Fǎhǎi jīng 法海經
Sūtra of the Sea of Dharma (the Pahārādasūtra; parallel to Madhyama-āgama sūtra 37, the Zhānbó jīng 瞻波經, and to T33 / T35) by 法炬 (Fǎjù, 譯)
About the work
The Fǎhǎi jīng is a single-fascicle Western Jìn 西晉 translation of the Pahārādasūtra / Uposatha-sūtra. It is a doublet of T33 (the Héngshuǐ jīng, also by Fǎjù), with which it shares the Indic Vorlage; the Taishō head-note flags it as a parallel to T26[37], T33 and T35. The Pāli parallel is AN 8.19 / AN 8.20.
T34 differs from T33 in setting and in detail of phrasing: T34 opens at Campā 瞻波國 by the Hán-qū-lì pool 漢呿利池 (= Gaggara-pokkharaṇī), where the Buddha is seated for the uposatha; Ānanda asks three times for the recitation; the Buddha discloses the impure monk; Mahāmoggallāna ejects him; the discourse on the eight qualities of the ocean follows. T34 is more compact than T33 and uses different proper-name transcriptions, suggesting that the two are independent translations from the same Indic Vorlage rather than a translation and a revision.
Prefaces
The text bears no preface or postface. The only paratext is the Western-Jìn translator’s signature at the head: 「西晉沙門法炬譯」.
Abstract
T34 was produced during Fǎjù’s Western Jìn translation period (290–311 CE; cf. KR6a0023 for biographical context). The doublet relationship to T33 — both works by Fǎjù — is one of the puzzling features of the Fǎjù corpus and may reflect either a deliberate dual rendering for different audiences or a transcriptional accident in the catalogue tradition.
The principal scholarly interest of T34 lies in its setting at Campā by the Gaggara-pokkharaṇī, which matches the Pāli setting of AN 8.20 Uposatha-sutta more closely than T33’s Ganges setting; T34 may therefore preserve a slightly different Indic recension of the Pahārāda / Uposatha tradition than T33.
Translations and research
- See KR6a0033 for the comparative literature.
- No dedicated study of T34 specifically has been located.
Links
- CBETA online text
- Fǎjù DILA
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (299): Taishō Tripiṭaka T34 (per CBETA reference index) — dazangthings.nz