Huànshī Bátuó shénzhòu jīng 幻師颰陀神呪經
Sūtra of the Divine Spell of the Illusionist Bátuó
by 曇無蘭 (譯)
About the work
A short variant recension of the dhāraṇī-text catalogued under T1378 and ascribed to the Eastern-Jìn translator 曇無蘭 Tánwúlán (also written 竺曇無蘭 Zhú Tánwúlán; fl. 381–395). The opening line gives the alternate title 玄師颰陀所說神呪經 — i.e. this is the “b” recension of the same text as KR6j0609 (T1378a). Where T1378a derives from the Goryeo (高麗藏) line, T1378b derives, per CANWWW, from the Qing 凊藏 canon, with an alternate title “Huàn-wáng Bátuó jīng 幻王颰陀經”.
Abstract
The narrative frame and the spell-content closely mirror T1378a (see KR6j0609): the Buddha is at Rājagṛha (羅閱祇, the Wángshè-chéng), encounters a bhikṣu on the road who has been bitten by a snake, possessed by a demon, and robbed by bandits; Huàn-shī Bátuó 幻師颰陀 (“the Illusionist Bhadra”) accompanies the Buddha and offers his spell. The Buddha cautions: “Stop, Bhadra; let your spell not cause harm.” Bhadra explains that in the future age states will war on each other and bandits, demons and poisons will menace mendicants; he therefore pronounces a dhāraṇī to shield the fourfold saṅgha — particularly forest-dwelling bhikṣus in pāṃsukūla robes — from the yakṣa-class spirits, naming himself in the spell-formula as “I, Yīntōu 因偷”. The Buddha approves.
The two recensions T1378a and T1378b descend from a single Eastern-Jìn translation by Tánwúlán; classical bibliography (e.g. Chū sānzàng jì jí under Tánwúlán’s translations, Nanjio N0892) notes T1378b as a duplicate, sometimes recorded as lost. CANWWW correctly preserves both. The textual differences are small — chiefly a handful of orthographic variants in the spell-syllables. Recorded in the Kāiyuán shìjiào lù 開元釋教錄 among Tánwúlán’s translations.
Translations and research
- Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins: Le bouddhisme tantrique en Chine. Paris: Gallimard, 1996. — on the Eastern-Jìn zhòu-jīng tradition.
- Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations. Tokyo: IRIAB, Soka University, 2008. — for Tánwúlán’s profile.
Other points of interest
The pair T1378a/T1378b is one of the clearest cases in the Taishō where two recensions of the same translator’s spell-text have been preserved side-by-side from different canonical lines (Goryeo vs. Qing), and is an instructive case-study in how zhòujīng texts mutated across canon-witnesses.
Links
- CBETA online
- Kanseki DB
- Companion text: KR6j0609