Text: T0558; 佛說龍施菩薩本起經; 龍施本經

No

• T0558; 佛說龍施菩薩本起經; 龍施本經

Saitō argues that the received attributions of T557 and T558 should be reversed. In other words, T557 in in fact by Dharmarakṣa, and T558 by Zhi Qian.

Saitō’s main evidence in support of this claim is that T558 contains rhyme (some of it loose) throughout its second half. (T557, by contrast, is written entirely in prose.) In addition, the first half of T558, which is in fact in prose, nonetheless contains some scattered rhyme (325-329). Recognition of the rhyme in the second half of the text especially, however, has been hindered by several factors. First, several extant editions present this portion of the text in prose format. Second, the total number of padas is odd, and at 911c, the rhymes also occur at the end of the odd-numbered padas, rather than rhymes appearing at the end of even-numbered padas in a text with an even number of total padas, as we would normally expect. Saitō explains these peculiarities of the text by hypothesising that one or three padas have been lost. Third, the verse portion continues the narrative begun in the preceding prose, rather than recapitulating the same content as the prose portion, as would be more usual. This factor may have led later copyists and editors to overlook the switch to verse. Fourth, many of the rhymes are loose, which is to say, the rhyming pairs belong strictly to different rime classes, according to the formal rules of versification. Saitō argues that they should nonetheless be interpreted as evidence of a conscious attempt to rhyme on the part of the authors of the text. He bases this part of his argument upon comparison with a limited number of instances in which roughly contemporary texts, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist, also featuring rhyme words not belonging to the same pairs of rime classes (320-321). In some places, he also suggests emendations to the text in order to argue that the text originally rhymed, but was corrupted in transmission.

There still remains a small number of padas in the second part of T558 that genuinely do not rhyme—six out of thirty-three end-padas—but Saitō claims that such cases are also seen in other texts, and the overall ratio of rhyming verses is still too high to be a product of chance. In further support of his claim that the verses are intended to rhyme, he also adduces the distribution of level 平声 to non-level tones仄声 (321-322). Saitō also argues, particularly in relation to the rhymes in the first, prose portion of the text, that it would have been too difficult to obey all the rules of rhyming verse in the context of Buddhist scriptural translation, so that some deviation from those rules should be tolerated, without it excluding the hypothesis that the authors intended to produce at least part of the impression of rhyme.

Saitō argues further, on the basis of comparison with other works in their corpora, that rhymed verse, while not completely unknown in Dharmarakṣa, is far more characteristic of Zhi Qian. He also adduces information in the catalogues that shows that where bibliographers gave information about the length of each text, they ascribed a text matching T557 in length to Dharmarakṣa, and another matching T558 in length to Zhi Qian (337-340). The texts he examines by Dharmarakṣa are the Sheng jing 生経 T154, the Lu mu jing 鹿母経 T182a/b, the Lalitavistara 普曜経 T186, and the Rulai du zheng zishi sanmei jing 如来独証自誓三昧経 T623 (333-336). He argues that most of the rhymed verses in those texts were probably borrowed from other Chinese texts, leaving only a very small proportion of original, deliberately rhymed verses that were probably actually created by Dharmarakṣa’s team.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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• People: Zhi Qian 支謙 (translator 譯)

No

• T0558; 佛說龍施菩薩本起經; 龍施本經

Saitō argues that the Nāgadatta-sūtra 龍施菩薩本起經 T558 ascribed to Dharmarakṣa is probably at least in part incorrectly ascribed. He bases his argument upon evidence in the catalogues, and the pattern of rhyme in the verses of the text. The base text of the Taishō, namely K[ŏryŏ], formats the entire text as if it is prose, but the second half is in fact in pentasyllabic verse. Saitō states that in an extensive comparison of the text in various printed editions of the canon, the verses turned out to be formatted as prose in about half of the cases. He argues further that the formatting as verse is in fact correct, as the even-numbered pentasyllabic lines can be shown to rhyme according to the Wei-Jin rhyme groups. (At a certain point, the rhyming appears to shift to odd-numbered lines, but Saitō argues that this is because either one or five lines got lost; the present text has 135 lines, but originally there should either have been 136 or 140.) Saitō also notes that in the first half of the text, in prose with four-syllable prosody, there are a certain number of rhymes.

On this basis, Saitō challenges the received ascription of the text to Dharmarakṣa. Referring to his other studies on rhyme in Chinese Buddhist texts, he argues that the only other texts ascribed to Dharmarakṣa which contain deliberate rhyme are the Jātaka collection 生經 T154, Lalitavistara 普曜經 T186, 鹿母經 T182(a/b), and 如來獨證自誓三昧經 T623. However, in each case, he suggests that there exists (or existed) other full or partial versions by earlier translators, and the rhyming verse can be explained by the posit that the Dharmarakṣa group borrowed the verses from those earlier works. Conversely, the use of rhyming verse is characteristic of Zhi Qian. Moreover, Saitō adduces the testimony of the catalogues to show that the reported length of texts of similar titles ascribed to Zhi Qian and Dharmarakṣa is the reverse to what we should expect, based upon the length of extant texts with the same ascriptions, including the present T558. Claiming that the texts are both so short that the attempt to decide authorship on the basis of terminology and phraseology is "pointless" 徒労, Saitō argues that it is most likely that either T558 in its entirety, or at least that the verse portion of the text, is actually by Zhi Qian.

This argument incidentally involves making associated claims that the "Anonymous E. Jin" 不載譯人附東晉錄 MPNS 般泥洹經 T6, which Saitō states some (unidentified) scholars sometimes argue is by Dharmarakṣa, and also the 鹿母經 T182(a/b), or at least its verse portions, are also in fact translations by Zhi Qian (218).

Entry author: Michael Radich

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• People: Zhi Qian 支謙 (translator 譯)

No

• T0558; 佛說龍施菩薩本起經; 龍施本經

Sengyou cites a/the Jiu lu 舊錄 as a source for information about the 龍施本起經:

龍施本起經一卷(舊錄云龍施本經或云龍施女經)

Entry author: Michael Radich

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• Title: 龍施本經