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方廣大莊嚴經

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Text ID
KR6b0043
Date
685–685
Dynasty
唐

Fāngguǎng dàzhuāngyán jīng 方廣大莊嚴經

Lalitavistara-sūtra (Tang Re-translation) by 地婆訶羅 (Divākara, 譯)

About the work

A twelve-fascicle Tang-period re-translation of the Lalitavistara — the Mahāyāna Buddha-biography earlier translated by 竺法護 Dharmarakṣa as [[KR6b0042|Pǔyào jīng 普曜經 (T186)]] in 308 CE. Translated by 地婆訶羅 Divākara (614–688) at Cháng’ān under imperial commission. Signature: 「大唐天竺三藏地婆訶羅奉詔譯」. The Taishō header cross-references T186. The alternative title noted at the head — 神通遊戲 (“Sportive Display of Spiritual Powers”) — is the Chinese equivalent of the Sanskrit vikrīḍita / līlā element in the title Lalitavistara.

Prefaces

No preface or postface; only the canonical translator-signature.

Abstract

T187 is the second Chinese translation of the Lalitavistara, prepared 380 years after T186, and represents the mature late-Tang Buddhist translation register of the Cháng’ān imperial-translation programme under Empress Wǔ Hòu. The translation was completed in Chuígǒng 垂拱 1 (685 CE). The Indic source represents a slightly later Sanskrit recension of the Lalitavistara than the one underlying T186, with substantial additional Mahāyāna material in the closing chapters; the Chinese translation correspondingly runs to twelve fascicles versus T186’s eight. T187 is the more philologically polished and the more widely received in later East-Asian Buddhist hagiographic tradition; T186 retains primary value as a Western-Jìn linguistic and textual witness.

The doublet relationship between T186 and T187 — one of the longer-spanning Indic-recension doublets in the Chinese canon — is foundational for the comparative study of pre-Tang and Tang-period Chinese Buddhist translation idiom applied to the same Indic genre.

Translations and research

  • Bays, Gwendolyn, trans. The Voice of the Buddha: The Beauty of Compassion. The Lalitavistara Sūtra. Berkeley: Dharma Publishing, 1983. (English translation primarily based on T187.)
  • Lefmann, Salomon. Lalita Vistara. Halle, 1902–1908.
  • Vaidya, P. L. Lalita-Vistara. Darbhanga: Mithila Institute, 1958.
  • Foucaux, Philippe-Édouard. Lalita Vistara. Paris: Annales du Musée Guimet, 1884–1892.

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