Text: T0087; 齋經

Summary

Identifier T0087 [T]
Title 齋經 [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 Zhi Qian 支謙 [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

[Zürcher 1959/2007]  Zürcher, Erik. The Buddhist Conquest of China: The Spread and Adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China. Third Edition. Leiden: Brill, 1959 (2007 reprint). — 50, 336 n. 137

According to Zürcher, Sengyou attributed thirty-six texts to Zhi Qian 支謙, of which twenty-three have survived: T54, T68, T76, T87, T169, T185, T198, T225, T281, T362, T474, T493, T532, T533, T556, T557, T559, T581, T632, T708, T735, T790, T1011. However, Zürcher notes that T68 “is not mentioned by Dao’an.” This entry includes all twenty-three texts accepted by Zürcher as genuine Zhi Qian translations.

Entry author: Sophie Florence

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No

[Hayashiya 1941]  Hayashiya Tomojirō 林屋友次郎. Kyōroku kenkyū 経録研究. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1941. — 714-722

Hayashiya's summary of the content of the catalogues on this 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 lists a Ba guan zhai jing 八關齋經. The text was extant at the time of Sengyou. He also lists another Ba guan zhai jing in the category of extant scriptures in the catalogue of assorted anonymous scriptures 失譯雜經錄 with a note saying “alternate issue” 異出. Hayashiya points out that there were thus two different Ba guan zhai jing at the time of Sengyou, since both were extant and Sengyou states that one of them is 異出.

However, Fajing does not take the view that there are two Ba guan zhai jing, but regards “Ba guan zhai jing” as one of the two alternate titles of the Zhai jing 齋經 ascribed to Zhi Qian 支謙, a text which is listed in his “catalogue of the Hīnayāna sūtrapiṭaka” 小乗修多羅藏錄. (The other alternate title of the Zhai jing shown by Fajing is Youpoyi Duoshejia jing 優婆夷堕舎迦經.) Hayashiya points out that the Zhai jing ascribed to Zhi Qian is included in Dao’an’s catalogue, but was lost at the time of Sengyou. Hence, even if the Zhai jing and the Ba guan zhai jing were the same text, Sengyou would not have known it. The same can be said about the Youpoyi Duoshejia jing, Hayashiya adds, because Sengyou includes the title in the catalogue of assorted anonymous scriptures 失譯雑經錄 as an unseen scripture 未見經, so its alleged identity with the Zhai jing could not have been known to Sengyou. Nonetheless, Hayashiya asserts that Fajing’s treatment of the Ba guan zhai jing, viz., regarding the title merely as an alternate title of the Zhai jing, is unjustified, since there are two different Ba guan zhai jing in Sengyou.

Hayashiya then examines three texts in the Taishō: the Zhai jing 齋經 T87 ascribed to Zhi Qian, the Youpoyi Duoshejia jing 優陂夷墮舍迦經 T88, shown as an anonymous scripture of the Song 宋 period, and the Ba guan zhai jing 八關齋經 T89 ascribed to Juqu Jingsheng 沮渠京聲. The contents of all these three texts are about the ba guan zhai 八關齋 (eight precepts for poṣadha days), so it would make sense to call any of them Zhai jing, Ba guan zhai jing, or Zhai fa jing 齋法經. In addition, T88 contains the name of woman called Duoshejia 墮舍迦, so among the three texts it is the most suitable one to be called Youpoyi Duoshejia jing 優陂夷墮舍迦經.

According to Hayashiya, the style of T87, T88, and T89 are that of the W. Jin 西晋 or of the Three Kingdoms 三國 period, so none of these texts should be classified as an anonymous scripture of the Song period, or as a work of Zhi Qian. Given the period in which they were produced, two of the three texts in the Taishō should be the Zhai jing and Ba guan zhai jing listed by Dao’an. Hayashiya infers that Sengyou found the third one and included it as the second Ba guan zhai jing with the comment 異出, adding that Sengyou probably did not know that one of the three texts could also be called Youpoyi Duoshejia jing, and therefore listed the title separately as unseen.

Hayashiya states that Fajing’s mistake in regarding the three titles as referring to one and the same text is understandable, because Fajing's is a catalogue compiled through discussions between scholars without directly consulting texts, and all three extant alternate translations could well be called Ba guan zhai jing.Furthermore, T88 and T87 explain the same subject matter: that the benefit of keeping the poṣadha precepts 齋 is greater than that of all the wise people in the sixteen great states 十六大國. Nonetheless, Hayashiya affirms that it is clear from Sengyou’s record that there were two Ba guan zhai jing.

Yancong and Jingtai recorded the text in the same fashion as Fajing, viz., listing only the Zhai jing 齋經 ascribed to Zhi Qian, while treating the Ba guan zhai jing and the Youpoyi Duoshejia jing as its alternate titles. Jingtai shows the length of the text as four sheets. Based on this length, Hayashiya claims that the entry in Jingtai should be for T87, which has a length of approximately three and a half registers (T88 is shorter than three registers, T89 is shorter than one and a half registers).

LDSBJ lists the Zhai jing ascribed to Zhi Qian (with an alternate title Chi zhai jing 持齋經) and the Ba guan zhai jing 八關齋經 ascribed to Jingsheng, but does not mention the Youpoyi Duoshejia jing. Hayashiya points out that although the entry on the Ba guan zhai jing in LDSBJ may appear to be taken from the catalogue of assorted anonymous scriptures by Sengyou, because the comment 異出 is appended to it, this is not likely, because 異出 in LDSBJ would be meaningless given that the first Ba guan zhai jing is omitted. Hayashiya then considers two possibilities regarding the entry on the Ba guan zhai jing in LDSBJ: The entry was taken from Sengyou's recompilation of Dao'an's catalogue of anonymous scriptures with the comment 異出 added by mistake, or Fei Changfang 費長房 was influenced by Fajing in supposing the existence of only one Ba guan zhai jing and accordingly mixed up the two Ba guan zhai jing in Sengyou/ Dao'an. Hayashiya conjectures that the first possibility is more plausible, since among titles ascribed to Jingsheng in LDSBJ, as many as twenty are taken from Dao'an's catalogue of anonymous scriptures, so it is reasonable to assume that this Ba guan zhai jing ascribed to Jingsheng is also taken from that catalogue. In any case, since LDSBJ is not based on the contents of texts, it is not possible to know, from what is written in the catalogue alone, which title refers to the Zhai jing ascribed to Zhi Qian or to the Ba guan zhai jing ascribed to Jingsheng.

DZKZM 大周刊定衆經目錄 also includes the two titles Zhai jing , ascribed to Zhi Qian, and Ba guan zhai jing, ascribed to Jingsheng. It shows the length of the former (four sheets), but not that of the latter. Hayashiya claims that there is no record of length for the Ba guan zhai jing because the text was not extant at that time. (DZKZM also shows Ba fa shan su jing 八法善宿經 as an alternate title of the Ba guan zhai jing, allegedly on the basis of Baochang’s catalogue 寶唱錄, but Hayashiya states that this part of the record may be unreliable because it is not seen in any other catalogues.) Since both Jingtai and DZKZM show the length of the Zhai jing as four sheets, the text should be slightly shorter than three and a half registers in the format of the Taishō, and this makes it certain that T87 is the text recorded in those catalogues.

Unlike the other catalogues after CSZJJ, KYL lists three titles: the Youpoyi Duoshejia jing, as an anonymous extant Hīnayāna text shown by Sengyou; the Zhai jing as an extant Hīnayāna text ascribed to Zhi Qian (KYL states that these two texts are alternate translations); and the Ba guan zhai jing ascribed to Jingsheng, as an extant single Hīnayāna text. Hayashiya points out that it is KYL that first lists as extant both the Youpoyi Duoshejia jing and the Ba guan zhai jing, a text which was considered lost for a long time.

Hayashiya also argues that most of the descriptions and ascriptions KYL gives for these titles do not have to be taken seriously. For example, KYL’s comment that the Youpoyi Duoshejia jing was produced in the Song period is made tentatively based on the simple fact that the title was included in the catalogue of assorted anonymous scriptures. Such suppositions about dating are made by KYL in re-listing 307 titles in the catalogue of assorted anonymous scriptures that are omitted in LDSBJ, including the Youpoyi Duoshejia jing. Thus, the Song dating of the Youpoyi Duoshejia jing can be easily be rejected if the style of the text is found to be that of the W. Jin 西晋 or earlier. In addition, the ascription of the Ba guan zhai jing to Jingsheng does not have any convincing grounds, for the following reason: While the three titles were given to one text in the previous catalogues, the Youpoyi Duoshejia jing and another text (which can be entitled Ba guan zhai jing) were discovered by the time of Jingsheng. As the Zhai jing was considered extant throughout, and the Youpoyi Duoshejia jing was easily identifiable from its title, the title Ba guan zhai jing was given to the second of the two rediscovered texts, with the addition of the ascription given by LDSBJ. Hence, again, the ascription to Jingsheng can be rejected unproblematically if the style of the text is found to be that of W. Jin or earlier.

Hayashiya points out that it is difficult to determine which of T88 and T89 is the Ba guan zhai jing listed in Dao'an. All we know is that, at the time of Sengyou, both the Ba guan zhai jing in Dao'an and the Ba guan zhai jing in the catalogue of assorted anonymous scriptures were extant, the latter being an alternate issue 異出 of the former, while neither the Zhai jing ascribed to Zhi Qian nor the Youboyi Duoshejia jing 優婆夷堕舎迦經 was extant. Given this, either the alternate issue of the Ba guan zhai jing could be the Zhai jing ascribed to Zhi Qian, or the Youboyi Duoshejia jing could actually refer to the same text as one of the three other titles.

However, Hayashiya asserts that at least it is clear that the three text in the Taishō have the style of the the Three Kingdoms 三國代 or of the W. Jin the latest. Hence, the ascription of T89 to Jingsheng and the classification of T88 as a scripture of the Song period cannot be correct. He also points out that the existence of the three old texts strongly suggests that the entry on the Ba guan zhai jing in Dao'an's catalogue of anonymous scriptures is not a repeat entry of the Zhai jing ascribed to Zhi Qian, as Fajing might have thought,

Hayashiya concludes that it is certain that the Ba guan zhai jing of Dao'an is either T88 or T89, although exactly which one unknown. As their style of is that of the W. Jin or earlier, T88 and T89 should be reclassified as anonymous scriptures of the W. Jin period or earlier, correcting the ascription and classification given by the Taishō.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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No

[Fajing 594]  Fajing 法經. Zhongjing mulu 眾經目錄 T2146. — T2146 (LV) 129c18

Ba guan zhai jing is given in an interlinear note in Fajing as an alternate title for the Zhai jing, and ascribed to Zhi Qian (cf. T87):齋經一卷(一名八關齋經一名優婆夷墮合迦經出第五十五卷) (吳黃武年支謙譯). This is the only time the title Ba guan zhai jing appears in Fajing.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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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. — 129-135

Sakaino lists 29 “Hīnayāna” titles ascribed to Zhi Qian in LDSBJ (list on 129-130), and claims that there is hardly any doubt that the titles ascribed to Zhi Qian already in CSZJJ are truly his work [by this Sakaino apparently refers to the first ten titles of the list, nine of which were included in Dao’an’s catalogue and the one in CSZJJ. Those ten are the titles associated with this entry --- AI]

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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