Fóshuō Xiàngtóu jīngshè jīng 佛說象頭精舍經
Sūtra Spoken by the Buddha at the Elephant-Head Monastery translated by 毘尼多流支 Pínímíduōliúzhī (Vinītaruci, 譯)
About the work
The Fóshuō Xiàngtóu jīngshè jīng (T466) is a one-fascicle Sui-era alternate translation of the Gayāśīrṣa-sūtra (cf. KR6i0065, KR6i0066, KR6i0068). It was translated by the Indian monk Vinītaruci 毘尼多流支 (毘尼多流支) at Cháng’ān in the Sui. The title rephrases Gayāśīrṣa (lit. “Elephant-Head Mountain”) as Xiàngtóu jīngshè (“Elephant-Head Monastery”) — the canonical site near Bodhgayā where the Buddha was first asked to teach.
Prefaces
The text opens with rúshì wǒwén and the canonical setting “婆伽婆住伽耶城象頭精舍” (“the Bhagavān dwelt at the Elephant-Head Monastery in the city of Gayā”). The colophon names the translator “隋天竺三藏毘尼多流支” with manuscript variants on the title (沙門 in some witnesses).
Abstract
Vinītaruci is the same Indian monk who later traveled to Vietnam in 580 CE and founded the first Vietnamese Buddhist Chan lineage; he is venerated in Vietnam as the patriarch of the Tì-ni-đa-lưu-chi school. Before his journey to Vietnam, he was active as a translator at Cháng’ān during the early Sui. His Chinese translation activity is dated to the Kāihuáng 開皇 era (581–600). The Lìdài sānbǎo jì records this translation specifically. The Sui state-sponsored translation activity in Cháng’ān provided the institutional context.
This translation is the third in the sequence of Gayāśīrṣa renderings. It is the most literal of the four extant Chinese translations and preserves Sanskrit terminology more faithfully than Kumārajīva’s. The variant title, anchoring the text in the jīngshè (monastery) rather than the shāndǐng (mountain summit), reflects an alternate Indic recension or a copy-error in the Vorlage.
Translations and research
- Nguyễn Tài Thư, ed. History of Buddhism in Vietnam. Washington, D.C.: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2008 — Vinītaruci’s Vietnamese career.
- Lamotte, Étienne. Mañjuśrī. Bruxelles, 1960.
Other points of interest
Vinītaruci is one of the very few Indian Buddhist masters whose Chinese translation career and South-East Asian missionary career are both documented. His later founding of the Tì-ni-đa-lưu-chi school in Vietnam (after 580 CE) makes him a key figure in the southern transmission of Buddhism.