Shí zhù pípóshā lùn 十住毘婆沙論
The Vibhāṣā [Treatise] on the Ten Abodes [of the Bodhisattva] (Skt. Daśabhūmika-vibhāṣā-śāstra) by 龍樹 (Nāgārjuna, 造) and 鳩摩羅什 (Kumārajīva, 譯)
About the work
The Shí zhù pípóshā lùn in 17 fascicles is one of the most important śāstra (treatise) commentaries in the East Asian Mahāyāna corpus: it is the great Madhyamaka commentary on the Daśabhūmika-sūtra, attributed to 龍樹 Nāgārjuna and translated by 鳩摩羅什 Kumārajīva. The work is incomplete: it covers only the first two of the ten bhūmi-stages described in the parent sūtra, but does so in extraordinary depth and detail. The reasons for the incompleteness — whether due to the loss of the Sanskrit original, Kumārajīva’s death before completing the translation, or deliberate authorial limitation — are debated but unresolved.
The opening verse-prologue reads:
Reverence to all the Buddhas, the supreme Great Way… (敬禮一切佛 / 無上之大道…)
Prefaces
The Taishō print preserves the standard attributions: “聖者龍樹造” (“composed by the ārya Nāgārjuna”) and “後秦龜茲國三藏鳩摩羅什譯” (“translated by the Tripiṭaka Kumārajīva of Kuchā of the Later Qín”). The work opens with a prefatory chapter (Xù pǐn dì yī 序品第一).
Abstract
The translation is conventionally dated to the period 402 – 412 CE, the bracket of 鳩摩羅什 Kumārajīva’s mature Cháng’ān 長安 translation work. The bracket adopted here reflects this window. The doctrinal contribution of the work to East Asian Mahāyāna Buddhism is foundational: it provides Nāgārjuna’s authoritative Madhyamaka reading of the bodhisattva path-stages, and is the locus classicus for the doctrine of the Two Vehicles (pratyekabuddha-yāna and śrāvakayāna) versus the One Vehicle (the bodhisattva-yāna), the relation between Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna soteriology, and the doctrine of upāya / “skillful means.” It also contains the most extensive early-Mahāyāna treatment of the easy practice (yìxíng 易行) of bodhicitta-cultivation — the doctrine that has been central to East Asian Pure Land Buddhism, with the Yìxíng pǐn 易行品 (“Chapter on Easy Practice”) of fascicle 5 establishing the foundational Mahāyāna doctrine of Amitābha-recollection-as-easy-path that 曇鸞 Tánluán, 道綽 Dàochuò, and 善導 Shàndǎo would later elaborate into a full Pure Land soteriology.
The work has been the subject of substantial Chinese, Korean, and Japanese commentarial scholarship; the Yìxíng pǐn 易行品 in particular was treated by virtually every major figure of the East Asian Pure Land tradition.
The Taishō text (T1521) is established on the standard apparatus.
Translations and research
- No complete Western-language translation located. For the Yìxíng pǐn (Chapter on Easy Practice) see Inagaki, Hisao. Nāgārjuna’s Discourse on the Ten Stages: Daśabhūmika-vibhāṣā-śāstra. Kyoto: Ryukoku Translation Series IX, 1998 — the standard partial English translation.
- Lamotte, Étienne, tr. Le traité de la grande vertu de sagesse (5 vols., Louvain, 1944–1980) — the parallel work on the Prajñāpāramitā; methodologically programmatic.
- Hirakawa Akira 平川彰. Daichidoron no kenkyū 大智度論の研究 — substantial methodological discussion.
- Walser, Joseph. Nāgārjuna in Context: Mahāyāna Buddhism and Early Indian Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. — On the historical Nāgārjuna and his works.
Other points of interest
- The Yìxíng pǐn 易行品 of fascicle 5 — Nāgārjuna’s discussion of the bodhisattva’s easy practice of Amitābha-recollection as a path to the irreversible stage — is the most consequential single chapter of the work for the later East Asian Buddhist tradition; it became the doctrinal foundation of Sino-Japanese Pure Land soteriology and was the basis of the Pure Land Patriarchs’ systematic teaching from 曇鸞 Tánluán’s Wǎngshēng lùn zhù 往生論註 (KR6f0101) onwards.
- The work’s incompleteness — covering only the first two of ten bhūmi-stages — has been the subject of extensive medieval and modern speculation; the most plausible explanation is that the underlying Indic original was itself incomplete, since no other early witness of the work attests further fascicles.