Śubhakarasiṃha 14th century, Kamakura, National Museum,Tokyo

Śubhakarasiṃha (637-735 CE) () was an eminent

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

monk and master of

Esoteric Buddhism Vajrayāna ( sa, वज्रयान, "thunderbolt vehicle", "diamond vehicle", or "indestructible vehicle"), along with Mantrayāna, Guhyamantrayāna, Tantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, are names referring t ...

, who arrived in the Chinese capital

Chang'an Chang'an (; ) is the traditional name of Xi'an. The site had been settled since Neolithic times, during which the Yangshao culture was established in Banpo, in the city's suburbs. Furthermore, in the northern vicinity of modern Xi'an, Qin S ...

(now Xi'an) in 716 CE and translated the ', better known as the ''Mahāvairocana Sūtra''. Four years later another master, Vajrabodhi (670-741 CE), and his pupil Amoghavajra (705-775 CE), would arrive and proceeded to translate other scriptures, thus establishing a second esoteric tradition. Along with these other masters, Śubhakarasiṃha was responsible for bringing Esoteric Buddhism to the height of its popularity in China.

Life in India

According to the Chinese sources, Śubhakarasiṃha was born in India as the oldest son of Buddhakara (Fo-shou Wang). Li Hua's ''Shan-wu-wei-hsing-chuang'' states that his family originated in

Magadha Magadha was a region and one of the sixteen sa, script=Latn, Mahajanapadas, label=none, lit=Great Kingdoms of the Second Urbanization (600–200 BCE) in what is now south Bihar (before expansion) at the eastern Ganges Plain. Magadha was ruled ...

. Because of unrest in their native kingdom, they had migrated to Odra (in present-day

Odisha Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of ...

). Modern scholars theorize that Śubhakarasiṃha may have been an ancestor of the Bhauma-Kara dynasty, which ruled in Odisha between 8th and 10th centuries, and whose kings included people named Śubhakara. According to his biography, Śubhakarasiṃha ascended to the throne as king when he was thirteen years old. Although emerging victorious from a power struggle with his older brothers, he turned over his position to his oldest brother and entered the monastic life. He became well known for his supernatural abilities, and finally settled in

Nālandā Nalanda (, ) was a renowned ''mahavihara'' (Buddhist monastic university) in ancient Magadha (modern-day Bihar), India.Emperor Xuanzong of the

Tang Dynasty 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 ...

. It was during this time that he translated several works of Esoteric Buddhism including the '.

With Yixing

According to Robert Sharf,

Chán Chan (; of ), from Sanskrit '' dhyāna'' (meaning " meditation" or "meditative state"), is a Chinese school of Mahāyāna Buddhism. It developed in China from the 6th century CE onwards, becoming especially popular during the Tang and ...

Master

Yi Xing Yi Xing (, 683–727), born Zhang Sui (), was a Chinese astronomer, Buddhist monk, inventor, mathematician, mechanical engineer, and philosopher during the Tang dynasty. His astronomical celestial globe featured a liquid-driven escapement, the ...

(Ch. 一行禅師) was the most eminent of his students. Yixing belonged to the northern school of Chán Buddhism, but this was not seen by

Chinese Buddhist Chinese Buddhism or Han Buddhism ( zh, s=汉传佛教, t=漢傳佛教, p=Hànchuán Fójiào) is a Chinese form of Mahayana Buddhism which has shaped Chinese culture in a wide variety of areas including art, politics, literature, philosophy, ...

culture as being fundamentally different from the esoteric teachings of Śubhakarasiṃha. Around the turn of the eighth century, the northern school was known for its esoteric practices of dhāraṇīs and

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, ...

s.Faure, Bernard (1997) ''The Will to Orthodoxy: A Critical Genealogy of Northern Chan Buddhism'': p. 85

In Shingon Buddhism

Śubhakarasiṃha was the first patriarch of the Shingon teachings in China. Following Śubhakarasiṃha, the lineage is traced to his student Chán Master Yixing, then to

Huiguo Huiguo () (746–805) was a bhikkhu, Buddhist monk of Tang dynasty, 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 Shingo ...

(Ch. 惠果), and finally to

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 ...

( Jp. 空海), who brought the teachings of Śubhakarasiṃha and his translation of the ' to Japan.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Authority control Vajrayana Indian Buddhist monks Indian Buddhist missionaries Monks of Nalanda 8th-century Buddhist monks Shingon Buddhism Tendai 637 births 735 deaths 7th-century Indian monks 8th-century Indian monks