Hùshēnmìng jīng 護身命經
Sūtra for Protecting Body and Life Anonymous Chinese composition; survives in the Dūnhuáng manuscript Pelliot chinois 2340.
About the work
A short apocryphal sūtra in one fascicle, framed as a final injunction delivered by the Buddha at the parinirvāṇa between the twin śāla trees. It promises that recitation, copying, or carrying of the text on one’s person will avert demonic harassment, illness, sudden death, banditry, fire, water, and judicial calamity. The cultic core is two short name-lists: the seven Buddhas of the past (Vipaśyin through Śākyamuni) and six protective spirits (Bōnàiluó 波奈羅, Jiānàiluó 迦奈羅, Chántuójiā 禪吒迦, Qínjiā 勤迦, Mótóu 摩頭, Móqí 摩祁), recitation of whose names is presented as a wholesale exorcistic remedy.
Abstract
The Tàishō text reproduces Pelliot chinois 2340 (Bibliothèque nationale de France), a Dūnhuáng manuscript copied by the bǐqiū Dàozhēn 道真 of the Sānjiè Temple 三界寺 — the same scribe-monk attested in many late-Táng / Five Dynasties Dūnhuáng colophons. The text is unattested in pre-Suí scriptural catalogues; cataloguers from Fǎjīng 法經 (《眾經目錄》, 594) onward classify scriptures of the Hùshēnmìng type as 偽 (“forged”). The work belongs to the family of short protective sūtras (護身, 救護) that proliferated under the Northern Dynasties and Suí–Táng in tandem with apocryphal Buddha-name lists; the seven-Buddhas-of-the-past litany is borrowed wholesale from canonical sources but the six-spirit list is unique to this text and its variant T2866. Makita Tairyō (1976) treats it as a representative zhòubù 咒部-style apocryphon. KR6u0002 (T2866) is a divergent recension of the same scripture, copied from a manuscript in the Nakamura collection — see the cross-reference note in CANWWW ([[KR6u0002]]).
Translations and research
- Makita Tairyō 牧田諦亮, Gikyō kenkyū 疑經研究 (Kyōto: Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūsho, 1976) — foundational survey, situates the Hùshēnmìng jīng among Northern-Dynasties protective apocrypha.
- Robert E. Buswell, Jr., ed., Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1990) — methodological framework; individual essays cover related Dūnhuáng apocrypha.
- Kuo Li-ying, Confession et contrition dans le bouddhisme chinois du Ve au Xe siècle (Paris: EFEO, 1994) — context on protective and confessional apocrypha.
Other points of interest
The colophon line “界 比丘道真” identifies the text as a Sānjiè Temple copy; Dàozhēn’s restoration activities at Dūnhuáng are dated to the mid-tenth century, but the sūtra’s composition is considerably earlier — likely Suí or early Táng — and the manuscript is only the surviving witness, not the date of composition.
Links
- CBETA
- IDP record for P.2340
- Cf. KR6u0002 (T85n2866, parallel recension)