Guāngzàn jīng 光讚經
Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā (Light-Praise Perfection-of-Wisdom Sūtra) by 竺法護 (Dharmarakṣa, 譯)
About the work
A ten-fascicle Western-Jìn translation by Dharmarakṣa 竺法護 of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā — the same Indic source as [[KR6c0002|Fàngguāng bōrě jīng (T221)]] but in an earlier, partial Chinese rendering. Signature: 「西晉三藏竺法護譯」. Taishō header cross-references [KR6c0001|T220], T221, and T223. Only the first 27 chapters of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā survive in T222 — the rest was either never translated or was lost in transmission.
Prefaces
No preface or postface in the source file; only the canonical translator-signature.
Abstract
T222’s translation is documented in the Chū sānzàng jì jí to Tàikāng 太康 7 = 286 CE at Cháng’ān, five years before T221. T222 is therefore the earliest surviving Chinese translation of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, predating T221 by some five years; it is, however, the textually less complete of the two. Modern scholarship (Mochizuki; Lamotte) treats T222 as Dharmarakṣa’s first attempt at the Prajñāpāramitā, undertaken before the more extensive Mokṣala / 竺叔蘭 Zhú Shūlán project produced T221 in 291.
The Guāngzàn (“Light-Praise”) title-element refers to the same opening prajñāpāramitā-light-emission nidāna as T221’s Fàngguāng (“Light-Emitting”); the difference reflects translation idiom, not a different Indic source. Both T222 and T221 work from closely related Sanskrit Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā recensions.
Translations and research
- See bibliography under T221.
- Boucher, Daniel. “Dharmarakṣa and the Transmission of Buddhism to China.” Asia Major 19 (2006): 13–37.
Links
- CBETA T08n0222
- Kanseki DB
- 竺法護 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (286, 300) — Boucher, Daniel. “Buddhist Translation Procedures in Third-Century China: A Study of Dharmarakṣa and his Translation Idiom.” PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1996, p. 260.