Fó shuō shèng zuìshàng dēngmíng rúlái tuóluóní jīng 佛說聖最上燈明如來陀羅尼經
Sūtra of the Dhāraṇī of the Holy Most-Excellent Lamp-Brilliance Tathāgata by 施護 (Shīhù, Dānapāla, 譯)
About the work
A one-fascicle Northern-Sòng translation by 施護 Shīhù (Dānapāla; arrived Kāifēng 980; died c. 1017) at the Sòng Institute (譯經院). The colophon “西天北印度烏填曩國帝釋宮寺三藏傳法大師賜紫沙門臣施護奉詔譯”. The Taishō editors mark the parallel “[Nos. 1351–1354]” — this is the Sòng re-translation of the Indic Anantamukha / Lamp-King template treated also as KR6j0581 (Wú, 支謙 Zhīqiān), KR6j0582 (Eastern Jìn, 曇無蘭 Tánwúlán), KR6j0583 and KR6j0584 (both Suí, 闍那崛多 Jñānagupta).
Abstract
The frame is essentially identical to the earlier members of the cluster: Buddha at Śrāvastī’s Jeta-grove with 1,250 bhikṣus and an immeasurable host of devas, humans, bodhisattvas. From the Wúbiānhuá 無邊花 (“Boundless-Flower”) world a hundred-thousand-koṭi Buddha-fields away, the Tathāgata Zuìshàng dēngmíng 最上燈明 sends two bodhisattvas — Dà guāngmíng 大光明 (Mahāprabha) and Wúliàng guāng 無量光 (Amitaprabha) — bearing the dhāraṇī. The protective effects enumerate (in Sòng-Institute transcription) the bhūta, piśāca, yakṣa, rākṣasa, kumbhāṇḍa-classes, kings and bandits, snakes and scorpions, rastika and karṇa-vraṇa-worms, and the like. The dhāraṇī itself follows in transcription with double-syllable phonetic markers.
The Sòng-Institute transcription is fuller and more conservative of Indic sound than the Suí or Wú versions; the work is one of the principal documents of the Sòng systematisation of older translation parallels, in which the institute’s cuó-niǎ phonetic apparatus was used to bring the entire dhāraṇī cluster into a unified transcription standard. Nanjio N0884.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.