Tāijīn liǎngjiè xuèmài 胎金兩界血脈
Blood-Line Lineages of the Garbhadhātu and Vajradhātu Realms by 造玄 (增補)
About the work
A one-fascicle (1卷) Esoteric lineage-record in the xuèmài 血脈 (“blood-line”) genre, compiled and supplemented (zēngbǔ 增補) by Zàoxuán 造玄, a late-Tang Esoteric ācārya at the Cíēnsì 慈恩寺 in the Chángān Zuǒjiē 左街. Preserved as X59 no. 1074 in the Xùzàngjīng.
Prefaces
The opening colophon precisely dates the work: Dà Táng Xiántōng liù nián bā yuè shí qī rì Chángānchéng zuǒjiē Cíēnsì Zàoxuán āshélí fùshǔ shīzī xuèmài 大唐咸通六年八月十七日長安城左街慈恩寺造玄阿闍梨付屬師資血脉 — “Great Tang, Xiántōng 6, eighth month, seventeenth day, Chángān-city Left-Ward Cíēnsì, ācārya Zàoxuán entrusts the master-and-disciple blood-line.” This corresponds to 8 September 865 CE.
Abstract
The Xuèmài presents the parallel lineages of the two Esoteric schools:
- Garbhadhātu (Tāizàngjiè 胎藏界): beginning with Dàrì 大日 (Mahāvairocana) at the source.
- Vajradhātu (Jīngāngjiè 金剛界): beginning with the parallel transmission.
The work parallels Jīntāi liǎngjiè shīzī xiāngchéng 金胎兩界師資相承 (KR6j0748) by 海雲 but with the substantial advantage of an explicit transmission-date (865 CE), making it one of the most precisely-datable Tang Esoteric lineage documents. The format — fùshǔ shīzī xuèmài “entrusted master-and-disciple blood-line” — is the formal Esoteric ritual document of lineage-transmission: each named master in the chain has officially “entrusted” his lineage to the next, and the document constitutes the institutional record of that transmission.
Translations and research
- Charles Orzech et al., eds., Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia (Brill, 2011).
Other points of interest
The 865 CE date places the Xuèmài near the very end of the active Tang Esoteric school’s institutional life, before the Huìchāng persecution of 845 had scattered the school’s residential establishment (though the Chángān Cíēnsì had survived as one of the principal institutional refuges). Zàoxuán’s 865 lineage record is therefore one of the last major documents from the late-Tang Esoteric establishment.