Zhū fó jíhuì tuóluóní jīng 諸佛集會陀羅尼經
Sūtra of the Dhāraṇī of the Assembly of All Buddhas by 提雲般若 (Devaprajñā, 等譯)
About the work
A short Táng-period dhāraṇī-sūtra translated by team under the leadership of the Khotanese master 提雲般若 Devaprajñā (or Devaprajña; Tíyúnbānruò; fl. Wǔ-Zhōu period). The colophon “唐三藏法師提雲般若等奉制譯” indicates an imperially-commissioned (fèng zhì yì 奉制譯) translation by Devaprajñā and his team during the reign of Empress Wǔ Zétiān 武則天 (r. 690–705). Devaprajñā was active at Luòyáng between 689 and 691; the dating bracket is thus tight. The text has a parallel re-translation in KR6j0577 T1347 Xíchú zhōngyāo tuóluóní jīng by 施護 Shīhù in the Northern Sòng — the Taishō editors mark the parallel “[No. 1347]“.
Abstract
The Buddha sits at the bank of the Gaṅgā with the Four Heavenly Kings, headed by Vaiśravaṇa. He addresses them: all beings are bound by four great fears — birth, old age, sickness, and death — of which the fear of death is the hardest to allay. He will now teach the means of allaying it. Standing and turning to face each cardinal and ordinal direction in turn, he summons all the Buddhas of the ten directions; they assemble like rice and hemp filling the world, and pronounce in unison a long vidyā. The Vajrapāṇi-Guhyapati attendants of all the Buddhas then add a short subsidiary spell. Each of the Four Heavenly Kings — Vaiśravaṇa, Virūpākṣa, Dhṛtarāṣṭra, Virūḍhaka — adds his own short vidyā. The Buddha then prescribes a detailed maṇḍala-rite of seven cubits square, with twenty-one sub-maṇḍalas (one named rúláitán 如來壇 Tathāgata-altar and twenty named Vajra-king altars) plus four “Heavenly-King altars” outside; offerings of black-aloe, camphor, white sandal, agarwood, clove, kakkola on the eighth and fifteenth of the month, with one-meal-a-day fasting and the eight precepts. The work is dedicated to “averting untimely death” (xíchú zhōngyāo 息除中夭).
The text is recorded in the Kāiyuán shìjiào lù 開元釋教錄 under Devaprajñā’s translations, and is one of the earliest substantive Wǔ-Zhōu dhāraṇī-sūtras. Comparison with KR6j0577 reveals the same Indic original underlying both. Nanjio N0780.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.