Bānníhuán jīng 般泥洹經
Sūtra of the Parinirvāṇa Anonymous (失譯), conventionally attached to the Eastern Jìn 東晉 catalogue
About the work
The Bānníhuán jīng, in two fascicles, is the second of the early Chinese Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra renderings clustered by the Taishō head-note: it parallels T1[2] (the Yóuxíng jīng 遊行經 of the Cháng Āhán), [[KR6a0005|T5 (the Fó bānníhuán jīng)]] of Bó Fǎzǔ, and T7 (the Dà bānníhuán jīng by Faxian and his collaborators). The narrative arc is identical to that of T5 — the Buddha’s last journey from Vulture Peak through Pātaliputra, Vesālī, Pāvā and the śāla-grove of Kuśinagara, with the parinirvāṇa and the relic-distribution — but T6 is a separate translation, not a revision of T5: its lexicon is distinct (e.g. 雨舍 / 梵志種 with slightly different framing of Vassakāra’s class designation; consistent use of 般泥洹 as in T5, but with characteristic Eastern Jìn turns of phrase).
The text opens at “Vulture Peak (鷂山) by Rājagṛha” with the Buddha and 1,250 monks; King Ajātaśatru of Magadha, in council with his ministers, plans to invade the Vṛji confederation, and dispatches the brahmin minister Yǔshè 雨舍 (Vassakāra) to the Buddha for an oracle on the prospects of his campaign. The Buddha, in reply, articulates the famous “Seven Conditions of the Vṛjis’ Welfare” (七不退法), and the narrative then unfolds along the standard parinirvāṇa arc.
Prefaces
The text bears no preface or postface. The only paratext is the catalogue rubric printed at the head: 「不載譯人附東晉錄」 — “translator not recorded; attached to the Eastern Jìn catalogue.” This is a convention already established in the Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集, which lists the Bānníhuán jīng among the “anonymous miscellaneous sūtras” (失譯雜經), and is carried forward through subsequent inventories down to the Taishō.
Abstract
The Eastern Jìn (317–420) ascription printed on T6 is a catalog-tradition assignment: the Chū sānzàng jì jí (KR6s0084) and the Lìdài sānbǎo jì 歷代三寶紀 (KR6r0011) register the work as anonymous and assign it conventionally to that period, but no contemporary documentary witness pins it tightly. Modern scholarship (Waldschmidt; Bareau; Tilakaratne) treats T6 as a separate translation of an Indic Mahāparinirvāṇa recension different from that underlying T5, and likely earlier than T7 (Faxian, c. 405–418). The defensible bracket for the Chinese version is therefore the Eastern Jìn period 317–420, recorded here.
The Indic source-text underlying T6 has not been securely identified with any extant Sanskrit Vorlage; comparative work on the Mahāparinirvāṇa tradition has shown that the four Chinese versions (T1[2], T5, T6, T7) do not derive from a single Indic recension but stand in different relationships to the Sanskrit Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra edited by Waldschmidt and to the Pāli Mahāparinibbāna-sutta. T6, like T5 but unlike T7 and T1[2], appears to render a recension of probable (Mūla-)Sarvāstivāda affiliation, although the question is unresolved.
The principal philological interest of T6 lies in the comparative window it opens onto Eastern-Jìn translation idiom: the text is contemporaneous in style with the early Daoan-circle and pre-Kumārajīva rendering tradition, and the lexicon — particularly its Indic proper-name transcriptions — is a useful comparand for Daoan’s own catalogue terminus a quo.
Translations and research
- Waldschmidt, Ernst. Das Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra: Text in Sanskrit und Tibetisch, verglichen mit dem Pāli nebst einer Übersetzung der chinesischen Entsprechung im Vinaya der Mūlasarvāstivādins. 3 parts. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1950–1951. — The synoptic edition; T6 is treated comparatively throughout.
- Bareau, André. Recherches sur la biographie du Buddha dans les Sūtrapiṭaka et les Vinayapiṭaka anciens, II: Les derniers mois, le parinirvāṇa et les funérailles. 2 vols. Paris: EFEO, 1970–1971.
- Weller, Friedrich. “Buddhas Letzte Wanderung.” Monumenta Serica 4 (1939–40): 40–84; 5 (1940–41): 141–207. — Treats T6 alongside T1[2], T5 and T7.
- No dedicated study of T6 specifically has been located. The text is treated within the wider Mahāparinirvāṇa literature.
Links
- CBETA online text
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (245, 300, 420): Fāng Yīxīn 方一新 and Lǔ Lù 盧鹭, “Jìn shíyú nián cóng yǔyán jiǎodù kǎobiàn kěyí Fójīng chéngguǒ de huígù yǔ zhǎnwàng” 近十余年從語言角度考辨可疑佛經成果的回顧與展望, Journal of Zhejiang University (Humanities and Social Sciences Online Edition), Jan. 2023: 1–24 — dazangthings.nz