Fó shuō Pìchú zhūè tuóluóní jīng 佛說辟除諸惡陀羅尼經
Sūtra of the Dhāraṇī for Warding off All Evils
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 restores the Sanskrit titles as Candanāṅga-nāma-dhāraṇī(sūtra), with the alternates Parnaśavarī-dhāraṇī(sūtra), Maitri-napratijñā-dhāraṇī(sūtra), Maitreya-pratijñā-dhāraṇi(sūtra), and Surūpa-dhāraṇī(sūtra). The clustering of these alternate titles indicates that this vidyā belongs to a substantial Indian Buddhist vidyā-cycle now identified in CANWWW under the Candanāṅga / Parṇaśavarī protective complex.
Abstract
The Buddha addresses Ānanda: “I observe the world: when calamities arise, locust-swarms (飛蝗) and venomous insects (毒蟲) appear; mosquitoes, flies, gadflies, tigers, wolves multiply at every turn; they harm the seedlings or harm the vegetables and fruit; the country falls into famine; beings are tormented and find no peace. I therefore proclaim for you the Pìchú zhūè dhāraṇī. One who recites it with single mind benefits both himself and others. The practitioner who would attain accomplishment must first purify himself, observe the precepts, raise a sincere mind, and recite the dhāraṇī to the count of one hundred-thousand for full proficiency. Then, in any place — having purified himself, called upon the names of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, and gathered fine sand into a clean vessel — he recites the dhāraṇī eight hundred times over the sand, and scatters the consecrated sand at the place of the venomous insects. All venomous insects are thereby repelled.” The Buddha then pronounces the dhāraṇī. The text is one of the most precisely-codified agricultural-protection vidyā texts in the Sòng dhāraṇī corpus. Recorded in the Dàzhōngxiángfú fǎbǎo lù; Nanjio N0895.
Translations and research
- Hidas, Gergely. A Buddhist Ritual Manual on Agriculture: Vajratuṇḍa-samaya-kalparāja. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019. — for the Indian Buddhist agricultural-protection vidyā tradition.
- Bühnemann, Gudrun. The Iconography of Hindu Tantric Deities, vol. 1. Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 2000. — for the Parṇaśavarī deity.