聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

文陀竭王經

3 min read

Text ID
KR6a0040
Date
414–433
Dynasty
北涼

Wéntuójié wáng jīng 文陀竭王經

Sūtra of King Mandhātu (the Mandhātusūtra; parallel to Madhyama-āgama sūtra 60, the Sì zhōu jīng 四洲經, and to T39) by 曇無讖 (Dharmakṣema, 譯)

About the work

The Wéntuójié wáng jīng is a single-fascicle Northern Liáng 北涼 translation of the jātaka-narrative of King Mandhātu / Mūrdhātaja, the cakravartin who fell from heaven through greed. It is a doublet of T39 (the Dǐngshēng wáng gùshì jīng by Fǎjù): both texts render essentially the same Indic Vorlage but with distinctive translation choices that mark them as independent renderings rather than a translation and a revision. The Chinese title 文陀竭 Wéntuójié is a phonetic transcription of Mandhātu; T39’s title 頂生 “Born-from-Crown” is a semantic gloss.

The text opens at the Jetavana monastery in Śrāvasti and follows the standard Mandhātu narrative.

Prefaces

The text bears no preface or postface. The only paratext is the Northern-Liáng translator’s signature at the head: 「北涼三藏曇無讖譯」 — “translated by the Tripiṭaka master Dharmakṣema, under the Northern Liáng.”

Abstract

曇無讖 Dharmakṣema (Skt. Dharmakṣema “Dharma-Repose”; Chinese alternates 曇無懺, 曇摩讖, 曇摩羅懺, 法豐 Fǎfēng; c. 385–433) was a great Indian translator-monk active at the court of the Northern Liáng under 沮渠蒙遜 Jūqú Méngxùn (r. 401–433). His best-known translation is the long Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra (T374, in 40 fascicles, 414–421), one of the foundational texts of East Asian Mahāyāna doctrine on Buddha-nature. He also translated the Bodhisattvabhūmi portion of the Yogācārabhūmi (T1581 Púsàdìchí jīng 菩薩地持經), the Suvarṇaprabhāsa-sūtra (T663 Jīn-guāngmíng jīng 金光明經), and many others. He was assassinated en route to a planned mission to Khotan in 433 CE on the orders of Jūqú Méngxùn.

T40 was produced at the Northern Liáng court at Gūzāng 姑臧 between Dharmakṣema’s arrival there in 414 and his death in 433; that bracket is recorded in the frontmatter. The Indic source is presumed lost; the rendering uses standard post-Kumārajīva Chinese diction with characteristic Northern-Liáng features.

Translations and research

  • See KR6a0039 for the comparative Mandhātu-jātaka literature.
  • Chen, Jinhua. “The Indian Buddhist Missionary Dharmakṣema (385–433): A New Dating of his Arrival in Guzang and of his Translations.” T’oung Pao 90 (2004): 215–263. — Standard modern study of Dharmakṣema’s chronology.

Graph View

Backlinks