Chírén púsà jīng 持人菩薩經
Sūtra of the Bodhisattva Person-Holder translated by 竺法護 Zhú Fǎhù / Dharmarakṣa (譯)
About the work
The Chírén púsà jīng (T481) is a four-fascicle Mahāyāna sūtra translated by 竺法護 Dharmarakṣa (Zhú Fǎhù). The protagonist’s name Chírén 持人 (“Person-Holder”) translates Sanskrit Lokadharma or possibly Sattvadhāraka. The Taishō header cross-references No. 482 — 鳩摩羅什 Kumārajīva’s Chíshì jīng 持世經 (KR6i0111), which is a translation of the same Indic text.
Prefaces
The text opens directly with the canonical jīngshǒu formula. The colophon attributes the translation to Dharmarakṣa.
Abstract
This text and 鳩摩羅什 Kumārajīva’s later Chíshì jīng KR6i0111 (T482) are translations of the same Indic Lokadhara-paripṛcchā-sūtra. The doctrinal content concerns the bodhisattva’s vyūha-kṣetra (array-field) — the way a bodhisattva supports beings through wisdom and merit. The text is doctrinally close to the Aṣṭasāhasrikā and other early prajñāpāramitā literature.
Translation dated to Dharmarakṣa’s productive period (266–308 CE).
Translations and research
- Boucher, Daniel. Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahāyāna. University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2008.