Text: T0144; 佛說大愛道般泥洹經

Summary

Identifier T0144 [T]
Title 佛說大愛道般泥洹經 [T]
Date 西晋 [Hayashiya 1941]
Unspecified Anonymous (China), 失譯, 闕譯, 未詳撰者, 未詳作者, 不載譯人 [Hayashiya 1945]
Translator 譯 Bo Fazu 白法祖, Bo Yuan 帛遠 [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

Edit

No

[Hayashiya 1941]  Hayashiya Tomojirō 林屋友次郎. Kyōroku kenkyū 経録研究. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1941. — 907-910

Hayashiya's summary of the content of the catalogues on the Da'aidao bannihuan jing 大愛道般泥洹經 and related titles is as follows:

Sengyou's recompilation of Dao'an's catalogue of anonymous scriptures 新集安公失譯經録:
A Da'aidao bannihuan jing 大愛道般泥洹經 is listed in Sengyou's recompilation of Dao'an's catalogue of anonymous scriptures. The text was extant at the time of Sengyou.

CSZJJ 出三藏記集:
CSZJJ records two more alternate translation of this text: a Fo mu bannihuan jing 佛母般泥洹經, translated by Jiqu Jingsheng; and an anonymous Fo mu bannihuan jing 佛母般泥洹經. All three titles were extant at the time of Sengyou, and his claims that they were different are reliable.

Fajing’s Zhongjing mulu:
Fajing’s Zhongjing mulu listed Juqu Jingsheng's version only, and regarded the three titles in CSZJJ as referring to the same text.

Yancong’s Zhongjing mulu and Jingtai 靜泰錄:
Yancong and Jingtai followed Fajing for the record of the Fo mu bannihuan jing 佛母般泥洹經. Jingtai records that the text was four sheets 紙 long.

Taishō:
The text recorded in Jingtai has been identified as the Fo mu bannihuan jing 佛母般泥洹經 T145, which is listed in the Taishō as a translation by Huijian 慧簡 of the (Southern) Song 宋 period. The vocabulary and tone of this text are clearly much older than that of Juqu Jingsheng. Furthermore, there is a separate text entitled the Da'aidao bannihuan jing T144, which is listed as translated by Bo Fazu 白法祖. This is a different text from T145, and also is old, composed in the W. Jin 西晋 period or earlier. Hence, Hayashiya argues, Fajing is wrong in regarding the three titles in CSZJJ as referring to the same text.

LDSBJ 三寶記:
LDSBJ followed CSZJJ, not Fajing, by listing the three titles separately: a Da'aidao bannihuan jing 大愛道般泥洹經, and two Fo mu bannihuan jing. However, it assigned different translators to the three texts without any grounds. The listed names are Bo Fazu 白法祖, Juqu Jingsheng 京聲 and Huijian 慧簡. Neither of the surviving two texts in the Taishō mentioned above is a work of any of these three figures. Thus, Hayashiya rejects all of those attributions.

DZKZM 大周刊定衆經目錄 and KYL 開元錄:
DZKZM and KYL adopted LDSBJ’s descriptions and classified a text of four sheets in length – which had been called the Da'aidao bannihuan jing 大愛道般泥洹經 – as Huijian’s translation, but also re-named it the Fomu bannihuan jing. Also, DZKZM and KYL listed a newly-found version that was seven sheets long as the Da'aidao bannihuan jing translated by Bo Fazu. Both attributions are incorrect.

Hayashiya claims that the history of attributions given to the three texts titled Da'aidao bannihuan jing and two entitled Fo mu bannihuan jing in CSZJJ is highly complex, due to different mistakes and misunderstandings made by different catalogues. For detailed examination of the relation between those three titles, Hayashiya refers to his own 大愛道般泥洹經異譯經類の硏究, a chapter in Hayashiya 1945. Here, Hayashiya summarises that work as follows: All three texts listed in CSZJJ were extant at the time of Sengyou. Only the Fomu bannihuan of Juqu Jingsheng went missing, and the other two are extant today. Among the surviving two, viz., T144 and T145, it is yet to be determined which one was the Da'aidao bannihuan jing and which was the anonymous Fo mu bannhuan jing. Hence, at this point, both of them should be recorded simply as an anonymous scripture of the W. Jin 西晋 period or earlier.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

Edit

No

[Iwamatsu 1976b]  Iwamatsu Asao 岩松浅夫. “Nehan gyō shōhon no hon’yakusha 涅槃経小本の翻訳者.” IBK 25, no. 1 (1976): 244-247. — 245

According to Iwamatsu, in CSZJJ, Bo Fazu is ascribed with only one text, which is moreover said to have been lost; in LDSBJ, however, he is suddenly ascribed with 23 works. Iwamatsu believes that this means that we have no extant works that can reliably be ascribed to Bo Fazu. If this is true, it would undermine the received ascriptions of T5, T144, T330, T528 and T777.

Entry author: Michael Radich

Edit

No

[Hayashiya 1945]  Hayashiya Tomojirō 林屋友次郎, Iyaku kyōrui no kenkyū‚ 異譯經類の研究, Tokyo: Tōyō bunko, 1945. — 513-523

According to Hayashiya, there exist the following three alternative translations of the Da’aidao bannihuan jing 大愛道般泥洹經 (“Sūtra on the parinirvāṇa of Mahāprajāpatī”), including the Da’aidao bannihuan jingitself, all of which are listed in CSZJJ:

--- Da’aidao bannihuan jing, an anonymous scripture, listed in Dao'an's list of anonymous scriptures 安公失譯經録;
--- Fomu bannihuan jing 佛母般泥洹經 ascribed to Juqu Jingsheng, listed in the “catalogue by dynasties” 代錄; and
--- Fomu bannihuan jing 佛母般泥洹經, an anonymous scripture, listed in the catalogue of assorted anonymous scriptures 失譯雜經錄.

All three were extant at the time of Sengyou.

The Taishō has two texts in this group, which are:

--- Da’aidao bannihuan jing T144 ascribed to Bo Fazu 白法祖, and
--- Fomu bannihuan jing 佛母般泥洹經 T145 ascribed to Huijian 慧簡.

Regarding these ascriptions to 白法祖 and 慧簡, Hayashiya claims that both are first given by LDSBJ and are utterly groundless (515).

Accordingly, Hayashiya examines the vocabulary used in T144 and T145, and asserts that the two texts are rather old, and were most likely translated in the Wei-Wu 魏呉 period. Hayashiya also points out that the two texts to a considerable extent share vocabulary, because one of the two referred to the other during the translation process. Hayashiya thinks that probably T144 was produced first, and T145 referred to it later, although even if that were indeed the case, T145 would be still as old as the Wei-Wu 魏呉 period. (In support of his claims, Hayashiya lists distinctive words and phrases used in T144 and T145 at 518-519.)

Hayashiya also argues that the titles of 大愛道般泥洹經 T144 and 佛母般泥洹經 T145 must have been switched. This is because T144 contains the phrase Fomu bannihuan 佛母般泥洹 but not Da’aidao 大愛道, while T145 contains all of the term Da’aidao 大愛道, Fomu 佛母, and bannihuan 般泥洹 (520).

Consequently, Hayashiya claims that T144 is the anonymous Fomu bannihuan jing in the catalogue of assorted anonymous scriptures, and T145 is the Da’aidao bannihuan jing in Dao'an's list of anonymous scriptures. The Fomu bannihuan jing ascribed to Juqu Jingsheng must have been lost at an early stage. According to Hayashiya, any other ascriptions and identifications given by the catalogues are incorrect.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

Edit

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. — 114

Sakaino states that the Da'aidao bannihuan jing 大愛道般泥洹經, traditionally ascribed to Bo Fazu 白法祖 [T144], should be ascribed to *Lokakṣema instead, based on the vocabulary it uses (for example, 堕舎利 or 維舎利 for Vaiśāli).

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

Edit

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. — 273-275

Sakaino states the following (273): CSZJJ lists only the Weidai pusa jing 惟逮菩薩經 (not extant) as the work of Bo Fazu 白法祖. LDSBJ ascribes 23 titles in 25 juan to him, which KYL reduced to 16 titles 18 juan by excising offshoot or byproduct scriptures 別生. The titles Dizi ben 弟子本 and Wu bu seng 五部僧 are mentioned in GSZ, but it is not known exactly which texts they referred to. Sakaino quotes a passage in LDSBJ, 高僧傳(止)云祖出一經。然其所出諸經遭世擾攘名録罕存。莫紀其實 [T2034 (XLIX) 66b18-b19], and criticizes this statement, pointing out that GSZ says three scriptures 三部經, not just one scripture 一經, and that the issue is rather the odd names given for two of those three scriptures.

According to Sakaino, the 23 titles LDSBJ ascribes to Bo Fazu can be classified into the following 3 categories, excluding the Weidai pusa jing 惟逮菩薩經 (273-275).

1) 8 titles, all of which are also ascribed to Dharmarakṣa (listed, 274). The number of juan often differs between the ascription to Bo Fazu and that to Dharmarakṣa, but Sakaino asserts that it is plain that Fei reused those titles of works of Dharmarakṣa as works of Bo Fazu as well. (This is therefore part of a wider pattern, which Sakaino also observes elsewhere for the corpora ascribed to other translators, where contiguous chunks of CSZJJ lists are re-used in LDSBJ as the basis for arbitrary new ascriptions to a single figure.) Especially, the word fanzhi 梵志 in the title Chixin fanzhi jing 持心梵志經 is clearly a copyist’s error for fantian 梵天 in the Chixin fantian jing 持心梵天經 (Chixin fantian suowen jing 持心梵天所問經), and such an error makes it even more plausible that those titles were just taken from somewhere and arbitrarily attributed to Bo Fazu.

2) 10 titles found elsewhere in CSZJJ (presented on p. 274). 8 titles out of the 10 are listed in Sengyou’s new catalogue of anonymous scriptures 續失譯經錄, the majority of which are related to tongzi/māṇava 童子 (童子經類). [Sakaino seems to overlook the 佛問四童子經 in this group, thus the above numbers should be “9 titles out of 11”, not “8 titles out of 10” -- AI ]. Fei apparently took them from the group of tongzi scriptures 童子經 and allocated them to Bo Fazu, creating the impression that Bo Fazu translated many scriptures related to tongzi. Sakaino also claims that it is not a coincidence that both the Dai’aidao [jing] 大愛道 (cf. T144) and the Shouda jing 首達經 are included in Dao’an’s catalogue of anonymous scriptures 安公失譯錄.

3) 3 titles, viz., the Da fangdeng rulai jing 大方等如来經, the Wuliang po mo tuoluoni jing 無量破魔陀羅尼經, and the Tan chi tuoluoni jing 檀持陀羅尼經. The sources from which these ascriptions were taken are not known (275).

Sakaino concludes: All of Fei’s new ascriptions of 22 titles to Bo Fazu in LDSBJ must be fabrications, or based on unreliable sources. It is still plausible that Bo Fazu was taught by Bo Yan 白延, because they were near contemporaries and Bo Yan was the only person named 白 who brought the Buddhism of Kutsi/Kuci(na)/Küsen 龜玆 to China (275). However, this implies that no ascriptions carried to Bo Fazu carried today in T are accurate. This entry is associated with all ascriptions to Bo Fazu in T.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

Edit

No

[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. — 299

Kamata challenges some of the ascriptions given to Bo Yuan 帛遠 (aka Bo Fazu 白法祖) in the Taishō [Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra 佛般泥洹經 T5; *Mahāprajāpatīparinirvāṇa-sūtra 大愛道般泥洹經 T144; Pusa xiuxing jing 菩薩修行經 T330; 菩薩逝經 Pusa shi jing T528; Xianzhe wu fude jing 賢者五福德經 T777; Kamata does not specify which are incorrect/correct --- IA]. Kamata states that [according to CSZJJ] Bo translated several texts, but no details about these works are unknown [Kamata is not clear here, but most likely referring to this CSZJJ passage: 常譯惟逮弟子本五部僧等三部經。又注首楞嚴經。又言。別譯數部小經值亂零失不知其名, T2145 (LV) 107c10-12 --- IA]. Dao’an does not list any works by him. Sengyou gives only a Weidai pusa jing 惟逮菩薩經. However, LDSBJ and other catalogues ascribe more than twenty titles to Bo, 帛遠, including the five ascribed to him in the Taishō.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

Edit

No

[CSZJJ]  Sengyou 僧祐. Chu sanzang ji ji (CSZJJ) 出三藏記集 T2145.
[Dao'an catalogue]  Dao'an 道安. Zongli zhongjing mulu 綜理衆經目錄.
[Hayashiya 1945]  Hayashiya Tomojirō 林屋友次郎, Iyaku kyōrui no kenkyū‚ 異譯經類の研究, Tokyo: Tōyō bunko, 1945. — 459

Hayashiya examines Dao’an’s list of anonymous scriptures, as “recompiled” by Sengyou under the title 新集安公失譯經錄 at CSZJJ T2145 (LV) 16c7-18c2. The Da'aidao bannihuan jing 大愛道般泥洹經 is included in the section of the Dao'an/CSZJJ list for texts listed as extant 有; 17a9. Hayashiya gives, in tabulated form, information about the treatment of the same texts in Fajing T2146, LDSBJ T2034, the KYL T2154, and his own opinion about whether or not the text is extant in T, and if so, where (by vol. and page no.). The above text is identified by Hayashiya with the Da'aidao bannihuan jing 大愛道般[涅槃 SYM]泥洹經 T144, attributed in the present canon (T) to Bai Fazu 白法祖.

Entry author: Merijn ter Haar

Edit

No

[Nattier 2023]  Nattier, Jan. "The 'Missing Majority': Dao'an's Anonymous Scriptures Revisted." In Chinese Buddhism and the Scholarship of Erik Zürcher, edited by Jonathan Silk and Stefano Zacchetti, 94-140. Leiden: Brill, 2023. — 95 n. 7, 115-116 w. nn. 73-75, 118-129

The earliest external evidence for the existence of the Fo mu bannihuan jing 佛母般泥洹經 T145 is found in the sixth century, in citations in anthologies compiled by Sengyou and Baochang (120). However, Nattier argues that T145 is one of a small group of anonymous sūtras that can be identifed as belonging to the Wu kingdom. Her argument is based in part on a cluster of rare items of vocabulary and terminology, which are only found in texts of secure ascription from this same period, like T225B and T152. Nattier gives examples of such wording in T145 at 120 n. 88.

Nattier's argument is also based upon the close comparison of T145 with T144, which is a parallel version of "the same" text (carries the same content). She identifies a number of differences between the two texts: a tendency to transcription in T144, contrasting with a tendency to translation in T145; greater brevity in T144 than in T145.

Nattier argues that T144 is even earlier than T145, and T145 was produced with reference to T144. This pattern fits with other known cases of texts that were produced under the Wu, especially by Zhi Qian, with reference to earlier versions of the same texts (e.g. T224 > T225B, T362 > T361).

An important corollary of these observations is that the titles of the two texts appear to have been swapped at some point in transmission history (an argument made independently by Hayashiya many years ago; n. 84). This development must have taken place early, since the texts are cited under their swapped titles in anthologies of the sixth century.

Nattier also notes that in T144, a number of proper names shift from one transcription to another at a certain point in the text (126): for Vaiśālī, Śāriputra, Maudgalyāyana, and Yaśodha. (Mysteriously, the point at which this shift takes place is not the same for all the names in question.) She argues that this indicates that even before it was revised or used as a basis to produce T145, T144 itself had already undergone some sort of revision, which was left incomplete, and which is only betrayed by these traces within the text itself. She argues that the transcriptions in the first part of the text are products of revision, appealing to two criteria: it is generally the case that revision is "front-loaded", i.e. that revisers work from the beginning of a text forwards; and the transcriptions in the latter part of the text, in each case, are rare than those in the first part. This suggests that the transcriptions in the latter part of the text are original. The better-known transcriptions in the first part of the text align with known usage in the school of Lokakṣema, and this fact, along with the rarity of the "unrevised" transcriptions, suggests that this base layer of T144 might be very old indeed.

Entry author: Michael Radich

Edit