Text: T0626; 佛說阿闍世王經

Summary

Identifier T0626 [T]
Title 佛說阿闍世王經 [T]
Date [None]
Translator 譯 *Lokakṣema, 支婁迦讖 [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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No

[Zürcher 1959/2007]  Zürcher, Erik. The Buddhist Conquest of China: The Spread and Adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China. Third Edition. Leiden: Brill, 1959 (2007 reprint). — 35, 332 n. 94.

Zürcher argues that the attribution of the Asheshi wang jing 阿闍世王經 (Ajātaśatrukaukṛtyavinodana) T626 is strongly supported by the preface written by Zhi Mindu (ca. 300AD) to a “synoptic edition” of four versions of the Śūraṃgamasamādhi-sūtra 首楞嚴三昧經.

Entry author: Sophie Florence

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No

[Zürcher 1991]  Zürcher, Erik. "A New Look at the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Texts." in Koichi Shinohara and Gregory Schopen, eds. From Benares to Beijing: Essays on Buddhism and Chinese Religion in Honour of Prof. Jan Yün-hua, 277-304. Oakville, Canada: Mosaic Press, 1991. — 279, 299

Zürcher argues that *Lokakṣema’s Azheshi wang jing 阿闍世王經 T626 [Ajātaśatrukaukṛtyavinodana] is one of a group of twenty-nine texts which can be considered “genuine” Han translations. Zürcher reaches this conclusion by a “critical selection” process which requires reliable bibliographic attribution, alongside corroborating evidence from glosses, colophons, prefaces, or commentaries; as well as internal “terminological and stylistic analysis” to identify distinctive features particular to certain translator’s teams. He adds that T626 is a “Mahāyāna treatment of the theme of King Ajātaśatru of Magadha being tortured by remorse after having killed his father; he is converted by the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī."

Entry author: Sophie Florence

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Yes

[Nattier 2008]  Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations: Texts from the Eastern Han 東漢 and Three Kingdoms 三國 Periods. Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica Buddhica X. Tokyo: The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2008. — 84-85

Nattier treats T624 and T626 as "third-tier" texts in the broad group of texts somehow associated with Lokakṣema. She states that a notice attributed to Zhi Mindu supports the ascription to Lokakṣema, but they also contain anomalous features. "Still more distant from Lokakṣema's usual general style, and exhibiting a much higher ratio of translations to transcriptions than in the second-tier group..." Cf. Miyazaki (2007).

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Sakaino 1935]  Sakaino Kōyō 境野黄洋. Shina Bukkyō seishi 支那佛教精史. Tokyo: Sakaino Kōyō Hakushi Ikō Kankōkai, 1935. — 194

Sakaino points out that the Pu chao jing 普超經 (cf. T627) was listed by Sengyou as two different texts (普超經 and 更出阿闍世王經, cf. T626). KYL corrected this mistake.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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No

[Jiu lu CSZJJ]  Jiu lu 舊錄 as reported by CSZJJ 出三藏記集 T2145. — T2145 (LV) 6b16

Sengyou cites a/the Jiu lu 舊錄 as a source for information about the 阿闍世王經:

阿闍世王經二卷(安公云出長阿含舊錄阿闍貰[世YM]經)

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Fang and Lu 2023]  Fang Yixin 方一新 and Lu Lu 盧鹭. “Jin shiyu nian cong yuyan jiaodu kaobian keyi Fojing chengguo de huigu yu zhanwang” 近十余年從語言角度考辨可疑佛經成果的回顧與展望.” Journal of Zhejiang University (Humanities and Social Sciences Online Edition), Jan. 2023: 1–24. — 6

In a survey article of scholarship on questions of attribution in the Chinese canon published in the last decade, Fang and Lu state that Miyazaki Tensho argues that a number of terminological and phraseological differences can be observed between the Asheshi wang jing 阿闍世王經 T626 and the Daoxing banre jing 道行般若經 T224, which can be taken as the reference work for *Lokakṣema's style. The same phraseology is also largely evident in the Dun zhentuoluo suowen bao rulai sanmei jing 伅眞陀羅所問寶如來三昧經 T624. It is therefore highly likely that T624 and T626 are translated by the same team. They refer to

Miyazaki Tenshō 宮崎展昌. “Ajaseō kyō (T626) no Kan'yakusha nitsuite”『阿闍世王経』(T626) の漢訳者について. IBK 14 (2007): 57–71.

Entry author: Mengji Huang

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No

[Miyazaki 2007]  Miyazaki Tenshō 宮崎展昌. “Tonshindara shomon nyōrai sammai kyō no kan’yaku ni tsuite 『伅真陀羅所問如來三昧經』の漢訳について.” Bukkyō bunka kenkyū ronshū 仏教文化研究論集 11 (2007): 18-39.

Miyazaki studies a triad of texts ascribed to Lokakṣema: T224, T624, and T626. On the basis mainly of internal evidence, he argues that T624 and T626 were produced by the same persons or persons very closely related, or under very similar circumstances. Pointing to significant overlap in the use of rare translation terminology with T224, he argues further that the persons who produced T624 and T626 were close to the Lokakṣema group. However, he also cautions that the overall situation is complex, and that dynamics like the unfolding development over time of translation activity within the Lokakṣema group, the changing composition of the group (participation of different collaborators), and alteration in the course of transmission may also be responsible for parts of T624 and T626 as we have received them today.

Miyazaki reviews the external evidence of the catalogues, and its treatment in modern scholarship (19-22). Following Zürcher, he points out that there is some room for doubt in accounts of the text in CSZJJ. In the part of his study treating translation terminology, Miyazaki strives to follow Harrison's method, using T224 as the benchmark for the Lokakṣema style, and uses in evidence a total of 36 words and phrases, all relating to the technical Buddhist content of the texts: renderings of items such as anuttarā saṃyaksaṃbodhi, anutpattikadharmakṣānti, avaivartikā, asura, kalyāṇamitra, etc. He sorts this body of evidence into groups shared by all three texts (T224, T624, T626), or by a pair of texts, or appearing in T624 alone. He finds that a considerable body of terminology is shared with T224 by T624 and T626, but another, smaller group of items is shared by T624 and T626 alone. He finds further that T626 shares more with T224 than T624 does, and on this basis, suggests that perhaps T624 was translated later than T626 (allowing time for greater development away from the translation style represented by T224). However, he also acknowledges that hypotheses appealing to the internal chronology of the Lokakṣema corpus to explain such differences flies in the face of the chronology suggested by external evidence.

In addition to translation terminology, Miyazaki points out that T624 and T626 differ from T224 in two formal features: (1) the use of interlinear glosses to explain transcriptions; (2) the use of an opening formula ("Thus have I heard..."). He also suggests that there is, relatively speaking, a greater tendency to unwieldy transcriptions in T224, and to translation terms for the same meanings in T624 and T626.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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