/Ming Yú-jiā yàn-kǒu shī-shí yí KR6j0551 (T1320) and of the Ming–Qing recension still performed today.
Whether the present text is an authentic Bù-kōng translation or a later (likely late-Tang or Sòng) ritual elaboration produced inside the Bù-kōng tradition is a matter of long-standing scholarly debate (treated at length by Lye 2003 and Orzech 2002). The narrative core is verbatim Bù-kōng’s T1313; the ritual frame is more elaborate than anything else in the Tángmì corpus and shows formal affinities with the post-eighth-century yúqié literature of the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha tradition. The text is conventionally retained under Bù-kōng’s name.
Abstract
The text opens with a verbatim quotation of the Burning-Mouth narrative from KR6j0544 (T1313): Ānanda’s night-vision of the Burning-Mouth ghost; Ānanda’s flight to the Buddha; the Buddha’s revelation of the Wúliàng wēidé zìzài guāngmíng rúlái tuóluóní fǎ 無量威德自在光明如來陀羅尼法. This narrative occupies the first quarter of the document.
The Buddha then expounds the conditions for transmission of the rite. The teaching may only be received by an ācārya who has himself received the Vajradhātu (Mahāvairocana five-wisdom) abhiṣeka in a great maṇḍala and has been authorised in the lineage; an unauthorised practitioner “secretly steals the Dharma and incurs personal calamity” (成盜法罪終無功効). This is one of the strictest formulations of the Tángmì abhiṣeka-monopoly anywhere in the canon and accounts for the text’s tight institutional reception.
The body of the rite is then specified in sequence:
- Selection and preparation of the ritual ground — pure earth, garden, pond, river — and erection of the maṇḍala with five-coloured silk, fire-flame jewels, and the four nāyaka-deities at the four corners (北東 Buddha-uṣṇīṣa; 東南 Mahā-karuṇā; 西南 Cintāmaṇi-cakra; 西北 Vijayoṣṇīṣa). A separate “Samaya altar” (三昧耶壇) is established outside the main maṇḍala for conferring precepts on the assembled ghosts.
- Invocation — the ācārya faces east, kneels, holds the censer, and three times announces the rite to the ten-direction Buddhas, prajñā bodhisattvas, vajra-deities, and the bureaucratic spirits of the underworld (Yán-luó-suǒ-sī yè-dào míng-guān 閻羅所司業道冥官).
- Breaking-the-hells mudrā and mantra (破地獄印) — namo’ṣṭāsītināṃ samyaksambuddha-koṭīnāṃ oṃ jñāna-vabhāse dhili dhili hūṃ.
- Summoning the pretas (召請餓鬼印) — oṃ jinajik ehyehi svāhā.
- Sin-summoning, sin-crushing, karma-purifying, and confession mudrās (各 with vajra-pāṇi-vajrasattva-samaya mantras).
- Sweet-dew (Surūpakāya) and throat-opening (Vipula-kāya) mudrās with the same mantras as in KR6j0546 (T1315).
- Seven-Tathāgata invocation — Ratna-prabhāva 寶勝, Abhayaṃkara 離怖畏, Vipula-kāya 廣博身, Surūpa-kāya 妙色身, Prabhūta-ratna 多寶, Amitābha 阿彌陀, and Lokottara-tejas-prabhā (世間廣大威德自在光明如來) — five drawn from the Bù-kōng/Bù-kōng-amṛta tradition, plus Amitābha (importing the Pure-Land salvific dimension) and Lokottara-tejas-prabhā (the eponymous Tathāgata of the dhāraṇī).
- Triple Refuge — for the pretas.
- Bodhicitta-utpāda mantra — oṃ bodhi-cittam utpādayāmi.
- Samaya-precept conferral — oṃ samaya-sattvaṃ.
- Food-empowerment mantra of the Lokottara-tejas Tathāgata (無量威德自在光明如來印) — oṃ sarva-tathāgatāvalokite vaṃ varavara saṃbhara saṃbhara hūṃ.
- Universal-offering mudrā (普供養印) — oṃ gagana-saṃbhava vajra hoḥ.
- Dispatching mudrā and the closing ten-direction-merit dedication — oṃ vajra-mokṣa muḥ.
The text concludes with Ānanda receiving the title-formula 為阿難及救拔焰口餓鬼一切眾生陀羅尼經 (“the Dhāraṇī Sūtra for Ānanda and for the Saving of the Burning-Mouth Hungry Ghosts and All Sentient Beings”), confirming that this guǐ-yí jīng is structurally a ritual expansion of the parent T1313.
The dating bracket follows the conventional Bùkōng attribution (746–774). If the document is in fact a late-Tang or Sòng ritual elaboration (so Lye 2003), it could be later by a century or more; but the narrative kernel is unambiguously Bùkōng’s T1313, and the bracket given here represents the lower bound established by Bùkōng’s own activity.
Translations and research
- Orzech, Charles D. “Saving the Burning-Mouth Hungry Ghost.” In Religions of China in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez Jr., 278–283. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
- Orzech, Charles D. “Fang Yankou and Pudu: Translation, Metaphor, and Religious Identity.” In Daoist Identity: History, Lineage, and Ritual, ed. Livia Kohn and Harold Roth, 213–234. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002.
- Orzech, Charles D. “Esoteric Buddhism and the Shishi (施食) in China.” In The Esoteric Buddhist Tradition: Selected Papers from the 1989 SBS Conference, ed. H. H. Sørensen, 51–72. Copenhagen and Aarhus: SBS Monographs 2, 1994.
- Lye Hsiao-Lan, Hun Yeow. Feeding Ghosts: A Study of the Yuqie Yankou Rite. PhD dissertation, University of Virginia, 2003. (The most thorough study, with extensive analysis of the relationship between T1313, T1318, and T1320.)
- Teiser, Stephen F. The Ghost Festival in Medieval China. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.