Dà Sàzhē Nígānzǐ suǒshuō jīng 大薩遮尼乾子所說經
Sūtra Spoken by the Great Satyaka Nirgrantha-putra by 菩提留支 (Pútíliúzhī / Bodhiruci, 譯)
About the work
A ten-juan Northern Wèi (Yuán-Wèi) translation by Bodhiruci 菩提留支 (also written 菩提流支, d. c. 527) of a Mahāyāna sūtra in the Sàzhē Nígānzǐ (Mahāsatyaka-Nirgranthaputra) cycle. The title — “Sūtra spoken by the Great Satyaka Nirgranthaputra” — refers to the Indic figure of Mahāsatyaka Nirgranthaputra, a Jain (Nirgrantha) ascetic who in the sūtra’s narrative frame engages in dialogue with the Buddha and articulates Mahāyāna doctrine. The work belongs together with Guṇabhadra’s Púsàxíng sūtra (KR6d0110) as one of the principal medium-length Mahāyāna sūtras translated in the early-medieval Northern Chinese Buddhist establishment.
Prefaces
The text in the Taishō recension carries the standard front matter; the body opens with the Xùpǐn dìyī 序品第一 (“First Chapter, the Introductory Chapter”). The opening invocation: 歸命大智海毘盧遮那佛 (“[I take] refuge in the great wisdom-ocean Vairocana Buddha”) — with editorial note 外國本一切經首皆有此句 (“foreign editions of all sūtras have this phrase at the head”) — documents the textual practice of opening Mahāyāna sūtras with the Vairocana invocation in the Indic tradition.
Abstract
The Sàzhē Nígānzǐ suǒshuō jīng is one of the more substantial Mahāyāna sūtras in the Northern Wèi translation tradition. Its narrative frame — a Jain nirgrantha ascetic articulating Mahāyāna doctrine — reflects the broader Indic Mahāyāna pattern of incorporating non-Buddhist religious figures into the bodhisattva assembly as transmitters of the Buddha’s teaching. The doctrinal content draws on the broader prajñāpāramitā and Tathāgatagarbha traditions, with substantial elaboration of the bodhisattva’s upāya-kauśalya (skillful-means) faculties.
Bodhiruci’s translation activity at the Northern Wèi court (508–535) was one of the most productive Chinese translation enterprises of the early sixth century, producing 38 works in 127 juan total. The Sàzhē Nígānzǐ jīng’s ten-juan extent makes it among the longer of his translations and a significant scriptural authority in the early-medieval Sinitic Buddhist canon.
The composition of the Indic original is most plausibly placed in the second or third century CE; the Chinese translation is bracketed within Bodhiruci’s productive period 508–535.
Translations and research
- Lancaster, Lewis R. The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalogue. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
- Tsukamoto Zenryū 塚本善隆. Chūgoku Bukkyō tsūshi 中国仏教通史. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Suzuki Gakujutsu Zaidan, 1968. (For the Northern Wèi translation context.)
- Hirakawa Akira 平川彰. Indo Bukkyō-shi インド仏教史. Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1979.
Other points of interest
The narrative frame of a Jain ascetic articulating Mahāyāna doctrine is one of the more striking features of the Indic Mahāyāna scriptural tradition and reflects the substantial cross-tradition exchange in early Indian religious thought. The Mahāsatyaka Nirgranthaputra figure’s appearance as a Mahāyāna interlocutor demonstrates the Indic Mahāyāna scriptural tradition’s capacity to integrate non-Buddhist religious authorities into its own narrative framework.
Links
- CBETA online text T0272
- Kanseki DB
- 菩提留支 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (520): T CBETA Taishō — Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924–1932.