Fódǐng zūnshèng tuóluóní jīng jiàojì yìjì 佛頂尊勝陀羅尼經教跡義記
“Doctrinal-Trace and Meaning Record” of the Buddhoṣṇīṣa-vijaya-dhāraṇī Sūtra by 法崇 (述)
About the work
A two-fascicle (2卷) doctrinal-and-historical commentary by Qiānfú Fǎchóng 千福法崇 法崇 on the Fódǐng zūnshèng tuóluóní jīng 佛頂尊勝陀羅尼經 (the Buddhoṣṇīṣa-vijaya-dhāraṇī sūtra, T19 no. 967, etc.) — the most consequential dhāraṇī sūtra in the Tang-period Esoteric corpus. Preserved as T39 no. 1803 in the Taishō. Fǎchóng was a disciple of Bùkōng Sānzàng 不空三藏 不空 (Amoghavajra) and applies his teacher’s Esoteric framework to the doctrinal exposition of the dhāraṇī.
Prefaces
The opening Qìn zūnshèng tuóluóní jīng shū xù 鋟尊勝陀羅尼經疏敘 narrates the genesis of the dhāraṇī’s transmission to China by Buddhapālita (佛陀波利 Fótuóbōlì 佛陀波利), who, after a vision of Mañjuśrī on Mt. Wǔtái, returned to India to retrieve the sūtra and brought it back; the preface identifies five successive Tang-period Chinese translations of the text. Fǎchóng’s Shū responds to a perceived gap in the existing tradition: although the sūtra had been five times translated, “no exegete of the masters’ lineage had yet penetrated its profound and subtle purport.” His commentary is described as “drawing on the various scriptures, fixing on a single principle, [exposing] the secret of dissolving calamities and dispelling disasters, the wonder of extending years and increasing life, the merit of the corpse touched by the dhāraṇī-soil, the benefit of the body brushed by the residual dust.” The preface was solicited from a literatus identified as Nánshān Jīgōng 南山基公 (likely a Cháng’ān or Mt. Zhōngnán literatus).
Abstract
The Yìjì combines two interpretive strategies: a doctrinal-trace (jiàojì 教跡, the placement of the Zūnshèng tuóluóní within the structure of the Mahāyāna doctrinal canon) and a meaning-record (yìjì, an exposition of the substantive meaning of the dhāraṇī’s apotropaic content). The work is one of the most important Tang-period commentaries on a dhāraṇī sūtra and confirms Fǎchóng’s place in the immediate circle of Amoghavajra’s Esoteric school. Composition: late Tang, c. 770–800.
Translations and research
- Charles Orzech et al., eds., Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia (Brill, 2011) — extensive treatment of the Zūnshèng dhāraṇī tradition and Fǎchóng’s commentary.
- Paul Copp, The Body Incantatory: Spells and the Ritual Imagination in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (Columbia UP, 2014) — discusses the Zūnshèng corpus extensively.