Dà āi jīng 大哀經
The Sūtra of Great Compassion (±Tathāgatamahākaruṇānirdeśa) by 竺法護 (Dharmarakṣa, 譯)
About the work
The Dà āi jīng in 8 fascicles is 竺法護 Zhú Fǎhù’s Western-Jìn translation of an Indic source corresponding to the Tathāgatamahākaruṇānirdeśa / “Exposition of the Great Compassion of the Tathāgata”, which was later incorporated into the [[KR6h0001|Dà jí jīng]] as sections 1–2 (the Yīngluò pǐn and Tuóluóní zìzàiwáng púsà pǐn). The Dharmarakṣa version is therefore a parallel earlier rendering of the same source-text that 曇無讖 Dharmakṣema would translate again in the Northern Liáng about 130 years later. The header of the Taishō print explicitly cross-references No. 397(1–2).
Prefaces
The Taishō text begins directly with the body of the sūtra, with the standard signature 「西晉月氏三藏竺法護譯」 (“translated by Zhú Fǎhù, Tripiṭaka-master of the Yuèzhī, in the Western Jìn”); no separate preface is preserved in the canonical print.
Abstract
The work is recorded in the Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 (T2145, j. 2) among Dharmarakṣa’s translations, where it is grouped with the related Bǎonǚ jīng 寶女經 (KR6h0003) — the Bǎonǚ pǐn of the Dà jí. The translation is conventionally dated to the late 280s; the dating window 285–291 reflects the bracket of Dharmarakṣa’s most active translation period in Cháng’ān after the Tàikāng 太康 era, prior to the disruptions of the Yǒngjiā 永嘉 disorder. The text is a Mahāyāna treatise on the karuṇā (compassion) of the Tathāgata, framed as the Buddha’s exposition to the assembly on Vulture Peak; the central doctrinal content concerns the eighty kinds of the Tathāgata’s compassion, paralleled in the Tibetan Mahākaruṇānirdeśa-sūtra. In the doxographic tradition the work is treated as belonging to the Mahāsaṃnipāta class precisely because of its later integration with the Dà jí.
The Indic source-text is partially preserved in Tibetan translation; the relationship between Dharmarakṣa’s Dà āi jīng, Dharmakṣema’s parallel Chinese version (Dà jí jīng, sections 1–2), and the Tibetan version is one of the cleaner cases of triple-recension transmission for Mahāsaṃnipāta material and has been used by Buddhological philologists (notably Jens Braarvig) for diachronic study of Mahāyāna-sūtra translation idiom.
Translations and research
- Braarvig, Jens. “The Tathāgatamahākaruṇānirdeśa and Mahāyāna karuṇā.” In Indo-Iranian Journal 36 (1993). — On the textual relationship between the Tibetan, the Dà āi jīng, and Dà jí sections 1–2.
- Boucher, Daniel. “Buddhist Translation Procedures in Third-Century China: A Study of Dharmarakṣa and his Translation Idiom.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1996. — Standard study of Dharmarakṣa’s translation method, with discussion of multi-fascicle Mahāyāna translations including the Dà āi.
- Boucher, Daniel. Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahāyāna. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008. — Background on Dharmarakṣa’s milieu.
Links
- CBETA online text
- DDB entry
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (291, 300): [ Boucher 1996 ] Boucher, Daniel. “Buddhist Translation Procedures in Third-Century China: A Study of Dharmarakṣa and his Translation Idiom.” PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1996. 266 dazangthings.nz/cbc/source/289