Dà fāngguǎng zǒng chí bǎo guāngmíng jīng 大方廣總持寶光明經
The Great, Vast Sūtra on the Jewel-Radiance of the All-Embracing Dhāraṇī by 法天 Fǎtiān (譯)
About the work
This 5-fascicle text by 法天 Fǎtiān (Dharmadeva, d. 1001), the Northern Sòng imperial-translation-bureau translator, is an Avataṃsaka-family Mahāyāna sūtra emphasising the doctrine of the zǒng chí 總持 (dhāraṇī, “all-embracing retention”) and its association with the cosmic radiance of the Buddha-fields. The text is one of the substantial Avataṃsaka-tradition translations produced under Northern Sòng imperial patronage.
The opening reads: “Thus have I heard. At one time the World-Honoured One was on the Vulture-Peak Mountain (Gridhrakūṭa, Jiù-fēng-shān 鷲峯山) of Wáng-shè chéng 王舍城 (Rājagṛha), with a great assembly of bhikṣus 100,000 in number, [all] perfect in all white dharmas, [in the] great lion-…”
Prefaces
No formal preface; the title-line preserves Fǎtiān’s elaborate official Sòng court title-line: “西天中印度摩伽陀國那爛陀寺傳教大師三藏賜紫沙門臣法天奉 詔譯” — “Translated by the Western-Heaven, Central-Indian, Magadha-state, Nālandā Monastery Transmitter-of-the-Teaching Great Master, Tripiṭaka, Granted-Purple-Robes śramaṇa, Subject Fǎtiān, by imperial command.”
Abstract
法天 Fǎtiān (Dharmadeva, d. 1001), like the parallel 法賢 Fǎxián (Devaśānti, also d. 1001 — the two were near-exact contemporaries in the same translation bureau), was an Indian Buddhist scholar-monk attached to the Northern Sòng imperial Buddhist translation bureau (Yìjīng-yuàn 譯經院) in Kāifēng. He arrived in Sòng China c. 973 and worked in the bureau until his death. His title indicates that he was originally trained at Nālandā — one of the few attestations in Chinese sources of a translator’s specifically Nālandā formation. Per the Sòng gāosēng zhuàn and the Fózǔ tǒngjì, he produced about 120 translations over his Sòng career.
The translation of the present text is conventionally placed in the bracket 982 – 1001 CE, the period of Fǎtiān’s imperial-bureau activity (the same bracket as Fǎxián’s T0290). The doctrinal substance — the zǒng chí doctrine and its cosmic-radiance dimension — places the work in the Tantric / Esoteric Buddhist orbit, and the zǒng chí is the standard Esoteric-Buddhist correspondence to dhāraṇī. The text thus exemplifies the late-tenth-century Northern Sòng convergence of Avataṃsaka Mahāyāna with Esoteric Buddhism.
The Taishō text (T0299) is established on the standard apparatus.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600–1400. Honolulu: UHP, 2003 — substantial treatment of the Northern Sòng imperial translation bureau and Fǎtiān’s work in particular.
- Jan Yün-hua. A Chronicle of Buddhism in China, 581–960 A.D.. Santiniketan: Visva-Bharati, 1966.
Other points of interest
- Fǎtiān’s title-line specifies his Nālandā provenance — one of the few direct attestations in Chinese sources of a translator’s specifically Nālandā training, and a piece of evidence for the continuing Sino-Indian Buddhist scholarly exchange in the late tenth century, immediately before the destruction of Nālandā by Bakhtiyar Khilji in 1193.