Fànzhì Èbōluóyán wèn zhǒngzūn jīng 梵志頞波羅延問種尊經
Sūtra in which the Brahmin Assalāyana Asked about the Superiority of Class (the Assalāyanasūtra; parallel to Madhyama-āgama sūtra 151, the Āshèluó jīng 阿攝惒經) by 竺曇無蘭 (Zhú Tánwúlán, 譯)
About the work
The Fànzhì Èbōluóyán wèn zhǒngzūn jīng — its Chinese title transcribing the proper-name Assalāyana (頞波羅延 Èbōluóyán) and translating “asked-about-the-superiority-of-class” (問種尊) — is a single-fascicle Eastern Jìn 東晉 translation of the Assalāyanasūtra, one of the foundational discourses on the Buddhist refutation of the brahmanical doctrine of caste-superiority. The Pāli parallel is MN 93 Assalāyana-sutta; the Chinese parallel is T26[151] (the Āshèluó jīng 阿攝惒經 of the Madhyama-āgama).
The text opens at the Jetavana monastery in Śrāvasti, with the brahmin Assalāyana approaching the Buddha to defend the doctrine that brahmins are superior by birth. The Buddha refutes him by a series of empirical arguments: women of all four classes give birth in the same way; brahmins of mixed parentage are nevertheless accepted; if brahmins cleansed themselves by the sacred bath alone, that would suffice to make them pure — but it does not. The discourse is one of the most rhetorically powerful of the early-Buddhist anti-caste discourses.
Prefaces
The text bears no preface or postface. The only paratext is the Eastern-Jìn translator’s signature at the head: 「東晉西域三藏竺曇無蘭譯」.
Abstract
T71 was produced during Zhú Tánwúlán’s Yangdu translation period (381–395 CE), recorded in the frontmatter. The Indic source is presumed lost. The translation is in Tánwúlán’s characteristic late-Eastern-Jìn idiom; the proper-name 頞波羅延 — preserving the -yana termination — is a mark of his consistent preference for phonetic transcription of Indic names.
Translations and research
- Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi, tr. The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995. — MN 93 Assalāyana-sutta with notes.
- Anālayo, Bhikkhu. A Comparative Study of the Majjhima-nikāya, vol. 2. Taipei: Dharma Drum, 2011.
Links
- CBETA online text
- Tánwúlán DILA
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (390): Prabodh Chandra Bagchi, Le canon bouddhique en Chine: Les traducteurs et les traductions, Sino-Indica: Publications de l’Université de Calcutta, Tome 1er (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1927): 322–334 — dazangthings.nz