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大三摩惹經

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Text ID
KR6a0019
Date
973–1001
Dynasty
宋

Dà sānmórě jīng 大三摩惹經

Sūtra of the Great Convocation (the Mahāsamāja-sūtra / Pāli Mahāsamaya-sutta; parallel to Cháng Āhán sūtra 19, the Dàhuì jīng 大會經, and to Saṃyukta-āgama parallels) by 法天 (Fǎtiān / Dharmadeva, 譯)

About the work

The Dà sānmórě jīng is a single-fascicle Northern-Sòng translation of the Mahāsamāja-sūtra, the celebrated discourse on the great convocation of devas who descend to pay homage to the Buddha while he is teaching at the Mahāvana (“Great Forest”) in his native Kapilavastu. The Pāli parallel is DN 20 Mahāsamaya-sutta; the Chinese parallels are T1[19] (the Dàhuì jīng 大會經 of the Cháng āhán) and the Saṃyukta-āgama parallels noted in the Taishō head-note ([No. 95(1192), No. 96(105)] — to be read as T99 / T100 sūtras 1192 and 105 respectively, head-note slips). The sūtra is structurally a long versified catalogue of named *deva-*types — yakṣas, gandharvas, garuḍas, nāgas, the Four Heavenly Kings, the brahma-deities — accompanied by their tribes and retinues, who appear before the Buddha to pay reverence; in this, T19 is one of the most important Buddhist sources for early Indian celestial nomenclature. T19’s transcription of the Indic deva-names is one of the most extensive ever undertaken in a single Sòng Institute text and constitutes a useful comparand for the Indic-name lexicon of T1[19] and the Pāli parallel.

The text opens at the Kapilavastu Forest (迦毘羅林), with the Buddha amid an assembly of 5,500 arhats. Word of his presence reaches the brahma-realms, and the gods of the Pure Abodes descend, bringing with them their countless retinues; the Buddha, perceiving them by his divine sight, names each by lineage and by tribe in long verse-strings — the heart of the sūtra.

Prefaces

The text bears no preface or postface. The only paratext is the Sòng-court translator’s signature at the head: 「西天譯經三藏朝散大夫試鴻臚卿傳教大師臣法天奉詔譯」 — the standard Fǎtiān byline (cf. KR6a0002, KR6a0003).

Abstract

T19 is one of Fǎtiān’s series of Sòng-Institute renderings of Cháng āhán discourses. The defensible bracket for the translation is 973–1001 (Fǎtiān’s full Chinese career; cf. KR6a0002 for the calculation), recorded in the frontmatter. The Indic source is presumed lost; the rendering is a fresh translation rather than a revision of T1[19].

The principal scholarly interest of T19 lies in its preservation of the elaborate deva-catalogue at the heart of the sūtra. The names of the deva-classes (Cātummahārājika gods, Tāvatiṃsa gods, the four guardians of the Quarters, the various brahmā-classes), of the named gods (Indra, Brahmā Sahampati, etc.), and of the yakṣa-, gandharva-, and nāga-tribes (along with their lineages) are rendered with care and serve as one of the principal Sòng-period sources for early Buddhist celestial onomastics. The Sanskrit title Mahāsamāja (“Great Convocation”) is transcribed phonetically as 三摩惹 — this is one of the few Chinese cases where the title is phonetically rendered rather than translated.

The Mahāsamāja-sūtra was, in the wider Buddhist tradition, one of the most important canonical sources for ritual parittā / rakṣā protective recitation; the sūtra remains in liturgical use in Theravāda traditions today, and the Mahāyāna tradition adopted its catalogue of celestial protectors as one of the ground-cycle witnesses for the dhāraṇī-protector class. T19’s faithful preservation of the catalogue would have been important for these liturgical purposes within the Northern Sòng community.

Translations and research

  • Waldschmidt, Ernst. “Beiträge zur Textgeschichte des Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra.” Nachrichten von der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse 1939: 55–94. — Methodological treatment that includes T19 within the comparative-Sūtrapiṭaka enterprise.
  • Skilling, Peter. “Mahāsūtras: Great Discourses of the Buddha.” 2 vols. Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1994 / 1997. — Definitive comparative study of the Mahāsamāja and other “great discourses” tradition, with full treatment of the Chinese parallels.
  • Walshe, Maurice, tr. The Long Discourses of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995. — DN 20 Mahāsamaya-sutta with notes.
  • Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade. 2nd ed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.

Other points of interest

  • T19’s phonetic transcription 三摩惹 (sānmórě) for samāja is one of relatively few Sòng-Institute texts to retain a Sanskrit-style title transcription where a translation gloss (大會 = “Great Assembly”) was already long established in the older Chinese version. The choice may reflect a deliberate alignment with the title-transcription style of the Mahāsūtra tradition rather than oversight.

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