Fóshuō Xūzhēn tiānzǐ jīng 佛說須真天子經
Sūtra of the Questions of the Devaputra Suvikrāntacinta (Xūzhēn) translated by 竺法護 (Zhú Fǎhù / Dharmarakṣa, 譯)
About the work
The Fóshuō Xūzhēn tiānzǐ jīng (T588) is a four-fascicle Mahāyāna sūtra translated by Dharmarakṣa 竺法護 (竺法護). The protagonist Xūzhēn tiānzǐ 須真天子 is a devaputra whose name has been variously reconstructed (*Suvikrāntacintā or *Suvinaya).
Prefaces
The text opens with the canonical formula. The Chū sānzàng jì jí (T2145, ch. 7) preserves a long colophon (translated by Boucher 2008) dating Dharmarakṣa’s work on the text very precisely: at Cháng’ān, eleventh month, eighth day of Tàishǐ 太始 2 = January 266 CE. Boucher reads this as the earliest securely dated colophon in the entire history of Chinese Buddhist translation.
Abstract
A devaputra-paripṛcchā-type sūtra in which a heavenly questioner solicits the Buddha’s instruction on the bodhisattva path. Datable to the very beginning of Dharmarakṣa’s career (266 CE) on the colophon evidence. The text contains an unusually rich list of bodhisattva attainments and is a key witness for the early Western-Jìn Mahāyāna lexicon.
Translations and research
- Boucher, Daniel. Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahāyāna. Honolulu, 2008 — translates and analyzes the colophon to T588.
- Boucher, Daniel. “Dharmarakṣa and the Transmission of Buddhism to China.” Asia Major 19 (2006): 13–37.
Links
- CBETA T15n0588
- Kanseki DB
- 竺法護 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (266, 300) — Boucher, Daniel. “Buddhist Translation Procedures in Third-Century China: A Study of Dharmarakṣa and his Translation Idiom.” PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1996. 273.