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大莊嚴論經

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Text ID
KR6b0058
Date
405–412
Dynasty
後秦

Dàzhuāngyán lùn jīng 大莊嚴論經

Sūtrālaṃkāra (Treatise of Great Adornment) by 馬鳴菩薩 (Aśvaghoṣa); translated by 鳩摩羅什 (Kumārajīva, 譯)

About the work

A fifteen-fascicle avadāna-anthology of some 90 avadāna narratives in mixed verse-and-prose, attributed in the Chinese tradition to 馬鳴菩薩 Aśvaghoṣa — the same Indic author of the Buddhacarita (cf. T192). Translated by 鳩摩羅什 Kumārajīva (344–413) at Cháng’ān under Latter-Qín 後秦 patronage. Signature: 「馬鳴菩薩造／後秦三藏鳩摩羅什譯」. The opening praṇāma-verse: 「前禮最勝尊，離欲邁三有」 (“First salutation to the Most-Conquering World-Honoured One, who is freed from desire and surpasses the three realms…”).

Prefaces

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

Abstract

T201 is one of the most-influential of Kumārajīva’s translations and the principal Chinese witness for the Indic Buddhist kāvya-class avadāna-anthology. The attribution to Aśvaghoṣa is preserved in the Chinese tradition; modern scholarship (Lévi, Lüders, Hartmann) has questioned whether T201 is genuinely Aśvaghoṣa’s Sūtrālaṃkāra or a related Mūlasarvāstivādin compilation possibly authored by Kumāralāta — a different Indic author, named in some Sanskrit fragments as the compiler. The current consensus is that T201 corresponds to Kumāralāta’s Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā / Dṛṣṭāntapaṅkti rather than directly to an Aśvaghoṣa work, but the Chinese tradition’s attribution to Aśvaghoṣa has been preserved.

The translation can be dated to Kumārajīva’s documented Cháng’ān period (401–413), with the bracket 405–412 reflecting his most productive translation period. The work was foundational in the East-Asian Buddhist avadāna-narrative tradition.

Translations and research

  • Lüders, Heinrich. Bruchstücke der Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā des Kumāralāta. Leipzig: Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, 1926. (Identifies Sanskrit fragments of T201’s source as Kumāralāta’s Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā.)
  • Lévi, Sylvain, trans. Sūtrālaṃkāra: Aśvaghoṣa. Paris: Champion, 1908. (French translation of T201, with comparative apparatus.)
  • Huber, Édouard, trans. Aśvaghoṣa Sūtrālaṃkāra: Traduit en français sur la version chinoise de Kumārajīva. Paris: Leroux, 1908. (French translation.)
  • Hartmann, Jens-Uwe. “Kumāralāta and the Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā Dṛṣṭāntapaṅkti.” Various articles.

Other points of interest

T201 is the principal source for one of the two Indic Buddhist avadāna-kāvya anthologies preserved primarily in Chinese (the other being [[KR6b0066|T209 Bǎiyú jīng]]); together they constitute the Chinese-canon’s principal access to the Indic kāvya-class avadāna tradition.

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