Xūkōngzàng púsà wèn qī fó tuóluóní zhòu jīng 虛空藏菩薩問七佛陀羅尼呪經
Sūtra in which the Bodhisattva Ākāśagarbha Asks the Seven Buddhas for Dhāraṇī-Spells by 失譯 (translator unknown)
About the work
A one-fascicle anonymous dhāraṇī-sūtra, the earlier and shorter Chinese recension of the small text-cluster that includes its parallel KR6j0564 (Rúlái fāngbiàn shànqiǎo zhòu jīng 如來方便善巧呪經, T1334) by 闍那崛多 Jñānagupta, and which is in turn linked to T20N1147 in the Vidyādhāra-piṭaka portion of T20. The Sanskrit reconstruction in CANWWW gives Saptabuddhakasūtra. Catalogued as a “lost-translator” text appended to the Liáng 梁 catalog: 失譯〔人名〕…今附梁錄.
Abstract
The text opens at Kailāsa (雞羅莎山), where the Buddha sits with five hundred bhikṣus and five hundred bodhisattvas (Maitreya, Ākāśagarbha 虛空藏, Samantabhadra, Akṣayapuṣpa, Mañjuśrī, etc.). Looking out over a forest, he sees one bhikṣu possessed by an evil disease and another possessed by a demon, both “raving with their hands raised, shouting at heaven and at earth”. Ākāśagarbha questions the Buddha; in response, the Seven Buddhas of the Past — Vipaśyin through Śākyamuni — each pronounce a dhāraṇī “for the cure of all diseases of beings and the elimination of all demonic obstructions”. The dhāraṇī is followed by ritual prescriptions for installation of an altar, washing in scented water, and recitation seven, twenty-one or one-hundred-eight times.
The frame story and the inventory of speakers are nearly identical to KR6j0564 T1334; the two are independent translations of the same (or very nearly the same) Indic original — a fact made explicit by the Taishō editors’ cross-reference notice “[Nos. 1147, 1334]” in the colophon. The text also bears comparison with KR6j0562 (T1332), the Qī fó bā púsà dhāraṇī compendium, which is structurally analogous but more elaborate and earlier in date. The Liáng dating bracket follows the catalog tradition (502–557); some scholars place it in the early sixth century without firmer specification. Nanjio N0368.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.