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賴吒和羅經

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Text ID
KR6a0068
Date
222–253
Dynasty
吳

Làizhàhéluó jīng 賴吒和羅經

Sūtra of Raṭṭhapāla (the Raṭṭhapāla-sūtra; parallel to Madhyama-āgama sūtra 132, the Làizhàhéluó jīng 賴吒和羅經, and to Hùguó jīng 護國經 (KR6a0069)) by 支謙 (Zhī Qiān, 譯)

About the work

The Làizhàhéluó jīng is a single-fascicle Three-Kingdoms Wú 吳 translation of the Raṭṭhapāla-sūtra, the celebrated discourse on the renunciation of the wealthy young man Raṭṭhapāla 賴吒和羅 (Pāli Raṭṭhapāla) — son of an immensely rich family in the country of the Kurus, who renounces and ordains over his parents’ anguished resistance, returns later as a Buddhist mendicant to his own household, and (in one of the canon’s most powerful passages) responds to his mother’s offer to return to lay life by reciting the four “summaries of the Dharma” — that life sweeps away, that there is no protector, that nothing is one’s own, that the world is incomplete and grasps without rest. The Pāli parallel is MN 82 Raṭṭhapāla-sutta; the Chinese parallels are T26[132] (sharing the title) and T69 (the Hùguó jīng 護國經 by Fǎxián).

The text opens with the Buddha and 500 monks in the Kuru country, with Raṭṭhapāla’s first encounter with the Buddha on his alms-round through Thullakoṭṭhita 突盧貝吒.

Prefaces

The text bears no preface or postface. The only paratext is the Wú-period translator’s signature at the head: 「吳月支優婆塞支謙譯」.

Abstract

T68 was produced during Zhī Qiān’s Wú-court translation period (222–253 CE), recorded in the frontmatter. The Indic source is presumed lost. The principal scholarly importance of T68 is its preservation of one of the most powerful early-Buddhist renunciation narratives in mid-third-century Chinese; the four “summaries of the Dharma” recited by Raṭṭhapāla in the closing verses of the discourse are among the most influential of all Pāli verse-formulations.

Translations and research

  • Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi, tr. The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995. — MN 82 with notes.
  • Boucher, Daniel. Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahāyāna. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008. — Includes a chapter on the Raṭṭhapāla narrative and its Mahāyāna receptions in T170 and elsewhere.
  • Anālayo, Bhikkhu. A Comparative Study of the Majjhima-nikāya, vol. 1. Taipei: Dharma Drum, 2011.

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