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四阿鋡暮抄解

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Text ID
KR6a0157
Date
382–382
Dynasty
符秦

Sìāhánmù chāo jiě 四阿鋡暮抄解

Exegesis of the Abstract from the Four Āgama-mātṛkās by 婆素跋陀 (Vasubhadra, 撰); translated by 鳩摩羅佛提 (Kumārabuddhi, 等譯) and others

About the work

A two-fascicle Abhidharma-style summary of the four Āgamas, organised in three categories — merit (功德), evil (惡), and basis-toward-awakening-and-liberation (依覺解脫) — each in its turn subdivided into three. The Indic original is attributed to the arhat Vasubhadra 婆素跋陀 (*Vasubhadra, perhaps “Mt. Saṃbhadra” / Sambhadra); the Chinese translation was directed by Dàoān 道安 at the Yèsì 鄴寺 in rénwǔ (壬午 = 382 CE), with Kumārabuddhi 鳩摩羅佛提 holding the Sanskrit, Buddha-niàn 佛念 and Buddha-hù 佛護 translating, and Sēngdǎo 僧導, Tánjiū 曇究, and Sēngruì 僧叡 acting as scribes. The text is a near-doublet of [[KR6a0158|Sānfǎdù lùn 三法度論 (T1506)]], retranslated a few years later by Saṃghadeva 僧伽提婆.

Prefaces

The first fascicle opens with Dàoān’s preface, dated to the eighth month of the rénwǔ year (382 CE), translated here:

“Āhán-mù (阿鋡暮): in the language of Qín this means ‘tending-toward-the-non[-self]’ (趣無). When Ānanda had brought forth the twelve divisions of the canon, he further extracted their essentials — the Way-Dharma — and made them into the four Āgama-mātṛkās; together with the Abhidharma and the Vinaya these form the Three Baskets. Solitary scholars take this to be a sign that the highest virtue has not yet vanished from the earth.

“There was an arhat named Vasubhadra 婆素跋陀 who excerpted the cream of these works into a single collection — nine sections, forty-six folia — expunging duplication and abbreviating repetition: concise in wording, ample in meaning. Truly it may be called the pendant-jewel of the sūtras. The hundred practices in their finest, distinguishing right and wrong, are all set down in it; profound, deep, and rich — in it the work of practice is fulfilled.

“A foreign śramaṇa named Yīntílì 因提麗 brought it earlier to the kingdom of Qián-bù 前部國, keeping it concealed on his person and not showing it to others. Their king Mídì 彌第 sought it out and could recite it, and so it eventually came to be disseminated.

“In the rénwǔ year (壬午, 382), in the eighth month, I went east to pay my respects at my late master’s temple in Yè-sì 鄴寺. I had Kumārabuddhi 鳩摩羅佛提 hold the Sanskrit, with [Buddha-]niàn 佛念 and [Buddha-]hù 佛護 as translators, and Sēngdǎo 僧導, Tánjiū 曇究, and Sēngruì 僧叡 as scribes. The work was completed in winter, in the eleventh month. In that same year the Abhidharma was brought out in summer and this jīng in winter — in a single year all three piṭakas were thereby complete; deeply do I count myself fortunate.

“I regret only that in my eighth-or-ninth decade I have only now met this jīng: I fear my book-binding cord will give out before the work is done. Were I given a few more years, no great harm would come of it.

“I instructed the translators simply to render the Sanskrit into Qín, explicating idioms and no more; the wording of the jīng itself, whether plain or polished, I have not dared to alter. Where there are oblique enumerations or oblique references (懸數懸事), I always seek out the informed and annotate beneath; where I myself, by my own judgement, gloss the sense, I make a zhāng 章. Where a zhāng-note marks xiūdùlù 修妬路 (sūtra), the man’s note has cited the original sūtra; where it merely says xiūdùlù, that is a sūtra-citation and not an annotation.”

The colophon at the close of fascicle two records the metrics of the Indic original: the verses number twelve hundred (each gātha of thirty-two syllables, in the śloka metre), the Sanskrit poṭhī runs to forty-six folia, each folio twenty-eight ślokas.

Abstract

T1505 is one of the earliest abhidharma-summary texts to enter Chinese, brought to Cháng’ān-region monastic culture under Fú-Qín 符秦 (the Former Qín 前秦) and translated under Dàoān’s editorial direction. Modern scholarship (Frauwallner, Abhidharma-Studien V; Mizuno; Dessein) identifies its Indic source as a Tridharmaka-śāstra / *Sannipāta-śāstra of the Bahuśrutīya / Saṃmitīya tradition, transmitted within a now-lost Indic Mātṛkā literature. The text is a near-doublet of T1506 [[KR6a0158|Sānfǎdù lùn]], which Saṃghadeva re-translated a few years later (in 391 CE at Lúshān) from the same or a closely related Indic exemplar; the doublet relationship is acknowledged in the Taishō by the cross-reference 「No. 1505 [No. 1506]」 at the head of the present text. The two translations preserve different lineage-affiliations of the same original: T1505 is the more compact chāo (“excerpt”) form, T1506 the more discursive lùn. The Dàoān preface is a primary source for the chronology of his late Yèsì period and for early-medieval Chinese reflection on translation method (cf. his celebrated “five losses, three difficulties” 五失本三不易, articulated in the same period).

The text is internally structured around the xiūdùlù / sūtra citation device described in the preface: brief root-aphorisms (sūtra) are followed by zhāng exegesis. The threefold scheme (merit / evil / basis-toward-liberation), each subdivided into three further triads, generates the title’s “Tridharmaka” structure.

Translations and research

  • Frauwallner, Erich. “Abhidharma-Studien V: Der Sarvāstivādaḥ. Eine entwicklungsgeschichtliche Studie.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens 17 (1973): 97–121. (Foundational study of the Tridharmaka-śāstra and its T1505 / T1506 doublet transmission.)
  • Mizuno Kōgen 水野弘元. “Sanbō-do-ron, Shi-agon-mochō, oyobi Vasubhadra” 三法度論、四阿含暮抄、及びヴァスバドラ. Bukkyō kenkyū 仏教研究 1 (1971).
  • Dessein, Bart. “The Notion of Saṃskṛtāsaṃskṛta in the Sanfa-du-lun (Tridharmakhaṇḍa) and Other Texts of the Bahuśrutīya School.” Indo-Iranian Journal 41/3 (1998): 215–251.
  • Bagchi, Prabodh Chandra. Le canon bouddhique en Chine: les traducteurs et les traductions. 2 vols. Paris: Geuthner, 1927–1938. (Translation history of T1505 and Dàoān’s preface.)
  • Tang Yongtong 湯用彤. Hàn Wèi Liǎng-Jìn Nánběicháo Fójiào shǐ 漢魏兩晉南北朝佛教史. Shanghai: Shangwu, 1938. Chapters on Dàoān’s translation circle at Yè-sì.

Other points of interest

The preface is one of the earliest dated witnesses to the doctrine that xiūdùlù (修妬路 = sūtra) refers specifically to the citation of a root-aphorism in commentarial literature, and not to a free-standing scripture: a usage that would later become standard in Chinese Abhidharma exegesis.

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