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太子須大拏經

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Text ID
KR6b0023
Date
388–431
Dynasty
西秦

Tàizǐ Sūdánà jīng 太子須大拏經

Sūtra of Prince Sudāna (Vessantara) by 聖堅 (Shèngjiān / *Āryasthira, 譯)

About the work

The principal Chinese stand-alone translation of the celebrated Vessantara-jātaka / Viśvantara-jātaka / Sudāna-jātaka — the canonical Buddhist narrative of the prince who gives away his royal elephant to enemies of the kingdom and is exiled, then continues to give away his children and his wife, perfecting the pāramitā of dāna. Translated under the Western Qín by 聖堅 Shèngjiān by imperial commission. Signature: 「西秦沙門聖堅奉詔譯」.

The narrative is paralleled in [[KR6b0001|Liùdù jí jīng T152 chapter 14]] (康僧會 Kāng Sēnghuì’s earlier shorter version) and is one of the most widely diffused Buddhist jātakas across Asia.

Prefaces

The text bears no preface or postface; only the canonical translator-signature.

Abstract

T171 is the canonical Chinese stand-alone version of the Vessantara-jātaka, the jātaka most central to traditional Indic Buddhist devotion (final birth before the Buddha; capstone of the Pāli Mahānipātajātaka; subject of the longest Pāli jātaka, no. 547). The Chinese translation falls within Shèngjiān’s documented Western-Qín period (385–431); the bracket here begins from 388 to allow for the establishment of the Qǐfú ruling house’s Buddhist patronage. Modern scholarship (Cone & Gombrich; Lin Mei-mei) treats T171 as a key witness for the early-medieval Chinese reception of the Vessantara narrative and the source for much subsequent East-Asian biànwén 變文 (transformation-text) and pictorial recensions, particularly those from Dūnhuáng (the Dūnhuáng Sūdánà tàizǐ biànwén 須大拏太子變文, P.2375 etc.).

Translations and research

  • Cone, Margaret, and Richard F. Gombrich. The Perfect Generosity of Prince Vessantara: A Buddhist Epic Translated from the Pali and Illustrated by Unpublished Paintings from Sinhalese Temples. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
  • Hartmann, Jens-Uwe. “Vessantara Outside the Pāli Tradition.” Indo-Iranian Journal (2003).
  • Mair, Victor H. Tang Transformation Texts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1989. (Dūnhuáng Sūdánà biànwén materials.)
  • Karetzky, Patricia E. “The Sudāna-jātaka in the Chinese Buddhist Pictorial Tradition.” Artibus Asiae (1986).

Other points of interest

The Vessantara-jātaka / T171 narrative is the principal source for the cult of dāna-generosity in Theravāda Southeast Asia and one of the central narrative topoi of East-Asian Buddhist art and biànwén literature. The Chinese reception of the narrative through T171 and through T152(14) established it as a standard topic for medieval Buddhist visual programs (e.g., the Dūnhuáng Sūdánà mural cycles).

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