Fó shuō rúlái xīng xiǎn jīng 佛說如來興顯經
The Sūtra Spoken by the Buddha on the Tathāgata’s Arising and Manifestation by 竺法護 Zhú Fǎhù (譯)
About the work
This 4-fascicle proto-Avataṃsaka text by 竺法護 Zhú Fǎhù corresponds, on the Taishō apparatus’s authority, to chapter 32 of the [[KR6e0001|60-fascicle Huáyán]] (the Bǎo-wáng rúlái xìng qǐ pǐn 寶王如來性起品) and to chapter 37 of the [[KR6e0010|80-fascicle Huáyán]] (the Rúlái chū xiàn pǐn 如來出現品). The topic — translatable as “the Tathāgata’s arising and manifestation” — concerns the Mahāyāna doctrine of xìng qǐ 性起 (“nature-arising”), the principle that the Buddha-nature manifests itself spontaneously in response to the conditions of the world. This is one of the most distinctive doctrines of the Avataṃsaka corpus and was the basis for the mature Chinese Huáyán-school doctrine of xìng qǐ developed by 法藏 Fǎzàng and 澄觀 Chéngguān.
The opening reads: “Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was traveling in the Tathāgata-Established Land, [where one] eulogized the Dharma-body…” (聞如是：一時佛遊如來建立之土，號歎法身).
Prefaces
No formal preface; the title-line attributes the translation to “西晉月氏三藏竺法護譯.”
Abstract
The translation is conventionally datable on the basis of the Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 (T2145, juan 7) to Yuán-kāng 元康 1 (291 CE), 12th month, 25th day, when 竺法護 Zhú Fǎhù produced the text at the Cháng’ān bureau with the assistance of his standard collaborators. The bracket adopted here (291 – 291) reflects this precise dating. The text is thus contemporary with — and probably part of the same translation campaign as — Zhú Fǎhù’s [[KR6e0033|Jiàn bèi yīqiè zhì dé jīng]] / Daśabhūmika (T0285, 297 CE) and [[KR6e0040|Dù shì pǐn jīng]] (T0292), which together constitute his major Avataṃsaka-tradition project.
The doctrine of xìng qǐ 性起 is one of the most important theoretical contributions of the Avataṃsaka corpus to Mahāyāna metaphysics: the principle that the Buddha-nature, far from being something to be progressively cultivated and attained, is spontaneously self-manifesting in the phenomena of the world; that the dharmakāya “arises” (qǐ 起) of its own “nature” (xìng 性) at the appropriate conditions. This doctrine is taken up at length in 法藏 Fǎzàng’s Tànxuán jì (KR6e0004) and 澄觀 Chéngguān’s [[KR6e0011|Shū]], and through the latter became one of the doctrinal pillars of the mature Chinese Huáyán-Chán synthesis. The present text is therefore one of the earliest Chinese sources for the xìng qǐ doctrine and an important historical document.
The Taishō text (T0291) is established on a particularly rich apparatus including the Korean Tripiṭaka Koreana, the Sòng (宋), Yuán (元), Míng (明), Palace (宮), Shèng (聖), Southern Míng (南藏), Northern Míng (北藏), and Old-Sòng (磧砂) witnesses.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- Hamar, Imre. “The History of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra,” in Reflecting Mirrors (2007).
- Hamar, Imre. A Religious Leader in the Tang: Chengguan’s Biography. Tokyo: IIBS, 2002 — analyses the xìng qǐ doctrine and its sources.
- Liu, Ming-Wood. “The Mind-Only Teaching of Ching-ying Hui-yuan: An Early Interpretation of Yogācāra Thought in China.” Philosophy East and West 35.4 (1985): 351–376.
- Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations. Tokyo: IRIAB Soka University, 2008.
Other points of interest
- The xìng qǐ doctrine of this text is, alongside the daśabhūmi doctrine of T0285, one of the two foundational philosophical contributions of the Avataṃsaka corpus to Chinese Mahāyāna metaphysics; the two doctrines together constitute the conceptual backbone of mature Chinese Huáyán thought.
Links
- CBETA T10n0291
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (292, 300) — Boucher 1996 — Boucher, Daniel. “Buddhist Translation Procedures in Third-Century China: A Study of Dharmarakṣa and his Translation Idiom.” PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1996, p. 276.