Bǎiyú jīng 百喻經
Sūtra of the Hundred Parables by 僧伽斯那 (Saṃghasena, 撰); translated by 求那毘地 (Guṇavṛddhi, 譯)
About the work
A four-fascicle anthology of 98 short yú (喻 = upamā / “parable”) narratives, conventionally rounded to “one hundred” in the title — short comic-didactic narratives illustrating various forms of human folly, each closing with a doctrinal application. Compiled by the Indian master 僧伽斯那 Saṃghasena and translated by 求那毘地 Guṇavṛddhi at Jiànkāng under the Xiāo-Qí 蕭齊 (Southern Qí) in 492 CE. Signature: 「尊者僧伽斯那撰／蕭齊天竺三藏求那毘地譯」. The opening contents-list enumerates the first parables: 「愚人食鹽喻、愚人集牛乳喻、以梨打破頭喻、婦詐語稱死喻、渴見水喻…」 (“The fool eating salt; the fool collecting cow-milk; striking the head with a pear; the wife pretending death; the thirsty man seeing water…”).
Prefaces
No preface or postface; only the canonical compiler / translator signatures.
Abstract
T209 is the principal Chinese version of one of the most-influential Indic Buddhist parable-anthologies. The Indic source corresponds to the Śata-avadāna-sūtra / Drṣṭānta-mālā traditions, and Saṃghasena’s compilation can be tentatively dated to the late fourth or early fifth century in India based on the linguistic and content profile. The Chinese translation is well-dated: completed by Guṇavṛddhi at Jiànkāng in Yǒngmíng 永明 10 = 492 CE; preserved in the Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 records.
The parables themselves are characterised by a structural pattern: a folly-narrative followed by a doctrinal moral (usually highlighting attachment, ignorance, or the wrong reading of the dharma). The work has been widely received in East-Asian Buddhist popular literature and was an early-modern Chinese literary resource (魯迅 Lǔ Xùn published a modern Chinese edition in 1914). It is also one of the most-translated of all Chinese Buddhist texts in modern Western languages.
Translations and research
- Tatelman, Joel, trans. The Hundred Parable Sutra (Baiyu Jing). Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2003. (Standard English translation.)
- Cleary, Tom, trans. Stories from a Chinese Buddhist Sutra: The Sutra of One Hundred Parables. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1991.
- Lǔ Xùn 魯迅 (Zhōu Shùrén). Bǎiyú jīng edition. Beijing, 1914.
- Demiéville, Paul. “À propos d’un recueil bouddhique de paraboles chinoises.” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 33 (1933).
Other points of interest
T209 is one of the very few Chinese Buddhist scriptures to have been incorporated into the modern Chinese literary canon: Lǔ Xùn’s 1914 edition was a foundational document of the early modern Chinese Buddhist text-edition tradition.
Links
- CBETA online text
- Guṇavṛddhi (求那毘地) DILA
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (495): [ T ] Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924-1932 — dazangthings.nz