Qī fó bā púsà suǒshuō dà tuóluóní shénzhòu jīng 七佛八菩薩所說大陀羅尼神呪經
Great Dhāraṇī-Spell Sūtra Spoken by the Seven Buddhas and Eight Bodhisattvas by 失譯 (translator unknown)
About the work
A four-fascicle anthology of dhāraṇī-spells assembled around the conceit that each of the Seven Buddhas of the Past (Vipaśyin 維衛, Śikhin 式, Viśvabhū, Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni, Kāśyapa, Śākyamuni) and the Eight Bodhisattvas in turn pronounces a different mahāvidyā with its own apotropaic application — disease-cure, weather-control, demon-expulsion, child-birth, peace of mind. The work is anonymous: the colophon at fascicle one reads “晉代譯失三藏名今附東晉錄” — “translated in the Jìn period; the tripiṭaka-master’s name is lost; now appended to the Eastern-Jìn catalog”. The conventional bracket is therefore the Eastern-Jìn 東晉 (317–420).
Abstract
The text is one of the earliest large-scale dhāraṇī compendia in Chinese — its existence demonstrates that anthological dhāraṇī-collection began in China well before the regular early-Táng compilations (e.g. KR6j0566 Tuóluóní zájí). Each of the fifteen “speakers” introduces a named dhāraṇī (e.g. Sūludūhē 穌盧都呵 Fànyīn juédìng 梵音決定, “Brahmā-voice unwavering”; Húsūduō 胡穌多 Chú yīqiè yùzhēng rènǎo 除一切欝蒸熱惱, “removing all stifling fever-distress”) together with a transcribed mantra and a list of fruits — moving mountains, drying oceans, restoring the sun and moon to their courses, repelling neighbouring states, quelling rebellious ministers, dispelling plague-demons, ending sword-and-soldier kalpas. The text is liturgically self-contained: each spell-segment ends with the formulaic “cǐ tuóluóní jù, qīshí’èr-yì zhū-fó suǒ shuō shénzhòu” (“this dhāraṇī-stanza is a divine spell pronounced by 7,200,000,000 Buddhas”).
The catalog placement under the Eastern-Jìn is conventional. The bibliographic catalogues (Lìdài sānbǎo jì, Kāiyuán shìjiào lù) preserve the “lost translator” notice; the Goryeo and Jīn-Cáng witnesses agree on the four-fascicle text. Nanjio N0447 (Bunyiu Nanjio, A Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripiṭaka).
Translations and research
- Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: Le bouddhisme tantrique en Chine. Paris: Gallimard, 1996. Ch. on the early Chinese dhāraṇī-anthologies; treats the work as foundational evidence for “proto-tantric” Chinese Buddhism antedating the Táng miàofǎ.
- Ōno, Genmyō 大野法道, ed. Bussho kaisetsu daijiten 佛書解説大辭典 vol. 4 (Tokyo: Daitō shuppansha, 1933), s.v. — bibliographic survey.