Xiǎopǐn bōrě bōluómì jīng 小品般若波羅蜜經
Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā (Kumārajīva’s Translation) by 鳩摩羅什 (Kumārajīva, 譯)
About the work
A ten-fascicle Latter-Qín 後秦 translation of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā by Kumārajīva. The title’s 小品 (“small-section”) distinguishes the 8,000-verse Aṣṭasāhasrikā from the 25,000-verse 大品 Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā (= T223). The Taishō header cross-references the canon’s Aṣṭasāhasrikā parallels.
Prefaces
The text opens with 僧叡 Sēngruì’s celebrated preface (《小品經》序): “The Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra — the perfectly-articulated saying that exhausts principle and nature, the great rule by which the bodhisattva completes Buddhahood. Without the rule’s vastness, none can settle the multiple opinions and discern their pointing…”
Abstract
T227 is the principal pre-Xuánzàng Chinese translation of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā and was the standard text of that sūtra in East-Asian Buddhism throughout the medieval period. The translation is dated by the Chū sānzàng jì jí to Hóngshǐ 弘始 10 = 408 CE at Cháng’ān, with 僧叡 Sēngruì as principal editor. T227 displaced the earlier T224, T225, and T226 as the standard Aṣṭasāhasrikā lexicon in Chinese Mahāyāna doctrinal literature.
Translations and research
- Conze, Edward, trans. The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines. Bolinas, 1973.
- Karashima Seishi 辛島静志. A Critical Edition of Lokakṣema’s Translation of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā. Tokyo: IRIAB, 2011. (Comparative apparatus including T227.)
- Yìn-shùn 印順. Bōrě jīng jiǎngjì.
Links
- CBETA T08n0227
- Kanseki DB
- 鳩摩羅什 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (390, 405, 408, 430) — Hureau, Sylvie. “Preaching and Translating on poṣadha Days: Kumārajīva’s Role in Adapting an Indian Ceremony to China.” Journal of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies 10 (2006): 118–86, 98/107.