Vajrabodhi

PersonType	Category:Translators
MainNamePhon	Vajrabodhi
SortName	Vajrabodhi
bio	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.)
YearBirth	671
YearDeath	741
IsInGyatsa	No
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Abhidharma generally refers to the corpus of Buddhist texts which deals with the typological, phenomenological, metaphysical, and epistemological presentation of Buddhist concepts and teachings. The abhidharma teachings present a meta-knowledge of Buddhist sūtras through analytical and systemic schemas and are said to focus on developing wisdom among the three principles of training. The Abhidharma is presented alongside Sūtra and Vinaya as one of the three baskets of the teachings of the Buddha.

Mahāyāna, or the Great Vehicle, refers to the system of Buddhist thought and practice which developed around the beginning of Common Era, focusing on the pursuit of the state of full enlightenment of the Buddha through the realization of the wisdom of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion.

Vinaya refers to the corpus of Buddhist teachings on moral discipline and precepts and is one of the three canonical sets of teachings alongside Sūtra and Abhidharma. It also refers to the monastic tradition which has been passed down since the Buddha's time until our time.

The disciples of the Buddha who aspire to attain individual liberation or nirvāṇa. The final goal of the Hearers is to become an arhat, a state in which one has totally eliminated the inner problems of attachment, hatred and ignorance, the main causes for rebirth in this cycle of existence. There are four stages of a śrāvaka path including eight phases.