Vajrabodhi
| English Phonetics | Vajrabodhi |
|---|---|
| Sort Name | Vajrabodhi |
| Birth: | 671 |
|---|---|
| Death: | 741 |
Tibetan calendar dates
Biographical Information
Vajrabodhi. (C. Jingangzhi; J. Kongōchi; K. Kǔmgangji 金剛智) (671-741). Indian ācārya who played a major role in the introduction and translation in China of seminal Buddhist texts belonging to the esoteric tradition or Mijiao . . .; also known as Vajramati. His birthplace and family background are uncertain, although one source says that he was a south Indian native whose brāhmaṇa father served as a teacher of an Indian king. At the age of nine, he is said to have gone to the renowned Indian monastic university of Nālandā, where he studied various texts of both the abhidharma and Mahāyāna traditions. Vajrabodhi also learned the different vinaya recensions of the eighteen mainstream Buddhist schools. It is said that Vajrabodhi spent the years 701–708 in Southern India, where he received tantric initiation at the age of thirty-one from Nāgabodhi (d.u.), a south Indian mahāsiddha of the Vajraśekhara line. He later traveled to Sri Lanka and then to Śrīvijaya before sailing to China, eventually arriving in the eastern Tang capital of Luoyang in 720. In 721, Vajrabodhi and his famed disciple Amoghavajra arrived in the western capital of Chang’an. Under the patronage of Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–756), Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra translated the Vajraśekharasūtra and other related texts. Vajrabodhi devoted his energy and time to spreading tantric Buddhism by establishing the abhiṣeka or initiation platforms and performing esoteric rituals. In particular, Vajrabodhi was popular as a thaumaturge; his performance of the rituals for rainmaking and curing diseases gained him favor at the imperial court; he even gave tantric initiation to the Tang emperor Xuanzong. During his more than twenty years in China, Vajrabodhi introduced about twenty texts belonging to the Vajraśekhara textual line. Vajrabodhi attracted many disciples; the Silla monk Hyech'o (704–87), known for his travel record Wang O Ch'ǒnch'uk kuk ch’ōn ("Record of a Journey to the Five Kingdoms of India"), also studied with him. The Japanese Shingonshū honors Vajrabodhi as the fifth of the eight patriarchs in its lineage, together with Nāgabodhi and Amoghavajra. (Source: "Vajrabodhi." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 952–53. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
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