Zuì shèng wèn pútísà shízhù chú gòu duàn jié jīng 最勝問菩薩十住除垢斷結經
The Sūtra on Removing Defilements and Cutting Off Bonds [in Each of] the Bodhisattva’s Ten Abodes Asked by the Most-Excellent [Bodhisattva] (alternative title: 十千日光三昧定 Shí qiān rì guāng sānmèidìng, “Ten-Thousand Sun-Light Samādhi-Concentration”) by 竺佛念 (Zhú Fóniàn, 譯)
About the work
This 10-fascicle proto-Avataṃsaka text by 竺佛念 Zhú Fóniàn (the Liángzhōu 涼州-born Yáo-Qín translator who also collaborated with 佛陀耶舍 Buddhayaśas on the [[KR6a0001|Cháng āhán jīng 長阿含經]]) is one of the more substantial early Chinese renderings of daśabhūmi-related material — but distinct from the canonical Daśabhūmika / Shídì jīng 十地經 tradition. The title’s structure — “the Most-Excellent [Bodhisattva] asks the [Buddha] about the bodhisattva’s ten abodes (shízhù 十住), [namely how] to remove defilements and cut off bonds” — places the work in the broader bodhisattva-stage exegetical tradition.
The opening reads: “Thus have I heard. …” (聞如是).
Prefaces
The Taishō print preserves a sub-title-line “(一名十千日光三昧定)” (“alternatively known as the Ten-Thousand Sun-Light Samādhi-Concentration”), and attributes the translation to “姚秦涼州沙門竺佛念譯” — “translated by the śramaṇa Zhú Fóniàn of Liángzhōu of the Yáo Qín.”
Abstract
竺佛念 Zhú Fóniàn (“Buddha-Memory of [the family] Zhú”; active c. 365 – 411 CE) was the principal Chinese-language collaborator of the Yáo-Qín translation bureau. Of Liángzhōu origin and with native fluency in both Indic languages and Chinese, he worked alongside 鳩摩羅什 Kumārajīva and 佛陀耶舍 Buddhayaśas on many of the central early-fifth-century Chinese Buddhist translations. His independent corpus includes about a dozen translations made during the period when he served as senior collaborator to several different Indian monks — among them the present Zuì shèng wèn 最勝問 and the Pútísà cóng dōushuài tiān jiàng shén mǔ tāi shuō guǎng pǔ jīng 菩薩從兜率天降神母胎說廣普經 (KR6g0030).
The translation is conventionally datable within the period 365 – 411 CE, the maximum bracket of Zhú Fóniàn’s translation activity (his arrival in Cháng’ān 長安 in 365 to his floruit in the Yáo-Qín bureau in 405–411). The bracket adopted here reflects this window. The doctrinal substance — bodhisattva-stage practice and the elimination of defilements at each successive stage — is foundational Avataṃsaka-tradition material, and the work is one of the largest early Chinese renderings of shízhù 十住 doctrine after Zhú Fǎhù’s [[KR6e0033|Jiàn bèi]] / Daśabhūmika.
The Taishō text (T0309) 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.
- Boucher, Daniel. “Gāndhārī and the Early Chinese Buddhist Translations Reconsidered.” JAOS 118 (1998).
- Hamar, Imre, ed. Reflecting Mirrors (2007).
Other points of interest
- The work’s alternative title — Ten-Thousand Sun-Light Samādhi-Concentration — adds a striking visual-cosmological dimension to the shízhù doctrine: the bodhisattva’s progression through the ten abodes is figured as a sequence of samādhis each illumined by ten thousand suns, an image that became standard in subsequent Chinese Buddhist meditation literature.