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佛說仁王般若波羅蜜經

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Text ID
KR6c0202
Date
402–412
Dynasty
姚秦

Fó shuō Rénwáng bōrě bōluómì jīng 佛說仁王般若波羅蜜經

Sūtra of the Humane King’s Perfection of Wisdom, Spoken by the Buddha attributed to 鳩摩羅什 Kumārajīva (譯)

About the work

A two-fascicle Mahāyāna sūtra preserved in the Taishō as T245, attributed by colophon to 鳩摩羅什 Kumārajīva (350–409 / 413), the great Yáo-Qín-era translator from Kucha. The work is known as the Rénwáng jīng 仁王經 (“Humane King Sūtra”) and is one of the most important state-protective scriptures in East Asian Mahāyāna Buddhism. The Taishō head-note “[No. 246]” cross-references the parallel later translation by 不空 Amoghavajra (T246, also titled Rénwáng hùguó bōrě bōluómìduō jīng 仁王護國般若波羅蜜多經, KR6c0203). Two fascicles. Signature: 「姚秦三藏鳩摩羅什譯」.

The title designates Mahā-prajñā-pāramitā discourse to humane kings (rénwáng 仁王) — i.e. ideal Buddhist rulers. The sūtra is structurally a Prajñāpāramitā dialogue between the Buddha and an assembly of Buddhist kings (King Prasenajit and others), addressing the relation between Mahāyāna practice and the protection of the state.

Prefaces

The sūtra opens with the standard evaṃ mayā śrutam nidāna: 「如是我聞：一時，佛住王舍城耆闍崛山中，與大比丘眾八百萬億…」 — “Thus have I heard: at one time the Buddha was at Gṛdhrakūṭa near Rājagṛha, with eight-hundred-thousand-millions of bhikṣus…“. The opening assembly is enumerated in detail with the Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna fruits, the contemplative methods, and a substantial cosmological-soteriological setting.

Abstract

T245 is one of the three royal protective scriptures (along with the Suvarṇaprabhāsa 金光明經 and the Mahāmāyūrī-vidyā-rāja-sūtra 大孔雀明王經) that constituted the foundation of state Buddhism in Tang and Sòng China and in Heian and Kamakura Japan. The sūtra was widely used in court rituals for protecting the emperor and the state, and its scholastic commentaries are among the most influential documents of East Asian state-Buddhist political theology.

The Kumārajīva attribution is contested by modern scholarship. The earliest reliable references to the sūtra come from the early-6th century rather than from the Yáo-Qín period (Kumārajīva’s translation period was 402–412); the language and doctrinal style include elements that some scholars have argued post-date Kumārajīva. The most influential modern scholarly position (developed by Charles D. Orzech and others) is that T245 is a Chinese composition of the late-5th or early-6th century, ascribed to Kumārajīva for prestige and canonical authority. The bracket notBefore 402 / notAfter 412 here preserves the canonical attribution while acknowledging this scholarly uncertainty in the Translations and research section.

For the wider history of East Asian Buddhism, T245 is foundational: it is the basis of the Tang state-Buddhist Rénwáng jīng ritual programme, of the Heian-period Renwáng-e 仁王會 court ceremony in Japan, of substantial commentarial traditions by 智顗 Zhìyǐ (KR6c0204), 吉藏 Jízàng (KR6c0206), 圓測 Wǒnch’ǔk (KR6c0207), 湛然 Zhànrán, and others, and of subsequent Sòng-Yuán-Míng state-Buddhist political theology.

This is not a Heart Sūtra commentary but a separate Prajñāpāramitā sūtra; its inclusion in the catalog (KR6c — the Prajñāpāramitā section) reflects its canonical placement adjacent to the Heart Sūtra rather than any commentarial relation.

Translations and research

  • Charles D. Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom: The Scripture for Humane Kings in the Creation of Chinese Buddhism (University Park: Pennsylvania State, 1998) — the principal English-language monograph; argues for late-5th-century Chinese composition with Kumārajīva attribution as later prestige assignment. Includes a complete translation of T245.
  • Charles D. Orzech, “Mahāvairocana, Vajrasattva, and the Humane King: An Introduction to the Indian Esoteric Mahāyāna” — peripheral but useful.
  • Yamamoto Genpō 山本玄峰 modern Japanese-language editions and commentaries on the Rénwáng-jīng.
  • Modern Chinese-language scholarship: 賴永海《中國佛教文化論》 and many works on the Rénwáng-jīng state-protection ritual programme.

Other points of interest

The Rénwáng jīng is one of the most politically influential Mahāyāna sūtras in East Asian history: its formula of the Hundred Lands’ Hundred Buddhas (百佛百土) and its prescription of rénwáng (humane king) ideal kingship shaped the imperial-Buddhist political ideology of Tang and Heian states for several centuries. The fact that the work is most likely a Chinese composition rather than an Indian translation is one of the more striking instances of Chinese Buddhist canonical pseudepigraphy.

The catalog meta places this and KR6c0203 (Amoghavajra’s parallel translation T246) in the KR6c (Prajñāpāramitā) division because of the Rénwáng Prajñā (仁王般若) title-element, even though the sūtra’s actual content is more closely related to the wider Mahāyāna sūtra-corpus than to the Prajñāpāramitā short-sūtra tradition.

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