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佛說兜沙經

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Text ID
KR6e0028
Date
178–189
Dynasty
後漢

Fó shuō dōushā jīng 佛說兜沙經

The Sūtra Spoken by the Buddha on Tuṣa (Sanskrit reconstruction: Daśa[bhūmika] / Tuṣita-bhūmi-sūtra; the title dōushā probably represents daśa “ten”) by 支婁迦讖 Lokakṣema (譯)

About the work

The Fó shuō dōushā jīng is a one-fascicle proto-Avataṃsaka text, the earliest extant Chinese translation of materials related to the Buddhāvataṃsaka’s body. It corresponds, in part, to the third and fifth chapters of the [[KR6e0001|60-fascicle Huáyán]] (T0278) — the Rúlái míng-hào pǐn 如來名號品 and the Guāngmíng jué pǐn 光明覺品 — and to the seventh and ninth chapters of the [[KR6e0010|80-fascicle Huáyán]] (T0279) — equivalent material in the new translation. Composed in 1 fascicle, it preserves an archaic stratum of the Avataṃsaka corpus before the cycle had been redacted into its complete Indic-Khotanese form.

The opening reads: “All Buddhas’ authoritative-spiritual grace [extends] to all the Buddhas of the past, the future, and the present. The Buddha was in Magadha at the place of the pure Dharma; the place was named Pure-of-What-is-Asked. When he first became Buddha, his radiance was very brilliant; the natural diamond-lotus encircled him broadly; the natural lion-throne — all the Buddhas of past times had likewise sat upon it; their bearing-pattern was the same without difference.” (一切諸佛威神恩，諸過去、當來、今現在亦爾。佛在摩竭提國時，法清淨處，其處號曰在所問清淨。始作佛時，光景甚明。自然金剛蓮華，周匝甚大。自然師子座，諸佛過去時亦悉於上坐，儀法等無有異。)

Prefaces

No formal preface; the title-line attributes the translation to “後漢月氏三藏支婁迦讖譯” — “translated by Lokakṣema, Tripiṭaka of the Yuèzhī, of the Later Hàn.”

Abstract

The translation is securely datable to the period of 支婁迦讖 Lokakṣema’s translation activity in Cháng’ān, conventionally placed in the 178 – 189 CE bracket (the latter terminus marked by the political crisis that ended Lokakṣema’s circle’s productivity), per the Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 (T2145) and the Lìdài sānbǎo jì 歷代三寶紀 (T2034). Lokakṣema, of Yuèzhī (Kushan / Bactrian) origin, was a near-exact contemporary of 安世高 Ān Shìgāo and was particularly active in the translation of Mahāyāna materials, in contrast to Ān Shìgāo’s focus on abhidharma and meditative texts.

The Dōushā jīng is one of a small group of pre-Six-Dynasties sūtras whose complete translation cycles into Chinese became the Huáyán jīng in its later complete form. Together with [[KR6e0029|Pútísà běn yè jīng 菩薩本業經]] (T0281, by Zhī Qiān), [[KR6e0030|Zhū pútísà qiú fó běn yè jīng 諸菩薩求佛本業經]] (T0282, by Niè Dàozhēn), [[KR6e0031|Pútísà shízhù xíng dào pǐn 菩薩十住行道品]] (T0283, by Zhú Fǎhù), [[KR6e0032|Pútísà shízhù jīng 菩薩十住經]] (T0284, by Jì Duō-mì), and [[KR6e0033|Jiàn bèi yīqiè zhì dé jīng 漸備一切智德經]] (T0285, by Zhú Fǎhù) — the Western Jìn translation of the Daśabhūmika — these texts form a series of “pre-Avataṃsaka” Chinese translations that document the gradual aggregation of the Avataṃsaka cycle. Modern scholarship (Nattier 2003, Hamar 2007, Forte 1985) reads these texts as direct evidence of the textual stratification of the Avataṃsaka corpus, with separate sections circulating independently before the complete sūtra was compiled in Khotan and translated in the Eastern Jìn.

The Taishō text (T0280) is established on the standard apparatus (the Korean Tripiṭaka Koreana collated against the Sòng, Yuán, Míng, Palace, and other witnesses).

Translations and research

  • Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations: Texts from the Eastern Hàn and Three Kingdoms Periods. Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica Buddhica X. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2008. — Foundational study of Lokakṣema’s translation corpus.
  • Harrison, Paul. The Samādhi of Direct Encounter with the Buddhas of the Present: An Annotated English Translation of the Tibetan Version of the Pratyutpannabuddhasaṃmukhāvasthitasamādhi-Sūtra with Several Appendixes Relating to the History of the Text. Studia Philologica Buddhica Monograph Series V. Tokyo: IIBS, 1990 — methodological background for Lokakṣema studies.
  • Karashima, Seishi. “Some Features of the Language of Lokakṣema.” Journal of the Pali Text Society 24 (1998): 49–74.
  • Hamar, Imre. “The History of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra: Shorter and Larger Texts,” in Reflecting Mirrors: Perspectives on Huayan Buddhism (2007), 139–168 — discusses the Dōushā jīng in detail.

Other points of interest

  • The Chinese transcription dōushā 兜沙 has been reconstructed as a phonetic rendering of daśa “ten,” referring to the Daśabhūmika / “Ten Stages” topic that is central to the corresponding chapters of the Avataṃsaka; alternative reconstructions (Tuṣita) are less favoured by current scholarship (Nattier 2008).
  • This text is the earliest dated Chinese Buddhist translation in the Avataṃsaka tradition, predating the Buddhabhadra translation by some 230 years.

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