Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
The Hsiu-yao Ching ( HYC) is a Chinese text on Indian astrology composed in the middle of the eighth century. Its full title can be rendered as 'Good and bad time and day and beneficient and maleficient mansions and planets promulgated by Bodhisattva-Mañjuśrī and other sages'. As the title shows the book is ascribed to the legendary Mañjuśrī and other sages, but the actual author is the Buddhist monk Amoghavajra (A.0.705-774) whose native place was somewhere in north India. His Chinese name Pu-k'ung Ching-kang is a literal translation of the Sanskrit name. Like most of the texts on Buddhist astrology and astronomy, HYC is contained in Vol.21 of the Taisho Tripitaka compiled by the Japanese Buddhist scholars during the Taisho Period (1912-1926). From many corruptions in the texts it seems that the compilers were not much interested in Buddhist astrology and astronomy in general, and that they did not try to secure better manuscripts either. Specifically in the case of HYC they simply based their edition on the text of the Korean Tripitaka and put in the footnotes the variant readings found in the Chinese Tripitaka of the Ming Dynasty.