Fóshuō chēngyáng zhū fó gōngdé jīng 佛說稱揚諸佛功德經
Sūtra of Praising and Proclaiming the Merits of All Buddhas by 吉迦夜 Jíjiāyè (Kekaya, 譯), in collaboration with 曇曜 Tányào (共譯)
About the work
The Chēngyáng zhū fó gōngdé jīng is a three-fascicle Mahāyāna sūtra in which the Buddha, addressing Ānanda and a large assembly, systematically praises the virtues and merits of numerous named Buddhas and their Buddha-fields. Each section recounts the aspiration-vows and meritorious attainments of a specific Tathāgata, making the text a kind of extended anthology of Buddha-praise (buddha-stuti) and Buddha-field (buddha-kṣetra) descriptions. It belongs to the “praising the Buddhas” (chēngyáng fó 稱揚佛) sub-genre of Mahāyāna devotional literature and overlaps functionally with the Buddha-name (fómíng 佛名) scriptures. The translator is 吉迦夜 (Kekaya), an Indian monk active at the Northern Wèi court; some collateral editions add the name of his co-translator 曇曜 (noted in the Sòng, Yuán, Míng and Gōng editions: 吉迦夜共曇曜譯).
Prefaces
No separate preface survives in the received Taishō text. The header reads: 元魏天竺三藏吉迦夜譯, with variant editions (宋, 元, 明, 宮) adding 共曇曜 (jointly with 曇曜). However, the colophon preserved at the end of fascicle 3 (recovered in early Dūnhuáng manuscripts and discussed by the Chū sānzàng jì jí) gives a radically different attribution: the translation was completed on the 20th day of the 6th month of Línjiā 麟嘉 6 = 394 CE, in the kingdom of Kucha under 呂光 Lǚ Guāng (who held 鳩摩羅什 Jiūmóluóshí captive there). The Abhidharma master 曇摩跋檀 Tánmóbátán first rendered the text from Sanskrit into Tokharian (the Kucha vernacular, 龜茲語); a patron named Lín 林 then commissioned the bilingual monk 慧海 Huìhǎi to translate from Tokharian into Chinese, with Lín as amanuensis at the Jīnhuácí 金華祠 shrine in Kucha.
Abstract
The Chēngyáng zhū fó gōngdé jīng is a three-fascicle Buddha-name sūtra enumerating dozens of directional and temporal Tathāgatas, each praised for the merit and protection accruing to devotees who hear, recite, and revere their names. The text is set at Rājagṛha; Śāriputra asks how many Buddhas are currently teaching, and the Buddha responds with an extended catalogue of named Buddhas and their world-fields.
The text’s transmission history is unusually complex. The colophon records that in 394 CE (Línjiā 6 of 呂光’s Hòu-Liáng 後涼, at Kucha), 曇摩跋檀 first rendered the Sanskrit into Tokharian; 慧海, bilingual in Tokharian and Chinese, then translated into Chinese, with a patron named Lín 林 as scribe. The venue was the Jīnhuácí 金華祠 in Kucha — the same locale where 鳩摩羅什 was held captive at that time. A Dūnhuáng manuscript fragment (S.2872/P.3747, the “Liú-Sòng Zhòngjīng biélù”) and early entries in the Chū sānzàng jì jí (T55.2145) attribute the text to 鳩摩羅什 (晉安帝時天竺鳩摩羅什于逍遙園譯出). The Taishō standard attribution to 吉迦夜 and 曇曜 (Northern Wèi, ca. 472 CE) likely reflects a subsequent re-copy or re-attribution of the text during the Northern Wèi period when the text was republished. The Taishō editors’ attribution is thus challenged by early cataloguing evidence.
This translation history — Sanskrit → Tokharian → Chinese, at Kucha in 394 CE — is remarkable and unique among Chinese Buddhist translations; if the early colophon evidence is genuine, it represents one of very few cases of a Tokharian intermediary in the transmission of a sūtra into Chinese.
Translations and research
- Tsukamoto Zenryū 塚本善隆. Chūgoku bukkyō tsūshi 中国仏教通史, vol. 1. Tokyo: Suzuki Research Foundation, 1979. — Chapter on Northern Wèi Buddhism discusses the Yúngāng context of this translation.