Text: T0793; 佛說佛醫經

Summary

Identifier T0793 [T]
Title 佛說佛醫經 [T]
Date before 380 [Lin and Radich 2023]
Author Anonymous (China), 失譯, 闕譯, 未詳撰者, 未詳作者, 不載譯人 [Lin and Radich 2023]
Translator 譯 Zhi Yue, 支越; Zhu Lüyan, 竺律炎 [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

[Salguero 2016]  Salguero, Pierce. DDB, s.v. 佛醫經.

"Traditionally held to be a translation completed in 230 C.E. by Zhu Luyan 竺律炎 and Zhiyue 支越. While this text is traditionally considered to be a translation of an Indic original, its contents betray a concern to tailor Buddhist recommendations on regimen and preventative medicine for a Chinese audience." "Despite the domesticating language in the opening passages, however, the bulk of the text presents typical Buddhist recommendations on regimen and preventative medicine....On the whole, the text gives the impression of being a compilation of knowledge from other sources, repackaged and explained for a wider audience." See DDB for more details.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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No

[Sen 1945]  Sen, Satiranjan. "Two Medical Texts in Chinese Translation." Visva-Bharati Annals 1 (1945): 70-95. — 72-75

The first section of T793 addresses some general principles regarding diseases. It states that the four elements (earth, water, fire, and wind) are the four causes of disease. Satiranjan Sen (Sen 1945: 72) notices that this claim does not agree with traditional Indian theories which see wind (vāyu), bile (pitta), and phlegma (kapha) as the three causes of all disease. What might be comparable to the four-element system is the Unāni medicine system, which is influenced by the four humors of the Greek medicinal tradition (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile). In the Unāni system the four humors in question are earth, water, wind, and fire (74). Thus, Sen suggests that T793 might not be a translation of a text from Indian per se, but a text composed in Central Asia (75).

Entry author: Lin Qian

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No

[Yamabe 1997]  Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. “An Shigao as a Precursor of the Yogācāra Tradition: A Preliminary Study.” In Buddhist Thought and History of Buddhist Culture: A Collection of Papers in Honor of Professor Watanabe Takao on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday, 153–94. Kyoto : Nagata Bunshōdō, 1997. — 169-176/810-803

Yamabe notices that lists of nine causes of premature death occur in the following texts: the Foyi jing 佛醫經 T793, the Jiu heng jing 九橫經 T150B, the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya T1425, the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra T374, and the Bhaiṣajyaguru-sūtra T449, T450, T451, T1331(12), Skt. ed. Schopen 66.1-11=Dutt ed. 28.10-29.10. However, Yamabe suggests that the list most notably similar to the one in T793 is that in the Yogācārabhūmi (T30:281b9-14=Bhattacharya ed. 15.13-17), and also the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra. The list in the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya is also (though less extensively) similar to the ones in T150B and the Yogācārabhūmi. But after comparing with the relevant lists in the Vinaya texts of other traditions, Yamabe notices that the list of the nine types of immature death is unique to the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya and absent in all other Vinaya texts, thus he suggests that the list was added to the Vinaya by the Mahāsāṃghika school.

Yamabe notices that T793 has T150B incorporated into it. However, LDSBJ attributes translation of T793 to Zhu Lüyan 竺律炎 and Zhi Yue 支越 during the reign of Emperor Ming 明帝 (226-39) of the Wei 魏 Dynasty [the attribution still carried in T]. By contrast, CSZJJ lists it among “inaccessible texts 未見其本 without known translators 失譯" (T2145 [LV] 32b15). Yamabe suggest that the text should thus be examined further (p.797 note 30).

Entry author: Lin Qian

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No

[Yuan 2019]  Yuan, Wenguang 元文广. “San hui jing de chaozhuan yu chengshu niandai”《三慧經》的抄撰与成书年代考 [A Study of the Copying and Writing of the San hui jing and the Age of Its Composition]. Zongjiaoxue yanjiu 宗教学研究 4 (2019): 144-149.

The San hui jing 三慧經 T768 was recorded in Dao’an’s catalogue of “alternative translations of sūtras in the Liang region” 新集安公涼土異經錄. Sengyou included it in his catalogue of “anonymous miscellaneous sūtras” 新集續撰失譯雜經錄, and stated that it is a compilation 抄. This sūtra was popular during the Liang period. Yuan identifies the following Chinese sources for T768:

1. The Za piyu jing 雜譬喻經 T204 ascribed to Lokakṣema, stories nos. 2 and 12. The T768 version is textually better in quality, and more reasonable in wording. Yuan concludes that T768 copied from T204 and made some modifications.

2. Dharmarakṣa’s Sheng jing 生經 T154: an almost verbatim copy of a story about a man and a wish-fulfilling bottle from heaven; T154(55) (III) 108b13-c1.

3. The story of the blind men and the elephant from the Liu du ji jing 六度集經 T152(89). The two versions have very different wording, but some identical key terms. Thus, Yuan states that the T768 version it is paraphrase of the story from T152. Similarly, the 長壽王 story is also from T152(10).

4. A passage from the Fo yi jing 佛醫經 T793. The beginning of the passage is copied word by word from T793 but the remaining part is paraphrased.

5. A story about a man who loses a pearl in the sea, from Dharmarakṣa’s Xiuxing dao di jing 修行道地經 T606 (Yogācārabhūmi of Saṅgharakṣa), which is similar in content but different in wording.

The latest among these sources is Dharmarakṣa’s Sheng jing 生經 T154, translated in 285. According to Yuan, Dao’an composed his catalogue of Liang translations between 380-385 in Chang’an, and thus, T768 must have been compiled before 385. So T768 should fall in the period 285-385.

Yuan further investigates the terms (or collocations) 貪護, 極美, 疑悔, 浴佛, and 自藏, and traces them in Dharmarakṣa’s translations. [Note: All of these items are rare in the Dharmarakṣa corpus, and each appears a maximum of two or three times --- MR.] The latest that one of these items appears for the first time in a dated Dharmarakṣa text is 浴佛, in the Pu yao jing 普曜經 (Lalitavistara) T186, translated in 308. Thus Yuan concludes that T768 is a Chinese composition, and was produced between 308-385.

Entry author: Lin Qian

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No

[Lin and Radich 2023]  Lin Qian and Michael Radich. "Notes on the Fo yi jing 佛醫經 T793." Journal of the American Oriental Society 143, no. 4 (2023): 881–902.

Abstract:

The Fo yi jing 佛醫經 T793, a short text, discusses physical and mental health, presenting its content as the teachings of the Buddha. The Taishō presents the text as translated by Zhu Lüyan 竺律炎 and Zhi Qian 支謙 . We survey bibliographic records to propose that this attribution is unreliable. Using computer assisted analysis, we locate passages in the text possibly borrowed from early Chinese sources, among them most notably An Shigao’s 安世高 Jiu heng jing 九橫經 T150A(31) . These findings indicate that T793 was probably compiled in China on the basis of various sources . We also find that some basic early Buddhist teachings, such as the four nutriments (āhāra) and rules regarding the eating of meat, are misunderstood or misrepresented in T793. Taking into account some terms and phrases in T793 that occur more frequently in translations in the Western Jin period, we suggest that T793 is likely a compilation made between the late third and early fourth centuries. It is thus probably one of the earliest extant Chinese compositions of this kind.

Entry author: Michael Radich

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