Text: Chan yao mimi zhibing jing 禪要秘密治病經

Yes

• Chan yao mimi zhibing jing 禪要秘密治病經
• S. 2585; T2914; Fo shuo guan jing 佛說觀經
• T0613; 禪祕要法經
• T0620; 治禪病祕要法

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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