Liùdù jí jīng 六度集經
Sūtra-Anthology of the Six Perfections (Ṣaṭ-pāramitā-saṃgraha) by 康僧會 (Kāng Sēnghuì, 譯)
About the work
An eight-fascicle jātaka and avadāna anthology in which 91 narrative episodes drawn from the previous lives of the Bodhisattva (the future Buddha) are arranged thematically under the six perfections (pāramitā): generosity (dāna, 布施), morality (śīla, 持戒), patience (kṣānti, 忍辱), vigour (vīrya, 精進), meditation (dhyāna, 禪定), and wisdom (prajñā, 明度無極). The translation was prepared by Kāng Sēnghuì 康僧會 at the Wú capital Jiànkāng 建康 between his arrival there in Chìwū 10 (247 CE) and his death in 280. The signature reads 「吳康居國沙門康僧會譯」.
The work is the most influential single witness to the early Chinese reception of jātaka / avadāna literature, and in many cases preserves the only surviving Chinese version of jātaka episodes whose Indic originals are otherwise unattested. Notable individual narratives include the celebrated Sudāna-jātaka (須大拏經, KR6b0001 ch. 14) on Prince Sudāna’s superhuman generosity; the Sāmaka-jātaka on the bodhisattva-as-filial-son; and several Vidūra-paṇḍita-type wisdom tales.
Prefaces
The text bears no preface or postface in the source file; the only paratext is the canonical translator-signature 「吳康居國沙門康僧會譯」. Each of the six pāramitā-sections opens with a brief programmatic statement giving the ethical signature of the perfection (e.g. for dāna: 「慈育人物，悲愍群邪，喜賢成度，護濟眾生…」 — “to nurture beings with compassion, to grieve for those gone wrong, to rejoice in worthies and bring them across, to protect and rescue the living”).
Abstract
The Liùdù jí jīng is not a translation of a single Indic original but a Chinese editorial compilation by Kāng Sēnghuì from multiple Indic jātaka / avadāna sources, with substantial sinophone framing. Modern scholarship (Édouard Chavannes, Cinq cents contes et apologues; Demiéville; Nakamura Hajime; Bart Dessein; Nattier) has identified Indic parallels for many but not all of the 91 stories: parallels are found scattered across the Pāli Jātaka-collection, the Avadāna-śataka, the Mahāvastu, the Divyāvadāna, and various Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya narratives. The compilation may itself be modelled on a now-lost Indic Pāramitā-saṃgraha genre. The sinophone editorial layer is visible in (i) the imposition of the six-pāramitā rubric as the organising principle, (ii) the extensive interpolation of moralising verse-summaries in classical-Chinese style, and (iii) the rhetorical framing of stories with explicit jūnchén / fùzǐ / fūfù (ruler-subject / father-son / husband-wife) Confucian-inflected ethical discourse, particularly in the śīla section.
The text is a foundational witness for the third-century formation of a Chinese Mahāyāna ethical-narrative literature and is the principal source for Kāng Sēnghuì’s distinctive synthesis of Buddhist bodhisattva-ethics with classical-Chinese moral-philosophical discourse. Together with [[KR6b0002|Zhī Qiān’s Púsà běnyuán jīng (T153)]], it represents the southern (Wú) Mahāyāna ethical-narrative tradition of the third century.
Translations and research
- Chavannes, Édouard. Cinq cents contes et apologues extraits du Tripitaka chinois et traduits en français. 4 vols. Paris: Leroux, 1910–1934. (The standard French translation of T152 and related anthologies; vols. 1–2 cover most of the Liùdù jí jīng.)
- Nakamura Hajime 中村元 (ed.). Jātaka zenshū ジャータカ全集. Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1982–1991. (Comparative apparatus including T152.)
- Demiéville, Paul. “À propos du concile de Vaiśālī” and “Les Versions chinoises du Milindapañha.” BEFEO (1924, 1932). (Discussions of T152.)
- Lévi, Sylvain. “Les seize Arhats protecteurs de la Loi.” Journal asiatique (1916). (Notes on T152 narratives.)
- Iyanaga Nobumi 彌永信美. “Rikudo shū-kyō no shinwa-teki sekai” 『六度集経』の神話的世界. Bukkyō kenkyū 仏教研究 33 (2005).
- Mair, Victor H. T’ang Transformation Texts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 1989. (Sections on T152’s narrative legacy in Chinese popular literature.)
- Yu Anthony C. State and Religion in China: Historical and Textual Perspectives. Chicago: Open Court, 2005. (Discusses Kāng Sēnghuì’s sinification of bodhisattva-ethics in T152.)
Other points of interest
T152 is one of the earliest Chinese Buddhist works to incorporate sustained Confucian-inflected ethical commentary into a jātaka frame: the Sudāna-jātaka (chapter 14) in particular is pivotal in the East-Asian reception of the jātaka tradition and the source for the Tang-period biànwén 變文 Sūdānà tàizǐ 須大拏太子 narratives. The work is also a primary source for the early Chinese formulation of the term 明度無極 (“the limitless illumination-perfection”), a third-century calque of prajñā-pāramitā.
Links
- CBETA online text
- Kāng Sēnghuì DILA
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (245, 247, 250, 300, 302, 390, 396): Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations: Texts from the Eastern Han 東漢 and Three Kingdoms 三國 Periods. Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica Buddhica X. Tokyo: The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2008, 134 — dazangthings.nz