Xīnjí yùxiàng yíguǐ 新集浴像儀軌
Newly-Compiled Ritual Manual for Bathing the Image by 慧琳 (Huìlín, 述)
About the work
A one-fascicle ritual manual compiled (述) by Huìlín (慧琳; 737–820), the great Táng Buddhist lexicographer and disciple of 不空 Bùkōng. The text is the only extant purpose-written Chinese instruction manual for the rite of yùxiàng 浴像 (“bathing the [Buddha-]image”), the ceremonial washing of consecrated buddha-images that, in Huìlín’s testimony, was a daily morning observance throughout the five Indias. The manual stands alongside Huìlín’s monumental KR6s0013 Yīqiè jīng yīnyì 一切經音義 (the Huìlín yīnyì) and his short Jiànlì màntúluó jí jiǎnzé dìfǎ 建立曼荼羅及揀擇地法 as one of the three works carrying Huìlín’s name in the Taishō.
Abstract
Huìlín opens by remarking that “in the saṃgha-residences of the five Indias, in monasteries, vihāras, araṇya, and saṃghārāmas, every day they bathe the image, burn incense, gather flowers, scatter offerings, prostrate, eulogise, and circumambulate the image; daily, with diligence and as a lifelong commitment, never neglecting it; should they fail to perform this offering on a given morning, they vow not to take food until they have done so.” The rite is thus introduced as an Indian practice of universal observance, here taught for transmission to a Chinese audience that — Huìlín tartly observes in the closing sentences — “knows nothing of it, lets the buddha-image go unwashed for a lifetime, fouled by smoke and rats, and pretends to bathe by setting a small naked-body image in a basin and washing it with a tiny ladle in casual play, gaining only the offence of disrespect.”
The procedure is given in detailed practical form. Apparatus: scented water is prepared the previous evening by steeping crushed aromatic spices in muslin pouches inside porcelain or metal bottles (gold, silver, precious stones, iron, copper, lead, tin, white porcelain), each scent-bottle dedicated to one species of aromatic; if metal is unavailable, fresh stone or wood vessels may substitute. The rite is held on a circular altar, ten Chinese feet across, plastered with pure ox-dung, with a raised platform in the centre carrying the image and surrounding tables for the incense-bottles, oil-cloth, hundred-cord-line, fresh new soft silk, and the five offerings.
Procedure: a senior ācārya (or the most-senior elder of the assembly) recites a six-line verse in which the assembly says “I now bathe all Tathāgatas / a heap of pure-wisdom-merit-adornments / may these five-defilement sentient beings / swiftly attain the Tathāgata’s pure Dharma-body…” One bell-ringer holds a censer and chants the Triple-Refuge praise — namo buddhāya gurave / namo dharmāya tāyine / namaḥ saṃghāya mahate / tribhyo’pi satatam namaḥ — and at each line the assembly bows. Two attendants blow conches; two more chant. The ācārya takes the water-bottle and pours it over the image, drawing one end of the hundred-cord-line tied to the bottle so that every member of the assembly, holding the line, becomes ritually identified with the bathing act. Each species of scent-water is poured in turn until exhausted; the conches and chanting continue throughout. The image is wiped dry with the silk, set on the table, and the five-offering is given with five Sanskrit mantras (here transcribed with tone-and-quantity marks in Huìlín’s distinctive phonological precision):
- oṃ sarva-tathāgatāya gandha-pūjāya megha-samudra-spharaṇa-samaye hūṃ — incense-paste offering;
- oṃ … puṣpa-pūjāya … — flower offering;
- oṃ … dhūpa-pūjāya … — incense-burning offering;
- oṃ … bali-pūjāya … — food offering;
- oṃ … dīpa-pūjāya … — lamp offering.
The ritual concludes with the ācārya sprinkling the consecrated bath-water over his own head and over each member of the assembly, and inviting the assembly to drink a small mouthful — “this is the lustral-fortune-water of all the bathed sages, by which the defilements of the body are gradually thinned and the unsurpassed bodhi is realised.” The assembly then circumambulates three or seven times in pradakṣiṇa and disperses. Huìlín stipulates that even if daily bathing is impossible, monthly bathing must be observed.
The dating bracket follows Huìlín’s mature activity at Xīmíngsì 西明寺 in Cháng’ān, contemporaneous with the composition of the Yīqiè jīng yīnyì (783–807) and prior to his death in 820. The manual is doctrinally aligned with mature Tángmì practice and presupposes the late-Bùkōng abhiṣeka-and-mantra apparatus that Huìlín had received directly from 不空 Bùkōng.
Translations and research
No substantial dedicated study located. The text is mentioned briefly in studies of Huìlín’s career (e.g. Guang Xing, “The Life and Contributions of Huilin to the Yiqiejing Yinyi”, various Japanese studies of Huìlín’s lexicography); for the broader Indian snāna-rite of bathing the buddha-image, see Schopen, “On Avoiding Ghosts and Social Censure”, reprinted in Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks (1997). Compare also the parallel Chinese 浴佛經 cluster (KR6e0124 T697 Yùxiàng gōngdé jīng trans. 寶思惟 Bǎosīwéi; KR6e0125 T698 Mùyù fó xíngxiàng jīng trans. 義淨 Yìjìng) to which Huìlín’s manual is the late-Táng ritual supplement.