Yánluówáng wǔ tiānshǐzhě jīng 閻羅王五天使者經
Sūtra of the Five Divine Messengers of King Yama (the Devadūtasūtra; parallel to Madhyama-āgama sūtra 64, the Tiānshǐ jīng 天使經, to T42, and to Ekottara-āgama 32.4) by 慧簡 (Huìjiǎn, 譯)
About the work
The Yánluó-wáng wǔ tiānshǐzhě jīng is a single-fascicle Liú-Sòng 劉宋 translation of the Devadūta-sūtra. It is later than T42 (Tánwúlán) and earlier than T26[64] (Saṃghadeva, 397–398 — post quem for T42, ante quem for T43? In fact T42 c. 381–395 ante T26 = 397–398; T43 = 457 post T26). Whereas T42 lists four divine messengers (the Indian standard four sights — old age, sickness, death, plus the punished criminal), T43’s title insists on five — adding the new-born infant, which T43’s text describes as the first of the five (and which is also present in T42 but not flagged in its title).
The text opens at the Jetavana monastery in Śrāvasti and follows the standard Devadūta narrative.
Prefaces
The text bears no preface or postface. The only paratext is the Liú-Sòng translator’s signature at the head: 「宋沙門慧簡譯」 — “translated by the śramaṇa Huìjiǎn of the [Liú-]Sòng.”
Abstract
慧簡 Huìjiǎn (also written 惠簡; fl. 457) was a Liú-Sòng monk active at the Lùyě-sì 鹿野寺 (“Deer Park Monastery”) at Mòlíng 秣陵 (= Jiànkāng 建康). The biographical sources are sparse: the Lìdài sānbǎo jì 歷代三寶紀 (KR6r0011) records only that in Dàmíng 大明 1 (457 CE), under Sòng Xiào-Wǔ-dì 孝武帝, he produced the Guàndǐng jīng 灌頂經 (the Abhiṣeka-sūtra, T1331) at the Lùyě-sì. T43 is presumably contemporaneous with that work; the date 457 is recorded in the frontmatter (notBefore = notAfter, since the Guàndǐng jīng date is the only secure point of his career).
The Indic source for T43 is presumed lost; comparison with T42 and T26[64] suggests that T43 represents an Indic recension distinct from both, though all three render essentially the same Devadūta narrative. The principal scholarly interest of T43 is its inclusion of the new-born infant as one of the divine messengers — a feature absent from the Pāli tradition and from T26[64] (where birth-and-old-age-and-sickness-and-death constitute four messengers). This expansion of the canonical list to five may reflect a North-Indian recension influenced by the Sarvāstivāda Nidāna-saṃyukta tradition.
Translations and research
- See KR6a0042 for the comparative Devadūta-sūtra literature.
Links
- CBETA online text
- Huìjiǎn DILA
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (457): Féi Chángfáng 費長房, Lìdài sānbǎo jì (LDSBJ) 歷代三寶紀 T2034 (KR6r0011), XLIX 93b10 — dazangthings.nz