Text: Gaowang Guanshiyin jing 高王觀世音經

Summary

Identifier [None]
Title Gaowang Guanshiyin jing 高王觀世音經 [Tokuno 1990 ]
Date 北魏 [Tokuno 1990 ]
Author Sun Jingde 孫敬德 [Tokuno 1990 ]

Assertions

Preferred? Source Pertains to Argument Details

No

[Tokuno 1990 ]  Tokuno, Kyoko. "The Evaluation of Indigenous Scriptures in Chinese Buddhist Bibliographical Catalogues." In Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha, edited by Robert E. Buswell, Jr., 31-74. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1990. — 55

The Gaowang Guanshiyin jing 高王觀世音經 was branded “spurious” by Zhisheng. According to Tokuno, Zhisheng makes this judgement on the basis of the text’s known authorship and its annotation, which features a detailed account of the text’s origin. Zhisheng writes that the author of this text was a soldier by the name of Sun Jingde 孫敬德, who was sentenced to death for “petty theft” during the Northern Wei period. The night before his execution, he had a vision of a monk who taught him to recite the Jiu sheng Guanshiyin jing 救生觀世音經. The monk told Sun that the text would shield him from harm if recited one thousand times. The next day, as he was told, Sun recited the text and was protected from the executioner’s blows. Once the chief minister heard of this event, he exonerated Sun and the text was “circulated throughout the world.”

Entry author: Michael Radich

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  • Title: Gaowang Guanshiyin jing 高王觀世音經
  • People: Sun Jingde 孫敬德 (author)
  • Date: 北魏

No

[Funayama 2013]  Funayama Tōru 船山徹. Butten wa dō Kan’yaku sareta no ka: sūtora ga kyōten ni naru toki 仏典はどう漢訳されたのか スートラが経典になるとき. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten: 2013. — 130-131

Funayama mentions this text as part of a list of texts composed in China designed to "stimulate a certain type of doctrinal belief" 特定の教義信仰を鼓吹するもの. This text expounds the miraculous powers of Avalokiteśvara, while mentioning the name of a known historical individual of the N. Wei 北魏, Gao Huan 高歡 (later Emperor Shenwu 神武 of the N. Qi 北齊).

Entry author: Michael Radich

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