Fó shuō wú liàng qīng jìng píng děng jué jīng 佛說無量清淨平等覺經

The Sūtra Spoken by the Buddha on the Equal Awakening of Boundless Purity (early Sukhāvatī-vyūha) by 支婁迦讖 (Lokakṣema, 譯)

About the work

This 4-fascicle text by 支婁迦讖 Lokakṣema is one of the earliest Chinese versions of the Sukhāvatī-vyūha-sūtra — antedating the canonical [[KR6f0060|Wú liàng shòu jīng T0360]] by roughly 70 years. The early-Hàn date and Lokakṣema’s archaic translation style make this version one of the most important witnesses to the early-Common-Era recension of the Pure Land sūtra tradition.

Prefaces

No formal preface.

Abstract

The translation belongs to 支婁迦讖 Lokakṣema’s late-Hàn translation activity (178 – 189 CE).

The Taishō text (T0361) is established on a particularly rich apparatus including the Dūn 敦 (Dūnhuáng) witness.

Translations and research

  • Inagaki, Hisao, tr. The Three Pure Land Sutras (1995).
  • Gómez, Luis O., tr. The Land of Bliss (1996).
  • 藤田宏達 Fujita Kōtatsu. Genshi Jōdo shisō no kenkyū (1970).
  • Nattier, Jan. A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations (2008).