Pútísà shízhù xíng dào pǐn 菩薩十住行道品
The Chapter on the Bodhisattva’s Ten-Abode Practice and Way by 竺法護 Zhú Fǎhù (譯)
About the work
This one-fascicle proto-Avataṃsaka text by 竺法護 Zhú Fǎhù / Dharmarakṣa (active 266 – 313 CE) corresponds, on the Taishō apparatus’s authority, to chapter 11 of the [[KR6e0001|60-fascicle Huáyán]], to chapter 15 of the [[KR6e0010|80-fascicle Huáyán]], and to several parallel proto-Avataṃsaka texts including T0281 and T0284. The topic is the Shízhù pǐn 十住品 — the bodhisattva’s “ten abodes” (daśavihāra), a foundational doctrinal frame of the Avataṃsaka path.
The opening reads: “The bodhisattva Tánmèimótí 曇昧摩提 (Skt. Dharmamati?), upholding the Buddha’s authoritative-spiritual [grace], thereupon entered before the Buddha into this Ānánbóyújiā 阿難波渝迦 samādhi (Skt. Anāsravabhāvanā samādhi?), and saw all the Buddhas of the ten directions — the ten-direction Buddhas being equal in number to the dust-grains in a thousand Buddha-fields…”
Prefaces
No formal preface; the title-line attributes the translation to “西晉三藏竺法護譯.”
Abstract
竺法護 Zhú Fǎhù — the Dūnhuáng pútísà 敦煌菩薩 (“Bodhisattva of Dūnhuáng”) of the Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 — was the most prolific Buddhist translator of the Western Jìn period; the Chū sānzàng jì jí (T2145, juan 13) attributes 159 translations to him over 47 years (266 – 313 CE). Of Yuèzhī (Kushan / Bactrian) descent but a Chinese citizen and lay-monk-trained at Dūnhuáng, he established translation bureaus successively at Dūnhuáng, Cháng’ān, and Luòyáng, employing a substantial team of Chinese-language collaborators including Niè Chéng-yuǎn 聶承遠 and his son 聶道真 Niè Dàozhēn (the translator of T0282). His translation corpus established the core Mahāyāna canon in Chinese: the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka (T0263, the Zhèngfǎ huá jīng), the Sukhāvatī-vyūha (T0362, the Wú-liàng-shòu jīng), the Vaipulya-mahāparinirvāṇa (T0376), and many Avataṃsaka-tradition texts including the present and T0285.
The Pútísà shízhù xíng dào pǐn belongs to Zhú Fǎhù’s broader project of bringing the Avataṃsaka materials into Chinese; together with T0285 (the Daśabhūmika) it documents his sustained engagement with the bodhisattva-path materials of the Avataṃsaka tradition. The bracket adopted here (266 – 313) reflects the conventional period of Zhú Fǎhù’s translation activity. The Taishō text is established on the standard apparatus.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- Boucher, Daniel. Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahāyāna: A Study and Translation of the Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā-sūtra. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2008. — extensive treatment of Zhú Fǎhù’s translation methodology.
- Boucher, Daniel. “Gāndhārī and the Early Chinese Buddhist Translations Reconsidered: The Case of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra.” JAOS 118 (1998).
- Karashima, Seishi. “Some Features of the Language of Dharmarakṣa.” Journal of the Pali Text Society 24 (1998): 105–142.
- Hamar, Imre. “The History of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra,” in Reflecting Mirrors (2007).
Other points of interest
- The phonetic transcription Tánmèimótí 曇昧摩提 (Dharmamati) and Ānánbóyújiā 阿難波渝迦 (Anāsravabhāvanā?) preserve early-Chinese-translation phonological renderings that are valuable witnesses to the underlying Indic / Gāndhārī phonology — a topic of continuing scholarship (Karashima 1998; Boucher 1998).
Links
- CBETA T10n0283
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (186, 300) — Nattier 2005 — Nattier, Jan. “The Proto-History of the Buddhāvataṃsaka: The Pusa benye jing 菩薩本業經 and the Dousha jing 兜沙經.” ARIRIAB VIII (2005): 323–360.