Ākāśagarbha (,

Standard Tibetan Lhasa Tibetan or Standard Tibetan is a standardized dialect of Tibetan spoken by the people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region. In the traditional "three-branched" ...

: ''Namkha'i Nyingpo'') is a

bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who has attained, or is striving towards, '' bodhi'' ('awakening', 'enlightenment') or Buddhahood. Often, the term specifically refers to a person who forgoes or delays personal nirvana or ''bodhi'' in ...

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

and

Korean Buddhism Korean Buddhism is distinguished from other forms of Buddhism by its attempt to resolve what its early practitioners saw as inconsistencies within the Mahayana Buddhist traditions that they received from foreign countries. To address this, they ...

who is associated with the great element (''

mahābhūta ''Mahābhūta'' is Sanskrit for "great element". However, very few scholars define the five mahābhūtas in a broader sense as the five fundamental aspects of physical reality. Hinduism In Hinduism's sacred literature, the "great" elements ...

'') of space ( ''ākāśa'').

Overview

Ākāśagarbha is regarded as one of the eight great bodhisattvas. His name can be translated as "boundless space treasury" or "void store" as his wisdom is said to be boundless as space itself. He is sometimes known as the twin brother of the "earth store" bodhisattva

Kṣitigarbha Kṣitigarbha (, , Wylie: ''sa yi snying po'') is a bodhisattva primarily revered in East Asian Buddhism and usually depicted as a Buddhist monk. His name may be translated as "Earth Treasury", "Earth Store", "Earth Matrix", or "Earth Womb". ...

, and is even briefly mentioned in the ''

Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva Pūrvapraṇidhāna Sūtra The ''Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva Pūrvapraṇidhāna Sūtra'' (Sanskrit, ''Sutra of the Fundamental Vows of the Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha;'' ) or ''Kṣitigarbhasūtra'' is a Mahāyāna sūtra teaching about the bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha and is ...

''. Associated with the qualities of Gautama Buddha, he is able to purify transgressions.

Kūkai , born posthumously called , was a Japanese Buddhist monk, calligrapher, and poet who founded the Vajrayana, esoteric Shingon Buddhism, Shingon school of Buddhism. He travelled to China, where he studied Tangmi (Chinese Vajrayana Buddhism) und ...

, the founder of

Shingon Buddhism is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asian Buddhism. It is a form of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism and is sometimes called "Tōmitsu" (東密 lit. "Esoteric uddhismof Tō-j ...

, met a famous monk who is said to have repeatedly chanted a

mantra A mantra ( ; Pali: ''mantra'') or mantram (Devanagari: मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words (most often in an Indo-Iranian language like Sanskrit or Avestan) belie ...

of Ākāśagarbha as a young Buddhist acolyte. Kūkai took a tutorial with him on Kokuzou-Gumonji (a secret doctrine method, 虚空蔵求聞持法). As he chanted the mantra, he experienced a vision whereby Ākāśagarbha told him to go to

Tang China The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

to seek understanding of the '' Mahāvairocana Abhisaṃbodhi Sūtra''. Later he would go to China to learn

Tangmi Chinese Esoteric Buddhism refers to traditions of Tantra and Esoteric Buddhism that have flourished among the Chinese people. The Tantric masters Śubhakarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra, established the Esoteric Buddhist ''Zhenyan'' (, "true ...

from

Huiguo Huiguo () (746–805) was a Buddhist monk of Tang China who studied and taught Chinese Esoteric Buddhism, a Vajrayana tradition recently imported from India. Later Huiguo would become the teacher of Kūkai, founder of Shingon Buddhism, a promine ...

, and then go on to found the Shingon sect of esoteric Buddhism in Heian Japan.

Sutras

There are several

Mahāyāna sūtras The Mahayana sutras are Buddhist texts that are accepted as wikt:canon, canonical and authentic Buddhist texts, ''buddhavacana'' in Mahayana, Mahayana Buddhist sanghas. These include three types of sutras: Those spoken by the Buddha; those spoke ...

in which Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva is a central figure: *《虛空藏菩薩經》 (''Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva Sūtra'' T.405) *《佛説虚空藏菩薩神呪經》(''Buddha Speaks the Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva Dhāraṇī Sūtra'' T.406) *《虛空藏菩薩神呪經》(''Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva Dhāraṇī Sūtra'' T.0407) *《虛空孕菩薩經》 (''Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva Sūtra'' T.0408) *《觀虚空藏菩薩經》(''The Meditation on Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva Sūtra'' T.0409) *《虚空藏菩薩能滿諸願最勝心陀羅尼求聞持法》(''The Method of the Victorious, Essential Dharāṇi for Having Wishes Heard by the Bodhisattva Space-Store Who Can Fulfill Requests'' T.1145) *《大虚空藏菩薩念誦法》 (''The Method of Invoking the Great Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva '' T.1146) *《聖虛空藏菩薩陀羅尼經》 (''Dhāraṇī of the Space-Store Bodhisattva'' T.1147) *《佛説虚空藏陀羅尼》 (''Buddha Speaks the Ākāśagarbha Dharāṇi''　T.1148) *《五大虚空藏菩薩速疾大神驗祕密式經》(''The Five Great Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattvas Sūtra'' T.1149) *《虛空藏菩薩問七佛陀羅尼呪經》(''Ārya Saptabuddhaka Sūtra'' or ''Dhāraṇī of the Space-Store Bodhisattvaʼs Questions to Seven Buddhas'' T.1333) *《如來方便善巧呪經》 (''Incantation of the Tathāgatas' Skillful Means'' T.1334) Additionally, he appears briefly in the final chapter of the ''

'', requesting

the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist lege ...

preach on the benefits of praising both the Sūtra and Kṣitigarbha.

Five Great Ākāśagarbhas

The Five Great Ākāśagarbhas are manifestation of the

Five Wisdom Buddhas 5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. Humans, and many other animals, have 5 digits on their limbs. Mathematics 5 is a Fermat pri ...

. They are said to bring about an increase of benefits such as good health. Within the traditional mandala, they are arranged as follows: Akasagarbha at Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum

Akasagarbha at Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum

Mantras

The

of Ākāśagarbha is believed to give rise to wisdom and creativity, and dispel ignorance. *Traditional Chinese: 南無虚空藏菩薩 *Chinese (

Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

): *Japanese (

Rōmaji The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as . Japanese is normally written in a combination of logogram, logographic characters borrowe ...

): *Korean: *Vietnamese: *Translation: Homage to Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva The "morning star mantra" is a common mantra practiced in

. It is most often used as part of the Gumonjihō rite that is said to improve one's memory of the teachings and is derived from a sutra called ''Kokūzō Bosatsu nō man shogan saishō shin darani gumonji hō'' 虛空藏菩薩能滿諸願最勝心陀羅尼求聞持法 (Taishō Canon #1145). This mantra is: *Sanskrit: *Traditional Chinese: 南無，阿迦捨，揭婆耶，唵，阿唎，迦麼唎，慕唎，莎嚩訶 *Chinese (

): *Japanese (

): *Translation: Homage to Ākāśagarbha, Om - Crown of the Noble Enemy of

Kāma ''Kama'' (Sanskrit: काम, ) is the concept of pleasure, enjoyment and desire in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. It can also refer to "desire, wish, longing" in Hindu texts, Hindu, Buddhist texts, Buddhist, Jain literature, Jai ...

- svāhā

References

20100716 Nara Todaiji Kokuzo Bosatsu 2293

Sources

* *

External links

* ttps://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2011/03/12/our-lives/a-possible-cure-for-memory-loss/#.UWT6SFbI8Wx Gumonji: A possible cure for memory lossThe Japan Times
Japanese Buddhist Statuary: Kokuzo
{{Authority control Bodhisattvas Buddhist tantras Buddhist mantras Ākāśagarbha Buddhism in China Chinese gods