Dìzàng cíbēi jiùkǔ jiànfú lìshēng dàochǎng yí 地藏慈悲救苦薦福利生道場儀
Ritual Manual for the Kṣitigarbha-Compassion Suffering-Rescue Merit-Recommending Life-Benefit Sacred Assembly compiled by 釋元照 (集); critical edition by 趙文煥 (整理) and 侯沖 (整理)
About the work
A Chinese Buddhist dào-chǎng-yí 道場儀 in four fascicles, structured around the Dìzàng púsà běn-yuàn jīng 地藏菩薩本願經 (T13n0412, Kṣitigarbha-praṇidhāna-sūtra) translated by Śikṣānanda 實叉難陀 in the late 7th c. The four fascicles are: two of yí-wén 儀文 (“ritual text proper”), one of tí-gāng 提綱 (“topical outline”), and one of mì-jiào 密教 (“esoteric instructions”). In actual ritual performance the yí-wén, tí-gāng, and mì-jiào are interleaved, and at every chapter-marker the corresponding chapter of the Dìzàng-jīng is chanted. The work is among the most representative surviving Chinese Buddhist dào-chǎng-yí.
Abstract
The text is recorded in no Buddhist catalog and entered no canonical edition. Authorship is ascribed to a Sòng-period monk Yuánzhào 元照. The most famous Sòng Yuánzhào — Língzhī Yuánzhào 靈芝元照 (1048–1116) — was a Vinaya specialist of the TiāntáiLǜ school and is not closely associated with Dìzàng devotion; whether this is the same person, a different Sòng monk, or a regional Yúnnán pseudo-attribution remains undetermined. The composition window is therefore conservatively bracketed by the Sòng dynasty (960–1279) until further evidence settles the question.
The Zàngwài edition uses a Kāngxī 37 (1698) hand-copy held by Zhào Wénhuàn (Yúnnán Buddhist Association) as the base copy, with two further copies — a Dìzàng cíbēi jiùkǔ jiànfú lìshēng dàochǎng gāngyào 道場綱要 manuscript and a Jiànfú lìshēng cíbēi jiùkǔ Dìzàng zūnjīng mìjiào juàn shàng 卷上 (both from the Yán Guāng 延光 居士 collection at Yùxī, Yúnnán) — as collation copies (jiǎ 甲 and yǐ 乙).
Translations and research
- Hou Chong 侯沖, Yúnnán Āzhālì jiào-pài jí qí jīngdiǎn yán-jiū (Beijing: Zhōngguó shū-jí, 2008).
- Zhāng Zǒng 張總, Dìzàng púsà yán-jiū 地藏菩薩研究 (Beijing: Zōngjiào wénhuà, 2003) — comprehensive study of Dìzàng devotion in China, with attention to ritual literature.
- de Visser, M. W., The Bodhisattva Ti-tsang (Jizō) in China and Japan (Berlin: Oesterheld, 1914) — older but still consulted.
- Stevenson, Daniel B., “Buddhist Ritual in the Song,” in Modern Chinese Religion I: Song-Liao-Jin-Yuan (Leiden: Brill, 2015) — context for Sòng-period Buddhist ritual literature.
Other points of interest
The four-fold structure (yíwén + tígāng + mìjiào + sūtra-chanting) of this manual — the integration of doctrinal-narrative, scholastic-outline, esoteric-tantric, and scriptural-recitation registers in one performance — is a hallmark of the Yúnnán Āzhālì ritual style. Comparison with the parallel ritual literature for the Léngyán (KR6v0063) and the Jīngāngjīng (KR6v0065) shows the same compositional template applied to different host scriptures.