606 henrik h. sørensen
sūtra^27 and the apocryphal Beidou qisheng yanming jing
(Scripture of the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper Extending
Life),^28 in which the seven stars of the Great Dipper are invoked.^29
Probably the most important ritual meant to dispel the influence
from the planets and the other astral spirits was the so-called Sojae
toryang , or ritual for averting calamities. It is not clear what
exactly this ritual involved in terms of actual proceedings, but it is
clear that it was performed in response to signs and omens in the
sky, that is, it was directly connected with the movements of the plan-
ets and the constellations.^30 Korean scholars have argued that the cult
of the stellar Buddha Tejaprabha,^31 or Buddha of the Golden Wheel,
based on the Da weide jinlun foding Chishengguang rulai xiaochu yiqie
zainan tuoluoni jing
(Sūtra of the Great Majestic and Virtuous Golden Wheel Us ṇ̣īsa ̣
Tejaprabha Tathāgata Averting All Calamities and Hardships Dhāraṇī)
and the Chi shengguang da weide xiaozai jiyang tuoluoni jing
(Tejaprabha Great Majestic and Virtuous
Averting Calamities Auspicious Dhāraṇī Sūtra; T. 963),^32 constituted
the textual basis of this ritual.^33
(^27) T. 1140. This scripture was one of many translated by Faxian under impe-
rial auspices in the Northern Song. See Orzech, “Translation of Tantras and other
Esoteric Buddhist scriptures,” in this volume.^
(^28) T. 1307. It is not known when this scripture was first introduced to Korea. In any
case it was not included in any of the Korean Tripiṭakas, and may have been intro-
duced separately. The earliest extant version of this scripture dates from the middle
of the Chosŏn dynasty.
(^29) The Seven Stars as a special longevity cult in Korean Buddhism probably goes
back to the late Unified Silla. During the Chosŏn dynasty it became very popular,
and remains so even today. See Sørensen 1995c. For a study of the scripture see
Franke, “The Taoist Elements in the Buddhist Great Bear Sūtra (Pei-tou ching),” 1990:
75-111. 30
The Sŏngbyŏn soje so (Prayer for Averting Calamities [Caused by]
the Planetary Transformations), a panegyric composed on the occasion of a Buddhist
ritual to be held at the Koryŏ court, provides some insight into the practical aspects of
the Tejaprabha cult during the second half of the dynasty (cf. 31 HPC vol. 6, 892a).
Cf. T. 964. The version of T. 963 was supposedly translated by Amoghavajra. For
examples among the Dunhuang manuscripts, cf. P. 2194 and P. 2382. This apocryphal
scripture was known in Korea, at least from the eleventh century onwards, and is
included in Lancaster et al. 1979, entry K 1171. For more on astral cults see Sørensen,
“Astrology and Worship of the Planets in Esoteric Buddhism of the Tang,” in this
volume. 32
See Sørensen, “Astrology and Worship of the Planets in Esoteric Buddhism of
the Tang,” in this volume. 33
According to the statistics based on data compiled from the KS, the ritual for
averting calamities was one of the most frequently performed rituals at the Koryŏ
court. See Sørensen 1997a, 7–9 and Chŏng 1986, 298–299.