Ānàlǜ bāniàn jīng 阿那律八念經
Sūtra of the Eight Reflections of Anuruddha (the Anuruddha-mahāvitakka-sūtra; parallel to Madhyama-āgama sūtra 74, the Bāniàn jīng 八念經, and to Ekottara-āgama 42.6) by 支曜 (Zhī Yào, 譯)
About the work
The Ānàlǜ bā-niàn jīng is a single-fascicle Eastern Hàn 後漢 translation of a canonical discourse on the eight “reflections of a great person” (mahā-puruṣa-vitakka) — the Buddha’s response to a thought-process of Anuruddha 阿那律 (Pāli Anuruddha) on what conduces to the truly noble life. The eight are: that the Dharma is for the contented, not the discontented; for the active, not the lazy; for the well-collected, not the scatter-minded; for the wise, not the foolish; for the joy-of-Dharma-loving, not the fame-loving; for the right-views-holders, not the wrong-views; for the non-deluded, not the deluded; for the awakening-loving, not the obstacle-loving. The Pāli parallel is AN 8.30 Anuruddha-mahāvitakka-sutta; the Chinese parallels are T26[74] (the Bā-niàn jīng 八念經) and Ekottara-āgama 42.6 (T125).
The text opens at “Mount Cetiya, under the Sage-Seeker tree” (誓牧山求師樹 = Pācīnavaṃsa-dāya), with Anuruddha alone in retreat reflecting on the seven reflections; the Buddha appears, knowing his thought, and adds the eighth.
Prefaces
The text bears no preface or postface. The only paratext is the canonical translator’s signature at the head: 「後漢西域三藏支曜譯」 — “translated by the Tripiṭaka master Zhī Yào of the Western Regions, under the Later Hàn.”
Abstract
支曜 Zhī Yào was a Yuezhi (or more broadly “Western Regions” 西域) monk who arrived at Luòyáng in Zhōngpíng 中平 2 (185 CE), under Hàn Língdì 靈帝, and was active there at least into the early Cáo-Wèi period. The biographical sources (Chū sānzàng jì jí KR6s0084; Gāosēng zhuàn KR6r0052) are sparse: he is credited with some 10 works in 11 fascicles, of which the most important is the Chéngjù guāngmíng dìngyì jīng 成具光明定意經 (T630) — an early prajñāpāramitā text. The defensible bracket for T46 is 185–220 CE (his Hàn period), recorded in the frontmatter.
The Indic source is presumed lost. Zhī Yào’s translation idiom is closely allied with that of An Shigao and Zhī Lóujiāchèn — characteristic of the second-century Luòyáng translation milieu — and T46 is one of the principal early-Chinese witnesses to the Aṇuruddha-vitakka tradition.
Translations and research
- Bodhi, Bhikkhu, tr. The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2012. — AN 8.30 with notes.
- Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations. Tokyo: IRIAB, 2008. — Treats Zhī Yào’s corpus.
Links
- CBETA online text
- Zhī Yào DILA
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (186, 250): Taishō Tripiṭaka T46 (per CBETA reference index) — dazangthings.nz