Source: Ōchō 1954

• Texts: T0276; 無量義經

Ōchō argues that it is very doubtful that the 無量義經 T276 is a "translation".

The lengthy preface by Liu Qiu 劉虬, preserved in CSZJJ [T2145:55.68a9-c15], is the main source for the ascription in the present Taishō to *Dharmagatayaśas 曇摩伽陀耶舍. Liu says that it was already thought that a scripture of this name existed, but had not yet been transmitted to China, on the basis of a passage in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka. In 齊建元三年 [481] a monk named Huibiao 慧表 (who was originally a "scion of the Jiang bloodline" 生自羗胄, and nephew 從子 of the "impostor emperor" Yao Lüe 偽帝姚略 = Yao Xing 姚興, r. 394-416) went to Canton, where he encountered *Dharmagatayaśas at Chaoting-si 朝亭寺. *Dharmagatayaśas "could write [Chinese] calligraphy in a good hand, and understood the spoken language of Qi" 手能隷書口解齊言, and "wished to transmit/translate this scripture, but did not know to whom" 欲傳此經未知所授. The preface itself is dated the eighteenth of the ninth month, 485 今永明三年九月十八日.

In an article entitled "Muryōgi to wa nani ka 無量義とは何か" published in 1935, Ogiwara Unrai 荻原雲来 raised a number of reasons for qualms about the real nature of this text, including: mixed translation terminology; an otherwise unknown tradition about sitting under the bodhi tree for six years; the presence in the text of an anachronistic panjiao 判教 scheme; phrasing with a "Chinese tang" 支那の臭味; debts to the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka of a type that raises the suspicion T276 was "concocted" on the basis of the former.

Ōchō concentrates on investigating the preface, the historical circumstances under which the text was supposedly translated and promulgated, and possible motives for the composition of the text in China. He regards as dubious the circumstances of both the supposed translator, *Dharmagatayaśas, and of the transmitter, Liu Qiu (author of the preface). Few details are given about *Dharmagatayaśas, except for the assertion that he was from central India. No date is given for the actual translation, and we are not told the names of any other parties involved in the translation process. Ōchō also regards it as suspicious that *Dharmagatayaśas is supposed to have been staying in Canton, when it was more usual for other foreign monks of the period to come to the capital. The particulars that are given in the preface have the air of reassuring readers that the translation is genuine [note that it is specified that *Dharmagatayaśas was fluent not only in spoken but also in written Chinese, which would be a rare phenomenon, especially in an otherwise unknown figure]. They also seem designed to justify the paucity of circumstantial detail [Huibiao had to plead to the limits of his being, just to get this single text 表便慇懃致請心形俱至...僅得一本 [which *Dharmagatayaśas "wanted to translate" in the first place!]---which all sounds very hugger-mugger. *Dharmagatayaśas is an otherwise unknown figure, who does not appear in the Gaoseng zhuan, nor in Fayun's 法雲 Fahua yiji 法華義記 of 529.

As for Huibiao, the "Jiang scion" and nephew of Yao Xing, the preface says that he was captured by the Jin general He Danzhi 何澹之 at the time of the collapse of the Qin. At that time he was only a small boy 數歲, but very bright. The general raised him as his own, nicknaming him Mingling 螟蛉 [a word meaning "adoptive child", on the basis of an allusion to Shijing 诗经, "Xiao ya" 小雅, "Xiao wan" 小宛: 螟蛉有子,蜾蠃负之; Legge translates: "The mulberry insect has young ones,/ And the sphex carries them away"] (比丘慧表。生自羗胄。偽帝姚略從子。國破之日為晉軍何澹之所得。數歲聰黠。澹之字曰螟蛉。養為假子。俄放出家). Ōchō finds all this plausible enough, including the idea that Huibiao might have wanted to make himself scarce, given his pedigree, when the political winds changed---but he regards it as odd to claim that if Huibiao was "seeking the Dharma" 求道, he would have gone to Canton, of all places, for the purpose. He also calculates that if Huibiao arrived in Canton in 481, and was a small boy when the Qin was destroyed in 417 (64 years earlier), he would have been over 70 when he undertook this somewhat arduous journey---not impossible, but extraordinary if true.

Ōchō notes various oddities in the content of the text: its discussion of the four types of arhatship is oddly abbreviated; it contains a rubric of *satya-*nidāna-*pāramita 諦緣度 which is otherwise unknown in translation literature (but was popular later on); it features various strange terms, including odd ways of referring to personages in the congregation; it contains phrasing similar to the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka and the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra (Ogiwara also gives other examples); and it demonstrates a confused understanding of the bodhisattva path.

Ōchō also notes that Liu Qiu's Preface seems at pains to argue for subitism, a position for which Liu Qiu was a known enthusiast. He detects other respects in which it seems to be influenced by the position of Daosheng 道生, including the panjiao schema it advocates. Ōchō suggests that in the period after Daosheng's death, the gradualists had gradually gained the upper hand in these controversies, and the subitists needed new scriptural ammunition. Ōchō ends his paper by proposing that T276 may have been compiled precisely to support the subitist position in ongoing debates at the time, and that the compiler may in fact have been Liu Qiu himself.

Edit