Text: T0588; 佛說須真天子經; Suvikrāntacintā devaputra paripṛcchā

Summary

Identifier T0588 [T]
Title 佛說須真天子經 [T]
Date 266 [T588 Preface]
Translator 譯 Dharmarakṣa 竺法護, 曇摩羅察 [CSZJJ]

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

[Kawano 2006]  Kawano Satoshi 河野訓. Shoki kan'yaku butten no kenkyū: Jiku Hōgo o chūshin to shite 初期漢訳仏典の研究 : 竺法護を中心として. Ise: Kōgakkan Daigaku Shuppanbu, 2006. — Table 6, p. 87

On the basis of a complex examination of the evidence in the catalogues from CSZJJ to KYL (73-92), Kawano arrives at this corpus of 41 texts, which he thinks can most safely be ascribed to Dharmarakṣa and dated, in order to construct a basis for examining Dharmarakṣa's corpus for the development of translation idiom over the course of his career. This note lists that corpus. Kawano arrives at this corpus on the basis of the following criteria: (1) He accepts texts which were probably dated in the original CSZJJ, as represented by the Koryŏ (Kawano shows that the version of CSZJJ received via the Song[-Yuan-Ming] line of transmission includes a large set of problematic additional dates); (2) He accepts texts first dated in Fajing, as long as the date was accepted by Zhisheng in KYL; (3) He rejects texts for which a translation date first appears in LDSBJ; (4) He adds one further text (T810) that can be dated on the basis of a (very early manuscript) colophon.

[Note: This list includes four (or five?) lost texts, and a couple of texts ascribed to other translators in the received canon. The number of lost texts is uncertain, because the list includes a 無量壽經, which some modern scholars would be inclined to identify with T360 ascribed to Kang Sengkai 康僧鎧---MR.]

Entry author: Michael Radich

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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

[CSZJJ]  Sengyou 僧祐. Chu sanzang ji ji (CSZJJ) 出三藏記集 T2145. — T2145:55.7b12-8c9

In the list of texts ascribed to Dharmarakṣa by Dao'an, 28 bear dates. One of these (the 五蓋疑結失行經) has a note saying that Dao'an did not think it looked like a Dharmarakṣa text. This note lists the remaining 27. [Zürcher (2007): 66 suggests that this may be evidence that "in these cases [Dao'an's] attribution was based upon early dated colophons", which may mean that these attributions can be regarded as some of the strongest in the Dharmarakṣa corpus, on external grounds.]
光讚經十卷(十七品太康七年十一月二十五日出) T222
賢劫經七卷(舊錄云賢劫三昧經或云賢劫定意經元康元年七月二十一日出) T425
正法華經十卷(二十七品舊錄云正法華經或云方等正法華經太康七年八月十日出) T263
普耀經八卷(三十品安公云方等部永嘉二年五月出) T186
大哀經七卷(二十八品舊錄云如來大哀經元康元年七月七日出) T398
度世品經六卷(或云度世或為五卷元康元年四月十三日出) T292
密迹經五卷(或云密迹金剛力士經或七卷太康九年十月八日出) T310(3)
持心經六卷(十七品一名等御諸法一名莊嚴佛法舊錄云持心梵天經或云持心梵天所問經太康七年三月十日出) T585
修行經七卷(二十七品舊錄云修行道地經太康五年二月二十三日出) T606
漸備一切智經十卷(或五卷元康七年十一月二十一日出) T285
海龍王經四卷(或三卷太康六年七月十日出) T598
普超經四卷(一名阿闍世王品安錄亦云更出阿闍世王經或為三卷舊錄云文殊普超三昧經太康七年十二月二十七日出) T627
阿惟越致遮經四卷(太康五年十月十四日出) T266
寶藏經二卷(舊錄云文殊師利寶藏經或云文殊師利現寶藏太始六年十月出) T461
寶結經二卷(一名菩薩淨行經舊錄云寶結菩薩經或云寶結菩薩所問經永熙元年七月十四日出) T310(47)
離垢施女經一卷(大康十年十二月二日出) T338
大淨法門經一卷(建始元年三月二十六日出) T817
須真天子經二卷(泰始二年十一月出) T588
魔逆經一卷(太康十年十二月二日出) T589
德光太子經一卷(或云賴吒和羅所問光德太子經太始六年九月三十日出) T170
文殊師利淨律經一卷(一本云淨律經太康十年四月八日出) T460
寶女經四卷(舊錄云寶女三昧經或云寶女問慧經太康八年四月二十七日出) T399
如來興顯經四卷(一本云興顯如幻經元康元年十二月二十五日出) T291
方等泥洹經二卷(或云大般泥洹經太始五年七月二十三日出) T378
大善權經二卷(或云慧上菩薩問大善權經或云慧上菩薩經或云善權方便經或云善權方便所度無極經太康六年六月十七日出) T345
滅十方冥經一卷(元熙元年八月十四日出) T435
普門經一卷(一本云普門品太康八年正月十一日出) T315

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Mei 1996]  Mei Naiwen 梅廼文. “Zhu Fahu de fanyi chutan 竺法護的翻譯初探.” Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal 中華佛學學報 9 (1996): 49-64. — 54 n. 26

Mei begins with the 76 texts ascribed to Dharmarakṣa in the present Taishō which also appear in Sengyou. She then eliminates eight for the following reasons: five are listed as lost by Sengyou's time (T182, T288, T496, T558, T1301); T1301, moreover, contains details that makes it appear as if it may have been composed in China; T103 and T453 have been regarded as dubious by modern scholars (Gao Mingdao and Yinshun); and Sengyou's description of the 佛為菩薩五夢經 that he ascribes to Dharmarakṣa does not match T310(4). This leaves 68 texts Mei thinks can reliably be matched against Sengyou. This entry lists those 68 texts. [Note: Mei erroneously gives the number T627 for what is properly T636---MR.]

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Mei 1996]  Mei Naiwen 梅廼文. “Zhu Fahu de fanyi chutan 竺法護的翻譯初探.” Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal 中華佛學學報 9 (1996): 49-64. — 62

Mei notes that the following texts in the Dharmarakṣa corpus are "unique exemplars": 須真天子經 T588, 魔逆經 T589, 弘道廣顯三昧經 T635, 寶網經 T433, 滅十方冥經 435, 文殊悔過經 T459, 琉璃王經 T513, 心明經 T569.

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). — 66

Zürcher states that in the list of texts ascribed to Dharmarakṣa by Dao'an, 29 bear dates [I actually count 28; further, one, the 五蓋疑結失行經, has a note saying that Dao'an did not think it looked like a Dharmarakṣa text, and so I also exclude it---MR]. This note lists the remaining 27. Zürcher suggests that this may be evidence that "in these cases [Dao'an's] attribution was based upon early dated colophons". [This may mean that these attributions can be regarded as some of the strongest in the Dharmarakṣa corpus, on external grounds.]

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Boucher 2006]  Boucher, Daniel. “Dharmarakṣa and the Transmission of Buddhism to China.” In China at the Crossroads: A Festschrift in Honor of Victor H. Mair. Special issue of Asia Major, 3rd Ser., 19, no. 1-2 (2006): 13-37. — 15 n. 6

Against Palumbo (2003), Boucher says, "Palumbo deals at great length with the seeming inconsistencies between this record and other notices concerning Dharmarakṣa’s translation work, though these inconsistencies do not necessarily call the authenticity of this record into question in my opinion."

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Boucher 1996]  Boucher, Daniel. "Buddhist Translation Procedures in Third-Century China: A Study of Dharmarakṣa and his Translation Idiom." PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1996. — 273

In the appendix to his dissertation Boucher provides a list of ninety-five texts attributed to Dharmarakṣa by Sengyou in his Chu sanzang ji ji 出三藏記集 T2145, along with a note on relevant scholarship. Among these texts is the Xuzhen tianzi jing 須真天子經 Suvikrāntacintidevaputraparipṛcchā-sūtra T588, which Sengyou dated December 21, 266.

Entry author: Sophie Florence

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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). — 343 n. 221

Sengyou's CSZJJ preserves fifteen prefaces, postfaces and colophons to works ascribed to Dharmarakṣa. This entry lists those works; one, the Śūraṃgamasamādhi-sūtra, is no longer extant. [All other things being equal, the external evidence supporting the ascription to Dharmarakṣa for these texts should therefore be stronger than for other texts. I was unable to find the colophon Zürcher points to for T285---MR.]

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[T588 Preface]  Anon 未詳作者. Xuzhen tianzi jing ji 須真天子經記. — As preserved in CSZJJ T2145:55.48b22-26.

Ascribes the oral "production" of the text 口授出之 to *Dharmarakṣa 曇摩羅察. Interpreter/translators 傳言者 were An Wenhui 安文惠 and Bo Yuanxin 帛元信 with Nie Chengyuan 聶承遠, Zhang Xuanbo 張玄泊 and Sun Xiuda 孫休達 as amanuenses 手受者.

Translated in Boucher (2008/2011): 92-93; Palumbo (2003): 186-187.

Palumbo 187-190 argues that "several circumstances cast doubt upon [the] precision [of this record], if not its authenticity": the location it gives for the Baima si 白馬寺 is anomalous; the date (the 30th of a given month) is impossible, since that month only had 29 days; it speaks of Dharmarakṣa as a "bodhisattva from India", whereas he was in fact a "sinicized Yuezhi from Dunhuang"; and Dharmarakṣa's name is transcribed rather than given in the usual translation form. Palumbo n. 65 also discusses the problems raised by the fact that the document speaks of "interpreter/translators", 傳言者, whereas elsewhere Dharmarakṣa is said to have been capable of translating directly himself, and these two figures, An Wenhui 安文惠 and Bo Yuanxin 帛元信, do not reappear in Dharmarakṣa's translation team. This might suggest that Dharmarakṣa was at this point in his career still learning Chinese, but Palumbo suggests that "he was presumably fluent in Chinese from the beginning, all the more so since he lived at a crossroads where multilingualism must have been widespread"; and cites the passage in his biography that says he learned Chinese classics early. Thus, for Palumbo, "the mention of bilingual intermediaries speaks rather against than for the genuineness of the note on the Xuzhen tianzi jing".

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Palumbo 2003]  Palumbo, Antonello. “Dharmarakṣa and Kaṇṭhaka: White Horse Monasteries in Early Medieval China.” In Buddhist Asia: Papers from the First Conference of Buddhist Studies Held in Naples in May 2001, 168-216. Kyoto: Italian School of East Asian, Studies, 2003. — 187-194

Palumbo's main concern is not to examine the attribution of T588, but to scrutinise the possible authenticity of the anonymous 未詳作者 Xuzhen tianzi jing ji 須真天子經記 (preserved in CSZJJ, presented as if dating to 266). Palumbo 187-191 argues that "several circumstances cast doubt upon [the] precision [of this record], if not its authenticity": the location it gives for the Baima si 白馬寺 is anomalous; the date (the 30th of a given month) is impossible, since that month only had 29 days; it speaks of Dharmarakṣa as a "bodhisattva from India", whereas he was in fact a "sinicized Yuezhi from Dunhuang"; and Dharmarakṣa's name is transcribed rather than given in the usual translation form. Palumbo n. 65 also discusses the problems raised by the fact that the document speaks of "interpreter/translators", 傳言者, whereas elsewhere Dharmarakṣa is said to have been capable of translating directly himself, and these two figures, An Wenhui 安文惠 and Bo Yuanxin 帛元信, do not reappear in Dharmarakṣa's translation team. This might suggest that Dharmarakṣa was at this point in his career still learning Chinese, but Palumbo suggests that "he was presumably fluent in Chinese from the beginning, all the more so since he lived at a crossroads where multilingualism musth have been widespread"; and cites the passage in his biography that says he learned Chinese classics early. Thus, for Palumbo, "the mention of bilingual intermediaries speaks rather against than for the genuineness of the note on the Xuzhen tianzi jing". “This is enough to arouse some doubt on the whole document as it stands, and take a possible forgery into account.”

Palumbo then examines mentions of the title in Sengyou's lists of scriptures. One concise mention (須真天子經二卷(泰始二年十一月出), T2145:55.7c17) "was certainly drawn from the old bibliography compiled by Dao'an...and confirms that Dharmarakṣa did release a translation of the Xuzhen tianzi jing. However, this does not guarantee the authenticity of the note..." Palumbo notes (n. 68) that usually, where he was supplementing Dao'an's list of Dharmarakṣa translations with items he had found in other catalogues, he explicitly noted the fact, and suggests that since he does not do so in this case, "We may be assured that this item actually occurred in Dao'an's catalogue". A second mention of this title is found in a second CSZJJ note on the text (須真天子經二卷(或云須真天子問四事經太始二年十一月八日出)。右一部二卷。晉武帝世。天竺菩薩沙門曇摩羅察口授出。安文惠白元信, 9c9-11, trans. Palumbo 192), which Palumbo says is "not entirely consistent with" the "note" discussed above: it describes An Wuhui and Bo Yuanxin as 筆受, and omits the name of "White Horse Monastery" (and of some of the assistants involved in the translation). Palumbo suggests that "Sengyou...seems to have been unsure whether...Zhu Fahu...and [曇摩羅察] were the same person....Sengyou was probably aware of the inconsistencies in the documents at his disposal, and cautiously decided to report them as they were."

Palumbo suggests that the anonymous "notes of translation" in CSZJJ are not necessarily original colophons, but could rather have been compiled over a period of time, and culled from a variety of sources, "in some cases long after the release of the original issue". (He gives the example of Sengyou's "note" on T202, compiled by Sengyou himself, seventy years after the event, on the basis of an interview with a witness.) "Obviously, the same procedure could be used fraudulently to concoct entirely counterfeit attributions, in other words, to authenticate forged texts....The note on the Xuzhen tianzi jing is just one of thees anonymous records...But whoever wrote that document and for whatever reason he did it, he must have...known genuine sources (including Dao'an's catalogue) attesting that a Xuzhen tianzi jing had been released in the eleventh month of the second year Taishi; the additional information may have been gleaned from these sources, and the names of two out of five collaborators [Nie Chengyuan and Bo Yuanxin]...actually occur in other documents which are not open to doubt (hopefully)."

Entry author: Michael Radich

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  • Title: Suvikrāntacintā devaputra paripṛcchā

No

[Suzuki 1995]  Suzuki Hiromi 鈴木裕美. “Koyaku kyōten ni okeru yakugo ni tsuite: Jiku Hōgo yakushutsu kyōten wo chūshin toshite 古訳経典における訳語について―竺法護訳出経典を中心として.” IBK 43, no. 2 (1995): 198-200.

Suzuki regards the texts listed in this entry as genuine Dharmarakṣa translations. She groups them into five types, on the basis of stylistic features:

A: T222, T588 , T636
A': T186, T263, T266, T285, T291, T292, T310, T310(3), T310(47), T345, T398, T403, T460, T461, T565, T606, T627, T817
B: T585
B': T338
C: T103, T170, T182AB, T199, T283, T315AB, T317, T342, T349, T378, T399, T425, T435, T459, T481, T589, T598, T737

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Naitō 1967a]  Naitō Ryūo 内藤竜雄. "Dō'an roku no mokurokugakuteki kenkyū 道安錄の目録学的研究." IBK 16, no. 1 (1967): 387-390.

Naitō considers the place of Dao'an's catalogue in the history of traditional Chinese bibliography, particularly in relation to the development of classification schema. He argues that Dao'an compiled his catalogue as part of a broader attempt to recover bibliographic resources from losses resulting from political chaos. Because this was a "private" catalogue, restricted to one particular class of books, rather than an official or court project, it enjoyed greater freedom to experiment. Dao'an's concern with the authentification of texts, and his historicist attention to the circumstances under which they were produced, are both innovations against the backdrop of the bibliographic tradition prior to him, and clear results of these circumstances.

As Ōchō E'nichi had already observed, Dao'an did not use classification schemas that were later to become standard, such as the "tripiṭaka" 三藏 division (sūtra, śāstra, vinaya), nor the "two vehicles" (Mahāyāna, "hīnayāna"), probably because during his years in Xiangyang, when the catalogue was composed, he had still not attained the necessary overview of canonical materials. His schema, then, was based rather on the characteristics of the translations themselves, rather than the underlying source texts: particularly the circumstances of their production in Chinese, namely, the person(s), time and place associated with the translation. This mode of classification evinces a new type of historicisation of bibliography. Another dimension of this schema was that it required a category of anonymous texts, i.e. texts for which the identity of the translator was not known. These anonymous texts Dao'an further divided into broad periods (ancient, and more recent), and according to the broad geographic region in which they were produced. The place of these developments in Chinese bibliographic history was also remarked upon by Liang Qichao. Dao'an's framework was to have a far-reaching influence, and eventually led, via the (Liu) Song cataloguer Wang Jian 王儉 and CSZJJ, to the annalistic approach of Fei Zhangfang in LDSBJ.

The "tripiṭaka" 三藏 division (經論律, sūtra, śāstra, vinaya) was introduced by Sengyou (in CSZJJ). This makes it difficult to discern the extent to which his work preserves the form of Dao'an's earlier work, upon which he built. In addition, Sengyou's format of listing all works of a single translator and then discussing them all in a single 解題 (總結文) was probably not inherited from Dao'an, according to Naitō, but rather, was probably Sengyou's innovation. One type of detail that allows us to draw this inference is that these summary notes sometimes mention Dao'an by name in reporting his judgments (安公云...), which would not be usual if the wording was Dao'an's own.

Naitō believes that Dao'an's catalogue was, rather, most probably organised by titles annotated one by one with such information about title, length, date, translator, and any other supplemental notes as Dao'an had to hand. This format had been common practice from the Han, which means Dao'an would just have been following precedent. It is possible that the titles were indeed grouped by translator, where the translator was known, but it is unlikely that there were any summary comments of the sort seen in CSZJJ. Co-translations, Naitō believes, were probably listed only once, rather than duplicated in separate lists for each of the translators, as later became the norm. Naitō argues that when attributions for co-translations were later reduplicated for inclusion in separate lists for each of the co-translators, it sometimes had the effect of creating ghost texts and even ghost translators, as in the instance where 竺法護 and 曇摩羅察 --- both, in his view, referring to Dharmarakṣa --- were treated as separate individuals [see CSZJJ notice for the 須真天子 T588, T2145 (LV) 9c9-11]. He argues that a similar process is behind confusion about whether or not Nie Chengyuan 聶承遠 really produced a truly independent version of the 超日明三昧經 T638.

Naitō remarks that if this is correct, it renders implausible the ascription to Dao'an of a remark recorded in GSZ: 案釋道安經錄云。安世高以漢桓帝建和二年至靈帝建寧中二十餘年譯出三十餘部經, T2059 (L) 324a8-10. This remarks appears to be a comment on a list of the CSZJJ type, which Naitō believes was not the form of Dao'an's catalogue; moreover, this remark is not reported at the relevant point in CSZJJ, which we would expect if it had indeed been in Dao'an's catalogue as used by Sengyou.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Jiu lu CSZJJ]  Jiu lu 舊錄 as reported by CSZJJ 出三藏記集 T2145. — T2145 (LV) 7b12-9c4

In the section of the 新集經論錄, CSZJJ Fascicle 2, on Dharmarakṣa, Sengyou lists the following 32 texts for which a/the Jiu lu 舊錄 is cited in evidence in interlinear notes. He cites the Jiu lu for information about alternate titles.

賢劫經七卷, cf. T425
正法華經十卷, cf. T263
大哀經七卷, cf. T398
持心經六卷, cf. T585
修行經七卷, cf. T606
普超經四卷, cf. T627
嚴淨佛土經二卷, cf. T318
阿耨達經二卷, cf. T635
寶藏經二卷, cf. T461
寶結[v.l.髻YM]經二卷, cf. T310(47)
等集眾德三昧經三卷, cf. T381
寶女經四卷, cf. T399
五十緣身行經一卷, cf. T812
須摩經一卷, cf. T334
溫室經一卷, cf. T701
移山經一卷, cf. T135
文殊師利五體悔過經一卷, cf. T459
無思議孩童經一卷 (presumed lost)
迦葉集結經一卷 (perhaps lost, but cf. T2027)
寶罔[v.l.網SYM]童子經一卷, cf. T433
順權方便經二卷, cf. T565
五百弟子本起經一卷, cf. T199
佛為菩薩五夢經一卷 (presumed lost)
如幻三昧經二卷, cf. T342
胞胎經一卷, cf. T317
大六向拜經一卷 (presumed lost)
過去佛分衛經一卷, cf. T180
阿述達經一卷 (presumed lost)
給孤獨明德經一卷 (presumed lost)
龍施本起經一卷, cf. T588
猛施經一卷 (presumed lost)
菩薩齋法[+經M]一卷 (presumed lost)

Sengyou also cites the Jiu lu for the 超日明經 T638, which, according to his information, was translated initially by Dharmarakṣa and then revised and abridged by Nie Chengyuan 聶承遠.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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