仁王護國般若波羅蜜多經疏 3.49

3.49

Exposition: 'In the charnel ground' refers to the dwelling place. 'Mahā' is translated here as 'great.' 'Kāla' is translated here as 'black deity.' The upper segment is the Sanskrit phrase, and the lower segment is the Chinese meaning. The great black celestial deity is a deity of battle. If one worships this deity, it increases one's awe-inspiring power, and all endeavors end in victory; hence he made sacrifices to it. How is this known? The tripiṭaka master cited another Sanskrit pothi, saying: The *Mahāmāyūrī Sūtra* says that east of the royal city of the country of Uśīnara there is a forest named Śmaśāna, translated here as charnel forest. This forest is a full yojana in extent, and within it is the great black celestial deity, who is an emanation body of Maheśvara. Together with an immeasurable retinue of ghosts and spirits, he constantly roams through the forest at night. Possessing great spiritual power and abundant rare treasures, he has medicine for invisibility and medicine for longevity, roams and flies through the sky, and trades various magical medicines with humans, taking only the flesh and blood of living persons, measuring the weight in advance before trading the medicine and such. If a person wishes to go there, they must first empower their own body with a dhāraṇī and only then go to trade; if they do not empower themselves, those ghosts and spirits will make themselves invisible and steal the person's flesh and blood to reduce the weight. They then take the flesh and blood from that person's body; as soon as it is taken it is exhausted, failing to fulfill the previous agreement, even to the point of exhausting the entire person's flesh and blood without fulfilling the weight, so the medicine cannot be obtained. If one has empowered oneself, one trades for jewels, medicines, and the like, and whatever one desires will all be accomplished. If one makes sacrifices to him, it must be only human flesh and blood. Since he has great power, he protects people so that their deeds become heroic and they triumph in battles and other arts. Therefore, the great black celestial deity is indeed a deity of battle. As the *Damamūka-nidāna Sūtra* speaks of sacrificing to rākṣasas, the *King Samantaprabha Sūtra* speaks of taking one hundred kings to sacrifice to a tree spirit, and the *Lion's Severance of Meat Sūtra* speaks of taking one hundred kings to sacrifice to a mountain spirit, each follows its own text. From here, the second part explains his obtaining the thousand kings. In this there are two parts: first, obtaining the various kings and so on.