聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

雜寶藏經

3 min read

Text ID
KR6b0060
Date
472–472
Dynasty
元魏

Zábǎozàng jīng 雜寶藏經

Saṃyukta-ratna-piṭaka-sūtra (Sūtra of the Miscellaneous Jewel-Treasury) by 吉迦夜 (Kekaya, 譯) and 曇曜 (Tánrèyào, 譯)

About the work

A ten-fascicle avadāna-anthology of some 121 narratives — jātaka-class past-life narratives, pretas and yakṣa karmic-aetiology tales, and Buddha-discourse stories — translated jointly by 吉迦夜 Kekaya and 曇曜 Tánrèyào in the Northern Wèi. Signature: 「元魏西域三藏吉迦夜共曇曜譯」. The contents-list at the head of fascicle 1 enumerates the first nine narratives: 「十奢王緣／王子以肉濟父母緣／鸚鵡子供養盲父母緣／棄老國緣…」 (“The Daśaratha-rāja narrative / The narrative of the prince who used his own flesh to save his parents / The parrot who served his blind parents / The country that abandoned the old…”).

Prefaces

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

Abstract

T203’s translation is documented in the Chū sānzàng jì jí to Yánxīng 延興 2 = 472 CE at Píngchéng. The Indic source is identified as a Saṃyukta-ratna-piṭaka compilation of the Sarvāstivādin or Mūlasarvāstivādin tradition, no Sanskrit recension of which has been preserved. The anthology’s narrative-frame variety — jātaka, avadāna, ghost-narrative, pratyutpanna parallel-life narrative — gives it broader thematic scope than the more genre-restricted earlier Chinese avadāna-anthologies.

T203 is one of the most-cited Chinese Buddhist avadāna sources in later medieval and pre-modern East-Asian Buddhist popular literature, alongside [[KR6b0059|Xiányú jīng (T202)]] and [[KR6b0066|Bǎiyú jīng (T209)]]. The famous “country that abandoned the old” narrative (Qìlǎo guó yuán 棄老國緣) is the East-Asian Buddhist version of the international filial-piety folktale-type “the wisdom of the old man.”

Translations and research

  • Willemen, Charles, trans. The Storehouse of Sundry Valuables: Translated from the Chinese of Kikkāya and Liu Hsiao-piao (Compiled by T’an-yao). Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1994. (Standard English translation.)
  • Demiéville, Paul. “Saints” et “manuscrits chinois” dans les Saṃyukta-ratna-piṭakāḥ. Hōbōgirin article.
  • Wilson, Liz. Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. (Sections on T203 jātakas.)

Graph View

Backlinks