Tāizàngjiè shātài 胎藏界沙汰
Disquisition on the Garbhadhātu by 覺鑁 (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle ritual-doctrinal disquisition by 覺鑁 Kakuban (1095–1144) — a kuden on the Garbhadhātu 胎藏界 (the Womb-Treasury maṇḍala) ritual sequence. The subtitle (付法皇師説) marks it as transmitted on the authority of Hō-ō shi-setsu 法皇師 (the “Dharma-Emperor Master” — likely the retired-emperor monk Shirakawa-in 白河院 or his Shingon-master line) for the one-fascicle abbreviated next-sequence; the work indicates that the two-fascicle expanded next-sequence may be seen separately.
Abstract
Doctrinal framework: the text opens with four hermeneutic readings of the Vajradhātu / Garbhadhātu polarity:
- Shallow gloss (淺略義): the Vajradhātu is deep, the Garbhadhātu is shallow — by reason of the cause-and-fruit are not one doctrine.
- Profound-secret gloss (深祕義): the Garbhadhātu is deep, the Vajradhātu is shallow — the gate of wisdom and gate of principle, the doctrines of subject-of-realisation and object-of-realisation.
- Non-dual gloss (第三義不二): on the total substance there is the function of principle-and-wisdom; this is called Lotus-section / Garbha-realm on the principle side and Vajra-section / Vajra-realm on the wisdom side, with the non-dual Buddha-section as their union.
- Single-substance non-dual gloss (第四義不二一體): there is no temporal priority. Where the Garbha-text is silent the Vajra-text speaks; where the Vajra-text is silent the Garbha-text speaks. Thus by the Garbha-text one knows the Vajra and by the Vajra-text one knows the Garbha. The Vajra-realm contains mantras down to the eight definitive heavens; the Garbha-realm contains mantras for the three evil paths. This is the Shingon-school’s unimaginable secret.
Polemical-historical remark: the work cites the Bodhicitta Treatise (菩提心論) on the nine-residence-mind doctrine of Kūkai and the master-disciple-genealogy of the Esoteric tradition: Mahāvairocana → Vajrasattva → …. Kakuban observes that the Great Master (大師, i.e. Kūkai) called himself Seven-Leaf Ajari 七葉アサリ — i.e., seventh-generation master from Mahāvairocana via Vajrasattva → … → Hui-guo 惠果 (Sòng-style: 青龍惠果). Subsequent generations of inferior students reaching down to the present have been bestowed the Mahāvairocana-Ajari rank; all are thus partial-Ajari. The Single, Non-Shared Great Ajari is Mahāvairocana himself as Vajrasattva, who alone bears no separate-rank-name.
Significance: a key Kakuban gloss on the Vajradhātu / Garbhadhātu doctrinal-and-ritual relation and on the Shingon ācārya-lineage tradition. Closely linked with KR6t0223 and KR6t0224 as a triad of Kakuban shata-genre ritual handbooks.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- For the Garbhadhātu Mahāvairocana-sūtra background see Hodge, Stephen, The Mahā-Vairocana-Abhisaṃbodhi Tantra, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
- van der Veere, Henny, A Study into the Thought of Kōgyō Daishi Kakuban (2000).