Text: T0542; 佛說耶祇經; Yeqi jing 耶祇經

Summary

Identifier T0542 [T]
Title 佛說耶祇經 [T]
Date W. Jin 西晋 [Hayashiya 1941]
Unspecified Anonymous (China), 失譯, 闕譯, 未詳撰者, 未詳作者, 不載譯人 [Hayashiya 1941]
Translator 譯 Juqu Jingsheng 沮渠京聲 [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

[Hayashiya 1941]  Hayashiya Tomojirō 林屋友次郎. Kyōroku kenkyū 経録研究. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1941. — 723-724

Hayashiya's summary of the content of the catalogues on the Yeqi jing 耶祇經 is as follows:

A Yeqi jing 耶祇經 is listed in Sengyou's recompilation of Dao'an's catalogue of anonymous scriptures 新集安公失譯經録 simply as 耶祇經一巻 (1 juan). The text was extant at the time of Sengyou.

Fajing’s Zhongjing mulu included a Xieqi jing 邪祇經 as an anonymous scripture. Hayashiya maintains that 邪祇經 must be an error for 耶祇經.

The Renshou lu 仁壽録 listed a Yeqi jing 耶祇經, correcting Fajing’s orthography, in the group of single Hīnayāna texts 小乗經單本. Hayashiya points out that the text must have been extant at the time of Renshou lu, viz., the Sui period, as it is a catalogue of extant scriptures 現藏錄.

Jingtai 靜泰錄 included the scripture (again with the mistaken orthography 邪祇經) as a single Hīnayāna text, stating its length as two sheets 紙.

The Yeqi jing 耶祇經 is first ascribed to Juqu Jingsheng 沮渠京聲 in LDSBJ, followed by DZKZM 大周刊定衆經目錄. DZKZM also claimed that the scripture was extant and three sheets long.

KYL 開元錄 also included the Yeqi jing 耶祇經 as an extant single Hīnayāna text, and ascribes it to Juqu Jingsheng. Hayashiya points out that the catalogue shows the length of the text as two sheets, which he claims is odd because, regarding the length of texts, in most cases KYL follows DZKZM that says the scripture was three sheets long. Hayashiya infers that “two sheets” 二紙 in KYL was a scribal error, and should have written “three sheets” 三紙.

Taishō: Hayashiya maintains that, judging from the lengths in sheets shown in Jingtai and DZKZM, the Yeqi jing should be just two registers long or slightly shorter if it is included in the Taishō. Then he points out that the Yeqi jing 耶祇經 ascribed to Juqu Jingsheng 沮渠京聲 in the Taishō (T542) is about five and four-fifths registers long. Based on this length, Hayashiya asserts that this text in the Taishō is the Yeqi jing that was listed in catalogues from the Sui period. He argues that the ascription of the Yeqi jing to Juqu Jingsheng 沮渠京聲, who was active in the Song period, is incorrect, because the style of language in T542 is clearly that of the W. Jin 西晋 period or earlier, and also because the title was already listed in the Dao'an's catalogue. He concludes that the Yeqi jing should be classified as an extant anonymous scripture of the W. Jin period, since there is no evidence to ascribe it to any particular translators.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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No

[Hayashiya 1941]  Hayashiya Tomojirō 林屋友次郎. Kyōroku kenkyū 経録研究. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1941. — 707-714

Hayashiya discusses the validity of LDSBJ’s ascriptions of titles in Dao'an's list of anonymous scriptures 安公失譯經録 to Juqu Jingsheng 沮渠京聲. He deals with sixteen out of twenty-one such ascriptions, since the other five are discussed elsewhere (and established as incorrect). The sixteen titles are as follows (as shown in Dao'an's list, with the title in LDSBJ in brackets when it differs from Dao’an).

Ba guan zhai jing 八關齋經
Pu ming wang jing 普明王經
Yeqi jing 耶祇經
Moluo wang jing 末羅王經
Fenhezhan wang jing 分惒檀王經
Wubai fanzhi jing 五百梵志經
Seng da jing 僧大經 with an alternate title Fo da seng da jing 佛大僧大經 (佛大僧大經)
Da/xiao jian wang jing 大小諫王經 (Jian wang jing 諫王經)
Boyeni wang jing 波耶匿王經 with alternate titles Bosini wang jing 波斯匿王經 and Bosini wang sang mu jiing 波斯匿王喪母經 (波斯匿王喪母經)
Moyi biqiu jing 摩夷比丘經 with an alternate title Moyi jing 摩夷經
Zhantuoyue guowang jing 旃陀越國王經 ( Zhantuoyue jing 旃陀越經)
Jiashe jie jing 迦葉戒經 with an alternate title Jiashe jin jie jing 迦葉禁戒經 (迦葉禁戒經)
Moda wang jing 摩逹王經 (Moda jing 摩逹經)
Wu kongbu shi jing 五恐怖世經
Jinxue jing 進學經 with an alternate title Quan jin xue dao jing 觀進學道經
Wu wufanfu jing 五無反復經 (Wu fanfu dayi jing 五反覆大義經).

(The other five titles that LDSBJ ascribe to Jingsheng are: Pusa Shi jing 菩薩誓經, Shengsi bianshi jing 生死変識經, Zhangzhe yinyue jing 長者音悦經, Fanmo huang jing 梵摩皇經, and Wu ku zhangju jing 五苦章句經.)

Hayashiya maintains that, unless Fei Changfang 費長房 had reliable sources, it is difficult to believe that he found as many as twenty-one texts to be the works of Jingsheng without directly examining their contents, when Dao’an could not give specific ascriptions for the same texts. However, Fei’s source, namely the "separate catalogue" 別錄, viz., the “separate catalogue of the [Liu] Song canon” 宋時衆經別錄, which he briefly mentions at the end of the list of texts ascribed to Jingsheng, is unlikely to have given such ascriptions, for the following reasons: 1) if it had, those ascriptions should have been reflected in CSZJJ; and 2) since the “separate catalogue” was extant down to the Sui period and one of the important sources of Fajing, if the catalogue really had ascribed as many as twenty-one texts to Tanwulan, at least some of them should have been reflected in Fajing. Hayashiya adds that the unreliability of Fei’s ascriptions to Jingsheng is also shown in the fact that he sometimes even cites the same “separate catalogue” as the source of different ascriptions of the same text, e.g., of the Wu ku zhangju jing 五苦章句經 to Jingsheng and to Tanwulan.

Hayashiya also points out that any texts included in Dao’an’s catalogue should not be works of Jingsheng, who was active under the Song 宋. He also rejects the possibility that the titles in LDSBJ refer to texts different from those listed in Dao’an’s catalogue, on the grounds that no catalogues preceding LDSBJ even suggested the existence of such texts.

Next, Hayashiya discusses the language and style of those scriptures. He lists eleven extant texts out of the sixteen titles ascribed to Juqu Jingsheng, and compares them with the Guan Mile pusa shangsheng Doushuai tian jing 觀彌勒菩薩上生兜率天經, which has been established as the work of Jingsheng since CSZJJ. Hayashiya points out that, while the Guan Mile pusa shangsheng Doushuai tian jing starts with 如是我聞 and uses vocabulary and terminology newer than that of the time of Kumārajīva 羅什, all of the eleven texts dubiously ascribed to Jingsheng start with 聞如是 and use vocabulary much older than that of the Guan Mile pusa shangsheng Doushuai tian jing. Moreover, there are considerable discrepancies between the styles of these texts. Thus, Hayashiya asserts that the eleven texts in question are not the works of Jingsheng. They should be classified as anonymous scriptures of the W. Jin 西晋 period or earlier.

Thus, Hayashiya summarises his reasons for rejecting LDSBJ’s ascriptions to Jingsheng as follows:

1. Jingsheng’s works could not have been included in Dao’an’s catalogue;
2. The “separate catalogue” mentioned by Fei Changfang as his source could not have contained the information that he says it does;
3. The language and style of all eleven extant texts is too old to be regarded as Jingsheng’s.
3. The other five texts ascribed to Jingsheng that are discussed in different sections of Hayashiya’s work are also demonstrated to be incorrectly ascribed.

Hayashiya adds that reliable ascriptions and dates of scriptures should be found by studying catalogues that were compiled honestly, not by believing what LDSBJ states.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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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. — 866-871

Sakaino argues that dozens of new ascriptions to Juqu Jingsheng 沮渠京聲 added in LDSBJ are incorrect. He shows that the ascriptions for these extant texts are part of a broader pattern whereby Fei Changfang, in LDSBJ, takes titles in groups from lists of anonymous scriptures in Sengyou's CSZJJ or Dao’ans catalogue of anonymous texts 道安失譯錄 and assigns an entire group holus-bolus to a single or several translators. This procedure leads to a sudden ballooning of a given translator's corpus (if not its creation ex nihilo), and other absurd consequences, like the appearance that a certain translator specialised in texts on a particular topic (because Sengyou grouped titles in his lists by topic). Juqu Jingsheng is one of the purported "translators" to whom Fei applies this procedure. This entry lists extant texts ascribed to Juqu Jingsheng to which Sakaino's criticism here applies.

Most of the titles newly ascribed to Juqu Jingsheng by Fei were actually taken either from Dao’ans catalogue of anonymous texts 道安失譯錄 (21 titles) or from Sengyou’s “newly compiled catalogue of anonymous scriptures” 新集失譯錄 (10 titles). Sakaino claims that it is clear that Fei just took the entry baselessly from Dao’ans catalogue of anonymous texts, since too many titles were newly given the ascription by Fei, and, furthermore, Fei imports most of the titles in a particular section 段 in the catalogue into his list of works that he ascribes to Juqu Jingsheng.

To illustrate the problem, Sakaino lists all the 35 titles that Fei listed as Juqu Jingsheng’s work, indicating which ones were taken from Dao’ans catalogue of anonymous texts and which ones were from Sengyou’s “newly compiled catalogue of anonymous scriptures” (868-869). Sakaino asserts that 4 titles ascribed to Juqu Jingsheng in CSZJJ (3 extant, 1 lost) are the only reliable record of Juqu Jingsheng’s work (871).

Sakaino adds that in the case of Juqu Jingsheng, too, we observe a common practice in Fei´s work, which is to change the title a little, or use an alternate title, at the same time as he so reassigns anonymous scriptures taken from Sengyou’s or Dao’an’s lists. For example, the 摩達王經 in Dao’an’s catalogue becomes the 摩達經 in LDSBJ, and the Shi jing 逝經 with the alternate title 菩薩逝經 in Dao’an’s catalogue (cf. T528) becomes the Pusa shi jing 菩薩誓經, replacing 逝 with 誓.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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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. — 460

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 Yeqi jing 耶祇經 is included in the section of the Dao'an/CSZJJ list for texts listed as extant 有; 17a19. 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 Yeqi jing [邪 YP]耶祇經 T542, attributed in the present canon (T) to Juqu Jingsheng 沮渠京聲.

Entry author: Merijn ter Haar

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