Zhuǎn fēimìng yè chāo 轉非命業抄
Compendium on the Transformation of Non-Life-Span Karma by 賢覺 (抄)
About the work
A single-fascicle doctrinal-ritual treatise on the transformation of life-shortening karma through the Vajrāyus / Vajra-Longevity mantra-practice. The work is by Genkaku 賢覺 of Daigo-ji 醍醐寺, and the header explicitly attributes it: “Compendium by Daigo Genkaku Hōgen (賢覺法眼) of Daigo[-ji].”
Abstract
Authorship and dating: Genkaku (CANWWW AUT01117) bore the rank of Hōgen 法眼 (“Dharma-eye,” the second-highest monastic rank below Sōjō); he was active at Daigo-ji in the late Heian period. notBefore = 1110, notAfter = 1156 brackets a defensible composition window within his mature career.
Doctrinal content: the work opens with the Vajra-Longevity mantra in Sanskrit transliteration — Oṃ vajra-āyuṣe svāhā (唵 縛日羅二合喩矖 娑嚩二合引賀引) — and quotes the scriptural authority from which the practice derives: “The Buddha said to the Executive Vajra Bodhisattva: if there be a son or daughter of good family who upholds and recites [this mantra] three times daily, a thousand recitations each time, the past evil-karmic causes-and-conditions of short-life and premature-death will, through holding this dhāraṇī, be extinguished — and the faith-mind will become pure, the karmic obstacles destroyed, and the life-span further increased.”
The substance of the work is then organized as a sequence of doctrinal-ritual wèndá (問答) pairs:
- Q1. What is meant by “the faith-mind becoming pure” (信心清淨)? A1. Practitioners fall into two classes: the faith-pure and the faith-firm. The faith-pure are those whose faith-mind is so steadfast that not a single moment of doubt-disturbance arises — citing the Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya: “Faith is what causes the mind to become clear and tranquil,” and its commentary: “As the crystal jewel can clarify muddied water, so the jewel-of-faith in the mind causes the mind to become clear and tranquil.” The compiler then offers his own analogy: as a pool of clear water has not a drop of mud, so faith-cleansed accomplishment-of-the-rite (信心清淨悉地即成).
- Q2. If the faith-mind is pure and one recites this longevity mantra, will one extend one’s life to a hundred years? A2. The sūtra speaks of “transforming the non-life-span karma,” so the life-span is increased, and one is freed forever from the fear of premature death and short-life. By this passage, one may indeed retain life to a hundred years. The Buddha appeared in the world when human life-spans were a hundred years; the True Dharma age lasted a thousand years and the Semblance Dharma age another thousand, throughout which human life-span did not diminish; though we have now entered the Final Dharma age, the period elapsed is still short, so the human life-span is still close to a hundred years. Even in our own time there are those who reach a hundred years.
The work is one of the most important late-Heian Shingon treatments of the karmic-longevity question — i.e. whether and how mantra-practice can intervene in the operation of karmic determinism on the duration of life.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
- The Vajra-Longevity practice is treated in Charles Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom (1998), and in Japanese studies of the Daigo-ji enmei-hō 延命法 tradition.
Links
- CBETA: T78n2481
- DILA authority: A001117 (賢覺)
- Related: the Yìshì jīngāng shòumìng tuóluóní jīng 一切如來金剛壽命陀羅尼經 (T19n1135) — the principal scriptural source of the Vajrāyus practice.