Dà fāng děng wú xiǎng jīng 大方等無想經
The Vaipulya Sūtra of No-Conceptions (also known as Dà yún jīng 大雲經) by 曇無讖 (Dharmakṣema, 譯)
About the work
This 6-fascicle text by 曇無讖 Dharmakṣema is the famous Dà yún jīng 大雲經 / Mahāmegha-sūtra. The work was politically consequential in Táng Buddhist history: a Táng version (sometimes claimed to be a re-translation, sometimes a forgery) was used by Empress Wǔ Zétiān 武則天 in 690 to justify her usurpation, on the basis that the Dà yún jīng prophesies the appearance of a female cakravartin queen. The work’s zhèng fǎ (true Dharma) prophecies became one of the foundational texts of imperial Buddhist political theology.
Abstract
The translation belongs to Dharmakṣema’s Northern-Liáng activity (414–421 CE).
Translations and research
- Forte, Antonino. Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century (1976/2005) — the standard study of the work’s political reception.
Other points of interest
- The Dà yún jīng’s prophetic material concerning a future female cakravartin queen made it the central political-theological text of Wǔ Zétiān’s reign and one of the most consequential single Buddhist texts in Táng political history.