Fó shuō Sùmìngzhì tuóluóní 佛說宿命智陀羅尼
The Dhāraṇī of the Knowledge of Past Lives
by 法賢 (譯)
About the work
A very brief single-juan dhāraṇī ascribed to 法賢 Fǎxián at the Sòng 譯經院. The text proper is the spell-formula alone, without the conventional sūtra-frame. It is a jātismara / pūrvanivāsānusmṛti dhāraṇī — i.e. a spell for the recollection of past lives.
Abstract
The text consists exclusively of an invocation: homage to Akṣobhya (阿芻毘夜 Akṣobhya), the Tathāgata, the Worthy One, the Fully-and-Perfectly Awakened, followed by the spell oṃ akṣaye akṣaye akṣayāvaraṇa viśodhane svāhā. The mantra-formula thus appeals to the imperishable (akṣaya) quality of Akṣobhya as the metaphysical ground for breaking through the karmic obscurations that veil memory of prior births. The companion text KR6j0615 (T1383) provides the same spell within an Ānanda-frame and thereby supplies the narrative motivation: a thousand-aeons’ karmic burden may be wiped clear, and seven koṭi-births’ worth of past-life knowledge attained. Recorded in the Dà-zhōng-xiángfú fǎbǎo lù; Nanjio N0914.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The pair T1382 / T1383 (= KR6j0614 / KR6j0615) preserves both the bare vidyā and its narrative-framed version of the same Akṣobhya-grounded jātismara spell. They are an instructive pair for studying the practice of “mantra-extracts” (separately catalogued spell-cores) at the Sòng 譯經院.
Links
- CBETA online
- Companion text: KR6j0615
- Dazangthings date evidence (1001)
- 法賢 DILA
- Kanseki DB