Āchāmò púsà jīng 阿差末菩薩經
The Sūtra of the Bodhisattva Akṣayamati (Akṣayamati-nirdeśa) by 竺法護 (Dharmarakṣa, 譯)
About the work
The Āchāmò púsà jīng in 7 fascicles is 竺法護 Zhú Fǎhù’s Western-Jìn translation of the Akṣayamati-nirdeśa — the great Mahāyāna treatise on the eighty inexhaustibles (akṣaya) of the bodhisattva path — incorporated as section 12 (Wújìnyì púsà pǐn 無盡意菩薩品) of the [[KR6h0001|Dà jí jīng]]. The Taishō print explicitly cross-references No. 397(12) and signs the entry “西晉月氏國三藏竺法護譯”. The Chinese title transliterates the Sanskrit Akṣayamati via Āchāmò 阿差末 (an early kanyā phonetic loan); the more familiar Chinese semantic rendering Wújìnyì 無盡意 “Inexhaustible Wisdom” is used in the Dà jí recension and in other later Mahāyāna texts.
Prefaces
No separate preface is preserved in the canonical print. The translator’s signature appears at the head of fascicle 1.
Abstract
The Akṣayamati-nirdeśa is one of the most important Mahāyāna treatises on the bodhisattva path. The protagonist, the bodhisattva Wújìnyì / Akṣayamati (“Inexhaustible Wisdom”), descends from the eastern world-system Bùxuán 不眴 to Vulture Peak to expound, in dialogue with Śāriputra and Mañjuśrī, the doctrine of the eighty inexhaustibles: eighty categories of the bodhisattva’s practice each of which is, qua dharma, inexhaustible — exhausted neither by the bodhisattva’s progress along the path nor by the attainment of buddhahood itself. The list articulates a complete bodhisattva-pātha doctrine and constitutes one of the earliest systematic Mahāyāna scholastic treatments of the bodhisattva-bhūmi.
The Tibetan version (in the Kanjur, Blo gros mi zad pas bstan pa) and a Sanskrit recension recovered from Central Asia have been the basis of Jens Braarvig’s two-volume critical edition (Oslo 1993), which is the modern standard study of the work. The dating window 285–291 follows Dharmarakṣa’s most active Cháng’ān period; the Chū sānzàng jì jí records the work in his catalogue of translations.
Translations and research
- Braarvig, Jens. Akṣayamatinirdeśasūtra, 2 vols. Oslo: Solum, 1993. — Vol. 1: edition of the Tibetan with annotated English translation; vol. 2: The Tradition of Imperishability in Buddhist Thought, doctrinal study. The standard modern reference, with detailed comparison of the Tibetan, the Dharmarakṣa Chinese, and the Dà jí version.
- Hartmann, Jens-Uwe. “More Fragments of the Akṣayamatinirdeśasūtra.” In Sanskrit-Wörterbuch der buddhistischen Texte aus den Turfan-Funden, supplement. Göttingen, 1992. — On the Central-Asian Sanskrit fragments.
Links
- CBETA online text
- DDB entry
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (300, 308): [ Bielu CSZJJ ] Bielu 別錄 as reported by CSZJJ 出三藏記集. T2145 (LV) 8a9, c7-9, c11 dazangthings.nz/cbc/source/506