海八德經

Hǎibādé jīng 海八德經

Sūtra of the Eight Virtues of the Ocean (the Pahārādasūtra; parallel to Madhyama-āgama sūtra 37, the Zhānbó jīng 瞻波經, and to T33 / T34) by 鳩摩羅什 (Kumārajīva, 譯)

About the work

The Hǎi-bā-dé jīng is a single-fascicle Yáo-Qín 後秦 translation of the Pahārāda-sūtra / Uposatha-sūtra, by Kumārajīva 鳩摩羅什 (here transcribed unusually as 鳩摩羅伏 Jiūmóluó-fú, an early-form variant of the standard 鳩摩羅什 Jiūmóluóshí). The Pāli parallel is AN 8.19 / AN 8.20; the Chinese parallels are T26[37] (the Zhānbó jīng 瞻波經 of the Madhyama-āgama — Saṃghadeva, slightly later than T35), T33 (the Héng-shuǐ jīng, Fǎjù) and T34 (the Fǎhǎi jīng, Fǎjù).

The text opens at the country of the Aparājita (無勝國), with the Buddha by a river. On the uposatha day the assembly is gathered for the recitation of the Pātimokkha. Ānanda rises three times asking the Buddha to recite; the Buddha eventually reveals that there is an unworthy monk in the assembly. After the unworthy monk is removed, the Buddha takes the occasion for the great discourse on the eight virtues of the ocean and their parallel in the eight virtues of the Dharma. T35 is the most polished of the three pre-Saṃghadeva renderings, in the Kumārajīva translation idiom: spare, lucid, and lexically standardised.

Prefaces

The text bears no preface or postface. The only paratext is the Yáo-Qín-period translator’s signature at the head: 「後秦龜茲國三藏鳩摩羅伏譯」 — “translated by the Tripiṭaka master Kumārajīva of Kucha (龜茲國), under the Yáo-Qín.” The variant transcription 鳩摩羅伏 (rather than the more familiar 鳩摩羅什) is one of the diagnostic markers of the early Kumārajīva translation period (pre-Hóngshǐ 弘始, i.e. before c. 401 CE) — though some scholars hold that 鳩摩羅伏 is simply an alternative transcription of the same name.

Abstract

鳩摩羅什 Kumārajīva (Skt. Kumārajīva “Eternal-Youth-of-Life”, Chinese gloss 童壽 “Youth-Long-Life”; 344–413) was a half-Indian, half-Kuchean monk born in Kucha (龜茲國) on the central Silk Road, the son of the Brahmin Kumārāyana and the Kuchean princess Jīvā. After capture by the warlord Lǚ Guāng 呂光 in 384 and a long detention in Liángzhōu, he was finally summoned to the YáoQín capital of Cháng’ān in 401 CE and there established the most important translation bureau of pre-Táng Chinese Buddhism. T35 is one of his less-celebrated translations — a small Āgama extract among his great Mahāyāna corpus — and was produced during his Cháng’ān period (401–413 CE), with that bracket recorded in the frontmatter.

The Indic source-text is presumed lost; the rendering is markedly more polished than the parallel Fǎjù renderings (T33 / T34), reflecting the standardising influence of Kumārajīva’s translation method. T35 is among the very few Āgama texts in the Taishō securely attributable to Kumārajīva, whose principal contribution to the Chinese canon was in the Mahāyāna prajñāpāramitā, Lotus, Vimalakīrti and Mādhyamika literatures. Its presence in the canon attests to Kumārajīva’s broader interest in Buddhist literature as a whole and not only in the Mahāyāna.

Translations and research

• See KR6a0033 for the comparative Pahārāda-sūtra literature.
• Lu, K’uan Yu (Charles Luk). The Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra. Berkeley: Shambhala, 1972. — Background on Kumārajīva’s translation method, useful by extension for T35.
• Pelliot, Paul. “Études sur quelques textes chinois extraits de la ‘Sammlung der Vorderasiatischen Inschriften und Urkunden’.” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 6 (1906): 360–400. — Brief but informative discussion of T35.

Other points of interest

• The transcription 鳩摩羅伏 for Kumārajīva, used here, is one of the rare variant forms in the Chinese canon. The standard later rendering is 鳩摩羅什 (with 什 shí); 伏 fú may reflect an early transcriptional preference, or, alternatively, a textual slip preserved in the catalogue tradition.

Links

• CBETA online text
• Kumārajīva DILA
• Kanseki DB
• Dazangthings date evidence (73, 405): Ono Genmyō 小野玄妙 and Maruyama Takao 丸山孝雄, eds., Bussho kaisetsu daijiten 佛書解說大辭典 (Tokyo: Daitō shuppan, 1933–1936), s.v., vol. 2, 35 (entry by Akanuma Chizen 赤沼智善) — dazangthings.nz