Text: T0418; 般舟三昧經

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• T0418; 般舟三昧經

In a survey article of scholarship on questions of attribution in the Chinese canon published in the last decade, Fang and Lu state that Fang and Gao argue that the date of the translation of the Banzhou sanmei jing 般舟三昧經 T418 requires further discussion, since it contains a cluster of vocabulary that only appears in the translations of the Western Jin dynasty. They refer to

Fang Yixin 方一新 and Gao Lieguo 高列過. Donghan yi wei Fojing de yuyan xue kaobian yanjiu 東漢疑偽佛經的語言學考辨研究. Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2012: 191–199.

Entry author: Mengji Huang

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• T0418; 般舟三昧經

The question of whether the Banzhou sanmei jing 般舟三昧經 (Pratyutpannabuddhasaṃmukhāvasthitasamādhi-sūtra) T418 was translated by Lokakṣema remains a subject of debate. Fang and Gao question the attribution of T418 to Lokakṣema. They state that T418 differs from translations reliably ascribed to Lokakṣema and the E. Han. It is more like a translation of the W. Jin, as it contains a set of vocabulary that only appear in translations from that era.

Fang and Gao examine eight phrases that are found in both T417 and T418. Among these phrases, Five (group a) never appear in the translations of Lokakṣema and the E. Han, and three (group b) are absent from translations of the E. Han. The eight phrases are:

a) 一切魔, 三昧力, 四面阿須倫王, 白衣菩薩, 學士
b) 聽我說譬喻, 助其歡喜/助歡喜, the classifier 頭

Entry author: Mengji Huang

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• People: Anonymous (China), 失譯, 闕譯, 未詳撰者, 未詳作者, 不載譯人 (translator 譯)
• Date: W. Jin

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• T0418; 般舟三昧經
• T0632; 佛說慧印三昧經; Tathāgatajñānamudrāsamādhi

Nattier points out that the verses of T418 include some expressions typical of Zhi Qian, and also share some rare terms with T632. Both works also show signs of being revised. She suggests that the verses of these two texts may have been added by Zhi Qian. Nattier also notes that these verse portions of both T632 and T418 include sections of six-character verse, "a virtual fingerprint of Zhi Qian's activity".

Entry author: Michael Radich

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• T0418; 般舟三昧經

Harrison argues that the Banzhou sanmei jing 般舟三昧經 (in three juan) T418 (BZSMJ) can be tentatively attributed to Lokakṣema, with some reservations. According to Harrison, the text is preserved both in the Korean edition of the canon ("K") and the “printed editions” of the Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties ("SYM"). Harrison summarises the differences between K and SYM as follows [“chapter” refers to divisions based upon the Tibetan, rather than pin 品 divisions in the Chinese]:

1. The opening paragraph of the nidāna demonstrates a “redactional difference” between K and SYM. Harrison suggests that this may be the result of an insertion into SYM of a “well known śrāvaka-guṇa formula,” without reference to the Indic manuscript of the Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvastitasamādhi-sūtra (PraS). However, because the nidāna of SYM corresponds with that of T416 and the Tibetan version, Harrison considers it likely that the nidāna does go back to the Indic, and is not a “formulaic application by a Chinese writer of the nidāna as it appears in K.”

2. The gāthās at the end of Chapters 3, 4 and 5 are “clearly independent translations of an original text”. Harrison bases this conclusion on comparison to T416, T419 (which is closer to K than SYM), and the Tibetan version.

3. There are roughly 235 variant readings between the two versions, which Harrison regards as “of minor importance”. They usually involve no more than a single character.

Approximately half of these variants are to be found in the “first third of the text.” Chapters 1-6 of K show significantly more deviation in transmission from SYM than Chapters 7-26; and the opening section of the nidāna and the gāthās of these chapters are “clear proof of an independent textual tradition”. From Chapter 7 onwards, K and SYM are “virtually identical”. We can therefore conclude that “all the prose of the BZSMJ (excluding 1A) and all the gāthās from Chap. 7 onwards in both K and SYM go back to the same original text. Because the variant readings contained therein are almost totally artefacts of transmission, we can also conclude that the only significant redactional differences between K and SYM lie, in fact, in the gāthās of Chapters 4-6 and in the nidāna of Chapter 1 (i.e. in Chapter 1-6 of K). In view of this, “we are justified in designating K 1-6 as a separate redaction of the BZSMJ.”

Thus Harrison divides the texts into Reaction A (K Chapters 1-6), and Redaction B (all of SYM and Chapters 7-26 of K). He offers the following hypotheses to explain the existence of these two separate redactions:

1. Lokakṣema translates a complete version of the PraS with his customary “shortened nidāna” and “prose rendition of the gāthā”. This translation is Redaction A.

2. (a) “A later translator”, with a different Indic manuscript, redoes the nidāna and the gāthās, but “leaves the prose of Redaction A virtually unchanged”, thus producing Redaction B.

Or:

3. (b) “A later translator”, with a different Indic manuscript, creates an original translation of the PraS (which Harrison terms “X”). Subsequently the gāthās and nidāna of this translation are conflated with the prose of Redaction A”, thus producing Redaction B.

4. Redaction B becomes the “standard edition of the large BZSMJ in China and is printed in the standard editions of the Chinese Canon (=SYM)”.

5. At some point, “either at the redaction of the Korean edition of the Canon or – more probably – on the occasion of some earlier edition, a version of the BZSMJ is produced which combines Chapters 1-6 of A with Chapters 7-26 of B”, yielding the present K.

Harrison notes that T419 (which consists of six chapters) and Redaction A end at the same point. This would appear to suggest that Lokakṣema’s original translation consisted only of Chapters 1-6. However, Harrison argues that the “homogeneity of prose” in both versions of the BZSMJ suggests that the prose portions of Chapters 1-6 and 7-26 are the work of the same person or persons.

In what follows, Harrison attempts to establish this homogeneity, and to determine the authorship of the text by comparison to T224 ("DXJ" = Daoxing jing), as DXJ is “the only text which can be regarded with certainty as a genuine product of his [Lokakṣema’s] translation work.”

Harrison concludes that features common to BZSMJ and DXJ prove that both are the work of the same person or school. Thus, in the two extant versions of the BZSMJ in three juan, Chapters 1-6 of K go back to Lokakṣema’s original translation, as does, “with some hesitation”, the prose of Chapters 7-26 in both K and SYM. However, the gāthās of SYM 1-26 and K 7-26 “are the work of another translator.”

To illustrate his point, Harrison presents a list of terms which are common to both the BZSMJ and DXJ. He finds that the majority of translation terms in the two texts exhibit a close affinity, especially those which are considered “particularly characteristic of Lokakṣema … [e.g. terms for] tathatā, Buddha, bhūta-koṭi etc.” Harrison considers small discrepancies in the treatment of these terms to be “minor alterations” made “during the course of a later revision.”

While the prose portions of both Redactions agree with Lokakṣema’s style, the verse gāthās of Redaction B are not in the style of Lokakṣema, “who is known to render gāthās in prose.” Therefore, Harrison considers these verses to be the work of another hand. He thinks it most likely that at some point in the third century, someone with access to an Indic manuscript revised Lokakṣema’s translation and replaced its gāthās with verse, while also making certain other adjustments. While he does not himself investigate the author of these adjustments, Harrison suggests Zhi Qian and Dharmarakṣa as possible candidates.

Harrison then examines external evidence. Sengyou’s catalogue indicates that Dao’an attributed a text entitled Banzhou sanmei jing 般舟三昧經 to Lokakṣema, as did the Jiu lu 舊錄, and both indicated that Lokakṣema either translated or published the translation on the “eighth day of the tenth month, 179 C.E.” (which, as Harrison points out, is the same date on which he released DXJ!). In addition, a colophon to the BZSMJ (by an unknown author) tells us that Lokakṣema translated the text along with Zhu Foshuo 竺佛朔, an Indian who was also involved in the translation of the Aṣṭa (which, according to Harrison, raises the possibility that the PraS was brought from India at the same time). Zhu Foshuo is said to have “recited the text in the original language, while Lokakṣema translated it orally into Chinese for his Chinese assistants to take down in writing.” Fei Changfang attributed an additional translation of the PraS to Zhu Foshuo, but Harrison considers this to be improbable. Additional evidence for the text’s attribution to Lokakṣema can be found in another colophon (written by Zhi Mindu 支愍度). Thus, Harrison concludes, “The attribution of a work entitled BZSMJ to Lokakṣema is well established in the earliest sources.”

Harrison adds that “since Sengyou does not mention any other extant works with this title, we can assume that there were only two works of that name;” the longer version popularly attributed to Dharmarakṣa, and the shorter to Lokakṣema (T417). Fajing attributed a two juan version to Dharmarakṣa, and lists a separate and partial translation in one juan by Lokakṣema. However, after its appearance in the Fajing lu, Lokakṣema’s version in one juan disappears. It is not mentioned by LDSBJ, and the Renshou lu (Yancong), Jingtai and DZKZM list it among lost texts. The text did not appear in the Song, Yuan or Ming editions of the Canon, nor the Qisha 磧砂 edition. Yet it surfaced in the Korean edition, and has since found its way into the Taishō as T417. How it did so, Harrison writes, remains a mystery.

Returning to the larger BZSMJ, Harrison makes two main points: the extant two or three juan version (most likely Redaction B) “was ascribed to Dharmarakṣa until the eighth century”; “Lokakṣema came to be credited for his own two juan version, along with the temporarily lost one juan text.” The first extant catalogue after Sengyou (CSZJJ) to attribute a two juan version to Lokakṣema was Fei Changfang’s “notoriously unreliable” LDSBJ, in which he takes the alternative date and title from Sengyou's CSZJJ. Harrison is unsure where Fei got the variant juan count; it possibly derives from another source.

In KYL, Zhisheng “overturned the attribution of the complete version of the PraS” to Dharmarakṣa. Zhisheng lists Dharmarakṣa’s version as lost, and attributes the three juan version to Lokakṣema. According to Harrison, this reattribution was most likely based on internal evidence, the “testimony of Nie Daozhen’s catalogue,” and the “Wu lu 吳錄 recorded by Fei Changfang”. The text is listed as fifty pages long, “which tallies exactly with the number of columns in the Taishō edition.”

Zhisheng’s assertion has been regarded as final “down to the present day”, and Harrison believes this to have been “borne out by an examination of [the text’s] style”. However, he also notes that for the existence of Dharmarakṣa’s translation, we only have Sengyou’s word (based on Dao’an’s), which all subsequent catalogues followed. Although Dao’an is considered to be reliable, Harrison wonders if such a translation existed in the first place. He writes that it is possible that Dao’an was referring to Dharmarakṣa’s revision of a previous translation, rather than an original. As discussed above, based on his examination of stylistic cues, Harrison does not consider Dharmarakṣa to have been involved, because “the relevant portions of B are closer to Lokakṣema’s A than Dharmarakṣa’s translation style.”

In view of these facts, Harrison argues that Redaction B was created by a revision which (according to the colophon to the BZSMJ) took place in 208, “in the Han capital of Xu(chang).” He reasons that if the original translation had taken place in 179, a revision so long afterwards "would not have been the stylistic touching up which usually occurred after a translation”. Therefore the revision in 208 appears to have been a “major overhaul”, which Harrison suggests was undertaken by students of Lokakṣema’s school with a slightly different manuscript. Those students would have been more familiar with Chinese and thus able to “convert gāthās into unrhymed Chinese verse” and utilise a more “sinicised vocabulary”.

Harrison concludes that Dharmarakṣa’s part, if he ever was involved, “remains unknown”, but “as far as the origins of Redaction B of the BZSMJ is concerned, I doubt we ever need to look further than the revision of 208 C.E.”

Entry author: Michael Radich

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• People: *Lokakṣema, 支婁迦讖 (translator 譯)

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• T0418; 般舟三昧經

Zürcher argues that the Banzhou sanmei jing (Pratyutpannabuddhasaṃukhāvasthitasamādhi-sūtra) T417/418 is one of only two extant texts for which Dao’an’s attribution to *Lokakṣema was more than “hypothetical” (the second being T224) on the basis of its mention in the CSZJJ II and an anonymous colophon (ib. VII 48.3.9 sqq.). Zürcher adds that the textual origins of this scripture are complicated, and scholars who have studied the text have reached very different opinions. Zürcher cites Hayashiya Tomojirō (Kyōroku-kenkyū, pp. 544-578) who “discusses the opinions of former specialists” such as Sakaino Kōyō and Mochizuki Shinkō; after a careful comparison of the two versions, Hayashiya concludes that the version in three juan (T418) is the original translation by *Lokakṣema, the one in one juan (T417) being “an abstract made from the earlier more extensive text.” He adds that besides these two texts, there is another “short and archaic version” (Babei pusa jing 拔陂菩薩經T419) which "probably dates from Han times."

Entry author: Sophie Florence

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• People: *Lokakṣema, 支婁迦讖 (translator 譯)

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• T0417; Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasamādhi-sūtra; 般舟三昧經
• T0418; 般舟三昧經

Sakaino notes the following two notes in KYL, on different versions of the Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasamādhi:

一名十方現在佛悉在前立定經舊錄云大般舟三昧經或二卷光和二年譯初出與大集賢護經等同本見聶道真錄及吳錄, T2154 (LV) 478c9-10 (in a list of texts ascribed to *Lokakṣema).

光和二年十月八日出見經後記高僧傳等二經同時啟夾故出日同也舊錄云大般舟三昧經或一卷第二出與大集賢護經等同本, T2154 (LV) 482b16-17 (ascribing this version of the text to Zhu Foshuo 竺佛朔).

Sakaino argues that these notes demonstrate that even Zhisheng is sometimes unreliable, since they indicate, implausibly, that two versions of the text (in 2 juan, and in 3 juan) were completed in the same year (光和 2 = 179 CE). All we can conclude on the basis of these notes is that a single version of the text in either 1 or 2 juan was translated by Zhu Foshuo/Shuofo 朔佛 and *Lokakṣema together in 179. The ascription of the 3 juan version [Sakaino also points out elsewhere that this version is also recorded as 2 juan in some catalogues ---AI] to *Lokakṣema in KYL is therefore incorrect.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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• T0417; Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasamādhi-sūtra; 般舟三昧經
• T0418; 般舟三昧經

Sakaino points out that an anonymous preface to the Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasamādhi 般舟三昧經, preserved in CSZJJ, appears to state anachronistically that Dharmarakṣa was the oral translator/interpreter 傳言 for *Lokakṣema’s translation of the text:

般舟三昧經。光和二年[179 CE]十月八日。天竺菩薩竺朔佛。於洛陽出。菩薩法護。時傳言者。月支菩薩支讖授與。河南洛陽孟福字元士。隨侍菩薩。張蓮字少安筆受... T2145 (LV) 48c10-16.

Sakaino suggests that despite the anachronism, this report may preserve in a garbled form a faint shadow of a historical memory that Dharmarakṣa at some point revised the text.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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• T0417; Pratyutpannabuddhasammukhāvasthitasamādhi-sūtra; 般舟三昧經
• T0418; 般舟三昧經

According to Sakaino, the Pratyupannabuddhasaṃmukhāvasthitasamādhi-sūtra 般舟三昧經 ascribed to *Lokakṣema is actually the same text as the one ascribed to Zhu Shuofo 竺朔佛, and LDSBJ and other scriptural catalogues are incorrect in recording as if *Lokakṣema and Zhu Shuofo separately produced two different translations. It is true, however, that there existed two versions of the Pratyupannabuddhasaṃmukhāvasthitasamādhi-sūtra, one incomplete (1 juan, cf. T417) and one complete (2 juan, cf. T418, which however is today in 3 juan?), but Sakaino explains that probably *Lokakṣema and Zhu Shuofo translated those two versions together, not separately. The extant three-juan version (T418) is Dharmarakṣa’s revision of the two-juan version by *Lokakṣema and Zhu Shuofo. Sakaino states that he will discuss these texts further in a later chapter [in the same book], without specifying where.

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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• People: *Lokakṣema, 支婁迦讖 (unspecified); Zhu Shuofo 竺朔佛/Zhu Foshuo 竺佛朔 (unspecified)