Text: T0246; 仁王護國般若波羅蜜多經

Summary

Identifier T0246 [T]
Title 仁王護國般若波羅蜜多經 [T]
Date [None]
Translator 譯 Amoghavajra, 不空, 不空金剛, 阿目佉, 阿謨伽 [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

[Nattier 1991]  Nattier, Jan. Once Upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1991. — 128-129

Nattier argues that the text was probably composed in China, for the following reasons: 1. The content of the prophecy of decline of the Dharma is unusual---decline is attributed to restrictions imposed on the Samgha by the government on monastic ordinations, stupa-building, and the crafting of images, which seems to jibe with concerns current in fifth-century China. 2. The term ren 仁 in the title is important in Chinese thought, but it is hard to think of an Indian antecedent. 3. The text betrays concerns atypical of Indian texts, such as mention of the "hundred families" 百家, the arrangement of a series of items in groups of nine, and reference to sutras being kept in boxes. Nattier refers to further work by Yoritomi Motohiro,

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Orzech 1998]  Orzech, Charles D. Politics and Transcendent Wisdom: The Scripture for Humane Kings in the Creation of Chinese Buddhism. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. — esp. 74-76, 289-291

Ample evidence supports the generally accepted conclusion that this text was composed in China. Orzech gives a summary of the reasons supporting this conclusion, and a listing of prior scholarship on the question, in Appendix B, 289-291. He also surveys external evidence in catalogues and other sources, 74 ff.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Liang Wudi preface to PP comm]  Liang Wudi 梁武帝. "Zhujie da pin xu" 注解大品序. — T2145 (LV) 54b19-20

In a preface preserved in CSZJJ, Liang Wudi remarks of the Ren wang jing 仁王經 (cf. T245, T246), "Since it is commonly regarded as a dubious sutra, I will set it aside without further discussion": 唯仁王般若具書名部。世既以為疑經。今則置而不論.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Strickmann 2002]  Strickmann, Michel. Chinese Magical Medicine. Edited by Bernard Faure. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002. — 229

Strickmann writes: "Properly speaking, many of [Amoghavajra's 167 'translations'] were not translations at all. Instead, they might better be called 'adaptations’; essentially, he refurbished them in line with his own terminology and ritual practice. This becomes even more striking in those cases where texts 'translated' by Amoghavajra are known to have been written in China centuries earlier, and directly in Chinese. A substantial part of Amoghavajra’s output thus comprises revisions of books already known in China, rather than new materials. Among the remaining, a good many cannot be found either in corresponding Sanskrit manuscripts or in Tibetan translation – at least not in the form in which Amoghavajra presents them. Much of what his texts tell us unquestionably goes back to Indian sources; he was clearly working fully within the Tantric Buddhist tradition, but often more as an author or compiler than as a translator in our sense of the term."

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. — 92

Ōno maintains that the later version of the “Sūtra of Human Kings” 仁王護國般若波羅蜜多經 T246 ascribed to Amoghavajra 不空 differs too greatly from the earlier version, T245, for it to be considered an alternate translation of the older text. The titles of four out of eight chapters are different; odd original terms were replaced; Chinese-specific terms were removed, etc. Following Mochizuki and Shiio , Ōno states that T246 is rather a revised version of T245.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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