Chángjiǎng Jīnguāngmíng jīng huìshì 長講金光明經會式
Liturgy for the Long-Recitation Assembly of the Suvarṇaprabhāsa-sūtra by 最澄 (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle liturgical manual for the institutional Long-Recitation Assembly of the Suvarṇaprabhāsa-sūtra (《金光明經》, Jīn-guāng-míng jīng) established by Saichō 最澄 (Dengyō Daishi, 767–822) at Hiei-zan. The work is the second of three companion liturgies (with KR6t0061 for the Lotus and KR6t0063 for the Renwang prajñā) which together constitute the Three-Sūtra-Protection (三經護國) liturgical complex of the Tendai school — the three sūtras whose state-protecting power undergirds the Heian doctrinal-political vision of Buddhism.
Abstract
Authorship and date are securely fixed by the colophon: “Long-Recitation Suvarṇaprabhāsa-Sūtra Liturgy ended. Kōnin 4, 6th month, [no day]. Vow-Lord (願主) Saichō, recorded.” Kōnin 4 = 813 CE.
The liturgy opens with the Triple-Hall Triple-Obeisance Verse (參堂三禮頌): “The one who venerates and the one venerated are originally of empty nature; the influence-response interpenetration is inconceivable. My ritual place is like the Indra-jewel net: the ten-direction Buddhas all reflected within. My body too is reflected before all Buddhas — head, face, and foot, I take refuge in obeisance.” This is the canonical opening obeisance for Tendai raisan (禮讚) rituals, drawn from the Avataṃsaka doctrine of mutual-interpenetration of the Indra-net.
The body of the rite proceeds with: (1) the Triple Refuge (三歸); (2) the Brahma-Voice Verse (梵音頌) of offering; (3) the Tathāgata-Praise Verse (如來唄); (4) the Flower-Scattering Verse (散華頌) particular to the Suvarṇaprabhāsa: “The Suvarṇaprabhāsa drum issues marvellous sound, pervading the three-thousand-great-thousand-world; it can extinguish the gravest sins of the three destinies, and human-world sufferings as well.” The recitation then turns to the invocation of the Five Tathāgatas (Śākyamuni as Dharma-realm Master; Bhaiṣajyaguru as Image-Dharma Master; Akṣobhya, Ratnaketu, Amitāyus, Dundubhi-svara — the four directional Buddhas as “entering-into-the-state-protection” tathāgatas), and to the invocation of the state-protecting deities of the Suvarṇaprabhāsa: Sarasvatī, Śrī-mahādevī, the Earth-deity Dṛḍhā, the great general Saṅkhepa, Hārītī, Mahākāla, the Country-Protecting Good Deities, and the Suvarṇaprabhāsa’s “expounding-host” the Bodhisattva Faith-Aspect 信相菩薩.
The rite climaxes with a long directional invocation of the Buddhas of each cardinal direction, leading to the kuṣalānumoditā (rejoicing-in-merit) section, an exposition of the Suvarṇaprabhāsa’s Confession Chapter (懺悔品), and a closing dedication that turns the merit toward (1) the Three Treasures, (2) the imperial state (the Kōnin Emperor’s “body of jade and life of jewel”), the imperial court, the Spring Palace princes, the imperial consorts, the great ministers, the bunmu officials, and (3) the protector-deities of Mt. Hiei.
The Suvarṇaprabhāsa had been a state-protection sūtra in Japan from the Tenpyō-Shōhō era (it is the canonical text for the gokoku rite that Genbō and Rōben had performed at the imperial court in the 8th century); Saichō’s innovation is to establish a regular long-recitation cycle of the sūtra at Hiei-zan, separate from the imperial-court ceremonies, making the merit a permanent ongoing offering rather than an occasional rite.
Translations and research
- No complete Western-language translation located.
- Paul Groner, Saichō: The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2000), for the Tendai institutional setting.
- Ronald M. Davidson, “Studies in Dhāraṇī Literature II: Pragmatics of Dhāraṇīs,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 77 (2014): 5–61, for the Suvarṇaprabhāsa’s ritual function.
- R. E. Emmerick, The Sutra of Golden Light (London: Pali Text Society, 1970), translation of the Sanskrit Suvarṇabhāsottama-sūtra.
Other points of interest
The rite’s particular emphasis on Mt. Hiei’s local protector-deities (比叡山王 Hiezan-ō) alongside the canonical state-protectors of the Suvarṇaprabhāsa is one of the earliest documented instances of the honji-suijaku mapping at the institutional core of Tendai: the local Sannō deities are explicitly aligned with the sūtra’s universal protectors as their suijaku manifestations.