Dà fāngděng tuóluóní jīng 大方等陀羅尼經
Mahāvaipulya-Dhāraṇī Sūtra by 法眾 (Fǎzhòng, 譯)
About the work
A four-fascicle Mahāvaipulya sūtra organised around a long dhāraṇī-revelation, transmitted as the principal translation of the otherwise obscure Northern-Liáng monk 法眾 Fǎzhòng. The colophon “北涼沙門法眾於高昌郡譯” places the translation at Gāochāngjùn 高昌郡 (Turfan oasis); the bibliographic catalogues (Chū sānzàng jì jí juan 2) date it to the reign of Eastern-Jìn Āndì 安帝 (397–417), which is the bracket adopted here. The work is sometimes referred to in catalogs as the Fāngděng tánté tuóluóní jīng 方等檀特陀羅尼經.
Abstract
The frame story opens at the Jeta-grove with five hundred bhikṣus, joined by Mañjuśrī accompanied by 9,200,000,000 dharma-rāja-putra-bodhisattvas, a procession of upāsakas led by Ugratārā 郁伽帝, upāsikās led by Viśākhā 毘舍佉, and finally king Prasenajit 波斯匿 with five hundred royal princes. To this assembly the Buddha pronounces the Dàfāngděng dhāraṇī of “encompassing equanimity”: a long vidyā whose recitation effaces the four pārājika offences and confers entry into the dharma-eye-stage. The work occupies a curious mid-position between Mahāyāna sūtra and dhāraṇī-text — its frame is fully Mahāyāna, but its centre of gravity is the dhāraṇī-recitation as karmic-purification prāyaścitta (悔過). It is the principal Chinese textual basis for the so-called fāngděng chànfǎ 方等懺法 (“Mahāvaipulya repentance-rite”) tradition that became important in Tiāntái 天台 ritual practice (cf. 智顗 Zhìyǐ’s Fāngděng sānmèi xíngfǎ 方等三昧行法, T1940).
The text-history is well-documented: cited in the early-Táng catalog tradition as the only securely transmitted work of Fǎzhòng. Nanjio N0426. The Goryeo, Sòng, Yuán, Míng witnesses are in agreement.
Translations and research
- Stevenson, Daniel B. “The Four Kinds of Samādhi in Early T’ien-t’ai Buddhism.” In Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, ed. P.N. Gregory (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1986), 45–97. (Treats T1339 as the textual basis of the fāngděng repentance practice in 智顗 Zhìyǐ’s curriculum.)
- Kuo Liying. Confession et contrition dans le bouddhisme chinois du Ve au Xe siècle. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1994. (Discussion of T1339 within early Chinese repentance-ritual.)