Text: T1634; 入大乘論

Summary

Identifier T1634 [T]
Title 入大乘論 [T]
Date 425/437-439 [Ono and Maruyama 1933-1936]
Author Jianyi 堅意 [Ono and Maruyama 1933-1936]
Translator 譯 Daotai, 道泰 [T]

There may be translations for this text listed in the Bibliography of Translations from the Chinese Buddhist Canon into Western Languages. If translations are listed, this link will take you directly to them. However, if no translations are listed, the link will lead only to the head of the page.

There are resources for the study of this text in the SAT Daizōkyō Text Dabatase (Saṃgaṇikīkṛtaṃ Taiśotripiṭakaṃ).

Assertions

Preferred? Source Pertains to Argument Details

No

[T]  T = CBETA [Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association]. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924-1932. CBReader v 5.0, 2014.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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  • Title: 入大乘論
  • People: Daotai, 道泰 (translator 譯)
  • Identifier: T1634

No

[Ono and Maruyama 1933-1936]  Ono Genmyō 小野玄妙, Maruyama Takao 丸山孝雄, eds. Bussho kaisetsu daijiten 佛書解說大辭典. Tokyo: Daitō shuppan, 1933-1936 [縮刷版 1999]. — Vol.8, 352-353

Sakamoto Yukio 坂本幸男 gives the following summary of the issue in the attribution and dating of the Ru dasheng lun 入大乘論 *Mahāyānāvatāra(?) T1634:

The date of composition:
This text was translated by Daotai 道泰 of the N. Liang 北凉 period, so its date of composition should be sometime between 397 and 439 CE. Now, according to KYL 開元錄 and the Zhenyuan lu 貞元録, the *Mahāyānāvatāra 入大乘論 was translated after the Vibhāṣā 毘婆沙論. According to the preface by Daoting 道挺, translation of the Vibhāṣā commenced in 425 CE and was completed in 427 CE. Thus, following this line of reasoning, the date of translation of T1634 would have to fall between 425 (or 427) CE and 439 CE. On the other hand, there are records that show a different date of composition for the Vibhāṣā. The GSZ 高僧傳 biography of *Buddhavarman 浮陀跋摩, who co-translated 毘婆沙論 with Daotai, shows the date of composition of the Vibhāṣā as 437 CE (completed in 439 CE). A number of catalogues, including KYL, DTNDL 内典錄, and LDSBJ 三寶記 also show the same date. In this view of the composition date of the Vibhāṣā, T1634 has to be a composition of between 437 and 439 CE, or simply 439 CE.

Sakamoto maintain that it is difficult to determine which of the above two dates of composition for the Vibhāṣā (and the resulting two possible dates of composition for T1634) is correct. Normally, the earliest record is more important than later records, but in this case, there remains a possibility that there was some good reason for GZS to offer the new date of composition, in full awareness of what Daoting 道挺 had said. KYL mentions the two dates, noting that the reason for the difference was unknown.

The author *Sāramati(?) 堅意:
According to Sakamoto, the author of the text, *Sāramati(?) 堅意, was probably active around 350 CE – 400 CE, conjecturing from the dates of persons and texts cited by him, although there is no decisive evidence for this date. Although T1634 is the only text that is certainly ascribed to Jianyi [MR: Note that some scholars think that the Jianhui 堅慧 to whom T1626/T1627 is ascribed may also have been a *Sāramati, though his dates would probably be different], the Fahua zhuan 法華傳 mentions that Paramārtha 眞諦 had said that Jianyi 堅意 had written a Fahua lun 法華論 as well. Sakamoto states that it is fairly reasonable to assume that Jianyi 堅意 might also have written such a text, because in T1634, the Lotus 法華經 is cited more than ten times.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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