Dà fāng guǎng sān jiè jīng 大方廣三戒經
The Great, Vast Sūtra on the Three Precepts (Trisaṃvara-nirdeśa) by 曇無讖 (Dharmakṣema, 譯)
About the work
This 3-fascicle text by 曇無讖 Dharmakṣema (the great Northern-Liáng 北涼 translator of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra) is the Trisaṃvara-nirdeśa — the Mahāyāna sūtra on the three precept-vows (the prātimokṣa / monastic precepts, the bodhisattva-precepts, and the buddhānuvṛtti / Buddha-emulation precepts). The text is the first Chinese-titled assembly of the larger [[KR6f0001|Mahā-ratnakūṭa]] (where it appears as assembly 1, the Sān lǜ yí huì 三律儀會 in 菩提流志 Bodhiruci’s revision), and circulated independently before being incorporated into the larger compendium.
Prefaces
No formal preface; the title-line attributes the translation to “北涼天竺三藏曇無讖譯.”
Abstract
曇無讖 Dharmakṣema (385 – 433 CE; conventional dates per DILA), the central Indian Buddhist translator who became the principal scholar of the Northern-Liáng court, is best known for his foundational Chinese translation of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra (T0374), but his corpus also includes important Mahāyāna sūtras such as the Sūvarṇaprabhāsa (T0663), the Bodhisattva-bhūmi-sūtra, and the present Trisaṃvara-nirdeśa. The translation is conventionally dated to the period 414 – 433 CE, the bracket of his Cāozhōu 涼州 / Gūzàng 姑臧 translation activity. The bracket adopted here reflects this window.
The doctrinal substance — the integration of monastic, bodhisattva, and Buddha-emulation precepts into a single triadic vow-structure — is one of the foundational bodhisattva-vinaya texts of Chinese Mahāyāna and was widely studied alongside the Fànwǎng (Brahmajālasūtra) tradition.
The Taishō text (T0311) is established on the standard apparatus.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- Schopen, Gregory. Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks. Honolulu: UHP, 1997 — for bodhisattva-vinaya context.
- Hirakawa Akira 平川彰. Daichidoron no kenkyū — for the Trisaṃvara-nirdeśa tradition.
Other points of interest
- The work’s incorporation as assembly 1 of the Mahā-ratnakūṭa gave it a doctrinally programmatic role in the larger compendium, framing the entire 49-assembly corpus around the foundational topic of the bodhisattva’s vows.
Links
- CBETA T11n0311
- Kanseki DB
- 曇無讖 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (430) — T = CBETA [Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association]. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924-1932. CBReader v 5.0, 2014.