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僧伽羅剎所集經

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Text ID
KR6b0051
Date
384–385
Dynasty
符秦

Sēngqiéluóchà suǒjí jīng 僧伽羅剎所集經

Sūtra Compiled by Saṃgharakṣa (Buddha-biography Avadāna-anthology) by 僧伽跋澄 (Saṃghabhūti, 等譯)

About the work

A three-fascicle avadāna-anthology arranged as a compressed Buddha-biography, attributed in the Chinese tradition to the Indian master 僧伽羅剎 Saṃgharakṣa — a brāhmaṇa-disciple of the Buddha (so the canonical hagiography), said to have flourished in the first century after Kaniṣka. Translated by 僧伽跋澄 Saṃghabhūti at Cháng’ān under Fú-Qín. Signature: 「符秦罽賓三藏僧伽跋澄等譯」. The text opens with a Chinese-language prologue introducing Saṃgharakṣa: “Saṃgharakṣa was a man of Súrāī country, born seven hundred years after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa, who took ordination, learnt the Way, taught throughout the kingdoms, and at last in Gandhāra served as the master (śi) of King Kaniṣka — Zhēntuójìnì wáng 甄陀罽膩王 — high-minded and the supreme author of his age.”

Prefaces

The text bears no preface in the source file (the opening prologue is part of the body text, not a separate paratext). The only paratext is the canonical translator-signature.

Abstract

T194’s translation is documented in the Chū sānzàng jì jí to Jiànyuán 建元 20 = 384 CE, completed at Cháng’ān under Fú-Qín during 道安 Dàoān’s last years; the bracket 384–385 corresponds to the documented translation activity period.

The work is doctrinally and historically important for two reasons: first, it preserves an Indic avadāna-anthology Buddha-biography distinct from the Lalitavistara-class material translated by 竺法護 Dharmarakṣa as T186; second, the prologue is the earliest Chinese-language source for the figure of Saṃgharakṣa as a Kaniṣka-court Buddhist master, an important figure in the early Mahāyāna hagiographic tradition. The “Súrāī” (須賴 / Suvīra / Sūrasena) homeland-attribution and the connection to Kaniṣka are widely treated in modern Indo-Buddhist scholarship as evidence for the early-Mahāyāna emergence in the Kuṣāṇa-period north-west.

Translations and research

  • Demiéville, Paul. “Le Yogācārabhūmi de Saṅgharakṣa.” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 44/2 (1954): 339–436. (The principal modern study of Saṃgharakṣa and his works in Chinese.)
  • Tang Yongtong 湯用彤. Hàn Wèi Liǎng-Jìn Nánběicháo Fójiào shǐ. Shanghai: Shangwu, 1938.

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