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三法度論

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Text ID
KR6a0158
Date
391–391
Dynasty
東晉

Sānfǎdù lùn 三法度論

Treatise of the Three-Dharma Measure (Tridharmaka-śāstra) by Venerable 尊者山賢 (Ārya-Sambhadra / Vasubhadra, 造); translated by 僧伽提婆 (Saṃghadeva, 譯)

About the work

A three-fascicle Abhidharma summary attributed to “Venerable Mountain-Sage” (尊者山賢 尊者山賢, the calque-rendering of Vasubhadra / Sambhadra), retranslated by the Kashmirian master Saṃghadeva 瞿曇僧伽提婆 in the Eastern Jìn at Lúshān 廬山 in 391 CE under the patronage of Huìyuǎn 慧遠. The work is the doublet companion of [[KR6a0157|Sìāhánmù chāo jiě 四阿鋡暮抄解 (T1505)]], translated nine years earlier under Dàoān at Yèsì from the same or a closely related Indic exemplar; the doublet relationship is acknowledged in the Taishō by 「No. 1506 [No. 1505]」 at the head of this text. The structure is the Tridharmaka triple-triad — three principal categories (Merit 德, Evil 惡, Basis-toward-awakening 依覺), each subdivided into three further triads, generating the title’s “three measures.”

Prefaces

The text bears no preface or postface within the source file; the only paratext is the canonical translator’s signature: 「東晉罽賓三藏瞿曇僧伽提婆譯」. The opening is a verse praṇāma in two stanzas saluting the Sugata, Dharma, and Saṃgha and announcing the threefold structure (“Opening this three-Dharma gate / where merit’s results converge…”).

The fact and circumstances of the Lúshān translation are recorded externally in Huìyuǎn’s preface to the Sānfǎdù lùn preserved in the Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 (T2145, juan 10) and in Dàoān’s preface to T1505, which together constitute the primary documentary evidence for the doublet history.

Abstract

T1506 is the second and more discursive of the two Chinese translations of Vasubhadra’s Tridharmaka abstract. Saṃghadeva’s retranslation was undertaken at Lúshān at the invitation of Huìyuǎn precisely because the earlier Yèsì translation (T1505), prepared under heavy time-pressure during Dàoān’s last years, was felt to be unsatisfactory; Huìyuǎn’s preface to the new translation is candidly critical of the earlier rendering. T1506 thereby preserves a more polished version of the same Indic source. Modern scholarship (Frauwallner, Bart Dessein) treats the Tridharmaka-śāstra as a Bahuśrutīya / Saṃmitīya-school abhidharma composition, and the doublet as an unusually instructive case for evaluating early Chinese translation method: the same source rendered twice within a decade by two different teams under two different editorial regimes.

The internal structure is the Tridharmaka triple-triad (3 × 3 × 3): the three principal categories of guṇa (merit / 德), doṣa (evil / 惡), and upādāya (basis-toward-awakening / 依覺), each subdivided into three sub-triads; the third final triad (entry-into-liberation 解脫入: saṃjñā / dhyāna / 博聞 = “extensive hearing” / sūtra-Abhidharma-Vinaya triple recension of the canon) closes the text. The colophon at the end of fascicle three reads simply: 「依品第三真度說竟」.

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.
  • Dessein, Bart. The Notion of Saṃskṛtāsaṃskṛta in the Sanfa-du-lun (T1506). PhD Thesis, Ghent University, 1992.
  • 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.
  • 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 1 (1971).
  • Liú Lìfū 劉立夫. “Sānfǎdù lùn yǔ Húiyuǎn Fóxué” 三法度論與慧遠佛學. Hényáng shīfàn xuébào 衡陽師範學報 23/4 (2002).

Other points of interest

The work is one of the few cases in early Chinese Buddhist translation history where the same Indic original was independently re-rendered into Chinese within a decade and both translations have been transmitted alongside each other. Comparison of T1505 and T1506 has been the standard test-case in Western and Japanese scholarship for tracking the maturing of Chinese translation idiom between the Yèsì circle (Dàoān 382) and the Lúshān circle (Huìyuǎn / Saṃghadeva 391).

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