Bā jíxiáng jīng 八吉祥經
Sūtra of the Eight Auspicious Ones by 僧伽婆羅 Sēngqiépóluó (Saṅghapāla, 譯)
About the work
The Bā jíxiáng jīng is a brief single-fascicle sūtra enumerating the eight directional auspicious Buddhas (bā jíxiáng 八吉祥), belonging to the T427–T431 cluster of closely related parallel translations. It is distinguished from the others in the group by its relatively clean and idiomatic Chinese style, reflecting the quality of 僧伽婆羅’s Liáng-dynasty translations. The translator colophon reads: 梁扶南三藏僧伽婆羅譯 (“Translated by the Fúnán Tripiṭaka master 僧伽婆羅 of the Liáng”). He was a monk of Fúnán (modern Cambodia/Vietnam) origin who worked in the Liáng capital Jiànkāng (建康, modern Nánjīng).
Prefaces
No preface survives in the received text. The body begins: 如是我聞… The Taishō groups T430 with T427–T429 and T431 as parallel translations of the same Indic original.
Abstract
僧伽婆羅 (Saṅghapāla; ca. 460–524 CE), the Fúnán-born monk who came to Jiànkāng and worked under imperial patronage of 梁武帝 Liáng Wǔdì (r. 502–549), is known primarily for his translations of Śrāvakayāna sūtras and āranyaka-type texts, as well as his rendering of the Āryamaṅjuśrīmūlakalpa-related materials. His version of the Bā jíxiáng jīng (T430) is the Liáng representative of the five-translation series. The term jíxiáng 吉祥 corresponds to the Sanskrit maṅgala and resonates with indigenous Chinese concepts of auspiciousness, which likely contributed to the repeated translation of this text. The approximate date of his translations is ca. 506–520 CE, during his active period at Jiànkāng.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located on this specific text.