Fēnbié shànè bàoyìng jīng 分別善惡報應經
Sūtra on the Distinction between the Karmic Reward of Good and Evil (the Cūḷa-kammavibhaṅga-sūtra; parallel to Madhyama-āgama sūtra 170, the Yīngwǔ jīng 鸚鵡經, and to Dōudiào jīng 兜調經 (KR6a0078) / Yīngwǔ jīng 鸚鵡經 (KR6a0079) / Fó wèi Shǒujiā zhǎngzhě shuō yèbào chābié jīng 佛為首迦長者說業報差別經 (KR6a0080)) by 天息災 (Tiānxīzāi, later renamed Fǎxián 法賢, 譯)
About the work
The Fēnbié shànè bàoyìng jīng is a two-fascicle Northern-Sòng translation of the Cūḷa-kammavibhaṅga-sūtra, the latest (and longest) of the four-fold Chinese cluster (T78, T79, T80, T81). The text expands the canonical Cūḷa-kammavibhaṅga discourse with extensive supplementary doctrinal material on the precise correspondences between specific kinds of action and their specific kinds of reward.
Prefaces
The text bears no preface or postface. The only paratext is the Sòng-court translator’s signature at the head: 「西天中印度惹爛駄囉國密林寺三藏明教大師賜紫沙門臣天息災奉詔譯」 — “Translated by your servant Tiānxīzāi, śramaṇa in receipt of the purple robe, Tripiṭaka master and Master of Bright Teaching (明教大師), of the Misraka Monastery (密林寺) of the Jālandhara country (惹爛駄囉國) in central India.” The use of his original name 天息災 places the translation before his renaming to 法賢 in Yōngxī 雍熙 4 (987); the title 明教大師 places it after Tàipíng-Xīngguó 7 (982). The defensible bracket 982–987 is recorded in the frontmatter — the narrowest defensible window of any single Sòng-Institute translation in this division.
Abstract
T81 was produced during Tiānxīzāi’s pre-renaming Sòng-Institute career (982–987). The Indic source is presumed lost. T81’s distinctive expansion of the Cūḷa-kammavibhaṅga doctrine — articulating with unusual specificity the karmic correspondences between particular wholesome and unwholesome actions and their particular rewards — would have particular appeal in the popular Buddhist morality literature of the late Northern Sòng, and indeed T81 is one of the most-cited late-medieval Chinese sources for the karmic-reward doctrine.
Translations and research
- See KR6a0078 for the comparative Cūḷa-kammavibhaṅga-sūtra literature.
Links
- CBETA online text
- Tiānxīzāi / Fǎxián DILA
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (990): CBETA, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經, ed. Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭 (Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai / Daizō shuppan, 1924–1932) — dazangthings.nz