Fóshuō bā bù fómíng jīng 佛說八部佛名經
Sūtra of the Names of the Eight-Category Buddhas by 瞿曇般若流支 Qútán Bōrě Liúzhī (Gautama Prajñāruci, 譯)
About the work
The Bā bù fómíng jīng is a brief single-fascicle sūtra giving the names of eight directional Buddhas, belonging to the same “eight auspicious Buddhas” group as T427–T431. The translator colophon identifies the translator as 元魏天竺婆羅門瞿曇般若流支 (“瞿曇般若流支, a Brahmin from India, of the Northern Wèi [Yuán Wèi]”). The text opens at Vaiśālī (維耶離奈女樹園) rather than at Rājagṛha, a minor variation from the parallel texts, and uses the designation bā bù 八部 (“eight categories”) rather than bā jíxiáng 八吉祥 or bā yáng 八陽, perhaps reflecting a different Indic terminus or a slightly different textual family.
Prefaces
No preface survives; the body begins: 聞如是，一時佛遊維耶離奈女樹園… Collateral notes indicate textual variants (元魏天竺 vs. 西域) in different editions.
Abstract
瞿曇般若流支 (Gautama Prajñāruci), active at the Northern Wèi court ca. 516–543 CE, was a Brahmin of Indic origin belonging to the Gautama (瞿曇) clan — one of several Indian scholars who worked at the Wèi capital Luòyáng under imperial sponsorship. He translated primarily Yogācāra and Madhyamaka texts as well as shorter protective scriptures of this type. His translation of the Bā bù fómíng jīng belongs to a systematic effort to provide Chinese Buddhism with multiple renditions of the widely popular “eight directional Buddhas” corpus (cf. Fóshuō bā jíxiáng shénzhòu jīng 佛說八吉祥神呪經 KR6i0003, Fóshuō bā yáng shénzhòu jīng 佛說八陽神呪經 KR6i0004, and the parallel translations KR6i0006 and KR6i0007).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located on this specific text.