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大樓炭經

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Text ID
KR6a0023
Date
290–311
Dynasty
西晉

Dà lóutàn jīng 大樓炭經

Sūtra of the Great Tower-Charcoal (the Mahāloka-prajñapti-sūtra; the cosmological Lokaprajñapti; parallel to Cháng Āhán sūtra 30, the Shìjì jīng 世記經, and to T24 / T25) by 法立 (Fǎlì, 譯) and 法炬 (Fǎjù, 譯)

About the work

The Dà lóu-tàn jīng is a six-fascicle Western Jìn 西晉 translation of the Lokaprajñapti — a long Buddhist cosmological treatise on the structure of the universe (Jambudvīpa, the four continents, Mount Sumeru, the heavens, the hells, the kalpa-cycles of cosmic destruction and re-formation). The Pāli has no direct parallel; the Chinese parallels are T1[30] (the Shìjì jīng 世記經 of the Cháng āhán’s fourth division), T24 (the Qǐ-shì jīng 起世經 by Jñānagupta) and T25 (the Qǐ-shì yīnběn jīng 起世因本經 by Dharmagupta). T23 is the earliest of the four Chinese versions and the only one transmitted in fully integrated Western-Jìn form.

The unusual title 樓炭 (“tower-charcoal”) is a phonetic transcription of lokadhātu (loka-tan- → 樓炭) rather than a semantic gloss; the prefix 大 (“great”) parallels the Sanskrit Mahā- of the title-form Mahālokadhātu-sūtra attested in some Indic recensions. The text is divided into chapters (品) on (1) Jambudvīpa (閻浮利品), (2) Uttarakuru (鬱單越品), (3) the wheel-turning king (轉輪聖王品), (4) the hells (泥犁品), (5) the dragons and birds (龍鳥品), (6) the asuras (阿須倫品), (7) the Four Heavenly Kings (四天王品), (8) the Trāyastriṃśa heaven (忉利天品), (9) the great calamities (災變品), (10) the cosmic battles, (11) the three intermediate kalpas, and (12) the genealogy of the world — closely paralleling the structure of T1[30] (with which T23 shares much vocabulary, suggesting that Buddhayaśas had T23 in front of him).

The text opens at the Jetavana monastery in Śrāvastī. After the noon meal the monks are gathered in the assembly hall, perplexed: “How does the universe come to ruin? How does it come into being?” The Buddha, on hearing them, takes the question as the occasion for the great cosmological discourse, traversing the macrocosm region by region and concluding with the cycles of cosmic devolution by fire, water and wind.

Prefaces

The text bears no preface or postface. The only paratext is the Western-Jìn translator’s signature at the head: 「西晉沙門法立共法炬譯」 — “translated jointly by the śramaṇas Fǎlì and Fǎjù of the Western Jìn.” The collaborative byline is the standard joint-translation form.

Abstract

法立 Fǎlì and 法炬 Fǎjù (also written 法巨, 帛法巨, 帛法炬) were two Western Jìn monks active during the reigns of Hàn Huìdì 惠帝 and Hàn Huáidì 懷帝 (290–311 CE) — the latest secure point being Yǒngjiā 永嘉 2 (308), when Fǎjù collaborated with 竺法護 Dharmarakṣa on the Lalitavistara translation (T186 / T187). The pair are reported in the Chū sānzàng jì jí (KR6s0084) and the Lìdài sānbǎo jì (KR6r0011) to have translated jointly the Fǎjù pìyù jīng 法句譬喻經 (T211), the Fó shuō zhū-dé fútián jīng 佛說諸德福田經 (T683), and the present T23. Fǎjù alone is credited with the Lóu-tàn jīng 樓炭經 (a shorter form, T24 or a related work), though this is sometimes confused with T23 in the catalogues. The defensible bracket for T23 is therefore 290–311 (the Huì-Huái period of joint activity), recorded in the frontmatter.

The Indic source-text is presumed lost; comparison with the Sanskrit Lokaprajñapti fragments (preserved in the Northern Sanskrit Abhidharma-piṭaka tradition, especially in the Saṃyuktābhidharma-hṛdaya family) and with the parallel Chinese versions shows that T23 represents a distinct Indic recension, possibly closer to the Sarvāstivāda Lokaprajñapti tradition than to the Dharmaguptaka recension underlying T1[30]. The text is one of the most important Chinese sources for early Buddhist cosmology — both for its content (the only complete Chinese rendering of the Lokaprajñapti outside the Āgama collections) and for its diction, which includes some of the earliest extant Chinese transcriptions of Indic cosmological proper names (Sumeru, Cakkavāḷa, the various heavens and hells).

Translations and research

  • Denis, Eugène. La Lokapaññatti et les idées cosmologiques du bouddhisme ancien. 3 vols. Lille: Université de Lille III, 1977. — The standard French study of the Buddhist Lokaprajñapti literature; the Pāli Lokapaññatti is the principal text studied, with extensive comparative reference to T23, T24, T25 and T1[30].
  • Kirfel, Willibald. Die Kosmographie der Inder nach den Quellen dargestellt. Bonn: Schroeder, 1920 / repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1967. — Foundational comparative study of Indian cosmography that includes the Buddhist Lokaprajñapti tradition.
  • Sadakata, Akira 定方晟. Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins. Tokyo: Kōsei, 1997. — General introduction with reference to the Dà lóu-tàn jīng.
  • Mochizuki, Shinkō 望月信亨. Bukkyō daijiten 佛教大辞典. 7 vols. Tokyo: Sekai Seiten Kankō Kyōkai, 1933–1936 / rev. ed. 1958–1963. — Sub vocibus 樓炭, 起世, 世記, with extensive entries on the comparative cosmology cluster.
  • Anālayo, Bhikkhu. “The Buddhist Cosmology of T1, the Saṃyuktāgama, and Comparative Sources.” In Comparative Studies in the Saṃyukta-āgama. Taipei: Dharma Drum, forthcoming.

Other points of interest

  • The unusual title 大樓炭 — phonetic for Mahālokadhātu — is one of relatively few cases in early-Chinese Buddhist literature where a title is transcribed phonetically rather than translated semantically. T24 and T25 prefer the semantic 起世 (“the rising of the world”); T1[30] uses 世記 (“the record of the world”). T23’s choice may reflect the difficulty of finding a semantically transparent gloss for the technical term lokadhātu in the late third century, before the cosmological vocabulary was standardised.
  • T23 is in length and conception more like an independent cosmological treatise than a sūtra; the same observation applies mutatis mutandis to the parallel Shìjì jīng in T1. The text was widely excerpted in later Chinese cosmological encyclopaedias such as the Fǎyuàn zhūlín 法苑珠林 (T2122, KR6s0002) and the Jīnglǜ yìxiàng 經律異相 (T2121).

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