Miàofǎ liánhuá jīng yōupótíshè 妙法蓮華經憂波提舍
Saddharma-puṇḍarīka-upadeśa (Vasubandhu’s Treatise on the Lotus Sūtra) composed by 大乘論師婆藪槃豆 (Vasubandhu / Dàshèng lùnshī Pósǒupándòu, 釋); translated by 菩提留支 (Bodhiruci, 等譯) and 曇林 (Tánlín, 等譯)
About the work
A two-juan (上 / 下) Northern-Wèi translation of 世親菩薩 Vasubandhu’s Saddharma-puṇḍarīka-upadeśa (the Lotus Sūtra Treatise — Skt. upadeśa, “treatise / instruction”), produced at Luòyáng under the Northern Wèi imperial court by 菩提留支 Bodhiruci (also written 菩提流支) and 曇林 Tánlín. The work is one of two distinct Northern-Wèi translations of Vasubandhu’s Lotus Sūtra commentary: T1519 (the present work, by Bodhiruci) and T1520 (KR6d0127, by 勒那摩提 Ratnamati). Body attribution: Dàshèng lùnshī Pósǒupándòu shì / Hòu-Wèi běi Tiānzhú sānzàng Pútíliúzhī gòng shāmén Tánlín děng yì 大乘論師婆藪槃豆釋 / 後魏北天竺三藏菩提留支共沙門曇林等譯.
Prefaces
The text in the Taishō recension carries the standard front matter and opens with Vasubandhu’s gāthā-formed homage: 頂禮正覺海，淨法無為僧 (“Homage to the Right-Awakening Ocean, the pure-Dharma unconditioned Sangha…”).
Abstract
Vasubandhu’s Saddharma-puṇḍarīka-upadeśa is the principal Indic Mahāyāna commentary on the Lotus Sūtra and the foundational Yogācāra-school exposition of the Lotus’s doctrinal content. The work is consequently of substantial importance both as an Indic Mahāyāna treatise and as the principal source for the early Sinitic Yogācāra-tradition reading of the Lotus.
The two distinct Northern-Wèi translations (T1519 and T1520) reflect the substantial early-sixth-century Sinitic interest in Vasubandhu’s Lotus commentary and the institutional separation between the Bodhiruci and 勒那摩提 Ratnamati translation teams at Luòyáng. The two translations preserve textual variants and translation choices that document the early Sinitic Yogācāra translation idiom and provide important evidence for the broader early Sinitic transmission of Vasubandhu’s corpus.
The Indic original is generally placed in the late fourth or early fifth century CE, with Vasubandhu’s mature productive period in the Yogācāra phase of his career (after his conversion from Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma to Mahāyāna). The work is one of several Vasubandhu commentaries on Mahāyāna sūtras (including the Daśabhūmika-sūtra-śāstra, T1522, and the Sukhāvatī-vyūha-upadeśa) that became foundational for the Sinitic Yogācāra (Cí’ēn) tradition.
The Bodhiruci–Tánlín translation is bracketed within Bodhiruci’s productive period at Luòyáng (508–535).
Translations and research
- Frauwallner, Erich. On the Date of the Buddhist Master of the Law Vasubandhu. Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1951.
- Anacker, Stefan. Seven Works of Vasubandhu, the Buddhist Psychological Doctor. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984.
- Lusthaus, Dan. Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogācāra Buddhism and the Ch’eng Wei-shih Lun. London: Routledge, 2002.
- Karashima Seishi 辛嶋静志. The Textual Study of the Chinese Versions of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra. Tokyo: Reiyukai, 1992.
- Hirakawa Akira 平川彰. Indo Bukkyō-shi インド仏教史. Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1979.
- Lancaster, Lewis R. The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalogue. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
Other points of interest
The Saddharma-puṇḍarīka-upadeśa is one of the few surviving Indic Mahāyāna commentarial works whose Sanskrit original is now lost (or survives only in fragments); the Chinese translations T1519 and T1520 are consequently the principal philological witnesses for the work’s content. The textual situation parallels that of the Dà fǎgǔ jīng (KR6d0109) and several other major Mahāyāna texts whose Indic originals survive only in Chinese (and sometimes Tibetan) translations.
Links
- CBETA online text T1519
- DDB 妙法蓮華經憂波提舍
- Kanseki DB
- 世親菩薩 DILA
- 菩提留支 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (510, 520): Ono and Maruyama 1933–1936 — Ono Genmyō 小野玄妙, Maruyama Takao 丸山孝雄, eds. Bussho kaisetsu daijiten 佛書解說大辭典. Tokyo: Daitō shuppan, 1933–1936 [縮刷版 1999]. vol. 10, pp. 367–369.