Gāowáng Guānshìyīn jīng 高王觀世音經
Sūtra of Avalokiteśvara of King Gāo Anonymous Chinese composition.
About the work
A short Avalokiteśvara protective-cult scripture that became one of the most widely circulated and continuously transmitted devotional texts in East Asian Buddhism. The sūtra opens with a triple invocation of the Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha, then bursts into a litany of Buddha-names interspersed with the prajñāpāramitā mantra (“…the great-spirit-mantra, the great-bright-mantra, the unsurpassed mantra, the unequalled mantra…”). Recitation is promised to bring deliverance from execution, ban-and-imprisonment, and bodily harm — the cult-functional setting that anchors the text in the popular Buddhism of the Northern Dynasties and beyond.
Abstract
The Gāowáng Guānshìyīn jīng is among the most famous Chinese Buddhist apocrypha and has the most well-documented origin legend of any text in this category. According to the Wèi shū 魏書 and to several Buddhist hagiographic sources (notably Fáyuàn zhūlín 法苑珠林, juan 17), the text was revealed to the Northern Wèi official Sūn Jìngdé 孫敬德 (alt. Lú Jǐngyù 盧景裕) while imprisoned and condemned to death; he received the text from a bhikṣu (or, in some recensions, from Avalokiteśvara herself) in a dream and recited it a thousand times, whereupon the executioner’s blade broke in three pieces and Sūn was pardoned. The same legend attaches the text’s name to the executed-and-revived “Gāowáng” King Gāo Huān 高歡 (or Gāo Cháng 高昌) — sources differ on which Gāo is meant. The Wèi-dynasty origin story dates the text to the early-mid 6th century. It is the only Chinese apocryphon preserved in the regular Dàzàngjīng AND with continuous popular circulation through the 20th century. Cataloguers from the Suí onward classify it as 偽妄 but recognise its prestige; modern liturgical editions (Taiwanese, Hong Kong, and PRC Buddhist circles) still include it as a standard recitation.
Translations and research
- Robert F. Campany, “Notes on the Devotional Uses and Symbolic Functions of Sūtra Texts as Depicted in Early Chinese Buddhist Miracle Tales and Hagiographies,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 14.1 (1991): 28–72.
- Chün-fang Yü, Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokiteśvara (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001) — extensive treatment.
- Makita Tairyō 牧田諦亮, Gikyō kenkyū 疑經研究 (Kyōto: Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūsho, 1976) — sustained chapter on this text.
- Suì Mèngdé 隋夢得, Gāowáng Guānshìyīn jīng yánjiū 高王觀世音經研究 (Beijing).
Other points of interest
Continues to be a standard Chinese-Buddhist devotional text in Taiwan and the PRC. The pious story of Sūn Jìngdé’s miraculous deliverance is itself preserved in the Wèi shū, a rare instance of an apocryphal Buddhist text’s origin being attested in a standard Chinese dynastic history.