Text: T0660; 佛說寶雨經

Summary

Identifier T0660 [T]
Title 佛說寶雨經 [T]
Date [None]
Recite 同宣 Bodhiruci, 菩提流志, 達摩流支 [Ōno 1954]
Translator 譯 Bodhiruci, 菩提流志, 達摩流支 [T]
[orally] "translate/interpret" 傳語, 口宣[...言], 傳譯, 度語 Li Wuchan, 李無諂; Zhantuo 戰陀 [Ōno 1954]

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 1981]  Zürcher, Erik. “Eschatology and Messianism in Early Chinese Buddhism.” In Leyden Studies in Sinology: Papers Presented at the conference Held in Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Sinological Institute of Leyden University, December 8-12, 1980, edited by Wilt L. Idema, 34-56. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981. — 48

Zürcher argues that the passage concerning Yueguang tongzi (ch. 1, p. 284a.) is an apocryphal insertion in the “undoubtedly authentic” Ratnamegha-sūtra 寶雨經 T660. In this passage, the Buddha foretells that Yuegang will be reborn as a “powerful female ruler" in Great China (Mahācīna) who “will bless her inhabitants with her wisdom and kindness, and make Buddhism flourish both spiritually and materially.” After her long and successful rule, she will be reborn in Tuṣita heaven and join Maitreya. He argues that this insertion is “Buddhist propaganda” at the service of Emperor Wu [Zetian], in order to legitimate her position. Zürcher cites Antonino Forte, Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century, Naples, 1976, pp. 125-135.

Entry author: Sophie Florence

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No

[Forte 2005]  Forte, Antonino. Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century: An Inquiry into the Nature, Authors, and Function of the Dunhuang Document S.6502 Followed by an Annotated Translation. Second Edition. Kyoto: Scuola Italiana di Studi sull’Asia Orientale, 2005. — 191-

Forte summarises a history of scholarship, traditional and modern, on the problem of an interpolation in the Baoyu jing T660. Ming Buddhists were the first to address the possibility of such an interpolation, but applied their suspicions to the wrong passage. In the Ming canon, a long note was inserted to refute the authenticity of this passage. Yabuki regarded this accusation as inconsistent, and Demiéville held that the passage in question was certainly not apocryphal, but had featured in the original Skt.

Forte praises the Qing philologist Yu Zhengxie 俞正燮 for correctly noted that Dharmaruci's [= Bodhiruci's] 693 translation agreed with the two earlier translations, with the exception of a "discourse relating to the female [ruler] of China". Yu, Forte writes, showed that this passage (different from the one identified by the Ming scholars) (T660 [XVI] 284b13-c14) was indeed an interpolation, and was followed in modern scholarship by Shigematsu Toshiaki and Aoso Koki. Sakurabe Bunkyō noticed the same passage independently, without suggesting that the prophecy applied to Wu Zetian. These remarks were then lost, and Makita rediscovered the passage for the third time in 1964. In 1971, Shigenoi wrote an article entirely devoted to the interpolation. Forte presents and translates the interpolated passage p. 194-198, and much of his monograph is a study of its significance, in conjunction with the significance of a commentary written upon the text which reflects similar agendas.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Ōno 1954]  Ōno Hōdō 大野法道. Daijō kai kyō no kenkyū 大乗戒経の研究. Tokyo: Risōsha 理想社, 1954. — 363

According to Ōno, the Ratnamegha-sūtra 寶雨經 T660 is an extended version of the Ratnamegha-sūtra 寶雲經 T658, but not related to T659. DZKZM states: 右大周長壽二年三藏梵摩 於佛授記寺譯。新編入 (T2153 [LV] 396b29-c1). Ōno identifies “the Brahman” 梵摩 with Bodhiruci 菩提流志. Ōno also quotes KYL, which says, among other details, that the Indic text was recited 同宣 by the royal emissary śramaṇera *Brahma 梵摩, orally translated 譯語 by Zhantuo 戰陀 and Li Wuchan 李無諂: 中印度王使沙門梵摩同宣梵本。沙門戰陀居士婆羅門李無諂譯語。沙門慧智證譯語。沙門處一等筆受。沙門思玄等綴文。沙門圓測神英等證義。司賓寺丞孫辟監護 (T2154 [LV] 570a17-21). Ōno points out that the Taishō 現藏 attribution for this text reads *Dharmaruci 達摩流支, unlike other texts ascribed to Bodhiruci (363).

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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