Text: T0186; 普曜大方等典; *Vaitulya-nidāna; Fangdeng yuanqi 方等本起; *Lalitavistara-mahāvaitulya-dharmaparyāya; 普曜經

Summary

Identifier T0186 [T]
Title 普曜經 [T]
Date 308 [T186 Colophon]
"handle the Indic text", [手]執梵[文], [手]執胡[本] Dharmarakṣa 竺法護, 曇摩羅察 [T186 Colophon]
Translator 譯 Dharmarakṣa 竺法護, 曇摩羅察 [CSZJJ]
Amanuensis 筆受 Bo Faju 帛法巨; Kang Shu 康殊 [T186 Colophon]

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

[Kawano 2006]  Kawano Satoshi 河野訓. Shoki kan'yaku butten no kenkyū: Jiku Hōgo o chūshin to shite 初期漢訳仏典の研究 : 竺法護を中心として. Ise: Kōgakkan Daigaku Shuppanbu, 2006. — Table 6, p. 87

On the basis of a complex examination of the evidence in the catalogues from CSZJJ to KYL (73-92), Kawano arrives at this corpus of 41 texts, which he thinks can most safely be ascribed to Dharmarakṣa and dated, in order to construct a basis for examining Dharmarakṣa's corpus for the development of translation idiom over the course of his career. This note lists that corpus. Kawano arrives at this corpus on the basis of the following criteria: (1) He accepts texts which were probably dated in the original CSZJJ, as represented by the Koryŏ (Kawano shows that the version of CSZJJ received via the Song[-Yuan-Ming] line of transmission includes a large set of problematic additional dates); (2) He accepts texts first dated in Fajing, as long as the date was accepted by Zhisheng in KYL; (3) He rejects texts for which a translation date first appears in LDSBJ; (4) He adds one further text (T810) that can be dated on the basis of a (very early manuscript) colophon.

[Note: This list includes four (or five?) lost texts, and a couple of texts ascribed to other translators in the received canon. The number of lost texts is uncertain, because the list includes a 無量壽經, which some modern scholars would be inclined to identify with T360 ascribed to Kang Sengkai 康僧鎧---MR.]

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Boucher 2000]  Boucher, Daniel. "On Hu and Fan Again: The Transmission of 'Barbarian' Manuscripts to China." JIABS 23, no. 1 (2000): 7-28. — 15

Boucher cites Brough, who has argued that Dharmarakṣa’s 普曜經 Lalitavistara T186 was translated from a Gāndhārī manuscript. Brough reconstructed pronunciations of a few of the headwords to its “arapacana formulary” which is known to be the “syllabic order of Gāndhārī in the Kharoṣṭhī text.” Boucher adds that the colophon to Dharmarakṣa’s translation describes the text as a hu ben 胡本, which ties into his larger argument for a connection between the term “hu” and a Kharoṣṭhī manuscript. Citing Brough (1977).

Entry author: Sophie Florence

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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

[CSZJJ]  Sengyou 僧祐. Chu sanzang ji ji (CSZJJ) 出三藏記集 T2145. — T2145:55.7b12-8c9

In the list of texts ascribed to Dharmarakṣa by Dao'an, 28 bear dates. One of these (the 五蓋疑結失行經) has a note saying that Dao'an did not think it looked like a Dharmarakṣa text. This note lists the remaining 27. [Zürcher (2007): 66 suggests that this may be evidence that "in these cases [Dao'an's] attribution was based upon early dated colophons", which may mean that these attributions can be regarded as some of the strongest in the Dharmarakṣa corpus, on external grounds.]
光讚經十卷(十七品太康七年十一月二十五日出) T222
賢劫經七卷(舊錄云賢劫三昧經或云賢劫定意經元康元年七月二十一日出) T425
正法華經十卷(二十七品舊錄云正法華經或云方等正法華經太康七年八月十日出) T263
普耀經八卷(三十品安公云方等部永嘉二年五月出) T186
大哀經七卷(二十八品舊錄云如來大哀經元康元年七月七日出) T398
度世品經六卷(或云度世或為五卷元康元年四月十三日出) T292
密迹經五卷(或云密迹金剛力士經或七卷太康九年十月八日出) T310(3)
持心經六卷(十七品一名等御諸法一名莊嚴佛法舊錄云持心梵天經或云持心梵天所問經太康七年三月十日出) T585
修行經七卷(二十七品舊錄云修行道地經太康五年二月二十三日出) T606
漸備一切智經十卷(或五卷元康七年十一月二十一日出) T285
海龍王經四卷(或三卷太康六年七月十日出) T598
普超經四卷(一名阿闍世王品安錄亦云更出阿闍世王經或為三卷舊錄云文殊普超三昧經太康七年十二月二十七日出) T627
阿惟越致遮經四卷(太康五年十月十四日出) T266
寶藏經二卷(舊錄云文殊師利寶藏經或云文殊師利現寶藏太始六年十月出) T461
寶結經二卷(一名菩薩淨行經舊錄云寶結菩薩經或云寶結菩薩所問經永熙元年七月十四日出) T310(47)
離垢施女經一卷(大康十年十二月二日出) T338
大淨法門經一卷(建始元年三月二十六日出) T817
須真天子經二卷(泰始二年十一月出) T588
魔逆經一卷(太康十年十二月二日出) T589
德光太子經一卷(或云賴吒和羅所問光德太子經太始六年九月三十日出) T170
文殊師利淨律經一卷(一本云淨律經太康十年四月八日出) T460
寶女經四卷(舊錄云寶女三昧經或云寶女問慧經太康八年四月二十七日出) T399
如來興顯經四卷(一本云興顯如幻經元康元年十二月二十五日出) T291
方等泥洹經二卷(或云大般泥洹經太始五年七月二十三日出) T378
大善權經二卷(或云慧上菩薩問大善權經或云慧上菩薩經或云善權方便經或云善權方便所度無極經太康六年六月十七日出) T345
滅十方冥經一卷(元熙元年八月十四日出) T435
普門經一卷(一本云普門品太康八年正月十一日出) T315

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Mei 1996]  Mei Naiwen 梅廼文. “Zhu Fahu de fanyi chutan 竺法護的翻譯初探.” Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal 中華佛學學報 9 (1996): 49-64. — 54 n. 26

Mei begins with the 76 texts ascribed to Dharmarakṣa in the present Taishō which also appear in Sengyou. She then eliminates eight for the following reasons: five are listed as lost by Sengyou's time (T182, T288, T496, T558, T1301); T1301, moreover, contains details that makes it appear as if it may have been composed in China; T103 and T453 have been regarded as dubious by modern scholars (Gao Mingdao and Yinshun); and Sengyou's description of the 佛為菩薩五夢經 that he ascribes to Dharmarakṣa does not match T310(4). This leaves 68 texts Mei thinks can reliably be matched against Sengyou. This entry lists those 68 texts. [Note: Mei erroneously gives the number T627 for what is properly T636---MR.]

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Mei 1996]  Mei Naiwen 梅廼文. “Zhu Fahu de fanyi chutan 竺法護的翻譯初探.” Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal 中華佛學學報 9 (1996): 49-64. — 58 n. 53

Mei says that the translation idiom of T606 and T186 differ greatly, and asserts [without further argument] that this is because the amanuenses 筆錄 were different: Fasheng 法乘 for T606, but Kang Shu 康殊 and Bo Faju 帛法巨 for T186.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[T186 Colophon]  Anon. Puyao jing ji 普曜經記.

Translated in 308. Translated by Dharmarakṣa, with Kang Shu 康殊 and Bo Faju 帛法巨 as amanuenses 筆受.
普曜經。永嘉二年太歲在戊辰五月本齋。菩薩沙門法護。在天水寺。手執胡本口宣晉言。時筆受者。沙門康殊帛法巨.

Translated in Palumbo (2003): 196; also in Tsui (2013): 88.

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). — 66

Zürcher states that in the list of texts ascribed to Dharmarakṣa by Dao'an, 29 bear dates [I actually count 28; further, one, the 五蓋疑結失行經, has a note saying that Dao'an did not think it looked like a Dharmarakṣa text, and so I also exclude it---MR]. This note lists the remaining 27. Zürcher suggests that this may be evidence that "in these cases [Dao'an's] attribution was based upon early dated colophons". [This may mean that these attributions can be regarded as some of the strongest in the Dharmarakṣa corpus, on external grounds.]

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Boucher 1996]  Boucher, Daniel. "Buddhist Translation Procedures in Third-Century China: A Study of Dharmarakṣa and his Translation Idiom." PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1996. — 265

In the appendix to his dissertation Boucher provides a list of ninety-five texts attributed to Dharmarakṣa by Sengyou in his Chu sanzang ji ji 出三藏記集 T2145, along with a note on relevant scholarship. Among these texts is the Puyao jing 普曜經 Lalitavistara-sūtra T186 which Sengyou dated between June 5 and July 4 308. He adds that Dao'an says T186 is of the “vaipulya” class.

Entry author: Sophie Florence

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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). — 343 n. 221

Sengyou's CSZJJ preserves fifteen prefaces, postfaces and colophons to works ascribed to Dharmarakṣa. This entry lists those works; one, the Śūraṃgamasamādhi-sūtra, is no longer extant. [All other things being equal, the external evidence supporting the ascription to Dharmarakṣa for these texts should therefore be stronger than for other texts. I was unable to find the colophon Zürcher points to for T285---MR.]

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Suzuki 1995]  Suzuki Hiromi 鈴木裕美. “Koyaku kyōten ni okeru yakugo ni tsuite: Jiku Hōgo yakushutsu kyōten wo chūshin toshite 古訳経典における訳語について―竺法護訳出経典を中心として.” IBK 43, no. 2 (1995): 198-200.

Suzuki regards the texts listed in this entry as genuine Dharmarakṣa translations. She groups them into five types, on the basis of stylistic features:

A: T222, T588 , T636
A': T186, T263, T266, T285, T291, T292, T310, T310(3), T310(47), T345, T398, T403, T460, T461, T565, T606, T627, T817
B: T585
B': T338
C: T103, T170, T182AB, T199, T283, T315AB, T317, T342, T349, T378, T399, T425, T435, T459, T481, T589, T598, T737

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Okano 1987]  Okano Kiyoshi 岡野潔. “Fuyō kyō no kenkū (jō) 普曜経の研究(上).” Tōhoku Indogaku shūkyō gakkai ronshū 東北印度学宗教学会論集 14 (1987): 17-32[L]. — 106/19

Okano states that T186 borrows in places from Zhi Qian’s 太子瑞應本起經 T185.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Okano 1990]  Okano Kiyoshi 岡野潔. “Fuyō kyō no kenkū (ge) 普曜経の研究(下).” Bunka文化 53, no. 3/4 (1990): 249-268.

In this concluding part of a tripartite comparative study of all extant versions of the Lalitavistara, in order to determine the formation process and resulting stratification of the texts, Okano notes that four chapters are found only in the two Chinese translations. In Dharmarakṣa T186:十八變品 Ch. 25, 佛至摩竭國品 Ch. 26, 化舍利弗目連品 Ch. 27, 優陀耶品 Ch. 28第二十五, i.e. T186 (III) 530c21-536c24; in *Divākara’s 地婆訶羅 version, 方廣大莊嚴經 T187, all included in the *Dharmacakrapravartana chapter 轉法輪品, which is thereby bloated to elephantine proportions: T187 (III) 605b9-616a17.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Matsuda 1988]  Matsuda Yūko 松田裕子. “Chinese Versions of the Buddha’s Biography.” IBK 37, no. 1 (1988): 24-33.

Matsuda studies the interrelations between various version of the Buddha’s biography, especially in Chinese: the 修行本起經 T184 (ascribed in the Taishō to Zhu Dali 竺大力 and Kang Mengxiang 康孟詳, 太子瑞應本起經 T185 (ascribed in the Taishō to Zhi Qian), Pu yao jing 普曜經 T186 (ascribed in the Taishō to Dharmarakṣa), 方廣大莊嚴經 T187 (ascribed in the Taishō to*Divākara 地婆訶羅), 異出菩薩本起經 T188 (ascribed in the Taishō to Nie Daozhen聶道真), and the Sanskrit Lalitavistara. While it is a cornerstone of Matsuda’s own methodology to accept the canonical ascriptions for most of these texts (27), several of her observations could have important implications for consideration of ascription.

1) T186 and T187 incorporate similar material which is not found elsewhere. In T186:十八變品 Ch. 25, 佛至摩竭國品 Ch. 26, 化舍利弗目連品 Ch. 27, 優陀耶品 Ch. 28第二十五, i.e. T186 (III) 530c21-536c24. In T187, these portions are included in the “*Dharmacakrapravartana” chapter轉法輪品: T187 (III) 611b18-616a17 (the chapter itself begins at 605b9). Matsuda also states that T185 and T186 resemble one another more closely in these passages than elsewhere.

2) As Tokiwa Daijō had already observed, T186 contains some passages that are identical with passages in T184 and T185. Matsuda tabulates these correspondences between T185 and T186 (33).

Matsuda’s views on the interrelations between some of these texts are conveniently summarised in diagrammatic form (32), as follows (assuming traditional ascriptions of Chinese texts and attendant dating):

3) T185 has its sources in T184 and two hypothetical texts that Matsuda finds it necessary to posit to account for all the materials, “X” and “Y”.

4) T186 has its sources in T185, “Y”, and the older Indic Lalitavistara.

5) T188 has among its sources “X” (which means that T188 can be used to explain material in T185, for which sources otherwise cannot be found; and the combination of T185 and T188, in turn, warrants the posit of the onetime existence of “X”).

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Saitō 2013 ]  Saitō Takanobu 齊藤隆信. Kango butten ni okeru ge no kenkyū 漢語仏典における偈の研究. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 2013. — 335-336

As part of a broader examination of rhyming verse in the Dharmarakṣa corpus, the general thrust of which is to argue that such rhymed verse is largely atypical of Dharmarakṣa, Saitō points out that among the rhymed/loosely rhymed verses in T186, only one portion is unique to this text, and hence should have been produced by Dharmarakṣa and his group without relying on some existing verse. Saitō quotes that portion (T185 [III] 512c) and clarifies that all or almost all of the sound pairs are rhymed/loosely rhymed. According to Saitō, the loose rhyme of the 陽 and 庚 classes used here has been found in many materials of W. Jin. Saitō then claims that the Dharmarakṣa’s intentionally created the quoted portion with rhyme (whether or not he himself wrote the Chinese text), since Dharmarakṣa had very good knowledge of Sanskrit verse (Saitō quotes 宋高僧伝 724a), and his translation group had as many as thirty scholars who helped him translate scriptures.

Otherwise, rhyming verse in T186, Saitō states, all derive from similar/identical verse is found in other scriptures. The verse in fascicle 6 of T186 (521bc) is identical with verse in 修行本起經 T184 ascribed to Zhu Dali 竺大力 and Kang Mengxiang 康孟詳, and also with verse in 太子瑞應本起經 T185 ascribed to Zhi Qian. The verse in fascicle 7 (527bc) is similar to other verse in T185 and verse in 長寿王経 T161, an anonymous scripture of W. Jin. The verse in fascicle 8 (534a) is clearly based on verses in fascicle 10 of 百縁経 T200 ascribed to Zhi Qian, or another verse in T161. Saitō claims that those rhymed verse portions are most likely to have been taken from the other scriptures, or else their ascription should be regarded as indeterminate.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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No

[Karashima 2015]  Karashima, Seishi. "Who Composed the Mahāyāna Scriptures? The Mahāsāṃghikas and Vaitulya Scriptures." ARIRIAB XVIII (2015): 113-162. — 123

As part of an argument that genre identifiers in titles shifted over time from vaitulya to vaipulya, Karashima notes that KYL gives an alternate title for Dharmarakṣa's Lalitavistara T186 of Fangdeng yuanqi 方等本起, and reconstructs this title *Vaitulya-nidāna. He also notes that the text gives an internal title for itself of 普曜大方等典 (493c24), which he reconstructs *Lalitavistara-mahāvaitulya-dharmaparyāya.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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  • Title: Fangdeng yuanqi 方等本起; *Vaitulya-nidāna; *Lalitavistara-mahāvaitulya-dharmaparyāya; 普曜大方等典

No

[Fang and Ji 2022]  Fang Yixin 方一新 and Ji Huaye 嵇華燁. “Cong Dunhuang xieben kan xiancun Puyao jing de fanyi ji liuchuan” 從敦煌寫本看現存《普曜經》的翻譯及流傳. Dunhuang yanjiu 敦煌研究 1 (2022):107–119.

Fang and Ji compare ten Dunhuang manuscripts of the Lalitavistara 普曜經 T186 to the Xiuxing benqi jing 修行本起經 T184 (ascribed to Zhu Dali 竺大力 and Kang Mengxiang 康孟詳) and the Taizi ruiying benqi jing 太子瑞應本起經 T185 (ascribed to Zhi Qian). They show that T186 is closer to T185 in content, structure and wording. Based on this study, they argue that Dharmarakṣa consulted T185, and parts of T186 are revisions/copies (翻版) of T185. Their comparison shows:

a) T186 shares some passages with T185, but not with T184;

b) the order of some gāthās in T186 is the same as that in T185, but not in T184 (contents and wording of the same gāthās are identical in T186 and T185);

c) The wording of content shared between T186 and T185 is mostly the same.

On the assumption that these overlaps resulted from T186 copying T185, the authors further state that Dharmarakṣa revised some of the wording in T185, such as 五趣 replacing 五道 and [無]損 replacing [無]減. They suggest that these changes show Dharmarakṣa’s preferred word choices.

Entry author: Mengji Huang

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