Jīngāng shàngwèi tuóluóní jīng 金剛上味陀羅尼經
Sūtra of the Vajra-Supreme-Taste Dhāraṇī by 佛陀扇多 (Buddhaśānta, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle dhāraṇī-sūtra translated by 佛陀扇多 Buddhaśānta during his Northern-Wèi years at Luòyáng 洛陽 and Yèdū 鄴都 (active c. 525–539). The colophon “元魏天竺三藏佛陀扇多譯”. The Taishō editors flag the parallel with KR6j0575 (T1345) by 闍那崛多 Jñānagupta — “[No. 1345]” — and CANWWW agrees that the two texts are independent renderings of the same Indic original.
Abstract
The Buddha sits in the “Gold Cave” (jīnkū 金窟) on the Lesser Snow-Mountain in the Zuǒzhuāngyán 左莊嚴 settlement, with 12,000 bhikṣus. After alms-round he enters the yīqièfǎ xiànqǐ sānmèi 一切法現起三昧 (“samādhi of the present-arising of all dharmas”); the bhikṣus, the Pure Abode (Śuddhāvāsa) gods, Indra, the Trāyastriṃśa, and Brahmā cannot perceive him. They gather in puzzlement at the cave; on emerging from samādhi the Buddha pronounces the Vajra-Supreme-Taste dhāraṇī as the “essence-flavour” of all dharmas, and explicates its applications.
The pair KR6j0574/KR6j0575 is a textbook case of the “two recensions” pattern in Chinese Buddhist translation history — Buddhaśānta’s mid-sixth-century version and Jñānagupta’s late-sixth-century retranslation give us comparable evidence for textual evolution; the close-but-not-identical opening (Jñānagupta’s version locates the action in the “Mountain-of-Snow Subtle-Form village Gold-Adorned-Cave”, a slightly more elaborate placename) suggests that the two were working from different but closely related Indic exemplars. Nanjio N0427.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.