Ākāśagarbha (,

Standard Tibetan Lhasa Tibetan (), or Standard Tibetan, is the Tibetan dialect spoken by educated people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China. It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region. In the traditional "three-branc ...

''Namkha'i Nyingpo'', Vietnamese ''Hư Không Tạng Bồ Tát'') is a

bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva ( ; sa, 𑀩𑁄𑀥𑀺𑀲𑀢𑁆𑀢𑁆𑀯 (Brahmī), translit=bodhisattva, label=Sanskrit) or bodhisatva is a person who is on the path towards bodhi ('awakening') or Buddhahood. In the Early Buddhist schools ...

in Chinese, Japanese 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, the ...

who is associated with the great element (''

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

'') of space ( ''ākāśa''). He is also sometimes called Gaganagañja, which means "sky-jewel."

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 ( sa, क्षितिगर्भ, , bo, ས་ཡི་སྙིང་པོ་ 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 t ...

, 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 o ...

''.

Kūkai Kūkai (; 27 July 774 – 22 April 835Kūkai was born in 774, the 5th year of the Hōki era; his exact date of birth was designated as the fifteenth day of the sixth month of the Japanese lunar calendar, some 400 years later, by the Shingon se ...

, the founder of

Shingon Buddhism Shingon monks at Mount Koya is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra. Kn ...

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

mantra A mantra ( Pali: ''manta'') or mantram (मन्त्रम्) is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound, a syllable, word or phonemes, or group of words in Sanskrit, Pali and other languages believed by practitioners to have religious, ...

of Ākāśagarbha as a young Buddhist acolyte. Kūkai took a tutorial with him on Kokuzou-Gumonji (a secret doctorine 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, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdom ...

to seek understanding of the '' Mahāvairocana Abhisaṃbodhi Sūtra''. Later he would go to China to learn Tangmi from Huiguo, and then go on to found the Shingon sect of esoteric buddhism in Heian Japan.

Sutras

There are several

Mahāyāna sūtras The Mahāyāna sūtras are a broad genre of Buddhist scriptures (''sūtra'') that are accepted as canonical and as ''buddhavacana'' ("Buddha word") in Mahāyāna Buddhism. They are largely preserved in the Chinese Buddhist canon, the Tibet ...

in which Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva is a central figure: *《大集大虚空藏菩薩所問經》 (''Ārya Gaganagañja Paripṛcchā Nāma Mahāyāna Sūtra'' T.0404) *《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 tradition, he was ...

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 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 5, five or number 5 may also refer to: * AD 5, the fifth year of the AD era * 5 BC, the fifth year before the AD era Literature * ''5'' (visual novel), a 2008 visual novel by Ram * ''5'' (comics), an awar ...

. 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 (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

): Nāmo xūkōngzàng púsà *Japanese ( Romanji): Namu Kokuzō bosatsu *Korean: Namu Heogongjang Bosal *Vietnamese: Nam mô Hư Không Tạng Bồ Tát *Translation: Homage to Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva Another mantra also exists for Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva: *Sanskrit: namo ākāśagarbhaya oṃ ārya kamari mauli svāhā *Traditional Chinese: 南牟，阿迦捨，揭婆耶，唵，阿唎，迦麼唎，慕唎，莎嚩訶 *Chinese (

): Nánmóu, ājiāshě, jiēpóyé, ǎn, ālì, jiāmelì, mùlì, shāmóhē *Japanese ( Romanji): nōbō akyasha kyarabaya om arikya mari bori sowaka *Translation: In the name of ākāśa-garbhāya Om Flower-Garland Lotus-Crown may it be accomplished

References

20100716 Nara Todaiji Kokuzo Bosatsu 2293

Bibliography

* * * * Visser, M. W. de (1931). The Bodhisattva Akasagarbha (Kokuzo) in China and Japan, Amsterdam: The Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences.

External links

English Translation of the ''Ākāśagarbha Sūtra'' from the Tibetan on 84000

Gumonji : A possible cure for memory loss
The Japan Times
Japanese Buddhist Statuary: Kokuzo
{{Authority control Bodhisattvas Buddhist tantras Buddhist mantras