Èrshíbā yèchā dàjūnwáng mínghào 二十八夜叉大軍王名號
Names of the Twenty-Eight Great Yakṣa-Army-Kings
by 僧伽婆羅 (譯抄之)
About the work
A very brief Xùzàngjīng-only enumeration translated under the Liáng dynasty by 僧伽婆羅 Sēngqiépóluó (Skt. Saṃghapāla / Saṃghavarman; fl. early sixth century). The colophon — 三藏法師僧伽婆羅譯抄之 — designates this as a 抄之 (“abridgment / extract”) translation: a short list extracted from a longer Indian source. The text lists the names of the twenty-eight yakṣa generals quarter by quarter, with each name glossed in Liángyán 梁言 (“the language of Liáng” — i.e. Chinese paraphrase of the Sanskrit semantic content). The dating window 506–524 covers Saṃghapāla’s Liáng-period translation career.
Abstract
The Buddha tells Ānanda: “You are to receive and uphold the names of the twenty-eight Great Yakṣa-Army-Kings who protect the lands of the ten directions. Ānanda, in the East there are four such yakṣa great army-kings, dwelling in the East and constantly protecting it.” There follows the list:
East: Dìkē 地珂 (= “Long”), Xiūnièduōluó 修涅多羅 (= “Beautiful Eyes”), Fēnnàkē 分那柯 (= “Full”), Jiāpíluó 迦毗羅 (= “Blue-coloured”).
South: four more yakṣas, beginning with Sēngqié 僧伽 (= “Lion”), and so on through the western and northern quarters.
The text is parallel to KR6j0650 (Yìjìng’s Zhèngliǎozhīwáng yàochā juànshǔ fǎ) and KR6j0652 (Amoghavajra’s Èrshíbā yàochā dàjiàng mínghào), all three preserving the same Indian yakṣa-list with phonetically and semantically diagnostic variations across translators and centuries. The Saṃghapāla rendition is the earliest of the three.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Links
- CBETA online: https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/zh/X0183
- Companion texts: KR6j0650, KR6j0652
- Kanseki DB