Fó shuō Móníluódǎn jīng 佛說摩尼羅亶經
Sūtra of the Maṇi-rāḍa Spell
by 曇無蘭 (譯)
About the work
An archaic Eastern-Jìn dhāraṇī-text ascribed to 曇無蘭 Tánwúlán (= 竺曇無蘭 Zhú Tánwúlán; fl. 381–395). The title transcription “摩尼羅亶” móníluódǎn renders Sanskrit Maṇi-rāḍa / Maṇi-ratna (jewel-king / jewel-king of healing) — the vidyā invokes a yakṣa-king Maṇi-rāḍa, regarded as a master of healing.
Abstract
The Buddha is at Śrāvastī, Jeta Grove, with the Mahā-saṅgha of bhikṣus, expounding the Móníluódǎn jīng. He asks Ānanda why beings under heaven cannot find peace, why so many suffer disease — birth-pangs, head-pain, dim eyes, inability to take food. He states: “These are Māra’s doing.” The bhikṣus, frightened, beg the Buddha to explain whence pain arises and where it goes. The Buddha gathers his great disciples — Mahākāśyapa, Aniruddha, Revata, Mahāmaudgalyāyana, Śāriputra, etc. — and pronounces the Maṇi-rāḍa spell with its medical applications. The text thereby preserves an early-medieval Buddhist medical-spell tradition with named yakṣa-king and explicit etiology. Recorded in the Chū sānzàng jì jí under Tánwúlán; Nanjio N0486.
Translations and research
- Salguero, C. Pierce. Translating Buddhist Medicine in Medieval China. Philadelphia: U Pennsylvania P, 2014. — frames the early Chinese medical-dhāraṇī corpus including this work.
- Strickmann, Michel. Chinese Magical Medicine. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002. — extensive treatment of the Maṇi-rāḍa-class yakṣa-healer spells.
- Strickmann, Michel. Mantras et mandarins. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.
Other points of interest
The Móníluódǎn jīng is a touchstone for early Chinese Buddhist dhāraṇī medicine: its identification of “Māra’s doing” (魔皆所為) as the etiology of common illness, and its prescription of named yakṣa-king spells, exemplifies the import of Indian yakṣa-medicine via the dhāraṇī-genre into Chinese Buddhism well before the high tantric translations.