Dù shì pǐn jīng 度世品經
The Sūtra on the Chapter on Crossing Over the World by 竺法護 Zhú Fǎhù (譯)
About the work
This 6-fascicle proto-Avataṃsaka text by 竺法護 Zhú Fǎhù corresponds, on the Taishō apparatus’s authority, to chapter 33 of the [[KR6e0001|60-fascicle Huáyán]] (the Lí shì-jiān pǐn 離世間品 “Chapter on Departing from the World”) and to chapter 38 of the [[KR6e0010|80-fascicle Huáyán]] (the same Lí shì-jiān pǐn). The chapter is, in the Avataṃsaka corpus, the long penultimate chapter, in which Samantabhadra expounds the bodhisattva’s culminating practice — the paramārtha of “departing from the world” through the realisation of the perfect interpenetration (shìshì wú’ài) of the dharma-realm.
Prefaces
No formal preface; the title-line attributes the translation to “西晉月氏三藏竺法護譯” (omitted in the visible portion above; standard apparatus note).
Abstract
The translation is conventionally datable through the Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 (T2145) to Yuán-kāng 元康 1 (291 CE), 1st month, 14th day, when 竺法護 Zhú Fǎhù produced the text at the Cháng’ān bureau. The bracket adopted here (291 – 291) reflects this precise dating. The text is contemporary with — and probably part of the same translation campaign as — Zhú Fǎhù’s [[KR6e0039|Rúlái xīng xiǎn jīng]] (T0291, also 291 CE) and his earlier proto-Avataṃsaka work; together with the [[KR6e0033|Jiàn bèi]] / Daśabhūmika of 297 CE, these constitute his major Avataṃsaka-tradition project.
The doctrinal substance of the Lí shì-jiān pǐn / Dù shì pǐn jīng is the bodhisattva’s culminating practice. The chapter consists primarily of long enumerative lists — “ten kinds of [X],” “twenty kinds of [Y],” etc. — describing the bodhisattva’s mature contemplative achievement. In the structure of the Avataṃsaka it serves as the doctrinal recapitulation immediately preceding the great Sudhana pilgrimage of the [[KR6e0001|closing Rù fǎjiè pǐn]]: having received in the preceding 32 chapters the complete doctrinal teaching, the bodhisattva is now urged to put it all into practice through the great pilgrimage. The chapter’s title — Lí shì-jiān in the later versions, Dù shì in Zhú Fǎhù’s earlier rendering — preserves slightly different but compatible nuances: “departing from the world” (lí) emphasises the transcendental; “crossing over the world” (dù) emphasises the soteriological practice of leading beings out of saṃsāra.
The Taishō text (T0292) is established on the standard apparatus.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations. Tokyo: IRIAB Soka University, 2008.
- Hamar, Imre. “The History of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra,” in Reflecting Mirrors (2007).
- Boucher, Daniel. Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahāyāna. Honolulu: UHP, 2008.
Other points of interest
- The slight semantic shift between Dù shì (Zhú Fǎhù’s rendering) and Lí shìjiān (later renderings) reflects the development of Chinese Buddhist translation vocabulary across the third to seventh centuries — dù 度 (“crossing over,” soteriological) being the more typically Eastern-Hàn / Three-Kingdoms term, while lí 離 (“departing from”) becomes more characteristic of later Tang renderings.
Links
- CBETA T10n0292
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (291, 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, pp. 266–267.