Text: T0196; 中本起經

Summary

Identifier T0196 [T]
Title 中本起經 [T]
Date [None]
Translator 譯 Kang Mengxiang, 康孟詳; Tanguo, 曇果 [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 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. — 296 n. 20

Zürcher argues that the Zhong benqi jing 中本起經 T196 forms a continuous whole with the Xiuxing benqi jing修行本起經 T184; the last paragraph of T184 is “repeated verbatim” in the beginning of T196. T196 is one in a group of twenty-nine texts which Zürcher argues can be considered a “genuine” Han translation.

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). — 333 n. 99

Zürcher says that 中本起經 T196 shows “traces of later redaction in the inserted translations of Indian proper names.” He thinks that these could be later additions, but he notes that in two cases the text continues to regularly use the Chinese translation terms after their first occurrences in the glosses. [This would presumably mean either that the glosses were in fact integral to the initial translation of the text, and not added later; or that whichever hand added them later also revised the remainder of the text to be consistent with the glosses---MR.]

Entry author: Sophie Florence

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No

[Palumbo 2012]  Palumbo, Antonello. "Models of Buddhist Kingship in Early Medieval China." In Zhonggu shidai de liyi, zongjiao yu zhidu 中古時代的禮儀、宗教與制度 (New Perspectives on Ritual, Religion and Institution in Medieval China), edited by Yu Xin 余欣, 287-338. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe 上海古籍出版社, 2012. — 301, 303.

Palumbo argues that the Zhong benqi jing 中本起經 T196 is a revised biography of the Buddha which was originally translated in the second century. T196 “includes three glosses explaining Indic terms ‘in the language of Jin’ 晋言” which Palumbo claims suggests a date after 266. He also states that the terminology of the text resembles that of translations “produced in Southern China after Zhi Qian”. Palumbo identifies “textual overlaps,” in particular with T109 and T210; one line is quoted in Xi Chao’s Feng fa yao, which he thinks suggests that the text was known at the Jin court in the third quarter of the fourth century.

Entry author: Sophie Florence

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No

[Saitō 2013 ]  Saitō Takanobu 齊藤隆信. Kango butten ni okeru ge no kenkyū 漢語仏典における偈の研究. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2013. — 218-222

Saitō points out that two different dates have been proposed for T196: the Jian’an 建安 era of Emperor Xian 献 of the Latter Han period (CSZJJ), or the Jin period (Enomoto 1994). The addition of Tanguo 曇果 to the ascription (as still carried in the T byline) is first given by LDSBJ, and so could well be incorrect. Verses are found in six places in this text, and Saitō quotes the stanzas that are clearly rhymed from those, with the rime 韻目 of the Guang yun 広韻 and the rime class 韻部 of the Jin period 晋代の韻部 (219-220). He refers to Appendix 1,漢訳仏典有韻偈頌一覧表, of his book, for the other stanzas in the text (. Saitō points out that all four quoted stanzas have the ping tone 平声 rimes according to the Guang yun classification. One of the stanzas is identical with one of those in fascicle 4 of the Faju piyu jing 法句譬喩経 T211 (607a)..

Saitō then quotes a line from CSZJJ mentioning that Zhi Yao produced verses for chanting 梵唄 the Zhong benqi jing from 中本起経 and the Wuliangshou jing 無量寿経 (55.97c). The “Jing bai daoshi ji” 経唄導師集 of the CSZJJ records that there existed verses for chanting produced by Zhi Qian 支謙 (55.92ab), and Saitō infers that they are the ones based on T196 and the Wuliangshou jing 無量寿経, although they have been lost. (Saitō also points out that the “Jing bai daoshi ji” lists a “Dishi le ren Banzhe qin ge bai” 帝釋樂人般遮琴歌唄 produced from a Zhong benqi jing 中本起経. However, he argues that this Zhong benqi jing actually refers to the T185 or T184, because T196 does not say anything about Banzhe 般遮, the music deity of 帝釈天.)

Saitō states that although not much is known about Kang Mengxiang, he is mentioned in an appendix to the biography 附伝 of An Xuan 安玄伝 in CSZJJ, and another to the biography of *Lokakṣema in the Gaoseng zhuan 高僧伝 (221-222). Both passages record that Dao’an praised Kang Mengxiang for his translation skills. Saitō conjectures that Dao’an praise was due partly to the care Kang Mengxiang took in rhyming.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Naitō 1970]  Naitō Ryūo 内藤竜雄. "Hō Kyō roku ni tsuite 法經錄について." IBK 19, no. 1 (1970): 235-238.

Naitō gives some general information about Fajing's 法經 Zhongjing mulu 眾經目錄 T2146. It was composed in the space of two months in 594 by a commission of 22 scholars. Hayashiya argued that the catalogue was composed in preparation for the copying of the full canon. Naitō argues that there must have been some circumstances precipitating the rush. He notes that suspicious texts were also recorded and categorised as such, which would be odd if the sole purpose of the catalogue was to list works to be included in an approved version of the canon. He therefore proposes that the catalogue, and the canon connected to it, were prepared as a response to the notorious incident in Guangzhou in 593 surrounding the use of the Zhancha jing 占察經, in which practices of self-flagellation, "stupa repentance" rites, and the "mixing of the sixes" were connected with the use of a scripture that a commission of experts then declared spurious. Among the reasons they gave that the text was inauthentic was that the text was recorded in no earlier catalogues, which Naitō treats as circumstantial evidence that there was a mentality current that could see the compilation of a new catalogue as associated with a similar agenda to determine which texts were authoritative and, by implication, which were spurious, in order to forestall recurrence of like incidents.

Naitō also treats the problem of the sources of Fajing's work. Determination of his sources is made difficult by the fact that the catalogue does not explicitly give its sources. Fei Zhangfang/Changfang says that Fajing had seventeen catalogues at his disposal, but then does not himself admit that so many catalogues were extant in their time. Naitō reports very briefly that he has compared the treatment of extant translations in Fajing with treatment in other sources, for a total of 79 translators and 556 works, but here gives no details, rather, promising to report his findings in another venue. He notes that a total of 428 texts were ascribed to named translators in CSZJJ, but in Fajing, that number increases to 459 for translators down to the end of the Qi (i.e. before Sengyou's time). In other words, Fajing has added at least 31 new ascriptions. As a matter of fact, there are 34 more ascriptions on which Fajing does not agree with CSZJJ, for a total of 65 new ascriptions. Naitō is unable to determine Fajing's sources for these ascriptions, but he notes that in total, they entail, among other things, the addition of nine new "translators" to the record: Tanguo 曇果 [cf. T196], Tankejialuo 曇柯迦羅 [to whom no extant texts are ascribed today], Kang Sengkai 康僧鎧 [cf. T360, T1432, X11], Fajian 法堅 [cf. T495], Zhi Fadu 支法度 [cf. T17, T527], An Faqin 安法欽 [cf. T816, T2042], Fahai 法海 [cf. T1490], Xian gong 先公 [cf. T640, T641], and Xiang gong 翔公 [cf. T234].

Naitō argues that probably five catalogues were in fact extant at Fajing's (and Fei's) time, in addition to GSZ: CSZJJ, Baochang's 寶唱 catalogue, Li Kuo's 李廓 catalogue, Fashang's 法上 catalogue, and the Zhongjing bielu 眾經別錄. Prior scholarship had understood that Baochang collected information from a range of older catalogues, and that Baochang was in turn the proximate source for the use of information from these older catalogues in Fei's LDSBJ (Naitō refers to Tokiwa for this view). Naitō doubts this, because he believes that Baochang only reported 226 ascriptions for sutras, and this number probably did not exceed 300 even when śāstras and vinaya works are taken into account; but this total is too few to account for the profusion of new information reported under the Sui. He notes further that comparison to CSZJJ, the only case in which we can check Fei's information against his source, shows that when LDSBJ says "see such-and-such a catalogue", it only means that the title is listed in the source, not the ascription --- CSZJJ is cited in this manner for texts that CSZJJ itself clearly treats as anonymous.

Naitō also discusses Fajing's probable use of Fashang's catalogue. He notes that Fashang stopped at about 568-570, and that Fajing does the same. He takes this fact to indicate that Fajing just took Fashang's information over holus-bolus, and suggests that ascriptions to Fajian, Fahai, and Xian gong were probably added on this basis.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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