Dà Hánlín shèng Nánná tuóluóní jīng 大寒林聖難拏陀羅尼經
Sūtra of the Great Mahā-Śītavatī (Cool-Forest) Holy Daṇḍa-dhāraṇī
by 法天 (譯)
About the work
A short single-juan dhāraṇī-sūtra translated at the Sòng 譯經院 by 法天 Fǎtiān (d. 1001). CANWWW restores the Sanskrit titles as Mahādaṇḍadhāraṇī and Mahāśītavatī(sūtra) — the latter being the canonical name of one of the Pañcarakṣā protective dhāraṇīs in mainstream Indian Buddhism. The narrative setting at Śītavana (寒林 “Cool-Grove”, a charnel-ground near Rājagṛha) confirms the Mahāśītavatī-line identification.
Abstract
“Thus have I heard”: the Bhagavān is at Rājagṛha. Rāhula (羅睺羅) is wandering in the Garbhakāya-tantra-place [Yùn-qī-jiā-yē-dá-nǎng 孕欺迦耶怛曩 = an attempted transcription of a kāya-tāntra / Pretakāya place-name] of the Cool-Forest cremation ground. Various supernatural beings — deva-, nāga-, yakṣa-, rākṣasa-, kinnara-, garuḍa-, mahoraga-spirits — together with all human and non-human, hungry-ghost classes [are present]. The Buddha, hearing of Rāhula’s situation, pronounces a protective dhāraṇī, the Mahā-Śītavatī, by which the practitioner amid the charnel-ground is shielded from the entire population of cemetery-spirits. The text is thus the Sòng-period redaction of the well-known Mahāśītavatī-rakṣā tradition, one of the Pañcarakṣā group of major Indian Buddhist protective spells. Recorded in the Dàzhōngxiángfú fǎbǎo lù; Nanjio N0800.
The translator’s title in the colophon — 西天中印度摩伽陀國那爛陀寺三藏傳教大師賜紫沙門臣法天奉詔譯 — locates Fǎtiān’s monastic origins at Nālandā (那爛陀寺) in central India, and gives him the rank 傳教大師 (“Master of the Transmission of the Teaching”), bestowed by Sòng Tàizōng during his tenure at the Kāifēng 譯經院.
Translations and research
For the Mahāśītavatī / Pañcarakṣā tradition broadly:
- Hidas, Gergely. Mahāpratisarā-Mahāvidyārājñī: The Great Amulet, Great Queen of Spells. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2012. — on the Pañcarakṣā corpus.
- Hidas, Gergely. A Buddhist Ritual Manual on Agriculture: Vajratuṇḍa-samaya-kalparāja. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019.
- Skilling, Peter. “The Rakṣā Literature of the Śrāvakayāna,” Journal of the Pali Text Society 16 (1992): 109–182. — foundational survey of the rakṣā texts including Mahāśītavatī.