Text: T0620; 治禪病祕要法

Summary

Identifier T0620 [T]
Title 治禪病祕要法 [T]
Date 400-500 [Strickmann 2002]
Unspecified Juqu Jingsheng 沮渠京聲 [Sakaino 1935]
Translator 譯 Juqu Jingsheng 沮渠京聲 [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

[Chen 2014]  Chen, Jinhua. “From Central Asia to Southern China: The Formation of Identity and Network in the Meditative Traditions of the Fifth—Sixth Century Southern China (420—589).” Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences 7, no. 2 (2014): 171–202. — 4 n. 6

According to Chen, Juqu Jingsheng 沮渠京聲 “turned the verbal version of the Chanyao mimi zhibing jing [禪要祕密治病經; this title is attested in CSZJJ, e.g. T2145:55.13a11; Chen identifies it with 治禪病祕要法 T620] into written form” at the request of the nun Huijun 慧濬.

It appears that Chen's source is GSZ: 後竹園寺慧濬尼。復請出禪經。安陽既通習積以臨筆無滯。旬有七日出為五卷, T2059:50.337a18-20; and/or CSZJJ: 竹園寺比丘尼慧濬。聞其諷誦禪經。請令傳寫。安陽通習積久。臨筆無滯。旬有七日出為五卷, T2145:55.106c10-13.

Entry author: Sophie Florence

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No

[Strickmann 2002]  Strickmann, Michel. Chinese Magical Medicine. Edited by Bernard Faure. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002. — 120-122

Strickmann discusses the final section of T620, characterising the text as a whole as "a manual on [meditation sickness] written in fifth-century China".

Entry author: Michael Radich

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Yes

[Greene 2012]  Greene, Eric Matthew. “Meditation, Repentance and Visionary Experience in Early Medieval Chinese Buddhism.” PhD dissertation, U. C. Berkeley, 2012. — 92 ff., n. 57.

Greene discusses 禪祕要法經 T613 and 治禪病祕要法 T620 together. Greene argues at length, with reference to reports in tradition catalogues, and to manuscripts held at the Nara Shōsōin, citations in the Fa yuan zhu lin 法苑珠林 T2122, and glosses in Xuanying’s Yiqie jing yin yi 一切經音義 T2128, that these two texts originally circulated under various titles as a single text (in this order), but were separated in transmission (see esp. Ch. 2, 109-127). He suggests that the original title of the text was Chan yao mimi zhibing jing 禪要秘密治病經 (126). Greene thinks that this text/s was/were “almost certainly Chinese compositions, not translations” (79). At the same time, he notes that they are “not blatant Chinese fabrications, and contain almost no overt traces of Chinese cosmology or other telltale signs of Chinese origin” (81). Greene argues that it is most likely that the single ancestral text behind T613/T620 was first written down (though not necessary composed) by Juqu Jingsheng 沮渠京聲 (127-132).

Greene also aims to show that T613/T620 shares certain features with, and is/are closely connected to, texts in Mochizuki’s “contemplation sūtra” group (T643, T452, T277, T409, T1161, and T365)—among other things, a “welter of unusual terminology and unique turns of phrase” (82-86). This seems to refer to a list of unusual expressions and phraseology shared by T613/T620 with the Upasena narrative only in the the 請觀世音菩薩消伏毒害陀羅尼呪經 in T1043 and T643 (331-335). (Greene suggests, very interestingly, that “contemplation sūtras” may have been directed at lay practitioners, whereas sūtras in the fifth-century “chan group”, that is, T611-T620, including the text/s under discussion here, may have been directed at monastics; 86.)

Greene discusses Tsukinowa’s (1971) theory that T613/T620 was/were composed in China. Greene finds many of Tsukinowa’s arguments unconvincing. However, he also says, "I stress these points not because Tsukinowa’s conclusions turn out to be wrong—indeed that these texts were not simply translated from Indic originals is almost certainly correct—but to show that Tsukinowa’s analysis of the texts as blatant Chinese forgeries is inaccurate." "The picture that emerges is of texts that were indeed assembled in China, by Chinese authors and editors, but which drew the majority of their inspiration from Chinese translations of Indian Buddhist texts or other similar sources."

Greene also argues at length that 五門禪經要用 T619 “served as the precursor to the third sutra of the Chan Essentials", that is to say, that it is one of its sources (100-104). This is an important component of his argument that T613/T620, as we have them, must be (a) Chinese composition(s). Greene disagrees with Yamabe, who argued that T619 is a shorter distillation of material originally presented in T613 (104 n. 111); Greene argues, rather, that T613 in these portions is an expansion of T619 (104-107). Greene argues further that material preserved in S. 2585=T2914, which is also related to T619, gives us a glimpse of how this rewriting process may have looked (107-108). T613/T620 also contains borrowings from prior Chinese translations: Dharmarkṣema’s Suvarṇabhāsottama T663, Kumārajīva’s Pūrṇaparipṛcchā, and Buddhabhadra’s Anantamukhanirhāradhāraṇī T1012 (97-99). The version of the story of Virūdhaka’s attack on Kapilavastu contained in the frame narrative of the first sūtra also suggests that the author consulted specifically T156 [itself thought to be a Chinese composition] (319 n. 34). The narrative of Upasena featuring in the text, Greene argues, "was originally contained in (or even equal to the whole of) the Avalokitasvara Contemplation Sutra 觀世音觀經, a seventh "contemplation sūtra" thought lost; but Greene also argues that this text may survive "as a portion or even the entirety" of the 請觀世音菩薩消伏毒害陀羅尼呪經 T1043 (323-327 and Appendix 2).

T613/T620 also features misunderstandings of Indic terms, borrowings from prior Chinese translations, and use of certain Chinese concepts (95-97). It also contains at least one reference to a concept that seems to be unique to Chinese cosmology (99-100).

Greene’s Appendix 3 (342-613) gives an edition and full translation of the composite text comprising T613 and T620 combined. [Greene himself, 344, gives T615 as the Taishō number for the 治禪病祕要法, the second of these two texts, but so far as I can see, this must be in error; he gives the correct Taishō number at 78 --- MR.] For convenience, Greene creates a numbering system to indicate his analysis of the structure of the text, and in that system, §§1-4 comprise T613, and §§5-6 comprise T620.

On Greene’s analysis, the portion of the text corresponding to the present T613 show signs of having been organised in keeping with two simultaneous structuring principles, which are not entirely compatible with one another. The first is a series of narratives about practitioners of meditation and the meditations they are prescribed, which “clearly sit lightly atop an underlying stratum of material” (86). These narratives are summarised in Greene’s Appendix 2, and the basis for his division of the text into his main six large sections in Appendix 3. Each of these six sections, further, is marked by the formal features of a separate sūtra. At the same time, the “underlying stratum” is a series of more numerous specific meditations, which seem (at least loosely) to comprise an organised curriculum. An especially clear indication of this second structuring principle is the division of Greene’s first three sūtras into 30 numbered meditations (87-89). Greene concludes, “Either the 30-part structure was added atop the four sutras complete with their narratives, or the four sutra narratives were used to reorganize a single text that originally outlined a complete path” (89). The portion of the text corresponding to the present T620 is organised differently, as a series of considerations relating to fending off madness and attacks by demons in meditative practice; Greene suggests it may originally have functioned as a sort of appendix (89-90).

Cf. Tsukinowa Kenryū 月輪賢隆. “Butten no shijū” 仏典の始終. In Butten no hihanteki kenkyū 仏典の批判的研究. Kyoto, Hyakkaen (1971).

Entry author: Michael Radich

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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. 4, p. 294

According to Hukaura Seibun 深浦正文, the Zhi chan bing miyao fa 治禪病祕要法 T620 ascribed to Juqu Jingsheng 沮渠京聲 was produced earlier than it is often thought, viz., in September 455, when Juqu Jingsheng wrote the text down as recorded in the postface 後序 to the text. Hukaura points out that the biography of Juqu Jingsheng in CSZJJ records that he made the translation immediately after he came back to 河西, and in 455 CE he just transcribed the text upon the request of the nun Huijun 慧濬.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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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. — 871-872

According to Sakaino, the so-called “*Dhyāna sūtra” 禪經, which is among the four titles correctly ascribed to Juqu Jingsheng 京聲, refers to the Chan yao mimi zhi bing jing 禪要秘密治病經 (cf. T620). By contrast, the Chan fa yao jie 禪法要解 (cf. T616) ascribed to Jingsheng is a fabrication on the part of Fei Changfang. Sakaino states that there was only ever one 禪法要解, the text ascribed to Kumārajīva (T616), and Zhisheng in KYL is also incorrect in listing the second translation, under the influence of LDSBJ. Sakaino explains that the Chan yao [mimi zhi bing jing] is a translation of the Zhi bing jing 治病經 made under the N. Liang 凉, while the version made under the (Liu) Song is a transcription of an oral recitation, rather than a written text.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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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. — 866-871

Sakaino argues that dozens of new ascriptions to Juqu Jingsheng 沮渠京聲 added in LDSBJ are incorrect. He shows that the ascriptions for these extant texts are part of a broader pattern whereby Fei Changfang, in LDSBJ, takes titles in groups from lists of anonymous scriptures in Sengyou's CSZJJ or Dao’ans catalogue of anonymous texts 道安失譯錄 and assigns an entire group holus-bolus to a single or several translators. This procedure leads to a sudden ballooning of a given translator's corpus (if not its creation ex nihilo), and other absurd consequences, like the appearance that a certain translator specialised in texts on a particular topic (because Sengyou grouped titles in his lists by topic). Juqu Jingsheng is one of the purported "translators" to whom Fei applies this procedure. This entry lists extant texts ascribed to Juqu Jingsheng to which Sakaino's criticism here applies.

Most of the titles newly ascribed to Juqu Jingsheng by Fei were actually taken either from Dao’ans catalogue of anonymous texts 道安失譯錄 (21 titles) or from Sengyou’s “newly compiled catalogue of anonymous scriptures” 新集失譯錄 (10 titles). Sakaino claims that it is clear that Fei just took the entry baselessly from Dao’ans catalogue of anonymous texts, since too many titles were newly given the ascription by Fei, and, furthermore, Fei imports most of the titles in a particular section 段 in the catalogue into his list of works that he ascribes to Juqu Jingsheng.

To illustrate the problem, Sakaino lists all the 35 titles that Fei listed as Juqu Jingsheng’s work, indicating which ones were taken from Dao’ans catalogue of anonymous texts and which ones were from Sengyou’s “newly compiled catalogue of anonymous scriptures” (868-869). Sakaino asserts that 4 titles ascribed to Juqu Jingsheng in CSZJJ (3 extant, 1 lost) are the only reliable record of Juqu Jingsheng’s work (871).

Sakaino adds that in the case of Juqu Jingsheng, too, we observe a common practice in Fei´s work, which is to change the title a little, or use an alternate title, at the same time as he so reassigns anonymous scriptures taken from Sengyou’s or Dao’an’s lists. For example, the 摩達王經 in Dao’an’s catalogue becomes the 摩達經 in LDSBJ, and the Shi jing 逝經 with the alternate title 菩薩逝經 in Dao’an’s catalogue (cf. T528) becomes the Pusa shi jing 菩薩誓經, replacing 逝 with 誓.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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