Zhèngliǎozhīwáng yàochā juànshǔ fǎ 正了知王藥叉眷屬法
Ritual of the Yakṣa-king Saṃjñeyya and his Retinue
by 義淨 (譯)
About the work
A short Xùzàngjīng-only ritual text translated by 義淨 Yìjìng (635–713). The catalog meta dates it to the Táng. The colophon — 三藏法師義淨奉制譯 — places it within Yìjìng’s late post-695 imperial-translation career at Chángān, c. 700–711. The work is a compact ritual codification of the cult of the Saṃjñeyya / Sanjñā / Saṃjñeyya-yakṣa-rāja with twenty-eight yakṣa generals — the precise number recurring across KR6j0651 (僧伽婆羅 Saṃghapāla’s 二十八夜叉大軍王名號) and KR6j0652 (不空 Amoghavajra’s 二十八藥叉大將名號), preserving the same Indian yakṣa-list across three Chinese translations.
Abstract
The opening glosses Sēngshèněryē 僧慎爾耶 (“Saṃjñeyya”) as “the One Who Truly Knows” (zhèngliǎozhī). The Buddha tells Ānanda that this Saṃjñeyya-yakṣa-rāja has twenty-eight great yakṣa generals, manifesting adhiṣṭhāna and great divine power, and protecting beings throughout the ten directions, removing decay, calamity, and difficulty. The text then enumerates them by quarter:
East: Dipingā 地嘌伽 (= “Long, Great”), Sūnetra 蘇泥怛羅 (= “Beautiful Eyes”), Pūrṇaka 晡𠷈拏 (= “Full”), Kapīla 却畢羅 (= “Yellow-coloured”).
South / West / North: the remaining generals follow in the same fourfold scheme. The text concludes with the formula of recitation. The work is one of the most economical ritual codifications of the Saṃjñeyya-cult preserved in Chinese.
Translations and research
- Strickmann, Michel. Chinese Magical Medicine. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002. — for the yakṣa-cult and its medical applications.
- Hayashi On 林温. “Sangya-yakṣa zō no zōzō ni tsuite” 三十夜叉像の造像について, Bukkyō Geijutsu 200 (1992). — for the Japanese iconographic afterlife of the cycle.
Other points of interest
The triple parallel set KR6j0650 / KR6j0651 / KR6j0652 preserves three Chinese versions of a single Saṃjñeyya-yakṣa-rāja with twenty-eight yakṣa-generals tradition — Yìjìng (Táng, ~700–711), 僧伽婆羅 Saṃghapāla (Liáng dynasty), and 不空 Amoghavajra (mid-Táng, c. 746–774). The list of yakṣa-names in each is closely related; the variation among them is a useful witness to the philological history of the yakṣa-onomastics across the medieval Chinese Buddhist tradition.
Links
- CBETA online
- Companion texts: KR6j0651, KR6j0652
- 義淨 DILA
- Kanseki DB