| Identifier | T0210 [T] |
| Title | 法句經 [T] |
| Date | before 250? [Nattier 2008] |
| Unspecified | Weiqinan, 維祇難, *Vijayananda [Sakaino 1935] |
| Revised | Zhi Qian 支謙 [Sakaino 1935] |
| Co-translator 共譯 | Zhi Qian 支謙; [Zhu] Jiangyan, [竺]將炎 [Kamata 1982] |
| Translator 譯 | Zhi Qian 支謙; [Zhu] Jiangyan, [竺]將炎 [Nattier 2008] |
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).
| Preferred? | Source | Pertains to | Argument | Details |
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[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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[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. — 114-115 |
Sengyou's catalogue entry credits Weiqinan ["*Vighna"] with having brought the text from India, but the translations are said to have been by Jiangyan and Zhi Qian. The CSZJJ preface is regarded as by Zhi Qian, and indicates that the text was further modified by the author of the preface after translation of the Indic manuscript by/in consultation with Jiangyan. The ascription to Weiqinan only appears in later catalogues (beginning with Fajing). Entry author: Michael Radich |
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[Saitō 2001] Saitō Takanobu [Qiteng Longxin] 斉藤隆信. “Zhi Qian suoyi jingdian zhong jiesong de yanjiu: sibu jingdian zhong de Hanyizhe 支謙所译经典中偈颂的研究―四部经典中的汉译者.” Zhongguo Foxueyuan xuebao “Fayuan” 中国佛学院学报《法源》 19 (2001): 63-73. — 64-67 |
As part of a larger series of studies of rhyming verse in Chinese Buddhist texts (especially but not exclusively translation texts), Saitō argues that because it contains such verse, which is unusual, the Dhammapada 法句經 T210 is in fact by Zhi Qian. Saitō notes that CSZJJ and GSZ give conflicting reports about the translatorship of the text, CSZJJ ascribing it to Zhi Qian and Jiangyan 將炎, but GSZ ascribing it to *Vighna and Jiangyan. He argues that both *Vighna and Jiangyan would have known too little Chinese to have produced the text, let alone such intricate, rule-bound rhyming verse. He notes that an anonymous preface to the text (T210 [IV] 566b14-c26) reports that the author of the preface 僕 had a disagreement about the translation with others involved in the process, arguing that it was too rough. This same author states that Indic gāthās are similar to Chinese shi 詩, an attitude which Saitō holds was rare in Chinese Buddhist translation history. Saitō argues that it is most plausible that Zhi Qian, whom he has shown elsewhere to have produced verse translations obeying the rhyming rules of the shi 詩 genre, would have held such attitudes, and Zhi Qian is therefore the likely author of the preface; and that the preface gives us reason to believe that Zhi Qian, dissatisfied with the initial product of the translation process, made his own polished revision, one of the hallmarks of which was precisely the rhyming verse we find in the text as extant. Entry author: Michael Radich |
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[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. — 227-228 |
Saitō offers a brief summary of biographical record of *Vighna 維祇難 in GSZ and CSZJJ. Then he points out that the Dharmapada 法句経 T210 (ascribed to 維祇難 and others 維祇難等 in the Taishō) contain many verses including rhyming ones, and that both *Vighna and Zhu Lüyan 竺律炎 who worked together with him did not have sufficient knowledge of Chinese to create rhyming verses. Accordingly, Saitō argues that the present T210 was not translated by this pair, but most likely by Zhi Qian, who took part in the translation project. Entry author: Michael Radich |
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[Sakaino 1935] Sakaino Kōyō 境野黄洋. Shina Bukkyō seishi 支那佛教精史. Tokyo: Sakaino Kōyō Hakushi Ikō Kankōkai, 1935. — 149-151 |
Sakaino points out the following about the ascription of the Dharmapada 法句經 T210: Athough CSZJJ records that the Dharmapada was translated by *Vighna 維祇難, Zhu Jiangyan 竺将炎, and Zhi Qian, the preface of the scripture does not mention Zhi Qian at all, but it does record that the text remained still very literal even after Zhu Jiangyan's revision of the first incomplete version by *Vighna and Zhu Jiangyan (149-150). On the other hand, CSZJJ also listed as an extant scripture another Fa ju jing 法句經 ascribed to Zhi Qian. Given this peculiarity, Sakaino argues that it was probably the case that Zhi Qian revised the text of the Dharmapada as first translated by *Vighna and Zhu Jiangyan, but that this revision was undertaken after the preface was written (which is why Zhi Qian is not mentioned in the preface). Sakaino further claims that the fact that the quality of T210 does not seem as poor as the preface suggests it should be, which also supports the possibility of Zhi Qian’s later revision (150). Entry author: Atsushi Iseki |
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[Kamata 1982] Kamata Shigeo 鎌田茂雄. Chūgoku bukkyō shi, dai ikkan: Shodenki no bukkyō 中国仏教史 第一巻 初伝期末の仏教. Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1982. — 208-211 |
Assuming that the authorial “I” 僕 of the Faju jing xu 法句經序 (preface to the Dharmapada T210) preserved in CSZJJ should be Zhi Qian himself, Kamata reads the preface as recording roughly [Kamata states that this passage is not very clearly written] that Zhu Jiangyan 竺将炎 translated the Dharmapada 法句經 brought to China by Weiqinan 維紙難 (*Vighna?), but Zhi Qian found this version problematic, as Zhu Jiangyan did not know Chinese well. Zhi Qian obtained the original verses and thirteen new chapters from Zhu Jiangyan, and from these materials, Zhi Qian produced a new version consisting of thirty-nine stories. Kamata supplements this information with a passage about Weiqinan from the CSZJJ biography of An Xuan 安玄, and also summarizes the biography of Weiqinan in GSZ (210-211). Kamata points out that the extant T210 has thirty-nine chapters 品. Hence, T210 should be identified with Zhi Qian’s version of the text (211). CSZJJ records both a Zhi Qian and a Zhu Jiangyan version, but the idea that two versions existed is probably erroneous. Kamata maintains that T210 should be classified as co-translated by Zhu Jiangyan and Zhi Qian. Dao’an ascribes the scripture to Zhi Qian only. Entry author: Atsushi Iseki |
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[Su 1995] Su Jinren 蘇晉仁. "Xuyan" 序言. In Su Jinren and Xiao Lianzi 蕭鍊子, eds. Chu sanzang ji ji 出三蔵記集. Zhongguo Fojiao dianji xuankan 中國佛教典籍選刊, 1-32. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1995. |
For the 異出經緣 of CSZJJ, LDSBJ T2034 (XLIX) 125c17-126a8 reports a different number of texts and fascicles to that found in our present CSZJJ. Naitō suggests that the difference in numbering between the LDSBJ report and the transmitted CSZJJ lies in the last 9 texts in the list. [T2145 (LV) 15a8-25 --- MR.] This list of nine texts also differs in form from the bulk of the section that precedes it. The preceding 34 texts in the same list are divided in an orderly manner into sūtra-vinaya-śāstra, but these nine items mess up that categorisation [all are sūtras again --- MR.] Annotations to earlier items give number of fascicles, but here, only names of translators are given. Further, there are items among the nine that were already recorded in the preceding, more orderly list of 34, but which are here recorded again with errors. On this basis, Naitō proposes that these 9 items are a later addition, added in a rather sloppy manner. This section also features the 長者須達經 of *Guṇavr̥ddhi 求那毘地, which appears in a list at the end of the 撰出經論 that Naitō also suspects of being a later addition. He therefore proposes that this section was added at the same time as that list, sometime after 504. The titles affected by this hypothesis are: 成具光明經 For the same list, Su Jinren (20, without reference to Naitō) also points out some of the same problems. Su does not believe that this list could have been added to the text by Sengyou himself, partly on the basis of the fact that the annotations appear to reflect too much ignorance. Entry author: Michael Radich |
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[Moretti 2016] Moretti, Costantino. Genèse d'un apocryphe bouddhique: Le Sūtra de la pure délivrance. Mémoires de l'Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises XLI. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 2016. — 131-132 |
Moretti shows in a table that a chunk of a verse and a half (six four-syllable feet) is rather closely paralleled (with slight variations in wording) between the Jing du sanmei jing 淨度三昧經 (cf. X15), the Dhammapada T210 ascribed to Weiqinan 維祇難 but probably by Zhi Qian (see Nattier 2008), the Dhammapada T211 ascribed to Faju 法炬 and Fali 法立, and the Si zi qin jing 四自侵經 T736 ascribed to Dharmarakṣa, T210 (IV) 559b3-5; T211 (IV) 593a9-10; T736 (XVII) 538a6-7; X15 (I) 369b15-17. Entry author: Michael Radich |
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[Nattier 2008b] Nattier, Jan. "Who Produced the Da mingdu jing 大明度經 (T225)? A Reassessment of the Evidence." JIABS 31, no. 1-2 (2008[2010]):295-337. — 304-305 n. 19 |
Nattier notes that the interlinear commentary in T225A cites T210. T210 must therefore date before the production of T225A. Entry author: Michael Radich |
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[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. — 164 n. 3 |
Nattier notes that T1694 cites T210. [T210 must therefore predate T1694 (thus perhaps before the middle of the third century? cf. Zacchetti 2010 --- MR.] Entry author: Michael Radich |
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