Fǎ jìng jīng 法鏡經
The Sūtra of the Dharma-Mirror (Ugra-paripṛcchā) by 安玄 (Ān Xuán, 譯)
About the work
This 1-fascicle text by 安玄 Ān Xuán (the Eastern-Hàn lay-Buddhist translator) is the earliest Chinese version of the Ugra-paripṛcchā — the Mahāyāna sūtra of the Inquiry of Ugra, one of the foundational texts of bodhisattva-path doctrine. Ān Xuán was a contemporary collaborator of 安世高 Ān Shìgāo and 支婁迦讖 Lokakṣema in the late-Hàn translation circle.
Prefaces
No formal preface.
Abstract
The translation is conventionally datable to 安玄 Ān Xuán’s translation activity at the late-Hàn capital, c. 181 – 188 CE. The bracket adopted here reflects this window. The work is one of the most consequential bodhisattva-path texts in Buddhist canonical literature; modern scholarship (Nattier 2003) has substantially reassessed the Ugra-paripṛcchā as a foundational document for the early Mahāyāna movement.
The Taishō text (T0322) is established on the standard apparatus.
Translations and research
- Nattier, Jan. A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā). Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2003 — The standard recent monograph and English translation; reassesses the Ugra-paripṛcchā as the foundational document of early bodhisattva-yāna.
Other points of interest
- Nattier’s 2003 study of the Ugra-paripṛcchā is one of the most consequential modern reassessments of early Mahāyāna textual history; it argues that the Ugra-paripṛcchā presents a “lay-monastic combined” path very different from the later mature Mahāyāna’s universalising rhetoric.
Links
- CBETA T12n0322
- Kanseki DB
- 安玄 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (186, 245, 250) — Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations: Texts from the Eastern Han 東漢 and Three Kingdoms 三國 Periods. Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica Buddhica X. Tokyo: The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2008. 40-41; 90-93.