Fó shuō Wǔshísòng shèng bōrě bōluómì jīng 佛說五十頌聖般若波羅蜜經
Sūtra of the Holy Fifty-Verse Perfection of Wisdom, Spoken by the Buddha by 施護 Shīhù (譯, Skt. Dānapāla)
About the work
A short one-fascicle Sòng-period Prajñāpāramitā sūtra translation by 施護 Shīhù (Dānapāla), preserved in the Taishō as T248. The Sanskrit title is reconstructed as Pañcāśatikā Prajñāpāramitā — the Fifty-Verse Prajñāpāramitā — a very short member of the late-Indian Prajñāpāramitā sūtra cluster. One fascicle.
The work is one of several late-Indian short Prajñāpāramitā sūtras (paralleling the Aṣṭottara-śatika T230, the Liǎoyì T247, the Indra T249, and the long-recension Heart Sūtra T257) transmitted to China through Shīhù’s Sòng Yìjīngyuàn.
Abstract
T248 is one of the smallest Prajñāpāramitā sūtras in the Buddhist canon — a brief 50-verse compendium of Prajñā doctrine. It belongs to the late-Indian tradition of producing increasingly compact Prajñāpāramitā texts that compress the doctrinal essence of the larger Prajñāpāramitā corpus into mnemonic verse-form for ritual recitation and devotional use.
The series of late-Indian Prajñāpāramitā sūtras transmitted through Shīhù — T230 (108 names), T247 (definitive-meaning), T248 (50 verses), T249 (Indra), T257 (Heart Sūtra long recension) — together documents the rich late-Indian devotional-doctrinal Prajñāpāramitā tradition that the Sòng Yìjīngyuàn worked to transmit to China.
Composition date: same bracket as Shīhù’s other Sòng Yìjīngyuàn translations (982–1017).
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located of T248 specifically.
- For Shīhù and the late-Indian Prajñāpāramitā tradition, Edward Conze, The Prajñāpāramitā Literature (1960; rev. 1978) — fundamental.
- For the Sòng Yìjīngyuàn, Tansen Sen (2003).
Links
- 施護 DILA
- CBETA T08n0248
- Dazangthings date evidence (1000) — Taishō shinshū daizōkyō dating.
- Kanseki DB