Fó shuō Xīchú zéinán tuóluóní jīng 佛說息除賊難陀羅尼經
Sūtra of the Dhāraṇī for Quelling the Calamity of Bandits
by 法賢 (譯)
About the work
A short single-juan dhāraṇī-sūtra translated at the Sòng 譯經院 by 法賢 Fǎxián. CANWWW alt-title 息除賊難經. The text is one of the explicit taskara-bhaya (“bandit-fear”) protective spells in the Sòng-period dhāraṇī corpus — a constituent of the standard Indian aṣṭamahābhaya protection-cluster.
Abstract
The Buddha is in Magadha (摩伽陀國), at the side of the Mango Park (菴羅樹園 Āmrapāli-vana), at the Vaidehī hill (韋提呬山, ie. Mt. Videhī) in the cave of Indra (帝釋巖 Indra-śaila). Ānanda, with the assembly walking around the Buddha, suddenly sees a great band of evil bandits approaching from afar. Filled with terror, his hair standing on end, he rushes to the Buddha, prostrates, and asks for protection. The Buddha asks: “Are you afraid of bandits?” Ānanda confirms, deeply afraid. The Buddha consoles him: “Do not fear, I have a dhāraṇī that can remove the bandit-calamity.” The Buddha pronounces the vidyā. Recorded in the Dàzhōngxiángfú fǎbǎo lù; Nanjio N0920. The narrative-frame is unusually vivid for a Sòng dhāraṇī-text and is a small textbook example of the aṣṭamahābhaya genre’s narrative absorption of the Indian Āmrapāli setting.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
This text and KR6j0638 (T1406) form a pair of bandit-protection spells: T1405 attributes its translation to Fǎxián and frames the spell narratively, while T1406 is anonymous and presents the spell as bare ritual technology. They illustrate the bracket within which the same taskara-bhaya protective genre operated in the late tenth century.
Links
- CBETA online
- Companion text: KR6j0638
- Dazangthings date evidence (1001)
- 法賢 DILA
- Kanseki DB