Dà fāngguǎng rúlái bù sī yì jìngjiè jīng 大方廣如來不思議境界經
The Great, Vast Sūtra on the Tathāgata’s Inconceivable Realm by 實叉難陀 Śikṣānanda (譯)
About the work
This one-fascicle text by 實叉難陀 Śikṣānanda is the new (Tang) translation of the same material as T0300 (Devaprajñā’s earlier partial translation of the same sūtra). The text treats the cosmological doctrine of the Tathāgata’s inconceivable realm — the boundless Buddha-fields, the inconceivable powers of the Buddha-bodies, and the doctrine that the dharmakāya permeates and yet transcends every cosmological dimension.
The opening reads: “Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was at Mójiétí guó 摩竭提國 (Magadha), under the bodhi-tree, having attained perfect awakening. The bodhi-tree was named Āshèbō 阿攝波 (Aśvattha), with deep, firm spiral-roots, lifted high in foundation…”
Prefaces
No formal preface; the title-line attributes the translation to “大唐于闐三藏實叉難陀奉 制譯” — “translated by the Khotanese Tripiṭaka Śikṣānanda of the Great Tang, by imperial command.”
Abstract
The translation is part of 實叉難陀 Śikṣānanda’s mature Cháng’ān translation activity, c. 695 – 710 CE; the bracket adopted here reflects this window. Unlike the [[KR6e0010|complete 80-fascicle Huáyán]] (which was produced 695 – 699), this short separate translation was probably undertaken in the period after the great Huáyán was completed, possibly during Śikṣānanda’s second visit to Cháng’ān under Tang Zhōngzōng 中宗 (706 – 710 CE).
The fact that Śikṣānanda re-translated the same material that Devaprajñā had translated earlier (in T0300) is doctrinally telling: the bù sī yì fó jìngjiè chapter was important enough that successive Khotanese-Tang translation enterprises produced parallel renderings, even when (as here) the material had already been incorporated into the complete 80-fascicle Avataṃsaka. This redundancy reflects the work’s liminal status — included in the larger compilation but also circulating as an independent sūtra — and the unique theological concerns of the cosmic-Buddha-body cycle that it represents.
The Taishō text (T0301) is established on the standard apparatus.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- Hamar, Imre. “The History of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra,” in Reflecting Mirrors (2007).
- Forte, Antonino. The Hostage An Shigao and his Offspring. Kyoto: ISEAS, 1995 — for context.
Other points of interest
- The double translation of this material (T0300 and T0301, separated by only about a decade) is one of the most striking cases of redundant Chinese-Buddhist translation activity in the Tang period, and reflects both the theological centrality of the Tathāgata’s inconceivable realm topic and the institutional momentum of the Wǔ Zétiān-era imperial Buddhist translation enterprise.