Fó shuō luó mó qié jīng 佛說羅摩伽經
The Sūtra Spoken by the Buddha on the Rāmakas (?) by 聖堅 Shèngjiān (譯)
About the work
This 3-fascicle proto-Avataṃsaka text by 聖堅 Shèng-jiān (active late 4th – early 5th c. in the Western Qín 西秦 state) is a partial Chinese translation of the Gaṇḍavyūha — the Sudhana pilgrimage portion of the larger Avataṃsaka. Per the Taishō apparatus, the work corresponds to portions of chapter 34 of the [[KR6e0001|60-fascicle Huáyán]] (the Rù fǎjiè pǐn 入法界品), to chapter 39 of the [[KR6e0010|80-fascicle Huáyán]], and to portions of T0293 (the 40-fascicle Prajñā version of the Gaṇḍavyūha).
The title’s transliteration luómóqié 羅摩伽 has been variously identified — Rāmaka, Romaka, possibly the Rāmagrāma of the early-Buddhist tradition — but is not securely identified with any extant Sanskrit term; current scholarship (Hamar 2007) treats it as a transliteration whose Indic original is uncertain.
The opening reads: “Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was in the Shèwèi kingdom (Skt. Śrāvastī) at the Jì-shù gěi-gū-dú yuán 祇樹給孤獨園 (‘Jetavana grove of Anāthapiṇḍada’), in the Zhuāng-yán chóng-gé shàn-shèng jiǎng-táng 莊嚴重閣善勝講堂 (‘Adorned Many-storied Pavilion, Hall of Auspicious Discourse’), with the great bodhisattvas — Samantabhadra, Mañjuśrī, etc. — whose names were Guāngmíng-zhuàng (Bright-Banner) bodhisattva, Xūmí-shān-zhuàng (Sumeru-Mountain-Banner) bodhisattva…”
Prefaces
No formal preface; the title-line attributes the translation to “西秦沙門聖堅譯” — “translated by the śramaṇa Shèng-jiān of the Western Qín.”
Abstract
聖堅 Shèngjiān (DILA A001599) was a Buddhist monk active in the small but Buddhist-friendly Western Qín 西秦 (385 – 431) state, founded by the Xiānbēi-clan Qǐ Fú 乞伏 family in modern Gānsù. The Western Qín court patronised Buddhist translation work as part of its cultural-political programme, and Shèngjiān is credited by the Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 (T2145) and the Lìdài sānbǎo jì 歷代三寶紀 (T2034) with about a dozen translations of Mahāyāna sūtras, of which the present Luó mó qié and the Tàizǐ Xū-dá-na jīng 太子須達拏經 (T0171) are the most substantial. His birth and death dates are not preserved.
The translation is conventionally dated within the period 388 – 412 CE, the conventional bracket for Shèng-jiān’s translation activity (the Western Qín state’s founding to the conventional end of his floruit). The text is the earliest substantial Chinese rendering of the Gaṇḍavyūha material — predating both Buddhabhadra’s [[KR6e0001|Rù fǎjiè pǐn]] (in the 60-fascicle Huáyán) and the much later 地婆訶羅 Divākara (Dìpopólóhuó) partial version (KR6e0044, T0295) — and is a key textual witness for the early-fifth-century Chinese reception of the Sudhana pilgrimage narrative.
The Taishō text (T0294) is established on the standard apparatus.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- Cleary, Thomas, tr. Entry into the Realm of Reality. Boston: Shambhala, 1989 — for the Gaṇḍavyūha generally.
- Osto, Douglas. Power, Wealth and Women in Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra. Routledge, 2008.
- Hamar, Imre. “The History of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra,” in Reflecting Mirrors (2007).
- Tsukamoto Zenryū 塚本善隆. Chūgoku Bukkyō tsūshi 中国仏教通史 vol. 1 — substantial treatment of Western Qín Buddhism.
Other points of interest
- The Western Qín translation enterprise — small in volume but doctrinally important — is one of the lesser-known centres of early Chinese Buddhist translation; alongside the well-known centres of Cháng’ān (Yáo Qín, Northern Wèi) and Liángzhōu (Héxī corridor), it provided a third northwestern Chinese venue for Buddhist textual scholarship in the late fourth and early fifth centuries.
Links
- CBETA T10n0294
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (400) — Fǎjīng 594 — Fǎjīng 法經, Zhòngjīng mùlù 眾經目錄 (T2146), LV, 119c14.