Fó shuō chímíngzàng bādà zǒngchíwáng jīng 佛說持明藏八大總持王經
Sūtra of the Eight Great Dhāraṇī-Kings of the Vidyādhara-Piṭaka
by 施護 (譯)
About the work
A short Northern-Sòng dhāraṇī-collection translated by 施護 Shīhù (Dānapāla; arrived Kāifēng 980; died c. 1017) at the Sòng Institute. The colophon “西天譯經三藏朝散大夫試鴻臚少卿傳法大師臣施護奉詔譯”. The title situates the work in the Vidyādhara-piṭaka (持明藏 Chí-míng-zàng) — the third “basket” of the canonical taxonomy in late tantric Indian Buddhism — and presents eight named dhāraṇī as the zǒngchí-wáng (“Sovereign-Dhāraṇī”) of the piṭaka.
Abstract
The Buddha addresses an unspecified audience for the welfare of beings of the latter age (mò-shì zhòngshēng 末世眾生): there are eight great dhāraṇī of the Vidyādhara-piṭaka whose recitation, with the precondition of bodily and mental purification and the unbroken commitment to the practice (“once the recitation is interrupted the siddhi is not attained”), brings success in the kāmāvacara operations of pacification (śāntika), enrichment (pauṣṭika), and protection. The first dhāraṇī is given (nā-mó ā-zhì-éǒu zhì-nā-zhì-zhā-jì-chá-luó…) with its application: it averts the eight great fears, brings the practitioner protection night and day, repels misfortune, increases merit, allays affliction; on a specific jí-chén (auspicious morning) at noon-time purocita it can dissolve the bondage of war and royal trouble. The text then proceeds through the remaining seven of the eight dhāraṇī.
The work is one of the more clearly tantric dhāraṇī-collections in the Sòng-Institute output: it foregrounds siddhi-attainment, three karma-rituals, and the Vidyādhara-piṭaka taxonomy that links the Chinese tradition to the post-Pāla Indian kriyā and caryā-tantra streams. Nanjio N0888.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.