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毘婆尸佛經

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Text ID
KR6a0003
Date
973–1001
Dynasty
宋

Pípóshī fó jīng 毘婆尸佛經

Sūtra of Vipaśyin Buddha by 法天 (Fǎtiān / Dharmadeva, 譯)

About the work

The Pípóshī fó jīng, in two fascicles (上下), is a self-contained Buddha-biography devoted to Vipaśyin 毘婆尸 (Skt. Vipaśyin, Pāli Vipassī), the first of the seven Buddhas of the past. Translated under imperial command by 法天 Fǎtiān (Dharmadeva, d. 1001) at the early Northern Sòng Institute for the Translation of Sūtras (譯經院), it is part of a small cluster of Sòng-period translations on the saptatathāgata theme; the Taishō head-note flags it as a parallel to T1[1] (the Dà běn jīng 大本經 / Mahāvadāna-sūtra in the Cháng Āhán), to T2 (the [[KR6a0002|Qī fó jīng]], also Fǎtiān), and to T4 (the anonymous Qī fó fùmǔ xìngzì jīng). Where T2 surveys all seven past Buddhas in summary, T3 expands the Vipaśyin section into a separate biography in narrative-and-verse form.

The work opens with the Buddha addressing his monks: in a past kalpa, the great king Mǎndùmó 滿度摩 (= Bandhumant) of the city Bandhumatī had a son, prince Vipaśyin, who from the seclusion of the inner palace asked his charioteer Yúgā 瑜誐 (Yoga) to drive him out into the parks. On four successive outings the prince encountered a sick man, an old man, a corpse and a renunciant — the canonical “Four Sights” (catur-nimitta) — and on each return interrogated the charioteer about the meaning of what he had seen. The narrative then follows him through renunciation, the search for awakening under the Pāṭalā tree, and the resolution to teach. The second fascicle covers Vipaśyin’s first sermon at the Deer Park near Bandhumatī, where prince Khaṇḍa 欠拏 and the minister Tisuru 帝穌嚕 receive ordination as the first sixteen-thousand-strong saṅgha; it concludes with a verse summary of the past-Buddha’s career and a return-frame (“Thus have I heard”).

The narrative arc is, in short, the canonical Vipaśyin Mahāvadāna of the Dīgha-nikāya / Cháng Āhán tradition expanded into an independent sūtra. Doctrinally there is little distinctively Mahāyāna content in T3; its principal interest is hagiographic and lexical (the Indic proper names — Bandhumat, Bandhumatī, Yoga, Khaṇḍa, Tiṣya — are transcribed phonetically, providing useful comparanda for the Sòng Sanskrit-Chinese transcription standard).

Prefaces

The text carries no prologue or postface; the only paratext is the standard Sòng-court translator’s signature at the head of each fascicle: “Translated by imperial command by your servant Fǎtiān, śramaṇa, Tripiṭaka-master of the Translation [Bureau] of the Western Lands, Court Gentleman for Comprehensive Counsel (朝散大夫), Acting Vice-Director of the Court of State Ceremonial (試鴻臚卿), bearing the bestowed title Master Who Transmits the Teaching (傳教大師)” (西天譯經三藏朝散大夫試鴻臚卿傳教大師臣法天奉詔譯).

Abstract

T3 is one of more than 110 translations attributed to Fǎtiān in the Taishō. It is registered in the Dàzhōngxiángfú fǎbǎo lù 大中祥符法寶錄 (KR6s0100, juan 3–12) but the surviving witnesses available here do not pin its translation to a specific year within Fǎtiān’s career; the standard view places it in the post-982 phase at the Institute for the Translation of Sūtras, but the defensible bracket for the Chinese version is 973–1001 (Fǎtiān’s full Chinese career), and that bracket is recorded in the frontmatter.

The text-historical position of T3 is interesting: although the Vipaśyin-biography it contains has clear roots in the Mahāvadāna-sūtra of the Dīrgha-āgama tradition (preserved in T1[1] and parallel in the Sanskrit Mahāvadāna edited by Fukita), its narrative diction and vocabulary differ markedly from those of the Buddhayaśas / Zhú Fóniàn rendering of T1 (cf. KR6a0001). T3 is a fresh translation, not a revision of T1[1]; the Indic original is not securely identified, but Fukita’s Mahāvadāna edition shows that detached “Vipaśyin-only” recensions circulated in Sanskrit Buddhist literature, and T3 likely renders one such recension. Comparison of T3 with the corresponding portion of T1[1] is one of the more accessible test-cases for early Sòng translation idiom against the Yáo-Qín standard.

Translations and research

  • Fukita, Takamichi 吹田隆道. The Mahāvadānasūtra: A New Edition Based on Manuscripts Discovered in Northern Turkestan. Sanskrit-Wörterbuch der buddhistischen Texte aus den Turfan-Funden, Beiheft 10. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003. — The standard critical edition of the Sanskrit Mahāvadāna with comparative reference to T1[1], T2, T3 and T4.
  • Waldschmidt, Ernst. Das Mahāvadānasūtra. Ein kanonischer Text über die sieben letzten Buddhas. 2 vols. Abhandlungen der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Klasse für Sprachen, Literatur und Kunst, 1952 / 1953, no. 8 / no. 1. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1953–1956. — The classic predecessor edition, with German translation; includes Chinese-Sanskrit comparative material.
  • Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600–1400. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003 / 2nd ed. 2016. — Background to the Sòng Institute for the Translation of Sūtras under which T3 was produced.
  • No dedicated monograph or article on T3 specifically has been located. The text is treated within the wider Mahāvadāna literature.

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