Dàbōrě bōluómìduō jīng 大般若波羅蜜多經
Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra (Great Sūtra of the Perfection of Wisdom) by 玄奘 (Xuánzàng, 譯)
About the work
The most extensive single text in the Chinese Buddhist canon — six hundred fascicles — being Xuánzàng’s 玄奘 (602–664) comprehensive translation of the Prajñāpāramitā-corpus, encompassing sixteen huì 會 (“assemblies”) that correspond to sixteen distinct Indic prajñā-class sūtras of varying lengths. The first huì alone (juan 1–400) is the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā in 25,000 verses, the longest of all surviving Indic prajñā sūtras. Translated at the Dàcí’ēnsì 大慈恩寺 / Yùhuágōng 玉華宮 in Cháng’ān between Xiǎnqìng 顯慶 5 (660) and Lóngshuò 龍朔 3 (663), with Xuánzàng’s death following a year later.
Prefaces
The text opens with the Initial Assembly Preface (《大般若經》初會序) by 玄則 Xuánzé, monk of the Xīmíngsì 西明寺, articulating the work’s cosmic-doctrinal claim: “The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra is the singular utterance of unique ages, the great ford spanning vast aeons; its light covers gods and men, its purport encloses the sacred and the worldly. Truly the inmost treasury of intuition, the spiritual citadel of states-with-Buddha-Dharma. Were it not for the sage’s far-reaching virtue and the wise man’s solitary emergence, when would the Indic sounds be exchanged or the Round-Teaching brought through? Hence the Emperor’s preface gleams in golden light, the Sovereign’s announcement reverberates jewel-fashion. Its events stretch over a thousand antiquities, its principle mirrors the three luminaries; abundant indeed are these texts, completed in this our day. As for the divisions — twenty-four in earlier times — formerly we held only half-pearls of them; with the sixteen assemblies now combined, we today grasp the whole jewel.”
Abstract
T220 is the principal Chinese-canon witness for the Indic Prajñāpāramitā-corpus and is one of the supreme philological achievements of pre-modern Chinese Buddhist translation. Xuánzàng worked from a Sanskrit manuscript-cluster brought back from India during his 629–645 pilgrimage, and his rendering preserves a sustained level of Indic-Chinese terminology equivalence rarely matched in earlier translations. The sixteen huì of T220 correspond to the principal Indic prajñā sūtras: huì 1 = Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā (25,000-verse); huì 2 = Aṣṭasāhasrikā (8,000-verse); huì 3 = Aṣṭādaśasāhasrikā (18,000-verse); huì 4 = Saptaśatikā (700-verse); huì 5 = Triśatikā (300-verse / Vajracchedikā / Diamond Sūtra); huì 6–16 = various paripṛcchā and shorter prajñā texts including the Suvikrāntavikrāmin, Mahāyānasaṃgraha, and Hṛdaya.
The translation period covers the last four years of Xuánzàng’s life and is documented in the Dàcí’ēnsì sānzàng fǎshī zhuàn 大慈恩寺三藏法師傳 (T2053, the principal Xuánzàng-biography by his disciples 慧立 Huìlì and 彥悰 Yàncóng) and in the Kāiyuán shìjiào lù 開元釋教錄.
T220 effectively replaces the earlier independent translations of individual prajñā sūtras for canonical purposes; nonetheless the older translations — Lokakṣema’s Dàoxíng bōrě (T224), Kumārajīva’s Móhē bōrě bōluómì jīng (T223), and the Vajracchedikā in Kumārajīva’s and Xuánzàng’s separate translations — remained important for liturgical and exegetical use throughout East-Asian Buddhist history.
Translations and research
- Conze, Edward, trans. The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom: With the Divisions of the Abhisamayālaṅkāra. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. (Standard English translation of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā / first huì of T220.)
- Conze, Edward, trans. The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines and Its Verse Summary. Bolinas: Four Seasons Foundation, 1973. (Aṣṭasāhasrikā; corresponds to huì 2 of T220.)
- Bagchi, Prabodh Chandra. Le canon bouddhique en Chine. Paris: Geuthner, 1927–1938.
- Lancaster, Lewis R. The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalogue. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
- Yìn-shùn 印順. Bōrě jīng jiǎngjì 般若經講記. Various editions. (Standard modern Chinese exegesis on the Prajñāpāramitā-corpus including T220.)
- Lamotte, Étienne, trans. Le Traité de la Grande Vertu de Sagesse de Nāgārjuna (Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra). 5 vols. Louvain: Institut Orientaliste, 1944–1980. (Translation of T1509, the principal prajñā-commentary, with extensive comparative apparatus on T220.)
Other points of interest
T220 is the textual base from which the standard East-Asian Buddhist Prajñāpāramitā-Hṛdaya (Heart Sūtra) was extracted: the Chinese Bōrě xīnjīng 般若心經 in its received form is conventionally treated as a Tang-period extract from T220 (a position argued in detail by Jan Nattier 1992) rather than an independent Indic translation. T220 is therefore the textual foundation for almost the entire East-Asian prajñā devotional tradition.