Fóshuō Wèishēngyuàn jīng 佛說未生冤經
Sūtra of [the King] Yet-To-Be-Born-Foe (Ajātaśatru) translated by 支謙 Zhī Qiān (譯)
About the work
The Fóshuō Wèishēngyuàn jīng (T507) is a one-fascicle short sūtra by 支謙 Zhī Qiān. The protagonist Wèishēngyuàn 未生冤 is a Chinese semantic translation of Ajātaśatru — “Foe-Yet-Unborn” — the famous king of Magadha who imprisoned his father Bimbisāra and converted to Buddhism after the Buddha’s death. This is one of the earliest Chinese sūtras specifically about Ajātaśatru.
Prefaces
The text opens with the canonical formula.
Abstract
The Ajātaśatru narrative is one of the most important historical-mythical episodes in the Buddhist canon, treated extensively in the Pāli Sāmaññaphala-sutta and many Mahāyāna sources. Zhī Qiān’s translation is dated to his Wú productive period (222–252 CE).
Translations and research
- Silk, Jonathan A. Riven by Lust: Incest and Schism in Indian Buddhist Legend and Historiography. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2009.
- Radich, Michael. The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra and the Emergence of Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press, 2015 — Ajātaśatru context.