Text: T0556; 佛說七女經

Summary

Identifier T0556 [T]
Title 佛說七女經 [T]
Date [None]
Unspecified Anonymous (China), 失譯, 闕譯, 未詳撰者, 未詳作者, 不載譯人 [Sakaino 1935]
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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  • Title: 佛說七女經
  • People: Zhi Qian 支謙 (translator 譯)
  • Identifier: T0556

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

[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. — 206-248

Saitō compares three versions of the Qi nü jing 七女経, and argues that the Qi nü jing quoted in the Baochang's Jing lü yi xiang 経律異相 T2121 is Zhi Qian’s work, rather than the Qi nü jing T556, and further, that the Qi nü guan jing 七女観経 in the Dunhuang manuscripts is apocryphal. The gist of his discussion can be presented as follows:

According to Saitō, there are three versions of the Qi nü jing extant today: T556, ascribed to Zhi Qian; the Qi nü jing quoted in Baochang’s T2121 (LIII) 185b19-186a18; and the Qi nü guan jing 七女観経 among the Dunhuang manuscripts (S. 1548, S. 5839, T2913). Each was produced independently, without being influenced by the others (507 [but see below for an assertion that the apocryphal Dunhuang text is based upon the text witnessed in Baochang’s T2121 --- MR]).

Catalogues also record three versions of the Qi nü jing: the Qi nü jing ascribed to Zhi Qian (cf. T556); a Qi nü ben jing 七女本経 ascribed to Dharmarakṣa (claimed by Fei Zhangfang in LDSBJ to be the same text as the Qi nü jing); and a Qi nü ben jing 七女本経 ascribed to Shengjian 聖堅 (also called Qi nü jing or Qi nü ben xing ming jing 七女本心明経), which Fei claims is similar to the Qi nü jing ascribed to Zhi Qian. The last two ascriptions were first given by Fei in LDSBJ, and adopted by succeeding catalogues. KYL records that only T556 is extant (508-510).

Saitō compares these three texts and maintains that the Qi nü jing quoted in Baochang’s T2121 is based on some unknown text, but not on T556, although Baochang states that the quoted text is from the Qi nü jing 出仏説七女経. The Qi nü guan jing is not influenced by the other two extant texts [again, see below --- MR]. Saitō gives a table presenting the differences between key terms used in the three texts (510-511).

Saitō examines the verses in all three texts (511-516, 518). On that basis, and also some other factors such as vocabulary, he makes the following claims about the three texts:

T556 is unlikely to be Zhi Qian’ work, since the lengths of the lines in the verses are irregular (516). In addition, it features a number of terms not used in other Zhi Qian’s works (521).

The Qi nü jing quoted in Baochang’s T2121 is likely to be Zhi Qian’s work, since the majority of the sound pairs in the verse are intentionally made to rhyme or loosely rhymed (516, 521).

The Dunhuang Qi nü guan jing is apocryphal, because a) its verses rhyme perfectly (after Saitō’s careful examination, on page 517-519); b) it uses the term “Mingyuan wang” 冥縁王 (referring to Ui 1969) (520); and c) the title Qi nü guan jing is not listed in any historical catalogues down to the Zhenyuan lu 貞元録 completed in 800 CE (520). Saitō argues that the Qi nü guan jing was based on the Qi nü jing in Baochang’s T2121, since the verses in both have a similar order, structure, and vocabulary (520). The Qi nü guan jing was produced probably in the ninth century or later, since it is not recorded in earlier catalogues and uses the character 怙 for rhyming, which rhymes with the other character of the pair (処) only in the pronunciation of the eighth century or later (517-519).

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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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. — 112

Sakaino argues that the extant Qi nü jing 七女經 (T556, ascribed to Zhi Qian) is the Qi nü jing listed in the new catalogue of anonymous scriptures 續失譯錄 of CSZJJ, but not the Qi nü jing ascribed to Zhi Qian by Dao’an, because: the extant T556 is a “Mahāyāna” scripture while Dao’an records that the Qi nü jing in his list is from the Abhidharma 阿毘曇; and the extant T556 uses the transcription-translation term 阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心 repeatedly, but that term does not appear in any other Zhi Qian work (e.g., he uses the term 無上正眞之道 instead in the 大明度無極經 T225).

Entry author: Atsushi Iseki

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No

[Gao 1983]  Gao Mingdao 高明道 [Grohmann, Friedrich F.]. “Rulai zhiyin sanmei jing fanyi yanjiu 如來智印三昧經翻譯研究.” MA thesis, Chung-kuo Wen-hua Ta-hsueh 中國文化大學, 1983. — 54-55 n. 24

In the course of a discussion of the ascription of T632, Gao notes that Stein 2872, which preserves a fragment of the Zhongjing bie lu 眾經別錄, which he identifies with the Liu Song catalogue of the same name, lists six texts not ascribed to Zhi Qian in Dao'an's catalogue, but ascribed to him by Sengyou in CSZJJ. Gao argues that the "Bie lu" is therefore Sengyou's source for these ascriptions. The texts in question are: 慧印三昧經 (T632), 差摩竭經, 龍施女經 (T557), 月明善菩薩經 (cf. 月明童子經 in Sengyou's list, and 月明菩薩經 T169), 阿難四事經 (T493), and 七女經 (T556). [Note that Gao himself does not agree with the ascription of T632, and may not subscribed to the other ascriptions in this list; he is merely the proximate source reporting them --- MR.]

Entry author: Michael Radich

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